Balance (for APCs)

[PhoeniX-FlamE]

hey APC, I cant send PMs and I already went over your list, and I dont think theres anything there that needs to be private so I'm just posting the list here


Pummel - damn hard to balance - problem is pummel rushs, 4 scouts / tank with pummel kill rec wayyyy too fast, while you can barly finish 1 pool... as far as I know pools and buildings have same armor, no? if so I think dmg to buildings needs to be reduced, more ammo though and slight more dmg (need to be played with abit to get a good setting) for none & light armor

Pulse Stab - fine as is, I like PL stab much more than SP stab in early games due to it being a much better scout killer - problem it lacks the dmg for buildings - which balance it with SP stab so its fine as is (+ you can get PL without armory)

Plasma - as you said

TAG - too weak and too slow! even if you do hit the chances of the msls hitting is about 5%

assult laser - very problemtic - its strong and damn deadly to scouts but its weakness is its range
which makes it almost useless but only cause of range - thing is - if you increase range without reducing damage to non-armor (scouts) it would be overpowerd

Splinter - as you said - but it'll need alot of testing, its way too strong in FE

Hornet - fine as is, its hard to sneak a rocket tanks , maybe abit slower lock on a recycler

Comet - as you said

MDM - fine as is, need skills to use it in a dogfight and its only good for taking base defenses down - and if you set base defense right it wouldnt be a problem - can also be countered with m-curtians

prox - maybe add just abit more to the lasting time - but not much more, it does more damage than a laser to scout - 2 proxes make a scion scout red and isdf scout about 40 I think

pilot weapons - sniper can be overpowered when a pilot is on bay if it doesnt cost enough but rocket will *always* be useless compared to sniper... if you make rocket cost 5 and sniper 30 rocket might get used - but still very very rarly making grandes cost 5 might be better too - some ppl dont like booster anyways but its the stock thing and grandes just cost 2 much

Gauss - fine as is, one awesome weapon

Blast & scion sniper are also fine

stinger - hmm maybe abit more dmg to light and buildings (buildings only in assult mode)

Multilock - as you said and it might be too weak as well

wasp - as you said, but the big might be ok - need to be tested with a stronger wasp first

blink, aha blink, very prolemtic - this goes to more than just weapon balancing, its a race balance issue

static charge - slower ammo drain will be fine

seeker - IMO abit too small, if it was abit bigger it would actualy get in crossfire making it some kind of a shield (taking a hit instead of you) - but thats just a silly idea of mine, it can probably be balanced in other ways too

Acid - needs alot of testing, its kinda hard getting acid cloud to hit + an archer can only shoot one or two no? and in 1.2 you couldnt drive archers so if ppl would drive archers it can be more of a problem so I'm not sure about that in 1.3

Howitzer - fine as is IMO

Resin - just delete it, I dont think theres any way you could make it useful, unless you give it ridicoules dmg - and then put it behind hills as some sort of a "flame turret"


anyways, thats just weapons, some units needs tweaking as well, FE came close but still not perfact, also - scion vs isdf balance is still a problem, espicely in early games

isdf scout just DOMINATE scion scouts - problem is, you cant make scion scouts any better because it will make them overpowered for the long run when they get arc and shields
I was thinking of making plasma cannon stronger vs non armor - but that also need some testing

[Fried]

In fe splinter is a counter to atlas and archer attack-turret, not easy to aim spot on unless leaving you vulnerable
and heavy on ammo, I never found it overpowered.
Main problem in FE is was blink warrior and perhaps 140 range to laser instead of 150, still were not on that subject are we.

PF thats a lot of changes in one go a bigger discussion should be made on these subjects, a small change in one place can affect
many other areas as im sure you know.

[APCs r evil]

Actually Fried that was a list of things I PM'd him that I thought might be too weak or powerful. As to why I PM'd it, it was just a list of my opinions. Since the nature of those particular opinions is a touchy one; I decided it would be a safer idea to PM it untill I got some more input.

