| Author |
1.672 - Beta Test Feedback |
Whiterin
Fleet Admiral
Joined: November 15, 2007
Posts: 146
|  Posted: 2011-10-05 01:53
As for the crash, I only get it when playing ICC or UGTO. It doesn't crash for me if I am in a Kluth ship. Wonder what's causing it. But like it was said already. I need to use the taskmanager to do anything once it crashes.
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CM7
Midshipman
Faster than Light
Joined: October 15, 2009
Posts: 1812
| Posted: 2011-10-06 02:25
For every negative I find with the new armor level, I find a positive. Basically, all previous ship vs ship traits have carried over when dealing with small ships. Combat destroyers is still inferior to the gunboat destroyer. Claw will still eat a Heavy Cruiser. Heavy Cruiser falls to a Battle Cruiser if it cannot maintain range. And so forth.The only exception is combat endurance. More defense and diminished ability to sustain terminating fire either through target acquisition, energy efficiency, or ammunition deficiency, could shift the balance of power in some areas. Assault ships see the worst of this, as they no longer can sustain offence that exceeds enemy defense. Cannon ships are far better off in beta as they can deal more sustainable damage output. I don’t have any solid data to support this claim, as its usually just me VS AI as of late.
I also believe dreads have been dealt a huge blow when it comes to dealing with small ships. This most effects Kluth dreads, as most of them are assault oriented and lack the ability to sustain firepower through target acquisition and energy efficiency. Next most affected is the UGTO EAD as it lacks the ability to sustain firepower through target acquisition and energy efficiency. This, of course, is only referring to dreads VS small ships. The one saving grace for dreads, is a general reduction in mobility on small ships due to the higher level shields and armor. Armor adds mass and directly affects ships turn rate, and acceleration, both ascending and descending. Shields add energy consumption and in theory, reduce sustainable top speed of ICC ships. This may be offset by ICC’s new found abundance of energy since 670’s release.
The one exception to this saving grace, is the ICC BC. I need to run actual combat trials to assess its ability to sustain maneuverability and firepower over the duration of an engagement, however, preliminary tests show that the ICC BC is vastly superior to the entire UGTO armada as stands. Its base maneuverability, for starters, is 22. That’s 4deg/sec (if I remember right) faster than a UGTO frigate. If it retains some sibilance of energy efficiency that it has in release, then I dare say the ship is far and away OP. Again, I withhold my final judgment on this matter until ive tested it against a live pilot.
ICC received a major boost to burst damage resistance with this, however, sustainable defense may have taken a hit. The 8x energy drain of defense mode on level 6 shields is back breaking on small ships energy generation systems. The smaller the ship, the worse it is. While one can argue, that the hp regenerated per second of defense mode active is actually higher than in release for small ships, one wonders at what point, or in this case, hull level, is HP generation over time less than release’s values.
There is a definite point where you can tell combat performance suffers due to higher shield level. That point, I believe, is destroyers. A destroyer in beta cannot sustain defense and offence at the same time to the level of a release destroyer. That is to say, it cannot maintain defense mode, speed, and offence for the same time duration of a release destroyer. You have to pick, speed and offence, defense and offence, or speed and defense. While this may not seem like much to you at the moment, consider UGTO, who maintain a near constant defense to offense ratio when comparing release to beta.
What im saying is, most of my tests that showed me ICC and UGTO are near balanced in release were done with ICC using defense mode during sustained offence, defense and speed scenarios. Take away ICC’s ability to SDO (speed, defense, offense) and leave UGTO where they are, and you start to see cracks form in the balance we once had.
But its not as cut and dry as that. ICC’s increase in HP has substantially increased their defense through the resistance stat shields have. Something most of us agree on, is that 1% of shields does not equal 1% of armor. Thus, the amount of energy UGTO has to expend on ICC defense, even without defense mode, may be enough to balance out ICC’s diminished ability to use defense mode under perfect SDO combat conditions.
I know I’ve not been very definitive have i. Well that’s where I am with this release, Stuck. For every pro I find a con, for every con I find a pro. Very tough to tell. I think the wholly grail of this beta will be to asses small ships ability to take on dreads. Second most important, is to asses each combat ship’s ability to engage ships of higher and lower class. Least important, (easily fixed) asses supply ships ability to shadow other ships. I have a burning feeling its impossible.
I hope I can get more detailed information for you all in the near future.
Thanks
Defiance
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Defiance and Opposition, a tribute to teamwork. I will remember always
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Talien
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: May 11, 2010
Posts: 2044
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2011-10-06 10:02
The new beam effects certainly look nice, I can't find any downside to it so thumbs up all the way around.
