Some thoughts on ship and weapon balancing in SVN

andreasj · Post by **andreasj** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 1:12 pm

I have been playing SVN for a while, and I noticed
some things about ships and weapons that seem
odd to me or that I think should be changed for
better balancing. I know the rebalancing is work in
progress, and I would be happy to get some
feedback from the persons working on it. I am only
talking about the stock versions.

1. Some stock ships come equipped with weapons
and ammunition. Is this intenional?

2. Transporters

The Dodo is cheap and for most players probably
the first ship they buy after the Llama becomes
too small. The hold is currently 1200 (Llama:150).
It is cheap and can mount two heavy weapons and
two heavy tractor beams. However the upgrade
space is far to big. Currently it is 65. That means
even after the ship has been upgraded to carry
two heavy ion beams and two heavy tractors, you
can put in the biggest shields and reactors
available without really needing them.

The Plowshare on the other hand is heavier,
slower and less agile than the Dodo. But is has a
smaller hold (1000), and can only be equipped
with two medium weapons and two tractor beams.
Upgrade space is 48.

My suggestion: Raise the Plowshare hold to 2000
or 2500. It is bigger, heavier, slower, less agile
and more expensive than the Dodo. It should have
a bigger hold. Also change the weapons (heavy for
the Plowshare, medium for the Dodo). Reduce the
Dodo's upgrade space to 42 or something like
that. Keep the Dodo's and Plowshare's ability to
carry heavy tractor beams. I think that is a good
thing.

The Llama has an extremely small hold. I suggest
you rise it at least to 250, maybe 350.

3. Weapons

I noticed the ktek beam (heavy) and the ion beam
(light) have the same range and nearly the same
damage. But the ktek beam is *much* more
expensive and needs more energy (5000 vs.
3000). I suggest you rise the ktek beam damage
from 1080 to at least 1500. It should do less
damage than the heavy ion beam, but keep it's
longer range so you can use it to weaken your
target's shields from a distance. It should have
a significant advantage over light beams like the
ion beam to be suitable for heavy mounts.

4. Upgrade and hold space on fighters

The Deriative (confed medium) is a pretty good
ship to be the first fighter. It costs only 100000
credits, mounts four beams and has enough
upgrade space to get some decent reactors and
shields. The hold is however far too small. 14 isn't
even sufficient to accept two cargo missions at a
time. Please rise this to something more
reasonable, like 50.

The pacifier (militia heavy), the ariston (aera
heavy) and the nicander (aera light), among other
ships, have not yet been adapted to the new
upgrade system. Their upgrade space is far to big
(hundreds or thousands). The Nicander is a light
ship, I suggest something around 24-36. The
Ariston would do with 48 or possibly 64. The
Pacifier is the heaviest ship that can not carry
turrets. It can be equipped with lots of beams and
rockets. I suggest it gets some more space that
the admonisher, maybe around 72.

5. Pricing

Some ships are too cheap, others too expensive.
The Aureus costs about 1000000 credits, which is
a bit too much in my opinion. It is a great ship
(although it has a hard time fighting pirate
corvettes or mules), but the Admonisher, which
can load heavier weapons only costs 180000.
Some suggestions:

- The difference of the Gawain's and Lancelot's
price should be smaller (maybe 200000, not
400000).

- The Aureus should be cheaper (nor more than
750000 or 800000).

- The Admonisher needs to be *much* more
expensive, at least 500000

- The Pacifier needs to be more expensive than
the Admonisher

- The Progeny needs to be significantly cheaper
than the Admonisher, I suggest something like
250000.

Some other things that come to my mind:

The Gawain or Lancelot (don't remember right
now) can be equipped with three beam weapons. I
suggest this is changed to four, all medium, or
two medium and two heavy beams.

One of the light confed ships (Ancestor?) only has
one mount for beams. I suggest this is changed
to two (light) mounts.

The heavy reactory should produce more energy.
If I use an Admonisher with two heacy ion beams,
two ktek beams and two ion beams, I already
need the biggest reactor available. The price is
also much too high. Such a reactor currently costs
more than *seven* *million* credits. In my last
game I wanted to exchange my level 10 reactor by
a level 15 reactor, but had to notice that the price
was ten times higher than I thought it was.

That is all for now, hope this helps.

Post by **dandandaman** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 1:52 pm

andreasj wrote:That is all for now, hope this helps.

Paslowo · Post by **Paslowo** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 3:26 pm

Upon Hull upgrades, there should be some draw backs to it where your ship is heavier and have a slower acceleration rate.

As for the shields, it should have a same slot system like the guns.

andreasj · Post by **andreasj** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 3:48 pm

In SVN there is no hull upgrade anymore. You can
only select different kinds of armor (all use the
same upgrade space). I don't know if hull
upgrades are coming back, but right now it doesn't
look like they will.

andreasj · Post by **andreasj** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 4:27 pm

Edit:

- The Ship with only one weapon mount is the
Schroedinger.