[Spawn]

splinter in fe was fun, but only really good vs hads, range was 200m and you got 4 shots, but tahts enough to kill a spike or atlas before anythign can be done

acid archers only get 2 shots, this makes it more of a defensive weapon, you need a lot of trucks to use it offensively, and the first shot is always wasted (fires too soon).  it is quite good against a mass of bikes or tanks, and can be a huge pain when it comes to pilots and spawn killing

easiest thing to do with pummel is increase rec health, but reducing damage to recyclers reduces damage to all heavy ships, all treaded units (minus service truck) and all buildings, you currently have barely enough ammo to kill a pool and thats including scout ammo regen

horent lock time could be increased on recycler easy, but the lock time is already much less than the firerate, so you lock then wait a bit to fire, but with 2 trucks i have snuck around to the back of a base and killed rec+gt behind it vs good bac team

mdm had ammo usage increased in 1.3, so you mean 1.2 or 1.3 mdm?

laser and ass laser does more damage to light in 1.3, so which do you mean?

pilot weapons are generally useless, much more useful to be in a ship, but after a rec rush maybe

static is currently very good against apcs (totally nullify the pilots) and a close group of bikes, but not much besides that

4 resin archers can kill rec quite fast, but ai is way too stupid to use it right, maybe completely change design of weapon?

and blink is way too powerful in stock 1.3, you become immortal

[APCs r evil]

Just remembered I should post the list..

[THIS IS THE ORIGINAL LIST, THE ONE PF WAS TALKING ABOUT AT THE START OF THIS THREAD]

Pummel      -   Too weak for the ammo cost

Pulse Stab   -   Too weak?

Plasma      -   Too weak, not enough ammo

TAG Cannon   -   Too weak?

Assault Laser   -   Too weak and not enough range

Splinter   -   Not enough damage at even 15m away from the mortar

Hornet      -   Too much damage per second for something with that range

Comet      -   Too slow and weak for the ammo cost

MDM      -   Too strong?

Prox Mine   -   Does it last long enough? Does it do enough damage?

Pilot weapons   -   Too expensive?

Gauss Gun   -   Too weak for the ammo cost? Velocity too low? (1000mps)

Blast      -   Velocity too low? (1000mps)

Scion Sniper   -   Velocity too low? (1000mps)

   Arc, Laser and the ISDF Sniper have a velocity of 1000000mps

Stinger C/A   -   Too weak for the Lancer

Multilock   -   Fires the missiles too slowly

WASP      -   Too slow, not enough damage, too big

Blink      -   Too much ammo

Static Charge   -   Not enough damage for the ammo cost

Seeker      -   Too slow?

Acid Cloud   -   Damages too fast

Howitzer   -   AI Range too short? (350m)

Popper      -   Rocket is too slow

Resin      -   Really need some input here, not much can be done to it to balance it with the other mortars without changing it's "Stream of toxic goo" properties without making it take a massive toll on the FPS

[Spawn]

i have an idea for resin, ill tell ya if your ever on msn

[APCs r evil]

These are the tweaks I have come up with after reading PF's and Spawn's posts. (At this point I will probably be the one incorporating the tweaks into the ODF's.)

Pummel - Decrease ammo cost and move it up in the tech tree? (My suggested requirement, Training Fac.)

TAG Cannon (I was talking about the 1.3 version in the original list) - Increase the TAG speed from 100 to 120. (100 is Plasma speed) Slightly increase missile accuracy and damage, increase the missile's tracking time.(This also increases the shot delay between TAGs.)

Plasma(I'm talking ISDF vehicle Plasma, the Tower and ships use different versions) -  Decrease ammo cost to FE levels. Increase None and Light armor damage slightly.

Assault Laser -  Just checked, it does 700 damage per second to scouts, and 400 to Tanks at 100m range. Ion Gun II does 500 damage to None armor and 300 damage to Light armor at 150m range. (These are double hardpoint values)
ISDF Scouts have 1800 hit points, and Scion scouts have 1200 in Combat mode and 900 in Assault mode.

Splinter - Slower turn rate, bullets are more accurate.

Comet - Increase speed from 15 to.. what? Increase damage from,

damageRadius = 50.0

damageValue(N) = 2000 // none
damageValue(L) = 1500 // light
damageValue(H) = 1500 // heavy

damageValue(S) = 1700 // standard
damageValue(D) = 2000 // deflection
damageValue(A) = 1300 // absorbion

to what?

