Should AOE damage fighters?

[123stw]

At the moment the AOE is good, perhaps too good, at obliterating fighters (on both side). What do you guys think?

Edit: For modding purposes, there are just no way of making an AOE deal meaningful damage to frigate/cruisers without obliterating every single fighters caught within it. Perhaps another line in the weapon that can enable/disable damage to fighters?

[123stw]

Edit: Looking at it more closely, I think the Flak is fine, since it also takes away your ability to use fighters completely, and damages your ships as well.

[Jukelo]

Isn't the whole purpose of AOE weapons to deal with fighters specifically? Now, I'm surprised by the parasites' flak gun which has strangely high penetration ratings, when I wouldn't expect it to be able to deal much damage to bigger ships.

[123stw]

While the Flak is suppose to be AA, from a modder's standpoint it is also good to have another type of AOE that doesn't deal damage to fighters.

[Lonestar]

I have found with my flak gun of the Homeworld ships that it will damage the cruiser and frigates in ALL hit locations. So i have gone and reduced the following.

shield pen, aoe radius, aoe scalar, and increased the minimal range, and total damage.

This is my current settings on the flak Corvette gun.

Code: Select all

aoe_radius = 10
aoe_scalar = 0.25
damage = 4
min range 100
max range 400
optimal range 250
shield_penetration = 8
armour_penetration = 16

[Praetors]

What is the difference between radius and scalar? and what changes the last one?

[Archduke Astro]

At the moment the AOE is good, perhaps too good, at obliterating fighters (on both side). What do you guys think?

My opinion: yes, flak shells absolutely should affect fighters. I regard that as the weapon's primary function, but by no means its only function.

Edit: For modding purposes, there are just no way of making an AOE deal meaningful damage to frigate/cruisers without obliterating every single fighters caught within it. Perhaps another line in the weapon that can enable/disable damage to fighters?

Well, too bad for those fighter pilots; I hope their insurance premiums are paid in full. I see no problem here. Fighters have always been way too easy to spam; this new weapon helps keep players reasonable concerning fighter usage.

For the record, I'm in favor of AOE damage to frigates and cruisers -- within reason.

Regarding how modders implement this, it's up to us to show mature judgement in how we add this to modded weaponry. I can easily forsee a surge of ridiculously wide-area anti-ship guns in the near future that can inflict some degree of damage to an entire enemy formation with a single shot. That's not necessarily so bad when both sides in a battle are using modder-created races with the usual range of above-average defenses. Against official vanilla ships, however, it's quite a bit less fun; like shooting fish in a barrel. In either game situation it can easily be abused to the point where it's a game-breaking menace. The diffference here is that when modding the Cruiser Flak Cannon, the gap between "balanced" and "OMFG!" is much narrower than it is when modding any other kind of weapon in the game. One has to use their head when tinkering with it.

Isn't the whole purpose of AOE weapons to deal with fighters specifically? Now, I'm surprised by the parasites' flak gun which has strangely high penetration ratings, when I wouldn't expect it to be able to deal much damage to bigger ships.

Flak? Yes, that's specifically an anti-fighter weapon. Hell, the word itself is a German acronym translated as "aircraft defense cannon" :D

AOE? No, I can see that being valuable in anti-ship combat. Very valuable, actually. Science fiction is full of examples of AOE weaponry which were designed for mainline fleet combat in lieu of mere fighter defense. I am strongly in favor of keeping this feature in GSB, even at the expense of packing both the anti-fighter and anti-ship roles within a single official weapon.

While the Flak is suppose to be AA, from a modder's standpoint it is also good to have another type of AOE that doesn't deal damage to fighters.

As a modder, I agree with this. However, I don't think we're going to be gifted with this by Cliff.

What is the difference between radius and scalar? and what changes the last one?

aoe_radius : the distance from the targeted unit that the blast shockwave will travel. It expands spherically, just like a ship explosion -- it even has the same white ring graphic, to make it easily visible. That's a big help in large battles, when the screen can be very crowded & distracting.

aoe_scalar : the amount of damage that other nearby units will take if they are within the distance specified by aoe_radius.

There is no smoothly-sliding scale at work here; the scalar variable does not have different values assigned automatically by the game depending on, for example, whether you were 11, 12, 13, etc., or 20, 30, 40, etc., meters away from the actual impact on the targeted ship. *Either* you are the targeted unit and the flak shell did full damage when it hit you, *OR* you are not the targeted unit but you were close enough that you pick up a fixed percentage of the damage done to the targeted unit.

Praetors, let me add that these two variables explained here are potentially very powerful. Their use by modders should be done only with the highest degree of caution. The usual - and causal - replies I receive from modder people, saying "yeah, I only used my instincts here" or "no, I don't need spreadsheets to get this balanced right" are not going to work well here. I'll be greatly disappointed if individual members of the Friendly Community Mod Squad let unthinking enthusiasm run away with the flak at the expense of common sense & playability. :/

It may not be at all obvious here, but the way in which the Cruiser Flak Cannon works means that the tracking speed value is almost entirely irrelevant. Flak always hits. That's a hugely powerful feature! :O The flak shells have the GSB version of a "proximity fuze" applied to them.

When a flak weapon fires at a target:
- If the bullet hits, then the AoE occurs at the target then and there.
- If the bullet misses, then the AoE occurs at the target when the bullet expires.

Therefore, one cannot realistically expect to fiddle with low tracking in order to balance other, modder-made versions of this weapon. That is why restraint when changing the aoe_radius and aoe_scalar values is absolutely necessary. It only takes a small screw-up to result in a gun that is far more deadly than you realize, and is damaging to many more targets than you realize.

[Praetors]

Ah thanks ^^

Praetors, let me add that these two variables explained here are potentially very powerful. Their use by modders should be done only with the highest degree of caution. The usual - and causal - replies I receive from modder people, saying "yeah, I only used my instincts here" or "no, I don't need spreadsheets to get this balanced right" are not going to work well here. I'll be greatly disappointed if the Friendly Community Mod Squad lets unthinking enthusiasm run away with the flak at the expense of common sense & playability. :/
It may not be at all obvious here, but the way in which the Cruiser Flak Cannon works means that the tracking speed value is almost entirely irrelevant. Flak always hits. That's a hugely powerful feature! :O The flak shells have the GSB version of a "proximity fuze" applied to them.

When a flak weapon fires at a target:
- If the bullet hits, then the AoE occurs at the target then and there.
- If the bullet misses, then the AoE occurs at the target when the bullet expires.

Therefore, one cannot realistically expect to fiddle with low tracking in order to balance other, modder-made versions of this weapon. That is why restraint when changing the aoe_radius and aoe_scalar values is absolutely necessary. It only takes a small screw-up to result in a gun that is far more deadly than you realize, and is damaging to many more targets than you realize.

Yeah, noticed how dangerous and powerful is in the first test, and as result of my recent test of this new module, i found that if the weapon is not carefully configured it has more disadvantages than advantages when talking about gaming experience, in short, the AOE weapons are REALLY easy to be accidentally overpowered. One of the main things that i dont like of this weapon is how easy to use is it...