Release Candidate 0.24.0 - Chainguns!

[royal summit]

relying on damage is a massive downside

would make even alpha active better

[fallow tulip]

maybe

[quick valley]

I do have this idea that its a ammo rack, but turned 90 degrees, its basically the same but rlfor every one added it lowers the fire rate by .5x
since it not a strait line, the feeders are slowed to avoid the ammo from spiiling out when its firing
Still not too sure about this idea, just a proof of concept

[fallow tulip]

passive maybe uses steel to cool before using its own health?

[pine cargo]

Well that'd be hard to time in a practical game.

[fallow tulip]

my idea defenetly needs to be refined and i dont think im the right person to do it

[royal summit]

i think passive should just be passive, no need to make it another type of active

[fallow tulip]

true

i was thinking as passive cooling as "heat armor" while active cooling as a "heat shield"

so probably no 2nd healthbar for passive

[lone dust]

it's a cool idea. Right now we're just trying to get the chaingun working properly and balanced, but could be something we consider down the line!

[fallow tulip]

i mean i do feel like this idea conceptually is a balence tool but it does make sense to not complicate things too much at least rn

[hollow ferry]

@everyone Thanks for your feedback and patience! RC5 is now ready for testing! Lots of QoL improvements/fixes to the Chaingun, plus some significant balance changes.

Changelog:

• Increased Chaingun cost from 18k to 24k.
• Increased Chaingun per-shot damage from 500 to 610.
• Reduced Chaingun turret rotation speed to 50.
• The Chaingun can now be given a fixed aim direction similar to Ion Beam Prisms. This will not force the Chaingun to always pop out but will restrict it to only firing at targets along that path and will improve detection of targets along it.
• Chaingun Magazines can now be placed upside down and they will still connect to Chainguns and other Magazines.
• The Chaingun will now much more reliably keep shooting after destroying or losing its current target and in between switching targets.
• The Chaingun will now only start firing once it is actually aiming at its target.
• When controlled using Direct Control Mode, the Chaingun will now pop out immediately instead of waiting for its ammo to be full. It will also stop firing immediately instead of waiting a couple seconds.
• RC Bugfix: The mass of the Chaingun would change depending on whether it was firing or not.
• RC Bugfix: The automatic supply toggle for Chaingun Magazines was being shown in the incorrect location.
• RC Bugfix: The Chaingun shot VFX were "overshooting" their target by 2 meters.
• Modding: Added a 'TransformMatch' part component that will match its own location and/or rotation to those of another component at a given speed. It also supports a toggle to reset it to the "zero" position, clamping based on circles, rects, and arcs, and acts as a toggle that is "on" when it is matching the desired location/rotation.
• Modding: Added a DirectControlToggle component that is "on" whenever its ship is in direct control mode. It can also be hooked to a specifc weapon and will only be "on" if that weapon is under direct control (bound to a fire input).
• Modding: All proxy components can now define multiple sets of PartCriteria/ComponentID pairs and will "match" the first such component found.
• Modding: TurretWeapon now supports an optional 'InstantSearchesAfterTargetLost' parameter that can be use to tell a weapon to quickly do some number of target searches instantly after losing its current target.
• Modding: FixedWeapon now targets using its own location and rotation instead of the emitter. In cases where the emitter is ChainedTo the FixedWeapon with no Location or Rotation offset (or always has the exact same Location and Rotation as the FixedWeapon), then there should be no practical consequence of this change. But in cases where the Location and/or Rotation of the emitter differ greatly from the FixedWeapon, you may see a change or break in targeting behavior depending on the difference.
• Modding: Split ToggleOnMode's 'WantsToFire' into 'WantsAndReadyToFire' (the old behavior and old/new default) and 'WantsToFire' (doesn't check permission or resources).
• Modding: ToggleOnMode now supports a HasTargetExceptShipRelative value.
• Modding: BeamEmitter now supports an optional BeamMediaEffectsLengthOffset parameter.

[soft scroll]

hmmm

[rancid gale]

Coems

[soft scroll]

intersting

[pine apex]

Ok now just need fixed directions for every other weapon

[soft scroll]

wdym

[dull agate]

Looking forward to testing this new release!

[lone dust]

And I'm looking forward to your feedback, lmao

[rich prawn]

i really love the new modding features this 0 24.0 has

[fallow tulip]

looks awesome

it's gonna be neat to see how people will change their chaingun ships for the tournament

[dull agate]

• Makes yet another Alpha CG ship * 😝

[fallow tulip]

yeah

I think people will remove a chaingun and reduce their mag count

[dull agate]

Just kidding, I don't kow what these changes will do yet, gona have to experiment!

[fallow tulip]

maybe remove some boost thrusters

[hollow ferry]

The hope is that people will use fewer chainguns with more mags.

[rancid gale]

https://tenor.com/view/tf2-team-fortress2-tf2engineer-use-a-gun-and-if-that-dont-work-gif-17911768

[rich prawn]

it took years but it's finally here
you can now make "bendable" modded parts with those components

[quick valley]

https://tenor.com/view/inflatable-dancing-gif-9919566

[fallow tulip]

btw walt, what do you think of this idea?
#1151672136885354629 message

[rich prawn]

aim chaingun causes battle music to play it seems

chainguns appear to not consider LOS if in direct control

reset chaingun aim cancels target too

[static saffron]

WHO TF FOUND THIS BUG

[pine cargo]

Very good balance changes.

Also could we get fixed aiming direction for every gun one time?

[low sierra]

wow... its finally turned into a beam of solid rounds

[pine cargo]

Yes lol.

We truly did need an ion beam 2.

[left gyro]

If the goal is to discourage alpha strike builds with chainguns, how about greatly increasing their mass? Ideally ships using them in moderation w/ lots of magazines would barely notice a difference, while ships spamming them with no regard for sustain would suffer a significant loss of speed.

[pine cargo]

What if mags were heavy instead?

[left gyro]

Might work too by encouraging reloads. Somewhat wary that'd disproportionately hurt ships with few chainguns but many magazines, though.

[pine cargo]

Oh that is very true.

[dire wraith]

There is also the kind of hidden change that force fire with hold fire wont shoot chains and just refill the chains so you dont have to do the ridiculous juggle (Which was kind of funny but anying when having to do it more often). Maybe this was introduced with an earlier rc but I just now noticed. Really like the change.

Though I still think you should also be able to force fire even when the main gun is out.

Thats a small change that wouldnt help alpha designs but would make reload designs much more flexible.

[rich prawn]

it was super obvious

[static saffron]

wait isn't vfx the audio ?

[pine cargo]

No.

VFX quite literally means visual effects

[spark wren]

Hold on… FX stands for Eff Ex, as in it sounds like “Effects”?
WHAAAAAAT

🤯

[royal summit]

vfx should be changed to ve

[abstract garnet]

Yes

[spark wren]

Mind

F*cking

Blown

And it only took me 21 years of being alive lmao

[halcyon idol]

and SFX is sound effects

[royal summit]

one line away from perfection...

[halcyon idol]

Huh

[pine cargo]

Are you serious or is this satire?

[pine cargo]

Yes.

[spark wren]

No I genuinely didn’t know that…

I feel stupid now lol

[hollow ferry]

will fix, thanks

[hollow ferry]

I'm not quite sure what you mean, can you please elaborate? Can you please give an example?

[hollow ferry]

Also not sure what you mean here.

[hollow ferry]

I DID

[static saffron]

Ohhh

I thought it was the sound lol I'm an absolute bafoon

[hollow ferry]

The goal is to favor fewer chainguns with more magazines. Alpha strikes are intended as long as they aren't OP.

[hollow ferry]

Uh that doesn't sound intentional.

[rich prawn]

armor wall, cursor (in direct control) and the chaingun would fire if holding left click, previously this wasn't the case

[rich prawn]

the "reset aim" button that used the prism targetting logic, when pressed also appears to be cancelling the weapons target (normal target)

[hollow ferry]

I see what you mean. This is also true of ions & prisms.

[dire wraith]

Its a bug 😦

[dire wraith]

Honestly feel like it should work that way

[hollow ferry]

What "reset aim" button are you talking about?

[left gyro]

It doesn't seem too interesting design-wise that the current alpha builds can ignore logistics and reloading entirely if their first load is enough to score kills.

[hollow ferry]

Yeah if that's what's happening then I would say that's OP. Is that what's happening?

[royal summit]

i think preventing the spam in the first place (by increasing cg cost, i think the current cost is good enough) is better than nerfing everything else to make it weaker

[hollow ferry]

Oh I see, there's an extra button that's not supposed to exist. (Ion Prisms don't have it.)

[rich prawn]

oh i see

lol

[left gyro]

I don't know if it's still happening as of the latest RC, but the strongest alpha ships beforehand were doing pretty well with that gameplan.
#1151672136885354629 message
#1151672136885354629 message

[dull agate]

I did adapt my Alpha CG for RC5 and it seems to remain relatively powerful.
Reach 150m/s -> flip opponent with speed & hooks -> shred them from the side & rear with CG

I'm currently experimenting with different designs now to see how well CG performs.

