Release Candidate 0.28.0 - Quality of Life Improvements & Balance Changes

[lucid stream]

Exactly where as I have almost 200 hours on one specific tb ship

[wicked spade]

yeah. the common pvp use case is targeting them on the corners of enemies and using push/pull to flip them and oneshot

[frank cloud]

Oh i misread

[lucid stream]

Bump flip into perma mald

[frank cloud]

or did i

idk

[wicked spade]

bump flipping the 5mil career ship in career would be crazy work

[frank cloud]

Is there like some tech with pause spamming? Why would it break immersion

[wicked spade]

time coming to a stop doesnt seem to really contribute to immersion in the game world tbf

[carmine jay]

okay so hear me out

[meager mural]

God that on a railfan sounds disgusting

I can kinda see how they're niche in career now since it takes a lot of effort to keep someone flipped vs shooting them till they explode which is a lot more beginner friendly

[carmine jay]

nvm

[wicked spade]

yeah its a lot of work and nuance for an effect that can be achieved fine by just doing more of what u do in career (adding more guns)

[lucid stream]

This is tbr ppl

[lucid stream]

Tb clips

[wicked spade]

the concept of the path of least resistance

in game design

[carmine jay]

clearly railfans are op and an exploit1!111!

/s

[unkempt sinew]

My 203 ship goes 217 now, wow

[unkempt sinew]

unfortunately they are actually op lmao

[meager mural]

Whats their counter, if any?

[unkempt sinew]

Against a good pilot? None

[meager mural]

Fuuck

[raw idol]

They're pretty bad against heavy armor, but TB rails usually get around that, and heavy armor is very rarely competitively viable.

[unkempt sinew]

360 armor could work

Generally people use 45 degree armored nuke ships to counter them

[carmine jay]

tbh I dislike the concept of railfanning but dont really care

[meager mural]

I think railfanning is clever as hell

At least the concept of it

[unkempt sinew]

I love railfanning

Genius idea to fix the inability to aim rails

[carmine jay]

I agree, its just my own internal biases on railguns being a spinal weapon

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[meager mural]

I think I'll try pvp after this update since it seems the meta will be not mrt

Nvm will it still be mrt?

[lucid stream]

Rail fans are completely out of the meta Dw

Tb rails are hard meta (different ship types)

[unkempt sinew]

Tb rails still use railfanning lmao

[frank cloud]

As someone who just makes builtin style ships this rc is goated 🔥 pretty much exactly what i wanted

[lucid stream]

Not a railfan tho

Rail fans are awful

[unkempt sinew]

Mrt got buffed

[frank cloud]

mrt didnt need buff but tbh doesnt make much difference to me

[unkempt sinew]

The lad said “concept of railfanning”

[meager mural]

The rampdown should make it worse at the meta its currently in though right?

[frank cloud]

the ht half rampdown and the smaller thruster no rampdown is perfect tho 🔥

[unkempt sinew]

If you mean from live to RC, yes they got heavily nerfed. If you mean RC1 to RC2, they got moderately buffed

[warm zinc]

I'm going to turn on 2 minute slowmode in order to encourage substantive discussions.

[meager mural]

Huh. I didn't thihk it would be that impactful though now looking at it, in my experience MRTs already were very good at going in 1 direction, I'll have to try RC2 to see if it really does anything because of drag

[long rampart]

mrt is now more efficient than ht after a single extender iirc

[meager mural]

the armor rounds out to 570 tons (for testing [average weight of a ship for simulation)
i can see why boost thruster got its nerf.

my only concern is career so something could be done to make it better in career but it doesnt desperately need it since this seems like a very pvp oriented part (I only mention since career is the main focus even though this is a pvp update, but my point may be invalid), but other than that id say this nerf is fine (havent tried it in battle but it seems on paper to be fine)

[rancid grove]

i'm on board with removing its tristeel cost and adding more hypercoils or steel

[bold token]

(Bugfix): The recently-added "magic thrust" could cause ships to slowly oscillate around their intended destination.
lets gooo

[wicked spade]

thoughts?

imo further thrust buffs are needed to make these types of ships good. considering the original intent of the preview seemed to incentivise this exact use case with mrts as a main drive thruster im not sure the intent is fulfilled. further thrust buffs will only further break mrts on other ship types like morbiters and ul nukes where theyre already perfectly strong and very annoying to play against due to their speed

[wicked spade]

my thoughts

[versed cove]

The boost change seems... Severe, to say the least, will heavily hit the ships that simply use boost for auxiliary.