Prox Mine - Increase lifespan from 30 seconds to; 50?

Decrease cost of pilot Rocket from 30 to 10.(The are both SOMEWHAT powerful.) Decrease cost of Booster to, 5 or even 1. And grenades to 5. The rifles will remain unchanged. (At least untill someone can prove that they are not too powerful to cost 10 or so scrap.)

Stinger Msl - Light armor damage increase.

Stinger Swarm(I'm talking the 1.3 version again, there is no charge up time, they all fire in a salvo) - Slight heavy armor damage increase.

Multilock(It locks on properly in the private beta) - Decrease the shot delay between missiles from 1 second to .2 seconds. Add a slight wiggle for effects purposes(Unless someone comes up with a reason not to.)  It does pretty good damage as-is. It also tracks as long and effectively as Shadower missiles. Increase lock range? (175m)

Wasp - How about half the size and 20% more damage? (It uses the Prox Mine explosion now)

Static Charge - These are per-second values,

ammoCost = 200.0   (Blast also costs 200)
damageRadius = 20.0

damageValue(N) = 400.0 // none
damageValue(L) = 300.0 // light
damageValue(H) = 100.0 // heavy

damageValue(S) = 300.0 // standard
damageValue(D) = 400.0 // deflection
damageValue(A) = 100.0 // absorbtion

How about reduce the ammo cost to 150?

Seeker- Idea A: Double the size and increase the speed.(Only 10 meters per second currently, and a seek range[Chase range] of 50m.
Idea B: Increase speed to, say, 30. Increase seek range to 125, and slightly increase the damage.

Resin - I'm looking into possible ways to avoid the massive FPS loss at any considerable range. But it's use is still in question.

[Angelwing]

I don't think the initial ISDF vs Scion fight should be changed at all, the only thing that gives ISDF the advantage is the FAF missile - a good scion pilot will often put up a good fight, or even kill an ISDF if he knows how to use the craft. I disagree with increasing the damage to h.armor, as it means they don't need to morph to kill scavs, etc - somewhat making it obselete as it's rarely used for anything else bar fang/blink suicide runs.
Scion get a bad start, yes - but are way better lategame. That's balance right there.

Pummel seems fine to me as it is. Yes it can be powerful, but only for a small number of things (ie: base rushing) - if you make it better at other things then it decreases the usage of other weapons (and currently I think the Chaingun, Laser and Pummel are all pretty equal and balanced with each other)

I would however either reduce the damage to Heavy Armor from the chaingun by roughly 10% and/or increase the armor of the Factory by 10-20%. The Rec health is fine, but IMO the factory is far too weak a structure and can be rushed and killed extremely quickly even from chainscout runs - not really giving you much of a chance at all if you Recy has been lost.

Splinter needs to be made more useful. No doubt about that. In FE it was extremely good at killing groups of service trucks (as was acid cloud, to a lesser extent) - i'd like to see similar here.

TAG Cannon and Multi-lock - use FE's variants, they used completely revamped systems which both didnt cause them to suck and made them look nice at the same time.


Seekers and especially Prox mines need to be far more useful:
- Double Pmine damage (radical?, perhaps - probably needs much testing)
- Double Pmine lifetime
- Increase damage to heavy armor (the idea being to significantly damage or slow down asstanks/walkers the like, need to make sure it cant be placed on buildings though)
- Double ammo usage to compensate (somewhat)

Stinger swarm does incredible damage to heavy armor anyway, you sure you need to increase it?... the combat version isn't too bad either, personally i'd rather see the Lancer handling improved rather than the weapons it has.

Everything else mentioned seems fine to me, though. Most things here are following that basic rule that if it isn't used much (or even at all), then it's not powerful enough (or something else is dwarfing it) - i'm sure people could come up with other things.

