Hull Reinforcement Packages - a drawback suitable?

[Julio Montega]

Ahoy lads,
a lot of people are currently using stealth builds with HRPs.
To increase the survivability that is slightly impaired by loosing shields this is a suitable alternative,
yet it has very little drawbacks.

I would like to suggest to increase the overall weight of HRPs to impact ships top speed accordingly
and reducing the maneuverability further.
While speedy ships can stick with shields as defense, they also can just use allmost all of the internals for HRPs
resulting in the same speed and agility, as if the were fitted towards using shields and having other internals
suitable for a multitude of tasks.

SCBs were changed so they have the drawback of heat generation,
HRPs add "hitpoints" to a non rechargable defense (hull).
While that should stay, increasing the weight would add a suitable drawback
impacting ships with a low hullmass and according thrusters most
as the overall "mass" the thrusters have to handle increases.

Do you think this would be a way to fiddle with HRPs?
Would the increased mass impact ramming too much?
Feedback please.

 

[mistohise]

I think what'd be really great would be if people could stop suggesting things to make stuff worse.

 

[anikaiful]

IDK, honeycomb reinforcements aren't heavy per se while adding a lot to impact resistance and such.

I'd guess the already lost versatility is good enough drawback when HRPing a ship.

 

[StiTch]

Yeah HRPS are quite nice for stealth builds etc., but they don't need the drawback. They do have a much better hull hp to weight ration than bulkheads do, but do so on these two grounds:

-The bulkheads don't take up internal space
-the weight to hull HP ratio gets worse as the class increases

This means they're nice for builds where you don't need to use internal space for anything else. But in this case, it's a specialised ship - and I think it's okay for specialised ships to get a boost in their specialised area.

Once you move outside this kind of ship the HRP is IMO so well balanced. If you only have a couple of slots spare you can only add a little HP, or by using the higher class HRPs the HP to weight ratio becomes far less advantageous over bulkheads.

 

[Julio Montega]

IDK, honeycomb reinforcements aren't heavy per se while adding a lot to impact resistance and such.

I'd guess the already lost versatility is good enough drawback when HRPing a ship.

So can we think of fiddling around with other stuff then?
Weapons?
In my opinion prolonged fights (like they started to become when SCBs arrived)
are attritional.
What about having SCBs and HRPs become Utility items?
After all the general defenses are internal (bulkheads a shield gen.),
but defensive addons are rated as utility (boosters/chaff/heatsink/PDF).

 

[StiTch]

I think what'd be really great would be if people could stop suggesting things to make stuff worse.

While we're here, +1 rep for this. For the last few years all I seem to hear about games is "this is so OP, I don't like it, make it worse", and then the same people complaining the game is boring...

 

[Julio Montega]

While we're here, +1 rep for this. For the last few years all I seem to hear about games is "this is so OP, I don't like it, make it worse", and then the same people complaining the game is boring...

I'd rather discuss this onwards, as the introduction of those modules (SCBs and HRPs) made the game a onesided one,
regarding combat. Before HRPs you had to have SCBs to compete, now it is HRPs and stealth.
Favoring a single means of engagement so thoroughly is just reducing the viability of other builds.
We do not have enough utility modules to cater towards other solutions yet.
Tried out Hybrids? They don't work well either.

Before SCBs gimballed weapons as example were used less and less for combat roles against other players,
now they are impacted even more, by the stealth mechanic, making them pratically a very bad choice for engagements,
while they still retain a very good performance engaging modules.
Having a clear separation of PvP and PvE useful stuff is quite frankly reducing the amount of viable and different ships and fittings
drastically. That is a very bad thing to continue.

Of course nobody is forcing you to have HRPs and SCBs,
it seems to be the overall go-to way for combat.
I'd like to add, that having those 2 fittings working so well reduces the amount
of thought a pilot has to put into combat.
When you enter a CG site, you can easily tell which ship is player piloted.

 

[Conch]

by increasing the weight, it would make the FAS even more a battering ram. :O

 

[StiTch]

I'd rather discuss this onwards, as the introduction of those modules (SCBs and HRPs) made the game a onesided one,
regarding combat. Before HRPs you had to have SCBs to compete, now it is HRPs and stealth.
Favoring a single means of engagement so thoroughly is just reducing the viability of other builds.
We do not have enough utility modules to cater towards other solutions yet.
Tried out Hybrids? They don't work well either.

Before SCBs gimballed weapons as example were used less and less for combat roles against other players,
now they are impacted even more, by the stealth mechanic, making them pratically a very bad choice for engagements,
while they still retain a very good performance engaging modules.
Having a clear separation of PvP and PvE useful stuff is quite frankly reducing the amount of viable and different ships and fittings
drastically. That is a very bad thing to continue.

