#tractor beams should require engine power based on how much mass they're holding

605 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

quasi halo
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self explanatory rambottrollface

cursive meadow
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Should scale with distance too, like planar shields do

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Hell it would be amazing if a dev went through all the funky powerless features, like spin blocks, and added power to them.

wind elbow
hybrid canopy
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Perhaps their power demand should scale with movement speed * target mass, or something similar

pine mirage
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Yep, agreed

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I think everyone's along with this tbh

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by now

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(Altough I feel like nobody on dev team reads this channel 😦 )

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At least for a while, for now.

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since the main effort is gonna be on game 2

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but right now trail generators, Colorable ion trail are VERY high so clearly there's something heavily desired there. Along with a better UI for when there's several AIs on one ship, bomb chute buff and 2x2 turrets are very high and have been staying there for a while

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So there's clearly a desired direction in terms of QOL items lately

rustic ingot
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always has been rambottrollface

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(as long as I've been here)

cursive meadow
modern basin
quasi halo
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thats stupid

modern basin
quasi halo
modern basin
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and?

quasi halo
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dumb idea

modern basin
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also i mean, if i could load my missiles faster at the cost of burning through a ton of fuel, id do that

quasi halo
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just dont add that

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better idea

modern basin
quasi halo
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the better idea is to not make unpowered weapons take power

modern basin
quasi halo
modern basin
quasi halo
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everyone wants tractor beams to take power, nobody wants GP aps and cram and missiles to take power

quasi halo
modern basin
quasi halo
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there is like zero people who disagree with giving tractor beams engine power requirements, there's zero people who want to give currently unpowered weapons take engine power

modern basin
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thats a nice arguement, how about you back it up with a source rambottrollface

quasi halo
modern basin
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argument from anecdote

pine mirage
atomic jungle
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Please do not make tractor beams require power

pine mirage
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Why not?

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Tractor beams allow free lifting of things right now

cursive meadow
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I have an unhinged idea. Two crafts with tractor beams. One carries the other, turns off, then that one Carrie’s the other. Repeat cycle.

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It’s like a caterpillar

quasi halo
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or something

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already done i think

clear bay
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Why not make it so that power can be used for "stabilisation" at speeds greater than 100 m/s, while also retaining the current behaviour?

quasi halo
clear bay
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and lani

quasi halo
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you literally have the ability to move any amount of mass for basically free

clear bay
quasi halo
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they're really expensive and probably the least dense power in the game

clear bay
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they're still mostly free power

quasi halo
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tractor beams cost 600 materials and take up 1 block and however many the big one takes up

quasi halo
clear bay
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the big one uses 3 or 4

clear bay
quasi halo
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they're super cheap (600 mats) for what they do

clear bay
quasi halo
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if you have a thing with let's say 100k weight, it would require maybe 2k power

clear bay
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even more power could be used to "stabilise" it (make it less jittery)

quasi halo
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but if you have a think with 200k weight it requires 8k power

quasi halo
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theres no reason to need to spend power to fix a bug

clear bay
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oh

quasi halo
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you really think they would make tractor beams jittery on purpose?

clear bay
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hb for speeds above 100 m/s

clear bay
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they have a clearly arbitary 100 m/s limit

quasi halo
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pretty sure thats jank

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and not intended

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if there was an intentional 100 m/s speed limit, it would make most sense to just make them drop the object instead of whatever they do right now

clear bay
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which is what i was talking about

quasi halo
clear bay
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or 104 m/s

quasi halo
clear bay
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h

quasi halo
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i'm going to repeat this once again: if tractor beams having a 100m/s speed limit was intentional, they would drop the object and not drag it along

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i don't think this is the type of game where you intentionally code jank into a mechanic

clear bay
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tractor beams are really funky tbh

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i once made a ftl drive with them

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by accident

quasi halo
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pretty sure thats called a tractor beam drive

clear bay
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mind you it kept accelerating

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beyond 500,000 m/s

quasi halo
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make a nuke with it rambottrollface

clear bay
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mach 1457

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i think they patched it in the alpha

pine mirage
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You know what

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I do see some of the points here

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That we're losing stability by even using tractor beams

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But this is just about setting some ideas for now

mild spindle
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Twin Guard craft praying this doesn't become a thing

quasi halo
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not a feature

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you can't justify not needing power for an objectively OP mechanic just because of a bug

ripe vault
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honestly, after a certain point, it's kinda hard doing thigns like this, as in any "small" change can break crafts, so you would have to make it "very slight" and "not big enough of a change in terms of power" for it to break existing crafts, but under a certain point you would be more asking yourself "why even bother doing that if "to not break anything" a tractor beam would consume like 10 engine power, why bother with time coding, implementing, bug fixing, ... for somethign that either break a lot of existing stuff, or something so little of a change it doesnt feel appropriate spending time on it rather than some much more interesting stuff"

