Undo the Ion beam change

[fallen gorge]

I think the recent 33% reduction in ion beam range was not a good idea

1: Ion beams were not really super powerful because of their range, sure it means they hit earlier but the only builds that usually could exploit this well were ultralight walls and ion kiters which also used HE missiles.
2: Ion beams are not the sole late-game weapon, you can use nukes en masse or have a big deck gun battleship, or perhaps a diamond-shaped missile kiter with lots of PD, maybe a railfan with lots of well-protected railguns
3: This merely takes away ion kiters as a playstyle which weren't amazingly powerful to begin with, and doesn't address the problem of ion beams being the best late-game weapon
4: All of the late-game playstyles I mentioned in 2 can defeat a well-made ion beam ship with an above-50% success rate
-Deck cannon ships can try to ram from the side with thrusters and use their massive armor damage to drill for commands and reactors
-Railfans can aim down the "barrel" of the ion ship and take it out directly
-Nuke barges could simply hit the armor hard enough to crack it and get into the meat of the ship
-Missile kiters could use a mixture of shields and armor to tank the ion beams while destroying the armor from the sides and behind
5: Considering the above, I don't think this was an issue that needed fixing, or that there was an issue in the first place.

obligatory 🤓

[hasty sparrow]

Can't wait for all the new players to downvote bomb this post lol

Jokes aside what should be changed then to balance out late game ions?

[copper wave]

Making deck guns use their own ammo type so they aren't a pain to use in coop career. Making uranium more available in coop career. Would be my first thoughts.

[spice ruin]

Ah yes an ion balancing idea

[copper wave]

It's just a pain because pve and pvp balance are different things. So easiest way to ablance that is making things more easily attained/maintained in pve.

It should never be easier to get a weapon, than to get ammo for that weapon in an actiony game.

Who wants to use a rocket launcher in Doom when there is only 5 rockets?

If Deck guns didn't eat a 4x4 storage of ammo every 20 seconds, and uranium didn't limit me to like 4 nuke launchers without afk 8x'ing at a station every system Ions wouldn't feel nearly as strong.

[grizzled parrot]

Aren't railguns an option too?

I dont know what their ammo efficiency is, but I think it's probably better than the deck gun

[copper wave]

Rails and ions were pretty balanced vs each other before I felt.

Rails are straight better than deck guns in career

Again not speaking for pvp balance. Not my thing.

It isn't that you can't get ammo for deck guns.. it's that you spend 15 minutes picking it up/making it worth of down time every system.

You can pretty much clear a system with energy weapons in the time you spend restocking deck guns.

[grizzled parrot]

Tbh, with ions you can also destroy anything that doesn't have a long range weapon before it reaches you.

[copper wave]

10 deck guns burn like 200 rounds a second firing.

[grizzled parrot]

Issue is when you come face to face with something that spams missiles, has a huge railgun in the middle or has a huge ion beam.

[copper wave]

a single 10 second fight means restocking 2000 rounds.

not even including flaks.

SO instead of nerfing ion range, and making them awkward to use... just fix the logistics on ammo lol

[grizzled parrot]

Tbh, my biggest issue with the deck gun is that it has the same range as a small beginner cannon, which is a bit ludicrous considering how much power these guns must have to shoot shots that stun your crew.

I feel like it should have more range.

[copper wave]

Ion at 450 and deck gun at 300 sounds better to me tbh

Also because deck guns tend to be positioned toward the back of the ship.

they end up even shorter range than t1 cannons

TBH I tend to use flaks over deck guns as weapons currently lol

[spiral kindle]

pd is the problrm if we're talking balance
personally i'm okay with this change since it slightlyincreases missile effectiveness vs pd walls that use ions

[copper wave]

They end up doing more damage than deck gun for way less ammo.

Toss in like 1 or 2 deck guns for fires.

[grizzled parrot]

Tbh, the changes were probably made with PvP in mind. At high level PvP, the ion nerf probably made sense.

[copper wave]

As someone that will never touch pvp though... it's just annoying. I think MOST people just pve.

[grizzled parrot]

Not quite certain what the rationale for making the deck guns with such weird stats was, but I dont have enough experience with them to question it. After all, I feel like they suck so bad that I dont really want to get any experience with them.

[spiral kindle]

most PVE people don'tmind, though

[copper wave]

I don't think many pve people are going to by happy with their giant ships having half the effective range of before though.

Cause remember ions go in the back of ships.

[grizzled parrot]

33% is not half.

I mean minus 33%

[copper wave]

1/2 the effective range, not total range

[grizzled parrot]

Effective range?

[spiral kindle]

so what if their ship doesn't work
they can make a different one, no?

[copper wave]

it's like 80 blocks to the front of the ship

so 220 range vs 370 range

so not half but still

60%?

[spiral kindle]

most PVE players i see seem to put an extra aiming prism on the front, so it's still close to only 33% less range

[copper wave]

Really? I've never used the aiming prisms they just disappear instantly and cost diamonds to rebuild

[spiral kindle]

yep, large shields for endgame prisms

[cyan geyser]

The ion beam range nerf is way too much. I’m going to try to keep it constructive but not very well thought out. Ion ships rely on range to not get instant killed by nukes Emps and cannons

[copper wave]

Large shields die to like 2 disruptors though

[grizzled parrot]

One large shield.

But ion ships will have like 10-20 large shields protecting their core.

[spiral kindle]

don't go that close tho

[copper wave]

Yeah but the "core" isn't a frontal aiming prism

[grizzled parrot]

Oh

[copper wave]

Which is why I was sayig it's more like 220 range now.

[spiral kindle]

there's ships built to ram
high pvp perspective, but ion kiters were shutting down basically anything slower than it

[cyan geyser]

So nerf kiting

[grizzled parrot]

Tbh, it's still possible to make ion kiters against ships without missiles, ions or railguns.

[spiral kindle]

armor costs steel, which you could probably get for cheap

[spiral kindle]

this does nerf kiting

[cyan geyser]

This is the problem when developers make emotionally reactionary changes

[grizzled parrot]

The problem didn't change, it just made it so that just lasers and cannons are irrelevant against kiters.

[cyan geyser]

No it makes ions useless

Big difference

[spice ruin]

It's possible to kite something with less range than you? Never woulda thought lol

[copper wave]

Why balancing around pvp is always just not good for pve.

[cyan geyser]

Make small changes

Not reduce the range by 33%

[spiral kindle]

you could exploit turret turn speed to effectively divebomb then stay out of said range

[wet frigate]

I'd like to point out that for all of classic the 300 range was standard

[spiral kindle]

oh yeah 300 is the range before 450

[grizzled parrot]

Wouldn't a railgun kiter be the most effective since it has the most range tho?

[spice ruin]

I'd personally be down to see how this change plays out for a week or two then putting 50ish range back on it if necessary

[spiral kindle]

railguns were made heavier and more expensive to place en masse to counteract this change

[copper wave]

It doesn't really effect pve outside of making it look less cool though, doesn't fix the issues lol

It's a pvp change, that just makes pve a little worse lol

[cyan geyser]

I only play pve and I won’t play anymore

[spiral kindle]

you probably have overwhelming power and eco by the time you build your ion ship imo

[cyan geyser]

Maybe you don’t reaalize how well tuned some of the ships are like the all missile ships with full stocks

[copper wave]

I mean I don't even like using ions, but when I do I'd prefer the range. I'd rather just see more daamge falloff, and less ammo issue son deckguns/nukes

[grizzled parrot]

Tbh, the use I make out of ion is a small unarmored ship at the back to snipe enemies. Given that AIs never target smaller ships, it works really well.

This nerf will make it harder to use such tactics.

[spiral kindle]

i guess there's a chance i curbstomp them with pvp knowledge...

[spice ruin]

Don't know if I should be surprised or not that a "omg revert bad change" thing got put up in like 30 minutes with how popular ions are

[copper wave]

Frankly I'd rather just play rocket league/warthunder/LoL for my pvp needs lol.

Cosmoteer is my coop pve with friends game. :P

[spiral kindle]

you shouldn't really
with a game this large you can expect a vocal minority for anything

[fallen gorge]

a thought I had in mind when I was making the post was increasing the damage falloff from range.
this would still allow ion kiters to be a thing but it'd also make the annoying strategy of armored ion boxes constantly fleeing from CQC builds like deck cannons.
railguns have more range anyways.

