Let's create our own HWS PvPvE meta

[RexXxuS]

Good Morning @everyone,

as usual the motivation for some people are gone after almost 3 month (that is why I preferred 2 month seasons) and we have less players again.
Mostly because the PvP guys have checked out every possibility the current PvP gameplay has to offer, any exploit which can be found was found, any swear word they know were said.

But imagine we could influence the game! Imagine we could change the damage of turrets, the rate of fire and much more? Would that be something to prevent any PvP drama?

Just in case it will be implemented someday, I would like to know your feedback about how YOU think would improve the game for EVERYONE!
I expect this topic as the frequent discussed one ever - at least it should be.

Anyways some guidelines again:

• be CONSTRUCTIVE! Don’t crawl in history regarding dramas, don’t accuse anyone of anything
• try to think of a bigger picture. For example if we boost the turret damage we have also to increase the HP of Drones to not make PvE obsolete
• try to think around corners like reducing the Minigun turret rate of fire to very slow to reduce network lag for example

Example:

I would like to change the current CV Minigun Turret into a CV Sniper Turret. Reducing the rate of fire to very slow and increase the range to very high. Reducing the flash light spam and bullet calculation and maybe bullet penetration.
It would be also cool if Artillery Turrets would finally do their job and have 10k damage or so. In case it hits your CV you will have a big hole in your shell no matter what.
Along the way I would like to see Combat Blocks have tons of HP but are expensive like crazy to craft. Maybe even require Gold for crafting them as a golden alloy. Making gathering resources meaningful again.

Just think about that topic since it could be a completely game changer. Especially since it can be different from server to server. So we could really create a whole new game experience - which can be bad and good…

Let me know your thoughts and keep it as clean as possible please.

Your HWS Team

[extropy]

Wow. great idea.
Big problem, though, which is all will have their own idea and there will be lots of verbal fighting about which is best.

I would love to see this tried. We would all need to (a) submit ideas and (b) be willing to trust Rex to make a decision for a trial set and © not moan too much when it goes against us.

I personally would love to see CV conflict made real again (more damage and range)

[RichyN25]

I would personally like a rebalance of all weapons, both mounted and turreted, to not have hard cap limits, as the current meta is to put as many of each turret as possible and not only is that boring, but also leads to very limited designs of ships. I suggest a Point-Buy style system that has a “cost” per mounted weapon or turret on a CV/BA/SV/BA. For example, maybe the “budget” is determined by the amount of “turret control blocks” you have on the structure. For example, a ship with 10 homing missile turrets would cost the same as a ship with 20 laser turrets or 40 flak turrets etc. More damaging turrets would be more expensive to operate, and homing projectile weapons even more so. Another way to implement this system would be to crank up the energy cost of running turrets, whereas a simple sentry would cost next to nothing, but an artillery piece would require some hefty power generation due to it’s massive destructive potential. Basically the idea of this is to give some variety to the type of ships you encounter, such as maybe someone has a missile cruiser with 8 homing missile turrets, but another person has a big battleship with 6 artillery turrets and a few point defense cannons/miniguns, while a small squad could be operating some flak frigates with 16 flak turrets each. More variety to the ships and actual ships with roles instead of the generic “PVP Ship armor blob with all the max turrets” that everyone uses because it’s the only thing. AS for a PVE aspect it could make some really cool ships for Roleplay and custom missions as well.

[Ophiophagus]

Hello
yes that would be great to influence the turrets themselves. Artillery damage increase as well as the minigun for the performce sound great. This with the Combatsteel sounds very interesting. Why not find some way back to the role play in this way. Maybe dare to try. In the man for the specific roles to let different ship sizes. Trader with the giant freighter … the pirate with the fast small deadly ship. The alliance with heavy destroyers. I think I can influence the turret damage as well as the number makes it possible to come back to the actual meaning of this game. Give meaning to the individual roles. Base turrets should have the most power of everything. On top of that, you need a weapon for the CV’s that finally make an SV sensible. Maybe a two rocket launcher more for this. It’s an ordeal to get your asses off a Class 4 SV.
Go go HWS nice Greatz

[Ophiophagus]

in this way the sound from Richy is very nice. This is what i mean too. Lets go to the Basic. Take the roleplay the adventure. For every Role …some special weapons…and let us create a cool universium. A Pirate needs to get the stuff and a trader need the allainaz to bring the stuff on the marketplace…the hunter need the bounty on the guilty guy …and tthe freelancer need the mission they live for. i love it go go HWS XD

[zappe21]

Well simple enough is to say that for all 3 categorys we have 1 simple problem.

