Cruiser Command

Thats a great idea!






Dread told me to write this or he'll toss me out the airlock with a C4 strapped to my ass

Shade wrote:Thats a great idea!
Dread told me to write this or he'll toss me out the airlock with a C4 strapped to my ass

Wow, Dread is now even taking hostages.
/Offtopic

I agree that something needs to be done with the BC effectiveness.
CC should be more about BC battles and combat situations actively involving the BC.
For that BC battles need to last longer.

It is extremely annoying and unsatisfying when you spend 10 minutes on the upgrade console and then they come in and you have a completely uncoordinated team, which ultimately means quick death.

I would rather keep BC upgrades at 10 but reduce upgrade time by a bit.
Also 15% instead of 20%.
Another thing would be to make the volleys more drawn out. I mean increasing the time between individual projectiles of a volley. Would look more epic and it would be easier to dodge part of the volley in a small ship.

Degra wrote:I agree that something needs to be done with the BC effectiveness.
CC should be more about BC battles and combat situations actively involving the BC.
For that BC battles need to last longer.

It is extremely annoying and unsatisfying when you spend 10 minutes on the upgrade console and then they come in and you have a completely uncoordinated team, which ultimately means quick death.

I would rather keep BC upgrades at 10 but reduce upgrade time by a bit.
Also 15% instead of 20%.
Another thing would be to make the volleys more drawn out. I mean increasing the time between individual projectiles of a volley. Would look more epic and it would be easier to dodge part of the volley in a small ship.

Alternative suggestion that feels far, far easier to implement and addresses the point a little more directly;
Alter the battlecruiser's base energy generation.

More base generation means more energy that can be diverted to shields and engines, faster refill time on capacitors for less 'buildup period,' and yet weapon damage be exactly the same -- potentially can be sustained for longer as well, but... well, I think you get the idea anyways.

This primarily addresses the battlecruiser against battlecruiser issue only, however, and not small ships. Several ideas come to mind in addressing that. I feel like any of them or a combination of them could work.

• Battlecruiser Projectile Speed - Reduce by 10%. Means they'll be slightly easier to dodge -- more noticeably so at a distance.
  or
• Small Ship Speed - Increase by 10%. Same overall theory as the first.
  or
• Small Ship Shields - Implement a base of 50, and give them a base regeneration of 2 or so, and have the utility tier upgrade push it to 100/3 per second. Means burst would be the primary thing to look out for, which is easier to obtain at closer ranges -- at larger distances, allows a bit more safety.
  or
• Degra's Volley Idea - It's a good one. I do like it, but I don't feel as if we can increase the volley time too drastically due to the firing rate, so it becomes very limited.

the only suggestions I like are the reduce BC base energy regen and Degra's volley idea..

Please.....Nerf........Lazorz......




(and greatly buff broadsides)

Please....Nerf.....the......Lazorz.....Its unbearable

WhyteDragon wrote: Alternative suggestion that feels far, far easier to implement and addresses the point a little more directly;
Alter the battlecruiser's base energy generation.

More base generation means more energy that can be diverted to shields and engines, faster refill time on capacitors for less 'buildup period,' and yet weapon damage be exactly the same -- potentially can be sustained for longer as well, but... well, I think you get the idea anyways.

I'm rather skeptical about changing the BC energy generation formula. That's a beast where too much goes into it. Powerdocking would become even more important, the energy buildup periods between 2 BC battles would become much more important. The team with more resources would get even more rewarded.

I would rather have the BC use its energy less efficiently than alter the generation.

1) What I mean is making BC movements even more important. That can be achieved from reducing the BC laser range even further. This alone will already lead to more energy consumption. Except that it's an active decision to spend energy towards a more guarding position, as opposed to having less energy generation by default.

2) You could make BC weapons energy less efficiently on small ships (by making them more dodge-able, as discussed below).

3) Generally, BC hull and BC shields. How come that at default you have 10K hull and a max 100K energy. 100K energy allows you to tank 25K damage with shields. Numbers will change even more in favor of shields once you get upgrades. Usually you will have 10K to 13K BC hull when attacking/ending the game and maxed hardened shieldings. Meaning you can tank 37.5K damage with shields and your BC hull amount with hull tanking.
BC battles are almost purely won on how much damage you can deal to the enemy BC before they reach stable shields and how much damage you can tank with your own shields. BC laser upgrades and hardened shielding upgrades is what decides BC engagements to the largest degree.