[Spawn]

i dont think pummel should be moved up, but decreasing damage/sec to heavy and upping ammo is good, or jsut rec health uppage

also increase splash, and probablly a good idea to make it a bit faster

i think an fe like splinter would be better, but thats jsut me

double speed and make the explosion when you kill it something like 40%, damage to none and light up 500?

also make the pilot weapons build/fall faster

stings track a bit better?
swarm vary slightly less, i find a lot of the shots hit the ground unless your at point blank

for multi make lock or the give after getting a lock a bit less, but this could just be me sucking with it

maybe give wasps a bit more health/seppd instead of size?

resin could be a useful kill buildings from a cliff weapon if range was a bit more

[APCs r evil]

I disagree with increasing the damage to h.armor, as it means they don't need to morph to kill scavs, etc - somewhat making it obselete as it's rarely used for anything else bar fang/blink suicide runs.

Uhhh, what?

[PhoeniX-FlamE]

AW

isdf > scions late games
isdf OWN scions early game

how is that balanced?

if the isdf wishs scions wont even get on their feet to get a 2nd building up (after kiln) while the isdf can have SP / PL tanks

and even if they do, just get a PL assult tank with laser / pl-las tanks covering it, even if the sicons get quill they'll be dead....

i dont think pummel should be moved up, but decreasing damage/sec to heavy and upping ammo is good, or jsut rec health uppage

thing is, rec health upgrade will also drag game more for example, 4 blast laser tanks just killed all the defense, the other team has no pools (or maybe 1) and no ships, 4 blast laser in tanks and tech / fac already went down, now to kill rec it'll take longer than stock 1.2...

the advantges of more rec health will be vs hornet, beacuse I think it takes a rec too quickly... but I havnt realy thought of how to 'fix' that (if it needs fixing at all)

more ammo for pummel and less dmg to heavy buildings is an idea I had for few years ever since pummel rushs went in fashion


FE splinter is outrageous, 4 splinter tanks, and make it even worse - 1 assult tank go vs a big big serviced assult (for example) vs walker 6 trucks and some turrets

all the 4 from the defending team shoots the splinters togather - and poof, there goes 30 mins of work of building service trucks?

anyways, on to the list

These are the tweaks I have come up with after reading PF's and Spawn's posts. (At this point I will probably be the one incorporating the tweaks into the ODF's.)

Pummel - Decrease ammo cost and move it up in the tech tree? (My suggested requirement, Training Fac.)

TAG Cannon (I was talking about the 1.3 version in the original list) - Increase the TAG speed from 100 to 120. (100 is Plasma speed) Slightly increase missile accuracy and damage, increase the missile's tracking time.(This also increases the shot delay between TAGs.)

Plasma(I'm talking ISDF vehicle Plasma, the Tower and ships use different versions) -  Decrease ammo cost to FE levels. Increase None and Light armor damage slightly.

Assault Laser -  Just checked, it does 700 damage per second to scouts, and 400 to Tanks at 100m range. Ion Gun II does 500 damage to None armor and 300 damage to Light armor at 150m range. (These are double hardpoint values)
ISDF Scouts have 1800 hit points, and Scion scouts have 1200 in Combat mode and 900 in Assault mode.

Splinter - Slower turn rate, bullets are more accurate.

Comet - Increase speed from 15 to.. what? Increase damage from,

damageRadius = 50.0

damageValue(N) = 2000 // none
damageValue(L) = 1500 // light
damageValue(H) = 1500 // heavy

damageValue(S) = 1700 // standard
damageValue(D) = 2000 // deflection
damageValue(A) = 1300 // absorbion

to what?

Prox Mine - Increase lifespan from 30 seconds to; 50?

Decrease cost of pilot Rocket from 30 to 10.(The are both SOMEWHAT powerful.) Decrease cost of Booster to, 5 or even 1. And grenades to 5. The rifles will remain unchanged. (At least untill someone can prove that they are not too powerful to cost 10 or so scrap.)

Stinger Msl - Light armor damage increase.

Stinger Swarm(I'm talking the 1.3 version again, there is no charge up time, they all fire in a salvo) - Slight heavy armor damage increase.