BA - Turrets needs more damage and less fire rate.
CV - Same as above
SV - More damage is needed. and less HP on SV. SV should die faster. Same with HV.

Overall maybe less autoturrets on HV / CV and more aiming weapons. Aiming seems to be working alot better for the server.

Range of rockets and speed of them in space needs fixing. They need to fly for 1k-2k with dubble the speed of today. Also with dubble or tripple damage.

I would go for a mix of more damage and less HP on blocks. This goes for all 3 categorys Exept BA. BA need turrets with *10 on armor and *5-10 on damage. Attacking a base is not something you do alone. Its something you do with a group.

Just a first idea.

[Abrum13]

Make the

@RexXxuS

I would like to change the current CV Minigun Turret into a CV Sniper Turret. Reducing the rate of fire to very slow and increase the range to very high. Reducing the flash light spam and bullet calculation and maybe bullet penetration.

Make it a massive Rail gun. And why dont missiles have the longest range?? And Give us torpedoes, we all want some Great noise makers.

Make it so bases cant attack other bases. Make the base weapons really powerful so an assault means teamwork not hiding behind a hill griefing. Make tanks worth running again and turret fire hit something thats not sitting still.

[Juggoire]

Making each and every aspect of automated turrets a setting on the server.

Something like:

(in the dedicated.yaml file)

turret settings (across HVs, CVs and BAs)

cv_minigun_rof 0.5 # one shot every 2 seconds
cv_minigun_dps 50 # damage per second for each turret
cv_minigun_range 800 # range (in space) for that weapon
cv_minigun_max 6 # 6 placeable on any CV
etc, etc

Give the server admins the chance to tweak the gun settings to suit their server/hardware to make larger battles run smoothly.

It’s the approach taken with the Ark server settings, shouldn’t be too hard for Eleon to implement. It also has the added benefit of giving them some idea of what settings work well for larger scale combat across a plethora of servers

[rom70lo]

I agree with zappe21, but the weapons must not enter the core of the ba, cv, sv, hv until they create a hole

[rom70lo]

here the fights last too much and without results dear rexxxus if the problem does not solve the programmers, you can interact with the modification of the cubes make use of cubes from 1000 instead of those from 2000 until they solve the problem

[A.F.T]

1. Player controlled turrets must take a range nerf 20% (no more 1 arty BA killers)

2. BA

Must have maximum range of the turrets - more than on CV SV HV
Need new heavy defensive turrets. Arty - replace for a Railgun (slow rotation but insta hit and big damage + some area damage) Lasers - replace for a beam lasers (shoot with interval like a plasma turrets)
Replace missile turrets for a heavy SAM misisles. Less fire rate more range mo damage.
Flacks - make more area damage (anti SV weapon)

Separate some turrets - Planetary \ Space (for a balance with “new” CV weapons)

3. CV. Replace fixed weapons. Beam lasers. Railguns. Slow and heavy Plasma.

Turrets - Add torpedo laucnher. Less speed (can hit only CV or BA) big area damage.
Replace some turrets and add some kind of a heavy cannon turret.

4. HV make it like a real tank not tank-motorbike (SV cant run from it - only into the space). Make it slower add more heavy armor and heavy but short range weapons.

5. SV - make it like real SV. Light, meneurable and fast. Rebalance weapons. Add some guided bombs for BA assault.

6. Rebalance turrets count. Add some sort of the weapon controll device. Make turrets with some cost. For example. Control device have a 200 points. Missile turret cost 15 points. Railgun (new) cost 35 points. And etc. Make different devices for a planet and space.

