Idea on Capships, Bombers, and VHFs

[Panzer]

Whatever gets done, the Kusari (red catamarans too) bombers should get an epic nerf.

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[Jinx]

mind, dab has not made that thread to execute or get backup for any nerfs - but it was a suggestion about rebalance in total.

the greatest problem i see in attempting to rebalancing on a "shipclass" basis is ... that the capabilities of the shipCLASS within is too great anyway.

looking at the VHF - you have a range from:
- blood dragon ---> werewolf

when its about bombers - you have a range from:
- red catamaran ---> barghest

on gunboats - you have:
- BHG gunship ---> kusari explorer

on cruisers you have:
- BHG destroyer ---> outcast destroyer

and on battleships you got:
- osiris ---> rheinland battleship

a lot of those classes overlap generously when the discussion is about the classes to be separated clearly....

so - we have a problem that the red cat is somewhat better in a dogfight than lets say - a werewolf ( its smaller, has more firepower, more armour and heavier weapons )

we have a BHG gunship that is not much bigger than a barghest, nor much less agile...

etc. - what we currently miss is a definite bottomline of shipclasses. - so of course one would say - that the LEAST agile VHF is still more agile than the MOST agile bomber ( and of course the smallest bomber should be bigger than the biggest VHF ) .... but sadly, it is not like that... and some models ( like the red cat ) do not allow to upscale without looking utterly silly.

right now - we try to keep most variables equal ( like top speed, shield power, usable weapons etc. ) - so all fighters have the same top speed, all fighters use the same type of weapons ( except for the bomber specific torpedos ) and all of them use the same shields.

the more variables we define uniquely for each shipclass, the more balancing has to be done. - and while in theory its possible of course - such balancing takes up a major part of the "expansion". and at one time.... we d like to "deliver" the 4.85 version. ( i think i remember that blizzard needed over 3 month of intensive beta testing for only the balance on diablo 2 - and years on the battlenet to further balance - and THEY only had 5 char classes with a few skills - while we have like hundreds of ships, countless weapons and an ambition to create a believable yet fair roleplay enviroment )

when it comes to uniqueness - players are very cunning... they are VERY good at figuring out the raw advantages and disadvantages... and few players would really restrain themselves from making use of what they CAN do.

if you say that a supernova is meant to hit capital ships - and capships only. - players can either stick to that - or they say "hey, but i m good at blowing up fighters up with it, too - so i ll do it"

nothing would be easier than to ask the players to use heavy anti-cap weaponry only against capships.... it would mean that a lot of the problems would be solved... when bombers only used their light weapons against fighters.... but you ll soon see that players simply will NOT keep it under control. - they WILL use the supernova .... cause they can.

but in order to create a perfect or almost perfect balance based on the shipclasses... the shipclasses would need to be balanced in itself. - that includes fully new concepts of ships, roles - models, weapons. too much work for a voluntary freelancer project, i daresay.

a compromise is to take a step back and simply enjoy what we got. - bombers can fight against VHFs with surprising ease... we cannot boast the VHF, nor can we nerf the bombers ( as a class ) too much. we can nerf a few ships - but thats not the point of a general discussion about the shipclasses balance.

like i said - version 4.85 will take a whole new attempt at ship balance. the greatest effect of it will be that... it will feel very different - and many players will feel like utter noobs once 4.85 is out. old tactics won t work anymore - and even the aces will need to "learn" again.

but it will not take too long untill we get the same old problems - thats asured. we will not be able to:
- make battleships as powerful ( or the smaller capships ) as they "ought" to be in terms of roleplay...
- balance ships so that everyone feels treated fairly - and its only down to skill

i expect tons of complaints of "how the dev team messed it all up" once the next version is out - and it ll take some time till everyone will get used to it - but still.. i am quite confident that we are making the right steps to revise the shipclasses.

in some parts we go much further than Dab suggested, in some parts we don t go that far.

but for the major part of it - ( from what i experienced on the beta ) - capship fights are FUN. - both bomber vs. cap ( and thats fun for both sides ) as well as cap vs. cap.

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Shipdesigns made for DiscoveryGC

[gekerd]

ok
spitfire: spn of 11,2 meters, 6 guns, but can only cary a 230kg bomb (razor equivalent)
And indeed a bomber with only 3 forwardfiring guns would be a good plan in my oppinion
(and a mustang was able to cary 2 500lb bombs (1000lb in total) while the Yokosuka D4Y (Japanese dive bomber) could cary 1,765 lb of bombs, and the SBD could cary 2,250 lb of bombs)

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[Akumabito]

I think that the job of mod "balancing" becomes impossible if you don't start with specific ship classes with well defined ranges of attributes.

I also think this is the reason there is so much trouble on this mod with balance between different equipment from different ID's.

