DUST Search - Another kind of tank balancing.

Henri Thoreau wrote:

Encharrion wrote:

Henri Thoreau wrote:

Encharrion wrote:

STB-LURCHASAURUS EV wrote:

try shooting someone with a small railgun and then lets talk about railgun splash.

I was specifically talking about large weapon turrets, not small turrets. I should have clarified, sorry. I think small railguns need a boost though.

Edit: So do small blasters for that matter.

The large railguns actually track quite slowly and have a very small blast radius, not to mention a much lower amount of splash damage relative to direct hit damage. The missile turrets on the other hand... However, the missile turrets are intended to be a jack-of-all-trades weapon.

I'll have to check this, but I seem to recall that the large railgun has the same blast radius as a missile from the large missile launcher. Additionally, the splash damage is so much lower because the direct damage is designed to take out TANKS. You can hardly expect them to let you do 1000 damage to infantry with the splash damage. At the same time, I think the current splash damage is fine, it's the splash RADIUS I'm worried about. It should be more difficult to hit infantry with the railgun than it is now. On the missile turret, I'm pretty sure that it's NOT intended as a jack-of-all-trades weapon. It already has range, if that was the case then it would have no weaknesses. The blaster turret could be made a jack-of-all-trades due to the limited range that it has. It would be countered by long range AV such as railgun turrets and hopefully soon to be added anti-material sniper rifles, as well as forge guns if they un-nerf the range. The missile launcher as an all-round good weapon would simply be broken, as there would be no weakness to exploit.

My bad. I was totally thinking of the small rails apparently. They have a tiny blast radius. I kind of expected the large turret to be in line with that. It is odd that the small and large missiles have pretty much the same blast radius, but the large rail has the same blast radius as the missiles, while it's smaller cousin has the much smaller, pinpoint blast radius. I am not sure if that's a typo or an actual oversight on the part of the devs. Given that the large and smaller missiles have the same blast radius, I would have expected the same thing from the rails.

Concerning the missile jack-of-all-trades status, the fitting comparison window description specifically states that missiles are designed to be "...equally effective against vehicles and infantry."

The blaster turrets are pretty laughable. The one weapon type that is intended to be anti-infantry has lower DPS than an SMG, and far lower DPS than an AR, and it's not exactly an alpha strike weapon like the rail or to a lesser extent missiles.

...but anyway, the blast radius of the rail looks like an issue.


