Scrap or redesign shield cell modules, they are too overpowered and trivialize PvP.

[Jex =TE=]

Beating an Elite _anything_ should be a challenge. The Elite are the best of the best. If they are in a sidewinder for some reason, it should be an ultra pimped ride, and they will not get drawn into a fight with an asp in that thing.

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Exactly. Ships need to be balanced for roles and niches, not as progression levels.

Even the Anaconda flies like a fighter, and is surprisngly fragile to "balance" this. It doesn't have the feeling of ponderous mass and stayng power it should.

Exactly - As it's so easy to make money in ED it's not really leveling up when you get a more expensive ship. Everyone has a different taste and need for a ship and the ships should be good for certain roles like the Krait that's coming soon - I frikkin hated this ship in Frontier, like a stupid little annoying gnat lol but it has a role to be a gnat and hated!

 

[Jex =TE=]

Bigger ships have no reason to run from a viper and can leave whenever they want. All the viper can do is... run away. That's not balanced, lol.

Why should it be balanced?

 

[Johnny Spaceboots]

Why should it be balanced?

View attachment 9862

If Pythons/anacondas occupied the same role as a star destroyer, sure. But they don't they're traders with a bit of combat edge.

The capital ships occupy that role, and what's pathetic is that they're way less of a threat and easily solo-able by practically any ship.

 

[Morbad]

I've destroyed CMDR Asps and chased away CMDR Clippers with my Viper. I do have to disengage from almost all competently piloted combat Python and Anaconda though.

I don't particularly see anything wrong with this.

 

[Jex =TE=]

It's pretty confusing. How are things supposed to... equal against each other, really? What's the plan?

The Cobra and Pythons are generalists, so I would assume that they would be pretty defensive in combat style, the Cobra being fast and slippery as an eel (the freelancer's ship) and the Python being a rugged survivor (the blockade runner). The Cobra kind-of fits that style, but what about the Python? It's relatively fast, it's extremely manueverable for a ship that size, but it's certainly not very strong.
Also, what happened to armor? Is it even in the game? I don't seem to have any problems damaging heavy ships with weapons that have low armor penetration. HE Dumbfires should just sandpaper the hull of a Python.
If you wanted offensive fighting power (as in either blowing up your enemy or at the very least force them to flee), I would think that you would need a offensive combat-leaning ship, like the Viper.

I have a bit of fear that the entire balancing act is falling into a kind of self-made trap. Either we make small ships like Vipers or Cobras into irrelevant stepping-stones, or we risk turning all the large ships into credit-sucking bricks for masochists. It's hard to balance out everything, but I think a step in the right direction is first dealing with SCB's, and then decide: What's the purpose of small ships? Large ships? Generalists? Combat-leaners? Pure Traders? How will it all fit together?

When I played frontier, I played it on my own with no multiplayer. I'd buy ships for specific roles. With trading, you're always going to be buying and selling to afford the next biggest ship until you get to the top and can do the most amount of trading.

The problem seems to be that the ships haven't been thought out which should have been obvious during beta - how was this missed is what I want to know. What a blunder! Look at the hull stats and armour stats and agility stats and shield stats - what is the formula used here?

It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. Ships dedicated to roles should be what we have on offer. Why would you make ships that didn't fill a role? there should be mining ships, fighters, stealth (scout), explorer, trader, frigate, etc. Maybe giving u a ship and saying, "make it how u want it" is a bad idea - it just seems the whole ship thing is lacking. An Anaconda shouldn't really have to worry at all about an Eagle. 20 Eagle's maybe but then an Eagle pilot should be able to out-maneuver a frigates turrets with enough skill - so maybe that's the route they should have taken.

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If Pythons/anacondas occupied the same role as a star destroyer, sure. But they don't they're traders with a bit of combat edge.

The capital ships occupy that role, and what's pathetic is that they're way less of a threat and easily solo-able by practically any ship.