Also, no change about EMPs? I still believe that whilst an emp buff is amazing, buffing it in the region that the weapon benefits from the least, let alone that extremely, is really strange.

[wicked spade]

emps dont really need a buff. i agree the boost nerf may have been overkill but for stuff like boost especially you kinda have to let the dust settle because its one of those parts whose use cases are very niche and esoteric. with it being the only almost entirely unnerfed thruster with rampdown it was insanely strong in rc1

[versed cove]

I understand needing to counterbalance it too to make it on par with the other, weaker thrusters. Still though. Boost has fallen off greatly over the years, I don't remember the time when permanent boost buff was the meta, but the only reason whole "unable to recharge primed boost" thing was implemented was because of that.

[wicked spade]

personally i dont think boost should ever be ubiquitous in the meta especially as a main drive and that it being that way is an offense as bad as pure mrt meta

[versed cove]

I totally agree. However, while this nerf would not only make boost bad for only thrust choice, it might make it even worse for non-dedicated helper boost. The thing about those weird boost ULs is that they have a reactor practically adjacent to the boost to recieve max uptime, while support boost just kinda lies about.

I'd suggest counterbalancing this nerf by making a boosted boost that isn't firing consume less energy passively (you know how a passive primed boost has 0.3 "energy decay" per second, make that number like 0.1)
This mechanic has always been a bit of a burden in my eyes anyways

[wicked spade]

for context pure boost monothrust was meta in the previews on ul nukes and theoretically other archetypes like dc rammers. very silly

as for your suggestion to change boost energy decay, i think that would def be good to test tho im not sure how much it would actually make it better

[versed cove]

It'd just make boost stay on and aid you for turning your ship and stuff (like the thing that boost is supposed to be used for xd) instead of the other side running out whilst you're turning one direction. I guess more of a small convenience buff, so it doesn't detract from the nerf too much.

Also maybe make unboosted boost that ran out not require fully recharging? That seems a little strange to have, but I doubt it'll ever run out unboosted anyways.

[torpid ridge]

what is this update even about 😭
its veri controversial

[mighty echo]

rampdown, thrust takes time before turning off completely, opposite of ramp up basically and also bunch of qol things

[modest sun]

i'd think 4 seconds would be a good middle ground for EMP launch

[versed cove]

Any major balance change, especially one targeting arguably the most important part of the game and ENTIRELY overhauling it is BOUND to be insanely controversial.

By the way, I wonder what reaction will this bring of the player base at large, you know, the ones that aren't active on Discord. I feel as if the majority should be consulted.

[warm zinc]

Not sure how to "consult" them though. There are even fewer people on the Steam forums than Discord. At some point I have to just admit that I've gotten as much feedback as I can and put out an update and hope most people like it.

[versed cove]

Yup, let's sure hope it won't have serious outrage!

[frozen thunder]

Would it be practical to have a menu screen survey pop-up? Players may dismiss it just like the menu screen tips if they'd like to. I've had these show up in other games and they can easily target the entire audience

[slate pond]

maybe the movement vector could have some movement interpolation? Its quite chittery on higher rotational speeds.

[raw idol]

Should already be interpolated, but I think the interpolation is bugged @lost mural

[lucid stream]

Your doing a good job as a dev so far in the majority of the communities eyes ❤️ we only get so passionate abt changes bc we like the game

[rancid grove]

aye, you are a good dev walt

[carmine jay]

Best game dev I know of tbh

[warm zinc]

No point in surveying people who haven't played the RC though, and most people who play the RCs post here.

[slate pond]

I think the boost nerf is way too severe and also has negative side effects on innocent ships especially in domination.
I propose that the exclusion zone should be extended instead. The degenerate boost abuse we had was mainly caused by orbiters stacking 2 rows of boosters. This would make that harder or impossible and wouldnt have as many negative side effects.

