DUST Search - [Feedback Request] Small Missiles and ADS Skills

Kallas Hallytyr wrote:

Kaeru Nayiri wrote:

Secondly, about Small Blasters, I have been practicing with them quite a bit and I have come to some conclusions. The small blaster is VERY EFFECTIVE on the gunner side if you stack skills with your gunner. Damage application of it makes it inferior to missiles but still EXTREMELY effective. More than people realize. The only thing left, that it needs, is for it's splash damage to be fixed or improved. I currently believe that it's splash damage is incorrectly set to 0 dmg.

The Incubus skill could be modified so that instead of RoF for the Rails and Blasters, it would be RoF for the Rails and larger splash radius for the Blasters. This would allow the blaster to be better balanced in the air, without becoming OP on the ground with LAVs and Tanks.

I've been thinking about Blasters recently: would just straight up increasing damage help in their application? One of the things that is an issue with them is tplike that of the HMG: many shots simply go wild. While increasing damage would also make it more powerful in general, but it doesn't break shield regen on vehicles, and beating armour regen is even harder.

Increasing damage directly makes it a monster vs infantry, which it should be. What do you reckon?


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Kaeru Nayiri OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 336	Posted - 2014.12.18 18:23:00 - [1] - Quote Thanks for putting the work into making this ! Here are some of my thoughts on it: Question: would these replace the current missile launcher or coexist with it? Concern: It might create too many objects and effecs/explosions for the game unnecessarily. Perhaps keeping the DPS per clip the same and lowering the rof to save on game resources? Missiles are not hitscan weapons so we shouldn't be too liberal with this. Concern: I really want a high alpha missile that favors accuracy over ease of application. How does that sit with you, in your opinion? Proposition: Have the anti infantry missile have higher rof, less damage per missile and same splash as current, with tiny bonus to direct hits. Have the anti vehicle missile have lower rof, much higher direct hit, much smaller splash radius while maintaining suppressive splash damage.
Kaeru Nayiri OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 336	Posted - 2014.12.18 20:10:00 - [2] - Quote Kallas Hallytyr wrote: [...] Kaeru Nayiri wrote: Proposition: Have the anti infantry missile have higher rof, less damage per missile and same splash as current, with tiny bonus to direct hits. Have the anti vehicle missile have lower rof, much higher direct hit, much smaller splash radius while maintaining suppressive splash damage. 1. Is that same splash radius or damage? As above, part of the issue with DS suppression and accuracy is the ease of application: especially with 'strafing' (supposedly what ADSs are supposed to do) where you have a limited amount of time on target, having a small splash radius essentially equates to needing direct hits in the first place. Could you suggest some numbers based on either the current or my proposed stats? Are you thinking of slowing the rapid, or speeding up the current? What kind of ratio are you thinking of? 2. Again, are you thinking lower ROF than the current launcher? Do you feel that the suggested rapid shaped is insufficient in this role (it does have very low splash damage; do you think it needs more, with its lower radius)? Thanks for the feedback though, I greatly appreciate it, just not entirely sure I understand your suggestions and want to clarify before incorporating them. Thanks for addressing everything as professionally as you always do ! I will try to be more clear, I realize I could have explained better. I was trying to describe those examples comparing them to our current missile launcher, already in game. I am not great at balancing the numbers and was aiming more on the feel but here is are examples of what I mean (really just examples though, not to be taken too literally) Fragmented (STD): Fire-Interval - 0.8 s Direct Hit DMG - 280 Splash DMG - 240 Splash Radius - 2.5 (I would concede a 3m here, but I find it hard to accept more) Shaped (STD): Fire-Interval - 2s Direct Hit DMG - 600 Splash DMG - 400 Splash Radius - 1m Again, these numbers are just meant to give you an idea of what I am imagining, I realize some of this might seem broken at a glance if you don't consider clip size and dps. As you can tell, I am against having any more splash then the current missile launcher does, and would rather see the Fragmented version focus on RoF more than increased splash. To that end, I would gladly take more RoF for the Fragmented if it comes out balanced, as you have it so nicely done in your spreadsheet. Thanks for reading this !