7. Make some balance for a ship roles. CV - heavy slow monster. Rule in the space. Can assult space BA’s and deploy SV. BA - heavy and armored fortress. Can give a punch to all kind of attakers. HV - tank for rule on the ground. Attack BA on the surface - support SV in the air at the base attack but weak against big amount of the SV (like in the real life - 1 chopper can kill some tanks). SV - fighter. Big amount of it can give some throuble for CV in the space but alone it is weak. And can destroy some BA defence on the surface.

For example. Some SV fly to BA try to destroy heavy long range turrets to clear the way for a HV. HV come and try to destroy all other BA defence. In the space SV try to engage heavy amd slow long range weapons.

But BA must have some good, fast and insta hit turrets for a defence against SV.

8. SV HV armor hull blocks need rebalance.

9. The MAJOR problem. We need damage like in survival. Now when we have more than 2 players damage goes wrong. In creative SV can be killed very fast. When devs can defeat this bug - many player must go to creative and build real ships. Not a cilynder with 1 layer of armor and many thruster from all the sides (hope to do not take the damage in the lags).

10. For me good PVP is over after 5.3 patch. When devs add some sunbeams for all missiles and other weapons. From it version perfomance doing down. Even my MSI Gaming GTX780ti cant handle with it and burn lie a paper.

p.s. MAYBE they fix a SV shooting in the space? We waiting it more than half year. And about - range damage rotation bullet speed and etc. - It is a very difficult matter (I remember my own mods fo SE - sometime iam balanced some weapons - two - three weeks). It is not so easy. Need some sort of standartization.

[Elfias]

Yep its exactly what Eleon has to do, asked for that many times with common response, being shred to pieces by SP players camping forum.

Its the most dangerous thing as there will be massive arguing about what to set and this all will be drama we never saw before, but it has to be done, also if this is possible to set we can basicly develop and balance whole PvP part of game. We just need to take it easy it will be pain.

1. Most important is to do some test as soon as we will be able to set something. Damage etc is not important. Important is to see if lowering FIRE RATE of everything, even 3x-5x will help performance.
   Will lower fire rate improve general performance of PvP combat - yes/no
   If yes we can start to adjust it.

2. Ranges of weapons. Thats second important thing. How much will each 100m influence performance. We need to see what influence range has. Major/minor.

Simply put first we need to see if lowering all will help it, as its possible it wont, it wouldnt surprise me.

Then we can start to experiment and argue. But in general I hope higher dmg, lower fire rate, faster projectiles might be good. As few calculations as possible.

I think we are looking for absolute minimum of fire while still fun to play. Definetly worth trying.
The questin is will it really help? Take 7 REDs, 3 L, 1 SWP, 5 GMC, 3 ACM and 2 AAA on one playfield and let them move around without firing. Im affraid they will be rubberbanding around even without firing single shot.

And AFT is right with blocks, if we are able to set also Hit Points of stuff then we are talking about something here.

[A.F.T]

And i think the problem not in the PVE or PVP. Problem in overal game gemplay. No matter how damage will be or armor. The matter how it will be realised and ballanced. About MP game - we need more stable network perfomance. IDK what devs change but i remember the times when i can shoot enemy by SV plasma IN THE SPACE! From the cockpit view… I want it now! Again.

[Elfias]

Yep i remeber that too, 21 plasmas and it hurt. Dogfighting with Railguns. Now i press button when rails equiped, i dont even see anything coming out of my ship, who knows maybe they fire maybe not.

I hope that much lower rate of fire thus much less shit going on in playfield can improve this a lot. Miniguns was always same, remeber SWP CVs with HV minigun platform, that was time when you wouldnt hit a barn from 2m, game just stoped.

