New ship property: Power

[witold-cyrek]

I think it would be nice to divorce the Power for weapons from hardpoint mechanic. This can be used later to more finely tune the ships. The other tool used to "balance" ships, the speed, hardly ever matters in current lightning fast 1v1 interactions.

For example: currently while drones provide defensive and offensive power, the offensive power of them cannot be as finely tuned as the defensive aspect. A ship with 100 combat drones and 6 Hardpoints is harder to balance vs another ship with no drones and 100 combat drones.

Also it may be advisable to add additional power to some ships as opposed ot just adding Hardpoints.

Finally, Power may be used to power special equipment, giving more flexibility to some ships who might forgo cloaking device on their ship for example if it allowed them to fit a more powerful weapon.

Thus, if we can add a new mechanic of Power to ship, we can open up a whole new world of possibilities to tinker with.

[witold-cyrek]

I've decided to add this one to another race revamp. The idea will be that ships will have total power as well as Max Harpoint Power (what power you can channel to single Hardpoint). Lesser ships and ships of certain races will not be able to mount the most powerful weapons. However, to compensate this they will get more hardpoints, making overall damage very competative.

Also, trading ships will get more Hardpoints with lower power rating. Something like 4 hardpoints with 10 power and max turret power of 3 would mean 3x3 + 1x1 or 2x3 + 2x2 or 2x4 + 2x1, of course most people will be in pinch so they will just put in whatever can fit to secure themselves for trading :)

[hemberger]

This idea has been floated before, and I can see the rationale behind it, but it seems like it adds a bit too much complexity without adding much depth. It gets a little complicated because weapon power doesn't add linearly (i.e. PL1 + PL1 != PL2, or generically PL(X) + PL(Y) != PL(X+Y)). Some lower power level weapons may get more use, though that would only be due to a new restriction rather than an incentive or excitement to use those weapons. I'd like to see more analysis on this idea before moving forward with it (I'm sure @stupidnewbie could provide some valuable feedback).

If we're making a larger change to weapons, I think I'd rather see something that adds a new dynamic. For example, a weapon that you use to shoot ships should not be as effective against ports/planets, and vice versa. Having "raid" weapons (extremely high damage and low accuracy, suitable only for hitting ports/planets) on capital ships would then require that you have Interceptor-class ships to fend off any attackers (i.e. you need TIE Fighters to protect your Star Destroyers). This kind of ship hierarchy would promote more reactive gameplay, and the weapon designs would be integral to achieving balance.

[stupidnewbie]

It'd be a nice additional layer to balance ships offensive capabilities out. But the ships don't generally balance out anyway. And it's certainly not going to make it any easier to balance things adding another layer to the equation.

[witold-cyrek]

I thought about it a bit more, and I came up with some better idea. No need to limit the max power at this time, but what can be done is giving some bonuses to some races to lower level weapons to give them more kick and align the power consumption with hardpoint number in order to achieve something truly beautiful :)

One idea I had was to give Salvene a native abiltiy to get +damage weapon enhancer on all Lvl 3 weapons, and add an extra Hardpoint to EoS while reducing power from 22 to 21. This would mean that adding 7 level 3 weapons would be a sweetspot for them, instantly making their native lvl 3 weapon really good, and making them desire peace with other races based on their level 3 weapons, as opposed to lvl 4s like other races do. But you could still go the traditional route of having 1 lvl 5 and few lvl 4s/3s/2s.

You can do inverse to Creo, though lot of people might be upset about that. But giving them 6 Harpoints with 30 power (as opposed to 8 with 26 might be interesting. They could arm up with 2 lvl 5s and 4 lvl 6 weapons, which is insane.

[witold-cyrek]

I did some weapon analysis and surprisingly lower power level weapons are more efficient on per power basis than most other weapons because they seem to have extremely high accuracy, and decent damage (of course there are some turds in the mix). Best power 4-5 weapons are equivelent on power basis to each other.

However as most things go I need to come up with a usability index that prioritizes big hits over damage*accuracy formula. But with extra Hardpoints the idea of what to stick on the ship might change. For one thing I would take 20 power and 20 hardpoints over 22 power and 6 harpoints any day of the week. According to my analysis average damage would double. When it comes to something like 20 power and 10 hardpoints, it might be a bit more nuanced, Most likely your max damage would not go up but your accuracy would be much greater.

[witold-cyrek]

I have also come up with few more ideas which would spice things up. Two good ideas I am kicking around (two different abilities avaiable to two races) would be centered around weapon modification.

One would allow a race to Overload a weapon increasing it's damage by 2x and power requirement by 2x, but at a cost of accuracy (currently something like you lose 1/3 of weapon accuracy). The way it would work is you buy the weapon, it would have to be power 1 or 2, and in weapons order screen you get option to Overload this weapon, provided you have adequate spare power. This would be most avantageous to Power 2 weapons according to my spreadsheet, and it would make certain Level 2 weapons VERY desirable.

Second abiltiy would allow a race to Autofire a rank 1 weapon. Autofire setting would fire the weapon in 3 bursts, basically 3 shots. Each additional shot would get accuracy penalty. The power cost of Autofired weapon I have not figured out yet, could make it triple probably. I also haven't figured out how big to make the accuracy penalty. But this would make some weapons extremely cool, stuff that NEVER sees usage would be very useful.