Akkans Ion shot

from Sins Forums
I looked on the forums for a Post containing this but could not find on, so here goes.

Has anyone else had the Problem of the Akkans Ion shot not doing what it says it does?
If the enemy cap ship is sitting still in space it does seem to freeze it's shots for a little bit, but As my Allie in a 2vs2(Scyn) found out yesterday it didn't actually stop the enemy ship from moving. Allowing the enemy Kol to catch up, which resulted in the death of his Akkan unfortunately. Now we still won the game through use of tactics and well timed coordination(if i ever figure the best method for sharing a Replay I will)


But having said that it bring up my next argument. Why are Kol's the fastest capital ship, traditionally speaking Battleships are one of the slowest vessels, I mean thats why they invented a class of ship called a battlecruiser-relatively front line sustainability but faster.
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Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
THe way i look at it the Kol is the Battlecruiser while the Mazura (or what ever the HGUE dreadnaught is) is more of a true battleship.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I didn't think the ION shot was supposed to stop engines... I'll have to check. I know it stops jump drive and thats my favorite part, battered capital opening brief portals of hope to their home territory only to be slammed shut in their face, ever certain of their impending doom.


THe way i look at it the Kol is the Battlecruiser while the Mazura (or what ever the HGUE dreadnaught is) is more of a true battleship.


I totally agree with you, the Marza is awesome!
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Nope Ion shots completely shut down a ships systems from Sublight/Phase engines Construction abilities, Even passive regeneration. Your ship effectively becomes a 3000 credit hunk of junk... temporarily(or is supposed to)
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
entityBoolModifier "DisableAbilities"
entityBoolModifier "DisableConstruction"
entityBoolModifier "DisableModuleFunctionality"
entityBoolModifier "DisablePhaseJump"
entityBoolModifier "DisablePhysics"
entityBoolModifier "DisableRegeneration"
entityBoolModifier "DisableWeapons"

Those are the effects of the Ion Blast from the Akkan. I can mirror the sentiment that it might not be working exactly, but from a quick glance I don't see anything in the files that would suggest why it wouldn't work, tho the developers obviously have a better clue then I do.

The files are the AbilityIonBlast.entity and BuffIonBlast.entity
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
yeah it sure doesn't do all of them... or at least not from what I've seen...
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
"DisablePhysics" does indeed disable the sublight engines of the target. However, this means that the target behaves like a Newtonian body: it continues in the same direction and speed, it's just unable to maneuver.

In my mod I have extended the IonBlast ability to 10 seconds. What I've found is that when a Kol that was turning to engage a target gets hit with an IonBlast, it continues rotating in helpless circles for the 10 second duration that its engines are disabled.

So, just keep in mind that disabling the engines of a spaceship prevents it from maneuvering, but not from moving.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Therax is 100% correct.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Well i kind of expected that, but i also learned recently that the Akkan is 100pts slower then every other capital ship, that figure right there makes it useless to me. If anything speeds should be equal for capital ships(if your going for realism, the Akkan would be faster then a Kol) Also that being the case i think Ion blast should last for a longer duration with a larger Cool down timer, to actually give you the chance to manuvre out of the way.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
All colony ships (frigate or capital) are slower.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Hmmm I like the 10 second duration idea.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
I was playing around with the Ion shot and noticed something. It could have been my own mistake, but it seemed as soon as I fired the ion shot at a target then changed to another target that the ion shot "wore off", essentially making it useless if you want to use it to disable one target while you pick on another.

I'll see if I can't confirm this later. Has anyone else had this problem? I love the Akkan and always pick it as my flagship because of Colonize being so useful and it being able to take a system on its own usually.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
Duration of the IonBlast in stock Sins is 3 seconds at level 1, 5 seconds at level 2, and 7 seconds at level 3:

Code: c++
  2. finishCondition
  3. finishConditionType "TimeElapsed"
  4. time
  5. Level:0 3.000000
  6. Level:1 5.000000
  7. Level:2 7.000000


It's really shamefully short. As I mentioned, I've bumped my durations to 10, 15, and 20 seconds, and it still doesn't seem overpowered.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
As I mentioned, I've bumped my durations to 10, 15, and 20 seconds, and it still doesn't seem overpowered.

obviously you've never been at the recieving end of one

akkan and a kol with a few frigs, a 5 second ion shot interval took out my marza in almost 7 seconds, and whats worse? I outnumbered their forces easily! should have won the battle!

the thing is a bleeping monstrosity.
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
I should have noted that there are a bunch of other changes in my mod, and battles with 10 capital ships on each side aren't uncommon, so in that context, losing the use of one of them for 10 seconds, while annoying, isn't cripping.
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
I'm sorry, but full shields down with 10 capital ships flying around sounds VERY critical to me, just two or there akkans and you've already wiped out 20-30% of their forces in a matter of seconds. and it is FULL SHIELDS DOWN, unlike the dunov ability.
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
Full shields down? I've never noticed such an effect, and looking at the data files, I don't see it either. Novaburst listed all of the effects above in reply #4, and the only one that applies to shields is DisableRegeneration. Are you sure you're not confusing the IonBlast ability with something else?
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
Just to make sure I'm not crazy, I just started up a new single-player game, and IonBlasted some pirates. No effect on shields, just stops the shields from regenerating.