[spiral kindle]

it's already 70% falloff iirc

[fallen gorge]

I ended up not saying it and mostly observing the conversation

[fallen gorge]

doesn't mean it can't be increased though

[copper wave]

I mean tbh for me I'd prefer having the visual even beyond "effective" range

[grizzled parrot]

I dont think its relevant.

[copper wave]

Because half of pve is "looking cooL"

[grizzled parrot]

With enough trusters, you can just back off endlessly and chip damage will accumulate.

As long as you have enough ions to break shields, it doesnt matter what the damage falloff is.

[fallen gorge]

good point.

[copper wave]

If ions can get through shields by themselves with 80%+ damage falloff... then there are more issues than range.

[grizzled parrot]

Ions infinitely grow in power the more you stack them. You can put enough ions to do that if you want.

[copper wave]

Then cap the damage

[fallen gorge]

as they grow in cost, that is.

[cyan geyser]

So get more thrusters or just don’t engage? I don’t get how this is an ion weapon issue

[copper wave]

Not reduce the range.

[fallen gorge]

not a solution since this is pretty much already in place

and usually players use lots of ions to melt armor at the maximum rate

[copper wave]

I mean it both is and isn't.

[grizzled parrot]

It's not realistic to ask every single ship in the game to go at 100+ speed or not to engage.

[willow crypt]

yeah, in classic its always was 300, and damage was a bit bigger 1 750, instead of 1 350 (if damage wasnt changed back)

[copper wave]

You can always split the beam into 2, 3, 6

[fallen gorge]

you could make ions do less damage vs shields

[cyan geyser]

Have more engines then they do that’s how kiting works

[wet frigate]

45% fall off at max range, or 55% of regular damage

Should be 30%, or 70% remaining now

[cyan geyser]

If they have so many engines they go faste than you in all directions that’s a design thing

[copper wave]

Can we all just agree that longer ions look cooler than short ions?

[cyan geyser]

That’s a choice you made to not have engines

Make engines cost more

[copper wave]

If we can agree on that, then balance them for the range.

[fallen gorge]

no

[grizzled parrot]

Tbh, I think this will self regulate. If this nerf kills ions, then they will get buffed again, or something else will get hit. That's all it is.

[fallen gorge]

engines shouldn't cost more

speed meta is a thing yes,

[copper wave]

Rule of cool.

[cyan geyser]

The change here doesn’t even address the issue

[fallen gorge]

well the post is about how the range reduction doesn't address any issue in the first place

[cyan geyser]

People will just kite with the next longest range weapon

[fallen gorge]

there was nothing to fix

[cyan geyser]

Same strategy

So short sighted

[fallen gorge]

450 range is the same general range you can expect from HE missiles mounted on the side

[copper wave]

Balancing for pvp in games literally always ends up "make everything identical"

Why pvp balancing sucks.

[fallen gorge]

so if ions don't get un-nerfed, expect to see a LOT more missile kiters

[cyan geyser]

Of course because this doesn’t fix kiting at all

[grizzled parrot]

Missile kiters run out of ammo tho.

[copper wave]

In pve it would just come down to having one small ship with some emp missiles, a couple nukes, and a lot of thrust on standby

[fallen gorge]

actually wait

I know that nukes can do stuff where they aim towards a target area

when you right click and they're set to "fire when you have a target"

can EMP do the same?

[copper wave]

You can outspeed the ship with the ion core and shut it's engines down in pve :P

Again don't pvp, don't much care :P

[spiral kindle]

every weapon has that option

[fallen gorge]

the problem I see then with my idea for letting slower ships get a piece of the pie (EMP missile homing and number of EMP bolts buffs)

[copper wave]

So I'm insta against any PvP balance if it affects pve in a way I don't like.

[fallen gorge]

is that it's a nerf to heavy blasters

and a buff to deck cannons and railfans and ions.

hmmm

[copper wave]

Ions at 450, deck guns at 300 with less ammo issues, more uranium spawns in pve.

Done.

[spice ruin]

actually counter-able with pd/flak mixed with shields

[fallen gorge]

in elim maybe

when you have the money to spare

[spice ruin]

I would love some deck cannon buffs, if to nothing else other than range and maybe a bit of padding to projectile hp

[fallen gorge]

I'm coming at this from a very biased perspective and I'll admit that. I play dom nearly daily with nonmeta ships

[copper wave]

Already seeing a need for separate pvp/pve balancing.

[spiral kindle]

affects pvp in a way i don't like therefore i must be against it >:(

[spice ruin]

also more rail components to spice up the weapon as a whole

[fallen gorge]

........
No! No we do not need deck cannon buffs

yes that'd be cool

[grizzled parrot]

Why do we not need deck cannons buffs?

[copper wave]

Which is why there need to be separate tuning for pvp and pve.

[fallen gorge]

super super super easy to protect.

[copper wave]

One thing is not like the other.

[fallen gorge]

you can spam armor and not worry about it

[grizzled parrot]

Okay, and?

[spiral kindle]

ay man if you're having issues, choose an easier difficulty

[fallen gorge]

what do you mean "and?" address my point.

[spice ruin]

small range buff, like 25-50 more range wouldn't be that bad

[copper wave]

Typical pvp guy "get good nub" People can be really good at bad games ya know :P

[fallen gorge]

correct

[spice ruin]

and for how slow the projectiles are some hp padding so a couple flak don't just decimate them if you don't run 20+ dc would be nice

[copper wave]

Doesn't mean you can't make things better lol.

[spiral kindle]

and people can be really bad at good games <3

anyway gotta chill with the ad hom

[copper wave]

You are exactly why I don't like pvp in games where people can talk :P

[jaunty radish]

Who care about being able to armor deck guns in PvE

[fallen gorge]

juno this isn't classic, you can't be condesending to the masses anymore, they'll virtually french revolution you!

[jaunty radish]

you don't want to take armor dmg anyway

[fallen gorge]

oh no!

[hasty sparrow]

Separating PVP and PVE doesn't make sense, if I was to make a ship in creative how would it be effected and under which rules will it be effected by? Having a "option"? It's better if the ship I play in PvE runs the same through it all

[wet frigate]

We can be civil and reasonable when discussing balance. Please refrain from insulting each other, directly or passively regardless

[jaunty radish]

If I have to take armor dmg in PvE to use deck guns I'm just not going to use them

[fallen gorge]

I care. and there is no seperation as to what jarhead said: you can armor up deck cannons with far less weakpoints then even ions

[copper wave]

I mean it's just numbers. If one set of numbers works better than another set of numbers for a certain play style, then why not?

Lots of games do it.

[grizzled parrot]

Deck cannons stun your crew, they have piss poor range, and they require an insane amount of ammo to do the job.

In PvE, this means expanding a lot of money for a weapon that requires you to run into the enemy and take a decent amount of damage in order to be efficient.

[fallen gorge]

sure you lose speed but you're going to have to engage them anyways, and it's not hard to go fast in cosmoteer.

[jaunty radish]

Or you can just get energy weapons and shields. It'd be nice if deck guns were viable in PvE

[spice ruin]

as long as your ship can actually move and you have a mediocre amount of pd/flak or shielding, or a mix, dc doesn't really do anything to you unless you're just straight up out-tiered

[fallen gorge]

DC?

[spice ruin]

deck cannon

[fallen gorge]

oh

[grizzled parrot]

Plus, if you armor up deck guns, you lose what is arguably the biggest strength of a ramming ship, which is putting your cannons inside the enemy shields.

[fallen gorge]

you don't really have to ram with deck cannons

you can use with in conjunction with nukes to either blow up shields or create soft spots in armor for your deck cannons to clean up with

[grizzled parrot]

Tbh, look at the top tier ships.

[spice ruin]

you do to get them in range of anything

[grizzled parrot]

There are no deck guns in anything that's worth over 1m credits.

[fallen gorge]

yes because speed meta.

[spice ruin]

im building a dc flagship just bc of the big ship with big cannons lining it fantasy
I don't actually expect it to be notably good

[grizzled parrot]

Well, if a weapon is not featured in the best ships, then that weapon can't be that good, yes?

