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Upgrade bugs


unmog

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Dont have or need a picture for this bug, and Im playing on the current version as far as steam tells me. Anyway, I wanted to report some bugs with upgrades not working together or perhaps not working as I think they're intended.

Cluster explosion and Big explosion don't work together. The first one will override the second. Why cant we have big cluster explosions?

Heat seeking missiles don't appear to do much in the way of seeking. I figured maybe I had to hit them with some fire first but even that did little if anything to improve their tracking. However they DO seem to track, slightly, using another upgrade to slow the rockets to ridiculous levels helped show me they were in fact working, but even moving at a snails pace they couldnt track for hot garbage. I believe the upgrades tracking should be improved, its barely noticeable at normal speeds.

Many laser upgrades dont work together. Reflective laser doesnt work with split laser. Penetrating laser doesnt work with reflective OR split laser and doesnt go through dirt [woulda been nice to dig faster]

Efficiency upgrades should be multiplicative, not additive. Meaning if I use minigun which raises the power needed by up to twice as normal, also called 200%, and I use an efficiency upgrade to counter it by 80%, 80% of 200 should be 40%. So a gun that normally uses 10 energy should be using 4,  instead the current math is 200% -80% equals 120% or 12 energy. When every other upgrade is multiplicative I think the efficiency upgrade should be too. The fact it isnt seems to be mostly to be just a thumb in the eye for wanting to use higher tier upgrades and strong deterrents from using it even if we sacrifice a second upgrade to counter it.

Mathematically speaking its better to avoid those upgrades that hurt your efficiency. Lets say the gun normally uses 10 energy without any upgrades and fires one bullet .I can use +3 projectiles to get it to 4 with no cost or windup time whatsoever, then I can increase its firing speed by 75% again without any cost or windup time, then I can increase the damage by another 75%. Meaning the same gun for 10 energy costs me the same but Im getting an increase of 36x the damage. Now if I use minigun alone, energy efficiency to counter the negative, and a 75% damage upgrade Im only getting 5 projectiles instead of 4, a slight 25% increase to fire rate, but also a 20% increase to the energy I needed than normal. If you hammer the numbers it would "seem" the minigun with efficiency barely beats out just using multi shot and rapid fire upgrades, but this isn't the case. Why? Because you have to hold/charge it first for 4 seconds before it gets to those upper levels, meaning its losing out in damage during that same time. Plus, by its nature it already will be inaccurate and wasteful, which hits the energy requirements even more if you consider not using it gives you reliable fire power you can put out whenever you need to with less generators in your ship.

Regardless the figures skew WILDLY away from minigun if you just use multi shot, damage and efficiency instead of fire rate. Why? You can just build two guns compared to the one you were going to build anyway, each gun will use only  2 energy, so 4 total compared to the 12 with minigun, and it essentially doubles your fire rate [and armor/health] for a third of the energy consumption. And with all the space on your ship you're saving with not needing to build as many generators youll have plenty of places to stick a gun to.

Uhm, that one was longer than I intended... sorry. Ugh, it gets me mad tho. High tier upgrades should be better not worse. :/ Instead of hurting your efficiency, how about it if hurt your accuracy or recoil some instead? I also dont think the "more lasers over time" should increase the energy as much either, I mean, its a fan... leave my energy alone :(

As an aside, I believe the energy generators could use some better balance as well, my ships tend to be like 90% energy blocks. A good place to start I believe would be to double their energy regen, or make a block with no energy capacity but really high creation, perhaps it could even use fuel to create energy? In general tho I believe theres many much better ways to balance the generators other than to make them all weak and barely able to power one thing and one thing only. For instance, what about bigger energy blocks creating more energy than smaller ones, but also creating heat you would need to vent for? That way a 1x1 energy block could say make 10 energy, but a 1x2 one makes 30 and generates a little heat over time, and a 2x2 one makes 90 but makes it a necessity to account for cooling as well. If you made them explode and do damage if destroyed it would mean you ALSO would have to protect them too instead of just sticking them wherever you can find a place willy nilly.

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A penetrating laser going through terrain would make one beam enough to dig through the hardest planets with ease, which I believe would be overkill.

Not a single upgrade is multiplicative. 50% and 100% range upgrades together make it 250% range (100 base, plus 150 bonus), as seen on the picture; multiplicative upgrades would have made it 1 x 1.5 x 2 = 300% range.

