A positive side to this is that we can properly define vehicle roles. Just to see how i interpret your tank vision.

UHAVs: high ehp, slow speed, low manueverability, is vulnerable to other tanks but excells in anti infantry: (heavy)

MBTs: medium eHP, medium speed- medium to long range , can run all purpose fittings, but is the best tank class to equip with rail turrets to escort UHAVs against DHAVs (assault)

DHAV: low eHP, high speed, high damage, short range, best at ambushing the other tanks in short range quick battles, but if spotted first will have a rough time of it. (scout)

People have been asking about vehicle roles, now we can tell them 3

A Tanker should want to have some back up before going anti infantry in a UHAV. Encourages Teamwork infantry demand of tankers to make the reddots life miserable.

A Tanker can go for all purpose fits that are not quite as good as the specialized fits but don't need a lot of team work to do so. Not much beyond the current meta. Can hurt UHAVs and wreck DHAVs (if DHAV spotted first).

A Tanker can choose for the high damage tank. Solo tankers can set up ambushes to catch enemy tanks unawares, and can chew UHAVs to peices, and stands a good chance of defeating a MBT if they have the element of surprise. More likely than not risks losing that tank trying to bring that power to bear on infantry.

pretty good ;)

I really don't think capacitors would take 1-2 years to develop. They could start with cut/pasting the stamina code and making a few tweaks. You already have modules that can affect the size of the stamina pool, and it's regen rate, so the code exists for that functionality. You have a mechanism for regeneration, and for taking chunks of stamina away (jumping) so the stamina code, could at it's most basic level cover the bases for a capacitor system. The UI might take some work to redo, but we could simply use the stamina gauge with a different color as a stand-in until they can port the code from EVE's capacitor UI. If this stuff is written in nice, modular object-oriented code, then much of this should be able to be moved around without breaking other stuff, probably as much work as adding a crafting system.

So you're right, if we had to wait 1-2 years to get it, it wouldn't be worth it, but I think even a very small team could hack this together in 2-3 months, especially if they base the values around those in EVE, which have already been balanced over a decade of play.

I respectfully disagree that the current rebalance effort has a better cost/benefit ratio, especially when it would all have to be redone once capacitors are introduced later. It's the difference between building something that can evolve over time into something fantastic and spending a ton of effort on a side-effort that will later be completely abandoned and replaced. Even if the first is a little harder, it's worth it, because it's the foundation that will be build upon for decades, versus something that's got an expiration date, and will inherently suck.

You're completely right of course that capacitors won't balance everything else (like HP values), but with capacitors in place, you can now design vehicles to have much more survivability, and balance around that. The easiest approach would be to cut/paste values from EVE's ships. Find appropriate analogs and use those to establish the values. These would need to be tweaked of course, as the games are different, but now you're moving forward towards a goal instead of tangental to where we need to be. Turret damage, EHP, regen rates, etc. all SHOULD BE DIFFERENT in a capacitor system. Vehicles could be MUCH stronger than without a capacitor system, because it'll be possible to cripple them. Vehicle fights would be designed to last 30-90 seconds instead of what we would get with the current designs.

For argument's sake, let's assume the current rebalance moves forward without capacitors. When would be a better time to introduce them? IMO it will only ever get harder and harder later. At some point, it will be so cumbersome that CCP completely gives up on the idea. That would be horrible for the future of DUST/Legion.

My timeline goes like this:
1. Introduce capacitors to existing system, add webs and neuts, increase slots, and bring back the old modules before 1.7. Design around high vehicle survivability.
2. Hotfix balance tweaks
3. Introduce missing racial vehicles, turrets, heavy weapons
4. Hotfix balance tweaks
5. Add pilot suits
6. Hotfix balance tweaks
7. Add additional Ewar (tracking disruptors, target painters, ECM)
8. Hotfix balance tweaks
9. Add advanced vehicle variants.
10. Hotfix balance tweaks

It seems like people want to progress:
1. Tweak numbers on existing system with low vehicle survivability and short engagement windows.
2. Hotfix tweaks
3. Add advanced vehicles
4. Hotfix tweaks
5. add pilot suits?
6. Hotfix tweaks
7. ***Trash all balancing data and start from scratch again with capacitors***
8. try to add back everything from before, completely rebalanced around capacitors and high vehicle survivability and long engagement windows.