[lucid stream]

^ Worth noting your nerfing boost hard here while buffing its direct competition in elim (also an awful nerf for dom overall completely ignoring elim)

[rancid grove]

aye, after playing a decent bit i've come to agree. in isolation/without the other thrust changes it would have probably been fine-ish, but it's too far with the other changes.

a potential alternate rework while keeping the shield-like recharge mechanic could be to reduce their battery capacity while reducing their boosting energy drain by the same amount, making them recharge quicker, but i'm not as sure about that and it'd probably just be best to revert the change and increase the deadzone

[lost mural]

It has interpolation. Im not quite sure what's going on there but it's possible it's not working correctly like Redstone said

[wispy heart]

Sooo this is my opinion on the RC after playing some pvp with it
i love every single change in this one, though imo the boost nerf should be reverted... before this change, the problem with boost was that because huge thrust and MRT based ships were both really hard to play, so people just turned to boost and it became the best thruster in the game. However, I would argue that now that the rampup on MRT and HT was reduced, the boost nerf is no longer necessary and i think guts it a little too hard.

However, I completely agree with the other changes. I believe that increasing the MRT's thrust was a great trade for adding the MRT rampdown, for instance.
Keep up the good work, Walt (and the other devs)!

[rancid grove]

just adding this here from fish as i don't think he's said it here yet

the one remaining serious issue (if boost nerf reverted and deadzone increased) is TB, though imo it's not really much of one

if people think a nerf is warranted, i wouldn't suggest nerfing its force again (as it'd just make it too weak in small amounts), rather, either increase the cost (preferably by increasing the required amount of relatively easy-to-get materials so as not to heavily impact career) or add some ramp time for switching between modes, removing TB's advantage of immediate impulse

[slate pond]

We could also make the tb beam wider instead. That would keep the force the same and reduces the rotational force applied.

[lucid stream]

I wanted to condense and officialize my thoughts and give it some non 1 day testing before putting it here (no your good theta 2min slowdown ): ) - I like plaus idea but it reduces some skill requirements in tb mirco which isn’t the move imo

[rancid grove]

ah, fair enough. want me to remove the image then?

[slate pond]

How does it reduce skill requirements?

[lucid stream]

More precise/ efficient tb mirco is less rewarding and worse mirco / targeting becomes less punishing bc wider beam makes your overall precision less important

[modest lily]

are tbs really still op? I haven't properly tested it but I would have thought the rampdown decrease to ht would make a big difference

[rancid grove]

i wouldn't say they're OP, but they might still be a bit overtuned

[wicked spade]

hosting on preview to test some new ships

[unkempt sinew]

They were already very powerful when HT had no rampdown, even just 0.5 seconds is enough to make a difference when it comes to TB

[modest lily]

they also got a 20% force nerf though

[rancid grove]

if they do get a nerf it shouldn't be a big one. i'm on board with plaus's idea

[unkempt sinew]

And thrusters got a massive response time nerf so despite the lowered force TBs actually performed better in RC

[versed cove]

I don't think anybody bothered checking out my ''EMP Thesis,'' but to add upon it, I made a middle ground emp module with 4 emps. It's practically the same cost as the old 6 emps version, although it does cointain more storage. In terms of performance, they were also practically the same, with the 6 launcher version just barely managing to get a couple more shots in.

Goes to show just how much of a ''non-buff'' this seemingly colossal balance change really was, and nothing will change for EMP unless factory production speed is also buffed. Eats away at factories and crew absolutely mercylessly, you end up needing so much factory buffs and factories that you might as well just go for more launchers (more burst too) and less uptime, like how it was before with 6 second reload.

By the way, you literally can't match or surpass the new EMP reload, even when crew only have to do a single sorty, it manages to eek out quite a long a flicker before it reloads.

I moved the thing one tile up to give crew a better response time, the claim above still applies.

.....Am I the only person in this server who cares about EMP? 🥹

[meager mural]

I need to use EMP more, front facing EMP kicks ass. This balance change wont change much but I do think EMP is a bit niche vs disruptor.
EMP is very polarizing vs disruptor I feel, since one actually does decent damage vs standard parts with its only cost being energy and the other does fuckall vs parts damage wise and its cost is somewhat steep, not being infinite.

I'm not telling you that to explain balance, its just why EMP probably isnt used as much, its a bit niche and polarizing id all

[lucid stream]

I’m going to suggest some emp buffs that don’t impact dom and buff full emp fac modules with numbers included sooon

[slate pond]

Buffing emp wasnt the intention here. Just removing the unnecessary cooldown. I just wish we had also got the nuke cooldown change. Why didnt we get that one?