2126437206_Lasernoupgrade.png.34fc13a5ec59c9fb4ed6a1ffc0573e65.png1249768514_Laserrangeupgrades.png.e157e80adebc03457333d3fdbc73182e.png

A 200% increase is a multiplication by 3, not 2. As a rule of thumb: « X increases by Y% » is « ( 1 + Y/100 ) x X ». Likewise, from 1 bullet dealing 1 damage once a second, with the three upgrades you quoted we now have 4 bullets dealing 1.75 damage 1.75 times a second, so a total of 4 x 1.75 = 7 damage per shot, so 7 x 1.75 = 12.25 damage per second, with three upgrade slots filled. The minigun upgrade is +100% attack speed and +400% bullet count, so from 1 bullet dealing 1 damage per 1 second to 5 bullets dealing 1 damage per 0.5 second, so a total of 5 x 1 = 5 damage per shot, so 5 / 0.5 = 10 damage per second, with only one upgrade slot.

When spun up, the minigun upgrade leads to dealing 18% less damage than the three most powerful, single upgrades. It is not much worse in that area, and the same proportion of projectiles will hit regardless of the number you fire.

Two slots left, so you can place (let's say) +75% damage and +100% accuracy. You now have a pinpoint accurate rocket launcher that deals 17.5 times the regular damage for 3 times the energy consumption (30, so efficiency of 17.5 / 30 = 0.58 damage per unit of energy), against your third example of a weapon with bullet count +300% and attack speed +75%, so 7 times the regular damage to extremely close targets, less than a third of that against targets farther away because of poor accuracy, with -80% energy consumption so a fifth of the regular consumption (2, efficiency of 7 / 2 = 3.5 against targets sticking to the weapon, perhaps 1 against targets farther away). Better use of energy, for sure, but less than half the damage even at close range, less than 1/6th at long range. If you want to offset that you need to use at least 2 weapons if using only close range, 6 or so if you intend to shoot at distant enemies, which will make it consume 12 energy per second still and weigh 6 times more, with 6 times more space taken at that. On a large craft with extensive weaponry, this means a few more thrusters and fuel tanks, so you are not gaining any space from using less generators.

Minigun upgrade is less efficient in terms of energy usage however you look at it, but lets one deal extreme damage, free up space, and have perfect accuracy / large explosions / cluster explosions / increased digging / homing rockets / no recoil (my favourite)... Basically you can have the damage and give it some fancy stuff to go with it. It is indeed worthy of being a high-tier upgrade.

As for energy generation, I do not believe the system requires being made any more complicated for the sole purpose of optimising a few crafts. Current batteries have the immense advantage of being simple to use, freeing up some computing capacity for the in my opinion more interesting things, like logic.

Edited by Ookami-sama
Quack! They do not explode. Not batteries.
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27 minutes ago, Ookami-sama said:

As for energy generation, I do not believe the system requires being made any more complicated for the sole purpose of optimising a few crafts. Current batteries have the immense advantage of being simple to use, freeing up some computing capacity for the in my opinion more interesting things, like logic.

I agree that energy doesn’t need a rework, but I do think that it needs a buff. For fuel, a 2x2 tank can power 4 thruster (or 8 mini-thrusters) continuously, and it has sufficient capacity to power more for a decent length of time. Batteries, however, generate very slowly relative to energy use. A 2x2 battery is not enough to support a drill or a battery, and it can barely support a shield. It can only support 2 unupgraded weapons, depending on weapon type. Batteries definitely need a buff. I suggest that 2x2 batteries generate 50 power, 2x1 batteries generate 25, and 1x1 batteries generate 12 (maybe 12.5 if the devs want to use decimals). Capacity should also be increased roughly proportionally.

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An alternative would be to decrease the consumption of drills and slap energy upgrades onto every weapon's first upgrade slot. I could advocate for an increase in consumption of shields at the same time, too.

Thing is, you are supposed to operate thrusters almost continually, while weapons, shields and whatnot should only be used when necessary. I have never been in need of freeing up some space on any sort of craft to place batteries: when I want a lot of weapons, I make then five times less power-hungry thanks to an upgrade, and done. Shields are not my cup of tea.

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3 hours ago, Ookami-sama said:

A penetrating laser going through terrain would make one beam enough to dig through the hardest planets with ease, which I believe would be overkill.

