Shield Regeneration Lasers

[Ian Skippy]

Emphasis mine. This is good to hear. I hope the trade-offs are at least proportional, e.g. "thrusters gain 10% speed but lose 10% agility".

Personally I prefer 'negative' ratio. So specialist ships are 'in total' worse than non-modified ships, but excel in a chosen direction. But we'll see how it all plays out in the beta.

 

[Mamif]

Basically yes. You need to sync the weapon up with their shields and the weapon is also smart enough to become harmless against hulls on wing member too when their shields are down.

With the addition of these can we PLEASE have more buttons per fire group to program weapons to? It would be nice to have all lasers (including Healy ones) on button A, cannon /multis on button B, and just Healy lasers on button C.

More firegroup options plz

 

[Genar-Hofoen]

I see what you did there. It's a tool for wings, really. A gun that replenishes the shield of wing members and won't even do damage if their shields are down. I see you base this of some sort of hidden value (shield frequency?) which you share with your wing but no one outside is supposed to know. That's some Star Trek level handwavium so I can live with that.

But wings already have the advantage in any combat situation anyway compared to a lone ship. Also, the new tool allows wings to drastically shorten downtime between fights due to slow shield regeneration. What is a lone player to do in that situation? Are we going to see an equivalent to this, a device that is activated like a weapon, consumes WEP power and replenishes our own shields? Or is this your (FD, collectively) way of "nerfing solo" indirectly by adding extremely useful tools for regeneration and downtime reduction unavailable to solo players?

Ah you saw that too

It could be FDEV's way of trying to "nudge" people towards playing in Open and winging up etc.

 

[TomP]

Don't thank us just yet. These experimental modifications are weapon specific only at the moment and is only a small part of the engineer update. More traditional modifications that tweak the underlying stats by trading one aspect for another are also a part.

For sure. I'd have been very surprised if there were not some straightforward mods available, but pleased to see that some of the content will be a bit different.

 

[Ian Skippy]

NPC Wingmen confirmed!

Actually, David mentioned NPC wingmen and IIRC NPC crew just before the Horizons release in one of the vid-interviews. It was also mentioned later it would be extremely unlikely to happen in S2, but I never understood why people thought it was definitely ruled out forever...

 

[Mike Evans]

<snip>

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.

 

[Mike Evans]

With the addition of these can we PLEASE have more buttons per fire group to program weapons to? It would be nice to have all lasers (including Healy ones) on button A, cannon /multis on button B, and just Healy lasers on button C.

More firegroup options plz

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

 

[Shadowdancer]

Additionally the lore suggests you need to know something very important about the target shield to help out and that information is exactly what you don't want random ships finding out as it could be used to compromise their shields.

Someone's been watching their Trek

 

[Privata]

Its not a healing class its just a new laser thats been changed to feed your wingmen shields.
so its only your wingmen , you fly support

 

[Nutter]

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.

So this weapon is aimed at getting people playing in a wing and SOLO players stand no chance. I don't think you can force more people to wing up by using goodies. So it's just chucking a carrot for PvP wing players, fair enough, sounds more and more like a pointless weapon/heal tool that only trolls will use against community goals and new players.

Talk about dig your own hole, I won't even mention the exploits this will bring.

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

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.

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

 

[Arubeto]

Basically yes. You need to sync the weapon up with their shields and the weapon is also smart enough to become harmless against hulls on wing member too when their shields are down.

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?

 

[jabokai]

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.

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!

 

[Ian Skippy]

So this weapon is aimed at getting people playing in a wing and SOLO players stand no chance. I don't think you can force more people to wing up by using goodies. So it's just chucking a carrot for PvP wing players, fair enough, sounds more and more like a pointless weapon/heal tool that only trolls will use against community goals and new players.

Talk about dig your own hole, I won't even mention the exploits this will bring.

You know, some people have friends and play PvE. As for pvp: solo players dont stand a chance now anyway, if you dont understand that I can meet you in my wing and I promise we wont use repair beams. [rolleyes] Why is it everytime FD does something for people in multiplayer setting people show up and pretend they are being 'forced' into anything. Its bizarre.

 

[Mephane]

Personally I prefer 'negative' ratio. So specialist ships are 'in total' worse than non-modified ships, but excel in a chosen direction. But we'll see how it all plays out in the beta.

I also do. That is why I said "at least". As in literally "the most little I hope for, but preferrably more".

 

[Ian Skippy]

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!

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

 

[Derath]

So this weapon is aimed at getting people playing in a wing and SOLO players stand no chance. I don't think you can force more people to wing up by using goodies. So it's just chucking a carrot for PvP wing players, fair enough, sounds more and more like a pointless weapon/heal tool that only trolls will use against community goals and new players.

Talk about dig your own hole, I won't even mention the exploits this will bring.

It has literally no impact on anything you've written about :/ like you've just pulled 18 random issues out and chucked them in the direction of a weapon completely dissociated with them

 

[CMDR Corlas]

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.

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.

 

[Thetele]

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.

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.

 

[Ian Skippy]

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.

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.