Now some would say the "band aid" approach currently used is best, you tweak it between mod releases or pass some unwritten rule to break a combo, break the old uber equipment, create new unbalances and it takes a couple days for some with datastorm and SP to figure out what is uber in the new mod, it takes the average player until he gets fragged by the uber setup a couple times to figure it out himself, it's exciting for a while (more exciting that a logical method from the baseline I'll grant), then when the honeymoons over everyone's complaining about it here and things get back to normal.

I for one think starting with a baseline for every class, from lf to dreadnaught so that they are balanced within their classes, then balancing the baseline from class to class is better. It eliminates or at least minimizes the useless ships that do nothing but take up space. It makes choice of an ID more about the ID RP than about the cool equipment or the advantages PvP, and it creates a sense of fair play.

[Akumabito]

ok
spitfire: spn of 11,2 meters, 6 guns, but can only cary a 230kg bomb (razor equivalent)
And indeed a bomber with only 3 forwardfiring guns would be a good plan in my oppinion
(and a mustang was ble o cary 2 500lb bombs (1000lb in total)

A P-51 could carry two 1000lb bombs

A spitfire could carry two 250lb bombs (and had either 8 guns or 4 guns two cannons)

Dive bombers weren't bombers, they were a designation now called attack aircraft, a fighter like craft that had a primarily air to ground role. Most dive bombers didn't have more ordinance than a fighter.

When you start putting the SN on a ship instead of a mini torp, that's a magnitude increase, that's basically going from external mounted bombs, like fighters carry, to a bomb bay, like a bomber has.

That's when the size doubles and the handling goes to crap compared to a fighter.

[gekerd]

but then dive bombers where as well designed to take down enemy ships(by hitting hem in a weak spot in stead of hitting them hard, but since presicion bombing aint possible in FL) so I think they should say as they are now (maybe a little less agility)

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[Akumabito]

but then dive bombers where as well designed to take down enemy ships(by hitting hem in a weak spot in stead of hitting them hard, but since presicion bombing aint possible in FL) so I think they should say as they are now (maybe a little less agility)

Dive bombers carried the same armament fighters did, in FL terms that's a mini razor, when you are comparing a SN equipped bomber vs. a minirazor equipped vhf to a dive bomber vs. a fighter the comparison fails.

If you want the equivalent of a dive bomber in FL, use a vhf with a minirazor.

something the size and agility of a fighter shouldn't be able to support a SN in FL. If so then put bomber powerplants on the fighters as well.

[Camtheman Of Freelancer4Ever]

I probably will say the developers screwed up, and keep my self lowered to 4.84 or 4.82, since those are the best versions IMO in a capwhores eyes:)

Hey, if its good enough i might just get 4.85:)
Besides, i spent so much time on discovery 24/7 its too late to redeem it.

Anywho.

I think the shield regen should be less, but NOT almost zero. They should be where VHF's cannot hurt the shield sucniffiantly enough for the bomber to finish him off, but it should be low enough where the bombers can win.

[mjolnir]

I think that the job of mod "balancing" becomes impossible if you don't start with specific ship classes with well defined ranges of attributes.

I also think this is the reason there is so much trouble on this mod with balance between different equipment from different ID's.

We are not as stupid as you might think....

anyway about 80%++ of the balancing tests and discussions are lately about testing the most "abusable" things you can come with ... cause yes players have a nice ability to go as ooRP as possible just to get some PVP advantage.

Some examples:
In 4.84 catamarans are very good ships within Kusari (fighting BDs/Chimaeras), once people take them to NY they are extremely unbalanced of course, because liberty and kusari ship are quite different.

Or the Blood Dragon fighter, with Daitos it's very hard to hit but also needs time to kill things... then people mount 6 Krakens and Inferno on it and head to liberty...

BHG Gunship.... with normal armor and normal turrets + basic missiles is quite ok...... then people mount Cap 8 and kusari missiles on it...

GBs missiles... 1-2 make the GBs perfectly balanced against fighters bombers..... so people mount 7 for good measure :lol:

BHG BC is nice ship for BHG to use for fighting enemy capships..... so people mount 6 missiles on it and go hunt fighters....:lol:

...the list could be very long...


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Anyway you can't "box" all ships into easily defined classes with limits very far from each other.

1. It's no problem to make all ships have almost exactly the same stats.... what does it do?... .INCREDIBLY boring mod.

2. Some of those differences come from vanilla. (Wolfhound Size, Kusari dessie size ++)

=> I like to actually make the differences in the class even bigger. Sure suddenly one ship can beat all in it's class 1vs1. But dies to other classes all the time... etc..

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Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.

[Akumabito]

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Anyway you can't "box" all ships into easily defined classes with limits very far from each other.

Yes you can, since you need to redo the SP difficulty hierarchy anyway to rebalance the vanilla ships it's pretty easy, if you attack it from the big picture viewpoint.

And it doesn't make for a boring mod to have specs within a preset range, in fact it makes no difference to anyone except the player who want's to find the best pvp setup, and is that who you are catering to?

It's when you start giving people an edge, making a BD bomber for the NovaPG for instance that's better than the rest of the bombers that you cause balance problems.