Of course nobody is forcing you to have HRPs and SCBs,
it seems to be the overall go-to way for combat.
I'd like to add, that having those 2 fittings working so well reduces the amount
of thought a pilot has to put into combat.
When you enter a CG site, you can easily tell which ship is player piloted.

Sorry bud, but what you're arguing here with is that there's a meta. All games have a meta. People will find the most effective way to do something and do it, and you can't stop that. Nerfing whatever it is people use just leads to everything getting nerfed and the game getting boring.

As stated above, HRPs are balanced. If people wanna take all their internals and dedicate them to HRPs for PvP, I won't argue. Take it away and people will just find another tactic to use across the board, and then everyone using a couple of HRPs on their bounty hunter or mission runner will get yet another aspect of their build ruined that didn't need to be.

Edit: Having separate PvP and PvE builds is something that has happened since forever, and surely that's increasing the number of viable builds rather than decreasing?

 

[anikaiful]

I'd rather discuss this onwards, as the introduction of those modules (SCBs and HRPs) made the game a onesided one,
regarding combat. Before HRPs you had to have SCBs to compete, now it is HRPs and stealth.
Favoring a single means of engagement so thoroughly is just reducing the viability of other builds.
We do not have enough utility modules to cater towards other solutions yet.
Tried out Hybrids? They don't work well either.

Before SCBs gimballed weapons as example were used less and less for combat roles against other players,
now they are impacted even more, by the stealth mechanic, making them pratically a very bad choice for engagements,
while they still retain a very good performance engaging modules.
Having a clear separation of PvP and PvE useful stuff is quite frankly reducing the amount of viable and different ships and fittings
drastically. That is a very bad thing to continue.

Of course nobody is forcing you to have HRPs and SCBs,
it seems to be the overall go-to way for combat.
I'd like to add, that having those 2 fittings working so well reduces the amount
of thought a pilot has to put into combat.
When you enter a CG site, you can easily tell which ship is player piloted.

Just a quick though while hurtling towards a station... Force diversity. Switch direct HP increase to damage resistance model based on type of incoming attack with "balanced model" being decent but not exactly 'desirable' variant. Kinetic variant oughta make you one sturdy turtle (with added weight)... but woe if somebody isn't pelting you with kinetics. Thermal... well, good/excellent vs beams and such, but squishy if somebody rams you dead ahead... Diversity in that no choice would or could become a dominant and "the must have" one.

 

[StiTch]

Just a quick though while hurtling towards a station... Force diversity. Switch direct HP increase to damage resistance model based on type of incoming attack with "balanced model" being decent but not exactly 'desirable' variant. Kinetic variant oughta make you one sturdy turtle (with added weight)... but woe if somebody isn't pelting you with kinetics. Thermal... well, good/excellent vs beams and such, but squishy if somebody rams you dead ahead... Diversity in that no choice would or could become a dominant and "the must have" one.

Just...no. Again, you do not need to nerf HRPs. And as I've said, people will find a meta. You make this change and you've screwed up all the builds that the average Joe uses with one or two of these to make bounty hunting easier for ships with paper thin hulls.

The people in PvP will just buy half of one type and half of another, or even worse find a way to exploit it and make HRPs even more a focal point for PvPers. And that's if they even care one iota; the current weapon meta is railguns, which means they don't care about what resistance is what because they're thermal and kinetic.

Friendly note: ramming doesn't have anything to do with kinetic damage. It has its own damage class and there are no modifiers for it.

 

[anikaiful]

Just...no. Again, you do not need to nerf HRPs. And as I've said, people will find a meta. You make this change and you've screwed up all the builds that the average Joe uses with one or two of these to make bounty hunting easier for ships with paper thin hulls, the people in PvP will just buy half of one type and half of another, or even worse find a way to exploit it and make HRPs even more a focal point for PvPers.

And that's not mentioning the current weapon meta is railguns, which means they don't care about what thermal resistance is what because they're thermal and kinetic.

Friendly note: ramming doesn't have anything to do with kinetic damage. It has its own damage class and there are no modifiers for it.

Well, with that mindset there's no solution to anything whatsoever.

Besides, the damage resistance model would be straight beneficial for small buckets - instead of giving them (an imaginary number) of flat 100 HP it'd give them %-value.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

Need restrictions on internals tbh.

This suggestion is imbalanced because small ships are so much more weight sensitive than large ones. Would mean nothing for FOTM FAS/FDL builds but destroy hull tanked Vipers/DBS/ etc which are actually well balanced

 

[StiTch]

Well, with that mindset there's no solution to anything whatsoever.

Not quite...it just takes a different approach rather than looking at what everyone uses and equating that with being OP.

