@adamkafei : Normal mine detection range on holodeck is 3km, I believe it wasn't doubled but upped to 5km with hot pursuit (it's been a while since I touched that alt... and uh I can't remember which one it was that had it). 7.5km would be a huge boost.... I'd probably start equipping the damn things with 7.5km if it weren't for the fact that there's like NO sets for it and it won't match my all-torpedo consoles...
Actually, with 7.5km, if the cooldowns weren't making it impossible I'd shove the damn things in the front as well, just to see *FIELDS* of the little buggers fly off most satisfyingly. It wouldn't be all that strong but damn if that wouldn't be fun to watch.
I see, sorry, I don't know much about the subject of mines as they aren't effective enough as a rule to put into my builds. I just know from experience that if someone drops a bunch of tricobalt ones that I want to avoid them like the plague
That said, now that I know it's 3km (up to 5km) I'm wondering where 7.5km came from... A mystery for another time, I hope the range buff they got is worth having though.
[*] Updated Drain Infection, the Deteriorating Secondary Deflector Proc, and the Inhibiting Secondary Deflector Proc to be counted as Exotic Damage.
I had to find out that my Drain Infection went from roughly 2,2k to 700 dmg. That's a bit unfortunate. Deteriorating stayed roughly the same.
I can confirm this:-
Holodeck: Rift: 563.1 (5.2 Drain, 1989.7 Infection)
Tribble: Rift: 1499.2 (20.5 Drain, 561.4 Infection)
The inhibiting deflector arrangement however does appear to work as stated in the notes.
Holodeck: Grav well: 1972.8 (-0.25 Repel, 9,388.6 Inhibiting Def)
Tribble: Grav well: 1405.5 (-0.25 Repel, 11,937.3 Inhibiting Def)
For reference, I have 430-ish EPG skill, 73 aux power and the Delphic Tear Generator equipped when taking these numbers.
So, science is supposed to do what? Drop the science skills and focus on tactical like a good tac captain?
Well... EPG gets better if you can draw threat and it's better than what I produce if you run a torp boat so you can have 130 aux power. I run a mix beam/EPG Nova so I need my weapon power although when I combine that with my APB and my Sensor Scan, especially on a large health pool where SA is worth it I do produce some rather decent numbers.
So it's more about what kind of science is the 'right' fun.
I think it would have been interesting to rework torpedo spread to launch addition torpedoes from the other torpedo launches of a similar type to the initial torpedo launcher you activated torpedo-spread with, but that these additional torpedoes would be shot at targets within that launcher's firing arc. Though this idea might have I believe been tried with the terran rep set an was changed after being seen as too op. If you made it that you would fire one to three additional torpedoes from the other torpedo-launchers you had slotted based on the rank of the torpedo-spread used
I can't remember off hand if high yield affected the innate effect of the torpedo type it is used on, like that if you used torpedo high-yield on a transphasic torpedo it would super-charge the shield by-pass effect of it, or even cause the target's shields to destabilize leaving a debuff that causes your weapons to by-pass more of the target's shield for a short duration. In a way we have this abit with how plasma torpedoes create the large destructible torpedoes under the effect of high-yield, but if we had this kind of effect that torpedo high-yield did more than merely buffing the damage of your torpedo it fired than it might be more appealing to use.
Hungry board is hungry. Bad board. Don't eat my posts.
Rather than dream up whole new mechanics for torpedoes, we could try working with what's there. Number adjustments are a LOT easier to apply and test. Clock is ticking, so low hanging fruit are the only fruit. Personally I don't think they were off in the concept "incredible while shields are low/down". That's consistent with the setting. We've just gotten so used to spamming them, and for beam kills to be so abrupt/fast that that window is now both incredibly short and only once per ship. Torpedo utility has eroded in the Great DPS Runnaway.
If they deal with some of the damage runaway, torpedoes become a little more desirable. They used to be your spike - now EVERYTHING is a spike because the damage values are so high. Rank XIII and XIV base values, I'm looking right at you. Upgrading still need to have value, but not such wildly non-linear degrees of improvement. Abilities aren't the only things that need to be touched by the balance pass.
And yes, 'precision tricobalt bombardment' used to be a (fun) playstyle all its own and they nerfed those way past right into the ground. Relative performance of weapon flavors, both projectile and energy (alas poor tetryons, we hardly used thee) need a tweak.