- The upgrade space of the Nicander is 25, I
probably looked at the milspec version instead of
the stock version. The ship is however quite
expensive, like all Aera ships seem to be.

- The Dodo has two light mounts, not two heavy
mounts. The Plowshare has two medium mounts,
so that seems reasonable. If the upgrade space
is lowered, it should be kept in mind that this
ship only needs a small reactor, maybe level 5 or
6, so produce sufficient energy for the weapons/
tractors.

andreasj · Post by **andreasj** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 5:33 pm

I took a closer look at the Deriative (confed
medium) and Gawain (confed heavy). Both ships
are quite fast, and seem to be useful as
interceptors against smaller enemy ships. But
the balancing seems wrong somehow. The Gawain
is a litle faster, but less agile. It is bigger and
heavier and has more upgrade space.

Some data:

Deriative: 100000 credits, speed 151, 2x heavy, 2x light, 4x medium missile
Gawain: 320000 credits, speed 158, 3x light, 1x medium, 4x medium missile

I think the Gawain should be able to load heavier
weapons than the Deriative. The ship is bigger,
has more upgrade space (heavier weapons =>
bigger reactor) and costs much more.

A suggestion on how to change the ships:

Change the weapons of the Deriative to 2x light, 2x medium.

Change the weapons of the Gawain to 4x medium or 2x medium, 2x heavy.

This would allow to have the Gawain carry four
disruptor beams or two disruptor beams and two
ktek beams (heavy ion beam uses to much energy
for a ship with such a upgrade space, but I guess
that is okay). Remember that I also suggested to
rise the damage of the ktek beam.

Also think about rising the Gawain's upgrade space
a little, e.g. to 52. Same for the Lancelot. And rise
the hold volume to something that is at least
sufficient for two or three cargo missions (40-50?).

andreasj · Post by **andreasj** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 5:54 pm

As a consequence, I suggest the mounts of
the Convolution are changed to 4x light. The
ship is smaller and cheaper that the Deriative
and has less upgrade space (smaller reactor).

Post by **loki1950** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 7:34 pm

yeah the Deriative is a sweet thing and buy the mil-spec if you what better senors in SVN max overdrive lll gives you about 1100 m/sec which is great when you intecept Corvettes for a dance in 3d.

Enjoy the Choice

andreasj · Post by **andreasj** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 8:06 pm

I know, but right now I don't usw milspec ships,
because sooner or later I would use the giant
upgrade space to load the biggest shields,
capacitors and reactors available, and this would
make most ships pretty much invincible and not
help at all trying the new balancing and upgrading
system. However I have two more small
suggestions that should be easy to implement and
improve the SVN version a lot:

1. make sure that SPEC capacitors are not only
available on mining bases (you can't even get
them on aera mining bases right now!). And maybe
rethink the different levels of the SPEC capacitors.
Even the smallest SPEC capacitor can store
sufficient energy for a Mule to jump to another
system, so having bigger SPEC capacitory seems
totally pointless to me.

2. add superior sensor systems again, especially
those that use different colors for friends/enemies.
They are still in the game (in milspec ships), but
you can't buy them anywhere. And please don't
make them any bigger than the current alpha sky
scope plus.

Zeog · Post by **Zeog** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:24 am

Andreas, I'm really apprechiating your very valuable input on the rebalance. But comparing Convolution and Deterivative to the Gawain is a little like comparing apples with pears, VS fiction wise.
There is little background information which nevertheless should be reflected by stats and currently isn't so much.
The Gawain is a High-Born (sub-faction of the confeds) ship. It is more like a luxury-fighter and should therefore be really expensive but not necessarily heavier weapon-wise.
Convolution and Derivative (anything with math terms, i.e. the Deteminant as well) are ships of a series from a different faction (Andolian(?), a confed sub-faction also) and should therefore exhibit a totally different concept of handling and weapon setup when compared to the Gawain. It would be nice to reflect the ship "families" in the stats, i.e. Convolution and Deterivative should be more similar to each other concept wise that to the Gawain.

Also, the are/were new model and concept art for Convolution and Determinant coming.
Treads:
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... php?t=4043
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... php?t=4401
Concept art pictures from these threads are now in the gallery:
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/galle ... temId=5999
The concept art indicates for extreme maneuverability.

andreasj · Post by **andreasj** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 6:26 pm

Zeog, thank you for your explanation. But this still
seems a little odd to me. The ship was built by
the highborn, and it is an interceptor. So if it is
some kind of "toy", comparable to an expensive
sports car or something like that, I would assume
that at least in some ways it is exceptional and
leaves other cheaper chips behind, for example
when it comes to speed and agility (e.g. like a
ferrari does compared to a normal middle class
car). However the ship is hardly faster than the
Deriative, and less agile. I think it has the same
pitch/yaw/roll values the admonisher has, which is
much heavier. If I bought a ship that has such a
game story background, I would expect to get
something exceptional, but apart from the great
look (I think it is the most beautiful confed/militia
ship in the game) the Gawain isn't exceptional,
just expensive.

