Shield Regeneration Lasers

[Derath]

Really? 2 players in anything outgun 1 player in anything? You clearly don't know much about the variety of ships, weapons and modules in ED then!

The situations where this would benefit the 2 but they were in small ships are very limited, you'd need something sufficiently powerful but with the ability to take advantage of the perks available so for example

its hyperbole but a majority of the time 2 > 1, the situations where 2+healing lasers > 1 are going to be extremely rare unless the laser has a really high recharge rate.

 

[Mike Evans]

There are situations though in which a lone skilled pilot is able to take down two winged ships in PvP. Plenty of videos out there.

I'm happy that you recognize how powerful a tool this could be, a lot of my frustration has been people not understanding that at all, and I like that you're trying to limit it's use. But coordinated PvP teams already have a huge advantage on everyone else, and I'm worried about them just being given more of an advantage, especially one that can so easily overwrite player skill from the other side.

Is there at least any way to counter the healing that the opposing ships could be doing? Part of the appeal of shield-cell hauling limpets for me is that you could counter them by shooting the limpets.

The counter is that the guy doing the "healing" is basically out of the fight and is a sitting duck and should be the number one target.

 

[Khelder]

yeah, one FDL versus two haulers is totally the scenario we're discussing.

I often try to make a stand against smaller wings in my Cobra or in my Asp. Sometimes (for me) that can be quite a struggle and I'm lucky to make it through. If those ships are going to start repairing each others shields, it's going to make a world of difference.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm talking about NPC wings here.

 

[Derath]

There are situations though in which a lone skilled pilot is able to take down two winged ships in PvP. Plenty of videos out there.

Won't change, as has been said using one of your ships to heal is turning your 2v1 into a 1v1, those are odds i'd always take over having to just fight two ships actually doing damage appropriately.

 

[jabokai]

yeah, one FDL versus two haulers is totally the scenario we're discussing.

Ah right, so we're only discussing where all players are all in exactly equal ships then? Gotcha. In that case, yeah, buff the Wing even more, it matters not - the solo guy is dead whatever.

 

[Mike Evans]

Mike are you sure you can talk about these things? You give more info than we have got during last couple months. Now let me try get some more. Are these recharge lasers aka "healing lasers" coming as modification to all beam laser sizes small, medium, large, huge?[big grin] Don't worry no one will hear if you answer.

Thank you for dropping us some information.

All beam laser sizes can support this mod. Whether you can easily or even deliberately acquire said mod is another matter

 

[CMDR Corlas]

Okay, lets take this 2v1. If the wing uses repair beams, it becomes effectively 1v1. Assuming beams repair less than rails dish out (which seems a fair assumption!) than using repair beams in a 2v1 is an excellent way to throw away your advantage.

No, you're forgetting that the solo player is now effectively splitting their damage in half, I know you're a better player than that, come on.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Can these specialist lasers be improved / tweaked again via engineers, or are they a one shot deal (pun fully intended?)

 

[Derath]

No, you're forgetting that the solo player is now effectively splitting their damage in half, I know you're a better player than that, come on.

How are they splitting their damage in half?

 

[Mike Evans]

Can these specialist lasers be improved / tweaked again via engineers, or are they a one shot deal (pun fully intended?)

No, they can't be tweaked again, you'll basically strip the weapon first if you want to apply a different (or even the same) modification again.

 

[lefty1117]

Mike, can we assume that a weapon with this mod will have a lower damage output as a balancing method?

 

[Mephane]

In a wing vs lone pilot situation the lone pilot is so out gunned regardless that this additional mechanic really isn't going to make a difference. It matters in a wing vs wing situation though. Also the intent wasn't to try and nerf anything. A weapon that could regenerate shields is very powerful. We wanted to limit that and using it against wing members only is a very good way to limit it's power and can be easily contextualised to boot. Likewise if it were a global regenerating tool then we would either have to make it never do damage to anything or provide some additional mechanism to control when it hurt and when it didn't which was not desirable at all.