Well one of the easiest ways would be to convert the damage reduction applied to kinetic/torpedo damage against shields from a static value, to a variable value that is tied to the remaining hp of the impacted shield facing. It would keep torpedoes still very effective against bare hulls, but would improve their usefulness across the board against shielded targets, and without actually buffing any values/stats of the torpedo types themselves. It would even make sense in a canon type manner, since you could see the Hp of the shields as a value of the stability of the shield in question, slightly more work would be to tie the degree of how much damage reduction is lost from a shield as it's hp is depleted to how high the ship's shield power setting is.
New mechanic/variable. Lots of work. Unlikely to be done and tested in time for the push to Holodeck on the 25th. This happened with the skill tree revamp - we're down to tweaking time. Major shifts in the flow of gameplay are usually only possible in-house where an idea has months to iterate.
And ultimately torpedoes having more effect vs shielded targets defeats the point of Star Trek-style torpedoes. Torpedoes in the setting aren't spam against shields weapons. We already have tools for that - beams and cannons. They're used in the stories as decisive finishers. Which the higher base DPS + 75% kinetic resistance of shields has always simulated fairly well.
So if we're not going to overturn basic gameplay in the quest for more all around DPS (uhg...), we need to look for small tweaks that can improve both balance and faithful representation of the source material. Upon consideration, it'd be nice if one of the three lagging projectile types had a bit of built-in hull penetration as its basic property. Still a poor choice for spamming against shields, but if you do drop it through a hole... WHAM! Shades of the former glory of tricobalts.
...the Deteriorating SecDef proc went from ~5100 to 7800/tick
I don't suppose you have access to the Tal'shiar Adapted vessels?
The three piece set bonus for those ships is Multi-spectral Particle Generator. It's effect is similar to the Deteriorating Secondary Deflector.
I was curious to see if they changed the bonus damage from Multi-spectral Particle Generator to Exotic Damage as well.
Unfortunately, no...although the adapted destroyer for the third part is cheap right now. Thanks for the idea, I'll look into it (absolute values will differ a bit since the toon with the other 2 parts is not the scientist that generated the above numbers).
Edit: Bought the third part, but it looks like no dice...sames 588 dmg/tick for the ability on Holodeck and Tribble. As per the description, it looks like the only way to effect the magnitude is EPG skill points (and Aux power level).
New mechanic/variable. Lots of work. Unlikely to be done and tested in time for the push to Holodeck on the 25th. This happened with the skill tree revamp - we're down to tweaking time. Major shifts in the flow of gameplay are usually only possible in-house where an idea has months to iterate.
And ultimately torpedoes having more effect vs shielded targets defeats the point of Star Trek-style torpedoes. Torpedoes in the setting aren't spam against shields weapons. We already have tools for that - beams and cannons. They're used in the stories as decisive finishers. Which the higher base DPS + 75% kinetic resistance of shields has always simulated fairly well.
So if we're not going to overturn basic gameplay in the quest for more all around DPS (uhg...), we need to look for small tweaks that can improve both balance and faithful representation of the source material. Upon consideration, it'd be nice if one of the three lagging projectile types had a bit of built-in hull penetration as its basic property. Still a poor choice for spamming against shields, but if you do drop it through a hole... WHAM! Shades of the former glory of tricobalts.
The big issue with Torpedoes is that some have terrible cooldowns (Tricobalts and Transphasics are the worst offenders) and are pretty much useless unless enemy shields are totally offline (as even the tiniest bit of shields negates a huge part of a Torpedo's impact), which it won't be, because shields regen a small amount every few seconds which is enough to negate most of the torpedo's damage.
A cheap fix would be to lower cooldowns on some of the worst offenders (Tricobalts are supposed to be an unsure hit, for a massive payoff, but they take over twice as long as a Quantum to fire again, have a lower effective hit chance due to their destructible nature, and only do about double the damage of a Quantum which makes them totally useless in combat), and give all Torps a small degree of shield pen (say 20%, like the Railgun, and say 60% - 75% for Transphasics (to make up for their minimal damage they were always supposed to ignore more shields)) until a sliding effectiveness can be implemented.