At least not compared to the weapons they do use.

[copper wave]

Example of why pve and pvp numbers could be different. Pve should be "rule of cool"

[fallen gorge]

well ions, missiles, and railfans, they're all stuff that's really hard to dodge and that's more or less a good reason as to why they're used

in this game all thrusters generate torque

I think this is stupid

but I cannot protest a game feature

[jaunty radish]

I don't understand where the rule of cool is coming from tbh. Why would I use a gun that use way too many ammo and force me to take dmg when I can just not take any?

[spiral kindle]

the nerds that get stuck on asteroids need it

[copper wave]

Not fond of this myself either. You should NEED reverse thrust/lateral thrust.

[jaunty radish]

Anyway, why are we talking about deck guns and cannons in the "undo beam change" thread again?

[fallen gorge]

conversation drifts easily

[grizzled parrot]

I dont remember, tbh.

[copper wave]

TBH it's because everything is relative.

[spiral kindle]

counterproposals lead to tangents

[fallen gorge]

I think I said something about deck cannons not needing a buff

[grizzled parrot]

Well, I think the point was, ions wouldn't need a nerf if you buffed other weapons to be more relevant.

[fallen gorge]

buffs are better then nerfs

[spice ruin]

i mean in real life thrusters can have their outputs angled to stabilize themselves. I can see them offering a little bit, but depending on the size of your ship it shouldn't be anything near effective

I feel like this thread is getting really off topic though

[fallen gorge]

"Undo the fabric of cosmoteer" thread when

[jaunty radish]

I think I'll just support Sladernom initial idea. Let's just wait a bit and see how the changes feel

[grizzled parrot]

But at this point I don't really know what is decent. I only made medium size ships in career and creative modes.

[spiral kindle]

this is becoming that

[spice ruin]

I feel this, I can only make medium size ships <2mil credits decently

[copper wave]

I mean I just went to log into the game, saw a patch, read the notes, and was like.. hmm don't really feel like playing now lol.

Which is why I'm here instead of playing.

[fallen gorge]

yeah

I'm going to shelve the idea of a "remove torque" thread because I know for a fact the Orbiter Legion™️ will be summoned and downvote my post immensely (and also walt will never add this because it's been a thing since classic)

[spiral kindle]

i think it was a pve player change

[fallen gorge]

were people complaining about asteroids

[spiral kindle]

yep

people complain about everything in a big game bb

[fallen gorge]

I have an idea then:
deck-mounted VTOL thruster

[hasty sparrow]

Oh God

[spiral kindle]

yeah this thread is getting a little too off-topic

[fallen gorge]

2x2. rotates at a slow speed, has the thrust of 2 standard thrusters. very energy inefficient

needs a crewmember to pilot it

unlike other thrusters which only need suppliers

[spice ruin]

make a different thread for it maybe? doubt something like that will get added though

[grizzled parrot]

Tbh, it did allow me to make up my mind. I think I'll support the wait and see approach. After all, the devs of this game have shown that they could make a pretty cool game, and they listen to feedback. I think after the november PvP tournament, we'll know for sure whether Ions were killed by this nerf.

[fallen gorge]

probably wont since it'll be packaged with the removal of passive thruster torque

[spiral kindle]

that's what tournaments are for, actually

[fallen gorge]

ayep

a great way to see what the meta is and how things have changed

at least in elim

dom will always be more complex but in dom range tends to matter less

since you have to cap points which brings you into deck cannon range by default

probably why I'm so biased about deck cannons not needing a buff

it's weird how we bunch PVP into one big thing when dom is as similar to elim as elim is to campaign

[jaunty radish]

Makes sense that you have that bias then. From my perspective of only having played PvE, I don't see why I'd ever use deck guns.

[spiral kindle]

so here's a thing i've learned from economics, somethibg called pareto effiiency, where no more changes can be made without affecting something else

[vale thistle]

They need to be balanced?

Otherwise even less shield damage.
If you really need one.
Doesn’t affect ions in any way, gives shields more viability, easily counter able.

NOW IF WE ADD INTERCEPTOR MISSILES

shrug or make it 400 so Missiles outrange it but it doesn’t die to everything else.

[fallen gorge]

a range buff to deck cannons would actually be fine then

bring them to nuke range and here's the effects

domination:

• indirect buff to slow ships
• makes nukes less of a hard counter to slow ships since they'll be able to fire a bit before the nuke ship arrives, possibly crippling it, an indirect nerf to ultralight nukers
  elimination
• deck cannons can see some use considering they'll be a medium range weapon
• can also be used with nukes to obliterate shields and armor
  arena
• nobody plays arena
  campaign
• more of an incentive to use them since alpha strikes will come from longer range

[vale thistle]

Isn’t it an indirect nerf to slow ships

Well it’s both Ai guess

[spiral kindle]

can see some use
yeah if they weren't slow

[fallen gorge]

no because slow ships using deck cannons can fire at nuke ships (and current-range ion beams)

speeeed metta.

[vale thistle]

I was thinking it’s a nerf to slow ships because deck cannons would hit them from longer ranges

[vale thistle]

or give it 600 range and M O R E falloff

[fallen gorge]

slow ships don't usually use large cannons or heavy blasters though

since by nature you want range

[spiral kindle]

def going out of topic

[fallen gorge]

well my solution to off topic ness

is to create a topic for it!

#1040861421069680710

[vale thistle]

Now let us patiently wait for patch 20. Something or another be redone

[wanton onyx]

screw it, subtract 100 more range and give me roof prisms

[fallen gorge]

R O O F P R I S M S

[dapper leaf]

a compromise would be to further decrease the max-range damage penalty while keeping the 450-400 meter range

instead of 50% it could be something like 25% at max range

so that, in practice, you would still have to get much closer to really break through a tough set of shields

but you can still get pot shots off at range

[vale thistle]

600 range and 1% damage at max range, do it

[quaint sun]

Honestly, I thought I would hate the change, but it didn't do much to me. I tend to just get right up on the enemy ships to blast through them faster in Career. I just automatically put enough defense stuff on the front I guess to stay alive while I burrow right through and cleave off sections of the enemy ships. Thinking about it, 6 large shield gens with 8 small shields behind that and 4 sections of 5 PDs in a row is probably a bit stacked defensively....

well, for the 12ish range at least

[open rampart]

Making a limit to how many ions you can reasonably stack.

Imagine if prisms heat up over time, and once they’re too hot they need a 10 second cooldown. The stronger the ion beam passing through the prism, the quicker it heats up, and the less time you can spend shooting it. (Ions would automatically stop firing if the prisms get too hot).

[spiral kindle]

the entire idea of prisms was to make a death star laser, and a cooldown is no fun, so i don't think that's in the spirit of adding prisms

[wet frigate]

I mean technically the death star does fire in bursts

The issue is ions would also need to function in bursts, as opposed to their current arrangement as constant damage weapons

[spiral kindle]

saris once again saving my ass

[wet frigate]

Don't get me wrong it's one of the few ideas I've outright downvoted

[fallen gorge]

a lot of problems with "the stronger the beam the lesser the [X]"

come from the simple fact that this is basically already a thing

a 16-core ion with 8 outputs in a concentrated area is far stronger then a single output one in terms of damage

the difference is that the latter is far easier to defend

[spiral kindle]

the problem is focusing the thing

[fallen gorge]

one mans problem is anothers solution

EMBRACE WIDE BEAM

[open rampart]

What else would you do then? The Death Star fires far, but not permanently. The ions right now are just comedically short.

[spiral kindle]

it was built on the framework of ions, so basically what saris said

[open rampart]

So… bursts? Cooldowns, but on the ion beams themselves instead of the prisms, which would still make it a constant beam that does intense damage, you just need more of them.

[regal imp]

Use factories. Sulphur is plentiful. Mining it is trivial and it goes pretty far. Keeping deck guns stocked isn’t difficult if you use what tools are available to you

[vale thistle]

Half ion damage, give ions a “Boost” option. Which makes them like boost thrusters that makes them have normal damage

Boom. Done.

Boosted ions cannot be refueled

[regal imp]

I don’t see why pvp and pve can’t be balanced. Not sure why so much pvp hate.

