Subset Games Forum

I think it would be pretty powerful and less interestingness, plus the loadouts are supposed to be a CE showcase. Although there are already mods that do what you sugested I think, so why not just use those?

I'm still waiting for suggestions concerning the supposedly good awful Stealth B by the way. I change it to Maul beam only in the current build, but to me it just seems like this makes the ship 100% more boring, cause it plays almost exactly the same as in vanilla.

Sleeper Service wrote:I'm still waiting for suggestions concerning the supposedly good awful Stealth B by the way. I change it to Maul beam only in the current build, but to me it just seems like this makes the ship 100% more boring, cause it plays almost exactly the same as in vanilla.

Not sure if you saw my little post about giving it level 3 sensors - more information for you to choose the weapon you use, but not too much of a buff in general. I also like it when ships come with stuff I'd barely ever buy, it's kind of cool. I think it's ok otherwise.

Yeah but I don't really see how that would defuse the beef people have with the loadout (you where suggesting adding that to the current loadout, right?). Also I'm a little weary of giving these things out for free, it would basically be a 40 starting scrap bonus. Further it would remove some meaningful choices and upgrade potential from the game. It would also render a few event outcomes useless, so yeah, I'm not too found of this.

Yes, I definitely see your point, and there isn't really anything reasonable to take away in exchange. That said, buffing it was what the discussion was generally about... I was thinking that it wasn't really taking away an upgrade path since it's not an upgrade I'd ever get, unless maybe just for fun on easy, and it's a stretch to truly call it a 40 scrap, as well.

As for the beef with the loadout, I've found the damage output of this version of the ship to be very unpredictable, thus making fights longer (very bad). Knowing exact enemy power levels would let you choose the appropriate weapon to use and room to target.

You don't need to know the exact charge time of a weapon before you cloak. It's quite simple to work out.

If it's a laser, cloak as it fires. If it's a beam, wait until it's really red and cloak and hope you can stop it before it fires.

If the enemy ship is the Beam Master and it's Sector 1... restart and try again because you will be torn apart by his superior beam weaponry.

Sleeper Service wrote:I think it would be pretty powerful and less interestingness, plus the loadouts are supposed to be a CE showcase. Although there are already mods that do what you sugested I think, so why not just use those?

Because that wouldn't be showcasing the godawfulness of the Bulwark in standard CE

stylesrj wrote:You don't need to know the exact charge time of a weapon before you cloak. It's quite simple to work out.

If it's a laser, cloak as it fires. If it's a beam, wait until it's really red and cloak and hope you can stop it before it fires.

That's... not what I'm talking about

Due to the beam's lower damage (than glaive), many early ships with lvl 3 shields will only take 1 dmg/room from you. Problem is that it's hard to plan for it - if you knew, you could use the missile weapons (which has very limited ammo, btw, so you don't really want to just use it whenever) to take out the weapons and see what happens then.
The point is that when I shoot the naginata (and unlike with the glaive), I don't really know how much damage I'll do - and sensors would help with that, a lot.

@edit
Also, you can tell the charge of the weapons with only lvl 2.

meklozz wrote:@edit
Also, you can tell the charge of the weapons with only lvl 2.

Yes but that would mean taking someone off a system to check on it

stylesrj wrote:Is the Rock A supposed to be this bad? Especially the CE edition?

https://youtu.be/hb86_sUYp3k

Or did Katatonik just not have any luck getting decent weapons?
Would it be overpowered to give the Bulwark an Explosive Replicator at the start rather than an ammo manufacturer?

The CE Rock A is actually worse than the standard counterpart in some ways because at the start it can only deal at most 3 hull damage every 15 seconds. That's 6 in 30 and 9 in 45, whereas the vanilla Rock A can deal 2 in 11 (important as that will head off a lot of more powerful enemy weapons such as Burst IIs), 8 in 22, 10 in 33 and 14 in 34). As with the Fed A, the poor reload time means you'll be taking more damage early game than is desirable. The difference is that the Fed A has oodles of future potential in its starting gear whereas the Rock A has little to none. You can of course alleviate the poor DPS by getting the light hull missile online, but it's all extra scrap expenses on top of the extra damage you'll take plus the scrap you spend through Ammo Manufacturer. And even then the ship is only dealing up to 2.5 damage per missile, whereas the vanilla version can deal up to 3 (albeit at greater mercy of the RNG since you're firing only two missiles total compared to the four of the CE counterpart). It all adds up to result in the Rock A falling very far behind the scrap curve very quickly, which is exactly the same problem the Engi B and Zoltan B suffer from and is why I cannot beat CE with those three ships (other poor ships such as the Zoltan C and Stealth B don't fall behind the scrap curve the same way these three ships do and thus are manageable).

As I've said before though, there's only so much you can do to make a missile-only ship not totally suck. I wouldn't know what to suggest beyond upping the DPS and DPM (Damage Per Missile) somehow. Aside from throwing up your hands and doing something really silly like starting the Rock A with a drone system and a missile drone, obviously (although that could be interesting in a way because you'd have to be mindful of incoming damage while you're waiting for the drone to pick the enemy ship apart, so you'd probably want to get the second shield bubble as fast as possible and use your missile drone against ships too weak to get through two bubbles)...

