| Author |
[Suggestion]: How to fix Darkspace in Three Stages. |
Arcanum {C?}
Cadet
Joined: June 25, 2005
Posts: 222
|  Posted: 2005-09-22 14:34
Faustus:
Having observed the many comments, complaints and suggestions of the players since the release of 1.483, I have devised a way that you can:
- Quickly remedy the rampant dissatisfaction with the current iteration of the game.
- Restore the extreme amount of goodwill and loyalty felt by many players to Darkspace.
- Continue on your path of continual improvement based on your vision of where Darkspace should be.
I personally think that none of these goals should be mutually exclusive, and to that end, I have devised a three-step plan, which I respectfully proffer to you for your consideration.
And if you decide to go down this path, permit me to suggest that you acknowledge that you have heard and understood the player bases' current frustration and aggravation. Provide realistic, but non-committal estimate of how you intend to address these concerns. Even though it accomplishes nothing concrete, this action will give your playerbase hope. It will confirm to them that you are listening and they are not being ignored.
Step I - Restore Game Mechanics
A few fixes to the mechanics of the game should provide a quick way to drastically improve the playing environment.
- Fix the arc bug.
- Fix the jump bug.
- Fix the beam-tracking bug - presently, all beams lose their ability to track any fast-moving destroyer class ships and under (frigate, scout).
- Drastically reduce the damage radius on Mirvs.
- Associate each weapon type with their own slots. Torpedoes, missiles, beams, cannons, should all have their respective slots. Beacons should not be a regular weapon slot, and should have a slot of their own.
- Increase the range of planet beams for UGTO and K'luth to ensure that each can fire twice at incoming bombs instead of once as it is presently.
- Increase the mod level of mines in minelayer ships to Level 10.
- Reduce the signature of a mine to sub-zero levels. (Necessiting scout ships to detect their presence)
- Limit the number of fighter bases to 3 per planet.
- Reduce the armour modifiers on destroyer class ships and below.
Step II - Fix Faction-Specific Problems
These fixes will greatly enhance gameplay by repairing certain design flaws for each faction.
UGTO
- Elite Assault Dread should have 5-6 Special I slots, move all aft-firing weapons to forward firing weapons, and have a double plate of rear armour.
- Battle Dreads should not be more powerful than EADs.
- Make non-standard armours (Ablative/Reflective) UGTO specific.
- HCL Beams should have the highest damage at close range, but a very poor damage at long range.
- Reduce the damage on Particle Cannons.
- Increase the ammo-count on SABOT rockets.
ICC
- Fix missile tracking. ICC is supposed to be a missile faction, and yet their primary weapon is nerfed beyond control due to the susceptibility to PD and the lack of missile accuracy and tracking.
- The Combat Dreadnought should not have more firepower than the Assault dreadnought. One, or both need to have their firepower adjusted.
- ICC Carrier ships need to have stronger offensive power to be useful.
- Assault Cruisers have an extra left-firing slot on one side. Make it fire an equal number of projectiles from the left and from the right.
- HCL Beams should have the highest damage at close range, but a very poor damage at long range.
- Increase damage on Rail Guns and Gauss Guns slightly
- Reduce the number of MIRV slots on the Bomber Dreadnought, and replace with additional beam and fighter slots.
K'luth
- Keep ECCM pinging.
- Beacons should prolong K'luth cloak time, it should not nullify cloak entirely.
- Ganglia should not have the armour rating of a cruiser class vessel. Double plate of organic armour on both sides, but only 1 plate of rear armour.
- Scale is the K'luth assault-class cruiser. It should have, like all other assault cruisers, 3 double plates of armour fore, left and right. Rear armour 1 plate only.
- Siphons should have a double plate of rear armour and Mandibles should not have more firepower than the Siphon.
- Increase standard disruptor and psi cannon damage
- Increase ammo count on AM torpedoes
Step III - Continue Developing 1.484
Now that the key issues of 1.483 are addressed, you should be left in peace to develop 1.484 to your heart's desire. Additionally, because you will not be under pressure to release 1.484, you can make sure that it is properly tested before it is released.
--
I believe steps I and II are critical to the successful implementation of step III. Please consider making 1.483 a playable version, which will buy you the time to make 1.484 as good as it can be.
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2005-09-22 15:13
Not to forget the ED and PD problems, and the missile dread torp problem.
Appart from that I'm all agree'd.
Tael is working on these though...
So all should be done sooner or later.
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shine
Cadet
Joined: September 21, 2001
Posts: 153
| Posted: 2005-09-22 15:16
Nice post Arcanum. I've been gone for a few years, and now am getting that excitement back that I had when I first started playing. I remember playing then suddenly the sun was up....was like omg, where did the time go. Even though I have lost a few dreads that past few days I've been back, I am excited with the challenge of the changes made to the game, to get teamwork going again and to have a blast (pun intended).