[final helm]

Why not make different versions of the same weapon? Like a Chaingun Mk1 and Chaingun Mk2 with different stats.

[hollow ferry]

The question I most want to know is whether the first alpha strike is so strong that you don't have to worry about crew logistics or reloading.

[dull agate]

Oh yeah definitely, this ship I just posted has no logistics. It's purely alpha, no reload, no crew and is highly competitive

[halcyon idol]

I haven’t tested it myself but I’ve seen a bunch of clips of 1.5m chaingun ships blowing up another 1.5m ship with the first volley

[rich prawn]

oh yeah this would possibly help much more to test stats

like split chaingun into 3 test variants with different nerfs and buffs

find what's best for balance faster

[lyric flame]

Anything that shreds through the back of a ship doesn't really need reloading tho

[tidal iris]

Imo mass increase to 32-36t would be nice to reduce sheer speed of alpha CGs.

[dire wraith]

Yup still broken

[crystal nexus]

@hollow ferry I apologise for the ping but what does this mean in practice;

Modding: All proxy components can now define multiple sets of PartCriteria/ComponentID pairs and will "match" the first such component found.

like, can you give me an example of how this is used ... because it sounds like it clears up an issue I'm having with IonBeams/Prisms that can chain-target to multiple different named components. But I am dumb and learn by example/copying. (The particular line I'm having issue with is ChainFireToggleComponent )

[hollow ferry]

Look for ProxyableComponents in chaingun.rules and chaingun_magazine.rules

@everyone Looking for feedback/opinions on:

1. Is Chaingun alpha strike too OP?
2. If so, what should be done about it?

[finite ice]

Spool up time?

[sterile folio]

lower damage in general

[fervent plover]

no

[lyric flame]

1. Mostly, not sure though anymore. It seems like most chain gun alphas are winning now from flipping other people to the side and shooting at them from all sides.
2. Increase mass of chainguns to make it harder to flip people by being really really fast. If mass is increased, then those ships will find it harder to ram into people and flip them.

[quick valley]

lower the firerate

[fervent plover]

• it's better now, I haven't tested the rc5

• increase their mass please, cg ships are too fast

[hollow ferry]

I don't love the idea of increasing mass, because usually for that to have a significant effect the mass has to be increased a lot, far beyond what feels intuitive.

[fervent plover]

makes sense

[final helm]

IMO: make multiple versions of the weapon, one for close combat, other for longer distance with different damage

[lyric flame]

like how rails are very very heavy?

[fervent plover]

increasing the cost while keeping magazines cheap until they are balanced is a good solution imo

[hollow ferry]

Rails...
A) Look like they should be pretty heavy.
B) Actually take up a lot of area, so their density doesn't have to be crazy high to have a significant impact.

[lyric flame]

we could also just accept that chaingun alpha ships are the best way to use chainguns and nerf them enough that they are more balanced in the meta

[sterile folio]

i have an idea, the larger the chaingun magazines are, the slower the chaingun fires

[quick valley]

why not make the mags more expensive, that way there would be less intent to use chainguns as often

[lyric flame]

how does that make other chaingun archetypes as viable?

[hollow ferry]

Chaingun mass is currently about 18. Any instinct on what the mass should ideally be?

[fervent plover]

i think walt wants something like a "chaingun ion" or "chaingun wall" to work instead of a "chaingun alpha V"

[sterile folio]

or lower the maximum speed the chaingun can fire at

[quick valley]

we could reduce the ark of fire a tad

[lyric flame]

bc chaingun alpha ships aren't going to be good in career, no matter what. So, just forget about elim balancing and balance for career?

[sterile folio]

oh wait sorry mb i replyed to the wrong message

[fervent plover]

elim balance is important

[magic monolith]

What if the chaingun's rotational speed was lower when it was actively firing (like 75% of normal or something)?

[sterile folio]

with the new update the chaingun can be locked at an angle, so turning the chaingun isnt a big deal

[magic monolith]

Oh my bad

[quick valley]

i would argue for it to be between 50 and 75 percent

[magic monolith]

Wait I read wrong

[lyric flame]

if you had them at same density as rails, it would be ~80
that seems like it could be reasonable, maybe
especially with a ship with 18 chainguns, that's adding ~1000 tonnes to the ship, slowing it down A LOT (going from like 2600 tonnes to around 3600 tonnes)
however, ships with 4-6 chainguns get affected negligibly

Brings Blaze's top speed from ~150 to ~135

[sterile folio]

bigger magazines = lower reload?

[magic monolith]

Longer to spool up?

[sterile folio]

that or lower general reload

[magic monolith]

Like maybe if it had no mags the gun would spool up quickly enough to max out its firerate right when it runs out of ammo

And increase the ramp-up time as mags are added in such a way it can fire at max fire rate but not for a length of time equal to the magazine divided by firerate

[quick valley]

that still wouldnt stop poeple to still do the alpha v after finding a happy middle grounds between the 2

[magic monolith]

Yeah, the fundamental issue persists I suppose

[leaden patrol]

it kinda feels wrong that can can be easily put in walls like this and keep firing while being successful despite the vulnerability...

[magic monolith]

It is a surface mounted weapon so it does need some defensive capability of its own

But maybe that'll be less important once rotation lock is a thing

[quick valley]

and easy fix is to increase the size requirement of "free space" needed to place the weapon

[static saffron]

I don't think it is, considering the price and how vulnerable the chaingun makes the ship. You cant put anything functional in front of the chainguns without digging your chaingun deep in the ship, so I guess it really needs alpha to punch trough shields alone

[leaden patrol]

they already completely evade the issue by being placed diagonally

[quick valley]

but even that wont solve the issue of v ships

[quick valley]

like reducing the angle of fire allowed

[dull agate]

I agree with coolgamer, as of now one of the main reasons why CG is performing so well is because of the high speed these alpha ships can reach

[lyric flame]

I made some edits to this

[leaden patrol]

angle of fire? how would that help?

[royal summit]

i think increasing weight is the way to go, nerfing other stats will do next to nothing other than make everything weaker

[leaden patrol]

that'd just make it weaker when not pointed stright forwards, which it already is doing

[hollow ferry]

Is this because getting in close allows them to concentrate fire better?

[sleek gale]

is anyone considering increasing the command points?

[royal summit]

moreso flipping opponents to easily attack sides and back

[royal summit]

i don't think this will do much

[lyric flame]

they can flip opponents because they go so fast, and are really wide so they can fire at both sides of opponents

[hollow ferry]

But why does flipping work especially well with Chainguns?

[lyric flame]

at most you could increase from 6 to 10 maybe? but then command points would be more than a DC uses so that would be weird

[dull agate]

It's because V shaped ships that can go 150m/s will be able to ram & flip practically anything. Add on top of that the amazing burst damage of chain guns and you have a formidable combo. We force fire them before reaching the opponent, so the second we have line of sight on a weak spot they get obliterated

[quick valley]

it seems increasing the weight is the inevitable way to go

[lyric flame]

Look at how much of the build grid that this takes up. It can easily hug an opponent and shoot at its sides, even if it doesn't fully flip

[hollow ferry]

So why do Chainguns work better than, say, heavy lasers? Is it just the burst damage?

[dull agate]

Exactly that, the burst damage

Other weapons can't punish as fast

[magic monolith]

15000 dps into a thruster array * some insane # of chainguns = 🗿

[lyric flame]

heavy lasers need protection and sustain when chain guns really don't
it might work ok to use cannons as a replacment but probably not because less burst damage and overall damage

[leaden patrol]

trying to push further towards less chainguns and more magazines could solve this, as less chainguns = less damage at the same time

[hollow ferry]

Maybe lower DPS back to RC4 but keep RC5 cost?

Longer ramp-up?

[low sierra]

rolling back to RC4 dps doesn't change the fact it still dumps a lot of alpha dps

[royal summit]

i think longer ramp-up could be good, an increase to 9 seconds to reach max firerate might be good

[dull agate]

That doesn't do anything, we can force fire them early

[hollow ferry]

I mean it would reduce alpha DPS by ~20%.

[royal summit]

yeah that's the problem with increasing ramp up time

[hollow ferry]

Force-firing early would at least cost some bullets/magazines depending on how early.

[royal summit]

may reduce burst time

[dull agate]

From experimentation the loss of ammo is negligible

[lyric flame]

eh it's not enough to matter until you get into the 20 second ramup range IMO

[leaden patrol]

i dont know, that seems like it might limit its use to more specific as what its op as

[low sierra]

would that be enough to discourage minmaxed CG walls though?

[royal summit]

wouldn't change it much though

[leaden patrol]

because the op setup is useing high damage from it, lowering the damage would then make the op setup do regular damage compared to the other ships and it might become the only way to use it

[hollow ferry]

What if:

• DPS reduced ~20% to RC5 level
• Mass of both chaingun and magazine doubled

[low sierra]

just the guns imo

[dull agate]

It's worth experimenting

[lyric flame]

is there wrong with doubling the mass of hte mags?