I still think increased out of combat repair is unnecessary because we can build supply plats and have the nifty AOE repair field on SS, but that's just personal preference. One flaw I've found with it is it does not always reset the timer, it seems to not reset if you completely miss what you're shooting at or if someone shoots at you but misses, so it seems the timer resets when damage is taken or caused, and not just by shooting at or being shot at by another ship. If this is working as intended then it works.
Removing the Interdictor device from EsCapor was good. I could say more about how it was a bad idea for AI to have an Interdictor to begin with, but I think it's been said enough already by other people.
I'm on the fence about not being able to dock while the combat timer is active, on one hand it makes it harder for someone to just camp a planet and constantly dock before dying then launch another ship, but it also makes it even easier for griefers to camp a SY.
Increased cloak times makes a big difference in giving smaller ships a slight window to avoid being instagibbed by a Siphon decloaking in their face, while not having any noticeable effect on Dread vs. Dread combat. Seems just about perfect now.
Increased HP on armor/shields is nice, but smaller UGTO ships take a sizeable hit to maneuverability (5 less turn rate for UGTO Scouts REALLY hurts), while Kluth and ICC take a smaller hit to maneuverability, and ICC take a hit to energy output and increased signature. ECM is even harder for ICC to use in beta, where you needed 3-4 ships to to be effective you now need 1 more just to compensate for the increased signature generated by the higher level shields, bringing it up to 4-5 ships for ECM to be of use in combat.
I would suggest increasing HP on lower level armor and shields instead of just switching everything to use Dreadnought level defenses. While this does make smaller ships more survivable it also makes them less effective because lower maneuverability means they'll be hit more often, which is basically one step forward and 1 step back.
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Pantheon
Marshal
Palestar
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 1789
| Posted: 2011-10-06 10:34
Already looking at refining armor and shield hp.
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CM7
Midshipman
Faster than Light
Joined: October 15, 2009
Posts: 1812
| Posted: 2011-10-06 10:38
if i may, Supply ships and transports need to be returned to their original defensive stats. Else, you can transport rush anything with impunity, and supply ships wont be easily enough routed from combat.
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Defiance and Opposition, a tribute to teamwork. I will remember always
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Blackjack [DBL]
Grand Admiral
Faster than Light
Joined: February 25, 2011
Posts: 344
From: The land of venomous reptiles.
| Posted: 2011-10-06 20:32
I entered the beta and i couldn't see or hear any other player when i knew others were on. I have no idea whats going on and its almost like I was dumped into a second, empty beta server
(EDIT: it was just empty... i fail)
[ This Message was edited by: Perseverance *FCA* on 2011-10-06 22:23 ]
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Names I used: Da Bes Loser, Perseverance, Loyalty.
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Brutality
Marshal
Joined: May 25, 2009
Posts: 659
From: Alaska, USA
| Posted: 2011-10-06 22:47
Quote:
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On 2011-10-05 01:53, Whiterin wrote:
As for the crash, I only get it when playing ICC or UGTO. It doesn't crash for me if I am in a Kluth ship. Wonder what's causing it. But like it was said already. I need to use the taskmanager to do anything once it crashes.
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Just had the crash and it crashed for everybody that was in the server. I know that it has been said before but i alpha'd an EAD and then it froze for everybody. Just thought id let u guys know. 
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Blackjack [DBL]
Grand Admiral
Faster than Light
Joined: February 25, 2011
Posts: 344
From: The land of venomous reptiles.
| Posted: 2011-10-06 23:10
The only thing with the Dread-grade shields is that the energy drain for defense mode in a vette is simply horrific. It was completely drained in 30 seconds.
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Names I used: Da Bes Loser, Perseverance, Loyalty.
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*FTL*Soulless
Marshal
Joined: June 25, 2010
Posts: 787
From: Dres-Kona
| Posted: 2011-10-07 06:38
yeah so if we wanna stay with this set up ICC ships will NEED another aux gen to try and make up for the increased energy requirement made fromthe dread level shields. Cause a scouts engine and auz gen are NO where close to to what a dread can put out energy wise
It is someone to do with the beams cause i was there and had a hard time getting beta minamized to force close it with task manager
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CM7
Midshipman
Faster than Light
Joined: October 15, 2009
Posts: 1812
| Posted: 2011-10-12 14:38
What happen to the event?
who won? Who helped the most?
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Defiance and Opposition, a tribute to teamwork. I will remember always
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Pantheon
Marshal
Palestar
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 1789
| Posted: 2011-10-12 15:56
Still going over it.
We've decided not to lock the defencive systems to level 6, and will look at other methods of solving the problem, the first of which I 'think' will be to increase the base amount of all defencive systems, and lower the modifier.
Locking this thread until I can go through and hand out the prizes.
There will be another event when we make the changes mentioned above.
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