Prerelease 3.030 (Riot Starship, Munitions Boosting Updates)

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, for 3.031:

-Added ship-based forcefield graphic from I-KP, and it is used for the forcefield generator module that can be mounted on the Riot Control Starship.

It shows up much more faintly in-game than in an image viewer (where it looks incredible), so hopefully we can figure out how to tweak the image and/or the rendering code to better achieve the effect.  I tried tweaking up the base alpha value (120, to which is added an oscillating value) and it brought out more of the original image but also created a bit of an unpleasant bleed effect so it's back at 120.  When the prerelease comes out you can replace the 4.png image in that directory to try alternatives if you'd like.

Thanks!
Keith

[Kjara]

Nod, if you don't want to play with how much engine health things have at this point, 50,35, 25 and 20 are probably good base numbers to play with(for 2,3,4,5 hits to fully disable respectively).

Personally, at 4 full disables per laser strike(2 with halving), it seems better than the machine gun right now(since it takes the machine gun 3 seconds to disable 2 targets(2.5 for 1 post halving since it loses the overkill issue) and the laser has higher range and higher min hit?).  Possibly tweak the machine gun up to 50(25 with halving)?

[vonduus]

Situation report from the front line (early game):

These new ships are simply too good on the tactical level. When we went on the offensive, we put a few with the main fleet, and they have litterally obliterated any threat of enemy flank attacks ever since. We just had a run for a gun in the other end of this planetary system, and given how the enemy was deployed we should have expected at least two flank attacks before reaching our objective. But the riot guys valiantly stopped anything moving, and we managed to destroy the gun and perform a mop-up operation without casualties. Actually we had a small net gain in personel due to parasite operations.

We are now planning to bring all available riot ships into the main fleet. We expect total victory in a few hours.

[I-KP]

Chris did something clever with slow rotation and luminosity intensity pulsing and tinting.  The above (below) aren't animated, they're just PNGs.

PNGs: http://www.btinternet.com/~shotgun.anaemia/shields.rar

I-KP, it looks like the game has 3 pngs to form the force field effect; you can see them in {game_directory}\Images\ForceField ; 1 and 3 are 768x768 and may be the only ones used (I need to just step through the code and figure it out myself), 2 is 1024x1024.  I'll do some testing with just plugging yours in but since it's 512x512 it may be necessary to make a 768 version.  Please don't feel obligated, but these shields look really cool, and hopefully that will translate well into the game

Thanks,
Keith

Edit: of course, since it will be handling different cases than the normal force fields maybe 512 is fine.  I'll test it.

Edit 2: ok, 1.png is used for normal forcefields, 2.png is used for counter shot stuff, 3.png is used for very strong forcefield; I think I'll add your fractal one as a probationary 4.png and see how things go.

Not sure I completely understand what all the various force field PNG layers do in-game but I have seen the bitmaps for them.

The reason I did a flat 512x512 is because there aren't any ships larger than that and I thought it would save a bit of RAM.  I can rescale, or add effect layers, if needs be.

[vonduus]

Situation report part II:

With regret I have to report that we lost the war as a consequence of an enemy CPA. 

Had this CPA not occured, we are certain that we could have achieved a quick and decisive victory due to the new riot ships.

(Taking off the commander's hat) These ships are simply too effective, especially when combined with dreadnoughts, this  combo might spoil the game in the present form and must therefore be nerfed. I'll let you technical guys figure out the exact numbers. Imo the main reason for this superiority is that these riot weapons are long range. As a medium range weapon this ship would be a great help, without it being potentially decisive.

[Kordy]

Keith has already nerfed the riot starship's engine damage a bit for the next update. I'm more distressed by the target preference with that thing. I opened up a game and kept quite a few raids from ever attacking, but at the end, the combined effects of a destroyed command center and a 100 member raid took me down. What I've seen was that the raid starship preferred to shoot the ships that are already immobilized. Trying to get it shooting the mobile ones was a hassle. The range of auto-cannon variant is a bit too long too, for my tastes.

One raid starship was enough to hold off around 200 ships for quite a while, though. Anyhow, it'll add more utility with the engine damage to both raids and system defense Maybe adding a requirement for supply on the turret modules will help with the offensive use of the ship - adds more tactical decisions while attacking.

Also nice to see that the light starships aren't useless at all, but severely nerfed. They're fine to keep with your cruisers and keep them boosted while your fighters cover the group and bombers.. well bomb everything.