In a BC vs BC battle, this puts the defending team at a great disadvantage, as they will be lagging behind in shield tanking, possibly dieing before they could spend significant amounts of energy on shield tanking, making the BC battles very short and unsatisfying.

In a small ship vs BC harassment situation, with the new shield mechanics, it became too easy and too cheap energy-wise to defend against a harassing small ship.

Therefore I would suggest a radical change.

Raise starting BC hull from 10K to 20K,
lowering shield regen from 1.25 to 1 per 5 gw.

(Alternatively, you could lower shield regen even further, to about 0.8 per 5 gw while also reducing the cooldown on raising/lowering energy on power console from 0.5 to 0.4 seconds. More decisions could be made and they would be faster executed in a BC vs BC battle)

This would make the BC generally last longer. Make it tankier while with lower range and slower BC weapons also less powerful against small ships.
BC harassment would be slightly more rewarding, as it would cost more energy to restore the shields back to full.

Battlecruiser Projectile Speed - Reduce by 10%. Means they'll be slightly easier to dodge -- more noticeably so at a distance.

That is something I agree with and it could work nicely with the volley idea.
It would also effectively reduce BC laser range by 10% if we don't raise the lifetime of projectiles.

Small Ship Speed - Increase by 10%. Same overall theory as the first.

The small ships are already too fast, in my opinion. It's already a bit too much about reflexes and not about tactics or strategy.
Ever since the small ships got boosted by 40% in speed a long, long time ago it is basically a futile attempt in too many cases to intercept enemy ships.
I'd rather have speed nerfed by 5 or 10%.

Small Ship Shields - Implement a base of 50, and give them a base regeneration of 2 or so, and have the utility tier upgrade push it to 100/3 per second. Means burst would be the primary thing to look out for, which is easier to obtain at closer ranges -- at larger distances, allows a bit more safety.

It could affect low-energy combats too much, where both combattants are completely out of energy. The shield regen could be higher or as high as the dps.
I would generally lower BC laser range. It would make BC positioning and movement more important and it gives you smaller safe zones around the BC, where small ship combat is futile for the opposing team.
More time to take a ship out later on in the game, where the small ship speed already allows very quick retreats.

Degra's Volley Idea - It's a good one. I do like it, but I don't feel as if we can increase the volley time too drastically due to the firing rate, so it becomes very limited.[/list]

Thank you.

Degra wrote:Raise starting BC hull from 10K to 20K

Let me remind you that it would also nerf the repair stations and minelayer healing because it would take longer to get back to full health.
Also it would nerf small ship's roles in terms of damage, they would have even less % effect on BC's...unless you run out of energy.
I dont think that raising hull amount will get us anywhere, (and 10,000 is a nice benchmark number that we can upgrade easily anyways)

Degra wrote:lowering shield regen from 1.25 to 1 per 5 gw.

Just like what i said!
Also another problem is that when you get shields below 30% any projectile that hits the shields stops shield regeneration by 0.5 seconds. Which is kinda absurd because a broadside/penta burst can keep it down for a LONG while. Please remove the 0.5 shield regeneration for everything besides kinetics (because thats how the single shot kinetic can stay very relevant vs a BC)


And i guess we can add the volley idea....though i kinda want my weapons idea.... xD http://www.cruisercommand.com/forum/vie ... ?f=6&t=770
(Besides, very few players understand how triple burst works, let alone the dynamics between single burst and penta burst, you have to use single burst for quite a while, for very little return (if it even works...))

I still want broadsides to be greatly buffed and lasers to be greatly nerfed =P (let alone reducing the amount of upgrades, because 10 is just really annoying)

Also it would nerf small ship's roles in terms of damage

The hell?
Changing the BC from nearly pure shield-tanking towards a balanced hull and shield tanking would BUFF the strength of small ships against the BC.
Damage on shields is purely just an energy drain and with my suggestion it would become roughly 50% more pricey in energy to tank vs small ships.
Moreover, you are spending manpower on attacking a BC in a small ship.
Does it take manpower to restore energy? No, it's just waiting for energy regen. No manpower needed whatsoever. It would take a few seconds on power to restore shields to full, but that's about it.