Well I just used the picture to make a point (But a Star Destroyer would be cool, right? )

I was pointing out that large ships have much larger hulls and shield generators that small ships with much weaker shield gens and much weaker weapons shouldn't be that effective against them. Sometimes you need to just say, nope, that sucker is too big for me right now. Then you go off and bring back your friends (when they fix MP)

 

[Defacto]

Well to be fair, the Python isn't actually that much larger than the Cobra. Especially not if you go by hull mass. The Python is also supposed to be capable of sustaining several crew, the Cobra is a 2-man ship flyable alone.

I do agree with what you say on dedicated ships.
If flying a dedicated ship, that ship should be strong at what it's doing. What's the point of flying a Viper if you can get a Cobra, which costs just a bit more, handles a bit slower but has enough flexibility to not just fight, but also travel on long journeys, fit lots of useful internal equipment, fit strong armor and keep a long jump range, do medium-scale trading, be stealthy, do exploration, and do mining?

Similarily, what's the point of the Fer-De-Lance if it's just a tiny bit better than the Python at fighting, while sacrificing everything else that the Python has?

I also think SCB's increase the power of multipurpose ships, since these ships usually have a lot more internal space to spare than pure fighters like the Eagle, Viper and (in my assumptions) the Fer-De-Lance.

 

[Adept]

Make it how? If SCBs are removed, exactly this effect will be reached, even without tweaking the AI - it will either take a bigger ship or several small ships to take down an Elite Anaconda, because your small Viper/Conda won't be able to magically heal itself. Problem solved?

Problem is that I can kill a so called "Elite" Anaconda with a Cobra without using chaff or shield cells. Granted, it's not safe, and I can fail (which is great!), but I'm also not using a fully cheesy setup to do it. One class 2 fixed beam, one gimbaled multicannon, one small dumbfire pack, and a pack of seekers I never use. That, on a non-maxed-out Cobra is enough to kill an Elite Anaconda. The biggest problem, after getting rid of the shield cells is that dumbfire racks do about 2 x as much damage as they should. Their ability to just burn through the hull is just silly.

Oh, and on a point of principle I don't target the engines or the power plant. I kill the Anaconda by destroying it's hull, not by using any exploits. So yeah... that "Elite" AI should be called "Competent", I think.

 

[Starender]

Hello Commanders!

Just a quick heads up: we've been looking at the stats for shield cell banks and have made some tweaks, which should filter out in a near future update. Basically, cell capacities have been reduced, cost per cell has been increased, and the passive power draw for having a cell bank active has increased.

We're not totally convinced this is the end of tweaking shield cell banks, but we think it will be a move in the right direction.

if you do that, the ships that have a lot of power will be stronger fighter that the ships that are power starving...

and that is the repercution of it:
- Slight nerf to the Eagle
- Slight nerf to the Viper
- Slight buff to the Cobra
- Slight buff to the Adder

Exactly the opposite of what we need...

 

[Vyvian]

if you do that, the ships that have a lot of power will be stronger fighter that the ships that are power starving...

and that is the repercution of it:
- Slight nerf to the Eagle
- Slight nerf to the Viper
- Slight buff to the Cobra
- Slight buff to the Adder

Exactly the opposite of what we need...

Completly agree with you here.

The Viper, which is meant to be a combat ship is energy starved and has a slower boost speed than the Cobra, as well as lower mass.

If they increase the energy requirements of Shield Cells then Vipers will have a hard time fitting any, while the Cobra will still likely be able to fit 3 of them with it's large power reserves.

End result, Cobras will still be able to pop countless Cells to prop up thier light shields while they remove the shields of the Viper and when the Viper tries to run they will be mass-locked by the faster, heavier Cobra until they are destroyed.

At the moment many are questioning the point of the Viper, as the Cobra has the same armament, stronger hull, faster boost speed, and greater mass.
It was only the weaker shields on the Cobra that gave the Viper the edge in combat.

This may well seal the fate of the Viper to just being a stepping stone between the Eagle and Cobra rather than currently where it's a hard choice between the Cobra and Viper, which gives warzones in particular some diversity.

I do realise that the Cobra costs a little over twice the amount to purchase, equip, repair, run and insure compared to the Viper, and if it's just for combat this is no small difference but you also get the greater jump range and ability to take a second profession such as Trader or explorer.