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at least that'"s my opinion on it

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on everything that would change behaviour of well established game stuff

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like, i personally fail to see why having some powerless thigns are bad

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:/

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especially stuff that is often used for decorating/wacky stuff like spinblocks

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i personally use spinblock to make VTOL, landing gears, bomb bays,... sometimes thoses planes dont have a single engine power , just use jet and pids/control surfaces

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it would literally punish players that do their craft a certain way to have to use engine power, same for small mech builders

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some only use feet/physics/spinblock to move around, and dont need an engine, so making it need one is just, sad for them

So tl:dr : restricting well established stuff is imo not a nice thing, but finding interesting and nice ways to "add" to existing stuff, say for example, engine power gives a boost or stability or ... to something to the stuff your holding, is way better, doesnt punish people for building stuff "before the change", but gives new interesting design choices "after the change" !

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(also justfying a big change to a game mechanic because "some found some obscure way to abuse it" is literally the definition of ruining things for everyone because of a few, and is never a good argument to do a negative change :( so even more negative points from me on this idea)

pine mirage
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Just argued for it to see what's the general motion

ripe vault
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dw its totally fine !:!!

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i rather have a big talk like this, try to explain it as best as possible, and hopefully it helps people understand better how decision can massively affect other's gameplay, and try to find interesting, nice things that are positive for everyone !

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its totes not innate, so i rather talk about that even a hundred times if need be, and without any hard feeling

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it's all in a caring way

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you all wouldnt spend time proposing things if you didnt cared for the game, so the very least i can do is care for you all in the very few ways i can !

stoic siren
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add stuff instead of make other stuff not work 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏

hushed socket
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still waiting for spinblock engine drive to re-add the full force generated by wing props so we can make ornithopters again

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but imo the tractor beam thing is not obscure or even niche

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to the point where an entire faction relies entirely on it

hushed socket
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though even if tractor beams required engine power you could still then use it as extremely dense propulsion

hushed socket
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but overall it does feel like there are alot of changes that are just trying to bandaid over decisions made earlier in the game's development which the dev team now regrets but without breaking all vehicles in the campaign

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so how about this: for changes that would be good if not for the amount of broken vehicles they would cause, add a recommendation/requirement to all craft being built for campaign to not abuse those mechanics so that once the campaign has sufficiently few such craft, the change can be made safely

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it'd take a while but that's still better than "never"

sullen gorge
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TG at least has the possibility to add engine power to most of their stuff

hushed socket
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the other possibility is to make tractor beams apply a reaction force to the carrier vehicle. That way all your drones wouldn't fall off if you lost power, and if you can't fit any more engines at all you could accept moving slower rather than just losing the tractor beams (unless you're flying). Would also offer a more natural way of balancing the cost of tractor beams - they'd be exactly as expensive as lifting the same mass with regular propulsion

sullen gorge
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Basically its a weight addon?

hushed socket
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either just weight or a torque as well depending on how you're holding the vehicle

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up to the devs if they want to include the torque part

cursive meadow
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damn a dev replied and they confirmed my believe in why 99% things can't be implemented

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most of what people suggest will break existing craft.

hardy notch
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so if they don't want to outright nerf tractor beams because it would break existing vehicles and they would prefer to add things, then they should add a system or add an effect to an existing system that nerfs tractor beams or nerfs a vehicle using them in some way (as in a weapon that does more damage to a craft using tractor beams or something)

ripe vault
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nah you all didnt understood what i said , i pretty much said that "downgrading" stuff in any way is not really possible after a certain point because it breaks craft, when i said "add" things, it's like, upgrades to it, keeping the existing stuff as the "base level", and the updte would be "something more, "better"

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why are you even all bent on making stuff worse even

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there is literally no reason to want to "nerf" things

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thought the messages were pretty clear about that, nerfing mean breaking prexisting stuff to fix literally a non-problem, while giving ways to make it "better" makes for more exciting features and new crafts to build while all the other performs as expected

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it's just, ??? it really feels like tractor beams current existence is offending some of you or something, i swear it's not that deep, it doesnt need breaking just to make it worse in every way and need additional stuff to make it be "normal" again 😭

cursive meadow
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im personally not bent it's just some funny issue

hushed socket
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because I think it is very much not a non-problem, it's a very significant problem

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if you can think of ways to make it better by adding more features that'd be wonderful as well

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but as it stands tractor beam cheese is a significant part of the game that players will encounter frequently

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and it's very clear that there does exist some line where if something is big enough of a problem, you're willing to break a large number of the craft in the campaign to fix it

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breaking it wouldn't make it worse in every way, it would make it not ridiculously OP