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Encharrion L.O.T.I.S. Legacy Rising 104	Posted - 2012.09.02 23:18:00 - [1] - Quote Maybe we are thinking about this wrong. Maybe, we should set up a different sort of perfect imbalance. It could be set up so that we have 2 different categories of tanks based on their weapon systems. We would have anti-infantry tanks, with missile launchers, that would decimate infantry (including AV). Then we would have anti-tank tanks, armed with railgun turrets or blasters, who would destroy anti-infantry tanks, but, in turn, would be more easily destroyed by AV infantry due to their lack of anti-infantry weapon systems. There is a problem with tanks countering tanks, in that tanks already on the field will shoot down RDVs delivering tanks to the battlefield, but maybe that could be corrected by paying more for a faster hardened RDV with 2x-3x the health. As for changes (other than the RDV), railguns need to be much less effective against infantry, and missiles need to be much less effective against tanks. Blaster turrets current effectiveness against infantry is probably ok, but they need to overheat much slower. Actually, just a thought, if blaster turrets were highly effective against tanks AND infantry at close range, they could be countered by railguns and long range AV (perhaps new anti-material sniper rifles or pre-nerf forge guns). I think an important boost to AV infantry, and specifically heavy suits, would be a reduction in the amount of splash damage received by heavy suits. Since tanks kill infantry mostly with splash damage, this would increase a heavy's survivability against tanks dramatically, and allow for more viable close range AV (like post-nerf Forge guns). I know there are a lot of problems with this, but we might be able to make it work. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Edit: I think the biggest problem is that we keep thinking of the tank power balance as being a two part equation, with tanks on one side, and AV on the other, but it can and should be much more than that.
Encharrion L.O.T.I.S. Legacy Rising 104	Posted - 2012.09.02 23:46:00 - [2] - Quote Fivetimes Infinity wrote: I agree with the general idea. Railguns I guess are supposed to be anti-vehicle, but they are lethal to infantry, too. I think a lot of balance could be achieved through simply reducing railgun splash, and giving vehicles limited ammunition. I agree that railgun splash should probably be reduced, but I don't think I agree with limited ammunition. With limited ammunition, tank drivers, when they run out of ammo, will go and hide in a corner of the map until the end of the game to avoid losing the tank if they can't easily resupply their tank. If they CAN easily resupply their tank, then what is the point of limited ammunition?
Encharrion L.O.T.I.S. Legacy Rising 104	Posted - 2012.09.02 23:48:00 - [3] - Quote STB-LURCHASAURUS EV wrote: try shooting someone with a small railgun and then lets talk about railgun splash. I was specifically talking about large weapon turrets, not small turrets. I should have clarified, sorry. I think small railguns need a boost though. Edit: So do small blasters for that matter. And I have tried to shoot someone with a small railgun, it's terrible.
Encharrion L.O.T.I.S. Legacy Rising 104	Posted - 2012.09.03 00:12:00 - [4] - Quote Henri Thoreau wrote: Encharrion wrote: STB-LURCHASAURUS EV wrote: try shooting someone with a small railgun and then lets talk about railgun splash. I was specifically talking about large weapon turrets, not small turrets. I should have clarified, sorry. I think small railguns need a boost though. Edit: So do small blasters for that matter. The large railguns actually track quite slowly and have a very small blast radius, not to mention a much lower amount of splash damage relative to direct hit damage. The missile turrets on the other hand... However, the missile turrets are intended to be a jack-of-all-trades weapon. I'll have to check this, but I seem to recall that the large railgun has the same blast radius as a missile from the large missile launcher. Additionally, the splash damage is so much lower because the direct damage is designed to take out TANKS. You can hardly expect them to let you do 1000 damage to infantry with the splash damage. At the same time, I think the current splash damage is fine, it's the splash RADIUS I'm worried about. It should be more difficult to hit infantry with the railgun than it is now. On the missile turret, I'm pretty sure that it's NOT intended as a jack-of-all-trades weapon. It already has range, if that was the case then it would have no weaknesses. The blaster turret could be made a jack-of-all-trades due to the limited range that it has. It would be countered by long range AV such as railgun turrets and hopefully soon to be added anti-material sniper rifles, as well as forge guns if they un-nerf the range. The missile launcher as an all-round good weapon would simply be broken, as there would be no weakness to exploit.
Encharrion L.O.T.I.S. Legacy Rising 104	Posted - 2012.09.03 01:10:00 - [5] - Quote Henri Thoreau wrote: Encharrion wrote: Henri Thoreau wrote: Encharrion wrote: STB-LURCHASAURUS EV wrote: try shooting someone with a small railgun and then lets talk about railgun splash. I was specifically talking about large weapon turrets, not small turrets. I should have clarified, sorry. I think small railguns need a boost though. Edit: So do small blasters for that matter. The large railguns actually track quite slowly and have a very small blast radius, not to mention a much lower amount of splash damage relative to direct hit damage. The missile turrets on the other hand... However, the missile turrets are intended to be a jack-of-all-trades weapon. I'll have to check this, but I seem to recall that the large railgun has the same blast radius as a missile from the large missile launcher. Additionally, the splash damage is so much lower because the direct damage is designed to take out TANKS. You can hardly expect them to let you do 1000 damage to infantry with the splash damage. At the same time, I think the current splash damage is fine, it's the splash RADIUS I'm worried about. It should be more difficult to hit infantry with the railgun than it is now. On the missile turret, I'm pretty sure that it's NOT intended as a jack-of-all-trades weapon. It already has range, if that was the case then it would have no weaknesses. The blaster turret could be made a jack-of-all-trades due to the limited range that it has. It would be countered by long range AV such as railgun turrets and hopefully soon to be added anti-material sniper rifles, as well as forge guns if they un-nerf the range. The missile launcher as an all-round good weapon would simply be broken, as there would be no weakness to exploit. My bad. I was totally thinking of the small rails apparently. They have a tiny blast radius. I kind of expected the large turret to be in line with that. It is odd that the small and large missiles have pretty much the same blast radius, but the large rail has the same blast radius as the missiles, while it's smaller cousin has the much smaller, pinpoint blast radius. I am not sure if that's a typo or an actual oversight on the part of the devs. Given that the large and smaller missiles have the same blast radius, I would have expected the same thing from the rails. Concerning the missile jack-of-all-trades status, the fitting comparison window description specifically states that missiles are designed to be "...equally effective against vehicles and infantry." The blaster turrets are pretty laughable. The one weapon type that is intended to be anti-infantry has lower DPS than an SMG, and far lower DPS than an AR, and it's not exactly an alpha strike weapon like the rail or to a lesser extent missiles. ...but anyway, the blast radius of the rail looks like an issue. If you were thinking of small rails than your previous post makes sense, and I do believe the small railgun splash radius should be increased so that it is at least comparable to the large railgun splash damage. The same radius? Only if the large railgun splash radius is nerfed, and even then, I'm not sure the small railgun should have the same blast radius rather than somewhat smaller (but compareable). This quote you found in the missiles description concerns me, missiles as jack-of-all-trades seems like a very dangerous design decision. If anything should be jack-of-all-trades, it should be blasters, which are limited by their lack of range. I hope CCP changes their view on the role of missiles to anti-infantry. Small blaster turrets ARE laughable, I agree with you there, they need a major damage buff. With a damage buff, it could even be a little brother to the large blaster turret and be made into an all-round powerful weapon able to take on infantry and, maybe, lightly armored targets like LAVs, but with the same limited range. It would also have to do low enough damage that while it could perhaps destroy an LAV, it won't affect a tank particularly much.
Encharrion L.O.T.I.S. Legacy Rising 104	Posted - 2012.09.03 03:06:00 - [6] - Quote I'm thinking I should have made this thread in Feedback/Requests, I would appreciate it if a gm would move it please.