Ship weapons rework

[Ophiuchus]

About ship weapons targeting:

This basically depends on how we want it to be

...
If it depends on me (it doesn't), anti-ship weapons, understood as any with enough damage per shot to be a waste fired at drones, should target ships first.
Whether they are going to fire anything or ships first, it is quite decisive for weapons design.

I also have this feeling the current MD,L,P, and DR weapons should target ships first. But there are some variants which make fighters as targets still valuable:

• there needs to be a battle scanner part to target ships first. Make that part external and it will compete with another weapon in ship design. So some designs would not have that part and you could use the normal fighters against such designs.
• there could be special fighters as defense measure. Normal fighters would be ignored but such "Shadow" fighters register as "real ships" to the sensors. These could be e.g. zero damage decoy fighters with high launch rate. High ship detection value could help against Shadow fighters.
• instead of tiered targeting, some probabilistic targeting could be used. Battle scanner parts could increase your chance not to hit a fighter.

About in-combat-regeneration:

My gut feeling says i do not like it so much

Ah, too bad. I liked it as more interesting than the robotics interface shield.
But if no developer likes the idea, regeneration after combat and some kind of swarm shield shall do the trick.

I probably missed it, but what is a swarm shield?

[Oberlus]

there needs to be a battle scanner part to target ships first. Make that part external and it will compete with another weapon in ship design.

It may fit well as an internal slot part, to compete with shields, hangars, stealth and engines. For most of the greater hulls, one more or less external slot is close to irrelevant.

what is a swarm shield?

I meant the effect to give greater shield the more ships are in the fleet (the RI:S part effect). I'm planning to give some asteroid hulls some built-in shield capabilities (as in current asteroid hull line, nothing new, and not "swarm" but fixed) and the robotic hulls will have the RI:S part, that is that swarm shield effect. Biotec will be good at making swarms of ships but I'm not giving them (unless consensus against it) swarm shield, because they will have best stealth and growing HP and damage over time and that is enough for specialisation flavour and defence capabilities.

[Oberlus]

Guys, I need your opinion on one thing.

Currently (and in the future), weapons have a base damage value, and a damage increase value:

WEAPON	Base dmg.	Dmg. inc.	Max. dmg.
Mass driver	3	1	9
Laser	5	2	17
Plasma	9	3	27
Death ray	15	5	45

There is only one multi-shot weapon, the flak cannon, with base damage 3 that doesn't increase. That its damage doesn't grow is ok for the flak, intended against drones (1 HP), but its a no-no for anti-ship weapons that, via tech improvements, must be able to keep up for a while versus greater tier counterparts.

So, for anti-ship, multi-shot weapons, the base damage and damage increase per shot needs to be smaller (compared to single-shot) to get a similar damage per combat.
Example:

WEAPON	Tier	Base DPS	#shots	DPS inc.	Max. dmg. per shot	Max. Dmg. per round
Mass driver	1	3	1	1	9	9
Pulse cannon	1	1	3	0.33	3	9

So we have to use decimals or to scale up the damage of every weapon until the smallest damage increase is an integer. I vote for the later.

My question:

Would you mind if I scale up all the numbers by 6x?
The base damage of the smallest single-shot weapon (current mass driver) would be 27, and the shots of the biggest weapons (like current spinal antimatter cannon) would reach 540.
The armours would be scaled up so that standard armor would be 36 (or 40, there are no problems here with roundings) and xentronium 180 (or 200).

[Ophiuchus]

I personally would not mind scaling the numbers up. Basically you get used to such a thing.

But... if we need to rewrite all the damages and structure values in FOCS anyway, i would suggest tackling the combat round issue. What i mean by that: In my opinion four combat rounds instead of three would help in differentiating the weapons/ship designs. This is definitly true for the fighters: it makes the launch turn hit smaller. Currently it makes no sense to add spare attack *fighters for a combat, because those only have a single chance to attack, with four rounds this doubles to two chances to attack, so it probably makes sense to have designs which have two bomber hangars per launch bay. Also in the discussion about simplistic ranges (range determining the first combat turn a weapon may fire), in the context of stealthed close combat ships we found it makes a lot of sense to have an extra combat turn.