Not a single upgrade is multiplicative. 50% and 100% range upgrades together make it 250% range (100 base, plus 150 bonus), as seen on the picture; multiplicative upgrades would have made it 1 x 1.5 x 2 = 300% range.

When a lasers primary job seems to basically be drilling, it'd still be fun if it could be overkill without the need to abuse tnt as you said earlier :p

Otherwise, yes almost all other upgrades are in fact multiplicative, not additive. Not sure how you dont see that. I'll give an overwhelming amount of examples now to crush the notion its otherwise, but first let me clear up what seems to be some initial confusion.

"A 200% increase is a multiplication by 3, not 2."

In game 100% is the standard. If your damage is 10, 100% of 10 is 10. If your damage went UP TO 200% that would mean your damage is 20, or twice that of 100% Its not a multiplication by 3, were not increasing it BY 200% we are increasing it TO 200%. Usually tho when dealing with percents you are multiplying the base number and not adding to it. That said, the minigun upgrade indeed DOSE triple the energy usage, increasing it BY 200% which would be 300% total, so maybe thats what you were referring to?

Anyway now that I've hopefully cleared up that we can continue from the same point of reference I feel I can get to proving upgrades are in FACT multiplicative in most examples. The only ones I can think of that arent is efficiency, digging and damage, and the only way I know to test the damage is to add more than one. Thus a 75% of 15 blaster damage goes to 26, and another 50% goes to 34, not 39. Still not a huge difference in the final number however so its easy to miss it. Still the way upgrades work that their stacking effects seem to be additive, but their effects are regardless multiplicative of the original source. since in the end your multiplying the damage by 1.25 for two stacking damage mods.

Accuracy= It's multiplicative, not additive. +50% accuracy for your guns doesnt ADD 50% accuracy, else a blasters accuracy would be 110% with the first upgrade instead of 90. Plus a shotgun with 100% accuracy still only maxes out at 80%. Thats multiplication baby.

Projectile count= Multiplicative. Its hard to show since most guns only have 1 bullet. But look at the shotgun to prove my case. It starts out with 4 projectiles, and a +1 weapon projectile upgrade turns it to 8, not 5. As an aside, I believe they should raise the "max" of projectiles from 10 and make it unlimited, since a shotgun with +2 and +3 projectile upgrades maxes out at 10, not 12 and 16, meaning the poor shotgun doesnt get the full benefit of the upgrade unlike every other weapon. Similar like effects however are added independently before the multiplication is taken into account, meaning a +3 upgrade and a +2 upgrade just multiplies the initial result by 5, not 6, tho the effect in the end adds 5 to the initial which gets you 6. The math for this upgrade is a little in the weeds really since it sort of both additive and multiplicative.

Cluster bomb= Multiplicative, each missile will get three more explosions when it explodes, meaning you multiply the number of cluster explosions by the amount of rockets you fire, which is why the game lags when theres too many.

Laser Range= Multiplicative, meaning a default range of 40 doubled is 80, not 140. Though admittedly I wouldnt mind if lasers were longer so I wouldn't be against changing it~ :)

Basically the game is adding like effects before taking the final number and multiplying that by the base number. Im just saying a decrease in effeciency shouldnt be considered a like effect but a sepperate effect after the initial efficiency values are taken into account, which would make minigun a more worthwhile upgrade and less of a resource hit. For instance if I use 2 efficiency upgrades to negate 100% of the energy, minigun should then factor in that math of 0 energy BEFORE applying its 100% increase. Doubling 0 is still 0 after all.

Taking that same example, minigun and 2 efficiency upgrades on a blaster would (after 4 seconds) give you an you attack speed of 10, and bullet count of 5 for 24 energy. A blaster using projectile upgrade, attack speed, and efficiency on the other hand gives 8.8 attack speed, 4 bullet count for 2.4 energy without the need for a 4 second wind up ahead of time. Minigun sucks in comparison and should be better for a top tier upgrade in terms of efficiency. Instead of hitting your efficiency I dont see why it doesnt instead penalize accuracy or recoil which would make more sense to me.

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Thing is, you are supposed to operate thrusters almost continually, while weapons, shields and whatnot should only be used when necessary. I have never been in need of freeing up some space on any sort of craft to place batteries: when I want a lot of weapons, I make then five times less power-hungry thanks to an upgrade, and done. Shields are not my cup of tea.