[vale thistle]

Just make the AIs play like @spiral kindle ez

[spiral kindle]

you do realize that this means just killing the player outright, right

[dawn plaza]

Metas are inherently different

[spiral kindle]

unless you're actually a good player, you're not getting past the first mission

[vale thistle]

Bitch the hell can you do as a fnaged fighrwr against a model S

[dawn plaza]

Me when i see the fanged fighter obliterate me with its entirely exposed frontal cockpit

And two small lasers

[vale thistle]

Skill issue

[regal imp]

Some changes effect one game type more than another, allowing room to adjust one mode a lot without having much effect on the other. There is a middle ground.

[dawn plaza]

You cant expect walt to carry out such a flawless balancing act

Plus, its infeasible in practice

[regal imp]

If you think that, you have too little faith in him. And in the community

[dawn plaza]

Its not a matter of faith lol

The metas are inherently completely different

Just because of the differences in playstyle

Theyll never both be perfectly balanced

[regal imp]

Do you think most pvp tactics don’t work in single player?

[dawn plaza]

Its the other way around, actually

Most pvp tactics translate well because theyre just well optmized ships for the most part

But even pvp is quite unbalanced

[regal imp]

You don’t pvp much... do you?

[dawn plaza]

Scuse me?

Im pretty neutral towards pvp

Pvp is just unbalanced by a lot

[near gulch]

what if you having a command bridge increased all weapon ranges?

so big ships can actualy use their weapons

[regal imp]

How much pvp have you done?

In hours

[dawn plaza]

Not much. Why does it matter?

Ive played enough to understand that the pvp meta is quite unbalanced

[near gulch]

if you havent done much pvp then dont talk about pvp being unbalanced since u would not know what the balance is in it since people build specific ships for pvp

[dawn plaza]

id like to see an actually tourney winning pvp ship that isnt a supermobile railfan/ion rammer ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[regal imp]

It matters a lot because you’re speaking like you know pvp balance and you have hardly played it. In other words, you don’t know pvp. If you don’t know pvp, you can’t know how it is balanced, or how it crosses over to single player.

[dawn plaza]

As i said, ive played enough to have a good enough handle on the meta

[vale thistle]

Anyways my point stands B3

[dawn plaza]

Pleas explain to me how railfans and ion rammers at least used to not be broken and the meta

[regal imp]

How much?

[dawn plaza]

I dunno. Probably around 20 or so? How would i know? Its not like i keep count

[wet frigate]

20 hours in modern already?

[dawn plaza]

PVP

And not exclusively modern

[wet frigate]

Yes, sorry, 20 hours in modern PvP specifically

[dawn plaza]

Bit of classic, tho most of my actual pvp hours are modern

I dont keep count, so i dunno

Are we counting the time it takes to build the ships?

[regal imp]

Definitely not

[dawn plaza]

if you say so ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I dont keep count so it could be lower or higher

[regal imp]

My point stands. If you don’t have heavy pvp experience, please don’t speak like you know how it can be balanced. You can’t really know that

[dawn plaza]

Ok. Well. How am i wrong then

Cause i personally think however many hours i have is enough to understand the meta

[wet frigate]

I can practically hear Quix cracking his knuckles

[dawn plaza]

i dont see how the take than “pvp is unbalanced” is wrong ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[regal imp]

Let’s look at projectile velocity. Changing it has significantly less effect on single player and a huge effect in PVP. A small adjustment would barely register in pve but could mean the world in pvp. It’s a concurrent balance option

[dawn plaza]

?????????

Yeah

What about it

Youre saying to buff the projectile velocity of the weak weapons?

To balance them in both pvp and pve?

It doesnt sound too bad, but im not sure it would actually go the distance at all

Without going in some incredibly radical extreme

That is an idea, but idk how it has much to do with pvp being unbalanced

[regal imp]

You wanted an example of how you’re wrong. You stated that pvp and pve can’t be balanced together because they’re too different. I’m showing you an example of a handle you can use to adjust weapons that positively effects both modes.

[dawn plaza]

Projectile velocity alone arguably could not be enough

[regal imp]

This is one way and there are more. But you need a strong understanding of pvp AND pve to get there

I’ve given you a good example.

[dawn plaza]

Doesnt seem that way to me, but whatever. There are plenty of reasons i stopped interacting with the pvp community mostly and these sorts of interactions were most of the reason

[open rampart]

Seems to me that PvP as a whole need some nerfs. If your ships are so unbalanced that simple changes like projectile speed changes would shatter it, then it’s broken already.

[regal imp]

There are many great people in the pvp community. They tend to take exception though when people talk like they know more than they do.

[regal imp]

Yeah, nerf pvp, because that statement makes no logical sense

[wet frigate]

It's not that it shatters balance, but singular changes can have massive ramifications. If you reduce a weapon's velocity by too much, that single stat makes the weapon unusable in the competitive scene

[open rampart]

PvP is so broken, I’ve had 400+ comment threads about how slightly larger bunks would break it. It’s an absolute mess rn.

[regal imp]

Do you pvp often?

[wet frigate]

Can you link that thread? This is the first time I've heard of this

[open rampart]

No. I couldn’t care less about it. But I can see from all the suggestions how negatively they react to many changes.

[hollow drum]

Are we even talking about Ion beams anymore

[wet frigate]

...Not a single pvp player has cared at all about the ion change

[hollow drum]

I think the Ion beam change was necessary because everybody I knew used the long range to easily take out pirate bases

[open rampart]

https://discord.com/channels/314103695568666625/1034753192233271307

[regal imp]

So you prefer to advocate for change based on second hand information on a game mode you’re ignorant of?

[hollow drum]

And Ion beams deal more damage the closer you are to your enemy

[open rampart]

I’m tired of the PvP community shutting down any chance of change/improvement because they think it’s “unbalanced”.

I may be wrong, it could just be a small, vocal minority that’s like that, but I’ve seen the way people talk here.

[wet frigate]

As far as I can tell the only pvp player opposing that thread was Air, who is known to be and has been warned for being overly and unnecessarily argumentative, and I apologize that you had to deal with it

It's worth noting that there was enthusiastic support for it by a large amount of people anyhow, as well as Skipydog and now myself being encouraging of the idea

Heck Quix supports it too

[regal imp]

There are players that have been with the game for a long time. They’ve followed balance and seen the effect of new things on gameplay. Many stuck around for pvp. They know the game on a pretty deep level and have had plenty of their own ideas shot down in turn. They also know why one idea worked and another did not.

They aren’t a bunch of naysayers. They have good reason for their opinions.

[spiral kindle]

am i considered one of these people

[regal imp]

Focus

[open rampart]

Hmm.. maybe I have been a bit too negative about the MP community. I want to apologize.

[regal imp]

I’m sorry you felt unheard or ignored. The community can do better than that

[cyan geyser]

The people in here talking down to others need to be removed from the conversation. Telling people they can’t have opinions isn’t cool. Don’t do that. You aren’t special because you pvp.

[wet frigate]

It's not talking down, nor claiming they can't have opinions, it's pointing out that one isn't as familiar as one claims to be. It's like walking into a military base and speaking with authority you don't have

[copper wave]

A game discord probably shouldn't run like a military base though. Not good for sales lol.

[wet frigate]

The point is difference in prior knowledge

[copper wave]

That's the definition of an "appeal to authority" fallacy though.

An opinion must be wrong due to someone else's experience.

[wet frigate]

Again, the issue wasn't incorrect opinions, the issue was claiming to be far more experienced and knowledgeable than accurate

[copper wave]

I mean how much experience do you need to say a BLT tastes off? Like really?

If something doesn't feel "right" all the experience in the world isn't going to change that.

[cyan geyser]

You go down the route of gate keeping feedback and making changes on pvp I promise you will destroy your game. I can give you tons of examples but I’ll point you to star trek online first

[copper wave]

If anything there is an argument to be make that just enables the nostalgia glasses.

The best source of info is the new players.

[cyan geyser]

This game will never be pvp balanced

[copper wave]

They don't come in with prior expectations.