Please tell me what you think about it.

Zeog · Post by **Zeog** » Sat Apr 15, 2006 10:07 pm

I'm no authority in VS fiction. JackS is. So it's more or less wild guessing based on some things I read about faction etc. in the wiki and some forum posts.
I agree that a just expensive ship somewhat lame. A great part of the price might however go into nice and expensive (and unfortunately to the player invisible) interiors. You know, rare leather seats and the like.

Further, I think that being expensive when compared to equally good ships is okay. Flying a Gawain should also be a status symbol. But the Gawain should, of course, have some strength, as you said.
A good starting pont is maybe the following reasoning: The Gawain is very carefully and thouroughly manufactured with high quality parts. That would certainly improve its durability! But I don't think that durability is modeled right now. So giving this ship a relatively good hull resistance at light weight might express that quite well. As for agility I propose this: Very miniaturized parts and exceptionally light weights parts tend to be rather expensive. So I suppose it's also a light weight ship which would lead to a good acceleration behaviour. But I'm not sure about that light weight though. Currently it's classified as "heavy"

I'll see if I can get JackS to commant on this...

rigelan · Post by **rigelan** » Sun Apr 16, 2006 12:01 am

I always thought "heavy" or "light" referred to durability, such as might be in hull strength.

What can be changed / upgraded in ships that you buy:
Reactor
Capacitors
Weapons
Shields / Armor
Afterburner / Overdrive

What is inherent in the ship that you bought: (ie. what the price actually goes toward)
Hull Strength
Acceleration
Mass
Size / Volume / Shape
Spec / Jump cost? (I would think it would be related to mass of the ship)
Interiors (of course)

What am I missing?

andreasj · Post by **andreasj** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 4:31 pm

I know it has been a while since the last post in
this thread, but as it is still there I think I will
just reuse it. I played the latest Vegastrike SVN,
and I noticed some changes. First of all there
are some equipment items finally available again
(including advanced sensors), which is great.
You can even find a cloaking device on some Aera
stations or planets, however I couldn't find any
ship that can be equipped with one.
Secondly, I noticed the upgrade volume for almost
all ships has been completely changed, risen by
factor 10 at least. Currently almost all medium
or heavy ships have several hundreds units of
upgrade space available, which means that even
the Llama or Progeny can carry the biggest
reactory, sensors, shields, capacitors and so on
at the same time, with even some hundred units
of upgrade space left in some cases. Does
anybody know what's going on there?

Post by **loki1950** » Thu Jul 13, 2006 8:13 pm

andreasj as you have noticed some upgrades are not available and you limits upgrade types and level in the unit.cvs for the each ship.check this thread http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... php?t=7110 for details.

Enjoy the Choice

Post by **jackS** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 2:17 am

andreasj wrote:I know it has been a while since the last post in
this thread, but as it is still there I think I will
just reuse it. I played the latest Vegastrike SVN,
and I noticed some changes. First of all there
are some equipment items finally available again
(including advanced sensors), which is great.
You can even find a cloaking device on some Aera
stations or planets, however I couldn't find any
ship that can be equipped with one.
Secondly, I noticed the upgrade volume for almost
all ships has been completely changed, risen by
factor 10 at least. Currently almost all medium
or heavy ships have several hundreds units of
upgrade space available, which means that even
the Llama or Progeny can carry the biggest
reactory, sensors, shields, capacitors and so on
at the same time, with even some hundred units
of upgrade space left in some cases. Does
anybody know what's going on there?

The interior spaces of the vessels are being recalculated based on approximations of actual unit volumes and assorted heuristics. The volumes required for upgrades are likewise going to be recalculated, but we have not yet done so.

Oblivion · Post by **Oblivion** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 6:11 am

..about the Gawain, JackS once said the reason for the price is not by it's prowess in space, but by luxury that is sadly invisible to us keyboard-hugging gods of Vega-Strike. Hehe. That is - Gawain has to have real Gumshira leather upholstery imported from the Mishtali homeworld, the latest in InterTain systems distributed by the Mechanists, omni-species environmental adjustors, IlluCyon Holographic simul plates, complete with simul-touch suits, and some free stuff besides - like ultra-light photon personal-defense units (PDU) to blast away annoying natives of unexplored worlds that sometimes crowd to worship the arriving gods.

andreasj · Post by **andreasj** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 4:30 pm

Oblivion: This is true, and has been discussed in
this thread. However, maybe the Gawain could
have a high compatibility to exclusive/rare
equipment (like the cloaking unit) as an exchange
for the high price.

andreasj · Post by **andreasj** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 4:33 pm

And by the way, I *still* think the plowshare
needs to have a bigger hold than the Dodo!

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Some thoughts on ship and weapon balancing in SVN

Some thoughts on ship and weapon balancing in SVN

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