5.3.2

[Haste]

When we rolled out armor we already assumed the mass tradeoffs wouldn't be nearly significant enough to discourage capital ships from defaulting to (the heaviest) armor upgrades, and that's exactly what they did. Limiting the current set of armor upgrades to snubs was done because they are meant to be a sidegrade system, where you lose evasiveness for an EHP boost. With the current numbers, this works -- for the most part -- for snubs, where mass drastically affects the hitrate of other players against your ship. For capital ships, it's much more complicated. A battlecruiser is not going to be hit any more (or less) by a gunboat just because it's got an extra x% mass -- it's effectively impossible to miss regardless. Even in mirror matchups between heavier ships, the difference isn't anywhere near meaningful enough to offset the HP increase. As a result, everyone and their mother runs the heaviest possible armor upgrades (if they want to win). If we just wanted to flat buff capital ships' hitpoint values, we would do exactly that.

It's quite likely some sort of armor-with-downsides system will return to capital ships in the future, but we'll need to come up with tradeoffs that are interesting, fun and fair.

As for the Akhetaten: it received a balance pass where we reviewed what equipment is lost for each destroyed collision group, how much health each collision group should have, etc. Its 800 base armor looks very imposing, but it affects only the "core" of the ship -- around the docking bay area. Everything else is a collision group with varying armor levels depending on the role we want that component to play. The Shield Generator part has always been very vital, providing both the shield (duh) of the ship, as well as having the rear-facing Main Battery mounted on it. So, it's got a (relatively) big chunk of EHP.

It's likely the Akhe will need further tweaks in the future, as limited playtesting is never going to really give conclusive results. The Consul will likely receive a similar treatment sooner or later. The Bustard needs more work, as just slapping 600+ armor on a ship that isn't "made of components" is probably a bad idea. Plus, I really want it to be good at its intended role of being a long-range, survivable docking-module-focused carrier. This means it has to be (very) bad at just mindlessly driving at lighter ships, which has unfortunately been a strength of many iterations of the Bustard.

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[Lusitano]

the armors on my transports are still mounted ... i have to remove it?

[Dark Chocolate]

When we rolled out armor we already assumed the mass tradeoffs wouldn't be nearly significant enough to discourage capital ships from defaulting to (the heaviest) armor upgrades, and that's exactly what they did. Limiting the current set of armor upgrades to snubs was done because they are meant to be a sidegrade system, where you lose evasiveness for an EHP boost. With the current numbers, this works -- for the most part -- for snubs, where mass drastically affects the hitrate of other players against your ship. For capital ships, it's much more complicated. A battlecruiser is not going to be hit any more (or less) by a gunboat just because it's got an extra x% mass -- it's effectively impossible to miss regardless. Even in mirror matchups between heavier ships, the difference isn't anywhere near meaningful enough to offset the HP increase. As a result, everyone and their mother runs the heaviest possible armor upgrades (if they want to win). If we just wanted to flat buff capital ships' hitpoint values, we would do exactly that.

It's quite likely some sort of armor-with-downsides system will return to capital ships in the future, but we'll need to come up with tradeoffs that are interesting, fun and fair.

As for the Akhetaten: it received a balance pass where we reviewed what equipment is lost for each destroyed collision group, how much health each collision group should have, etc. Its 800 base armor looks very imposing, but it affects only the "core" of the ship -- around the docking bay area. Everything else is a collision group with varying armor levels depending on the role we want that component to play. The Shield Generator part has always been very vital, providing both the shield (duh) of the ship, as well as having the rear-facing Main Battery mounted on it. So, it's got a (relatively) big chunk of EHP.

It's likely the Akhe will need further tweaks in the future, as limited playtesting is never going to really give conclusive results. The Consul will likely receive a similar treatment sooner or later. The Bustard needs more work, as just slapping 600+ armor on a ship that isn't "made of components" is probably a bad idea. Plus, I really want it to be good at its intended role of being a long-range, survivable docking-module-focused carrier. This means it has to be (very) bad at just mindlessly driving at lighter ships, which has unfortunately been a strength of many iterations of the Bustard.