So I suggest to up the default number of combat turns to four for your design considerations. In practice with the current system i would rather do the following implementation:

• Up the default number of combat rounds to four. This will mean ship weapons do 4/3 more damage and fighters usually To mostly keep the balance, up the (max)structure accordingly (i.e. multiply with 4/3)
• Optional: Make ship (max)structure a formula which is combat turn dependent/ or dependent on a structure-multiplier game setting, so if one chooses a different number of combat rounds, damage can be balanced against structure

Going the other way (nerf weapon damage accordingly by multiplying it by 3/4) is probably the wrong way, as the values are lower so probably you hit fractions sooner (i.e. with structure it is probably ok to do some rounding, while it is not ok to do so for damage).

Also I would prefer easy damage numbers if possible. So why not multiply by ten the base weapons are rather tenish (MD30,40,50,60). Hm, but of course then weapon damage for your use case would need to be rounded. If we want to keep integers without rounding, the "one" should factor in the number of combat turns. Why do you propose 6 instead of 3 for a "one"?

So I add a question to the team - is it ok to base damage/structure on a multiplier-setting or not? And if so should that multiplication be done in the backend or in FOCS? (If we do it in FOCS, we need to sprinkle that multiplier reference everywhere, probably by using macros)

[Oberlus]

I suggest to up the default number of combat turns to four for your design considerations

Absolutely. At first I was considering both cases (3 and 4 rounds) and more possible ratios of fire (1,2,3,4,6...), but as things got more complicated I've focused on 4 rounds and 1,3,6 fire rates.

Optional: Make ship (max)structure a formula which is combat turn dependent/ or dependent on a structure-multiplier game setting, so if one chooses a different number of combat rounds, damage can be balanced against structure

This is indeed worth considering. I mean, taking the values for number of rounds and armour capacity as fixed parameters, the values of shields and damage per shot must be carefully set to allow for interesting strategic choices. For example, multi-shot must be better than single-shot against many-small fleets but worse against shields, looking for the sweet spot at which shields are still relevant against single-shot weapons but multi-shot are not completely useless against shields (otherwise, shields and single-shot/drones become the only reasonable strategy). So, knowing that for a fixed number of rounds it is already hard to find a good balance, changing the number of turns without changing the rest of the number would horribly disrupt the relations among the different weapons and defenses and render useless some or most of the strategic choices.
Once I finished balancing all the weapons and defenses I'll see what would be the best way to automatically adapt the numbers in function of the chosen number of rounds per combat.

Why do you propose 6 instead of 3 for a "one"?

I'm still not sure about the number. I'll give you a proper description of my reasoning once I finish the balancing (I'm close to, just too much fuss at work).

[Oberlus]

I'm having trouble balancing drones vs cannons with flaks targetting first bombers and other drones, because (with current mechanics) 1 flak implies a -66% of base damage of bombers and fighters.

The only solution I found is to increase the damage of bombers (and not its cost) and to triple the number of drones per hangar: 6 bombers and 9 fighters (haven't worked on the interceptors to balance them against this new figures for the other drones).

Is it acceptable to multiply by 3 the drone hangar and bay capacities?
Edit: the answer might be no for balance reasons, so forget about the question. If cannons (MD, laser, etc.) does not target ships first and we triple bomber and figther numbers, they become on par for damage to comparable investment on cannons and also get a huge boost to its cannon fodder effect an so OP. I need more calculations with different costs to see if it can be balanced. Maybe it can with the targetting computer part (to remove the cannon fodder effect of the enemy drones you need to sacrifice an interior part, like the hangars; otherwise their going to wipe out your ass; maybe this will imply that every non-drone empires must rush to get the computer, and in that case we should made it tier 1 or 2) and giving the actual (new) decoy drones much lower numbers than regular drones, like 2 per hangar (fluff explanation: to appear like ships they need to be bigger, so less of them can fit in the hangar).

