Make the new "free" slots "NON-MILITARY" only to help prevent yet more power creep/tanking.

[Fake Newts]

What?

It was not me that IMPLIED that there was no engineering done to NPC ships prior to the conflict zone update.

Nor did anyone else? How is this relevant? We seem to have reached critical communication breakdown, here.

I want to engage with you but I genuinely don't understand what it is you're trying to argue. What do you think this thread is about and what is your bone of contention here? Can you try reformulating your argument in bullet point format so we can get to the bottom of it? That'll while away a lunchbreak.

 

[Fake Newts]

Wall of Text:

To add a few more numbers to the pile, just because I am bored so hell why not: if you experiment with weapons vs. non-spec ops CZ ships it should quickly become clear that they do have access to engineering, and many exist in the upper echelons of healthbloatverse.

Recent numbers from discord, 3x G5 efficient plasma accelerators on an FDL (1 huge, 2 medium) against the hull of a master rank Asp Explorer in a medium CZ was consistently doing 7% damage per volley:

These are some of the most powerful weapons in the game, mounted to the most feared ship (widely accepted as OP) . A large portion of PA damage bypasses resistances: 289.8 damage total, of which 173.88 is absolute, the remaining 40% split equally between thermal and kinetic.

If we count the absolute damage and allow for 50% flat resistances to the other damage types that would put the Asp's hull at 3,312 hp. This is over 1000hp more than the max health achievable with vanilla bulkheads and HRPs, allowing for a shield in the largest slot and nothing else. Assuming the Asp build probably wasn't HRPs all the way down, you can guess they have fairly substantial modding applied to their defences. Again, this is a regular, master rank non-speccy Asp just farting around the CZ ineffectually booping stuff with its worthless pulse lasers... it's not a challenging ship to fight, but 3k+ HP makes it a slog regardless.

Other reports include the same complement of plasma accelerators doing 8% damage to certain Cobra III ships, putting their hull at ~2,880 hp. Which is well within their theoretical engineered total.

Of course, this may be subjective. Some people might like a system in which one of the smallest NPC ships in the game takes a full 12.5 plasma accelerator volleys from an FDL to kill, and if so, good for you, you've found the perfect game. Even if you enjoy slow paced repetitive combat, plasma accelerators have an ammo cap of 100, so you're hypothetically looking at 8 tanky cobras per reload (EDIT: not counting shields, so... a lot less), which seems a mite low, no?

All this bearing in mind NPCs will always be significantly worse than player ship builds, so those of you who don't engage in PVP can safely imagine the kinds of healthpools we're talking about.

I'm saying this in the hopes that the people in this thread who're making rambling and unsubstantiated claims about how the system is, or the relative skill levels of players involved, may actually see that this issue is able to be presented empirically - because the game is a big ole' bunch of numbers and being good at the game or otherwise has little bearing on the discussion of HP vs damage.

If you are able to read the numbers presented in this and previous posts and are still convinced balancing is a non-issue, more power to you, but you could do the courtesy of responding in kind, with substantiated claims, or otherwise explain how the system as-is is desirable.

Wall of text ends here.

 

[Fake Newts]

Also just to reiterate an earlier point, that the issue is not just with healthbloat, but with the relative extreme fragility of vanilla ships or bad player builds... that ~281 damage from an FDL would kill a stock Cutter in, conservatively, 4 volleys. 12.5 volleys to kill an NPC Cobra in mid-level PVE, 4 volleys to kill a clueless player in (what they think) is one of the most powerful ships in the game, with a docking computer and a dream. Healthy game. Very healthy.

 

[Arkadi]

I wouldn't mind if the new free slot was dedicated to supercruise assist. I just love that assist. I can so much more post on the forum without overshooting. It's great. I would never waste that slot to anything else but supercruise assist.

And yes, I too see it as an issue that there is too much SB and HRP stacking going on. Fights can really get tedious and last forever without any one getting in real trouble.

But small ships like sidewinder and eagle are in desperate need of a buff. So I would say limit medium and big ships to non-military and leave the extra slots for the small ships.