Maybe Faust can host some beta events for credits or something to help get peeps in the beta servers to really tag down the bugs for the next patch and to give them a taste of what's to come. Don't be discouraged if you don't like the current situation, take on the challenge and help make the game better...things can and do change.
Shine tips his hat to Faustus and friends...keep up the good work....btw, you ever get the code done for Mech assualts on planets?? =)
Peace
Shine
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Arcanum {C?}
Cadet
Joined: June 25, 2005
Posts: 222
| Posted: 2005-09-22 15:17
Quote:
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On 2005-09-22 15:13, BackSlash *Jack* wrote:
Not to forget the ED and PD problems, and the missile dread torp problem. |
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I direct your attention to Step I, item 5. 
[ This Message was edited by: Arcanum {C?} on 2005-09-22 15:22 ]
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Fattierob
Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003
Posts: 4059
| Posted: 2005-09-22 15:31
Best post ever.
quickly, everybody print this out and snal mail it to Faustus.
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Nim *
Chief Marshal
Courageous Elite Commandos
Joined: September 05, 2004
Posts: 295
| Posted: 2005-09-22 15:37
Quote:
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Increase the range of planet beams for UGTO and K'luth to ensure that each can fire twice at incoming bombs instead of once as it is presently.
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You do realise that would mean DA will have a range of around 800gu with no damage reduction... Meaning kluth planets can not only be almost uncappable (doubt any ship can survive being hit by lvl 3 defence bases twice) it would also make kluth ships with da's unfair on other factions
Personaly i prefer having more beams per defence base for ugto & kluth than increase the max range for those weapons. More beams should also mean the strength of the beams shouldnt be lvl15 (should be lower)
[ This Message was edited by: Nim {C?} on 2005-09-22 15:39 ]
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Enterprise
Chief Marshal
Raven Warriors
Joined: May 19, 2002
Posts: 2576
From: Hawthorne, Nevada
| Posted: 2005-09-22 15:48
Addendum - Reduce DA recharge time by a few seconds.
- Allow repairing while cloaked.
- Remove Core weapons.
- Order of fighter superiority - UGTO/KLuth/ICC.
- Order of beam superiority - Kluth/ UGTO & ICC.
- Order of cannons superiority - UGTO/Kluth/ICC.
- Order of missile superiority - ICC/Kluth/UGTO
- Order of torpedo superiority - Kluth/UGTO/ICC.
- Reduce uncloak time - increase recloak time.
- Make most arcs on most ships FORE/RIGHT/LEFT 90%.
- Armor should be thickened on larger ships (Dreadnoughts/Stations
- Weapon power should be increased (Cruiser and up).
- Building should output at least triple prestige than current.
- Change interdictors to not be able to run more than half their speed with interdictor running.
- Change Kluth cloak to be able to run at least 3/4th their speed with cloak on.
- Add cheesecake gadget to UGTO EAD.
-Ent
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Arcanum {C?}
Cadet
Joined: June 25, 2005
Posts: 222
| Posted: 2005-09-22 15:55
Quote:
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On 2005-09-22 15:37, Nim {C?} wrote:
Personaly i prefer having more beams per defence base for ugto & kluth than increase the max range for those weapons. More beams should also mean the strength of the beams shouldnt be lvl15 (should be lower) |
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I like the multiple beam idea. But let's not only use heavy beams. I propose the following:
- 1 Level 15 HCL and 5 Level 15 CL beams for each L3 UGTO defense base.
- 1 Level 15 DA and 5 Level 15 disruptor beams for each L3 K'luth defense base.
(This would be in addition to missiles and torpedoes, of course.)
This should make MIRVing a bit harder, and create more of a battle zone around planets as well.
--
I agree with every single one of Enterprise's suggestions, save the cheesecake suggestion.
[ This Message was edited by: Arcanum {C?} on 2005-09-22 15:59 ]
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Koda
Marshal
Fatal Squadron
Joined: August 29, 2002
Posts: 1384
| Posted: 2005-09-22 17:15
The few things id like to add would be,..
the Ability of Armor to Heal.. I think the very nature of Unorganic Armor should mean that it needs to be repaired or replaced.
Fighters, I would like to see Fighters be used along the lines of the way we use Infantry. 32 max Troops, 32 Max fighters.. If the fighter gets destroyed then you should get more from a planet that makes Fighters.. Along the lines of a Rax planet.
Defense bases,..
LvL 3 should be Anti Ship, LvL 2 should be Mid range anti ship & anti bombs.