[keith.lamothe]

What I've seen was that the raid starship preferred to shoot the ships that are already immobilized.

Hmm, I specifically set the "AttacksUndamagedEnginesFirst" flag on the ship and the gun modules (not the tazer or ff), so I should take a look at the autotargetting code and see if a stronger flag is needed (or if the existing one isn't working as it should).  That flag does significantly increase the effectiveness of the Riot, however, as before they tended to try and finish off targets more, and now they're much more focused on taking out engines.  In the previous stats 5 riots could disable 600 bomber MkIs approaching from 17000 range.

Speaking of range, there have been a number of comments about the range being too long.  I wouldn't have set it so long (20,000 for the laser module, 17,500 for machine gun, 12,500 for the shotgun, 4,000 for the tazer) except that the original idea of the riot line was basically to revive one of the roles that Dreads used to play: long range engine damage.  So I took the Dread stats and the Light Starship stats and kinda threw them together, and the Dread's range is 20,000.  So if y'all think a range reduction is best that's fine with me, it's just something of a reformulation of the idea.

[vince0018]

  Well when I look at it from a tactical perspective and had to choose between a riot ship and a dreadnaught, the dreadnaught is long range and takes single shots; the riot ship is cheaper, shoots nearly similar range, can be equipped with more (#) and more powerful weapons and also shields. I can't think of a better definition for overpowered. I could be mistaken though.
  EDIT I mean before the riot ship came about I would use the dreadnaught for long-range attacks like artillery and use light cruisers and flagships for medium-ranged attacks, both starships specializing in different fields, but if the riot ship can do both similtaneously... btw I hope I don't sound nitpicky or anything I just want to help in this whole process as best I can. If it REALLY bothered me all that much (which it doesn't) I just wouldn't use the riot ship. I would very much like it in the game as well as hopefully more ships in the future, and I'm grateful for the hard work going into it.

[keith.lamothe]

 Well when I look at it from a tactical perspective and had to choose between a riot ship and a dreadnaught, the dreadnaught is long range and takes single shots; the riot ship is cheaper, shoots nearly similar range, can be equipped with more (#) and more powerful weapons and also shields. I can't think of a better definition for overpowered. I could be mistaken though.
  EDIT I mean before the riot ship came about I would use the dreadnaught for long-range attacks like artillery and use light cruisers and flagships for medium-ranged attacks, both starships specializing in different fields, but if the riot ship can do both similtaneously... btw I hope I don't sound nitpicky or anything I just want to help in this whole process as best I can. If it REALLY bothered me all that much (which it doesn't) I just wouldn't use the riot ship. I would very much like it in the game as well as hopefully more ships in the future, and I'm grateful for the hard work going into it.

Don't worry about nitpicking, this is the first version of the ship and thus in need of balancing.  The Riot ship is very much over powered in its current form, the shotgun module in particular is pretty ridiculous.  So over the next few prereleases we'll be tuning that to a point where it's more reasonable but still fun and useful.

By the way, even with the current stats the Dread is MUCH MUCH better at dealing with enemy starships than the Riot.  The Riot armed with 4 laser cannons and 2 shotguns can do some sort of damage to the lighter starships, but the Dread can tear them up:

Ship	Base Attack	Shots	Reload Cycles	Multipier v Starships	DPC v Starships	Range
Dread	3200	1	80	30	1200.0	20000
Riot Main Gun	3600	5	70	0.5	128.6	3000
Riot Machine Gun	120	2	20	0.5	6.0	17500
Riot Laser	600	4	80	1	30.0	20000
Riot Shotgun	110	50	100	0.5	27.5	12500
Riot Tazer	400	1	120	0.5	1.7	4000

Damage Per Cycle = (Base Attack * Shots * Multiplier) / Reload Cycles

The Riot can mount 1 main gun (the ship itself), 4 lasers, and 2 shotguns, so:
128.6 + (30 * 4) + (27.5 * 2) ~= 304 Damage Per Cycle

Which is considerably less than 1200, particularly considering the Dread can do this from maximum range, and that starship shields would negate much of the damage from the lower-power individual shots of the Riot compared to the single powerful shots from the Dread.

Anyway, didn't mean to go on so long on that but I thought you might like some insight into the actual damage potential in the anti-starship role.