[low sierra]

encourage slapping more magazines

[hollow ferry]

I don't think only doubling guns would be a big enough overall weight increase?

[low sierra]

maybe double the mass isn't enough of a tweak?

[leaden patrol]

i dont see the reasons to nerf the magazines then the op setups useing them doesnt seem so strong

[hollow ferry]

Very hesitant to do more than 2x because it starts to feel really unintuitive.

[low sierra]

then again, it'll be weird to have CGs having mass similar to deck guns

[dull agate]

Twice as much mass sounds like a good place to start. We can experiment and bring back more feedback afterwards

[leaden patrol]

if a ship leans towards more magazines than chainguns then its peak dps would reduce, which is what makes the op setup op

[lyric flame]

IMO they feel heavy bc they have an armored shell around them

[hollow ferry]

They're already like ~50% heavier than normal weapons because of the shell.

[low sierra]

An HP buff alongside the mass tweak does sound reasonable enough

it also emphasizes that CG's weakness is its magazines

[dull agate]

Due to the nature of CG being a burst damage weapon and excelling in this field more so than any other weapon. Does anyone have a suggestion beside adding more mass to prevent players from slapping a bunch of boosters and reaching high speeds to flank and quickly neutralize opponents?

[leaden patrol]

higher recoil?

[low sierra]

something arbitrary like overheat

[magic monolith]

How big of a buff would it need to make a difference though

[dull agate]

That does sound interesting

[leaden patrol]

if its high enough then many chaignuns makes it prevent you from going forwards quite well

[quick valley]

how would overheating work in space?

[magic monolith]

Or maybe spread increases as firereate increases?

[hollow ferry]

Oh yeah their recoil is really low isn't it.

[low sierra]

it normally does? Its kinda hard to cool things down when everything around you is void

[leaden patrol]

somewhere near the force of some thruster, to actually push a ship with only forwards engines off trajectory

[dull agate]

Even in the vacuum of space, create enough heat in a localized area and a part can overheat

[leaden patrol]

from my testing: it has none

[hollow ferry]

it technically has recoil

1/20 that of a small cannon

(per shot)

[low sierra]

oh... definitely needs more recoil

[hollow ferry]

probably no one remembered to give it a reasonable recoil

[quick valley]

that is unfathomably small

[hollow ferry]

ONE THOUSAND RECOIL PER SHOT

[sleek gale]

I agree fully

[magic monolith]

Given each shot is 0.25 ammo maybe 0.5 times SC recoil because it’s hitscan?

[low sierra]

Ah yes, now my CG wall goes faster backwards when firing

[magic monolith]

Boost thrusters are dead

[quick valley]

when thrusters become obsolete

[dull agate]

First generation of ships using chaingun propulsion!

[leaden patrol]

now you need chainguns on the other side to use them

suddenly broadsiders are a thing

[low sierra]

Imagine having ammo-based propulsion

[leaden patrol]

railguns can do that kinda

[fallow tulip]

a max fire time mechanic?

[low sierra]

sounds like overheat effects

[hollow ferry]

Can someone please give me a ship to test with?

[royal summit]

(rift and i have expanded on how the heat mechanic could work, link : #1151672136885354629 message)

[hollow ferry]

thanks

oh that's not a valid ship file, but the one posted earlier is

[low sierra]

Oo, gotta check this one sec

[fallow tulip]

imo it could work quite well and make the chaingun feel more modular

[dull agate]

Link to the one posted earlier then #1151672136885354629 message

[fallow tulip]

as well as make the chaingun a burst weapon rather than just a weapon you turn on and let run out of ammo

[low sierra]

heat mechanics is interesting for CG but it suddenly makes other weapons seem off without heat issues

[low sierra]

CGs to me are hoses that spray ammo everywhere

[dull agate]

No other weapon reaches a rate of fire even close to CG though

[opaque totem]

well wouldnt that be a fix for the issue. make it a top mounted weapon like DC so it doesnt need to be placed on front anymore like in this V shapes and for that make it far mroe expensiv as well as maybe decrease its burst dmg by a mechanic like:
1: increase speed up time even more. longer wearm up time isnt a problem if its a more defensiv weapon taht can be placed inside the shipa s the ship should survive long enough to unlock its ful potential.
2: decrease its dps a lot but introduce a new mechanic that for every mag the weapon isjt only fireing longr but also faster making mroe dps. inside a ship the weapon should be able to have a lot of mags bcs of how placements work (but ofc we might theng et burst ships that just have longer mags. I think Idear #1 is better

[low sierra]

its not even about firerate at that point. We have beam weapons, those are hot

[fallow tulip]

all weapons other than the chaingun are able to dispel the heat as needed but the chaingun generates a lot more heat due to design reasons?

[quick valley]

you know usin the recoil of the small cannon is a good base line for choosing a higher recoil than 1/20th of the small cannon

[royal summit]

i think keeping it front mounted is best, kinda becomes uninteresting otherwise

[low sierra]

something something too many mechanical stuff close to each other type of deal?

[hollow ferry]

On this ship I have to make the recoil about 300(!!!) to overwhelm the thrusters.

[low sierra]

oof

[dull agate]

That's an obscene amount haha

[sleek gale]

reasonable*

[low sierra]

this is more for the lulz but what if each CG at max can negate a large thruster worth of recoil? kinda like how A10's GAU-8 cancels one of its engines when firing

[fallow tulip]

@hollow ferry opinions on using an overheat mechanic to balance chainguns?

[rich prawn]

300 recoil per FRAME xd

[quick valley]

we can have a test rig of 2 chainguns, with 10 mags each, and using the recoil of the small cannon as a base, we can find a number that can both discurage the use of alpha v's and still have then as a viable weapon in career

[lyric flame]

I mean... you odn't need to overwhelm the thrusters to make that ship worse at ramming

[hollow ferry]

I don't love the idea of adding a big new mechanic just for this.

[lyric flame]

more recoil would be great

[quick valley]

we can start with 10/20 first to see how that feels

[low sierra]

Be careful messing with recoil though, you might just make CG kites instead

[lyric flame]

not with 280 range

[quick valley]

whats the range of the chainguns, i forgot

[dull agate]

Cg has less range than a lot of other weapons

[low sierra]

Orbits work too lol

[hollow ferry]

lol vroom vroom!

[quick valley]

Cg avoiders

[low sierra]

CG avoiders, oh god

[lyric flame]

if its just orbiting that's not gonna be significantly worse

[low sierra]

I am not looking forward to orbiters that's deadlier than lasers and missiles tbh

[dire wraith]

Having the chains start out empty could work but thats a really sad solution.

[quick valley]

im liking these new chainguns

[fallow tulip]

the way i see it is that it could re use a lot of the code for the chaingun ramp up

[royal summit]

i think integrating them with mags might be better, each mag has a cooling unit that makes chainguns cooldown faster (heat would have the debuffs previously mentioned)

[lyric flame]

eh that's just making them more expensive

bc you just stock ammo and have your ops load

[magic monolith]

That'd be too much of a gimmick, players would be confused when they see their chaingun mags empty but every other weapon and vital system comes filled

[low sierra]

what if mag size determines CGs' firerate?

[dire wraith]

Of course the point is more expensive relative to other cg designs

[lyric flame]

oh true, didn't think of that

[hollow ferry]

Proposed balance changes:

• Increase mass 2x (both chaingun and magazine)
• Damage 610 -> 500
• Ramp-up 6s -> 18s (!)
• Recoil 1 -> 20

[lyric flame]

ramp up is kinda that's a lot
idk about that one

[quick valley]

id say 8 to 10 ramp up is more reasonable @hollow ferry

[low sierra]

wew, gotta fire it in advance just to deal with ramp up

[royal summit]

i feel like 10 or 12 ramp up time would better

[dire wraith]

Doesnt more ramp up just nerf reloading designs?

Alpha doesnt care if you time it right

[low sierra]

pretty much

assuming you fire in advance

[hollow ferry]

If you don't time it right then you're either super late with the alpha strike or are wasting a lot of ammo.

[low sierra]

Yeah

It does punish short mags on CG walls though, ngl

I guess that's what we're going for?

[dire wraith]

It just seems like it would hurt the "healthier"
playstyle more

And in a way you cant mitigate with better micro

[low sierra]

What do you guys consider a 'reasonable' setup for CG btw?

besides sustained fire

[dire wraith]

Not alpha Vs xD

[quick valley]

wait until we come to a happy medium first

[low sierra]

good point

[dire wraith]

They at least shouldnt be by far the best setup

[fallow tulip]

at least design wise to me chainguns feel like a shoot and then wait

[low sierra]

same

[fallow tulip]

not a shoot and wait to deal actual damage

[dull agate]

Is it necessary to decrease the damage if the mass, ramp-up & recoil are all increased?

