Unbalanced ships

General discussion about the game.
Elhazzared
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Re: Unbalanced ships

Postby Elhazzared » Fri May 16, 2014 4:09 pm

Perhaps I'll have to record at some point a run through the first sector alone so that you can see that I don't mean any exageration at all when I say that half the enemy ships I get while playing the stealth B are drone ships.

I don't exagerate when I say that everything fires first. It just does. I have tried as it was sugested and with the exception of exceptionally long charge weapons, they still get to fire after my cloak is down and before my weapon starts to fire. In fact all weapons except the very long recharge ones fire twice on level 2 cloaking. I wait for teh first volley, cloak. The cloak expires and they still fire again before I do.
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5thHorseman
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Re: Unbalanced ships

Postby 5thHorseman » Fri May 16, 2014 4:22 pm

Elhazzared wrote:Perhaps I'll have to record at some point a run through the first sector alone so that you can see that I don't mean any exageration at all when I say that half the enemy ships I get while playing the stealth B are drone ships.


I would love to see this video. I am hoping to make my own when I get around to unlocking it in my YouTube save.

Elhazzared wrote:I don't exagerate when I say that everything fires first. It just does. I have tried as it was sugested and with the exception of exceptionally long charge weapons, they still get to fire after my cloak is down and before my weapon starts to fire. In fact all weapons except the very long recharge ones fire twice on level 2 cloaking. I wait for teh first volley, cloak. The cloak expires and they still fire again before I do.


OH. Yeah. You cloak when they fire when you're at level 2. We're talking about after you get level 3, which is what your first 50 scrap should go into. Not your first 70, or 75, or whatever to power it. Your first 50. Take something down to power it. They'll be dead before your O2 will need to come back up.

We've said this all works for L3 cloak in most every post we've made. I am a bit remiss continuing to help you if you have truly not noticed that.

EDIT: I misspoke and changed it above. I previously said "OH. Yeah. You cloak and then fire when you're at level 2" which is exactly the opposite of what I wanted to say. Sorry about that.
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Jerjare
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Re: Unbalanced ships

Postby Jerjare » Sat May 17, 2014 5:11 am

5th Horseman, this is my build order for Stealth B. Do you do the same?

1.) First 50 scrap upgrade to level 3 cloak
2.) If I find a 1 power weapon in sector 1/2, next 50 scrap to upgrade weapons to level 5.
3.) Additional scrap toward reactor as needed and build up evasion ideally to 6.

A lot of people feel you need to hoard your scrap till you get shields to make this ship manageable, but I find that if you do that you really miss out on a lot of fun ways of upgrading it. While it is a rather specialized ship there's lots of ways you can go with it.
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5thHorseman
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Re: Unbalanced ships

Postby 5thHorseman » Sat May 17, 2014 12:13 pm

Jerjare wrote:5th Horseman, this is my build order for Stealth B. Do you do the same?

1.) First 50 scrap upgrade to level 3 cloak
2.) If I find a 1 power weapon in sector 1/2, next 50 scrap to upgrade weapons to level 5.
3.) Additional scrap toward reactor as needed and build up evasion ideally to 6.

A lot of people feel you need to hoard your scrap till you get shields to make this ship manageable, but I find that if you do that you really miss out on a lot of fun ways of upgrading it. While it is a rather specialized ship there's lots of ways you can go with it.


I tend to:
1) First 50 scrap upgrade to L3 cloak
2) Save scrap for a shield, not buying anything until I find one or a seriously good weapon (Flak, BL2, that sort of thing)
3) Treat the cloak as a shield bubble while upgrading the ship further.
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Elhazzared
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Re: Unbalanced ships

Postby Elhazzared » Sat May 17, 2014 3:18 pm

5thHorseman wrote:
Elhazzared wrote:Perhaps I'll have to record at some point a run through the first sector alone so that you can see that I don't mean any exageration at all when I say that half the enemy ships I get while playing the stealth B are drone ships.


I would love to see this video. I am hoping to make my own when I get around to unlocking it in my YouTube save.

Elhazzared wrote:I don't exagerate when I say that everything fires first. It just does. I have tried as it was sugested and with the exception of exceptionally long charge weapons, they still get to fire after my cloak is down and before my weapon starts to fire. In fact all weapons except the very long recharge ones fire twice on level 2 cloaking. I wait for teh first volley, cloak. The cloak expires and they still fire again before I do.


OH. Yeah. You cloak when they fire when you're at level 2. We're talking about after you get level 3, which is what your first 50 scrap should go into. Not your first 70, or 75, or whatever to power it. Your first 50. Take something down to power it. They'll be dead before your O2 will need to come back up.

We've said this all works for L3 cloak in most every post we've made. I am a bit remiss continuing to help you if you have truly not noticed that.

EDIT: I misspoke and changed it above. I previously said "OH. Yeah. You cloak and then fire when you're at level 2" which is exactly the opposite of what I wanted to say. Sorry about that.


And as I said before. I don't exagerate when I say that everything fires first.

I even gave you an example of a level 2 cloak. But on a level 3 I still get shot by almost all weapons before I get to fire. I cloak, the cloak goes through and between a second or two before I fire the enemy unleashes a volley.

The reason i know this is especially because of the drone ships. They have drones but they also have weapons, sometimes even heavy lasers and I am forced to cloak right before the drone fires at me... Doesn't matter, after my cloak ends the enemy ship still fires before I do... Only weapons with very long charges that can show up in the first sectors like heavy ions do not get to fire... Heavy lasers fire, missile fires, mini beam fires, basic lasers fire, normal ions fires. I am unsure if the dual laser can fire or not as I don't think I've ever cloaked first when I was against a ship with that but I can probably avoid that one.