Only way to "truly" balance pvp.. is give people 8 ships.. and tell them to fight

Then they'll figure out the best 3 and not use the other 5

And you have your nice little rock paper scissors thing :P

[regal imp]

Imagine telling your electrician how to do their job because you know what a blt tastes like

[gilded geyser]

there's a difference between "undo" and "reduce the nerf" (haven't read the discussion above)

But my initial thought is simply "reduce the nerf". 450->300 is a massive change. Even 375 or 350 would still be a large nerf and preserve some of the longrange nature

[copper wave]

More like my friend telling me I'm wrong about a BLT tasting bad because he's eaten more BLTs than me.

Doesn't make the BLT taste better.

[copper wave]

375 would be an okay compromise tbh.

My issue with going from 450 to 300... is it's a good bit more than 1/3 on fixed ions.

[spice ruin]

No what you're saying is more like saying you know how to make a BLT at the same level of a chef that's made 100x more BLTs than you have sandwiches in general

[copper wave]

Considering "Chef" Ramsey was happy with this grilled cheese.

I'd say I have a pretty good chance.

[spice ruin]

So in a conversation about BLTs you make a pretty mean grilled cheese?

[copper wave]

I'm sorry I thought we were talking about Ions.

[spice ruin]

You brought up BLTs I was trying to speak your language

[regal imp]

Pretty sure Ramsey has roasted more people for being idiots than the entire pvp community. Funny you should mention that

[copper wave]

No I used an analogy.

Was still talking about Ions.

[spice ruin]

And I was going along with your analogy

[copper wave]

Okay now take it one more step

"...so was I..."

[regal imp]

You’re saying you’re so good at making BLTs after one bite, that other people who make them should be excluded from the conversation for calling you out on your actual lack of skill at making them. What even is that?

[copper wave]

I'm pretty sure given time you'll tell me every single thing I think :)

What I think is experience doesn't judge game feel for the masses.

[regal imp]

I sure hope not

[copper wave]

And most people that are new chiming in on discord, don't seem to care for it.

[regal imp]

I think you confuse how you feel about something and how it works. You can have your opinion on how it feels. Yay flavors. But you need a lot more time to understand how it comes together. How savory and sweet flavors combine as crispy bacon melts in your mouth.

You gotta know your bacon

[copper wave]

The cheaper and fattier the better :P

[regal imp]

That much, we can probably agree on.

[copper wave]

hahah

[hasty sparrow]

Ah yes, from "bring back 450 range but change other things" to "Deck cannon balance" now "BLT's" what's next? A philosophical question what it means to exist and have "experiences" diffrent then other people and ultimately cone to the realization there's nothing that can be done to please everyone

Long story short can we try to keep things on topic, more useful for Walt of there actual discussion on what should be done to the changes then complain and fight one another

[dapper leaf]

To be fair to ions, they are a little too powerful if they can death-beam something into obliteration before the enemy can even respond

I love a good death bean but if the intent of the change is to eliminate it's ability to siege everything, I'd encourage an increase in it's damage at max range from 50% to 60-70%, while keeping the lowered range

[copper wave]

Well I mean weapons don't exist in a bubble, so I don't think discussing other weapons in a discussion about ions is very offtopic. And the BLT thing was an analogy.

[wanton onyx]

I think the point was to focus more on the ions so that it doesn’t derail into some talk about pizza or whatever

[copper wave]

Well in summation some people think they are too short, some people think they are just right, and no one thinks they are too long. So somewhere in the middle ground is probably just right.

[thorny crater]

The ion gun is my favourite weapon in this game and when I saw the post I was wincing a bit, but I mostly just said "ok well I guess that's fair". This being said, I have no idea why it was changed in the first place. I like to think its because it could be use to dismantle certain enemies, especially bases, from a safe distance but was there a different reason for it?

[shy cloak]

Cabal faction is dying

I think we should not balance the game. Focus on adding featurr

[dapper leaf]

It's possible to do both at the same time. If content isn't balanced, it won't be fun with or without new features

[clear garnet]

“don’t balance the game, add more features” is a oneway track to killing the game

[shy cloak]

@dapper leaf walt is human and human have limitation

[hasty sparrow]

lol yep

[shy cloak]

And so focus on 1 subject

Tbh everything is balanced

[hasty sparrow]

why? hes dont both at once before lmao

[shy cloak]

The result matters

I find balance is waste of time

And dividing community

[hasty sparrow]

you as this as if he has to get the balanceing done in one update, there can be multiple updated to balance parts

[dapper leaf]

In a given day, there might only be time to work on one thing at a time. Over a longer time, it is possible to spread out work and successfully get multiple things done in a single period

[hasty sparrow]

if walt was to only focus on balance we would never see new parts lol, anyways this is getting off topic now

[shy cloak]

No its not

Btw What new part ?

[dapper leaf]

The ion bean is a very interesting thing to design, and it's stats are part of that design. Iteration during the development cycle is necessary

[thorny crater]

seriously tho, why was the ion beam nerfed in the first place?

[dapper leaf]

So it is necessary for the ion to be balanced at this stage in the game in the first place

[hasty sparrow]

could easily cheese with ions iirc like with kitters

and to be fair doing a runthrough with one, yea EMP + Ion beam core is too easy

[shy cloak]

@thorny crater also why its range got nerfed instead of damage

[dapper leaf]

Ions can be nerfed in different ways that limit its efficacy as a kiting tool

[shy cloak]

@dapper leaf do you know what imbalance currently ?

Its nukes

Low level imperium have it

[thorny crater]

by "kitters" we talking about kiters, I presume?

[shy cloak]

Ion is balanced

[dapper leaf]

A damage falloff curve that looks like an upside down exponential. Deals very little damage at max range, say 400 meters, but gets much closer to it's full damage at closer range l

[thorny crater]

Anyway, yeah, I figure it was that

Well it hardly changes how I play this game so I dont really mind

[dapper leaf]

This is entirely irrelevant

[shy cloak]

No

Walt nerf ion. What he should nerf is nukes

[dapper leaf]

Ions don't have a very direct counter, while basically everything else does

[thorny crater]

btw if I have an idea for a gun type, should I just make a new thread or discuss it somewhere else before?

[dapper leaf]

I am sad that they are less overpowered but I think they are ultimately for the better

This is speaking as someone who uses ions a lot

[shy cloak]

Ion like need a lot of power and easily chain blow up

Also dps falloff

[dapper leaf]

Yes those are very big weaknesses

[thorny crater]

actually I feel like ion needs little power

it just take a lot of space

[shy cloak]

Plus if the prism explode it explode violently

[dapper leaf]

Protecting the prisms is exceptionally expensive

[shy cloak]

Expensive to built btw

Unlike nukes

Launce and kiss your ship goodbye

[dapper leaf]

But once they are protected properly, it is incredibly difficult to dig into a well armored ion core

[shy cloak]

Cheap as well

@dapper leaf kite it

[hasty sparrow]

if you can find a post that already talks about that weapon just post on there, but if you cant find anything yea make a new one

[dapper leaf]

Kiting is an option against ions

Even moreso with the balance changes

[shy cloak]

Emp

Kill shield and ion

Emp cant kill nukes

[dapper leaf]

A good ion core uses a mix of armor and shields

[shy cloak]

Thats why expensive

And it got nerf

It require more crew as well

[dapper leaf]

I am not saying ions are overpowered, because they take a lot of cost to become so powerful, so perhaps their power is deserved

[shy cloak]

Dude cost ratio important to consideration

[dapper leaf]

But against many other weapons, ions may often over perform on average

[shy cloak]

Actually just strafe

Ion damage bad if your ship slightly move

And cant pen large shield

Nukes one shot it

[dapper leaf]

Your argument seems to be that ions are already balanced and shouldn't be any weaker. I would like if this is the case, since I also make a lot of ion ships

[junior gulch]

Could try make them easier too use like in the configuration u can build them sorta thing
So instead of lowing the damage of the strongest lazer just have it do a set amount of damage for an amount of lazers
Might be alittle more work but then u could just cap it at like 32 ions max or more too prevent superrr op ions

Also means u could tweak the lazer amounts more in the future

[shy cloak]

I also make a lot of ion ship

So...