Or make Beams less effective against hulls. (Cannons are fine, since they are underused already, and take much more piloting to keep on target than the easily spammed beams).
Meant To Be:
Beams = Easy To Use, Middling Damage
Cannons = Harder To Use, Higher Damage Potential Than Beams
Torpedoes = Easy To Use, High Burst Damage
Mines = Harder To Use, Massive Damage if used right
Reality:
Beams = Easy To Use, Max DPS
Cannons = Harder To Use, Minimum DPS Gains (if any) over Beams
Torpedoes = Easy To Use, Any amount of Shields make damage almost useless
Mines = Harder To Use, Target is Dead before they prime and fire. May hit secondary target or boss if lucky.
P.S. Want to stop DPS Bloat? Make Crit Severity have diminishing returns just like armour rating does.
If you can't solve it logically, solve it like a moron.
51 + 1 Foundry Character Slots is NOT enough. Some of us love our characters. If I want to buy more character slots, why can't I? I couldn't experience the entire Delta Recruitment event without deleting a character.
The Iconians themselves can't time travel because their memories revert, but there is nothing to say an Iconian couldn't write everything she needed to do on a PADD, pin it to herself, travel back, read the PADD, do the tasks and return. Or just get one of her Non-Herald underlings to go back in time for her.
Oh yeah, I do Foundry missions for both KDFs and Feds. Just search KSTF (Short for Kinas Special Task Force, where Kinas is the name of the Admiral you will be serving under). The earlier ones are less story based and more combat based, while the later ones have a much heavier story element, but keep the large battles.
i don't know what kind of star trek you've been watching, but torpedoes were NEVER used as finishers in the vast majority of trek i've seen
TUC: photons fired against targets with FULL shields
Yesterday's Enterprise: photon torpedo spreads fired against targets with FULL shields
Q Who?: photon torpedoes fired against a target barely damaged (and possibly still FULL shields, though whether or not borg had shields at the time, or ever did, is still unclear)
BOBW: same thing as Q who? if torpedoes were actually fired (i forget if they were)
the entirety of DS9: torpedoes spammed against targets with shields, though potentially already damaged by phaser fire in the case of WotW & Call to Arms and spiral-wave disruptor fire in the case of the first battle of chin'toka during Tears of the Prophets, plus all the times the defiant used quantums against targets that had yet to be fired on by its pulse phaser cannons
Insurrection: son'a photon torpedoes fired against the enterprise with no indication that energy weapons had been used prior
Nemesis: quantums spammed against a fully-shielded scimitar
voyager i have no idea, since i've only seen most episodes in it once or twice, so i can't recall any relevant examples
but sufficed to say, torpedoes were HARDLY EVER used as finishers and were more often used to batter down shields, sometimes alongside energy weapons
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
Something also to keep in mind would be how the change to how firing your weapons affects your ships weapon power should be looked at, as that could lead to needing to slot non-weapon power draining weapons ie torpedoes, mines, and such) to maintain high weapon power levels again.
I definitely agree it could be hard to get a shift from a static torpedo/kinetic resistance converted into a variable resistance in before april 25, but still think it would be good to start testing such a change, as well as even asking some players what they think would make sense for how much resistance should be lost as the shield's hp is depleted. I mean to me even if something is on tribble it should still be in testing till they feel it has been vetted an tested enough to be released on to the main servers. I could live with waiting an extra few weeks or a month for a variable torpedo resistance system that would make torpedoes more of a competitive choice to the other types.
For me photon and quantum torpedoes baseline are fine as is, transphasic could use a bump in the amount of resistance they by-pass on shields. The hard two would be tricobalt, as well as chroniton torpedoes for how to improve them, without making them op or overshadow the other types. Trico I could see having a innate hull resistance effect maybe, though chroniton's slow is pretty nice in some points, and if we had more points that slowing a target mattered more it could be enough to warrant it.
Don't forget 'The Changeling'. Its bolts were tearing down the Enterprise's shields at the equivalent of 90 Photon Torpedoes per. 450 Photon Torpedoes would have taken them down completely.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Edit: Bought the third part, but it looks like no dice...sames 588 dmg/tick for the ability on Holodeck and Tribble. As per the description, it looks like the only way to effect the magnitude is EPG skill points (and Aux power level).