[vince0018]

  I very much appreciate seeing the numbers like that, helps me understand a little better than by experience alone. Plus I wasn't really thinking starship vs starship I was thinking versus smaller ships, fighters bombers frigates. But also keep in mind I'm quite a n00b at this game still, just moved from playing at difficulty 5 to 6 but it still seems slightly 'easyish' but not neccessarily easy, I just think I could take more so I'll see about that once I get more practice in. Though I've been a big RTS gamer since I quite young; the first Age of Empires and such. Also played GalCiv2, most of the newer Total War games, etc. But this game blows me away in that I never knew I could enjoy a game so much with such (don't wanna say anything too stupid) mediocre graphics. When I first started trying out this game the 2d was staring me in the face since usually I need the best of the best graphics-wise, I bought a fairly good computer (mid-high by todays standards) so I could play with the best graphics. But yet somehow with this game it didn't take long for me to almost stop realizing the 2d. It's almost like back in the day where 2d games were simpler in terms of you didn't have to fill all that space in the 'z' axis.(think that's right) Now by all means I'm not calling this game simple whatsoever. The reason I play this game now is because it has the most amazing gameplay; something I haven't been able to find in another game with 'good' graphics. And when I was playing the game for the first ten hours or so I just kept repeating in my mind over and over as I discovered new things and explored the game; "This game hits the mark dead on." It's like everything I would put into my own RTS only I hadn't thought of them. From the incredible AI to the much simpler things that make the game much easier to grip, such as the ctrl modules.
  Anyways speaking of graphics, I'd noticed you'd improved planet, nebula, wormhole, and several building graphics and was wondering if you were gonna stop there or plan to eventually do a complete rework. I mean to me it's fairly noticeable the difference between the energy plant buildings(?forgot the exact name) and the redesigned space station and ship barracks(i use them so often but the names completely elude me, lol) I thought it would be cool if the rest of the ships and buildings had that same 'realistic' '2d-3d' look to them as the new buildings. Of course I know there are a tremendous amount of buildings and ships in the game and I'm happy with the way things are currently, to me this feels like a very polished game, and if it weren't for the new riot ship that needs rebalancing I could theoretically be a very happy person even without another patch, ever. However seeing the amazing stuff being added by patches which I've never seen so much added by other 'mainstream' developers I also can't wait to see what will come in the future.
  Once again I'm very sorry to make anyone read all this text but one thing about me is I really carry on and have to eventually force myself to stop typing. If at any time you want me to stop posting for awhile or if you really want me to keep my posts shorter ie: I am causing too much of a problem, just let me know, I will take no offence.
   Thanks once again for an awesome game.

[keith.lamothe]

Plus I wasn't really thinking starship vs starship I was thinking versus smaller ships, fighters bombers frigates.

Yea, the Dread isn't the best against the smaller stuff (it can do high damage against fighters, but the low rate of fire leaves it overwhelmable).  It's role is anti-starship, so I was showing how the Dread's "real" role is in no way threatened by the Riot; the Riot just fills the gap left by some changes to the Dread (which used to be pretty good at long range crowd control).

But yes, the Riot needs to be less riotous for it to not unbalance the game

[vince0018]

  The question then would be where the riot ship will exactly fit into the rock-paper-scissors equation.
 This is how I grasp it, but I could be off.
  Flagship: Spread effect, good against fighters,frigates,star ships.
  Dreadnought: Long-range, excellent against starships.
  Light Star Ship: Same as flagship but weaker therefore better for support.
  Riot Ship: (maybe since flagships are heavier armored and fire a single shot blast spread, riot-ships should be weaker armored but do more damage(?))
EDIT: checking  my game again i guess flagships/lights are good against bombers too, my bad, i was classifying star ships as frigates.

[keith.lamothe]

Well, for one, Light Starships and Flagships (and the rest of the fleet line) provide munitions boosting to nearby ships, Riots do not. Light Starships are also much cheaper than Riots (and don't cost knowledge).  Flagships do 1540 DPC at 4800 range to most targets; their only multipliers that I'm looking at right now are 0.2 against Turret_All, Heavy_Defense, Force_Field, and Launched_Missile; this would mean a higher DPC against everything that the Riot isn't specifically good against (and probably still better for many of those).

[vince0018]

   Ok I will now shut my mouth so I don't look so much like a n00bish fool, and only give my opinion where i really think it's needed instead of rambling about nonsense.(typing this positively and cheerfully but probably doesn't look that way lol)

[keith.lamothe]

Actually it was helpful since I hadn't actually done the numbers on the Dread vs. Flagship vs. Riot damage potential; it just so happens that it seems ok (the imbalance is primarily engine damage) but I hadn't confirmed that before.