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and while I am all for the general philosophy of "don't nerf things, buff everything else to match" the issue is that you cannot possibly buff everything else to match tractor beams because tractor beams are infinitely powerful

hardy notch
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I've literally been thinking about this for the past hour and all I can think of is how subvehicle weapons are effectively aim spoofing by not being part of what gets targeted and having a subvehicle repair shield is effectively an infinitely long bit of armor at the front of your craft if you have enough material and it completely counters some weapons if you make it big enough

cursive meadow
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Idk if I would call that cheese, but Twin Guard is the only faction I’ve fought where I’ve had to consistently assume direct control

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I like to be hands off in my craft, but sometimes you gotta shoot the base

dusky geyser
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this

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is

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quite

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nice

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tho maybe make engine power a little cheaper as a result? cough cough

stoic siren
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why?
you can choose to not use it

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if its in a PVP scenario, typically there will be regulations
and this is true for campaign designs, albiet less consistent

stoic siren
stoic siren
# stoic siren no it is a non issue

like, im gonna be real with you: you dont open up designer to be greeted by an impossible to hit, godmode, infinite damage laser craft. You choose what you fight.

If it's not hampering your ability to play the game, don't treat it like it is.

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Now, a good argument is "how do I make tractor beam crafts less boring".
You can simply buff your basic frontsider design by removing the guns and putting them on a docking station. Hide them, when they arent being fired, behind 60m of HA. You also have room for more thrust, so you can evade easily, and you fly better. You also dont have to worry about the mass of the gun, so your evasion is that much easier.

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It's a direct upgrade with minimal counterplay, and that's boring

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If I'm honest, any small change would end up being about as meaningless as stability.
And frankly I'd rather not have to deal with updating recently outdated craft for 0 interesting changes.

hushed socket
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yes, it's boring for the reason you mentioned, but have you considered that a significant amount of campaign craft rely on tractor beam cheese?

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I literally cannot choose not to deal with it if I want to play the campaign

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is the TG completely unbeatable? no, but I don't like encountering cheese in campaign

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and sometimes you want to make a build where tractor beams are necessary for a key function of the build, except now it feels cheaty

stoic siren
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ok but TG cheese has never been just docking stations
it's always been repair (+ docking stations).

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you're looking at something different here

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and either way, that's just 1 faction for the campaign that uses it, and it's about 50% of the faction too.

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plus lani for SD

rustic ingot
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could make a change in tractor beam hold values or whatever done through bb or acb if possible require engine power

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but not when static or someth

stoic siren
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I'll stand by my point that this is a non-issue at it's roots.

If you're gonna say something should be nerfed because "it's cheesy" and it's "making the campaign less fun" and "I don't like it", then direct that to the kotls. They're the ones who say what goes for campaign stuff.

In terms of balancing, unless there's something that doesn't just instantly break a whole bunch of crafts or it adds a lot of new meaningful features, I don't think it's worth the time or money.

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Like honestly, this is so much less important than making the custom campaign making experience better, or actual bugs.
It doesn't even buff boats!!!

hushed socket
stoic siren
hushed socket
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sure if I had to choose one or the other I would choose improving the campaign in general

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but I think this idea is still a net positive

stoic siren
stoic siren
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In all cases, you are asking for something to be limited based on your opinion of how it should be.

That's fine, and that's what the kotl are for. I don't think it's worth forcibly limiting it for everyone else, especially when it costs.

hushed socket
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on the other hand though the devs have absolutely nerfed something before just because it was cheesy, so it's not like "just don't use it" is a universal response to everything

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how about this

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the speed limit is limited based on the mass ratio

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this would leave TG entirely intact as the mechs travel fairly slowly

stoic siren
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yeah except for the 3 that dont

hushed socket
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while preventing you from carrying a huge bb with a tiny cube with a tractor beam

stoic siren
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there's always workarounds for that, and frankly that is the least worst idea

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but I will tell you, that will nerf the 1 usecase for laser cutters into practically unviability

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1:1 should always be 100m/s

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that would be the only case where I'd be fine with it

cursive meadow
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I never considered using laser cutter tractor beams

stoic siren
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well you cant make a sword not die to collisions without tractor beams

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it also phases through blocks too

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that solves the issue of needing to be bigger than the enemy for it to work

dusky geyser
# hushed socket and while I am all for the general philosophy of "don't nerf things, buff everyt...

sir, this saying only applies to relative things

for example, if armor is op, you can either buff damage or nerf armor, your not gonna buff engines or nerf detection to solve it

anyways about yall complaining about nerfing a non issue, i dont think its a big deal, like, cmon, its just a bit more realistic, with the added benefits of maybe some stuff getting balanced, like maybe make it consume more in fights so floating shields aren't that good, generally you wont even notice it

this wont break anything, everything uses power and has enough to power these considering this is just to make things consistent, and the amount will probably be like 100-200 per small craft (SS plane)

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and tractor beams arent op are they?