I don't doubt that your Marza's shields got chewed up, but it wasn't the Akkan doing it.
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
I'd just like to throw in my support for extending the effect of the ion blast.
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
I'd just like to throw in my support for extending the effect of the ion blast.


Can you spell imba?

IonBlast lvl3 has a CoolDown of 9 seconds with a duration of 7 seconds.

It has an Antimatter cost of 65 while the Akkan has (at lvl 4 where you get the lvl 3 IonBlast first) antimatter reserves of 260+3*35=365 or about 5.5 shots. Lvl4 Akkan regenerates 1.15 antimatter/second. 5 shots * 9 seconds cooldown * 1.15 antimatter/second = 51.75 antimatter regenerated in the time it takes to shoot 5 shots, thus you get a total of over 6 shots.

6 * 7 seconds = 42 second out of 54 seconds in which you can make an enemy capital ship useless.

Since the Akkan has no other useful ability that needs antimatter (cease fire is very special) you can use all your antimatter for IonBlast.

42 seconds are very long in a multiplayer battle. It can easily make the difference between a lost capital or a surviving one.
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top

I'd just like to throw in my support for extending the effect of the ion blast.


Can you spell imba?

IonBlast lvl3 has a CoolDown of 9 seconds with a duration of 7 seconds.

It has an Antimatter cost of 65 while the Akkan has (at lvl 4 where you get the lvl 3 IonBlast first) antimatter reserves of 260+3*35=365 or about 5.5 shots. Lvl4 Akkan regenerates 1.15 antimatter/second. 5 shots * 9 seconds cooldown * 1.15 antimatter/second = 51.75 antimatter regenerated in the time it takes to shoot 5 shots, thus you get a total of over 6 shots.

6 * 7 seconds = 42 second out of 54 seconds in which you can make an enemy capital ship useless.

Since the Akkan has no other useful ability that needs antimatter (cease fire is very special) you can use all your antimatter for IonBlast.

42 seconds are very long in a multiplayer battle. It can easily make the difference between a lost capital or a surviving one.

I'm a believer in countering powerful weapons with other powerful weapons. Not nerfing everything until we're just tickling each other.


It would also be ok if the cool down time were extended at the cost of increasing it's effect.


Perhaps have it fire once every 15 seconds but be effective for 10?... Or how about it stuns an enemy ship but is itself stunned for half that time in addition to having a higher cool down time? The specifics are what beta testing is for but generally I think the effect should be longer. The thing about powerful weapons like that is that they force people to PAY ATTENTION to the battle. Focus fire, prioritize the order of ships to be destroyed, watch your range both to your ships and their ships, monitor special ability usage... etc. If the special abilities don't BITE then why even have them? You should go "damn, he stunned me!"...
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
The specifics are what beta testing is for but generally I think the effect should be longer.

Are you a beta tester Karmashock?
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
Duration of the IonBlast in stock Sins is 3 seconds at level 1, 5 seconds at level 2, and 7 seconds at level 3:


That sort of info should really be on the infocard.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
That sort of info should really be on the infocard.


Agree wholeheartedly. Much more infos need to be on the info card and on the pop ups.
Reply #24 from Stardock Forums Top

IonBlast lvl3 has a CoolDown of 9 seconds with a duration of 7 seconds.

It has an Antimatter cost of 65 while the Akkan has (at lvl 4 where you get the lvl 3 IonBlast first) antimatter reserves of 260+3*35=365 or about 5.5 shots. Lvl4 Akkan regenerates 1.15 antimatter/second. 5 shots * 9 seconds cooldown * 1.15 antimatter/second = 51.75 antimatter regenerated in the time it takes to shoot 5 shots, thus you get a total of over 6 shots.

There are a couple of problems with this analysis, although I appreciate the intent. First, it neglects the important impact of antimatter loss when phase jumping, 100 per jump. When on the offensive you will essentially never start with full antimatter, and that (minimum) 100 AM loss is worth 2 Ion Blasts in your analysis. When part of a dynamic, rapidly advancing force, you'll often have even less.

Also, having just looked at the data files, it looks like level 3 ion blast doesn't become available until level 5. (The minExperienceLevelRequired field is zero-based. You'll note that the ultimate abilities like AbilityLastStand state a level requirement of 5.000000 in the data, which in actual gameplay is level 6.) I would think a level 5 capital ship *should* have some significant, powerful abilities available to it.
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top

The specifics are what beta testing is for but generally I think the effect should be longer.

Are you a beta tester Karmashock?

yes... not for this game... but I've done it before... why do you ask?