That said, it's especially true when the energy generators are the main bottleneck to contend with in ship creation considering how little they make compared to the energy requirements of almost everything. Small 1x1 shields should NOT require the same amount of energy as a 2x2 energy block, and a 1x1 drill shouldnt require even more. It would be less of a problem if our drone core could use efficiency upgrades too but currently we cant. So I respectfully agree to disagree and think there SHOULD be more options. You can keep the crappy energy generators in the game if you want for simplistic uses, but it'd be nice for the rest of us to have more options and complexity to solve our absurd energy requirements due to bad balance with energy currently.

Regardless, sorry but the last part comes off more of a "sucks to be you" off handed comment and I don't appreciate it. Just because its not a problem you're concerned with doesnt mean it isn't a problem. Maybe try building a ship with shields and then get back to me about how balanced and easy it is, until then as you mentioned you barely even bother with energy so I don't really find your opinion all too helpful.

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As for energy generation, I do not believe the system requires being made any more complicated for the sole purpose of optimising a few crafts.Current batteries have the immense advantage of being simple to use, freeing up some computing capacity for the in my opinion more interesting things, like logic.

What would require you to use more advanced energy generation if you didn't want to? If you're happy with it then dont worry, but dont try and slam the door in other peoples faces who would like more options. Regardless it wouldnt just "optimise a few crafts" and I feel thats dismissive. I merely suggested other alternatives for balancing energy generation if it is indeed a balance concern. Right now the balance seems completely off for many energy sucking items however and just because you dont use them doesnt mean it doesnt exist. :/

You mention logic in the game, and that perplexes me even more. We have such an advanced logic system to make complicated things, but we're limited so much in terms of energy creation. And you dont see the problem in this just because you dont use shields and make sure to work around weapon energy usage with basically the REQUIRED upgrade for your guns to all have super low energy needs? Thats disappointing to say the least.

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I could advocate for an increase in consumption of shields at the same time, too.

Because what would it matter to YOU right? You admittedly dont even use them anyway so whats your advocation really worth in the end, yea? I know, its easy to advocate for nerfing things ya dont even utilize. Screw the rest of us yea? :p

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If you use both energy upgrades, then a weapon uses 0 energy. That is 100-80-20=0. Which is additive (I know that it’s subtraction but 100+(-80)+(-20) doesn’t look as good, and they are the same thing). If it were multiplicative, then both energy upgrades combined the energy usage would be 16%. This persists through all of the upgrades. All upgrades are additive, not multiplicative.

If you use the 200% digging upgrade on the blaster, which has 1 default digging, then the total digging is 3, thus proving that the upgrade is by 200% and not to 200%. This persists throughout all upgrades.

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As I said, I already said efficiency shouldnt be additive it should be multiplicative. Its implied already that I understand its currently additive when Im suggesting it should be multiplicative.

In effect, that would mean you wouldnt get a weapon down to 0 energy like you can currently, but you also would have better combinations in terms of using minigun and efficiency upgrades together.

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2 minutes ago, unmog said:

As I said, I already said efficiency shouldnt be additive it should be multiplicative. Its implied already that I understand its currently additive when Im suggesting it should be multiplicative.

In effect, that would mean you wouldnt get a weapon down to 0 energy like you can currently, but you also would have better combinations in terms of using minigun and efficiency upgrades together.

ALL of the upgrades are additive. I was just using the energy beacause it was an easy example.

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Multi shot isnt. Go check it out if you dont believe me. Use multi shot 1 with the shotgun. I listed several examples of it being multiplicative. Accuracy, range, etc.

... Maybe Im just not explaining it well enough to get my point across.

Regardless Im saying I think Efficiency upgrades should be applied in order one after the other, not having all the effects added first and then applied after. Would make more sense anyway from a balance perspective.

This means if you have a gun that costs 10 energy, and you apply 80% reduction, it costs 2 energy. If you apply a 20% reduction after that, it would cost 1.6 energy [not 0]. Like wise that would mean if you applied a 200% increase from minigun after it would cost 6 energy [not 22]

Maybe Im just using the wrong term to explain things. For instance when I get 50% more accuracy it doesnt just add 50 more accuracy to whatever gun Im using, it multiplies it?

Ugh, whatever, sorry this is getting way into the weeds. If you think minigun and efficiency should cost 22 energy tho I disagree since it basically just makes using an efficiency upgrade pretty pointless from a damage per second per energy used perspective. Since energy is the biggest bottle neck with our ships I think my order of math would be more fair and balanced.