[Androniko1]

I’m afraid that turrets will be constantly tracking even with lower fire rate, and all those calculations can only be hot fixed by lowering number of turrets until Eleon optimize or code things smartly, turrets don’t need to follow perfectly they can just fake it

[Rockers73]

Well done for posting this Rex, this could be a good starting point for improving the game from a PVP perspective! Lets hope it leads to something.
Ive got a quite a few ideas about it all but I think a good starting point is that the ship classes should fly / perform like there names suggest ie, SV’s - Small, fast, manoeuvrable but vulnerable, CVs big and perform as such. Being out run and out manoeuvred in a light SV by a massive CV cube is dumb.
I think there should be CV classes each of which has advantages and limitations, this would put an emphasis on good ship design and variety for example:

Destroyer: Max Class 1 - Fwd Weapons, tbcx Laser/Cannon Turret - Top speed = Max : Agility Max Hangar: No
Cruiser: Max Class 4 - Fwd Weapons, 2 x Artillery , tbc x Turrets Top Speed = 3/4 Max : Agility : Med
Hangar : No Heavy Armour : No
Battleship: Max Class 4 - Fwd Weapons, 4 x Artillery , tbc x Turrets Top Speed = 1/2 Max : Agility : Low Hangar : No : Heavy Armour : yes
Carrier: Max Class 6 - No Fwd Weapons, tbc x flak tbc x Missle Turrets Top Speed = 1/2 Max : Agility Low: Hangars : yes

Like you can choose a different sort of Thruster to craft you should be able to craft a different CV starter block with built in limitations, server owner should be able to adjust the parameters of these starter blocks.

Like tank design you can have firepower, speed or armour you can be good at 2 but not excel in all 3.

[Scorp]

@A.F.T

For me good PVP is over after 5.3 patch.

Can we use 5.0 in 8.0 please

[Rockers73]

Battleship should say max class 6

[Elfias]

Well @RexXxuS its absolutly clear everybody would love ability to set his own values.
Other server owners too, even SP players. This is clearly right thing to do.

So now we need to know one thing, did you talk about it with devs, will they have time to implement this anytime soon as otherwise we are beating dead horse here having false hopes again.

Long time ago there was disscusion about difficulity settings, we proposed to not care, make setting for everyone to setup his own game, and its working well since then (Easy, medium, hard). Devs as they are 3 and half shouldnt care about this, they just need to open it and let everyone to set up what they like, its pretty obvious.

If they would do same with 3d models that would be something. Mod it!

Tell us as soon as you will have any information about what they think about it.

[Fulgrim]

Ok, here i got too…
In general i don’t understand how setting values is not possible yet, i was sure it was… Its a basic for server owner. Anyhow…
Here are different notes and tough i had since 5.0. I hope you gind this usefull. I’ll go on 3 subjects - thrust rebalance, blokcs rebalance and guns rebalance.

1. Thurst:
One of the most important parts in my opinion. I will be proposing both simple things (such a limiting backward speed) and more complicated ones (such as max speed being highly dependant on accelearation, mass and size of the vessel.

SV:
First thing we need to do is limit the speed SVs can go backward, by around 40 to 50%. It will limit the problems with dogfights going one sided as soon someone starts backing while firing at a chasing enemy who will never reach him.

Then we can start going to fine tuning. Right now combat SVs are going pretty much in only one direction - the bigger the better as long it stays class 1. Smaller vessels have no place to be, having no real edge over heavier vessels, and having the weakness of being softer.
This can be compensated by limiting max speed and acceleration based on a few factors:

• Limiting max speed based on the weight and size of the SV (a heavier ship can’t go as fast as a small, light fighter).
• Limiting max speed based on acceleration (if a ship can’t have enough acceleration for its weight, it can’t reach the max speed “allowed” for his weight).
• RCS are pretty much in a good place.
• Top speed when going backwards no more than 60% of forward max speed, no matter the acceleration of it.
• Make the weight of the ship lower the acceleration exponentially instead of linearly (PvE people won’t be happy).

For that last point we may need a new line of stronger thrusters for biggers SVs to still be reliable, however i’d put a class gate (automtically puts ship on class 2+) or cost gate on those.

CV:
CVs overall speed should be brought down, but i don’t feel like this should be an overall nerf to max speeds, but then, once more, like for the SVs it should be dependant on the size and weight, and backward speed should be limited no matter what.