That is so disappointing. Now I have Science characters in TWO wrong ships.
Discussing wether "Torpedoes as Hull Finisher" has canon evidence to back it up or not is pointless. It is the model Cryptic settled for, and changing it would open a can of worms that Cryptic will not open.
It's more constructive to stay with the existing paradigm and think about how to adjust from there.
What are existing problems, what could be done about it?
Torpedo Cooldowns and the new Torpedo buff duration of 10 seconds: That will be a problem. It's a big detoriation to quality of life. Forget the perks of double-tapping and what not for a moment. Torpedoes have long cooldowns, several torpedoes close to the 10 second limit (Quantum Torpedoes, Chronitons), some even beyond (Transphasic, Tri-Cobalt, several specialty torpedoes or torpedo-like weapons). Coupled with low firing arc and the potential for accidental misfires/UI not reacting, anyone not strapping a full build of fast-firing torpedoes risks ending up not buffing any attack at all. On Holodeck, there is already a delay between firing a HYT/TS shot and activating the next torpedo buff - maybe that delay could be increased?
Tri-Cobalts: Heavy torpedo, slow fire rate. In theory ideal for spike damage, in practice ideal to never reach its target because it can be intercepted and takes too long to get to where it needs to be. A faster recharge rate (even if at the cost of damage per shot) might help.
Torpedoes do not seem to benefit from Haste: There might be a technical reason for this, but it means that weapon haste is only useful for energy weapons, and in turn, it's more useful to equip more energy weapons than another torpedo weapon that can't benefit from your buff.
Mixed Weapon Builds: There aren't many incentives for it. Most weapon buffs only target one weapon type. Not "mono-boating" means that your buffs aren't working at maximum effectiveness. The only reason to mix weapons used to be spike damage. The benefit gained from a 7th or 8th energy weapon on a ship tended to be marginal due to the energy drain, so adding in a torpedo and a powerful buff (or a beam with Beam Overload on a cannon build) added spike potential. Overcapping and drain reductions neutered this aspect, however. The changes to weapon energy drain and weapon power effect don't really seem to change that, unfortunately. An alternate approach could be to provide some "all-weapon" buffs or some other form of synergy.
Torpedo Builds: Energy weapons have several weapon buffs that affect all the weapons fired. Torpedoes don't have any such buffs. (Kemocite comes closest to that.)
Torpedoes as Finishers: That is the model Cryptic seems to intent, but it doesn't quite work since energy weapons are also very effective against hull, and ships don't last that long to make a difference here. Lowering overall DPS might help a bit to make the differences more pronounced, but maybe there needs to be some extra help - maybe kinetic resistances could be lower or less common than energy resists. Or alternatively, torpedoes might come with in-built armor penetration. Careful though - NPC torpedoes often seem excessively effective already.
Maybe one compromise between the idea of removing the 75 % kinetic damage reduction of shields could be that most buffs that grant shield damage reduction do no longer apply to kinetic damage. The damage reduction from these sources usually caps at 75 %, too , if I understand correctly. So torpedoes currently take both the 75 % kinetic resistance and whatever damage reduction the shields otherwise get. If Torpedoes were only subject to the 75 % kinetic reduction, energy weapons would still always be more effective against shields then torpedoes, but they had the same "cap". (Some shield damage reduction sources should probably still apply, maybe the one from the power level, which would make naked shield power more valuable.)
I am personally against adding more shield penetration sources, however, be it for torpedoes or otherwise. It makes shields not relevant enough, and they should be the primary defense of a starship by canon.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Discussing wether "Torpedoes as Hull Finisher" has canon evidence to back it up or not is pointless. It is the model Cryptic settled for, and changing it would open a can of worms that Cryptic will not open.
It's more constructive to stay with the existing paradigm and think about how to adjust from there.
What are existing problems, what could be done about it?
Torpedo Cooldowns and the new Torpedo buff duration of 10 seconds: That will be a problem. It's a big detoriation to quality of life. Forget the perks of double-tapping and what not for a moment. Torpedoes have long cooldowns, several torpedoes close to the 10 second limit (Quantum Torpedoes, Chronitons), some even beyond (Transphasic, Tri-Cobalt, several specialty torpedoes or torpedo-like weapons). Coupled with low firing arc and the potential for accidental misfires/UI not reacting, anyone not strapping a full build of fast-firing torpedoes risks ending up not buffing any attack at all. On Holodeck, there is already a delay between firing a HYT/TS shot and activating the next torpedo buff - maybe that delay could be increased?