Kaeru Nayiri OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 336	Posted - 2014.12.18 20:16:00 - [3] - Quote I also want to point out that if I was to step back for a moment and pretend all three of these were available right now, I would probably still pick the current missile launcher over the others as the benefits of focusing with Fragmented or Shaped do not seem to outweigh the versatility of the Original. Maybe I am not thinking broadly enough. Maybe I should not have commented about your Fragmented version, it seems novel enough that I would at least want to bring it to a fight where I know there will be large clusters of enemies.
Kaeru Nayiri OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 339	Posted - 2014.12.18 21:09:00 - [4] - Quote Kallas, I want to continue discussing the turrets with you because I think we are really getting somewhere, but I want to put it on hold for just a second to discuss the ADS skills tab you have. I have my own ideas that I want to bounce around. First of all, I love the idea of fitting optimizations for the ADSes. That is exactly what may FINALLY make the python useful. Even I use an Incubus for my solo missile turret, and a Myron if I have gunners. I have not touched my Python in several months. It's too fragile, has no benefits. If I had more PG though, I might be able to fit it better, so this is good. And if I could save more fitting on the incubus by fitting rails and blasters, I would never think to do otherwise. Secondly, about Small Blasters, I have been practicing with them quite a bit and I have come to some conclusions. The small blaster is VERY EFFECTIVE on the gunner side if you stack skills with your gunner. Damage application of it makes it inferior to missiles but still EXTREMELY effective. More than people realize. The only thing left, that it needs, is for it's splash damage to be fixed or improved. I currently believe that it's splash damage is incorrectly set to 0 dmg. The Incubus skill could be modified so that instead of RoF for the Rails and Blasters, it would be RoF for the Rails and larger splash radius for the Blasters. This would allow the blaster to be better balanced in the air, without becoming OP on the ground with LAVs and Tanks. Will get back to you soon about the turrets. Just wanted to put that out there.
Kaeru Nayiri OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 340	Posted - 2014.12.18 21:19:00 - [5] - Quote I've looked over your alternative shaped turret and I like it a lot. I noticed you were more conservative than I on the splash damage and a bit more generous with the splash radius. Also the rof a bit higher. I think this is very acceptable and I would proudly use that turret, as a python pilot, knowing there would be vehicles to kill. I worry that it would be too strong compared to an Incubus though. I do believe Incubus Railgun should keep a significant edge in DPS so that it remains the ultimate anti-vehicle choice. I want the shaped to be a better AV weapon than the original missile launcher, but not on equal terms with the small rail gun. Am I mistaken in thinking so? Right now DPS isn't even the only factor with small rails, as you can only get 9~10 shots off before overheating with max skills as a pilot. Adding cool down, reload , charge up time(0.2s unmodifiable between shots) and RoF to all the factors and we may end up with Incubus pilots using shaped missiles, just because it's easier to use with similar DPS on paper. Maybe even BETTER dps when you take the cool down breaks into account.
Kaeru Nayiri OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 341	Posted - 2014.12.18 21:41:00 - [6] - Quote Kallas Hallytyr wrote: Kaeru Nayiri wrote: Secondly, about Small Blasters, I have been practicing with them quite a bit and I have come to some conclusions. The small blaster is VERY EFFECTIVE on the gunner side if you stack skills with your gunner. Damage application of it makes it inferior to missiles but still EXTREMELY effective. More than people realize. The only thing left, that it needs, is for it's splash damage to be fixed or improved. I currently believe that it's splash damage is incorrectly set to 0 dmg. The Incubus skill could be modified so that instead of RoF for the Rails and Blasters, it would be RoF for the Rails and larger splash radius for the Blasters. This would allow the blaster to be better balanced in the air, without becoming OP on the ground with LAVs and Tanks. I've been thinking about Blasters recently: would just straight up increasing damage help in their application? One of the things that is an issue with them is tplike that of the HMG: many shots simply go wild. While increasing damage would also make it more powerful in general, but it doesn't break shield regen on vehicles, and beating armour regen is even harder. Increasing damage directly makes it a monster vs infantry, which it should be. What do you reckon? I honestly believe Small Blasters are perfect right now in terms of DPS and RoF. And if you stack them with a gunner's skills they become absolute terror. The issue is damage application and that means playing with dispersion and also splash radius. I really want Rattati to clear this up, if