[hollow ferry]

maybe not

[fallow tulip]

ramp up as a mechanic feels balanced rn to me, which is why i think the solution is in decreasing the amount it can constantly shoot

[dull agate]

With the proposed changes, if CG aren't able to flank as easily anymore then they still need sufficient damage to hold their ground in a frontal assault

[quick valley]

id say have the damage at 580

[dull agate]

Is there a reasoning or is it arbitrary?

[lyric flame]

make sure that the recoil is in drection of rire and not backwards

it's proably already like that though

[low sierra]

Ngl, at first I thought CG was gonna be some kind of DoT weapon that sprays hot lead at the enemy, not just an outright brrrt gun

[fallow tulip]

I feel like the overheat mechanic is a logical solution but i dont fully understand why its not liked?

[royal summit]

i think 600 is better

[quick valley]

590

[dire wraith]

How would it even work?

[quick valley]

https://tenor.com/view/3take-it-or-leave-it-three-take-it-or-leave-it-sbs-patrick-gif-15037514

[royal summit]

#1151672136885354629 message

[halcyon idol]

Imo nerf everything possible just a little bit :)

[fallow tulip]

like ramp up but in reverse basically

[royal summit]

it's too complicated

[hollow ferry]

I don't understand how a heat mechanic would solve alpha strikes.

[low sierra]

Nah, we don't need CG nerf, we need to buff every other weapon!!

/jk

[dull agate]

I guess the idea would be they would overheat before being able to deliver a killing blow. But then the ship with the CGs is in a bad position and probably loses?

[rich prawn]

would mostly make alpha more viable i think

[fallow tulip]

alpha strike usually empty the entire magazine chain, the solution is to put a limit on how much they can shoot at once

[left gyro]

Sounds like it would punish "honest" builds more than alpha ones. CGs are already a very complex, mechanic-heavy part.

Could work on another weapon but not CGs I think.

[dire wraith]

The mags already limit burst duration

Seems redundant

[royal summit]

it would reduce firerate gradually until it stops it from firing and going back into the armored shell

[hollow ferry]

agree

[fallow tulip]

yes but thats a soft limit instead of a hard one

[low sierra]

The main problem with alpha is how little or no logistics needed to make it viable, tweaking the logistics themselves punishes 'normal' builds

so we're pretty much stuck with mass and cost to be safe

[dire wraith]

To much complexity for to little reason

[fallow tulip]

its possible to just keep adding mags, at a certain point you cant get rid of the heat

maybe

maybe no cooling systems

just a simple hard limit

[royal summit]

honestly saving the overheat mechanic for another weapon that might come in the future would be better, cg doesn't seem like it would work with overheat

[fallow tulip]

maybe

[royal summit]

overheat should be a core weapon mechanic rather than a side mechanic on an existing weapon

[fallow tulip]

maybe reduce max damage and make it spin up faster?

[left gyro]

What about changing boost somehow too? Being able to use it at-will with no logistics is another part of why alpha ships do so well, right?

How much of a difference would it make if energy-consuming parts only started full if they had a valid power supply path?

[low sierra]

any chance we'll get a corner part for mags?

[quick valley]

what if we take part of the overheat mechanic and make that not a physical thing but an energy requirement to keep cooling systems powered and if the gun runs out of energy, it stops firing immediately, that can add a bit more logistics to the weapon as the Cg now requires energy to power its mags and cooling systems

[dull agate]

How about we create a poll on the proposed changes by Walt while considering the feedback given on it already

[soft sphinx]

Increase mass 2x (both chaingun and magazine) / Ramp up 6s -> 10s / Recoil 1-> 20

1️⃣ yes

2️⃣ no

Poll by blaze580 · Sep 27, 2023, 11:44 PM

[quick valley]

and the longer it fires the faster it consumes energy

[royal summit]

wouldn't punish alpha much and it would make everything else a lot worse

[dire wraith]

That would break many cool alpha designs

[fallow tulip]

yes to CG mass, no to ramp up, yes to recoil

[hollow ferry]

I really want to at least try the ramp up because I actually really like how it feels to play. It's so much more satisfying once it finally gets up to speed.

[low sierra]

this^
any tweaks to logistics would most definitely punish normal builds more than alpha/wall

[hollow ferry]

And you have to burn a lot of ammo to get full ramp-up. The above ship I was testing barely doesn't have enough ammo to reach full ramp-up.

[fallow tulip]

yeah, i just feel like it wont fit the weapon, but lets test it

[rich prawn]

damm my modded chaingun gonna have 20 seconds of spin up

[fallow tulip]

maybe also increase mag cost and storage?

[hollow ferry]

(With a super long ramp-up, it might be worth considering allowing crew to refill while firing?)

[low sierra]

yes please

[halcyon idol]

I think a weight change is probably the best overall thing now that I think about it. Sure it won’t make much of a difference if you just use a few, but alpha ships be using 20+…

[low sierra]

sustained fire after a long ramp up should be rewarded

[fallow tulip]

maybe they can only refill mags that are empty? although idk

[low sierra]

I still want corner mags though purely for building reasons

[fallow tulip]

to me at least a weapon with a built in armor mode doesnt seem like weapon with an extended fire time. it feels like a weapon that hides behind a shield until it can do a quick stab

[dull agate]

That will encourage players to build their magazines deep within their ships, I'm not a fan

[sleek gale]

btw why not change stats on your own to test and send the files back and forth

am I weird to think we can do that

[fallow tulip]

like a martial artist blocking until theres an exploitable mistake if that makes any more sense

[low sierra]

The ability to reorient mag stacks is a godsend, kinda lame for a new weapon system to build up like another railgun

[hollow ferry]

we're considering corner mags but they won't be in the first release if ever

[low sierra]

aye

[quick valley]

ive suggested corner mags before

[low sierra]

I guess people are too focused on the 'balance' that the 'architect' side gets shoved up somewhere else lol

[fallow tulip]

maybe 2x2 mags?

[quick valley]

ammo racks

[low sierra]

Ngl, now seems like a great time to introduce autoloaders, the ammo version of engine rooms

[royal summit]

corner mags would remove the engineering challenges that come with a chaingun

[low sierra]

the challenge being? making stuff in a straight line?

[quick valley]

with corner mags, you would have more ammo, but be forced to better plan crew pathing

[royal summit]

engineering a ship with those logistics isn't very easy

[low sierra]

there's legit no issue building a ship around CGs but building CGs around a ship is a lame experience

[royal summit]

corner mags would remove all mag limitations

[left gyro]

I think too much flexibility with mags would limit creativity. Right now you can run them vertically and horizontally depending on CG placement, on two sides of the gun, facing two directions. Giving you even more freedom with their placement would trivialize fitting them in your ship.

[pine apex]

Corrner mag but it has to be at the end of the line

[low sierra]

I'm just pointing out that a new weapon system built around modules ending up like a rail ship but just staggered is kinda underwhelming

especially since each of those mags are tiny

[fallow tulip]

if that was the case i think it should be that only empty mags can be refilled

but i dont like that

beacuse it encourages long times spent shooting which i dont like

my ideal CG balance is a 50/50 split between shooting and reloading

[hollow ferry]

yeah leaning towards not allowing refilling while shooting (which has technical challenges anyway)

Going to do an RC with my above proposed changes, minus the damage nerf. (Well I'm going to nerf from 610->600 because I like round numbers.)

[quick valley]

no square numbers?

[hollow ferry]

don't tempt me to do 512!

[quartz stone]

512! is too large to comprehend

[quick valley]

https://tenor.com/view/iling-point-of-brai-gif-25980452

[hollow ferry]

Ugh, Steam seems slow. I blame Counterstrike 2.

[quick valley]

internet issues

[hollow ferry]

@everyone RC6 is now available for testing!

• More than doubled the mass of the Chaingun.
• Doubled the mass of the Chaingun Magazine.
• Increased ramp-up time from 6 seconds to 18.
• Increased recoil per-shot from 1 to 20.
• Decreased damage per shot from 610 -> 600.
• Updates to all language translations.
• RC Bugfix: Various issues caused by giving Chainguns a fixed aim direction, including still being able to aim them in direct control mode, being able to override their aims when giving ship-wide explicit targets, and battle music being played.
• RC Bugfix: Force-firing a Chaingun while it is on Hold Fire would reload its ammo without actually firing. (It now fires.)
• RC Bugfix: It wasn't possible to force-fire Chainguns when set to auto-fire.
• RC Bugfix: Chainguns had an extra unintentional "cancel" button.

[faint sluice]

yo! Unrelated to the release candidate but I had to write a game analysis paper for college and did one on cosmoteer. it was a lot of fun to write, for a paper. thanks for making cosmoteer such a cool game.

[hollow ferry]

send me the paper?

[quick valley]

how long is this papaer?