I didn't mean a lone player vs wing fight. I don't do PvP, I was talking about PvE. Should have clarified that. In my mind I compare, for example, a CZ or RES situation between for a wing and for a solo player. Let's say the wing is 4 people in a private group for only those 4 so no PvP involved:

• Solo player after a tough battle, their shields almost failed, but survived. Passive shield regeneration would take 20 minutes to refill them (for a standard type Anaconda shield with 1200MJ capacity).
• Winged players in the same situation. Form a circle, aim your modified beams at each other, recharge shields much quicker. Obviously I don't have any numbers, but for the beam to be worthwhile it must be significantly faster. Let's say one minute, everyone has big shields but also upgraded all their beam lasers for shield regeneration.

I would find that quite unfair that I would have to wait 20 minutes between battles when a wing can continue after 1.

 

[Rubbernuke]

No, they can't be tweaked again, you'll basically strip the weapon first if you want to apply a different (or even the same) modification again.

Nice, thanks! Last question: is the size of the laser important, or are these mods restricted to certain classes?

 

[Mike Evans]

Mike, can we assume that a weapon with this mod will have a lower damage output as a balancing method?

Nope you can't assume that.

 

[Mamif]

Nope not happening, been explained many times before. Sorry. Except my apology and move on.

No need to apologize. Curious about the reason tho. Is it a gameplay design/balance choice? Or a game engine limitation choice? I did a form search and a google search and didn't find anything on this prior from fdev. Might of been in a vid or something I missed. Anyone have a TLDR version of the reason? Honestly just curious.

 

[Mephane]

Will the AI wings be able to use this? If so then the solo/lone wolf player really did just get the middle finger.

I want to add that "solo player" doesn't necessarily exactly equate to solo mode. It could also mean a lone player in open play. It could mean a lone player without NPC wingmen in solo mode. As much as people look forward to NPC wings, I wouldn't want to have to hire other ships first in order to do stuff decently. For Strong Signal Sources or some such, sure, but not for general RES/CZ gameplay.

 

[CMDR Corlas]

The counter is that the guy doing the "healing" is basically out of the fight and is a sitting duck and should be the number one target.

But because the weapons can swap between damage and healing based on target, this doesn't matter, right? The new target just swaps to shooting you, and the former target swaps to healing.

I don't PvP much in Elite, but I have plenty in other games. Unless you specifically design against it, teams of healers who can also DPS will always dominate. And, as I've said before, I know there will always be a best "meta", but isn't the goal to make sure that the "best" is at least close to non-optimal setups?

I'm happy to hear that it's setup as a wings-only thing. That does ease a lot of my fears of the PvE game sliding to a "LFG, need healer".

 

[Mike Evans]

Nice, thanks! Last question: is the size of the laser important, or are these mods restricted to certain classes?

Mods like this are not size restricted as mentioned above. They're weapon type restricted mind.

 

[Muetdhiver]

Indeed, it's not like the guy use the recharge beam will be shooting much (except turrets : i.e. not effective fire).

IMO more roles/niches in combat = better combat. I'm speaking stuff like :

• long range vs short range
• stealth vs shields
• support vs direct engagement

Then again, I'm heavy into tabletop RPG (not only fantasy) and all kind of coop game.
For more 'solitaire' type of players, I can understand the allure of solo only upgrades.
Then again, if there are 30 of them, where is the harm if a dozen are coop focused ?

 

[Mephane]

Just a small suggestion: wouldn't it be awesome if you left that last part about the beams being smart enough to not damage a wing members hull out? It would require additional skill from the pilot using the beaoms, so he couldn't just hold down the trigger mindlessly without observing what happens to his target. Instead, he'd have to be extra careful with his timing so that he'd stop firing as soon as the targets shields went down? Wouldn't that make their usage more interesting?

I like this idea. Otherwise this is really a weapon to be reckless with and not care at all whether you hit a wingman. Also, you may share shield frequencies, but steel plates would care little about that and just melt anyway under the energy...