Multilock(It locks on properly in the private beta) - Decrease the shot delay between missiles from 1 second to .2 seconds. Add a slight wiggle for effects purposes(Unless someone comes up with a reason not to.)  It does pretty good damage as-is. It also tracks as long and effectively as Shadower missiles. Increase lock range? (175m)

Wasp - How about half the size and 20% more damage? (It uses the Prox Mine explosion now)

Static Charge - These are per-second values,

ammoCost = 200.0   (Blast also costs 200)
damageRadius = 20.0

damageValue(N) = 400.0 // none
damageValue(L) = 300.0 // light
damageValue(H) = 100.0 // heavy

damageValue(S) = 300.0 // standard
damageValue(D) = 400.0 // deflection
damageValue(A) = 100.0 // absorbtion

How about reduce the ammo cost to 150?

Seeker- Idea A: Double the size and increase the speed.(Only 10 meters per second currently, and a seek range[Chase range] of 50m.
Idea B: Increase speed to, say, 30. Increase seek range to 125, and slightly increase the damage.

Resin - I'm looking into possible ways to avoid the massive FPS loss at any considerable range. But it's use is still in question.

Pummel - if its tech-uped it'll be even more useless  you should try less dmg to heavy and more ammo

TAG - wel, TBH, I'd try to give the tagging shot alot more speed and then increase the msls speed abit too. gotta keep in mind that right now the only msl being used is shadowers (other than stock faf). TAG needs to be useful alongside shadowers, otherwise it wont be used

Plasma - more dmg to non armor? it does a preaty nice dmg vs isdf scouts already, espicely if you get to hit alot as it fires preaty quickly, more dmg to light could be fine, but I dont think that more dmg to non is needed

Splinter - how about trying longer life-span and same dmg? that way it could be useful but could also be killable more easily

Comet - try 75 speed radious damage 40 or even 35 and IMO reduce dmg to 1500 none armor
1400 light or even 1300 and leave the 1500 heavy?

Prox - try 40, maybe 45 and if thats not enough then maybe 60 (a min)

Pilot weps - sounds good

Stinger - sounds good, but not too much because its much easier to hit targets that have light armor with stingers than none armored ships

Stinger swarm - sounds good

Wasp - sounds good but as spawn said "maybe give wasps a bit more health/seppd instead of size?
"

Static - I think reducing it to 100 will also make it effective in dogfights --> a reason to take it over blink / prox / seeker

Seeker - both your ideas are good, right now I see the seeker as some sort of a shield, so either make it a true seeker (idea B) or make it like idea A but with less seek range to leave it as some kind of a shield. oh and whats seeker lifespan btw?

[APCs r evil]

Comet -  FE had a comet in it that travelled at 80 meters per second. It wasn't in the main game, but it was there. I played around with it and found that comets travelling that fast would actually go through their target, not explode on contact. And you do know that scouts only move at 40 meters per second(W only) right?

Seeker -  20 seconds.

I'll most likely be able to toss together a zip with the soon-to-be-updated weapons in it for testing sometime tomorrow.

[Angelwing]

Scions only get owned at the start if they're deprived of pools and going against a good techher (as we all know how badly they lose once ISDF has laser) - but the advantage the stock ISDF scout has over the scion drone scout is NOTHING compared to the advantage scion get in a Full-tech Warrior vs Sabre. Blink away....

BLINK!
How could any of you not mention that?
wayyyy overpowered. I rekon it needs either more ammo consumption (for distance), or have a localammo value (might not be possible blink) so you're limited to a small number of hops no matter what ship you're in (could be replenished by service pods/bay)

Weaken the scion blink, give them a better start - personally the only thing I find wrong with them at current is how they require 2 runs to kill a pool, whereas the ISDF only need one. In dogfighting it's fine IMO, if they know how to avoid the FAFs then it's just not easy at all to kill them with mini or even chain.
So, decrease plasma stream ammo usage/increase drone ammo by whatever it takes to get them to kill a pool in one go (but only BARELY) and decrease the Rate of Fire by about.. 20-25%?... to stop it from being too uber (that'd also help reduce the lag)

[BZ FeebleEffort]

Balance is a Beautiful thing, but shouldn't it be done w/ a large group of experienced strat players?

I completely agree w/ Phoneix as a "example" of that, but I'd suggest any wholesale "balance revisions" be done after a next beta comes out so a good group of players could have input.

[Fishbone]

I think you are onto something good here!
Once you get closer to what you think is right, it's time to increase the group. Don't start out with a big group since everybody will want to give input and will be annoyed when you don't listen.