[faint sluice]

My name is in the public domain already, and the paper doesn't disclose any sensetive info about it so if you don't mind I can just share it here lol https://docs.google.com/document/d/10xJ-c-VBA9NrDif1gYFh_KXxk9EC5qCRSJKTBVZmVJo/edit?usp=sharing

[quick valley]

i wish steam reviews were like this

[faint sluice]

Bruh I was looking at reviews for another game a week ago and one of the reviews was a negative review with one word, “ass” as the entire review. It also had 0.2hrs of playtime. I cant think of a better reason for there to be stricter requirements 💀

[quick valley]

"each reveiw must now have at least an hour of playtime and a full paragraph consisting of your opinion on the game in question"

bro must've been like Too Long;Didnt Type

[left gyro]

In battle helper, chainguns under AI control are now firing immediately when loaded in, no matter how far away an enemy ship is.

[pine apex]

F

[quick valley]

now we need basegame career ships with chainguns

[halcyon idol]

You mean built ins?

[quick valley]

yea, forgot their technical names

[low sierra]

I wish we get more broadside built-ins

[faint sluice]

can the AI even use broadsiders well?

[low sierra]

CG seems like a weapon built for it

nope

[faint sluice]

I feel like every time I see the AI fighting with deck guns it has no regard for if deck guns are firing at each other or not

[low sierra]

That's just an AI thing in general

We did ask for better AI iirc

[quick valley]

ai dont have a sense of the ships weapon placements so it fires whenever it can

[quartz stone]

if the chaingun's motor can only supply a certain amount of force, shouldnt the more magazines mean that the chaingun will accerate slower? and then you could make the acceleration also increase because the mass is being shot

then just changing the "mass" per magazine and the "force" of the motor can result in dynamic ramp up times

[opaque totem]

Guys what do you think of the idear of making the Chain gun a top mounted instead a frontal weapon? I explained the idear there #1151672136885354629 message

The more I think about it the more it sems like a good solution,a s atm the chaingun is only usfull in these V Shaped desgigns for burst dmg. but as a weapon that should fire longer heaving it frontal is anti synergie. I think from an design aspect its much easier to make the gun balanced if it isnt frontal.
ofc a drastic change, but your thoughts on it?

would also be cool as then we would finally have a defesnsiv weapon (one that can be placed inside ships) that can hit fast ships without ramming them first and such opening up more diversity in the meta

[quartz stone]

i mean the balance mod already fixes the issue with deck cannons having such slow projectiles..

[quick valley]

then it wouldnt be reasonable to add extended mags and it would function more like a autoloader on an abrams
Having it being an open air weapon gives it the caviot that it requires mag tiles to determine its bullet storage count instead of it being all in one tile, which the deck cannon already does

and another thing, having an animation to hide the weapon woundnt have a use anymore as it would no longer add resistance

it just wouldnt look right

like it was a modded part

[opaque totem]

then get rid of the animation. you should never not change something just bcs the work you did before then would be wasted

[rich prawn]

i don't think so

also deck chaingun seems not good
deck mounted, hitscan, no way to counter

[opaque totem]

well not with current meta ships. thats the point. nuke ships, tanky DC ships, kites and so on would all counter them

[rich prawn]

i disagree but do not have enough of a argument

[quick valley]

then that would bring forth deck mounted chaingun fast walls that can burrow into armor faster than Dc can

[opaque totem]

just chain vs Dc is a goiod example: chain has worse DPS per credit then DC, especially vs armor as it has less penetration. so in a direct fight of 2 simialr designed ships with good frontal armor the DC would always counter the CG, but the CG counters avoider and orbiters what the DC ship mentioned would have no chance against. thats kidna the point of that. it would give Chain gu a wider array of uses outside alpha V ships and also open up meta more

[quick valley]

a deck chaingun has hit scan, meaning deck cannon fast walls would have no use as you can instantly hit the target

with little to no effort

[halcyon idol]

it would need such heavy nerfs to be viable as a top mounted weapon, unnecessary and uncool imo

[quick valley]

having a deck cannon be hit scan would be insanely op both in carrer and pvp, the chaingun is side mounted for a reason, it gives it the down side that it doesnt have the owl like vision the deck cannon has

[fallow tulip]

it would also help make the weapon feel different depending on how much mags you use and add to the modularity

honestly the most modular weapon in the game is ions

[low sierra]

its also the most fragile atm

Well...second to railguns I guess

CGs are currently the sturdiest modular weapon system we have and while its main weakness is the mags, I still hope we get corner pieces for it

[rich prawn]

wish mags didn't chain

[fallow tulip]

I don't think they do

not explosive enough

[rich prawn]

they didnt but i think they do now

[opaque totem]

well it was a suggestiona s atm tehre are no sues for CGs. the onyl viable ship I saw is the V shape, and this one is basciyl the reasont he weapon gets nerfed in the ground. with a differenbt approach like deck mounted the weapon would have new strengths, and then could be nerfed in a way that affects the V Shape (so basicly any style that just builds a ton of chains) and still be viable in other ways. bcs atm I think the gun will become unplayable outside of V style which is pretty boring. kinda same problem with DCs which are only viable in wallish ramming styles.
with deck moutned i see possibility for rammers as well as slower more stationary rotationg ships, probably orbiters and other stuff. that why i came up with the suggestion

[halcyon idol]

i do not agree

[quick valley]

theres no reason to have more than 2 on your ship as they're getting a huge weight and recoil nerf, making then unviable to have too many to which the recoil will start pushing you backwards

the gun with 10 mags can already do 36,000 dpm (i could be way off), theres no reason to make it a deck based weapon

[opaque totem]

but thats the point why. youc an ahve like 6 of them as deck and protect them, having other playstyles then normal withr amming or avoiding a the projectile speed allows differences this way.

as frontal you need to orbit or avoid as youc ant protect the weapona s shields are to bad in this game at higher costs. or just get like 20 of them like these V shapes and burst the enemy down before you die yourself. its so limited atma s a weapon.

[tidal iris]

Rump-up time increase is more hurtfull for any other archetypes, than for alpha CG, since it can force fire preemtively.

[quick valley]

the chain guns dont need to be deck based

theres no reason to

[opaque totem]

well I gave reasons so there are reasons.
but you dont like the idear. all good. I asked how you guys mind the idear. I like it, you dont. all good.

[tidal iris]

You probably ask me: why other archetypes can't force fire preemptively? Reason in timings and different windows for attack. Alpha CG ship have the most wide attack window - just go ram and fire.

[spark wren]

18 seconds? Jesus…

I’d rather have it misfire like I suggested earlier. 18 seconds is heavy!

[sour locust]

For casual 18 sec ramp up is too much. If you wanted to use the chai gun as a ciws against smol craft its just not worth to wait that long. 10-8 sec can be better imo.

[quick valley]

id say 8 as its not too long and not too short

[tidal iris]

Id say 6 is best

[quick valley]

6 was the base

[tidal iris]

Exactly

8 is not bad too with 600dmg/shot (RC6)

[left gyro]

18's on the high side, but I think the longer ramp-up has a better game-feel.

[tidal iris]

Btw ramp-up time is also factor of DPS. And rc6 balance already favours for few CGs.

[unborn wren]

I actually can't believe none of you suggested increasing ammo use/decreasing the amount of ammo the gun and mags can hold. If you imagine a brrrrrrrrrt weapon, you'd think the actual cost comes more from the ammo it needs to store than from the gun itself. This would debuff alpha ships way more than career/built-in ships

I have a built-in like ship (76k at lowest price, now 88k) that uses the chaingun with one mag, I only need a 2x2 storage to function and usually only uses up half of it per battle. I always imagined the chaingun would use up a lot of ammo and this shocked me.

I will send the ship file once I get to the computer

Anyways said ship was great against wide ships and weak against thin ships (killed most of fringe/died to most of cabal)

[unborn wren]

ok here's harmonica

last tested in on rc5, I have a feeling that rc6 debuffed it more than necessary

[dire wraith]

That would require the bursts to be much faster which which would probably be less fun to play

[unborn wren]

still more fun than lazy alpha ships imo

I feel like increasing the ammo usage is the best way to nerf the chaingun, since it impacts alpha ships a lot and regular ships only a little

[quick valley]

some fun with the new weapon

[sleek rover]

I kinda wish the colour of the cover could be set

[quick valley]

also something unnecessary but beautifull

[unborn wren]

true, makes my ship have a huge gray spot

[dire wraith]

I dont think its the best change. The weight increase works much better

[quick valley]

so an issue i found is, when the ai has control, they will continue to fire the gun, reguardless of whats in front of it, wasting ammo

even when they're out of range

[unborn wren]

kinda yes, tho it unnecessarily debuffs regular ships the same way it debuffs alpha ships

plus I have a feeling there's a general issue with speed in the game, making ramming and kiting way too powerful

[unborn wren]

an unstoppable force (the chaingun) vs an unmovable object (the ship)

[quick valley]

also the recoil is not what i expected but still noticable

also found out it takes 10.5 mags minimum to reach maximum firerate

[dire wraith]

Weight debuffs faster ships more than slower

[unborn wren]

true, I'm not entirely against the change, I just feel like the issue isn't the weight of weapons but how op engine spam is rn

Alpha ships use basically no logistics and that makes them powerful. Making the chaingun rely more on logistics would be a great nerf to alpha ships.