hushed socket
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well ok. in that case you'd have to buff propulsion to match. and you'd have to make all propulsion virtually free and extremely dense

dusky geyser
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why would you say they are infinitely powerful

hushed socket
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but you misunderstand, I'm already on the side of making tractor beams have some cost

hushed socket
dusky geyser
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oh is this about small craft carrying a bigger craft?

hushed socket
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yeah

dusky geyser
hushed socket
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well yeah that's the suggestion

dusky geyser
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i also dont think this affects combat, so its just something to cheat your single player campaigns with

hushed socket
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you can still carry a big craft with a small one in combat

stoic siren
dusky geyser
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what i was thinking was, just add a small cost to make tractor beams feel more consistent and realistic

dusky geyser
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im jk pls dont kill me

stoic siren
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if thats your opinion, then I'd say you need to get better rambottrollface

hushed socket
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I agree but there's alot of pushback due to the amount of reworks TG would need so the compromise I suggested is capping the speed based on the mass ratio

dusky geyser
stoic siren
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adding anything that requires you to add any blocks to fix something is just a bad choice for campaign stuff

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thats more work to fix something that wasnt broken before

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really annoying

stoic siren
dusky geyser
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you're right

dusky geyser
stoic siren
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either way, I still think its a non-issue

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@hushed socket can u show me a craft that proves this is an issue?

dusky geyser
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anyways imo the twin guard should learn what a spinblock is

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👍

stoic siren
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goofy ass mofo

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spinblocks got nerfed harder...

hushed socket
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like a campaign craft or a craft in general?

stoic siren
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both

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half of these "this is op in campaign" is 100% due to not being told what not to do properly

ripe vault
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this suggestion post is actually going to make me cry

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it's a full loop since the start

hushed socket
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now imagine one of those is a full sized BB

stoic siren
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who car

hushed socket
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as for being OP in campaign, hard to say because TG is still beatable

stoic siren
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I think thats cool

ripe vault
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literally no one cares about exploits, like, it's just

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it's juste

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it's just an exploit

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and doing this kind of change can break so many bluieprints for so many people just becasue some prankster want to do fun stuff ??

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like

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cmon 😭

stoic siren
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like lets be real here: anyone running a tourny will instantly say "No".
That would never get past Abyay so like "No"

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you only get to use that on your own fun time

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why nerf someones own fun time?

wide sonnet
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you cant be balancing around exploits because itll severely negatively hit anything not exploiting

ripe vault
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^

hushed socket
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ok, fair

stoic siren
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if you can prove that is makes the game boring and forces designs to build around it, then thats another story

hushed socket
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but also anytime I build any kind of carrier or anything with subvehicles I'm now also subtly cheesing

wide sonnet
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you either prevent the exploit separately or leave it as a fun little thing to do on the side, like mass drivers

ripe vault
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literally no one uses exploits like this but some very little people that know about it

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and "dont want to have fun"

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but at this point just, dont even launch the game

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or cheat yourself some ressources and instantly win

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you cant balance stuff around people that do wacky stuff

stoic siren
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if you really cared about making the game not cheeseable, then you'd ban using campaign crafts against campaign crafts in the campaign

hushed socket
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I mean campaign craft that use tractored turrets also get a big advantage from doing so

ripe vault
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just to ruin the very little fun they managed to have powertripping a 999999Tons battleship at 99m/s, and also fucking over 9999999999 players that uses tractor beams in a certain way

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so be it

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like, whats even the problem there

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nothing prevents you from doing tractor turrets too

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they look super cool

wide sonnet
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thrust as a whole is generally fairly cheap

ripe vault
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in fact, do it if it's so gamebreaking and gamechanging, and you'll see quickly it is infact , not as good as you think for many reasons

hushed socket
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that tractor beams are unreasonably powerful and using them makes some people feel dirty and it also forces places like tourneys to absolutely ban all use of tractor beams even though there could potentially be cool ideas using them

ripe vault
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turret are still turret, base is weak and frail, prevents you from doing compact builds, must leave plenty of room, etc etc

stoic siren
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spin the turret around, make it evade, and see if it still hits you while evading

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use a laser maybe idk

ripe vault
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if you ban something that could be cool that's on you

stoic siren
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show me a craft that proves this is an issue

ripe vault
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you dont break a game because people cant stop themselves doing "OP" stuff

wide sonnet
ripe vault
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do "cool , non OP" stuff with tractor beams, and if your tournament's ruleset isnt made by some thickheaded person, they will allow your craft

hushed socket
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idk the devs seemed fine breaking a huge number of craft for the EMP, steam engine, stability, etc. changes

ripe vault
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and if they dont, you still have a very cool craft

hushed socket
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tourneys almost universally ban tractor beams and separators

ripe vault
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that's on them ! literally !

wide sonnet
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separators have their own unrelated rabbithole to do with HP% calculation

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theyre not relevant here

hushed socket
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well maybe you could consider why they do it instead of saying "literally every tourney host is wrong, we're not out of touch at all"

ripe vault
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i have plenty of cool ideas of tractor beam stuff and if they banned thoses absolutely not OP / unfair stuff because they are scaredy cat that wont take a look at a craft to see "how did you used the tractor beam", it's honest to god a "they problem"

stoic siren
hushed socket
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the problem is when you're running a tourney you need rules you can enforce fairly and consistently

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you can't make subjective judgements without people complaining

stoic siren
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sucks ig
Get better

hushed socket
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dude come on

ripe vault
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literally

hushed socket
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can you be constructive?