I guess it will cause some extra overload for combat computations: assuming the regular battle has 4-6 drones per ship, this would increase the number of objects by +167%.
Also combat log, obviously, but that could be fixed I think.

[Krikkitone]

I'm having trouble balancing drones vs cannons with flaks targetting first bombers and other drones, because (with current mechanics) 1 flak implies a -66% of base damage of bombers and fighters.

The only solution I found is to increase the damage of bombers (and not its cost) and to triple the number of drones per hangar: 6 bombers and 9 fighters (haven't worked on the interceptors to balance them against this new figures for the other drones).

Is it acceptable to multiply by 3 the drone hangar and bay capacities?
Edit: the answer might be no for balance reasons, so forget about the question. If cannons (MD, laser, etc.) does not target ships first and we triple bomber and figther numbers, they become on par for damage to comparable investment on cannons and also get a huge boost to its cannon fodder effect an so OP. I need more calculations with different costs to see if it can be balanced. Maybe it can with the targetting computer part (to remove the cannon fodder effect of the enemy drones you need to sacrifice an interior part, like the hangars; otherwise their going to wipe out your ass; maybe this will imply that every non-drone empires must rush to get the computer, and in that case we should made it tier 1 or 2) and giving the actual (new) decoy drones much lower numbers than regular drones, like 2 per hangar (fluff explanation: to appear like ships they need to be bigger, so less of them can fit in the hangar).

I guess it will cause some extra overload for combat computations: assuming the regular battle has 4-6 drones per ship, this would increase the number of objects by +167%.
Also combat log, obviously, but that could be fixed I think.

If 1 flak is -66% damage to fighters+bombers, you shouldn't triple their damage,
the way it should work

fighter+bombers v. non flak > regular beam weapons > fighter-bombers v. flak

So probably just double the numbers
(so the values would be 2 > 1 > 0.66)

[Oberlus]

If 1 flak is -66% damage to fighters+bombers, you shouldn't triple their damage,
the way it should work

fighter+bombers v. non flak > regular beam weapons > fighter-bombers v. flak

So probably just double the numbers
(so the values would be 2 > 1 > 0.66)

Indeed. Doubling the numbers may work out well.
I wasn't going to triple their damage, only their numbers, by reducing the damage per drone accordingly. If 2 bombers were doing 2x5 damage per round, doubled bombers should do 2.5 per shot, same damage per round. Thus, losing 3 of the drones to the flak after first round of combat does not remove all the drone wing, there would be 1 bomber or 3 figthers on the next round. This way vs 1 flak bombers have 40% efficiency (instead of 33%) and fighters 50% (instead of 33%). With tripled numbers, bombers would have 50% efficiency and fighters 66%. Going for doubled numbers now and making the base damage per combat of bombers +25% compared to the damage output of 3 same-tier cannons (*), so that -60% efficiency vs flak means -20% compared to 2 cannons + 1 flak (or compared to cannons vs shield). Thus I think bomber vs non-flak > cannon vs unshield > cannon vs shielded > bomber vs flak.
And I'll try to make fighters vs non-flak = cannon vs unshield > cannon vs shielded = fighters vs flak.

(*) I value internal slots twice that of external slots (and core slots 4x), so drones take up 3 external-slot-equivalent, and so I compare against 3 cannons and against 2 cannons and 1 flak.

[Ophiuchus]

I'm having trouble balancing drones vs cannons with flaks targetting first bombers and other drones, because (with current mechanics) 1 flak implies a -66% of base damage of bombers and fighters.