possible. I am almost certain the splash damage on the blaster is bugged and left at 0 instead of being the same as "direct hit" damage. It's also possible that the splash radius is accidentally set to 0.05 m instead of 0.5m. If neither are the case, then the Incubus's bonus to RoF on the blaster needs to be changed to a splash radius one. This limits the more generous splash radius to the incubus and prevents it from being abused on LAV or HAV. Testing it against a large turret, I found out small blasters have a 70 meter optimal range. Running the numbers stacked with a gunner, they can do 1700 DPS to infantry. The thing that keeps them from breaking vehicle shield regen is the 44% efficiency they have on vehicles. The ONLY thing keeping them from being effective is the splash/dispersion variables. That's why I believe the Small Blaster needs it's splash damage and radius rechecked, and if it's working correctly, change the Incubus RoF on small blasters to splash radius. This makes the weapon easier to use at range, even if dispersion remains the same.
Kaeru Nayiri OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 369	Posted - 2014.12.19 20:01:00 - [7] - Quote I'm really not sure, honestly. Rails can be complicated. The true DPS is hard to calculate, yet it's the weapon where DPS matters the most. Even the heat seems to go down faster in the bottom half of the circle making things harder to figure out. We have no idea how fast it cools down, whether it's really variable or just display, how heat is calculated (besides knowing it's over time and not per shot)... Trying to take all that into account and making the shaped missile good without overlapping onto small rails is a tall order. On the plus side, I will be posting some small blaster videos here tonight (hopefully). My tests show that the small blaster is very effective in the gunner side of an Incubus with stacked skills, but it is so unforgiving. You either kill someone in 0.27 seconds or all the shots miss until overheat. I really think the splash needs to be checked for bugs or incorrect values.
Kaeru Nayiri OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 369	Posted - 2014.12.19 22:37:00 - [8] - Quote Sir Snugglz wrote: Also, in terms of difference between missiles and rails, I always believed that the rail was the sniper rifle of turrets. With me previous proposal, the anti vehicle missiles seem to turn into a high DMG turret. The rail should also be a high DMG turret also but not so much as the missile. I know what you're thinking, then everyone would be running missiles. But here's the problem with the difference. The rail should have a high sweet spot percentage modifier while the missiles will be a lot smaller. For example, Missile will do 1000 DMG per shot \| Rail will do 850 DMG per shot Missile will have a 110% sweet spot modifier \| Rail will have a 260% modifier while the missiles do more dmg in general, the rail will be able to greatly damage the vehicle's sweet spot. For this to be implemented, an overhaul of vehicle sweet spots for vehicles will be required because the curret sweet spots are impossible to hit, especially for ADS I think this might be beyond the scope of what Rattati is trying to do. He stated that Small Rails are -the- anti-vehicle turret while Small Blasters (should be) are -the- anti-infantry turret. Missiles are supposed to be able to do both, but differently and slightly less efficiently (jack of all trades). That seems to be the goal for now. The Missile variations should lean towards infantry or vehicles without crossing into the boundary of blasters or rails. Not saying your ideas are bad, please do not misunderstand me.
Kaeru Nayiri OSG Planetary Operations Covert Intervention 376	Posted - 2014.12.21 21:34:00 - [9] - Quote Going to post a small reply for now as I am uploading videos and multitasking but: You are correct in what you say that if something NEEDS skill stacking to be effective than it is underpowered. It should be functional in and of itself. I will however say that skill stacking WAS a built in, purposefull mechanic that was INTENDED to be used. The old DEVs had confirmed it and purposefully implemented it to reward team playing and being able to invest skills into something "as a gunner". With that said, I find that the way it's done is very counter-intuitive, as you need to get actual piloting skills to stack as a gunner for another pilot. I have level 5 Gallente Assault Dropships, and my railgun overheats on the 9th or 10th shot. I can never get 16 in one go. I believe my gunner gets a 10th shot guaranteed with stacked skills. The general strategy a stacked-skill gunner has to go for when gunning against vehicles, is to limit themselves to 3 shot bursts (cool down SEEMS to go down faster in the bottom half vs when near full), and then just hold the button down when the 10 straight shots will guarantee a kill. The railgun WITHOUT stacked skills cannot kill a tank unless it's Militia OR allows you to to shoot at it for an extended amount of time.