Tri-Cobalts: Heavy torpedo, slow fire rate. In theory ideal for spike damage, in practice ideal to never reach its target because it can be intercepted and takes too long to get to where it needs to be. A faster recharge rate (even if at the cost of damage per shot) might help.
Torpedoes do not seem to benefit from Haste: There might be a technical reason for this, but it means that weapon haste is only useful for energy weapons, and in turn, it's more useful to equip more energy weapons than another torpedo weapon that can't benefit from your buff.
Mixed Weapon Builds: There aren't many incentives for it. Most weapon buffs only target one weapon type. Not "mono-boating" means that your buffs aren't working at maximum effectiveness. The only reason to mix weapons used to be spike damage. The benefit gained from a 7th or 8th energy weapon on a ship tended to be marginal due to the energy drain, so adding in a torpedo and a powerful buff (or a beam with Beam Overload on a cannon build) added spike potential. Overcapping and drain reductions neutered this aspect, however. The changes to weapon energy drain and weapon power effect don't really seem to change that, unfortunately. An alternate approach could be to provide some "all-weapon" buffs or some other form of synergy.
Torpedo Builds: Energy weapons have several weapon buffs that affect all the weapons fired. Torpedoes don't have any such buffs. (Kemocite comes closest to that.)
Torpedoes as Finishers: That is the model Cryptic seems to intent, but it doesn't quite work since energy weapons are also very effective against hull, and ships don't last that long to make a difference here. Lowering overall DPS might help a bit to make the differences more pronounced, but maybe there needs to be some extra help - maybe kinetic resistances could be lower or less common than energy resists. Or alternatively, torpedoes might come with in-built armor penetration. Careful though - NPC torpedoes often seem excessively effective already.
Maybe one compromise between the idea of removing the 75 % kinetic damage reduction of shields could be that most buffs that grant shield damage reduction do no longer apply to kinetic damage. The damage reduction from these sources usually caps at 75 %, too , if I understand correctly. So torpedoes currently take both the 75 % kinetic resistance and whatever damage reduction the shields otherwise get. If Torpedoes were only subject to the 75 % kinetic reduction, energy weapons would still always be more effective against shields then torpedoes, but they had the same "cap". (Some shield damage reduction sources should probably still apply, maybe the one from the power level, which would make naked shield power more valuable.)
I am personally against adding more shield penetration sources, however, be it for torpedoes or otherwise. It makes shields not relevant enough, and they should be the primary defense of a starship by canon.
On the techinical reason behind Torp Cooldowns. Unlike Beam Arrays and Cannon which charge from a capacitor, Torps have to be loaded mechanically. They also have to be fuelled with their payload, which takes a little time. Torps shouldn't be firing left right and centre from 2 fore launchers as fast as Beams in any universe!!
Torp's are meant to be most effective against a solid object. Against an energy shield as in ST, the shield disperses the energy easily enough as it's mostly kinetic energy and easy to disperse, unlike a focused particle beam, which is pin-point and harder to disperse. The values of resistance currently applied are reasonable, but I do agree that Torp damage is supposed to be much higher than any energy weapon.
The biggest issue I have is the non-canon hardpoints and arcs we have been spoiled with. Alot of people just want 'moar powa' and have been spoiled. Energy Weapon and Torp hardpoints should be kept seperate. There's now precedent with the Heavy Weapon Hardpoint, which, by the way, are what Torps are actually!! The primary weapon of any Starship is it's Energy Weapons, not Torpedoes! Why we don't have a limit on how many Torpedoes we carry, like in ST Series, I don't know!
"You don't want to patrol!? You don't want to escort!? You don't want to defend the Federation's Starbases!? Then why are you flying my Starships!? If you were a Klingon you'd be killed on the spot, but lucky for you.....you WERE in Starfleet. Let's see how New Zealand Penal Colony suits you." Adm A. Necheyev.