[pine cargo]

Having 2 different guns that do virtually the same is pretty silly, however having a mode that switches between the 2 "modes" like what's going on with the deck cannon's and blaster's alternative fire modes, could be really cool.

[royal summit]

i think giving it a shotgun mode where it fires 6 bullets at once might be a nice idea

but then again we don't really need them

[pine cargo]

And I am still suggesting the 2x potential fire rate but 2x spool up rate thing just to stress out thw ramp up nature of it.

[tidal iris]

Long ramp-up time actually don't synergize with protective mode, that likes short powerful bursts.

[pine cargo]

Contradictory game mechanics 😆

You can't have a ramp up gun and tank gun at the same time, you have to embrace one of them.

[low sierra]

now I lowkey wish mags work with other guns too

some kind of ammo buffer that doesn't rely heavily on logistics. Would probably make alphas too OP tho

[pine cargo]

It'd take away from the logistics aspect of the game and make crew ever so slightly less invaluable, and nothing more.

Cannons already have amazing preload of 15 shots (With flak having FAAAAR more) and DC is deep within the ship anyways, so no need for extendable magazine.

[fringe oak]

Hunh, I missed the absurd recoil discussion.
Shame. The idea of a full on "memetic GAU Avenger" style chaingun that doubles as a thruster sounds kinda fun.

Though, admittedly, I am one of those people that tries to build broadside weaponry with off-center thrust.

[final helm]

IMO: making a gun takes a lot of time and effort, so making different version that only change maybe the name and color is so much easier and would add more content to the game

[pine cargo]

But it's lazy and uninspired, and if there's one thing Walt isn't, it's lazy and uninspired.

We much better keep it that way.

[soft scroll]

Honestly didn’t expect the chaingun to need so much reworking

[fallow tulip]

it's one of the most complex weapons in the game (mechanics wise) so I personally kinda expected it

[dull agate]

The latest changes do seem to have made an impact on how well Alpha CGs perform which is great. However, I'm not convinced that the ramp-up time should be so high.

[soft scroll]

Alpha cg?

[fallow tulip]

someone said it before but ramp up time should depend on the amount of mags you have with less mags giving a faster ramp up

[dull agate]

Take a look at this: #1151672136885354629 message

[fallow tulip]

chaingun ship designed around an "alpha strike" which is a big burst of damage at the beginning of the fight meant to defeat an opponent before the fight has even truly started

[soft scroll]

Is this a new term?

[dire wraith]

Not really

Its used in the pvp community

[tidal iris]

No. CGs with few mags (<6-8) are almost useless.

[fallow tulip]

which is why that should be changed imo.

You should be able to have CG with short ramp up times but the draw back is that they can't fire for long.
You should be able to have CG that can fire for a long time but they take up more space and take longer to ramp up.

The chaingun is a modular weapon, it should feel that way, it should feel more tunable.

a weapon should feel viable under more than one condition

[halcyon idol]

I think it’s fine tbh

0 accel rails don’t get much use

[tidal iris]

Optimal number of mags will be still exists at point of optimal burst dps and total dmg per mags.

[royal summit]

the term alpha always existed, it just got aplied to cgs on rc2

[opaque totem]

you guys focus to much on the max DPS of the weapon as its false advertisment.

any other weapon has the stated DPs. like a DC ahs a mentioend DPS of 6k. that also is true as the cannon ahs a cooldown on its shots. this way the weapon can be reloaded efficently enough to keep up permanent fireing without pauses, keeping the 6k dps at all times.

the chain gun is the only one wdifferent as it has a time in which you are reloading in that you cant shot.
so if the max possible DPS of the chaingun is I think 18k, these 18k arent the real dps, as even if we forgot the "warm up time" to reach these 18k dps, once the weapon starts reloading it has an interval in which it has 0 DPS, meaning the real DPS over a longer duration of this weapon is its warm up times dps (which if it ramps up linear trough 8 sec from 1k to 18k would mean an average of ~10k) together with its final DPS, and it reload DPS of 0. so if the weapoin lets say fires for 20 secs, and reloads for 10. then we would have a total of: 8sec warm up = 8/30 * 10k + 12/30 * 18k+ 10/30 * 0k =9,86k DPS with a weapon that would have this fire duration and warum up time as well as reload time.

[tidal iris]

[opaque totem]

as you can see these 9,86 would be nearly half of its potential max dps that everyone is talking about

[quartz stone]

average dps only matters if ur opponent survives long enough

[royal summit]

i think average dps doesn't really matter when we're talking about alpha cgs

or even regular cgs

cg is a burst weapon afterall

[opaque totem]

cg is only a burst weapon the way its sued atm. I think that is what was tried to be changed. after all the magazine mechanic implies it was designed as a DPS over a burst weapon, why else introduce a mechanic that makes a at first slow fireing bad dps weapon be able to dps longer.

the problem is just that atm combined with the way how fragile most meta ships are combined withn the way how frontal weapons and cost of weapon vs mag efficeny works atm it sjust better to burst with it

[tidal iris]

1. DPS and total dmg per burst is all that matters for burst-nature weapon.
2. DC don't have sustain on storage based or 2facs/1DC setups. Full sustain is only with 3facs/1DC and it is usually inefficient in elim PvP. And in reality, DCs relying on the burst that needed to kill opponent, and especially to penetrate shields.
3. CG is a burst weapon and all that matters it is burst dmg and total dmg per all mags. Sustain is useless on burst weapons becase it is. And we already have weapons with zero like burst and good sustain - it is ion beams.
4. And I think all is already know that real dps of cg is lower, than a tooltip dps, Captain Obvious.

[hollow ferry]

Will fix, thanks for reporting.

[hollow ferry]

Doesn't preemptive force-fire require a lot more ammo/magazines now though. (Obviously it hurts other Chainguns setups too though.)

[tidal iris]

It... requires a lot. 10,5 mags to reach full RoF and real DPS is in dead condition.

[hollow ferry]

Any instinct on what ramp-up should be?

[tidal iris]

I think upper limit is ~9s for ramp-up

[quartz stone]

F=ma, so more magazines means less acceleration. then move the shot/s cap to a pretty high amount and then long chain guns can have higher dps but take a while to get up there

[fringe oak]

While trying to play around with a 60 magazine chaingun setup and geometries, I've noticed that "Force Fire" at that size starts to overlap in function with "reload." Just because at that point the corridors get so long that firing off ammo for a few seconds seems like it saves time on the reload by moving the rest forward.
Don't know if it matters, and haven't timed things to see if its actually optimal even with the inability to reload while firing, but it felt interesting.

[dull agate]

This is a completely arbitrary but I'd like to try it out with a 12sec ramp up (doubling instead of tripling the previous value)

[hollow ferry]

12 is a nice number!

[fallow tulip]

I'm leaning towards 10 seconds

[fallow tulip]

what do you think the minimum ramp up time should be?

like the starting point

[royal summit]

8

[fallow tulip]

cause imo for the variable ramp up you should be reaching full ramp up by the time you're 3/4th done with ammo

but idk if having it that way makes sense

maybe every mag adds half a second with the starting ramp up time being 2 seconds

actually 3/4th of a second per mag

[quick valley]

idk if you have noticed this yet

[hollow ferry]

we know, thanks

[fallow tulip]

Walt, what are your opinions on a variable ramp up time for the chaingun?

[hollow ferry]

Variable ramp up based on number of magazines? It's interesting but not very intuitive.

[rich prawn]

AI just wastes all of its ammo when closing into a target from a long distance

[hollow ferry]

I know, will be fixed very shortly.

[rich prawn]

bullet sprites on mags show above fire

[hollow ferry]

@everyone RC7 is now available for testing!

• Reduced the Chaingun rate of fire ramp-up from 18 seconds to 10.
• Reduced the Chaingun Magazine capacity from 6 bullets to 4.
• Reverted the Chaingun Magazine mass increase from RC6. (Main Chaingun mass increase has been kept.)
• Reduced Chaingun recoil from 20 per shot to 10.
• Chaingun shots now exert 10 impulse on whatever they hit.
• RC Bugfix: Aim directions for Chainguns weren't being saved in ship designs.
• RC Bugfix: Chainguns would shoot when given an explicit target even if that target was out of range, out of arc, or line of sight was blocked.
• RC Bugfix: The Chaingun was firing when given an explicit target even if set to Hold Fire.
• RC Bugfix: The Controls settings page was missing a text string for "Aim Chaingun".
• RC Bugfix: Explosive damage (such as for Nukes, HE missiles, and part explosions) wasn't being calculated properly and was generally doing much less destruction than was intended.
• Modding: The new DirectControlToggle component now supports a 'RequireWeaponBindingPressed' parameter.

[sterile folio]

yey

[rich prawn]

it's so over

[fallow tulip]

yeah

[pine cargo]

Aww, because of the reduced ramp-up and recoil they will feel much less weighty and badass now 😔

[rich prawn]

Unravel theme plays

[ripe crater]

you know, off topic, love how much Walt actually participates in talking with the people who play the game. most game devs just don't even bother talking much other than in announcements

[pine cargo]

I was literally just praising them for how ''heavy'' they felt.