As with Svs, the first things that should be done are finally fixing the dual vector bug (yes, CVs can still go 115m/s) and limiting the backward max speed to no more than 50% of the forward max speed.

And then the fine tuning should be along those lines. Big CVs should be hulking behemots - impenetrable but slow fdrednaughts, while other might be nimble frigates:

• Highly limiting max speed based on the weight and size of the CV (a heavier ship can’t go as fast as a small, light ship). A 2k blocks CV should retain actual parameter, while a 10k blocks one should be down by 90% acceleration and compared to whats now.
• Limiting max speed based on acceleration (if a ship can’t have enough acceleration for its weight, it can’t reach the max speed “allowed” for his weight).
• Lowering RCS turn ratio exponentially for heavier/bigger vessels.
• Top speed when going backwards no more than 50% of forward max speed, no matter the acceleration of it.
• Make the weight of the ship lower the acceleration exponentially instead of linearly (every additional ton, lower the max speed and acceleration more than the previous).

HV
I feel like HVs are in a pretty good place right now, i’d however like in previous case increase the thrust needed for heavier ships, and decrease the backward thrust.
The jump-boost also needs additional power, i barely notice any effect of it right now.

• Reduce the speed of boost loading
• Increase boost power by 500-1000%
• Make the weight of the vehicle lower the acceleration exponentially instead of linearly (every additional ton, lower the max speed and acceleration more than the previous).
• Top speed when going backwards no more than 70% of forward top speed.

BA

• I wonder what happens if i stick a thruster on a BA…

2. Blocks Rebalance
In general ships should be softer. Right now only combat steel and armored concrete is isued for construction, as their ratio of HP to cost make any alternative absolete.

• Reduce combat steel HP by 20-25% (1600/800 hp - 1500/750 hp)
• Increase comabt steel cost - increase ammount of iron needed and include rare material such as gold, ere, zasc or neodymium (i’d suggest neodymium is a good candidate, given its underused right now. Magnetic material use can be justified as needed for joining armor plates or such).
• Reduce the HP of armored concrete by 15% (to around 2000/1000 HP) and its damage resistance.
• Increasie drasticly armored concrete price - its dirt cheap (literally) now
• Reduce slightly the armored steel price to make it viable again.
• Other rebalances may be needed for standard concrete (hp up by 40% to 1000/500?) and other lower tier building blocks in order to balance them right.
• In general blocks should have lower (or none, simply, they have enough HP) damage resistance, right now blocks other than components only take partial damage (no clue how its calculated but it works - a combat steel block takes 3 shots from the debug assault rifle (10k damage) to be destroyed, while it has 2000 hp).
• Last but not least - hardened steel blocks (HV/SV) should have its HP doubled, in order to keep up with guns damage increasing, and SV mobility being nerfed. If feel it would put them in a good spot, where SV/HV might feel a bit weak with gun boosts
• Start using blocks ammount in the structure class calculation, separetly from the equation. Set so that every class has a limit of block ammount, and if gone over that, the class increases, no matter if it hits this class with the calculation. Example - any structure over 2000 blocks will always be class 2, any structure over 4000 will automatically be at least class 3, etc…

3. Guns rebalance
Most people will agree - latest patch about CVs that lowered guns range was a disaster. I will try to make a proposition for every type of vehicle’s weaponry, in order to get everything back on track.
In general all guns damage and range should go up, while decreasing some guns Rate of Fire in order to limit lag.
All guns should also have massively increased HP to avoid cases like now where a ship loses all guns faster than it dies. Core targetting should also be restored.
I also like the idea below ALOT:

@A.F.T

Player controlled turrets must take a range nerf 20% (no more 1 arty BA killers)

HV:

• Increase all guns range by 20%.
• Replace minigun turret by canon turret equivalent. Damage up by 40%.
• Add more options as to mounted weapons (i’d suggest plasma cannon and maybe pulse laser).
• Mounted minigun ROF down by 50%, damage up by 150%.
• Make drills able to damage? Just a fun addition.
• Reduce plasma ROF by 30%, increase damage by 50%, increase splash damage by 30%.
• Reduce rockets ROF by 20%, increase damage by 40%, increase splash damage by 50%, increase missile speed by 30%.
• Increase projectiles life duration (especially missiles) by 100% when fire by autoturrets (prone to over-range abuse when fired manually).
• Artillery increase damage by 100%, increase splash by 150%, increase projectile speed by 20%.
• Increase all weapons (not counting drills, drill turrets and multiturrets) health by 200%.
• An additional possible option would be reducing the ammount of guns like follow, but increase damage by 50% all over the board: turret types allowed to up to 4 guns → 3 guns; turret types allowed to up to 6 guns → 4 guns.