Now Battleships are made of paper again. Thank you.

Kudos Discovery Origami lancer

[JadeTornado]

It's quite likely some sort of armor-with-downsides system will return to capital ships in the future, but we'll need to come up with tradeoffs that are interesting, fun and fair.

I hope it won't, because I don't get why the armor wasn't tweaked all these months (6) if you "already assumed" it's not going to work properly from the start. You needed the exact stat numbers, testers? Why, Haste?

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[Culbrelai]

Battleships, especially heavy battleships, are unusable garbage without armor. A bismarck with 800k hp is not viable. The largest battleships need 1.2m hp or so, mediums could use about 7-800k and lights need about 500-600

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#NotMySNAC

[Slimalou]

I hope capitals and Battleships become playable again outside PVE that is, until then it its just Formlancer for me

[Egon Bigmemes]

It's quite likely some sort of armor-with-downsides system will return to capital ships in the future, but we'll need to come up with tradeoffs that are interesting, fun and fair.

i think you sorely underestimate how much people do not like playing gimmicklancer, especially with caps. this is the wrong game and too clunky of a game to have a dozen hotkeys as the minimum requirement to become barely relevant on the grid. yeah i have to engage with the gimmick (i just turn my shield off then never turn it back on) but having to use the gimmick isnt enjoying it. so whatever tradeoff you come up with will undoubtedly compound with the painful (read, tooth-pulling) gameplay of capital ships

you can do whatever you want, as theres no one capable of/willing to tell you no, but caps are a lost cause for all but a few.
as an anecdote, the first and only time i've had fun flying anything larger than a gunboat since the rework was fist fighting Tenshi and the Akhetaten in conn for an hour or two a month ago and learning how to abuse its component setup. and thats ONLY because i had the hull durability to make some mistakes. anything less is generally instant death at one (1) fuck-up.

[Megiddo]

Any chance of getting nanobats reinstated for cruisers, BCs and BSes to compensate for the loss of armor?

[Vendetta]

All the ships I fly are shelved again, thanks to the removal of armors from caps. Bad enough they felt like paper with armor, now it's wet paper in a puddle. You've busted the kneecaps of cap players enough. Please just give us back our armor values and power cores. Do away with the shield toggle trash. Please make the game fun.

[darkwind]

All the ships I fly are shelved again, thanks to the removal of armors from caps. Bad enough they felt like paper with armor, now it's wet paper in a puddle. You've busted the kneecaps of cap players enough. Please just give us back our armor values and power cores. Do away with the shield toggle trash. Please make the game fun.

feels like, if Haste was a president, people would have probably raised already a Vote Of No Confidence procedure to vote the president out of an office.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_of_no_confidence

Haste described to me his logic how he designs the numbers for his balance. i see his thinking and understand that anything related to fun is not part of the equation. Or even more like, any fun gameplay is treated as abuse in this equation and counter balanced at every possible level. Not very having any confidence for things to going good way unless something drastic gets changed, Haste gets changed or he suddenly made reading of a book about Balancing Without Designing fun out of system. Smth like that. Some serious changes to thinking design regarding balance needed present to fix it at this point.
- https://www.amazon.com/Art-Game-Design-B...0123694965
- https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Game-Desig...449363210/
any Balance dev taken to replace Haste should be preferably hired without input of Haste as well. Otherwise he will Veto any balance dev that is not already adhering to his way of thinking.

I tried already explaining things that Shield Energy mechanic is against User Experience and communicating other issues. At each step i get encountered his "balancing by numbers" that is against any User Experience or does not have it included at least. i do not have confidence for long time at this point in what is done regarding Balance.

Technically i should not be writing things like that as they are overly pesimisstic and all that. and if i write complains i should suggest a fix?
I guess the suggested fix is already proposed in this msg. Vote of no confidence for haste, and getting hired new balance dev without Haste input into it is probably the way to go forward. most people are unlikely to change in their long time established thinking even if all materials will be telling different after all, so it is probably the easiest path.

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