One thing that I have been thinking might be good to adjust/.tweak that could make mix/matching weapon load-outs more viable is the idea of giving us some consoles that buff a pair of weapon types (like one energy type,and a torpedo/mine type). Which might be doable via reworking/tweaking some of the tactical consoles that buff a general weapons type (such as cannons, torpedoes, mines, and beams), which also are largely not that often used over the specific energy/weapons type tactical consoles (like transphasic, antiproton, plasma, and such). This idea could also be used for buffing the value of hanger/seperation pets as well, creating some consoles that would buff the active/deployed pets of the ship slotting it.
...The primary weapon of any Starship is it's Energy Weapons, not Torpedoes!
So you are not familiar with the TOS episode Balance of Terror? Perhaps, you are unfamiliar with General Chang's B'rel in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country? There are plenty of examples of ships using torpedoes as primary weapons. I do not agree that torpedoes, mines and energy weapons need separate equipment slots.
I do think poor tricobalts need a little rebalance.
One thing that I have been thinking might be good to adjust/.tweak that could make mix/matching weapon load-outs more viable is the idea of giving us some consoles that buff a pair of weapon types (like one energy type,and a torpedo/mine type). Which might be doable via reworking/tweaking some of the tactical consoles that buff a general weapons type (such as cannons, torpedoes, mines, and beams), which also are largely not that often used over the specific energy/weapons type tactical consoles (like transphasic, antiproton, plasma, and such). This idea could also be used for buffing the value of hanger/seperation pets as well, creating some consoles that would buff the active/deployed pets of the ship slotting it.
I think it would definitely be a good idea to look into the cannon/torpedo/mine/beam buff consoles. Their bonus being lower than that of energy type consoles is still hard to justify, IMO.
I am however not sure that they could feasibly be turned into "mutli-type" buffs - how would you determine what kind of buff existing consoles should have? It would be a bit frustrating to see all your torpedo consoles turn into torpedo cannon consoles if you're running a beam/torpedo build, even though it's "technically" an improvement, you don't gain anything.
I am still for buffing them - maybe they could add a crit/proc, accuracy or armor penetration related buff (possibly lower or replace the existing damage bonus?).
Consoles that boost weapon combos would definitely be desirable to have and would obviously help encourage mixed weapon builds. But creating a whole new console type whole cloth is probably out of scope for a balance change, isn't it?
On the techinical reason behind Torp Cooldowns. *snip*
What you're describing is potential canon reasons, but as I said, these are not really relevant anymore for a balance patch. Canon doesn't need to worry about having things balanced or how it all fits together in a cohesive game.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
One problem with the "cooldown" affair is that every single weapon slot we are installing on these ships is a *launcher*. Not only that, it's a launcher that replaces either twin forward cannons, a dorsal and ventral turret or cannon, a handful of beam strips... So, sure there should be cooldowns on launchers... But not cooldowns FROM other launchers. There's no reason that when the captain orders all torpedo launchers to fire, only ONE of them fires a volley, and the others *don't fire at all*.
There's nothing wrong with pointing out that the meta cryptic chose for the torpedoes has been and remains *wrong*. It doesn't work well, and most attempts to fix it while keeping to it have been bandaids or shadow-nerfs. Because, the overwhelming rule that they chose at the beginning, and which has haunted it ever since, complicating the ever-living TRIBBLE out of its mechanics, is this:
"But it has to suck against shields unlike in all of the movies and the shows".
And when your first and foremost consideration for a weapon or ability is "it has to suck", this is the result.
One thing that I have been thinking might be good to adjust/.tweak that could make mix/matching weapon load-outs more viable is the idea of giving us some consoles that buff a pair of weapon types (like one energy type,and a torpedo/mine type). Which might be doable via reworking/tweaking some of the tactical consoles that buff a general weapons type (such as cannons, torpedoes, mines, and beams), which also are largely not that often used over the specific energy/weapons type tactical consoles (like transphasic, antiproton, plasma, and such). This idea could also be used for buffing the value of hanger/seperation pets as well, creating some consoles that would buff the active/deployed pets of the ship slotting it.
I think it would definitely be a good idea to look into the cannon/torpedo/mine/beam buff consoles. Their bonus being lower than that of energy type consoles is still hard to justify, IMO.