Either that or change the energy hit from minigun to perhaps an accuracy or recoil hit or something along those lines instead~?

I'm actually really smart, i swear :p I just suck at explaining things.

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I think multiplicative upgrades are appropriate to gatling.  It doesn't make a lot of sense for an energy-efficient weapon to take the same hit for firing faster.

But I also believe that energy efficiency upgrades are overpowered.

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8 hours ago, unmog said:

Multi shot isnt. Go check it out if you dont believe me. Use multi shot 1 with the shotgun. I listed several examples of it being multiplicative. Accuracy, range, etc.

... Maybe Im just not explaining it well enough to get my point across.

Regardless Im saying I think Efficiency upgrades should be applied in order one after the other, not having all the effects added first and then applied after. Would make more sense anyway from a balance perspective.

This means if you have a gun that costs 10 energy, and you apply 80% reduction, it costs 2 energy. If you apply a 20% reduction after that, it would cost 1.6 energy [not 0]. Like wise that would mean if you applied a 200% increase from minigun after it would cost 6 energy [not 22]

Maybe Im just using the wrong term to explain things. For instance when I get 50% more accuracy it doesnt just add 50 more accuracy to whatever gun Im using, it multiplies it?

Ugh, whatever, sorry this is getting way into the weeds. If you think minigun and efficiency should cost 22 energy tho I disagree since it basically just makes using an efficiency upgrade pretty pointless from a damage per second per energy used perspective. Since energy is the biggest bottle neck with our ships I think my order of math would be more fair and balanced.

Either that or change the energy hit from minigun to perhaps an accuracy or recoil hit or something along those lines instead~?

I'm actually really smart, i swear 😛 I just suck at explaining things.

I apologize that I haven’t been clear. The upgrades all stack additively, with the final effect being a multiplicative percentage increase (or decrease). So the energy equation would actually be (1+(-0.8)+(-0.2))*[whatever the default energy for the weapon you are using is].

while you are correct that the final upgrade is multiplicative, the upgrades stack additively, not multiplicatively. The minigun upgrade on the shotgun would (if the shotgun had a higher max bullets) first shoot 4 bullets, then shoot 8, then 12, etc. if it were multiplicative, it would first shoot 8, then 16, then 32, which would be very broken (also I do agree that upgrades over time should work better with efficiency upgrades).

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In addition to ManTheMister's latest post, hoping one of the explanations makes sense to you:

Upgrades are additive in the sense that slapping +50% and +75% damage upgrades on the same weapon will increase its total damage to:

BaseDamage x ( 1 + 0.50 + 0.75 ) = 2.25 x BaseDamage total (additive because +);

Not BaseDamage x 1.50 x 1.75 = 2.625 x BaseDamage (multiplicative because x). Likewise, +100% and +200% beams upgrades will make a weapon with 1 beam, plus 100% of base number, plus 200% of base number, so a total of 4; rather than 1 beam, increased by 100% to 2, increased by 200% to 6. This applies to all upgrades as far as I can tell.

This is what usually is called "additive percentages", and is among other things an incentive to using several kinds of upgrades rather than only damage ones, for example. Of course it would be plain absurd to make « +100% » a +1 increase in all cases; it would even have been called « projectile count +1 » instead.

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The thing with a 200% increase being a multiplication by 3 earlier on was in reaction to the following:

« Now if I use minigun alone, energy efficiency to counter the negative, and a 75% damage upgrade Im only getting 5 projectiles instead of 4, a slight 25% increase to fire rate, but also a 20% increase to the energy I needed than normal. »

Base energy consumption of a rocket launcher is 10; minigun upgrade is +200% of base, to 30; second energy consumption upgrade is -80% of base, to 30 - 0.8 x 10 = 22.

22 is 12 higher than 10, so it is a 120% increase, not 20% as you stated. You seem to have forgotten a hundred percent somewhere, and that usually comes from not paying attention to the fact that percentage increases are, in a good 99.99% of cases, understood and written as increases by rather than to.