BA:

• Increase all guns range by 20%
• Increase projectiles life duration (especially missiles) by 200% when fire by autoturrets (prone to over-range abuse when fired manually).
• Replace minigun turret by railgun turrets. Reduce ROF by 90%, increase damage by 600%, increase range just under artillery range.
• Rocket turrets reduce ROF by 40%, increase damage by 200%, increases splash by 80%, incraese projectile speed by 30%.
• Plasma turrets reduce ROF by 10%, increase damage by 180%, Increase splash by 150%.
• Pulse turrets reduce ROF by 30%, increase damage by 210%.
• Flak turrets reduce ROF by 20%, increase damage by 200%, increases splash by 100%, increase projectile speed by 40%, reduce graphical load of the projectile.
• Arti turrets increase damage by 200%, increases splash by 200%, incraese projectile speed by 30%. Reduce artillery turret damage by 90% against other bases.
• Cannon turrets reduce ROF by 40%, increase damage by 230%.
• Increase all weapons (not counting multiturrets) health by 400%
• An additional possible option would be reducing the ammount of guns like follow, but increase damage by 50% all over the board: turret types allowed to up to 4 guns → 3 guns; turret types allowed to up to 6 guns → 4 guns.

CV:

• Increase all guns range by 50%
• Increase projectiles life duration (especially missiles) by 300% when fire by autoturrets (prone to over-range abuse when fired manually).
• Replace minigun turret by railgun turrets. Reduce ROF by 90%, increase damage by 600%, increase range just under artillery range.
• Rocket turrets reduce ROF by 40%, increase damage by 200%, increases splash by 80%, incraese projectile speed by 50%, make rocekt turrets unable to target SVs/reduce targetting range for SVs by 50%.
• Plasma turrets reduce ROF by 10%, increase damage by 180%, Increase splash by 150%.
• Pulse turrets reduce ROF by 30%, increase damage by 210%.
• Flak turrets reduce ROF by 20%, increase damage by 200%, increases splash by 100%, increase projectile speed by 60%, reduce graphical load of the projectile.
• Arti turrets increase damage by 300%, increases splash by 400%, incraese projectile speed by 30%.
• Cannon turrets reduce ROF by 40%, increase damage by 230%.
• Mouted rocket launcher increase damage by 100%, increase splash by 100%, increase projectile speed by 50%, increase projectile lifetime by 300% when fired at a target in range.
• Mounted pulse laser increase damage by 100%.
• Increase all weapons (not counting drill turrets and multiturrets) health by 300%
• An additional possible option would be reducing the ammount of guns like follow, but increase damage by 50% all over the board: turret types allowed to up to 4 guns → 3 guns; turret types allowed to up to 6 guns → 4 guns.

SV

• Increase all gun ranges by 30%.
• Monuted rocket launcher increase damage by 50%, increase splash by 60%, increase projectile speed by 30%, increase projectile lifetime by 150% when fired at a target in range.
• Mounted plasma cannon increase damage by 60%, increases splash by 40%.
• Make drills for it that work both on ground and in atmo? Just a little additional tought. Drills could damage in point blank.
• Increase mounted pulse laser damage by 40%.
• Increase mounted railgun damage by 40%.
• Increase mounted unguided rocket damage by 40%, increase splash by 80%.
• Mounted minigun ROF down by 50%, damage up by 150%.
• Increase all mounted guns HP by 300%.
• Increases ammount of guns by 2 for each type (just a tought).

Hope this wall of text helps the discussion.