Still half the ships I fight have drones and the usual weapon configuration when I fly the stealth B is... Mini beam + basic laser. Basic laser + missile launcher. 2 basic lasers (on the undmaned and unshieled ships). This is mostly what I get on every single fight.
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The stars cried out
And under the ashes of infinity
Hope, scarred and bleeding breathed it's last."

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itg
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Re: Unbalanced ships

Postby itg » Sat May 17, 2014 8:31 pm

Elhazzared wrote:
5thHorseman wrote:
Elhazzared wrote:Perhaps I'll have to record at some point a run through the first sector alone so that you can see that I don't mean any exageration at all when I say that half the enemy ships I get while playing the stealth B are drone ships.


I would love to see this video. I am hoping to make my own when I get around to unlocking it in my YouTube save.

Elhazzared wrote:I don't exagerate when I say that everything fires first. It just does. I have tried as it was sugested and with the exception of exceptionally long charge weapons, they still get to fire after my cloak is down and before my weapon starts to fire. In fact all weapons except the very long recharge ones fire twice on level 2 cloaking. I wait for teh first volley, cloak. The cloak expires and they still fire again before I do.


OH. Yeah. You cloak when they fire when you're at level 2. We're talking about after you get level 3, which is what your first 50 scrap should go into. Not your first 70, or 75, or whatever to power it. Your first 50. Take something down to power it. They'll be dead before your O2 will need to come back up.

We've said this all works for L3 cloak in most every post we've made. I am a bit remiss continuing to help you if you have truly not noticed that.

EDIT: I misspoke and changed it above. I previously said "OH. Yeah. You cloak and then fire when you're at level 2" which is exactly the opposite of what I wanted to say. Sorry about that.


And as I said before. I don't exagerate when I say that everything fires first.

I even gave you an example of a level 2 cloak. But on a level 3 I still get shot by almost all weapons before I get to fire. I cloak, the cloak goes through and between a second or two before I fire the enemy unleashes a volley.


You do know level 2 cloaking is shorter than level 3, right?

Edit: Another random thought: are you manning the weapons system? We've all assumed you have been because it would be a bizarre choice to move the weapons guy, but it would explain your troubles if you did move him.
Elhazzared
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Re: Unbalanced ships

Postby Elhazzared » Sun May 18, 2014 2:00 pm

So just to clear something up. Yes i do man my weapon systems.

With that outof the way. let's clear another thing. Enemies actually charge their weapons faster. How many times have you run your ship with the same weapons as the enemy, you have your systems manned and yet, they still fire first and by first I mean a good 1 or 2 seconds before you? To me this is always the case. It's as if the enemy ships all have a fully skilled crew at very least and possibly even an automated reloader (or whatever the name of the augment is). Under no circusntance I fire at the same speed as the enemy when using the same weapons... I must admit I haven't noticed whether this is the case late game when my crew skilled is maxed but at least in the first sectors this is true.

As for the recording. I'll make one as soon as I manage to get the house empty for a few minutes. Then I'll have enough silence to be able to record.
"The heavens burned
The stars cried out
And under the ashes of infinity
Hope, scarred and bleeding breathed it's last."

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Twinge
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Re: Unbalanced ships

Postby Twinge » Sun May 18, 2014 5:19 pm

Elhazzared wrote:let's clear another thing. Enemies actually charge their weapons faster.


Enemy weapons play by the same rules yours do and the math doesn't lie.


There are 3 possibilities I can think of:

1) You're delusional.
2) You're using an odd mod that's breaking things.
3) Your copy of FTL is fundamentally broken and should be reinstalled.
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project_mercy
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Re: Unbalanced ships

Postby project_mercy » Mon May 19, 2014 6:41 am

Twinge wrote:
Elhazzared wrote:let's clear another thing. Enemies actually charge their weapons faster.


Enemy weapons play by the same rules yours do and the math doesn't lie.


This. It's possible their crew is at a higher level than yours maybe, and that shaves off the few tenths you notice.

As an aside; Twinge, have you noticed if there's a bonus to both NPC Evade and NPC To Hit on Hard? I started writing down the last few flagship fights, and so far (I've only got about 100 shots in, so the dataset is still too small), but it seems there's some percentage (not flat) bonus to hit. Also, anecdotally I seem to miss more on hard, though when I hack the ships engines/piloting I'm not seeing their evasion be noticeably higher in their evasion display.

I'm not bothered by it, I'm just more interested academically. Also, if that's so, the final two points of shields may be worth more than engines on Hard, just due to the decrease in effectiveness.
Elhazzared
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Re: Unbalanced ships

Postby Elhazzared » Mon May 19, 2014 9:15 am

Twinge wrote:
Elhazzared wrote:let's clear another thing. Enemies actually charge their weapons faster.


Enemy weapons play by the same rules yours do and the math doesn't lie.


There are 3 possibilities I can think of:

1) You're delusional.
2) You're using an odd mod that's breaking things.
3) Your copy of FTL is fundamentally broken and should be reinstalled.


I know the enemy weapons play by the same rules, but as I've said, they always fire first by a decent amount of time which as I said leads me to belive that they either come with fully maxed out skill crew or that alongside an automated reloader for them to fire that much faster than I do.

As for your options.

1 - I never claimed to be a sane person, that said I do am fairly sure I am not delusional.
2 - I've never used any mod at any point.
3 - Somehow I don't think this would be the cause. If there was a problem with the instalation then it should at very least have given me problems like crashes or anything and it never played any less than perfectly.
"The heavens burned
The stars cried out
And under the ashes of infinity
Hope, scarred and bleeding breathed it's last."

For my Let's play series of FTL please follow the Link