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+---- Thread: Armor Upgrades .... (/showthread.php?tid=12459)
Armor Upgrades .... - El Nino - 09-26-2008
I just had this idea this morning... and i come here and there's already a post about it.:Dgreat show!
you can add mass to any item. right now armor upgrades have very little mass. It would be great if mass was added to booth basic and capital upgrades. I purpose something like this...
mk1 5
mk2 10
.
.
.
mk8 40
A typical VHF has 150 mass mk8 armor upgrade would nerf it's strafing and acceleration by 20% that would be only strafing acceleration and such. A small trade off for a VHF but light fighters thou would see a dramatic 40% decrease...
cap8 5000 one third of BS mass thus 25% slower acceleration, strafe and such
put the same armor on a gunboat with it's 500 or something mass and everything becomes very strange indeed. even cruisers only have about 800 (that's battle cruisers) so this part may be very hard to balance. We could make cap8 reserved for battleships. Cap 7 could be something cruisers could use well, and cap 6 suitable for gunboats, and the rest quite friendly to all ships so..
cap7 400
cap6 200
cap5 100
cap4 75
cap3 55
cap2 35
cap1 15
This would provide you with some variation... as you would have a choice, mount cruiser like armor, on your gb, for extra durability, or stay within your gb range, or even opt for cap5 that gives you some good speed.
While this seems great at first glance, right now armor upgrades show that you've invested a great deal of money in to replacing existing ship components with more durable ones for that extra durability.
Armor Upgrades .... - ferongr - 09-26-2008
Does the mass value actually have an impact ingame?
On the other hand, doubling the mass of a gunboat with the current balance (I don't know what's in store for 4.85) would make them totally useless. There needs to be many lines of armor upgrades, each for each class of capital ship
Gunboats:
MKI:100
...
MKVIII:250
Cargo: 300
Cruisers:
MKI: 200
...
MKVIII: 500
Cargo: 500 to 650 (something a gunboat can't mount)
BattleShips:
MKI:2000
...
MKVIII: 7000
Cargo: 1000 (slightly above BC cargo)
Armor Upgrades .... - El Nino - 09-26-2008
Yeah but each item you add slows the game down a bit... mass does have impact. But only on acceleration. (and collision damage) At the current rate the only thing preventing you from placing a cap8 on your gunboat is it's price. But that never held back many people... If it's mass would be higher, say even at 300 that would effect gunboats enough to consider diffrent armor upgrades...
Armor Upgrades .... - ferongr - 09-26-2008
To be honest, it's not the number of parts that slow down the game's performnance (only loading times are affected) but the fact that most of our ini files are uncompressed, not in bini formats. That is what causes micro-pauses when patrols spawn, or when a player undocks.
Ini text files are not read natively by FL, they are converted to BINI first, and then read. Memory usage goes up too.
On the issue of armors, with the cap-ship spin fix coming next mod version (I hope) it will be a lot harder to have a universal caprship armor line, and balancing it without making the lighter crafts useless (or having no effect on heavier craft).
Armor Upgrades .... - Jinx - 09-26-2008
the impact of greater mass is much greater on vessels with low mass by nature. - so a titan will be less affected by a greater mass than a sabre. - a battleship less than a gunboat.
but not only that. - a battleship couldn t care less. it cannot really dodge enemy fire anyway - it relies purely on its armour. - a gunboat however, relies on its ability not to be hit by enemy fire at all - and the armour is only a secondary defense mechanism.
what will the changes do then? - battleships will mount type 8... cause it matters not much if they are the slowest vessels in the game... or the slowest vessels in the game. mobility for most of them is secondary to armour.
gunboats however will rely on the mobility. - so they must not equip such armour at all - if they do, the defense effect is twisted and detrimental. they can take more hits... but they also DO take more hits. - so a battleship is not affected by it, while a gunboat will be weakened. ( compared to the current state )
same with fighters. - a titan is slow anyway, a bit slower won t hurt much. a sabre is quick. - a bit slower will hurt it much more. - so the titan will equip armour - the sabre will not. henceforth a sabre that wants to keep its quickness will have like half the armour of a titan ( guesswork ). the effect is only detrimental, never beneficial.
from the current state of things.... ships handling will only become worse. so eveyone looses, but some loose more than others.
Armor Upgrades .... - Varyag - 09-26-2008
I would GLADLY stripp all the armor off my fighters for a manuverability advantage.
Armor Upgrades .... - SanjitVignesh - 09-26-2008
There is another choice. Why not make armor upgrades affect the thrusters. Like either use armor upgrade or a thruster. That will make a lot of changes and will end the problem.
Armor Upgrades .... - Camtheman Of Freelancer4Ever - 09-26-2008
I was sitting outside Toldeo and one of my friends in a pirate train got stuck in Isis. The osiris's tried to ram him out, and they couldnt do it. My battlestar could? because it had more mass?
Armor Upgrades .... - Lupusy - 09-28-2008
(edit -- oh it looks like it can be easy to stick in a mass number for each armour 0-- oh well so much for my idea it will be difficult to do it lol)
i dont think the time to do a weight/agility mod for armour upgrades is worthwhile in FL. Ultimately, ap ships are lumbering beasts anyway so slowing them more isn't going to make them an easier target. They're sitting pigeons anyway...
I think it would be much better just to wait for the next generation of FL software -- should be out in abiout 2 years time. (X4 i heard..., the sequel to X3 the game).
But.. from a gaming veiwpoint -- the issue still remains : should more armour make capships less agile? And the answer i think is yes. It would be nice to have a battlcruier fly circles/escape an armoured battleship.
But I just think there are more important things to fix in FL than this armour thing first.
Armor Upgrades .... - El Nino - 09-28-2008
I just tested this equipment mass does not change ships at all... So this whole Idea fails.. Cargo requirement is the only thing that can be changed...