It just seems like a crazy approach with a lot of wasted efforts. When you've got limited development resources, it's insane to constantly redesign the same stuff over-and-over.

I've got a question Ratt, will UHAV and DHAV have required smalls? Honestly I don't like the idea very much (it destroys people like me who just want 1 turret on my tank for the one gunner I have). Instead of having to variants of tanks, one with and one without, why not just add vehicle locks? Seems a lot simpler to me.

All kinds of EVE things

My opinion is that active and passive fitting is perfect for vehicle combat in an FPS.

Don't forget, EVE does not have WASD movement, it is inherently less dependent on user input, and that's why it has more point and click combat, managing heat, capacity, ammo, ewar etc.

Capacitors are just one thing that could be done, needs balancing and design like any other system. Another layer of complexity does not seem like what we need when there are so many low hanging fruit.

Just going through the misery of starting to go into vehicles has opened my eyes to the HAV plight of fitting and skilling. On the other hand, in battle it's been a breeze, as in I'm having fun. I also think that a Maddie Blaster fit should be the first tank new players skill into as the turret speed is more forgiving and the charge-up of the rail makes it so much less easy to use than one might think coming from BF, for instance.

My opinion is that active and passive fitting is perfect for vehicle combat in an FPS.

Don't forget, EVE does not have WASD movement, it is inherently less dependent on user input, and that's why it has more point and click combat, managing heat, capacity, ammo, ewar etc.

Capacitors are just one thing that could be done, needs balancing and design like any other system. Another layer of complexity does not seem like what we need when there are so many low hanging fruit.

Just going through the misery of starting to go into vehicles has opened my eyes to the HAV plight of fitting and skilling. On the other hand, in battle it's been a breeze, as in I'm having fun. I also think that a Maddie Blaster fit should be the first tank new players skill into as the turret speed is more forgiving and the charge-up of the rail makes it so much less easy to use than one might think coming from BF, for instance.

My opinion is that active and passive fitting is perfect for vehicle combat in an FPS.

Don't forget, EVE does not have WASD movement, it is inherently less dependent on user input, and that's why it has more point and click combat, managing heat, capacity, ammo, ewar etc.

Capacitors are just one thing that could be done, needs balancing and design like any other system. Another layer of complexity does not seem like what we need when there are so many low hanging fruit.

Just going through the misery of starting to go into vehicles has opened my eyes to the HAV plight of fitting and skilling. On the other hand, in battle it's been a breeze, as in I'm having fun. I also think that a Maddie Blaster fit should be the first tank new players skill into as the turret speed is more forgiving and the charge-up of the rail makes it so much less easy to use than one might think coming from BF, for instance.

Just a random thought/request while you're here. Have you considered making modules on vehicle operate on a similar principle to how cloaking devices do? Activation consumes energy and then recharges when the module is off. While I think the Duration/Cooldown system works well enough for Dust, what I very much dislike is how rigid it is. Using 50% of the duration should cost 50% of the cooldown, not 100% as it currently does. Obviously some limitations such as reactivation cooldowns would need to be impliment to prevent abuse, but in general I'd like to see a softer duration/cooldown system at some point.

Cough.

Eve does now have WASD controls. It is a beta opt in feature.

pretty good ;)

You can also go for an Anti Tank Gunship with full Rails on a UHAV, or large Blaster 2 rails, basically as laspredator from w40k.

Please, please, PLEASE remove the (at least large) rail bonus from the Cal DHAV. That plus it's many highs and low hp only encourage redline camping fits. I did some theoretical number crunching and it gets nearly 3.5k damage per shot, almost enough to OHKO a Python. Please, let it be a CQB missile Gank tank like the Gal is with blasters. Not to mention have two weapon bonuses is unfair to the Gal.

There will be no DHAV rail fit, I will make it so, whether through fitting bonuses or something even heavier handed.

I may not agree with it, but I can understand and accept it

My opinion is that active and passive fitting is perfect for vehicle combat in an FPS.