[pine cargo]

I agree.

[ripe crater]

still remember that stupid 'ask walt' thing where he'd answer any stupid question with the most insane response possible
"hey what are the names of all the crew?"
"oh. they're all named Walt. they're clones"

[hollow ferry]

look i'm addicted to feedback okay?

[ripe crater]

yea, but difference is you can actually take a joke and aren't all business all the time

[rich prawn]

"I am heavy weapons designer
and these"
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1151672136885354629/1157016304239267950/down_here.gif?ex=651712e7&is=6515c167&hm=430d383e085a4a6a04a091bd682b12c7412a5dabd4fe071c1173b2b9a8e16e10&

"are my weapons"

[pine cargo]

lOL.

[next marsh]

i did not exepcted a new RC so fast

[ripe crater]

still love that conversation though. the fact that, cannonically, the entire crew of your ships were named "Walt" because of a joke conversation he had, saying that they were all clones

[rich prawn]

"it costs 90 to fire this at full fire rate, for 12 seconds"

[pine cargo]

Is the green silhouette centred and doesn't move?

Like, do the chainguns actually just gitter the ship?

[rich prawn]

idk not my gif

[fringe oak]

Well, I suppose the plus there is that it makes mid-magazine storage logistics easier. One 6-tile storage to the chaingun + 27 magazines instead of the gun + 18

[fallow tulip]

have you thought about the variable ramp up speed thing?

[rich prawn]

#1151672136885354629 message

yes

you forgor

[fallow tulip]

oh oops

my bad

[fallow tulip]

I mean its possible to make it more intuitive like how there's the railgun description and hover display thing. I do feel like it t would be a welcome change or at least something to be tested

[hollow ferry]

By "intuitive" I more mean "does it make sense within the fiction of the game", and I don't really understand why more magazines would make ramp-up slower.

[fallow tulip]

more inertia to start moving

longer conveyer belts require more force

[quick valley]

i selected it to show the range of the guns compared to the distance of their target

[sleek gale]

pulling the ammo belt, though this would mean the magazines don't help

[fringe oak]

Personally, I like static ramp up speed, just because it feels like the way the mechanic is, at least as of RC6, gives a push to build chain guns and magazines as long as possible. There was absolutely a sense of: the longer I can stay at the maximum fire rate, the better.

There's limits from how fast you can reload a set of absurdly long and densely packed chainguns, of course, but within the bounds of practicality, the mechanics want a long ammo belt, and figuring out how to take that to it's limits was pretty fun.

[quick valley]

it now takes 7 mags to reach full rpm

[fringe oak]

Actually, is this a place to show a chaingun design I was experimenting with or is that another channel? Not seeing RC-version ships in the main channels for that.

[rich prawn]

reduce firerate by 100x and ramp up by 10x and make it shoot railgun slugs

[low sierra]

ah yes, the peek-a-boo railgun

ngl, more penetration on CGs sounds interesting

[dull agate]

What is the exerted impulse per hit for flak? I saw the update for CGs and would like something to compare it to

[low sierra]

probably some force applied to the target

[dull agate]

I'm asking for a value

[low sierra]

0

[quick valley]

anyone else feel like the damage against shields is a little high?
or is it just me

[rich prawn]

it the same for everything

[quick valley]

against armor i get but against shields
they're a little powerful, making avoiders somewhat harder to use effectively i feel, idk much about the pvp side of the issue

i mean its fine if walt doesnt plan on adding built-ins with chainguns

[sleek gale]

what would the reason to not have built-ins with chainguns be

[halcyon idol]

Architects add new ships and update old ships every time something new is added

[quick valley]

exactly my point, people would probably be annoyed that a built in was able to take down their shields relatively quickly, especially newer players who dont know how to effectively make a decent shield sustain system

[halcyon idol]

can’t be worse than new players seeing nukes for the first time

[magic monolith]

Honestly, as long as there aren't alpha chaingun Vs in the built-ins it'll probably be fine

[quick valley]

they would expect a nuke to take down a shield in one hit but not to expect a chaingun to take one down within seconds

[magic monolith]

Built-ins need a little more self-sustainance anyway that's not compatible with chaingun alpha
On second thought, gradual replenishment with ammo factories could work, kinda like the HE factories on Onrush

[fallow tulip]

personally I would make it so that was still a possibility, with lots of mags you can be at max DPS for longer it just takes longer to get there

[quick valley]

saris was able to make a ship under 1 mil that can tear through a cabals ion ships armor like it was butter, imagine that against a single Ls

[dull agate]

I saw part of that stream and it's not exactly correct. In practice, the ion ship would be moving and angling to spread damage accross the front. Meaning that once the CG vessel is reloading it would be destroyed by the ion ship. That is only the case if the ion was piloted by an actual player of course

Otherwise, here's my 2 cents about the newest changes:

• Reducing the ramp-up from 18 secs to 10 has a better feel!
• Even though the magazine capacity was decreased, CGs are still capable of delivering a powerful burst of damage and can easily compensate by adding a few more magazines. I'm indifferent on this point
• Reverting the chaingun magazine mass increase has also partially reverted the desired speed nerf for Alpha builds(~18 CGs). The one I've been using as an example would reach 150m/s in RC5, 137m/s in RC6 and now 144m/s in RC7.

What was the intended goal with the decrease for the recoil and the added impulse per shot?

[low sierra]

sounds like a great opportunity to learn something new tbh, built-ins aren't really minmaxed either

@dull agate I agree, the 10s ramp-up feels like a sweet spot. The mag capacity nerf isn't so bad considering they're not as heavy either which also encourages longer mags.

As for the recoil and impulse tweak, I'm purely guessing it's to add a little bit of chaos in engagements. Haven't had enough testing to know how much recoil and impulse tweaks affect combat though

[quick valley]

its not much

[low sierra]

I kinda like the idea of having higher impulse to shove debris away but not too much that it spins the enemy ships around like a tractor beam

[dull agate]

The impulse by the CG leads to some funky moments. If you are ramming your opponent while firing the CGs, their ships will somewhat bounce/teleport a couple meters away. At least for lighter ships

[fallow tulip]

I don't like the impulse

like conceptually

[rich prawn]

i like the impulse
smaller projectile that travels super fast and it does equal knockback on both sides for its damage

makes sense since its so fast and so small

[fallow tulip]

oh

oops

[quartz stone]

if u have a ship with 1 thruster it'll have a top speed, then the more armor you add to it the slower it gets

[hollow ferry]

@everyone Aaaaaand yet another RC! (8!)

• The Chaingun is now one tile taller to prevent its turret from overlapping other Chainguns and other parts. (This may break existing saved games and ships that had such overlapping parts.)
• RC Bugfix: Chainguns weren't targeting properly when given fixed aim locations close to the Chaingun.
• RC Bugfix: Chainguns could cause issues with the resource transfer AI when suppliers are assigned to Chainguns or Chaingun Magazines.
• Modding: Most types of resource storage components now support an optional 'AllowManualReceiveToggle' that, when toggled off, will prevent the player from manually transferring resources to that storage.
• Modding: TurretWeapon now supports an 'AimIncludesEmitterOffset' parameter that, if set to false, will prevent the turret from considering its emitter's location when calculating where it should aim.

[rich prawn]

this is awesome

[finite socket]

lets make it to 10, thats a good number

[hollow ferry]

lol I would be very happy if 8 was the last

[crystal nexus]

RC8 .. can we tell yet that this Chaingun addition is a HUGE new feature, with how many little-kinks it has had that have needed tweaking 🙂

I think it's also giving a good heads-up for the "transform" part of the roadmap .. and how something as simple as a "move partA to partB" addition is going to cause a bit of a shakeup to the underlying code

[rich prawn]

not really it's still just the same old chaining mechanics just expanded heavily

can't make hinges, atleast good and perfect ones

[lone dust]

Me trying to create my first part, and it's the Chaingun

https://tenor.com/view/car-crazy-driving-speed-driver-gif-27371344

[tidal iris]

I still don't understand mags capacity nerf. Now full ramp-up takes ~7,6 mags, while with old capacity (6) it will require ~4,94 mags and it is not 2,16 mags on rc5 state. Like, 8 mags takes equivalent area as 4x4 storage for DC cannon.

[fringe oak]

Given the problems builds with lots of small, non-reloading chainguns were causing, it feels like a nerf to that, specifically. Doesn't seem to have affected large setups adversely, and if anything it feels like it's outright helped builds that reload at large scale.

[low sierra]

we're almost there lol.

[unborn wren]

It depends on when the player first encounters the chaingun. My Harmonica that is now a tier 3 doesn't manage to cause enough damage after disabling a shield to actually destroy anything, meaning that the player can easily refill their shield before another burst comes, while damaging my ship enough so that the chaingun explodes. If they're not careful and have very little front armor (I think that's common for new players using model-s), meaning they haven't encountered effigy yet (ultimate early game shield breaker), they will have some trouble if they're not careful, but even then it's very easy to fix the ship and learn from it.