Also to a large number of players including myself, the greater insurance costs and the soon to be introduced greater cost of shield cells matter little.
If you've got 20mil in the bank what do you care if you lose 300,000cr for insurance on a Cobra compared to 140,000 on a Viper?
And if I spend 20,000cr in shield cells to chase off an enemy commander in a warzone, what do I care?

I wish I wasn't just being negative in this post and had something positive to add, but shield cells would seem to be a really dificult thing to balance.

I personally like using them to help in bounty hunting and I think they have a place in PvP.
Without them most PvP encounters would be 'Player A sneaks up on Player B. Gets a good first volley in lowering Player B's shields to one ring. Player B then runs away.' Where as now, most players will pop a shield cell and turn and fight.

Limiting them to one bank per ship would probably do a lot to fix up combat between Eagles, Adders, Vipers and Cobras but it would probably remove Asps, Clippers and Dropships (Not that you see many dropships anyway) from combat.

I wonder if it would it be possible to allow small ships only 1, while medium ships can have 2, large ships get 3? Still have them as a general module so taking them reduces Cargo space or other options.

Anyway it seems the decision has been made, and now we have to wait to see how the numbers have changed, until then it's really just conjecture.

 

[FluorescentBlack]

Instead of fixing something that works fine fix something that doesn't, say the Repair module so that it fixes critical systems. This would Automatically make something near as appealing as cells. More if you use good armour.

 

[Vyvian]

Instead of fixing something that works fine fix something that doesn't, say the Repair module so that it fixes critical systems. This would Automatically make something near as appealing as cells. More if you use good armour.

Can't remember where I read it, but I'm sure I read a note from Devs that the repair module fix is ready and will be in 1.1
It will repair all sub-systems except powerplant and not the hull.

 

[barcode]

The capital ships occupy that role, and what's pathetic is that they're way less of a threat and easily solo-able by practically any ship.

Except that's been true of just about every space sim ever released in the entire history of the genre.

 

[Cratherhak]

I confess I haven't read through all replies in the thread. So sorry if my proposal has been mentioned already.

I suggest renaming the shield cells to "shield capacitor" and the following changes about how they work:
- only one shield capacitor allowed per ship
- the strenght of the shield recharge when used is obviously tied to its tier. So an A6 Shield is fully recharged with a A6 shield capacitor.
- the shield capacitor itself recharges with the spare power from the power plant. If the power of your power plant is e.g. used by 98% the shield capacitor will recharge very slowly because it can only use 2% of the total power from the power plant. This would introduce a meaning to have a stronger power plant then required by the power consumption of your ship modules.
- the shield capacitor does not have to be fully charged before it can release its charge into the shield module. Release it when 50% loaded will only recharge your shield by 50% max.

 

[Raest]

- the shield capacitor itself recharges with the spare power from the power plant. If the power of your power plant is e.g. used by 98% the shield capacitor will recharge very slowly because it can only use 2% of the total power from the power plant. This would introduce a meaning to have a stronger power plant then required by the power consumption of your ship modules.

this would, once again (like the current nerfs), greatly favor multirole ships over combat ones since they have power to spare, unlike the eagle and viper who can barely run with an A power plant and a couple of modules turned off unless you're using pulse laser and/or multis

 

[Jason S]

The majority of players avoid PvP by choice and so the OP is suggesting a game mechanic change because of PvP, but if effects PvE as well which most play.

So question is, does it need to be nerfed for PvE play or not?

 

[Cratherhak]

this would, once again (like the current nerfs), greatly favor multirole ships over combat ones since they have power to spare, unlike the eagle and viper who can barely run with an A power plant and a couple of modules turned off unless you're using pulse laser and/or multis

Yes I am aware of that. It is a thin line and requires you to balance your ship. Do I want a maxed out attack power or do I want less attack power but better defense capability?

 

[rj134]

I strongly believe that an expensive ship must not be taken down by a cheaper ship (EDIT: if the players have similar skill and standard equip). "Fair" has no value here.

You can believe whatever you want but let me tell you: You're dead wrong.