Level 1 should be Anti Bombs.. but pretty much PD.
ICC lvl3 def bases should hvy on missles and maybe 1-2 CL
lvl2 def few missles few CL, few pulse
lvl1 def 1 missle, 1 cL, good amnt of pulse
Ugto, just replace the word missles with varrying degrees of HCL power and CL's
Same for the kluth. lvl 1, 5 disruptors.. -- lvl 3 = DA
Fighter Bases,
Should corrispond with what ive said previously, the only thing that these bases would provide is minimal CL Def and Ability to Launch your fighters..
lvl 1 = 1 fighter every 20 sec lvl 3 = 3 fighters every 20 sec.. up to your 32 lvl fighter count.
I think that this would go along way towards balace and MV stability.
Not to mention, bring in the notion of having to resuply your planets with fighters.
-Charz
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Thorium
Grand Admiral
Joined: August 05, 2004
Posts: 185
| Posted: 2005-09-22 17:19
needed for more blacened play
i see no reson why luth ships shouldnt have the same armor arc's as ugto (oganic sigificantly less than standered)... luth station all have 2x armor while the other factions have at lest a 3x
assult ships... need 2x armor in the rear slot... with the new cloak i can fly anywhere i want... pick any target i want... fav targets ead and tc...
why? well i can slip in behind them decloak and waste em before they can turn away... it is sad realy... i hit the space bar once and they have under 40% hull remaning (38% dread, 32% cruser)
can wate for the next RC
lose bomber dreads all together...
comand ships should not bomb
build and reload back to the same slot
changes to planet deffences
lose the torps (resons below)
1)planets are ment to be defended by ships
2)defending ships get pounded by there oun defences
3)tops kill troops dead (try and drop and they die, try and pick up and they die)
4)dreads/cursers need to secure the area for the bomber (this means gettting in under the optamal arc of the missiles and defending the bomber)
CL's and Rupters damage got to be lowered a bit and should shoot bombs not ships unless there are no bombs with in range
(points 1,2 and 4)
bring back cannons
with the lose of torps we will still need close in fire support that doesnt hurt nearly as much but still forces even a dread away after a few min's
new defence ships
planets should have there oun deffence force... fighter bases would lanch these ships (one per base) and not releace more until destroyed (or make like barracks only limate the number to the number of fighter bases)
ships would be between the scout and frig class
fighter base lvl determines nuber of wepons on the ships
lowers lag and improves planet defences (win, win?)
would realy realy like the equivalent to a ICC planetary shield... come on... take a good look at the MV and then tell me UGTO/LUTH need not have such tec
[ This Message was edited by: Thorium on 2005-09-22 17:40 ]
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Arcanum {C?}
Cadet
Joined: June 25, 2005
Posts: 222
| Posted: 2005-09-22 18:11
Quote:
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On 2005-09-22 17:19, Thorium wrote:
would realy realy like the equivalent to a ICC planetary shield... come on... take a good look at the MV and then tell me UGTO/LUTH need not have such tec |
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Not necessary if proper defense bases are implemented for UGTO and K'luth.
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Coeus {NCX-Charger}
Admiral, I can't read,
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: February 16, 2004
Posts: 3635
From: South Philly
| Posted: 2005-09-22 18:48
I still think the best idea is to remove fighter bases entirely and let Def Base 3's launch 1 fighter - and only 1 fighter - and then once that fighter is launched no more can be launched from a base till the fighter returns or goes kaplooy.
10 fighters is MORE than enough per planet...
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Koda
Marshal
Fatal Squadron
Joined: August 29, 2002
Posts: 1384
| Posted: 2005-09-22 22:43
Quote:
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On 2005-09-22 18:48, Coeus wrote:
10 fighters is MORE than enough per planet...
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Well Coe, if we followed this line of thinking, then 10 missle launchs, 10 torps, and 10 possible beams should work out just fine also.
My point is this, 10 fighters dont dent todays ships. If the fighters were buffed up and teh ships nerfed down, yeah sure lets try it. But not as they are now. 10 is just not enough.
I understand that the fighter control systems arent in place yet and that fighters are going to get sheilding/armor (in2weeks). That would be cool, Better Fighters.. and maybe thats what your getting at Quality not Quantity.
But its just really hard to say where things are going. dont get me wrong m8, Im on the Reduce fighter band wagon, but we still have to consider if its even worth it to bother to launch 10 of todays fighters vs any of todays lvl 10 modded ships.
Not to mention that this does nothing about the Amount of Fighters that Ships could launch.