Or even better, limit the use of platings and boosters to three per kind or somehting like this.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Nor did anyone else? How is this relevant? We seem to have reached critical communication breakdown, here.

I want to engage with you but I genuinely don't understand what it is you're trying to argue. What do you think this thread is about and what is your bone of contention here? Can you try reformulating your argument in bullet point format so we can get to the bottom of it? That'll while away a lunchbreak.

You want to engage? and yet, it was you who did not appear to read my post and replying too it, without you actually caring for that I replied to another post, so you started to reply out of context, and then you wonder how we ended up here?

 

[Fake Newts]

You want to engage? and yet, it was you who did not appear to read my post and replying too it, without you actually caring for that I replied to another post, so you started to reply out of context, and then you wonder how we ended up here?

So thats a 'no' to the clarification, then, I take it?

 

[Fake Newts]

limit the use of platings and boosters to three per kind or somehting like this.

Yeah this kind approach is what Fdev will/would have to adopt if they wanted to tackle the issue while keeping general modular freedom.

The possible silver lining of the situation as it stands (that I am clinging to) is it might finally have gotten uneven and bloated enough that they will actually take notice. The creep has been going on for years, but non-minmaxy players are starting to experience it more directly than before.

 

[Helleborus]

You want to engage? and yet, it was you who did not appear to read my post and replying too it, without you actually caring for that I replied to another post, so you started to reply out of context, and then you wonder how we ended up here?

I gladly give Newt the power to talk about the numbers, since he's the one that came up with the numbers I used in the first place.

 

[Sylow]

I wouldn't mind if the new free slot was dedicated to supercruise assist. I just love that assist. I can so much more post on the forum without overshooting. It's great. I would never waste that slot to anything else but supercruise assist.

And yes, I too see it as an issue that there is too much SB and HRP stacking going on. Fights can really get tedious and last forever without any one getting in real trouble.

But small ships like sidewinder and eagle are in desperate need of a buff. So I would say limit medium and big ships to non-military and leave the extra slots for the small ships.

Or even better, limit the use of platings and boosters to three per kind or somehting like this.

I agree that something needs to be done. But unfortunately what you suggest is not working out. Adding in new limits on ships will create problems. They did so once, on one ship, and people had to contact support to get their ship to be able to launch again.

Doing so on a lot of ships would result in many support tickets. And plenty of people quitting the game, as it would be straw to break the camels back. (Having to contact support for many players seems to be a HUGE barrier. ) So even if support would have the capacity to handle this increased flow of tickets, it would be a problem.

Thus unfortunately cutting down on internals won't work. To avoid things to blow up into FDs face, the effect of internals and engineering would have to be adjusted instead. A good start would be diminishing return for stacking SBs, HRPs and resists.

 

[Misty_Dark]

So thats a 'no' to the clarification, then, I take it?

So what is there to clarify? you replied out of context to my post, since you did not care that it was reply to another post and thus you implied ALOT things with your post, a mess created by YOU... and then you act all like a victim and seeking "clarification", for a mess that you created... and then in the end you it turns out that you perfectly know what I wa talking about, and you also in the did verify that what I did write was basically the same as what you know about this.
1. Engineering in Conflict Zones was NOT introduced with the change to conflict zones
2. That the inflation to defence was caused by ships getting a new combat build with other internals, and this combined with EXISTING engineering mechanics for NPC's, caused the increased defence.

So what is there to clarify? you created a mess, and seems to unable to acknowledge, and instead you play the victim here.

 

[Fake Newts]

So what is there to clarify? you replied out of context to my post, since you did not care that it was reply to another post and thus you implied ALOT things with your post, a mess created by YOU... and then you act all like a victim and seeking "clarification", for a mess that you created... and then in the end you it turns out that you perfectly know what I wa talking about, and you also in the did verify that what I did write was basically the same as what you know about this.
1. Engineering in Conflict Zones was NOT introduced with the change to conflict zones
2. That the inflation to defence was caused by ships getting a new combat build with other internals, and this combined with EXISTING engineering mechanics for NPC's, caused the increased defence.