Don't forget, EVE does not have WASD movement, it is inherently less dependent on user input, and that's why it has more point and click combat, managing heat, capacity, ammo, ewar etc.

Capacitors are just one thing that could be done, needs balancing and design like any other system. Another layer of complexity does not seem like what we need when there are so many low hanging fruit.

Just going through the misery of starting to go into vehicles has opened my eyes to the HAV plight of fitting and skilling. On the other hand, in battle it's been a breeze, as in I'm having fun. I also think that a Maddie Blaster fit should be the first tank new players skill into as the turret speed is more forgiving and the charge-up of the rail makes it so much less easy to use than one might think coming from BF, for instance.

On a somewhat related topic: Rattati, do you see changing other vehicle and suit progression to follow tanks? That is, all have the same slots across tiers only changing CPU/PG?

I am aware of that, and it does not affect my point of the combat design being made overcomplex, to make it challenging and "fun"

My opinion is that active and passive fitting is perfect for vehicle combat in an FPS.

Don't forget, EVE does not have WASD movement, it is inherently less dependent on user input, and that's why it has more point and click combat, managing heat, capacity, ammo, ewar etc.

Capacitors are just one thing that could be done, needs balancing and design like any other system. Another layer of complexity does not seem like what we need when there are so many low hanging fruit.

Just going through the misery of starting to go into vehicles has opened my eyes to the HAV plight of fitting and skilling. On the other hand, in battle it's been a breeze, as in I'm having fun. I also think that a Maddie Blaster fit should be the first tank new players skill into as the turret speed is more forgiving and the charge-up of the rail makes it so much less easy to use than one might think coming from BF, for instance.

Oh dear, you want me to call it "Pokey's Thing?"

I appreciate you taking the time to respond. While I'm disappointed that capacitors aren't on the short or medium-term horizon, I appreciate that you're at least communicating that to us.

I don't really see capacitors as another layer of complexity. I see it as unifying the complexity of multiple cooldowns that we currently have. It's actually a simplification of the current system. You're right that not everything in EVE should transfer to DUST/Legion. They ARE different styles of games, and managing lots of systems is a big part of EVE's combat experience that wouldn't translate well to DUST--I agree with you there. For one thing, I don't think overheating would make sense in an FPS. It requires too much micromanagement. But with the ability to configure your HAV to your taste, you would have the option to build cap-stable fits that require LESS management than what we have now. It gives the player freedom and flexibility.

I also see it as a major balancing tool for you guys. Right now you can really only tweak things that directly increase or decrease survivability. This would give you other variables to tweak that would affect survivability only indirectly. I feel like it would probably be useful to have those balancing options in your toolkit.

I know you're not a huge EVE player, but there is a lot of manual piloting in EVE, trying to maintain transversal against your opponent and position properly (If you're clicking "orbit" or "approach" in PvP, you're doing it wrong). Honestly I don't see much changing from a module-management standpoint with the addition of capacitors. You may have to turn a few things off more often to conserve cap, but it would be unwise for a player to fit more active modules than he can manage on his HAV. I'm sure there's a sweet-spot of module count that's reasonable to manage while still engaging in visceral FPS vehicle combat (a repper, prop mod, maybe a hardener or two, it's really not that crazy).

I hope this has been at least somewhat helpful in terms of maybe influencing your thinking of how/when capacitors might fit into a longer-term roadmap. In my opinion it would be a mistake to write capacitors off as adding complexity to an already complex game. I don't want to derail any progress. It seems like the train is already too far past the station at this point, so I'll respectfully bow out.

As always, thanks for your hard work. o7

Hi, can all of you running spreadsheets, please rename them as "Breaking Stuff's something", Spkr4thedead's something so I can more easily cross reference what you say with your data, I am overflowing with data, which is still a good thing.

Much appreciated!

Now, could you send me on [email protected] your thoughts/designs so I can truly see how it could pan out. Really don't like closing doors, but sometimes it's necessary.

Hi, can all of you running spreadsheets, please rename them as "Breaking Stuff's something", Spkr4thedead's something so I can more easily cross reference what you say with your data, I am overflowing with data, which is still a good thing.

Much appreciated!