[dapper leaf]

But a combination of a strong ion core and lots of emp can concentrate an incomparable amount of dps into a single spot from long range, unmatched by other weapons types

[junior gulch]

That might have been covered already I didn't read into this chat much was just an idea I had

[dapper leaf]

So I would argue that, even with the nerf, ions still remain a force to be reckoned with, despite their weaknesses

[shy cloak]

Uh nope

Nuke are

Actually try fighting enemy in game

That ion and nukes

[dapper leaf]

Nukes are stopped by armor spikes and spaced shields. They are also not infinite. They can miss, and they can be juked out.

But I will not argue about nukes, that's not the point at all

[shy cloak]

@dapper leaf so is ion...

[dapper leaf]

You seem to be insistent on arguing about nukes which I think should be its own thread if you are passionate about it

[shy cloak]

In order to balance one have to compare with other weapon

[junior gulch]

Ngl I'm with Hellatze here :)

[dapper leaf]

The only other weapons you compare is nukes. They are very different but powerful weapons. Their weaknesses and costs are different. I find them hard to compare directly

[shy cloak]

Want to compare to railgun ?

[dapper leaf]

Ions are powerful long range siege weapons, much like railguns yes

The important distinction is the ability to concentrate ion firepower into one spot

[shy cloak]

The thing is ship moving

[dapper leaf]

For this reason alone, ions were probably deserving a nerf

Perhaps not so severely

I think 350 meters would not have caused as much of a problem

[shy cloak]

What if ship keep moving ?

Nukes can rotate

Ion have 2 modes

[dapper leaf]

Railguns can pierce into a ship all the same, but they can miss easily. Ions don't miss, so I think they may technically be stronger

[shy cloak]

Depend on what design. Spinal ion or turret

[thorny crater]

I dunno about you but my ion misses often

[shy cloak]

Yep

[thorny crater]

Not that it really matters

[dapper leaf]

Good rotation is key to ion efficacy. Unless the enemy is running circles around you

In the case of pve, ions are hard to match, except by railguns

[shy cloak]

Like prism have fast turn rate

[junior gulch]

make separate damage number per amount of ions

it would make balancing them SOOO much easier also means u could get more creative with ion placement as u wouldn't be stuck with 2:1 etc
also means u could just cap the damage at like 32 ions or something idfk

[thorny crater]

Honestly I also think ions are fine in term of damage. The range nerf bothers me but I understand why it was made like that.

[dapper leaf]

The turn rate of prisms is fine tbh. They cannot shoot THROUGH the ship at least lmao

Roof prisms would destroy cosmoteer

[shy cloak]

There is no roof prism

[thorny crater]

Roof prism pls

[shy cloak]

Dont play mod please

[dapper leaf]

I see it differently. The 2:1 configuration forces creative angles and positioning, such that ion cores cannot be made willy nilly. It takes effort to achieve all that power

[thorny crater]

I got a silly idea. What if we had an alternative type of prism that split the beam? Much less powerful, but it could stop enemy shots.

[dapper leaf]

Arbitrary ion cap would also ruin the fun.

[thorny crater]

A prism shotgun if you will

[hasty sparrow]

just dont combine prisms then

[dapper leaf]

Five head over here

[thorny crater]

...I feel silly now

But yeah my idea was more to turn ion into AA somehow

But then I guess its better to have actual AA

[hasty sparrow]

prisms spliter has been a common suggestions dont worry lol

[thorny crater]

haha, nice

[hasty sparrow]

when prisms were first added i suggested one as well and got that answer lol

[fleet saffron]

I liked the extra range on ions, i think it mainly helped with freely rotating ions more than it does with fixed ones

[fallen gorge]

hm

[vale thistle]

Alright it’s 31 upvotes, undo the change.

[wet frigate]

That's... not how that works

[hasty sparrow]

sorry we are not a democracy. ALL HAIL EMPEROR WALT

[trail shuttle]

evergreen message from me

[wet frigate]

@cyan geyser by going into devmode, opening a multiplayer game, then clicking the button at the top called 'load .rec file' you can view past games. In each of these I wrought havoc using ions

I'm pretty sure all of them use ions anyway, might be one or two that I saved the wrong one for

[trail shuttle]

Ions work? I sure hope they do!

[wet frigate]

It was either call the saves ions work or 'It's ionin time'

In retrospect I think I prefer the latter option

[thorny crater]

And then he ion'd all over them

[cyan geyser]

I watched all the games. If I'm analyzing balance its really hard because they're free for all games with a mix of noobs, afk people, and a few tryhards. There is a noticable amount of kiting though and if this is post change, it clearly did nothing to address that. The kiting strategies make sense though given how the game works. I saw rail kiting, missile kitting, and ion kiters. Would be curious to see more high level 1:1 battles

[wet frigate]

Generally you were supposed to be following the ships I/Appaguchee was piloting, they were all ion ships that only fought in 1v1s at a time exclusively

I do agree that it was unfortunately somewhat lopsided in skill. I'll strive to get fairer matchups

[cyan geyser]

ill say i probably overreacted a bit but its still a pretty sizable nerf the key thing i want to see is how it holds up vs missiles

[wet frigate]

Didn't missiles already match their range?

If your ship didn't use PD its usually not great against missiles, even if you had extra range. Even if you did win it would be through long, painful matches involving hiding behind rocks or blitz games that end very quickly

I guess it's slightly worse there but the circumstances where you win were incredibly slim and the missile opponent would be running the entire time to force close quarters via RoD, taking away precious time to chip at armor

[cursive barn]

you shouldnt store amo. get factorys, put them close to guns and get sulver. you last much longer until you have tor efill. and when you need you just mine one sulfer astroid, get your 150 sulfer from it and go.

[cursive barn]

not rly. ioan beams arent rly used on kiters which sue the range. kiters are mainly rail guns.

most ioan beam pvp ships just ram you from the side and then burn trough you withe ase while you cant move away bcs they ram you.

best nerf to these ram playstyles would be to change how thrust works. reduce the penelty of weigth on speed tog et away from speed meta and reduce friction betwene ships so that a ship rammed by another ship can more easily get away from the ramming ship instead of being stuck.

Tractor beams should be used to force a ship to stay stuck to you. atm people can just ram you and if they are fast enough you can never break out of the ram and get burned trough

[cursive barn]

exactly. biggest PvP problem of the game anyways. most pvper says any ships slower then 100ms is usles, and sadly its kidna true

[wet frigate]

Tons of ion ships can and will employ kiting. Though ramming is powerful and effective to state it's the only use-case is incorrect

[cursive barn]

depends. if only one thing is good but something else that is cool isnt as good it feels very unsatisfying.

for example nukes are cool, but feel shitty to sue in comparison to ioans bcs of the amount of amo yoiu use. if you make ioans super strong tnow then in comparison it makes the frustrating about nukes even bigger.

I think you alwways should balance a game in a way that PvP doent have inourmus differences on "what is good" to pve.

I mean this is a game about ship building:
In theory being a good ship builder should be the most important skill in PvP and Pve. and then you can balance the individuel parts based on their power lvl to make it satisfying to use or try out a big variation of weapons.

the problem atm is that in PvP good ship buuilding is the least important skill. atm Speed meta is king. so a good ship is a fragile ugly badly balanced ship that ha like 1/3 or even half of its creits spend to buy thrusters, and then adds some weapons on one side that can shot at the enemy while you fly around him like an anoying fly.

if we get rid of taht and people acctually need to think about stuff like armor/ shield placement and layering, weapon synergy and so on instead of "gona go fast br br" brainly ship building, then we could much more easily balance PvP and PvE in a similar manner by trying to adjust Power lvls of compeonents to make all equally viable. And then PvP and PvE would get a lot of fun out of creativly trying and exploring new idears and concepts in ship building to create amazing synergies.

and for the context to the ioan nerf: concidering what i said before:

Was it legit to nerf Ioans: Probably bcs most people only use ioans in PvE. will they stop using them: probably no either, bcs the main reason other cool weapons are less used in PvE like Deck Cannons or nukes is AMO.
so a change to amo is also needed.