[sleek rover]

baptism by fire

[pine cargo]

Wait wasn't that the hyperdrive beacon?

[lone dust]

Oh yeah, true! Was so long ago I forgot about that. That one was so easy comparatively.

[pine cargo]

Seems so.

One acts the same as stations and existing hyper beacons did and probably uses the same code too.

The other has complex ramp-up mechanics, damage reduction in specific sircumstances, whole lotta different timers, a modular complement part and so much more.

[unborn wren]

the hardest part of implementing the chaingun is probably the balance tho

[pine cargo]

Wouldn't say so.

Balance takes minimal code input to execute, not to mention the whole community is helping you.

Part of why some mmo's and other games' balance turns out shitty is because the devs don't interract with community. This is not the case with cosmoteer, fortunately we have a good dev.

[sleek gale]

it’s now “devs”

[pine cargo]

Ye lol.

Thanks waltuh 💀💀💀

---

What is this issue?

I can't load my savedgame.

[dull agate]

Yeah it's possible the save is broken due to the changes from RC8 in regards to CG being a block taller

[pine cargo]

[pine cargo]

#1151672136885354629 message My ship broke because that issue too.

Why was it even added?!

Seems useless.

[dull agate]

It was to fix a bug, read the patch notes

[pine cargo]

Welp in any case I'll post the save file.

Ironic how it's named.

[hollow ferry]

That doesn't load because of changes made in RC8 but shouldn't be an ongoing problem.

[quick valley]

my first attempt at making a chaingun ship

[pine cargo]

Nice.

[mint phoenix]

Not sure if this has been asked, but why is there 2 "supply ammo" slots on the chaingun?

[tidal iris]

There's always not enough ammo 😄

[sleek gale]

maybe because there are two sides

[lyric flame]

It would be nice if I could tell crew to only supply one side...

[pine cargo]

Chaingun fires so much it needs not one but TWO whole supply ammo priorities XD

[finite socket]

set one to 0 and see what happens

[hybrid violet]

sup guys

are chain guns broken or am i being a proper noob?

(both could be true but i wanna know if my shock at their power is me being soft or common consensus)

[royal summit]

chainguns are decent

they're really good at cleaning up the interior of ships once armor is breached

i would recommend using nukes to destroy the armor so that they can kill the insides

[hybrid violet]

nothing seems to defend that well against them and it feels like the simple tactic of a a fast chaingun ship with a ton of mags and not enough crew to fill them quickly will work just cos eventually youll breach any defense

and if you dont kill them you can just run away

[royal summit]

chainguns are pretty powerful but they have pretty detrimental weaknesses, they're fragile, armor seems to be quite good against them (5-7 layers would block them for a good amount of time) and shields can hinder their ability to to deal damage

[hybrid violet]

dont get me wrong. im not good at the game but it feels like a non cg ship has to be way more optimised than a cg ship to fight one.

[royal summit]

cg ships don't need much effort to beat, a nuke or he missile ship can easily beat them in a 1v1 by orbiting or kiting

other than missiles you have ions and rails that can also win when used properly

[hybrid violet]

this seems like it only starts applying at a size beyond 50ish crew

[royal summit]

he missiles can beat cg with 6-12 crew

[hybrid violet]

explain further please

[royal summit]

rails and ions need a bigger size though

[royal summit]

making a simple kite doesn't take much time

this one can kite cg on its size and it isn't really well optimised

ofc cg can beat it with enough skill

against ai however it can't

[hybrid violet]

how come?

[royal summit]

staying out of the cg's range while firing the missiles at the enemy

[hybrid violet]

sorry ive lost you

are you saying your kite ship wont beat an AI cg ship?

[royal summit]

no a player controlled cg ship

(rts or dc)

[hybrid violet]

a player controlled cg ship wont beat an ai controlled kite ship?

[royal summit]

it could

[next marsh]

i think they meant a player controlled cg ship can beat the kite with enough skill but an ai can't

[royal summit]

yeah

[hybrid violet]

oh i see

i see

[royal summit]

if kites feel like cheating then you could always use a dc rammer

they require barely any skill to build and can easily win against cg

[next marsh]

i like swarms
they score 100/100 in my heart

[hybrid violet]

most of my exp is from ai campaign. i build this as a simple weapons test and it clearly took me negative brainpower to make but it beat ai ships nearly 3 times its crew size. i find this concerning

[royal summit]

swarms are pretty fun to use

[royal summit]

i think cg's arc should be changed a bit to nerf it against ai

[hybrid violet]

what is a dc rammer?

[royal summit]

now cg is definitely powerful against ai

[royal summit]

a ship with deck cannons and a lot of armor that rams the opponent

[next marsh]

crew are a bad way to quanitify a ship strength
usually we do per cost

[royal summit]

i think at this point career's main currency is crew

[hybrid violet]

^

[quick valley]

this

[hybrid violet]

got it

[royal summit]

money doesn't really limit size in career as much as crew amount does

[royal summit]

or this

[next marsh]

that why brust weapon are good in career
they arent as much per cost

[hybrid violet]

also ship levels are almost directly tied to crew size

[hybrid violet]

cheers

[royal summit]

i think rebalancing career to make money a bit more important would be an improvement, as of now it just isn't hard to amass and just becomes insignificant after you finish the first few systems

[hybrid violet]

money is important in coop career but single player its very weak

[royal summit]

anyways cg is good against ai just like nukes, it probably is because ai is just bad at dealing with burst weapons

[hybrid violet]

that's not ideal.

[royal summit]

yeah

[hybrid violet]

ive gotten 3 other ppl tp play coop with me

all varying skill levels inc myself

[royal summit]

an ai update would make the game better

[hybrid violet]

its going to be a challenge talking them down from cgs are broken when the first one they encouter shreads through their slow tanky ship in 40 seconds

[royal summit]

i think at somepoint when someone gets a factory money starts to increase rapidly, if spent correctly the money from the missions and mining will be enough to build one or two 250-500k ship by the end of the second sector

[hybrid violet]

yeh someones done that in our playthrough

now hes rich

the problem was as it was coop and he was new he basically didnt play the game for the first 4 sessions

just mined and industrialised

[hybrid violet]

im also concerned how invested they will be when they discover that chain guns solve basically every ai encounter and we are only at level 5-7

my biggest sadness over chainguns tho is that they arent lasers

that arctype has been kinda stagnant for a while imo

[royal summit]

ions pretty much carry lasers

also i'm pretty sure the next weapon will be laser

[royal summit]

cgs aren't the only weapon like that, rails can basically solo the entire game from the start as they have a very long range, ions and missiles can do that too but they have less range

[hybrid violet]

badly built rails will lose a fight against ai

[royal summit]

not if they're kiting

[hybrid violet]

badly built cg ships punch way above their weight

[royal summit]

a huge thruster worth of back thrust is enough to make rails win against anything because you don't need anything other than decent reverse thrust and more than 6 accels

[hybrid violet]

gotta go out bbl

[hybrid violet]

bck

[hybrid violet]

rails wont eat through shields and then kill with one 'salvo' tho

[royal summit]

rail may be weaker but they can basically win against anything with minimal input

[hybrid violet]

a rail ship is a glass cannon.its not a turret so you dont have full freedom of movement chosing between offense/defense. the rate of fire is obviously low enough that there are gaps where a rail ship has 0 offensive power and the power scales with their size so they have to be huge targets. CGs are like: are like the best elements of most weapon type with reduced forms of the same weaknesses. So they output consistent damage like ions, the damage scales with size like rail (and arguably ions), they cant be emp'd like cannons and can be aimed with an accuracy not far off lazers.

(thats obviously broad terms i know there are differences )

so like the end result of which is its a weapon which is good enough at everything that it doesnt require much of anything else in campaign

[hybrid violet]

36 crew ai controlled and its **disintegrating **other ai ships up to 60 crew with minimal losses.

[magic monolith]

Those outside mags look p a i n f u l to reload

You might want to relocate your doors on the other mags to face outward too

[hybrid violet]

yeh i know lol.

there are a great many optimisations i could make

the point is that i dont need them for campaign.

anything at or near that ships crew count is shredded with 0 thought given to how in a single salvo.

[royal summit]

i think a rail's fragility doesn't matter when you can kite, even rts can easily use it effectively but that is a topic for another time, cgs are powerful because they're tanky burst weapons, they have hit scan which means that they can win against anything if they inflict enough damage in the first burst

also spamming alpha cg is strong when the only limitation is crew

[magic monolith]

Alpha anything is strong with crew restrictions

Because no crew needed to reload

[hybrid violet]

rts vs dc = real time strategy versus direct control?

[hybrid violet]

cg alpha is definitely the strongest in campaign cos you can pull off absurd damage with very few ppl

[royal summit]

yeah

[hybrid violet]

cheers. im new ish in here

[hybrid violet]

the one thing thats true is that im gonna add this to my coop campaign fleet lol .

[crystal nexus]

congrats on stable release !