Some thoughts; interceptors (or similar cheap dummies) are one kind of counter against flak; a worse alternative than changing the numbers of boats is changing the base number of flak shots (because its influence of pilot skill level is 1); in the current system i think bombers should get a damage upgrade compared to fighter damage; with effective counters a boat will shoot only once, without counters it will shoot number-of-combat rounds minus one; If ship cannons target enemy ships first, there is no real balance problem with tripling/doubling the capacity of hangars and launch bays because boats do not provide cover for the ships.

[Oberlus]

Some thoughts; interceptors (or similar cheap dummies) are one kind of counter against flak; a worse alternative than changing the numbers of boats is changing the base number of flak shots (because its influence of pilot skill level is 1); in the current system i think bombers should get a damage upgrade compared to fighter damage; with effective counters a boat will shoot only once, without counters it will shoot number-of-combat rounds minus one; If ship cannons target enemy ships first, there is no real balance problem with tripling/doubling the capacity of hangars and launch bays because boats do not provide cover for the ships.

I agree in every point.

[Oberlus]

First complete proposal of weapons for the New Tech Tree.

Find in the attach xls file a table with most relevant numbers to balance damage and cost as of my method.

For each weapon, the damage per slot and damage per PP is calculated for six cases: maximum, vs shields, vs flaks (vs interceptors would require an extra column, at start I thought it was redundant now I'm not so sure), vs tiny ships (defense bases on overkill damage waste), vs stealth ships with close range weaponry, and vs decoys (drones that are targeted by anti-ship weapons even with the targeting computer), and this is done twice, for base numbers of the weapons and defenses, and for maximum numbers (late game scenario).

Right know I'm too lazy to include in the xls the explanation of the different formulas for the vs defense cases, but the formulas themselves are in there, and I got a file with most of the explanations so I could add it here if someone is interested.
I've checked most of the numbers and I think they are free of correct, but that is not exactly sure for the most complex equations. Also, at least one of the formulas is not very solid, the one vs decoys, its seems a good approximation for small numbers of ships but not good for large numbers estimations. I tried another version based on probabilities but that gave very odd results for 1vs1 battles.

To balance the weapons, I've tried (a) to keep similar total damage output of the ships for same tier and number of slots required (so that the more shots per combat, the less damage per shot, but overall the same total damage), with some extra boost (of damage as well as cost) for multi-shot weapons to make them not completely useless against same tier shields, and (b) to keep same damage/PP for same tier weapons, slowly growing from tier to tier (that is, higher tier weapons do more damage per PP invested; I thought at the begining that wasn't necessary, that constant damage/PP would be balanced, but after thinking more on it I belive that would make low-tech high-production strategies OP).
There are 5 tiers, although most of the tier 5 weapons require a core slot. Next tier is always 1.5x stronger than previous tier. Tier 5 is 5x tier 1 (currently we have tier 4 weapons are 5x tier 1).

There are particularities in some of the weapons:

• Some are intended to be unique (no more than one per ship): the asteroid ram and the different "mouths" of living ships (claws, jaws and maw). Now I realise I haven't indicated this in the file. Also, most core weapons included could or should be scripted as unique also because I'm introducing a mastodontic hull with 2 core parts.
• One of the mech weapons (kinetic torpedoes) is an external-slot weapon that require a single, shared internal part (as a form of ammo storage, but the real reason is to force the use of some of the interior part to balance for its extra damage/cost efficiency).
• As I understand (and like) living hulls, they won't be affected by its species pilot trait and will grow with time instead. So the 6 maximum refinements indicated is just a way to reuse the formulas of the other three themes. The maximum value (shown in the table) will require growth time to get the equivalent of the pilot trait bonus, as well as the regular three tech refinements.

I think that's all.

Check the notes tab for the meaning of the variables.

While I wait for your feedback I have much more things to do regarding the new tech tree, so I can wait for a long time. Don't hesitate to answer in this thread even if it is getting cold.