I am however not sure that they could feasibly be turned into "mutli-type" buffs - how would you determine what kind of buff existing consoles should have? It would be a bit frustrating to see all your torpedo consoles turn into torpedo cannon consoles if you're running a beam/torpedo build, even though it's "technically" an improvement, you don't gain anything.
I am still for buffing them - maybe they could add a crit/proc, accuracy or armor penetration related buff (possibly lower or replace the existing damage bonus?).
Consoles that boost weapon combos would definitely be desirable to have and would obviously help encourage mixed weapon builds. But creating a whole new console type whole cloth is probably out of scope for a balance change, isn't it?
Yeah the general type consoles having a lower bonus gained compared to the consoles that buff specific types makes them overall less desirable to slot, but maybe don't replace any of the general weapon buffing consoles an merely just have it go forward that you start seeing them drop. I don't think you can not have some people annoyed with a change that affects existing slotted consoles they have, if the mod/buff gained is not specifically for what they are flying, though most players use specific energy/weapon type buff consoles over the general types. The other thing is that a lot of players I think could deal with a bit of frustration from such a change, if that change actually improved the viability of mixed builds.
The question of adding something like an additional effect such as crit/acc/pen is how powerful would that added effect need to be to make them useful to slot in player's eyes, and having them add a proc would be something more akin to a rep console like we saw in the dyson rep. The same issue with having a random or even chosen mod buff given to the console like pen/crit/acc honestly, since getting more acc or critical hit on your existing torpedo/cannon/beam general buffing console an that mod is not one that is desirable like acc or critical hit.
Creating them from scratch as a new implementation, or depending on how the existing general weapon type buffing consoles are implemented. If they are implemented that you could add an additional weapon type onto the console, or convert it fully into having one energy an one torp type on them. Though would need I think some way of making sure you can't get dual energy or torp/mine types on the same console, like tetryon/plasma or transphasic/quantum buffing combos as that might be worthless, but who knows might be useful to allow it too. I don't think so,m but it would be good to actually get a dev's opinion as they know how the consoles are implemented an if such a conversion could be done (an how easy).
Most of these changes could be on the board for a later patching, maybe kept on the tribble for further testing after 25, if they do not meet up to the desired state.
I don't think that Tac consoles need buffing (well, those awful Dyson Rep Dil Store ones do, because they are just dreadful, a 2.5% acc boost and some extra proton damage doesn't make up for the fact that at Mk XIV purple they are about as effective as a Mk XI white normal specific energy console. Although they are not quite as bad as the Engineering consoles from the Dyson Rep Dil Store) with things like Acc, Pen, CrtH, CrtD, etc. As they would just make the already overused and spammed beams even more desirable (look at how popular the Fleet Spire tac consoles are).
It's Torpedo's/Mines themselves that need the buff (and if they are a viable option, then people may slot Torp/Mine boosting powers/consoles over energy ones). Generally being useless against shields and no more effective against hull than energy weapons makes them undesirable. Maybe if Energy (specifically Beams, we need Cannons to be more viable as well, as the harder to use, and supposed to be harder hitting cannons end up doing less damage than the easy to use single beams) did less damage to hull, it would make slotting a Torp/Mine a viable option for hull smashing.
Also, unrelated note. Any Ship model Revamps coming up? Quite a few early Federation ships are looking old and tired in their not very detailed Launch-Era forms. The ones that have been revamped look beautiful now.
Also, another totally unrelated note. Can someone get that Typhoon out of Fluidic Space (Episode "Fluidic Dynamics")?. It irks me every time I play that episode to see a randomly generated Fed Battleship (normally one of the Command Battlecruisers) turn into a Typhoon (which has otherwise been wiped from non-foundry existence). Also, in "Broken Circle", the same swapping issue occurs with the R.R.W. Cretak, which is a Ha'apax in Kyana, but when you warp to the Iconian Dyson Sphere, it's suddenly turned into a D'deridex. Similar deal with the U.S.S. DeWitt in "Second Star To The Right, Straight On 'til Morning", as it's a randomly generated Federation Mob Battleship, it can be a Command Battlecruiser when you beam aboard, but upon beaming out, it can be an Akira, Chimera, Prometheus, Different CBC, etc.