Does PvP affect PvE balance. ofc, as the other way around. thats why we should try tog et a commen sense of what the game should be and remove very weird and stupid cheese strats (like brainless speed meta) from PvP balance to get a better balancing design philosophy that we can apply to both.(as i explained in the text before)

[cyan geyser]

I don't know this guy but I love the stuff he's saying. Also, after watching the replays linked in here, can definitely agree with his experiences as that seems to be exactly the playstyle, kite, or ram. Speed meta is very clear in the ratio of engines being used. Agree that to fix this somehow you need to adjust the mechanics of thrust. Also my personal opinion that the guns need more variety. The benefit of Ion before was the niche that it was a no ammo, long range, high risk weapon. Now it's just basically lasers with high risk and more concentrated power. The more variation in the weapons the more options for ship building and the more strategies that will develop. Over time people will discover overpowered ones that existed before, but were unknown, that also happens

one thing I want to highlight also I forgot is tractor beams - love the idea of using them to counte rthe speed meta

ok last, last thing, the weight change that would move the thrust curve per weight that was recommended a few day ago as well should really be considered. That convo went off the rails assuming that math checks out its at least worth a try to see how it impacts overall relative speeds. In pvp it doesnt matter that you go 1m/s or 100m/s faster than your opponent you just need to go faster.

[wet frigate]

This is intended to be strictly as clear and precise as much as possible in every way possible. Not condescending.

What you guys don't seem to grasp is that in the far end of competitive PvP, which is where my ships come from, you play to win, or take every conceivable advantage possible. Naturally using ions you are only going to be kiting or ramming, the two extremes, because going all in is how you optimize. Why would you ever stay within range of an opponent and allow them to fire back, IE not kiting, without also ramming, which reduces their ability to move and fight back

the problem atm is that in PvP good ship buuilding is the least important skill.
I'm not sure where this comes in, it takes skill to know how to balance thrust between weapon control and how to optimize ships. Though piloting is indeed important, it doesn't matter if the ship you use doesn't have consistent power supply to it's thrusters

And then PvP and PvE would get a lot of fun out of creativly trying and exploring new idears and concepts in ship building to create amazing synergies.
The issue is that if you reduce the speed of everything, it only turns into a slugfest. There is no dodging nukes, there is very little ramming, kiting, etc. If you were to artificially throttle speed, it would turn into slow ships beating on each other with no movement tactics involved

Buffing tractor beams is a neat idea but will allow ships without tractor beams to bully ships without, meaning it's no longer fast against slow, it's fast against tractor beams. Arguably better in circumstances but will cause """normal""" ships to suffer further

[grizzled parrot]

I like the concept of nukes.

It's a weapon that has a lot of range and is devastating, but you can dodge it. Giving that a lot of range is balanced, because if you fire it from further away, it gives more time to dodge (and, I guess to turn around and shoot it down).

Ions, you can't dodge from a long range. And you can't even PD/flak them, so it makes sense that it has less range.

I think making attacks with more range be less reliable in terms of accuracy and/or speed would go a long way to balance things out.

[copper wave]

Welp I guess if the pvp'ers don't like it, then it's not worth talking about.

[wet frigate]

It's not that I don't like it, I was counteracting the points

[hasty sparrow]

love how divided people get over a game

[wet frigate]

I just wish that when I put in a lot of effort into a message fundamentally responding to what other people say it wasn't reduced to in four seconds "LoL tHe TrYhArD sAyS iTs BaD lEtS aLl JuSt BoW tO tHeM"

[misty flare]

Imop having used the ion a little bit. it does seem very op and still very strong. just looking at numbers it outranged way too much and melted through ships. I used a rail in campaign and it carried me sooo hard. it doesn't share any of the downsides that rails have. you can freely angle it. it doesn't use ammo, it is a consistent damage weapon, it made me not ever have to even think about any of the other weapons as even some rail ships I was fighting I could outrange. having it so it's max range is the same as a rail ships min range seems more fair to me

[cursive barn]

"What you guys don't seem to grasp is that in the far end of competitive PvP, which is where my ships come from, you play to win, or take every conceivable advantage possible. Naturally using ions you are only going to be kiting or ramming, the two extremes, because going all in is how you optimize. Why would you ever stay within range of an opponent and allow them to fire back, IE not kiting, without also ramming, which reduces their ability to move and fight back"

thats exactly the thing. make the game less one sided and you have more options to use in PvP. if not only ramming and kitting/ avoiding (and sniping with rail fans as counters for kiters) is viable, then PvP players will automatically use other methods as they become as viable. atm its just one dimentional as i explained above.
More options means more varaiaty and more skill needed in ship building bcs you have toa ccount for these variables.

"he issue is that if you reduce the speed of everything, it only turns into a slugfest. There is no dodging nukes, there is very little ramming, kiting, etc. If you were to artificially throttle speed, it would turn into slow ships beating on each other with no movement tactics involved "
Idk why its always tried to spn the words in my mouth. i never proposed to make stuff slower, actually i proposed to reduce the impact of weigth on max speed and acceleration, which would make everything faster. it just would mkae heavier ships more faster then lighter ones, making the difference less and them by that faster in comparrison to before, which would alow ships tog et these few 5ms to 10ms they need but miss atm to be able to keep up turning onto an avoider or to force an engagment vs an kiter earlier to tank shots long enough to force him into RoD. Or to be able to interecept a rammer before he can get on your side and be abe to take him head on keeping your nose on him.
ofc bcs everything would get faster you would need to reduce thrust a bit to not be to fast

but in the end by chosing the right numbers like the right reduction on thrust a very light ship that flys 100ms atm should still fly 100ms then, but a heavier ship that flew 40 now might fly 60 then as well as not overturn as much bcs the mass has less impact on speed and acceleration, making it faster to change direction/ rotation with more mass then atm.

all in all the game would be less cluncky, not more

[cyan geyser]

Your response is clownshoes and I find your attitude off putting from the game honestly. Can’t stand gate keeping losers who think they’re better than other people

I hope you try to be less condescending in the future

Especially if you actually care about this game. Please reflect on your actions I’m going to leave this community based on you.

[wet frigate]

I misinterpreted your statement and apologize, I wasn't trying to twist words or put them in your mouth Sylne4r

[trail shuttle]

https://tenor.com/view/only-game-heff-be-mad-gif-5038541

[fallen gorge]

a game can mean a lot to players

sometimes a bit too much

[mint sinew]

Im not a pvper but the man has a point. Ions are by far one of the top weapons in the game right now. With rails being slightly worse [obviously opinion but ill explain]. Let me just list off the big guns for late game.

Ion
Pro: Long range and highly accurate. Larger cores can quucjly eat into armor and shields.
Cons: Highly volatile core system.

Rail
Pro: long range, accurate, high pierce
Cons: Armor walls can soak these pretty well [at least against most career ships]

Missiles
Pro: Long range, decent dmg, self aiming
Cons: Can be pded relatively easily

Nukes
Pro: Very high damage point and high velocity point
Cons: Can be dodged, short range

Deck Cannon
Pro: High damage and great penetration. Can chew into ships
Con: Eats ammo like a horse. Projectiles can be shot down.

Out of all of these the cons for Ion are barely enough to dissuade someone from using such a great weapon. And when pitched against the others it probably outshines them. At least imo. All weapons [especially for pvp] should have a risk/reward system that gives them viability against any ship build so that it comes down to strategy and tactics. Not who can out kite who.

[serene copper]

I honestly, thinking about it, think the change should stay. In the original post, you mentioned that there were some ships that exploited the range but I think every mid to late game ship exploited it. The change should stay because without this change, all ships will use it as the pinnacle of all weapons. With a decent reverse thruster setup and good shields, there is no way to defeat it otherwise. . . the change should stay.

[fleet saffron]

i liked the extra range with beams tho
maybe it could have some function where combining enough beams to where you get overkill increases the ion beam range

[wanton onyx]

at what point do you define it as overkill though

[fleet saffron]

when it starts loseing damage due to overkill

[pine vault]

The post mentions a 33% reduction in beam range, but beams used to have infinite range. What is the current state of beams?