So what is there to clarify? you created a mess, and seems to unable to acknowledge, and instead you play the victim here.

Thanks for the clarification, my dude. I was worried I had misunderstood you, but in fact I didn't, your post was just tangential and irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Now if you don't mind I will take a moment to bask in this mess I have apparently created, glorious as it plainly is.

 

[Sterling MH]

The military slots should have replaced ordinary slots, but that could not be done because FD never allowed you to store filled cargo in a station (which would not have worked anyway if there were no "Outfitting" at the station dock, so they would have had to add that to every dock too). So the only option here is to undo the imbalance of HRPs.

REALLY SIMPLE METHOD:
They become a "second hull". When your ship takes damage, 50% (as an example) goes to the ship hull, and 50% goes to the HRPs installed. The % taken becomes a maximum multiplier. Engineering to higher levels would cause a lower durability (when durability goes to zero, it cannot take on any damage, so 100% goes to hull now), and engineering resistances would affect THE HRP ONLY. If you had an unbalanced 100% resist all, it would add nothing more than the HRP doesn't wear out in battle. Your hull still takes damage. At 50% damage sharing, the HRPs can only add up to double, and then only if the HRPs have as many, or more, hit points as the ships' hull.

I think it should be possible to make a HRP that intercepts less damage but DOES add to the corrosion resistance: it would be a honeycomb filled with neutralising agents, it breaks when hit (so intercept SOME damage) so as to release the counteracting agent to the corrosion agent on the hull itself.

I would want to see the Reinforced/Military/etc hulls reduced in mass, AT LEAST HALF, maybe a quarter, to make them useful for more than combat oriented builds, and more than merely Heavy Duty Lightweight Alloys for them. I also think that the mirrored hull is UTTERLY WORTHLESS. No, not worthless, WORSE than worthless. Reactive is barely better, and the most expensive by far, both to repair and insure. So I feel that the mirrored needs to be -20,-40,50. Most of an explosion's energy is thermal. It's weaker against the most common type of hull damage, and very strong against the least used damage type for hulls. Reactive should be either cheaper or should be, say, ~20% better off with resistances. E.g. 40,0,-10. It's better in almost all ways, except for thermal, the least likely damage to hull, better with the most common and much better with the less common but more deadly explosion damage.

But the simplest change to HRPs would be twofold:

Resistance engineering would apply ONLY to the HRP module (damage to its durabilty is reduced)
If you stack small modules with engineered resistances, all tht means is you have a cheap repair bill instead of stacking up to, say, 99% resistance, making your hull effectively 100x stronger. This limits the effect of restance engineering making it possible to allow a wider range of resistances and options to play for, what you pick depends on weight, ship durabilty, repair costs and how long you expect to be in combat for.

HRPs intercept a fraction of the damage to the hull, not add to the hull's durability.
If you could add 3000HP to the Eagle via HRPs, it would make no difference than adding 200HP, since the Eagle doesn't HAVE 200HP on its hull. This limits the effect of stacking without removing the options.

 

[Daynen]

Docking computers should never have needed a slot in the first place. Automated docking is something that I would reasonably expect ALL ships to have as standard features, given how much money ship destruction costs. Choosing to use a reasonable safety feature that prevents your ship and others from being destroyed during something as innocuous as parking your ship shouldn't be something you give up utility for. We don't need extra slots; we don't need to shuffle things around; basic safety features should be standard equipment, not options.

Would you be okay with sacrificing your turn signal for, say, a thicker front bumper? Or maybe you don't think your car needs a parking brake as long as it has a tank or two of Nitrous? Betcha the local law enforcement would LOVE to spot you on the road.

Oh but COVAS is legally required by all systems for "insurance purposes."

It's ridiculous, "game logic" be damned.

 

[jnTracks]

But my vulture loves it's new module reinforcements!

(I didn't read the full thread before commenting; do ignore me if it's suites the conversation.)