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like at all?

stoic siren
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I have been

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Im saying that this is a non-issue

ripe vault
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literally anything you could do with an "engine tractor" would still be the

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exact

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same

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issue

stoic siren
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if you have tourny membors who complain about your choice on your tourny

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sucks ig

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get better

ripe vault
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you could do a super deep submarine/spacecraft holding a big thing and just be 100% engine

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and you'd have the same problem

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becasue in the end, it's not the tractor beam the issue

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it's what you do with it and how you intend to use it

hushed socket
ripe vault
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if you are going ot be a little goblin and start doing wacky op stuff, thats on you, period

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and we are not going to break blueprints of players just for

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for tournaments rulesets being too stricts ???

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that's the issue here ?

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that tournament wont look at craft one by one becasue they are scared of the "small craft holding big BB" stuff ?

wide sonnet
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nerfing an exploit doesnt really work because in this scenario its conceptual rather than a practice thing
you can still do the same idea but it just is marginally worse now

ripe vault
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^

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Knife you're being very unrealistic there

wide sonnet
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youd have to do some real gymnastics to completely prevent it from working

hushed socket
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I'd be fine with it working

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if there was a significant cost to it

stoic siren
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but the exploiters are better at gymnastics, so like whats the point

ripe vault
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99% of the player never ever entered a tournament, you would want to just for the sake of punishing punish people

hushed socket
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the broader issue is that FtD relies on players coming with honor rules for themselves so much

wide sonnet
ripe vault
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that's exactly what you're trying to do here

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you know nothing prevents you from installing any kind of cheat engine for 99% of solo games and just cheat your victory right ?

hushed socket
stoic siren
ripe vault
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i can launch BG3 , launch the console and cheat

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i can launch skyrim and do the same

hushed socket
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idk

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why even bother balancing anything

ripe vault
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i can launch literally any solo game with a dev console and

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oh my god you're being so unreasonable, im out

hushed socket
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just make everything ridiculously broken and blame the player if they do anything that's unfun

stoic siren
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if APS was the only good weapon, why use lasers?

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thats what balance is for

hushed socket
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ok, so why is the response different for tractor beams?

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why not make APS crazy OP and just say "players shouldn't use it if they don't want to be OP"

ripe vault
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ok launch the workshop

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right now

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open the workshoip for me

stoic siren
ripe vault
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find me all craft that uses that

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and then compare it to the number of craft that dont use it

stoic siren
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you can use a tractorbeam to make your turrets have no weight on your ship

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really good, but now they are a subsystem the enemy can target

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so you might end up losing your gun faster than if it was on the ship

ripe vault
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if it's so gamebreaking and just absolutely terrible, you should be able to find me a good thousands of ship absolutely breaking the balance of the game right now right ?

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^

stoic siren
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you can see that happen to most of TG btw

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its what makes the mania weak

ripe vault
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it's literally bad

hushed socket
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it's true that it's fairly rare for players to exploit it, because they play with honor rules

stoic siren
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but TG can cope with that because [repair]

ripe vault
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then that's the end of the discussion

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no one eplxoits that

stoic siren
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you can make your weapons evade like hell, but they may never hit the target, and they'll die to lasers

ripe vault
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so no reason to break a system for the insanely few that do

hushed socket
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look

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I understand that the proposed change would break alot of craft

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and take alot of effort to fix

stoic siren
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give me a case where tractor beaming is a direct upgrade to something

hushed socket
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which is why I proposed a compromise that would break very few craft

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but I think that going forward

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it would be good to avoid systems with such incredibly obvious exploits and just expecting that players don't use it

hushed socket
ripe vault
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that's plain sounding super haughty honestly ..

stoic siren
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shoot the drones down

wide sonnet
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what if the drone gets shot

ripe vault
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you think in big convoluted games devs "will know" fro mthe get go what will be exploitable ?

hushed socket
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have like hundreds of them, super small, underwater, etc.

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still cheaper than actual propulsion

ripe vault
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you think people will actually take the time to make their game lag each time they open the game to have a kind of matrix propulsion underwater ?