When you tie cost to combat effectiveness all you end up doing is create a massive grindfest where every player races for the most expensive gear since everything else remains irrelevant in terms of both pve and pvp combat. This has been proven time and time again in hundreds of games from all genres.
One of the latest examples of games similar to ED is Eve, where in the beginning battleships were the be all end all of ships and battleship sized turrets would hit everything at full damage without penalties. Every single fleet in the game - regardless of whether pvp or pve focused - consisted of 100% laser fitted battleships. If you didn't fly a 100% laser fitted battleship you were useless. Needless to say, combat in Eve sucked balls at that point. Nobody liked it. The discussions back then were exactly the same as this thread right here. With people making the same argument you make. And they were all wrong.

Yes, the python should be a very effective combat ship given what it costs to buy and operate. There must be things it does so well that it becomes a reasonable choice to buy for players.
No, it should never have any sort of monopoly on power. There must always be circumstances in which flying a python will get you killed as fast as if you were in a Sidewinder. Player skill and judgement must always be the deciding factor in whether your ship lives or explodes, regardless of how much you're paying for it.

If you take your python to fight an a-fitted dumbfire missile fitted viper head on, you should suffer the consequence of a dumb decision. It can be argued whether dumbfire missiles should be as effective against shields as they are right now, but that's a different discussion. The point is: Credits should never allow you to buy invulnerability, lest you end up with a game where aquiring this invulnerability becomes mandatory, which always makes for an unfun game where one class rules them all and the rest just stands on the sideline living in worthless-land.

 

[Cathalo]

A good pilot in a good maneuverable ship can overcome cell regens. The problem is that he must spend a lot of money on reloading ordinance after the fight which he will not get back through the PvP encounter. I think the best way to balance shield cells is to make them cost money to refill after you use one, so if I have to spent 22k on ordinance to get rid of your shield cell you should have to spend an equal amount of money to refill it before it is useable again.

 

[Vyvian]

Yes I am aware of that. It is a thin line and requires you to balance your ship. Do I want a maxed out attack power or do I want less attack power but better defense capability?

You're right, having to make a choice to balance your ship between attack or defence would be great. Problem is is that pilots of Eagles and Vipers will have to make tough decisions on what to lose to get the extra power for defense, while Adder and Cobra pilots won't have to lose anything, they already have power to spare.

Right now the Cobra and Viper have the same offensive capabilities. With your plan the Viper will have to downgrade weapons but the Cobra won't and that will upset the very fine balance between these ships.

As to the Devs planned changes, we will have to wait and see the final energy numbers but it certainly seems ominous for the small combat vessels.

The majority of players avoid PvP by choice and so the OP is suggesting a game mechanic change because of PvP, but if effects PvE as well which most play.

So question is, does it need to be nerfed for PvE play or not?

I'd have to say 'Yes', but only the cost of the cells. 100cr is stupidly cheap. Right now you can pop shield cells cause you're losing a fight against a pirate in a sidewinder and still make money.

If they cost a few thousand credits, it would still be worthwhile using them to take down a Clipper or Anaconda but if you're losing to sidewinders and eagles you will be forced to lose money or better you piloting skills.

 

[NeilF]

You're right, having to make a choice to balance your ship between attack or defence would be great. Problem is is that pilots of Eagles and Vipers will have to make tough decisions on what to lose to get the extra power for defense, while Adder and Cobra pilots won't have to lose anything, they already have power to spare.

Right now the Cobra and Viper have the same offensive capabilities. With your plan the Viper will have to downgrade weapons but the Cobra won't and that will upset the very fine balance between these ships.

As to the Devs planned changes, we will have to wait and see the final energy numbers but it certainly seems ominous for the small combat vessels.




I'd have to say 'Yes', but only the cost of the cells. 100cr is stupidly cheap. Right now you can pop shield cells cause you're losing a fight against a pirate in a sidewinder and still make money.

If they cost a few thousand credits, it would still be worthwhile using them to take down a Clipper or Anaconda but if you're losing to sidewinders and eagles you will be forced to lose money or better you piloting skills.

I don't think money should really come into it (ie: Cost of ammo). Should come down to the behaviour of the unit itself being balanced IMHO.