Attrition Emmitters

[resonence]

With the spirecraft attritioners, it says that the attrition rate is "much greater" than a fixed emitter. But, how is attrition calculated, and how does it scale with the different marks.

I couldn't find anything on the wiki. If I missed it, just point me in the right direction.

Thanks

[realcoolguy]

I believe in game if you look at the ship description STATS [thank you X4000 /edit] you'll see things like 300 /s which I believe means it will deal 300 damage to everything valid as an enemy that can receive attrition damage on that planet.  They go up in damage but your cap on the high level attritioners get smaller.  However they do all 'stack' meaning you can have say 3 of them doing 300 /s to do 900 /s to a planet.

Only problem with attricioners is they get everything on the planet quite angry and you can have multiple blobs charging in at your units that just came in the wormhole.  In certain situations these units work great, but like many have complained it's hard to find battles that go long enough to make them useful once you figure in the high HP of the ships.


//statements below this point may not be even partially accurate

When Keith changes the Ion Cannon to a flower bouquet in the next build, I hear the attritioners will be changed to look like an annoying mosquito, and the spirecraft shield will be an easily popable/deflatable child's balloon.  These are all wildly unfounded rumors however, but the spirecraft are being slowly balanced in terms of usefulness. 

[x4000]

Yes, that's correct in terms of it being up in the stats on the ships; that's why we didn't put it in the flavor text description.

[Hearteater]

If they aren't useful enough, maybe upping the damage/second a lot, but changing them to only affect enemy ships below x% health might be better.  Something like 3000/sec to any ship below 20-25% might be much more interesting.  You wouldn't aggro the entire planet, and they might actually be useful, especially with certain AoE ships.

[TechSY730]

If they aren't useful enough, maybe upping the damage/second a lot, but changing them to only affect enemy ships below x% health might be better.  Something like 3000/sec to any ship below 20-25% might be much more interesting.  You wouldn't aggro the entire planet, and they might actually be useful, especially with certain AoE ships.

One problem with this idea. If one ship gets freed, typically, all the other ships near it that are guarding the same thing also get freed. (There are exceptions, but this holds overall). So even with the only <N% restriction, large portions of the planet would get freed/aggroed at once, though admittedly at a later time.

[Hearteater]

How?  Once you've damaged them they are free anyway.  I'm not saying the Attrition Emitter should do nothing to any ship until at least one ship is below x%, but that it only damages ships below x% and does nothing to healthier ships in the system.  That should basically only ever be ships you've already freed by attacking them.

[TechSY730]

How?  Once you've damaged them they are free anyway.  I'm not saying the Attrition Emitter should do nothing to any ship until at least one ship is below x%, but that it only damages ships below x% and does nothing to healthier ships in the system.  That should basically only ever be ships you've already freed by attacking them.

Oh duh, I forgot that to get them down to x% in the first place would usually entail freeing them anyways. Any reason you suggesting only <x% instead of only freed ships?

[Hearteater]

So you can set a low %, which allows a high DPS value without being overpowered.  If it is just freed ships, you don't really have anything that much more useful than what the AE is now.  At least with really strong DPS vs. crippled ships the AE could have a reasonable use.

[zebramatt]

I quite like the fact they stir up a whole planet myself!

A number of changes might be considered.

Maybe they could do vastly more damage over time, but with a floor of 25% health or something?

Or perhaps they could do more and more damage over time? Or vastly more to being with, then less and less over time?

Or perhaps they might do more damage the closer ships get to them? Or perhaps vastly more damage the further away things are from them? (Actually, that sounds a bit crazy.)

I think one of the aspects which makes them unique is that they free most of the ships on a planet. Rather than taking that away, I'd be in favour of trying to balance it with other changes.

[mindloss]

1) If an attrition emitter is cloaked, does it still draw aggro?

2) What about when stats and flavor text disagree? For instance, for the Flak Cannon, the description suggests AoE damage, but the stats don't mention it. Trust the stats?

[x4000]

Yes, attrition emitters work while cloaked.

When stats and flavor text disagree, generally go with the stats. Except in your example they don't really disagree; area damage is not reflected in the stats aside from the shot type. Which is why the flavor text mentions it.

[mindloss]

Would it be feasible to show AoE in stats? Even just "Radius: ____ m" or what have you.

[x4000]

Not very easily, mainly because that stat doesn't even belong to the ship -- it belongs to the shot it fires.  These are grenades that explode when hitting.

[mindloss]

Fair 'nuff. That's just the perfectionist in me complaining. I like looking through the reference tab and if I spent a little time, being able to get a clear read on how much damage I can expect from what ship/turret in a situation -- mystery fuzzy AoE muddies my data-happy waters.

[x4000]

It's going to be fairly fuzzy anyhow, because that's just the nature of AOE.  And the AOE mechanics are rather complex because they have a range limiter, a number of ships that they can hit based on a calculation involving their range, and so on.  Depending on exact ship positions, you can never count on hitting definitely more than one ship with AOE anyhow -- of course you often will hit tons of ships when they are in a group, but that's really circumstantial, right?