PS: I am very interested on anyone's and everyone's insight on whatever related to weapons, balance, early vs late game, theme vs theme, strategy vs strategy, etc. And I am particularly interested on the thoughts of Dilvish, Vezzra and Geoff. Geoff, I think you did the initial numbers, which I've found really well balanced, so I'm certainly eager to know anything you have to object to this proposal.

[The Silent One]

I can't open the file with excel. Can you maybe provide a more compatible file type?

[Oberlus]

Can you maybe provide a more compatible file type?

Indeed!
I'm attaching my native format (open document, libreoffice) and csv (which loses some formating, but is able to keep the formulae).
Edit: and xlsx. Maybe I didn't save well the xls (2003) file. Reattaching it here.

[The Silent One]

.xlsx works as intended, thank you.

[Oberlus]

Looking at the damage/PP efficiencies of the last tier (3-5) weapons of each theme against each type of defences, one can make an estimation of the overall effectiveness of that theme against each defense.

Theme's weaponry effectiveness vs. types of defence (late game)

	Shields	Flaks	Tiny ships	Stealth+CR	Decoys
Biotec	Avg. to good	Avg. to good	Bad to avg. (1)	Average	Bad to avg.
Cybertec	Good	Average (2)	Avg. to good	Average	Good
Energy	Bad	Good	Average	Bad to avg.	Avg. to good
Mech	Good	Good	Bad	Average	Bad to avg.(3)

(1) Average if it has enough acid spores.
(2) Can be bad if defenders gets extra flaks.
(3) Average if it abuses flaks, which Mech can do easily due to its surplus of external slots.

I didn't include the information on which themes have which non-weapon defenses in the spreadsheet I attached before:

• Shields: Energy theme has the shields. Cybertec has the swarm shield (current Robotic Interface: Shields). Some asteroid hulls will have some base shield capabilities.
• Flaks: Mech has a tier 1 flak cannon, non-upgradable (I can change my mind on that). Biotec has an upgradable tier 1, flak-like weapon (spines), and Energy has plenty of multi-shot weapons, including the tier 2 pulse cannon that ones upgraded to 6 shot will be the best flak cannon in game, although doubling the number of slots (by doubling the number of ships) and equiping instead the almost-half-as-expensive Mech flak will have similar results for similar cost.
• Tiny hulls: Every theme will have at least one tiny (1-2 external-equivalent slots, EE slots) and one small (3-5 EE slots) ships, except the self-grav. hull line (Mech has that and asteroid hull line), but specially Biotec will have more variety of external-internal slot proportion. So any empire focused in a single theme could still try the many tiny ships vs big weapons defence, but Biotec would be the most versatile.
• Stealth: Biotec will have dedicated stealth parts (living-hull only) and the hulls with greater base stealth. Cybertec will also have stealth parts and be an option for stealth colonisation, but will be harder for them to pursue the stealth-combat strategy and less interesting for its kind of weaponry (no CR-like weapons in Cybertec until tier 4, the assault pods, drones that does not launch until second round). Edit: same goes for Mech, but it will have no stealth parts, just some camouflage asteroid hulls with some base stealth. So, a mix of Mech asteroid hulls and Cybertec stealth parts could rival with Biotec stealth capabilities, if it abuses CR weapons of Mech (that are not so versatile as the Biotec CR weapons).
• Decoys: Only cybertec will have the specialised decoys (non-damage drones that fool targetting computers) at tier 4, but until targeting computers are in use (Mech, tier 2), every drone (in Cybertec and Biotec) works as a decoy. Maybe decoys should be at tier 3, or the targeting computer at tier 3.

Looks like it's more or less balanced in general, and that it opens the doors for new and more diverse strategies (which was my main objective).
What must be avoided is that any given strategy that is at least average against any other strategy could be also particularly good against some. That is, if some strategy has advantage against another strategy, then it must be in disadvantage against some other strategy. All strategies must be average on average.