An example good solution was when they reduced railgun ammo. Railguns have a very nice damage output and with correct usage are a pain to dodge. So they reduced the ammo to stop them being so effective long term; you need them for short encounters like PvP or assassinations, but no longer drown out the kinetic weapons for RES hunting etc.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

Not quite...it just takes a different approach rather than looking at what everyone uses and equating that with being OP.

An example good solution was when they reduced railgun ammo. Railguns have a very nice damage output and with correct usage are a pain to dodge. So they reduced the ammo to stop them being so effective long term; you need them for short encounters like PvP or assassinations, but no longer drown out the kinetic weapons for RES hunting etc.

...except they completely wrecked PvP when the introduced synthesis as now you can have 100s of shots with insanely OP weapons.

MCs/plasmas/frags are just about in the right place ammo wise, and synthesis with them is kinda balanced.

Railguns however break the meta by being the counter to everything with the only downside being grinding for mats

 

[StiTch]

Besides, the damage resistance model would be straight beneficial for small buckets - instead of giving them (an imaginary number) of flat 100 HP it'd give them %-value.

Eh? It's making it worse? You're taking away the HP boost the craft needs because it has 70 odd hull hp before and 300 odd hull hp after, and saying that half the weapons out there will damage it more and the other half weapons damage it less?

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...except they completely wrecked PvP when the introduced synthesis as now you can have 100s of shots with insanely OP weapons.

MCs/plasmas/frags are just about in the right place ammo wise, and synthesis with them is kinda balanced.

Railguns however break the meta by being the counter to everything with the only downside being grinding for mats

Yeah, I'd completely agree that Synthesis changed the ball again. But that's a discussion for a different thread, and although I've tried, for PvE farming it's just not time efficient to land and gather that many mats to support an extra half capacity of railgun shots, so it's still only a pain for PvP.

Weapons aside, HRPs don't need to change. They support "casual" users of them nicely, and for PvP, it just happens to be what gets used. Without them I dread to think how quickly them synthesis railguns would break ships PvP fights would last the best part of half a minute...

We already had a shield meta, and SCBs got nerfed. Admittedly the difference there is that they were mildly OP; firing off several SCBs at once? But the point is, the SCBs got nerfed, the shield meta started dissolving, people found a new meta - and that has HRPs in. If you wanna nerf that you'll kill something that this time isn't OP, and the PvPers will find the next meta.

 

[anikaiful]

Eh? It's making it worse? You're taking away the HP boost the craft needs because it has 70 odd hull hp before and 300 odd hull hp after, and saying that half the weapons out there will damage it more and the other half weapons damage it less?

Nevermind... done with trying to explain.

 

[Weps]

My opinion is that the problem with HRPs and SCBs lies not in the fact that they don't have (enough) disadvantages for a combat ship, but that non-combat ships are at a disadvantage for not using them. They represent a PvE mechanic (look at my big sword, it's bigger than any other sword in Middle-Earth and can kill 100 goblins) which has no place in a PvP environment. And this is what leads to all the PvP, fairness, consequence, criminality, ToS discussions which appear on the forum regularly. The fact that PvP fights are predetermined by the loadout of the combatants rather than their skill means that each encounter will end the same: the lesser loadout will try to flee - that's the only logical option.

Now, I wouldn't want to suggest to remove HRPs and SCBs, or reduce their effectiveness. They are clearly needed and wanted by players for PvE. Instead, what I would like to see is the mechanics being changed so that every ship can afford them. For example, make them occupy special bays in the shield and hull (or perhaps a special frame module) slots like the SRVs do. There's lots of ways to balance them so that all ships face a choice in equipping them without having to sacrifice crucial slots needed for the ship's intended profession.

 

[Kazacy]

When the forums was filled with tears about how SCB's was overpowered, i knew the nerf will come. After the nerf i was delighted by the new FOTM (Flavor Of The Month), meaning HRP and silent running. It is much easier to fly a pvp ship these days with armor tank vs a shield tank in the past (tbh i really hated to enable/disable cell banks and power managenent).
Keep up the good work guys, i am really excited to see new FOTM, i bet it will be even easier to fly!

 

[StiTch]

The fact that PvP fights are predetermined by the loadout of the combatants rather than their skill means that each encounter will end the same: the lesser loadout will try to flee - that's the only logical option.

This was brought up by a dev at somepoint as a good thing. It means that because there's a meta and in PvP everyone uses similar builds as a result, it is only pilot skill that makes the victor victorious.

It actually goes against my approach as a whole because I like to think people can have builds individual to them, but at least in PvP that doesn't happen in many games at all. As above...people will always find that flavour of the month and use it because it's most effective, and people that don't are at a disadvantage until someone tries something that blows minds and becomes the new meta.

When it comes to PvE, there's so much to explore in a loadout within Elite, and HRPs are an excellent balancing tool to keep small ships in the game.

Ah no, just meant that I'm done with trying to explain anything to *you*.

Sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sound of the door slamming :3