[versed cove]

Waittt... Cooldown?

Hmmm.....

[versed cove]

Actually, on second thoguht, love this idea, having reload be limited strictly by the efficiency of your crew and part construction speed is pretty genius...

[modest sun]

cant wait for the ammo loading mods to have emps launch every 2 seconds because of that

[frank cloud]

lol yeah exactly that’s why i am attempting to cook max speed emp logistics, it’s like max speed cg reloading

[versed cove]

Yeah.

[rancid grove]

in latest RC the response time is a lot faster for everything but mrt

[warm zinc]

I'm very reluctant to increase BT's deadzone because that's a ship-breaking change.

[rancid grove]

mmm, fair. a potential other change i've thought of is to keep the shield-like behaviour, reduce boost's capacity, but also reduce boost's power usage while boosting by the same proportion, so it's faster to recharge. could break some crew detach setups using boost to draw crew though

[warm zinc]

You mean but keep the shield-like "must recharge fully" mechanic?

[mighty echo]

(about the detach setups, it won't because those turn it on and off to drain it)

[carmine jay]

*also reduce its normal power usage

[warm zinc]

Reducing normal power usage would make it more efficient than LTs which doesn't really make sense?

[rancid grove]

it will, because it'll be changing from 8 power required when turned on then off to 6, or 4, or something, meaning less crew will be drawn

and to kelsia, i don't think that's necessary, it'd still be at least as good as a normal standard thruster when not boosting

[carmine jay]

as long as the power capacity doesnt go below 4 im fine w/it

[warm zinc]

i was thinking 8->6

[carmine jay]

Seems fine, though 4 might make more sense given its basically a LT on crack?
Could be interesting lore - "this is an LT we bolted uranium onto and it somehow works' or smth

[warm zinc]

4 seems pretty drastic

[rancid grove]

to be fair, so was the nerf in hindsight

[lucid stream]

Why not remove the full recharge and just nerf the power usage of boost mode

[versed cove]

Aww, higher energy capacity was like the gimmick of boost>large thruster in my eyes, I don't think phasing it out is a good idea.

More like making passive boost drain (when it's boosted but not actually firing) to 0.1 would be a good balance change.

[rancid grove]

that could work too, but i do kinda like that boost does have a bit more forced downtime

ig reducing the length of boost mode increases the amount of downtime relative to uptime so it works

[warm zinc]

I've already reduced passive power drain to 0.1.

Philosophically I like the full recharge requirement, I think it forces a bit more interesting decisions.

[modest lily]

In the few games I played today with tb rail vs ion rammer it seemed quite easy to ram 8 tbs with 10er of huge thrusters, i don't think tb needs another nerf in fact i think it could be weaker now than in stable

[wicked spade]

ig once ur ramlocked it doesnt rly matter so rammers will have an easier time vs tbs but ive seen that tbs are still really good at flipping. in any case i think tb balance is a finicky thing so we should not nerf tb again until the dust settles. its balanced enough to be on stable i think

[long rampart]

ToggleOnResources for boost should be less than 8000 because boost on engine rooms are near impossible to refill normally (unless you overcrew)
i reccomend a value of 7500 (or (&MaxResources - 500)) because visually that looks like 8 batteries
it just needs a bit of leniency imo

[sleek salmon]

This is code for "make boost re-activate when it actually looks like it should, even if it's not fully filled"
I really like this idea of boost downtime, I like how it kinda punishes them just being brainlessly stuck onto engine rooms and rewards them having their own supply line

[spice ivy]

Rampdown feels very reasonable on huge thrusters right now. It's not very noticeable in normal piloting but it doesn't allow suddenly stopping my thrust and you're noticeably slower if you keep turning very aggressively for a while

[rancid grove]

aye

also for boost thrusters, a career-centric change that won't change pvp balance at all but would make boost a bit more usable in career would be to change out its tristeel cost for increased hypercoil or steel cost, keeping the same overall credit value. change originally suggested by Kelsia, i think it'd be good bc currently it doesn't seem like boost's used much outside of pvp

[wicked spade]

CG rammers seem to have turned into something along these lines. these sorts of constructions are far superior to their ht variants i am quite sure. the logistics on this are questionable but its pretty optimized regardless and is an example of hybrid thrust that i think actually works unlike the spinal mrt setups i posted earlier