#

then do it !!

wide sonnet
#

if youve got hundreds thats a lot of cost, lag and potential collisions

stoic siren
#

ok, so you're gonna make a BB network of drones to make your thrust efficient?

ripe vault
#

it's a super cool idea actually

stoic siren
#

sounds like skill

#

good job

ripe vault
#

Do it and see how it goes

#

for your pc

stoic siren
#

like this is a non-issue, it's actually a proof of skill

#

I like that

ripe vault
#

for the sheer amount of tediousness of having such a thing to move each time you wanna go somewhere

#

go !

#

do it then !

hushed socket
#

alright

#

well I guess we have a difference of opinion

ripe vault
#

it's literally a cool idea !

hushed socket
#

it is an expression of skill but I don't like the amount of benefit it gives

wide sonnet
#

i mean, same could be said for lua or bread

#

lua especially

ripe vault
#

why would we even want to break that , go on, people made insanely cool "exploity" designs, shooting gravram into a clip that was being discared and stuff

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and it became "community classics cool stuff"

#

so actually yeah, in a game about creativity and doing cool things

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having """"""""""""""""op"""""""""""""""" tractor beams is a good thing

#

we are not breaking grav ram becasue of that one video of the dude making a supersonic railgun that can instantly one shot anythign in the game

stoic siren
ripe vault
#

and we are not breaking tractor beams for the one time a player named Knife will do a super cool underwater matrix of drone carrying around a "offensive ball" or whatever

wide sonnet
# wide sonnet lua especially

even if we ignore all the various exploits that im assuming have probably been vaguely patched/broken, it can still remove the gpp cost of remote missiles and give them features literally impossible otherwise (evasion)

hushed socket
#

and yet the melee rework literally specifically targeted grav rams

wide sonnet
#

it didnt

ripe vault
#

becasue it's literally cool and literally no one will do that

#

and if things in the past happened that were literally bad why would you want them to happen again ?

stoic siren
ripe vault
#

"melee rework broke X"

#

ok ?

wide sonnet
#

it targetted tiny melee vehicles, mass drivers just happened to also make use of it

hushed socket
#

I never said it was bad

ripe vault
#

then why would you want that to happen again ?

#

it broke things

hushed socket
#

it was a counterargument to your claim that you wouldn't nerf stuff because of niche exploity stuff

wide sonnet
#

melee being busted isnt exactly niche

ripe vault
wide sonnet
#

theres an entire subfaction about melee

ripe vault
#

if fixing a actual problem break thing we have to do it

hushed socket
#

the specific nerf to gravram driven melee was niche

ripe vault
#

here tractor beams literally already got the nerf nick thought they deserved by setting a limit of 100m/s

#

so ... ?

hushed socket
#

the mechanic where it takes time for melee damage to build up

wide sonnet
hushed socket
#

I don't see how you get anything moving fast enough for that mechanic to apply except via mass driver or recoil drive or something else niche

wide sonnet
#

stacking spinblocks and pistons mostly

#

you stack a couple spinblocks and get 360 rad/s on a single ram and just delete things

ripe vault
#

it also had issues iirc with stuff when it would "spasm"

#

becasue again, melee was buggy back then

stoic siren
ripe vault
#

remember seeing a msg from someone about that how a vibrating vehicule if it had lot of mass could delete a lot of things instantly

hushed socket
#

well that's slightly different from the vehicle itself moving fast but alright, I'll accept your explanation for the melee changes

ripe vault
#

becasue small movements of big mass with rams == insane damage

hushed socket
ripe vault
#

So yeah again, why break something that as you saw no one cares about (still havent found the millions of OP campains craft with tractor beams you promised that was an issue)

#

literally 99.9999999999999999999999% of players that use them are peopel making carriers

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the remaining is split between people doing very cool animated builds

stoic siren
ripe vault
#

and the other is the exploiters having fun however they can

stoic siren
stoic siren
ripe vault
#

literally no one wins in your scenario but you

hushed socket
#

I mean TG is still cheesy, it's just held back by other faction rules meant to keep them balanced

#

but I do get your point

ripe vault
#

you being happy it got a nerf for no reaosn, that some ppeople had their craft broken

#

and literally no one else on this planet is happy

stoic siren
#

the only think you can complain about for TG is repair

ripe vault
#

yeah again, TG is about repairs

#

not the tractor

#

it could very well just be a rubber base carrying a craft on top it would be the same

#

the tractor beams just make it levitates in a cool way

hushed socket
#

you want FtD to be a creative sandbox where people can come up with wacky stuff, whereas I came in with the expectation thinking about it more like a more competitive type of game

#

and yeah, I can accept that vision for the game

#

but I don't like how you kept talking down to me

stoic siren
#

because the idea you represent pisses me off (if you think I'm talking down to you)

ripe vault
#

i didnt meant to make you feel "talked down" to, repeating the same message over and over and over again will make things sound haughty affter a while, your messages at times did too