-Charz
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Diabo|ik
Grand Admiral
Joined: August 16, 2002
Posts: 327
From: Quebec, Canada
| Posted: 2005-09-22 23:14
Quote:
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Step I - Restore Game Mechanics
A few fixes to the mechanics of the game should provide a quick way to drastically improve the playing environment.
Fix the arc bug.
Fix the jump bug.
Fix the beam-tracking bug - presently, all beams lose their ability to track any fast-moving destroyer class ships and under (frigate, scout).
Drastically reduce the damage radius on Mirvs.
Associate each weapon type with their own slots. Torpedoes, missiles, beams, cannons, should all have their respective slots. Beacons should not be a regular weapon slot, and should have a slot of their own.
Increase the range of planet beams for UGTO and K'luth to ensure that each can fire twice at incoming bombs instead of once as it is presently.
Increase the mod level of mines in minelayer ships to Level 10.
Reduce the signature of a mine to sub-zero levels. (Necessiting scout ships to detect their presence)
Limit the number of fighter bases to 3 per planet.
Reduce the armour modifiers on destroyer class ships and below.
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Agreed, but if the respective slots proposition goes through, we'll need to change some basic layouts which are ASKING to get modded. I mean, I don't want to see ONE cannon or missile on a K'luth assault ship ( manadible, scale, claw ). Not taking this into consideration would still leave the K'luth out in the cold and considering our few modding options, I'd even go as far as saying that missiles/torps and cannons/smlbeams should still be swappable for K'luth ( if no changes are made to their layouts, until a proper solution is applied in 1484 ).
Next, step 2,
Agreed on everything UGTO and emphasize on "NERF P CANNONS".
Agreed on everything ICC, but to increase rails and gauss cannons damage. They're alright, it's just that the p cannons are insanely stronger. I'd even go as far as saying that they'd need a bit of a nerf ( to be on par with the order of superiority that we can all agree on, ICC being the faction with the weakest cannons ). So nerf pcannons to current rails level, then adjust the psi with a little less firepower, and the rails/gauss with eveb less firepower.
Agreed on some, but points 1,3 and 7.
ECCM/ECMs should work the way I explained in my post in this thread : http://beta.darkspace.net/?module=forums.php&page=/viewtopic.php?topic=36018&forum=5. Older code can be used and slightly adjusted to make it work out.
I think the Ganglia should keep it's cruiser class armor and be given ONE reload instead of more plates. It's not the armor that's making this ship unflyable, it's his longevity VS firepower issue. For a ship like this with not many weapons ( think 1480 ganglia, without reloads, without 6 cl2ks, but pea shooters instead, and youll get the idea of how badly this ship got nerfed, I almost forgot about it's very existence since 1483 came live... ) it isn't even an option for K'luth pilots to fly, our cruisers do a better job than what it's supposed to do. But that's a touchy topic... and I know the other factions won't agree...
AM torps don't need an increase in damage. For a fact, torps need a fix, a speed fix. The only usefull torps ( that can actually hit something below a dread ) are the fusions... and they still lack some speed, that is if we don't reintroduce tracking to torpedoes... ( which weren't that hard to dodge in a cruiser, but it FORCED you to do something, adding a gameplay element I would love to see back in... ). Make all torps have the same speed at lvl10, but keep the different ranges/damage/splash radiuses... Or re-introduce tracking... Cause right now, AM torps can barely hit DREADS.
Step 3, *stamp of approval*.
*Signed*
[ This Message was edited by: Diabo|ik on 2005-09-24 02:49 ]
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Coeus {NCX-Charger}
Admiral, I can't read,
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: February 16, 2004
Posts: 3635
From: South Philly
| Posted: 2005-09-23 02:13
Quote:
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On 2005-09-22 22:43, CharAznable wrote:
Quote:
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On 2005-09-22 18:48, Coeus wrote:
10 fighters is MORE than enough per planet...
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Well Coe, if we followed this line of thinking, then 10 missle launchs, 10 torps, and 10 possible beams should work out just fine also.
My point is this, 10 fighters dont dent todays ships. If the fighters were buffed up and teh ships nerfed down, yeah sure lets try it. But not as they are now. 10 is just not enough.
I understand that the fighter control systems arent in place yet and that fighters are going to get sheilding/armor (in2weeks). That would be cool, Better Fighters.. and maybe thats what your getting at Quality not Quantity.
But its just really hard to say where things are going. dont get me wrong m8, Im on the Reduce fighter band wagon, but we still have to consider if its even worth it to bother to launch 10 of todays fighters vs any of todays lvl 10 modded ships.
Not to mention that this does nothing about the Amount of Fighters that Ships could launch.
-Charz
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... how many missiles per minute does a current planet base fighter launch? I stopped trying to count... please, inform me.
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