Sleeper Service wrote:I change it to Maul beam only in the current build, but to me it just seems like this makes the ship 100% more boring, cause it plays almost exactly the same as in vanilla.

So do the Fed B, Fed C, Lanius B, Rock A, Mantis B, Mantis C, Crystal A, and Crystal B. And to a lesser extent the Kestral A, Engi B, Engi C, Zoltan C, Lanius A, and Rock C. Plus I still don't see the problem with the Stealth B reclaiming its gimmick of being able to reliably defeat early enemy ships (I say defeat because the Maul won't take all the hull, but will more-or-less irrecoverably wreck the weapons room) in one shot. Personally, I still think this is the least bad option for improving the Stealth B. Although it starting with level three sensors so you can tell which enemy ships have three bars of shields would also work somewhat. I understand why you don't like that idea, but it's actually a kinda clever solution that promotes the strategic use of Ifrits only when they're absolutely needed exactly as the low missile count the Stealth B starts with is intended to promote. I'd probably still wind up selling the starting guns for more flexible alternatives when I play the Stealth B in that case, but hey, it'd be something...

CE Update 1.281
- Advanced Navigation AI and FTL Recharge Booster now allow you to circumvent black holes
- Enemy Version of the Heavy Ion Drone can no longer be acquired by the player
- Adaptive Effector charges much faster now
- Missile Defense Turret Mark I is cheaper now
- Swarm Missile Drone is slightly faster now
- Baton and Bo beam stun time increased
- Player version of the Hadur Mine Launcher is overall better now
- Stealth B loadout replaced with Maul beam
- Zoltan A and B loadout changed
- Rock A loadout changed
- Removed a bunch of bad drone ID's in AE overwrite lists
- Weapon Components now sell correctly in Hazard and Pirate sectors
- Added a free repair event to industrial sector free stuff list
- Terraforming gear sells better in Civilian Sectors now

Captain Trek wrote:The CE Rock A is actually worse than the standard counterpart in some ways because at the start it can only deal at most 3 hull damage every 15 seconds. That's 6 in 30 and 9 in 45, whereas the vanilla Rock A can deal 2 in 11 (important as that will head off a lot of more powerful enemy weapons such as Burst IIs), 8 in 22, 10 in 33 and 14 in 34). As with the Fed A, the poor reload time means you'll be taking more damage early game than is desirable. The difference is that the Fed A has oodles of future potential in its starting gear whereas the Rock A has little to none. You can of course alleviate the poor DPS by getting the light hull missile online, but it's all extra scrap expenses on top of the extra damage you'll take plus the scrap you spend through Ammo Manufacturer. And even then the ship is only dealing up to 2.5 damage per missile, whereas the vanilla version can deal up to 3 (albeit at greater mercy of the RNG since you're firing only two missiles total compared to the four of the CE counterpart). It all adds up to result in the Rock A falling very far behind the scrap curve very quickly, which is exactly the same problem the Engi B and Zoltan B suffer from and is why I cannot beat CE with those three ships (other poor ships such as the Zoltan C and Stealth B don't fall behind the scrap curve the same way these three ships do and thus are manageable).

Yeah, I accepted the nerf mostly because the ship gains new scrap gain option through piracy. It's slightly better now (Ogre instead of Hull Missile MK1)

Captain Trek wrote: Sleeper Service wrote:
I change it to Maul beam only in the current build, but to me it just seems like this makes the ship 100% more boring, cause it plays almost exactly the same as in vanilla.

So do the Fed B, Fed C, Lanius B, Rock A, Mantis B, Mantis C, Crystal A, and Crystal B. And to a lesser extent the Kestral A, Engi B, Engi C, Zoltan C, Lanius A, and Rock C.

Well I'd argue that some of these ships can still play distinctly different. Rock A has a new ammo production meta game, Mantis C can Crystal A has more lockdown capabilities, Crystal B can provide covering fire for its borders, Kestrel A falls behind faster in regards to firepower but is independent from fuel, Engi C can be played as a completely vented ship or can reinforce its crew with avatars whenever necessary. Lanius, Mantis and Rock all gain piracy options. But I see your point. One of my goals was to provide a twist on the vanilla load-outs and I think Stealth B's weapon juggling potential did that fine, but anyway, It got the Maul beam now.

Ah the Maul Beam. I'm watching Biohazard's latest run where he used a Maul Beam to cause damage to two rooms on an enemy ship by pixel-perfect positioning.

Now that the Stealth B has a pinpoint accurate beam that cannot one-shot enemy ships... well yeah, look like exploiting such game mechanics is a rule if you want to survive on Normal/Hard with a shieldless ship (and ruins the whole point of the focus beam being one room at a time).

But why complain when I should really try it out and see if the change is good or not.

Also, I know the Rock C is supposed to be a Crystal ship and wouldn't sink low to do something like piracy, but Crystal Vengeance sucks unless it's an enemy ship equipped with three of them (I'm talking to you, random Crystal ship in asteroid field!).
So it should go back to being a pirate ship like the other Rock ships.