1644126340_Minigun(not)energy.png.40d72c93564f986ea114ac9ac2342ad2.png98244467_Minigunenergy.png.7e7962ac39cb61e965112e9ed967c7b0.png1288252761_Minigunupgrade.png.cf447d2fd8e562332f45158f55b5d50b.png

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Shields are broken levels of overpowered considering that they can take quite a number of hits, require no space to speak of (half that of a logic block) and even recharge, all that while having the capability to be turned on and off and using the same amount of energy whether or not they are being shot at... on a drone that features extremely resilient components (you can take one cannon shot without so much as losing a thruster, a lot more than that if you actually make it hit different parts of your ship by rotating, or moving around your enemy) that even repair themselves over time. Not accounting for the fact that most enemies explode in a few shots. Most of my crafts feature medium-range weapons, no protection worth noting, no shield, and I can still hardly lose any part of it to anything but boombugs. Being almost entirely impervious to damage should come with a downside of sort, and high energy consumption is one that I feel is sensible. It isn't « sucks to be you », it is « weigh the benefits and inconveniences ».

When I want to slap more guns than reasonable on a drone, I make sure to bypass the otherwise extreme energy consumption with the required upgrades; when I want a small craft with immense firepower, I use 6 square units of batteries and a minigun, 0 recoil, 100 accuracy rocket launcher; this is what the weapon upgrades are for. You choose what you want while respecting a few rules. Being able to have your cake and eat it too, with energy-efficient digging high-damage accurate minigun rocket launchers for example, would be bland and ridiculous, and overall an extremely bad idea. I played a few games that let you do this kind of thing, and there were no « efficient builds » any more: just « the best build » and the subpar trash.

As for other things I could advocate for, they are unrelated to this subject, they encompass various nerfs, buffs, quality-of-life changes, to things I use, or not, and they are none of your business as long as I have not decided to tell about them. I would appreciate you avoid dumping me into whichever category of people you want to despise and assume things that are flat out wrong, just because it lets you end your paragraph with a nice ad hominem attack to make yourself feel like a true slayer of evil. You are no slayer of evil, I am no evil monster, we both are humans and we can talk without insulting each other. Well! Ideally, that is.

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 I would appreciate you avoid dumping me into whichever category of people you want to despise and assume things that are flat out wrong, just because it lets you end your paragraph with a nice ad hominem attack to make yourself feel like a true slayer of evil. You are no slayer of evil, I am no evil monster, we both are humans and we can talk without insulting each other. Well! Ideally, that is.

Didn't say I despised ya, just that I didnt appreciate the way you phrased things as if it was dismissive and had off handed comments. Just because I give out a scratch for it doesnt mean I want your head on a pike after all. :p

We're still cool, I hope? Anyway~

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22 is 12 higher than 10, so it is a 120% increase, not 20% as you stated. 

Oops, my keyboard isnt the best and sometimes the numbers dont get pushed through or something. Or maybe I brainfarted, but yea. If my math looks wrong its probably a typo that slipped past my ocd or I missed it when going back to double check. I usually write up something as a first draft, then look back over it for typos or misspellings and other incorrections. Never claimed to be perfect tho :p The main point is I think the minigun + efficiency upgrades should operate different than it does rather than just accepting it and not thinking critically about it. The devs have said countless times theyre working on game balance and that it isnt perfect yet, this is me suggesting they change how efficiency works.

Like I said above, it would mean overall that upgrades like minigun would be much less energy intensive, but that it also wouldn't allow anymore for 0 energy weapons. Both would be good as far as game balance is concerned. In fact if it was up to me, I think the 80% efficiency is overpowered. If anything Id lower it to like, 75%. That at least would match other upgrades like damage and fire rate etc. Could increase the 20% efficiency to 25% or 50% to compensate some perhaps as well, since I feel its on the weak side.

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Shields are broken levels of overpowered considering...

I agree. The shields could use a rework as well, but so can the current energy system. Personally the way I'd have done shields is they should take less energy to be "on", say 5 or 10. But when they take hits it drains more energy based on the power of the shot it absorbed. If it takes many hits, your energy reserves should also take a hit. However if they do that the shields shouldnt fail UNTIL you run out of energy, then they go down for a bit like they do currently to give your energy reserves a chance to build back up and so that you can hopefully still use weaponry and such or run away. Following that logic, bigger shields would just take more energy to be "on", cover a wider area, and have bigger blocks. say 2x2 and 3x3. Id also say any enemy that moves "inside" the shield can then attack you normally.