[wicked spade]

some thoughts:
mrt is honestly in a pretty good state rn and i think further changes should wait a bit until the dust has settled. however. i think its actually proportionally a bit too good on uls and kites and morbid with pure mrt and the likes compared to the intended use case of main drive mrt with other thrust (its good, but honestly not by much). to alleviate this issue there are a few courses of action:

• increase thrust buff from 25% to 30/35% and increase density greatly (by 50%-75%)
• revert/greatly reduce thrust buff and instead reduce mrts cost by a bit

both of these solutions would more directly offer greater benefits towards hybrid mrt setups. a weight increase and thrust increase would pretty much build in a sort of crude diminishing returns to pure mrt incentivising ships that use less mrt and more other stuff, while a cost buff would offset one of the main downsides of hybrid setups being their logistical jank causing them to inherently be more expensive than pure thrust setups.

currently the thrust buff is fine but i feel it kinda over rewards pure mrt setups and makes them quite maneuverable due to just how much speed and torque they have. if the intent was to discourage that then it hasnt succeeded in full

[slate pond]

I dont think either of those changes could incentivise mrt. If mrt is good enough its gonna be run purely and if not then its just not gonna be run. I dont see how these changes would change that.

[wicked spade]

density increase would make having proportionally more mrt worse as it increases ur weight way more. cost decrease would make hybrid setups easier and pure mrt spam ships wouldnt really care that much about saving a few credits because even if it allowed them to afford a few more weapons or maybe even an extra er the actual benefit to those kinds of ships isnt particularly high. youre looking at this from a very reductive pov

[slate pond]

Weight increase still leaves the ratio of thrust to weight constant. All youre doing with that is to nerfe lighter ships as twr will be worse.
And I dont see why hybrid setups would be able to use the credits in a better way than pure mrt.

[mystic trail]

lol, the chat has now slow mode on. (2 minutes)

[long rampart]

extenders would have to have less mass than the nozzle or it would seldom make sense to run mrt for light ships - is this the desired effect?
for heavier ships itll still run though

heres the current TWR graph for 0-10 extenders and i can generate graphs based on example numbers easily

[warm zinc]

@everyone Thanks for all your testing and feedback on RC2! RC3 is now ready for testing!

• (U.I.): Added an option to show velocity arrows on all ships.
• (U.I.): Translation updates for all supported languages.
• (Balance): Reduced Boost Thruster's passive power drain while in boost mode from 0.3/sec to 0.1/sec.
• (Balance): Reduced Boost Thruster boost-mode power consumption per thrust force by 25%.
• (Balance): Reduced Boost Thruster battery capacity from 8 to 6.
• (RC Balance): Boost Thrusters now turn back on at the same power amount at which their final battery sprite is displayed.

[wispy heart]

oooh okay
cant wait to try out the new boost thrusters!

[carmine jay]

Yooo, awesome. I'll probably test it tomorrow, see how boost thrusters handle.

[rancid grove]

excellent

[sleek salmon]

really excited to test the reduced battery size, i like these changes a lot

[long rampart]

boost thrusters other than supply crew and its interaction with emp will feel the same

[marsh sequoia]

new crash in rc - tried to activate explosive charge on a boost avoider (attached)

[slate pond]

Yea toothless already reported it https://discord.com/channels/314103695568666625/1310786223761260644

[marsh sequoia]

ah okay
yeah im getting similar results as toothless with other ships as well

[marsh sequoia]

is junk pieces displaying movement arrows when they are enabled for all ships intentional? feels like it shouldnt cause random disconnected pieces of structure dont look much like a ship

[lost mural]

It is not!
A case I didnt consider 🙂

[long rampart]

i'd be fine with arrows on junk :3

[versed cove]

Wow, heavy boost reworks.
Still not sure about power capacity reduction.

[carmine jay]

Have it be an option imo, since not everyone may want it.

[long rampart]

i mean i did ask for having arrows always show as an option so that goes to show that i support that

[broken burrow]

See the good side of things it'll make alternating boost much easier

[rancid grove]

i assume this post is no longer needed

[lucid stream]

I think it is as a place for feedback on the new changes for the short term But the PvP community no longer has issues with this for the most part

[slate pond]

Boost has very little testing so Im still concerned about it especially in dom

[wise lantern]

Did PvP community ever had problems with this?

[dark sorrel]

so many