#

i apologize for each and every message you found bad

#

wasnt the intention there, only to make you understand that no, breaking stuff for the sake of a very few cases is not a good game balacing idea

hushed socket
#

well sorry about that, but it did sometimes feel like I was being accused of being a selfish person who wants to hurt the game just because I want to play it a certain way

stoic siren
ripe vault
#

it's literally what this change would have done hence why i mentionned it

hushed socket
#

my intention was to genuinely improve the game because I think that when something is effectively "off-limits" because it's too exploity players tend to be less creative with it because they don't want to be cheesy or have their build seen as cheesy

ripe vault
#

this , again, i said it very meanly and im very sorry

#

but that's a problem about people mindset about things

#

a "they problem" i said earlier

#

there is literally nothing wrong with using them

#

becasue they have their fair share of disavantages

#

yes of course "weightless turrets" yes of course "can make turret spin insanely fast for their size"

#

but they have i think the biggest

#

hugest disavantage of all in FTD mechanics

#

is the thing Boat mentionned but didnt went much into it

#

but it's literally the one biggest baddest thing about it

#

is that it makes your "main craft weaponless"

#

and your turret "weapon only"

#

meaning in ANY and especially in 1vs1 competitive scene battle

#

your turret is the first thing to get killed

stoic siren
#

It also lowers your total HP per section. You'll scuttle faster.

ripe vault
#

since "everyone" make their AI focus on stuff using weapons

#
  • gigantic downside of HP too indeed
hushed socket
#

afaik there's a bug where the carrier craft inherits all the FP of its drones

#

but if that gets fixed/never existed in the first place then sure

stoic siren
#

target small

ripe vault
#

well , if it exists then im really talking shit and im very sorry about that

#

but even then the HP is a huge deal

#

you lose 20% of your turret , you can say bye bye to it

hushed socket
#

np, it makes sense to talk about mechanics as intended and not as bugged, if that bug really does exist

ripe vault
#

also it takes so much space just

#

like

#

most people do builds because they have a vision for it

#

a design, a cool pic they found, their favorite WW2 ship, whatever

hushed socket
#

well, I was able to shove the 1m tractor beam in some weird places

stoic siren
#

The only real benefit is free thrust, and you'll be fighting to make that work in combat

#

Although, I've made a design in my head thats kinda funny

ripe vault
#

also like, most stuff you can do with tractor beams there is kind of a way to do it without it

#

if you "enclose a small ship into a big ship and make this one move with tractor"

#

you essentially get a free 100m/s ship

#

yaho !

#

that's, taking a huge space, firstly, maybe you could had made the ship go fast by itself

#

big enclosure

stoic siren
#

it's still not gonna be guarenteed 100m/s tho

#

but it is free ramproofing

ripe vault
#

and in the game ther eis literally a warp drive

#

to make big things be mobile by a lot

#

so it's not even "the only broken thing"

hushed socket
#

it doesn't really take a huge space, it takes like 10-15 blocks, and the issue is that it's nearly free while every other way to do the same thing costs way more, and almost nothing else will get you the rotation rate

ripe vault
#

idk if it's still a thing

#

i remember just stacking 5m turrets back then when i tried making huge things

#

if i remember that made things rotates nearly instantly

hushed socket
#

I meant that the tractor beam itself can spin whatever it's holding around nearly instantly

#

and you can change the movement direction as fast as the internal craft can turn, which is much faster than the external one

ripe vault
#

it's niche, no one is bothered by it, and for the few people that maybe need a niche instant turning for say, people that does thoses really fucking cool HUD in fighter jets , using beams/spinblocks/... and breadboard and projector to do locking , radar , ... hud

#

it's not just a thing people do

#

and not by honor

hushed socket
#

well yes this is an example of the maximally exploity use of tractor beams which we both agree should not be balanced around

ripe vault
#

but also you gotta admit, tractoring beam stuff around firstly look weird

#

oftren you hve a "lag"

#

and it look bad

#

straight up looking like ass

#

and just

#

it's such a fucking pain omg like if i had every turret on my 999999999 bajillion armament be its own turret like

#

dear god.

hushed socket
#

but I will revise my statement to focus more on the part about players being afraid to be creative with them because they're seen as cheesy, and this in general being a problem when too many systems are kept balanced only by self-imposed rules

#

like I totally get how that's a "them" problem

ripe vault
#

no one wants to take the actual mental damage of spawning each turret separately and then having to tractobeam and ....., it's not becasue of honor, it's becasue it's sheer pain and annoyance to do

#

thats a huge factor

hushed socket
#

and how it feels dumb to make changes to pander to an irrational response

wide sonnet
ripe vault
#

yeah me too

#

literally the n°1 thing it's meant to do

#

tracting planes around

#

people will not do it because of how annoying it is to use and spawn and blablabla

hushed socket
#

and if you want to just put your foot down and be like "no, that's a "you" problem" that's fair, it's your creative vision

ripe vault
#

literally this suggestion would be 99999999999999999 more upvoted if it was something like "revamp tractor beams in a way that makes the spawning of new craft more easy and less hassle"

#

and it would be a good change !