On the separate but related topic, I believe they should have some simple self contained generators like they do now, but they ALSO should have large generators with 0 energy capacity that generates a lot more energy than other ones, sort of the opposite of the energy capacitors, while at the same time giving more reason to use these capacitors.  These new gennys might also generate heat over time that would need to be contended with. Could have two of them side by side around a vent and a temperature logic made specifically for cooling them. *nods* Regardless, energy generates heat, and in space its supposed to be difficult to vent heat, so it makes practical and gaming sense to me. Its confusing that they dont have options for more sophisticated and indepth energy options.

But thats what Im suggesting, an option, options are good. By definition, if you dont like the option then dont use it, much like you dont use energy intensive weapons or shielding. If you dont need it then dont use it, it doesnt "hurt" you by being in the game just like springs dont hurt me, its just an option I dont use. But for others, that option would be very helpful, so maybe be more considerate of others? Sure, CURRENTLY they're not required, but what about when we get bosses and other stronger enemies or more intensive combat? Maybe later it could be necessary? Why should we just stick our heads in the sand?

My argument is more about the lack of options and the poor game balance these little effects cascade into. For example you have an over burdened energy system, and a super light underused fuel system that rarely needs more than a couple fuel tanks. Thats not well balanced either ya know? Maybe we can have some thrusters that used energy, or some weapons that use fuel, ya know? Maybe we could get some upgrades for our actual ship and not just the weapons, stuff like efficiency for shields or more power for thrusters.

In the end, just shrugging your shoulders and saying "it is the way it is and thats the way it always has been and always will be" is the wrong attitude for an early access game. Maybe its unfair but that was the impression I was getting from your earlier statement and over all attitude. Sorry if I misinterpreted things.

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I think what we need is an expansion of propulsion systems that can utilize more fuel reserves, as well as other consumption, such as factories.  

As for shields, I'd be okay with their current consumption, PLUS extra consumption to recharge after they go down.  I think limiting their standby consumption would just encourage overlapping shields against regular bullet fire.  Increased recharge would counterbalance decreased standby energy use in ONE shield, but not in overlapped or nested shields.  Since only one of those nested shields would be taking damage at a time, it would diminish the energy hit you took in using multiple shields, as long as you overlapped them well.

I think there is currently enough advantage in careful nesting of shields that we don't need to further encourage it.

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8 minutes ago, Lurkily said:

Since only one of those nested shields would be taking damage at a time, it would diminish the energy hit you took in using multiple shields, as long as you overlapped them well.

I think there is currently enough advantage in careful nesting of shields that we don't need to further encourage it.

If Shields didnt have a "max hp" and instead, just ran off energy, then you wouldnt need to overlap shields. Anytime any of the shields took a hit, it'd instead drain your energy. Thus the shields you have wouldnt go down until you ran out of energy, but theyd all go down together.

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5 minutes ago, unmog said:

If Shields didnt have a "max hp" and instead, just ran off energy, then you wouldnt need to overlap shields. Anytime any of the shields took a hit, it'd instead drain your energy. Thus the shields you have wouldnt go down until you ran out of energy, but theyd all go down together.

This would totally justify the excessive infinite energy generators I've been working on.   It'd also make me completely immune to damage and turn shields into the single most OP thing right after said infinite energy generator.

 

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I think I prefer the potential for spot-failures.  Shields relying purely on energy reserves fully eliminates the need for any creative overlap. (Such as making sure shield generators protect each other, as well as just all perimeter parts.)

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3 minutes ago, Entity said:

This would totally justify the excessive infinite energy generators I've been working on.   It'd also make me completely immune to damage and turn shields into the single most OP thing right after said infinite energy generator.

 

Wait, whats this about an infinite energy generator? o.O mind sharing? Ive no idea what your talking about, is there a way to wirelessly transmit energy maybe?

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Just now, unmog said:

Wait, whats this about an infinite energy generator? o.O mind sharing? Ive no idea what your talking about, is there a way to wirelessly transmit energy maybe?

It's just decoupling and printing capacitors and/or batteries with a factory when they're empty.

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2 minutes ago, Lurkily said:

Because factories print parts at full charge, you can decouple and reprint a capacitor to recharge it.

 

4 minutes ago, Entity said:

It's just decoupling and printing capacitors and/or batteries with a factory when they're empty.

Hmm... I never even thought of that. Uhm, you have a file I can look at to study how it works? Id figure you need a way to remove the expended capacitors too tho, using heaters to destroy them or something? How would ya even automate that...