Less shield regen per gw would mean it'll take MORE time and energy to restore shields, letting small ships deal slightly more damage to the BC as currently.
It takes a serious amount of manpower to repair the hull, yes, that's what's buffing small ship harassment vs the BC.

In response to Degra, I feel as if you've... well, misread what I said or misunderstood in some way. What I said was the base energy generation.

I was in no way suggesting the 'alteration' of any 'formulas' for the battlecruiser energy generation. It produces 145GWs of energy per second as a base before everything is said and done, correct? All I was suggesting was making that a number number; by example, say, 175GWs or 200GWs. The exact opposite of everything you said would be the case since the relative amount of energy gained through upgrades and power docking would be smaller. Furthermore, it would also put a larger emphasis on Core Activity, since having a higher battlecruiser energy generation, compared to that gained from powerdocking, means that altering core output has a higher influence upon energy generation.

I do think that decreasing the distance of lasers could be considered -- they do travel a ridiculous distance right now, nearly a third the entire map. The main thing that ends up protecting people, ultimately, ends up being the map wrap most of the time, which is hardly an ideal solution.

I can also agree to an extent with an alteration to the battlecruiser's total hull. Ultimately, since the original implementation of 10k hull, the damage of lasers has effectively risen to a significant degree -- I think the hull should be altered to match that somewhat. A similar argument could be made for small ships, but I suppose that's a story for another time.

However, what I do fail to see is how this addresses the problem you put forth of 'offense always being at an obvious advantage.' Plus, you'd probably also have to change the repair kit and minelayer heal values by a relative amount in order to compensate them such that it doesn't because absolute crap to heal hull.

... if anything, by looking at your complaint, I feel more as if 'another dimension of combat' may be necessary in order to make the battles more engaging. Whether that be by making small ships more relevant in battlecruiser fights, another weapon type, or whatever other suggestions have been made in the past...

Dreadnought wrote:(Besides, very few players understand how triple burst works, let alone the dynamics between single burst and penta burst, you have to use single burst for quite a while, for very little return (if it even works...))

Then alter the numbers so they're more rewarding.

Furthermore, the concept behind the triple burst is pretty simple Dread -- "If you don't use it for a while it will shoot faster for a few seconds when you do use it." What more is there to understand? Rather, I'd say it's because everybody uses weapon AIs that nobody knows about the particular bonuses gained from each of the types. I get the feeling this is more for 'aim issues' and 'dealing with small ship harassment actively,' but again -- if it's because it's not rewarding enough in terms of damage output there are ways to fix that.

• If your concern is about it not being worth the effort of all the swapping since the damage gained from the effort is too small, knock the numbers up a bit to be a little more effective.
• If your concern is about there not being enough visual feedback, maybe it would be possible to have Single Burst apply a small effect to ships hit -- a mostly transparent one such that when it stacked it could be more visible -- and a small explosion effect upon a stack being consumed by pentaburst.

Degra wrote:

Also it would nerf small ship's roles in terms of damage

The hell?
Changing the BC from nearly pure shield-tanking towards a balanced hull and shield tanking would BUFF the strength of small ships against the BC.
Damage on shields is purely just an energy drain and with my suggestion it would become roughly 50% more pricey in energy to tank vs small ships.
Moreover, you are spending manpower on attacking a BC in a small ship.
Does it take manpower to restore energy? No, it's just waiting for energy regen. No manpower needed whatsoever. It would take a few seconds on power to restore shields to full, but that's about it.

Less shield regen per gw would mean it'll take MORE time and energy to restore shields, letting small ships deal slightly more damage to the BC as currently.
It takes a serious amount of manpower to repair the hull, yes, that's what's buffing small ship harassment vs the BC.

... I wouldn't worry about it Degra. If I'm come to learn anything, it's that Dreadnaught doesn't know half of what he's saying.