#

dont break any existing stuff, and make new stuff more easy to do

stoic siren
hushed socket
#

I just really think that sometimes, even if it's irrational, addressing that response can lead to people building more cool stuff

ripe vault
#

and make people want to be creative with things since it's way easier to use "now"

hushed socket
#

yeah in general alot of systems would be improved if we could access all of them from a single menu instead of having to go to each one and hitting Q on them for example

ripe vault
#

it's been so long since i havent tried to do a carrier, maybe there was a UI change that made them easy now, maybe, idk, will have to try, but yeah, that would be a good change if it's still the same hassle as "back when i tried making carriers"

hushed socket
#

I don't recall any relevant UI changes to tractor beams/carriers in the past few years

ripe vault
#

but the whole engine power that could break lot of cool, non op, non exploity, just plain creative craft ..? im sorry but it just doesnt sound like a good idea, and i would actively be agaisnt personally

#

i think it pretty much concludes this suggestion

#

if any of you want to make a new suggestion about making the tractor beam UI better , with example of how it could be better, it could be a nice thing

hushed socket
#

that's fair enough, I'm still in favor of the speed limit depending on the mass ratio since I know of almost no non-exploity craft that depend on it while virtually every exploity one does depend on it

ripe vault
#

i could think of any "general design" that have a thin inner core, and a larger "ring" around it for example, or every mecha builds that have lot of multi parts, and might not have the mass ratio you'd expect

#

if every part is it's own thing , like cockpit, upepr body, ... then no part would be heavier than the other, and would mean bad things for the mecha as a whole

#

and again, "let exploiters exploits" it makes for very funny and enjoyable videos i guess

#

there isnt a "official FTD tournament with a 1000000000€ cash prize" so ...

hushed socket
#

yeah I guess

ripe vault
#

it's not like it's harming anyone

hushed socket
#

part of the reason I'm giving attention to tractor beams in general is because the only two types of content I see regarding tractor beams (besides TG and lani) is either bog-standard "I built a carrier and held the planes using tractor beams" or "haha funny exploit machine 2000"

ripe vault
#

limiting it would make people use it even less i think honestly, for the "funny exploit machine 2000" can give cool ideas to people

hushed socket
#

I'm of the opinion that limiting it a little bit would promote more content in the middle, but if you're unwilling then I will see if I can inspire that content myself by using tractor beams in more creative ways

stoic siren
#

let there be inovation 🙏

ripe vault
#

hehe

hushed socket
#

well even though it got a little unpleasant at times it was good talking to you

#

still my favorite dev 👌

ripe vault
#

also i'll be frank, most people dont do creative thigns with them becasue of them being unwieldy and lagging behind i think

#

all the cool animated builds usually uises spinblocks as they are perfect

#

readable from GBG

#

having perfectr angle rotation stuff etc etc

hushed socket
#

that makes sense

ripe vault
#

you could make your mecha legs "apart from the body" using tractor beams

#

but im not sure at all it would work well with the whole lagging behind stuff

hushed socket
#

I have one logistics build that jettisons part of itself when it enters combat and I used tractor beams because I need a little push to make it separate fully

ripe vault
ripe vault
#

that sounds really cool ngl !!!

hushed socket
#

floating parts is the other obvious use

ripe vault
#

i love spinny builds so much

hushed socket
#

tyty

ripe vault
#

oh wait it's your workshop ?

hushed socket
#

yeah I made this one

ripe vault
#

it looks amazing !!!!!!!

hushed socket
#

thanks

#

honestly if the lagging behind thing could be fixed that would be amazing

ripe vault
#

i have so little clues as if it's intentionnal or not or even if it's fixeable :')

#

i wished, it would make carriers look so much better imo

#

i could place my planes so muc hcloser to the ground

hushed socket
#

yeah

ripe vault
#

and wouldnt look like they are sliding on the runway or smntg

hushed socket
#

oh one more pretty unrelated but also weird-looking thing is the way barrels roll so they're always upright in global space instead of relative to the craft/firing piece

ripe vault
#

maybe one day i'll learn to use separator and do a actual rubber deck carrier that planes actually properly fly of from, just to avoid the weird lagging behind things that happens at time

#

Ohhhhhhh this oneee

#

i remember having it a LOT back in the days

#

my crafts are way more chill than before, so i dont really run into this issue as often

#

i didnt even knew it was still a thing

#

if you encouter it you should defo make a bug report on the website !!!

hushed socket
#

it's especially visible on cram mortars

#

ok I'll post it next time I see it

ripe vault
#

if it can be improved or what it could be nice !

#

depends on if it's intended or not i suppose, maybe "the alternative" isnt really possible

pine mirage
#

Yeah I'm gonna have to X this one