[wanton onyx]

how tf is that defined

you don’t need extra range if the part that you’re hitting has less hp than the damage it’s taking

[fleet saffron]

the extra damage is wasted

so its not worth it

so it could be useful if it was converted to range

[fleet saffron]

ion beam does 3390 damage to armor twice, and said armor has 4000 hp
on the 2nd hit, the armor with like 610 hp reamining wastes a lot of the ion's remaining damage
or if the ion simply does more damage than the armor's hp, like 6700 damage vs 4000 hp, all of the exess damage is absorbed and wasted

so basicly when it begins to 1 shot armor blocks

[wanton onyx]

why does it get extra range when the part it’s about to hit has less hp than the damage it’s about to do

[fleet saffron]

cuz the damage is simply wasted, so there is no point in combinging ions to such strength

• big laser

big range

[mint sinew]

But then you just fall back into exactly what makes ions busted and why they were nerfed in the first place.

[wanton onyx]

they have infinite shot speed, they used to have 450 range

[pine vault]

Huh, I must have misread when I checked it's stats. The longest snipe I did was at a station form as far as I could see so I thought it was infinite. my ship didn't sensors though.

[mint sinew]

Ion could shoot further than standard sensor range [not 100% certain if it still can]

[wanton onyx]

it was just a little farther than the standard fov

[fallen gorge]

Ye

[gray kestrel]

The balance is weird

Powerful weapons should have more range and idc about pvp, make your own separate rules for it

[fallen gorge]

so wait

now the PVPers (including me) are against changing it back

and now the campaigners are for changing it back>

[wanton onyx]

by "changing it back" do you mean giving it 450 range or 300 range

[fleet saffron]

idk, you'd need a lot more ion for a long ranged one and it would be generally weaker than normal setups

[spice ruin]

Ions could maybe use a range buff calculated from the dmg% of the final/aiming prism
Also a (maybe player set-able) focus distance, where the beam is actually focused within a block. Otherwise the beam spreads out more and more depending on how far away from the focus point it is. Also probably wouldn't take effect unless it's coming from the aiming prism so it doesn't mess with ion core design

Still don't think they should get their old range back for free

[autumn plaza]

It feels like you're talking mainly about pvp, in pve i find the range reduction very reasonable, and most people only play pve

[mint sinew]

Giving the weapon more damage AND more range as the core gets larger seems really overpowered

[spice ruin]

I don't play pvp

[spice ruin]

the extra range scaling would be semi-balanced from the loss of beam focus at the end of its range, with the beam spreading damage over a few blocks instead of just hitting one
of course numbers would probably need tweaking but 🤷 this is just an idea for now

[mint sinew]

Splash damage would be even more op as that would allow larger cores to actually have a function as their main impact point would be wasted some but theyd splash onto other parts

[spice ruin]

not splash, spread. wouldn't hit blocks past the contact point, just some to the sides
like I said it'd probably require some number tweaks but I think that would put them in a somewhat healthier state

more things to tweak like where the focus point is relative to max range or if it changes at all, how much the beam spreads past the focus point

[mint sinew]

Thats still just as bad. Aoe in general is a tremendously bad idea. Could you imagine how quickly a large ion could melt through a ship with any sort of aoe attached

[spice ruin]

other things than just dmg numbers

it's not doing the same dmg in that spread, just a portion of it. so, if it's spread enough to hit 4 blocks wide at the end of its range, and it happens to be 2 1x2 armor pieces that are longways, it will do half damage to one of them and half to the other

[mint sinew]

Even if you split the damage amongst everything it hit. That would remove the point where larger cores are useful due to overkill. Greatly increasing the dps of an already absurd weapon

[gray kestrel]

btw you could balance out ion beam by adding thermal shielding armour

[mint sinew]

The range reduction was a good step towards balancing it out. Adding in something to counter one thing sounds really bad.

[gray kestrel]

My idea is that there should be generic armour , ceramic armour for missiles(does nothing vs nukes) and thermal

[mint sinew]

Dont really need anything for missiles. PD and spaced armor can already minimize its effectiveness.

The only time missiles are a problem is against a ship with no pd or in really large quantities

[fleet saffron]

the extra damage only leads to overkill, which weakens it a lot

the extra damage doesnt really count anymore at that point

[fleet saffron]

its not like the cores where you use less prisms for more beams have more damage than if you had one super beam, not considering overkill

each combo the total ion loses ~12.5% damage due to the 2nd beam loseing 25% power

[mint sinew]

I know this. But at a certain point its pseudo pointless to add more beams/prisms/overall increase the core because of how damage ticks. If suddenly a portion of that damage gets placed onto adjacent pieces of armor that whole bit becomes null and void thus making larger cores once again valid [once more to a limit but a larger limit than present]

[fleet saffron]

i dont see how that's a problem

[mint sinew]

The weapon is already ridiculously powerful despite the range nerf. Why in gods name do you want to buff it further?

[fleet saffron]

larger ion cores for a single beam is weaker than what we already have i dont see how allowing single, larger beams would make it overpowered

[wanton onyx]

you have to consider the core making process with balancing the ions, having spread on the beam would make cores a lot harder to build

[fleet saffron]

what

easy to build =/= overpowered
one large beam has considerably lower damage anyways

[mint sinew]

I never once said an ion core was easy to build. Nor did i say that made it overpowered. Yall do some magic with some of those big cores and you get all the props in the world for that xD
The weapon itself is overpowered in how it delivers its damage from a relatively safe place. You add any sort of aoe to that and it goes from being heavy handed to plain busted

[wanton onyx]

I’m literally just telling you we can’t have a spread on the beam

like cmon

never said it was easy and never said anything about it being overpowered

[spice ruin]

I mentioned the beam spread being specific to aiming prisms, not just all of them

[wanton onyx]

oh I missed the last sentence, oops

thanks for pointing that out

[wraith wharf]

new idea for balancing ions: give prisms a range buff that correlates with the damage nerf per beam on a prism while leaving the base range at 300.
e.g.: having more than one beam on a prism gives you a range buff (10% per beam?).
The numbers would have to be tested but i think it would make the weapon more interesting while not being as oppressive as when the standard range was 450

[spice ruin]

?
that's would translate the nerf into only hitting small(er) ships that much, and big ships with big cores would just regain the 450 range and be in the same problematic spot they were to earn them a range nerf

[mint sinew]

^

[wraith wharf]

not really - you might want to run the math as it impacts those going for high range rather heavily
imagine going for 450 range with the stated 10% buff per extra beam
means you need 6 beams on one prism.. that cuts your damage down a lot

[grizzled parrot]

That is true.

Having 6 chained prisms would indeed make things less efficient, damage-wise.

[spice ruin]

ah I misunderstood what you were getting at, mb

[mint sinew]

Oh yeah. I 100% misunderstood that. Yeah no, that could change things. And that makes more sense.

[bitter summit]

interesting balance point actually, forcing inefficient prisms for more range

[viscid slate]

Mabey there is settings in advanced settings to control the ranges and damages of weapons. Effects all.

[quaint sun]

Wouldn't that still result in the same reason for the nerf to begin with though? If you outrange everything, with even chip damage you will eventually wittle an opponent down (unless they have enough shielding to cover it). I don't think that would really do anything good for the game in the long run. I don't mind the idea in general though.

[fleet saffron]

it would take so long that your ship would back up into an asteroid or more danger

[cursive barn]

not only. in the end you would trade of dmg for range. bcs often many ships dont combine beams in the end anymore and have like 3 to 5 parallel beams for higher dmg. this way you would have to decide between dmg or range

[cursive barn]

yeah but tbh the problem is also still in the game right now. outrunning is op atm bcs speed meta, doesnt matter if you sue a beam, railgun or missels to kill the enemy while you at it.

but iam also not rly sure if its rly a PvP oriantated change to nerf the beams or PvE. dont rly see any impact on PvP except exchanging beam kiters with missel or rails.
while in PvE where the beam rly is far superior simply bcs you need no amo and have good range, so the change might hit harder.

also i think i said it here before and say it again: I think the biggest problem atm about balancing the game is that the community doesnt agree on one point of what the game should be. I see different balance aproaches recommended, with different design idears in mind.
Some people like me propose balance changes that would pull more focus towards efficent ship building, others whos idears pull more towards a fast pasted action game. some people dont rly care about either of these 2 it seems and just play it as a coffee game mining with a fast not even weaponized miner trough the galaxy and farming astroids.

The biggest question is:
What kind of game do we wanna have as a community. you have to decide a focus, you cant be everything at once as a game. you can only have 1 focus (especially when these counteract each other), with other aspects as side dishs.