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Just make a factory that only prints a capacitor.  Its 'empty' signal is the signal to decouple and reprint.  You might need a delay to let it fall away, though.

EDIT: Or a thruster, small fuel tank, and a buffer part to blast it away half a second, a timer part to wait half a second to print.

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1 minute ago, unmog said:

Hmm... I never even thought of that. Uhm, you have a file I can look at to study how it works?

Infinity Generator II.drn

Here's a basic version demonstrating the concept. I have one that only uses supercapacitors too but there's slight issues with it that are awaiting game bugfixes.

(also this is getting way off-topic)

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A number of features, if they were implemented, could most simply kill any interest I have in parts of the game. This would be the case of logic scripts for example, or overly powerful and easy to use designs or components, which is why I look like I could bite sometimes. Imprecision and opinions that do not match the facts add to my frustration, and in such cases I am quick to turn from discussing to protecting the idea I have of a game, value, institute, profession, etc. If anything, look at the calculation I ran above and let me know if you find it logical, or in need of improvement.

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On the topic of weapon upgrades, if you wanted to make energy consumption upgrades as efficient as, let us say, the damage ones, you would need them to increase the damage/energy ratio by 75% at most, since that is what the last damage upgrade does. Meaning that, out of 10 energy per second, the last upgrade would make 5.7 e/s (fires 75% longer with same amount of energy, so 75% more efficient), round it to 42% energy consumption decrease to make it the universal answer; but that would look horrible, and would not be very impressive were every upgrades balanced this way. Digging +75% as maximum upgrade, really? Balancing around projectile count increase upgrades is not a realistic solution, either, seeing how these are x2, x3 and x4, because you could not balance any kind of linear combat system (HP decrease linearly with damage dealt) with e.g. lasers dealing 4 times the damage of basic ones, at 4 times the range, with 4 beams instead of one. Either enemies would be fragile enough not to be an overbearing threat to a beginner's cruiser with basic weapons and be disintegrated by an upgraded weapon's sole aiming, or they would be a relative challenge to take down with powerful weaponry and be basically unkillable via any other means. Upgraded weapons are already pretty busted, with a potential of 20% energy usage, 4 times the projectiles and 1.75 time the damage, but this would make it way worse.

I believe that balancing the whole weapon upgrade system is possible (perhaps) by taking a pass at the worst offenders to bring them more in line with the rest (or introducing inconveniences) and removing absurd caps, such as projectile count on shotguns. Not too sure about multiplicative upgrades still. As for projectile count upgrades, I could see things such as an energy consumption increased by the number of additional shots (+100% shots => +75% e/s or something). Also, the highest I could see working with a multiplicative energy consumption decrease is 50%, which is a lot already considering it makes a given weapon twice as efficient, better than the best damage upgrade.

Heat is a form of energy, most present since conversions (from electricity to light for example) are rarely 100% efficient, if ever. Energy that could not be converted properly will transform into heat: said conversion happens mainly in devices that are powered by any means, so I would expect a multi-tube, automated rocket launcher that crafts ammunition from "energy" (potentially electricity) to produce much more heat than e.g. a solar panel or a wind turbine (with turbines being entirely useless in space; there is no wind there!). Less than a nuclear fission power plant, though, and keeping everything in proportion. But... even mini-power plants would warrant a big mushroom on destruction. Alternative would be to use fusion, which hypothetically produces little waste (water for the most part) and only risks small blowing-ups from lighting the hydrogen reserves if in the atmosphere of a planet boasting large amounts of oxygen. Otherwise, not a chance you notice it. ahem

I am unsure a cooling system would be justified if it were applied only to generators of some kind, nor how it could be kept separated from the current heat/cold system we have. What would prevent slapping a cooler into a bunch of generators and calling it a day?

Otherwise, well. Why not generators indeed.

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A simpler version of the infinite battery / fuel tank was patched just a few days ago: anything that had a decoupler as parent was considered attached (to the drone core for example) as long as the decoupler had not been operated. Meaning that every other way (factory decoupling, unstable construction, charged thruster, parts overlap) that would physically detach the decoupler, without using its decoupling function, would not stop the flow of electricity and/or fuel to and from the drone core. You could print a battery + decoupler every two seconds and they would act as if they were still on your craft. It was funny to watch.

Nimbatus_GIF_201810221459595929.gif.5eef8509de68f8d1c386055d0ba68f5f.gif

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