Also, idea for Season 14, multiple new FE's, no new Reputations or queues (maybe revamp some older queues nobody plays so people may actually play them), graphical (and sometimes gameplay) revamp of all old missions (notably the old Featured Series. Spectres for example would really benefit from the beautiful new TOS assets, "Second Wave" through to "Boldly They Rode" could really do with a new, more accurate and accurately sized DS9 (K-7 also suffers from uber-gigantism, both stations are so oversized that a Galaxy Class feels as big as a shuttle, heck, I could fit a Scimitar's nose in the Defiant's docking port at DS9! (Speaking of which, the Defiant C would be nice to see at a properly scaled DS9 since it's still stationed there) (can't use the old "They need to be big because Social Zone" excuse anymore, it's no longer valid with the 1x-1.5x scale stations like the Krenim Research Lab, K-13, TOS ESD, etc.)) You could call it Season 14: Rebirth (in a nod to that April Fools joke you pulled a few years back).
If you can't solve it logically, solve it like a moron.
51 + 1 Foundry Character Slots is NOT enough. Some of us love our characters. If I want to buy more character slots, why can't I? I couldn't experience the entire Delta Recruitment event without deleting a character.
The Iconians themselves can't time travel because their memories revert, but there is nothing to say an Iconian couldn't write everything she needed to do on a PADD, pin it to herself, travel back, read the PADD, do the tasks and return. Or just get one of her Non-Herald underlings to go back in time for her.
Oh yeah, I do Foundry missions for both KDFs and Feds. Just search KSTF (Short for Kinas Special Task Force, where Kinas is the name of the Admiral you will be serving under). The earlier ones are less story based and more combat based, while the later ones have a much heavier story element, but keep the large battles.
Torp's are meant to be most effective against a solid object. Against an energy shield as in ST, the shield disperses the energy easily enough as it's mostly kinetic energy and easy to disperse, unlike a focused particle beam, which is pin-point and harder to disperse. The values of resistance currently applied are reasonable, but I do agree that Torp damage is supposed to be much higher than any energy weapon.
On the contrary. Shields have consistently been shown not to be able to handle torpedoes nearly as well as they do energy weapons in canon. While multiple rapid energy attacks to the shield do weaken it, torpedoes are what is shown to overload them faster, or in some cases (such as Undiscovered Country) severely damage a cruiser that has its shields online (with said shields dropping rapidly in integrity as a result of *individual torpedoes*) and utterly devastating a cloaked BoP that didn't at least have its shields. Remember that those fat holes blown clean through in the battle of khitomer were *while shields were still up*.
It is in fact single pinpoint bursts that shields are best against due to producing a localized spatial distortion where they're hit: the slight AoE and all-at-once release of a torpedo's energy throw shield coolant loops into overdrive much ore effectively. Beams don't run out, and once shields are down you basically no longer *need* torpedoes as they will slice into the hull like hot chainsaws through butter.
Canon aside, the balance is skewed, and that much is fact.
What would fix it with the least amount of work/destruction would be a few things, keeping in mind that every launcher equipped is quite literally being installed *instead* of several beam assemblies or cannons and all that.
1) The shared cooldown needs to be beaten, dragged out back, beaten again, shot, and watch as its family is stripped of all honor and fed to targs before joining them. You can even make a scapegoat NPC like with the transporters on Qo'nos. If multiple energy weapons eat energy, the worst that should have been is that multiple projectile weapons increase the actual *base* cooldown when fired *simultaneously*. Like "Photons gain +0.25s per torpedo launched inside the same 2s window, tricobalts gain +1s" or the like.
The values could be unique even as a balancing factor if you want, and would ideally (if done right) serve as a counterpoint to going for insane alphas like "five tricobalts" by leaving you basically dry for longer than normal afterwards. Mixed weapon and/or type builds would be naturally aided by staggered firing after the initial volley from different reload rates.
2) Haste needs to apply to launchers as well and to the recovery rate of charged ones like the omega launcher.
3) Are they good against hull but not shields, or vice-versa (which would have been more sensible), or not? *CHOOSE*. But if they're to be bad against shields as they currently are, they need to *ACTUALLY* be better against hull than the energy weapons that vastly outmatch them with shields up - currently those hit hull harder as well, and that just ain't right.
4) Bridge Officer Abilities have no reason whatsoever to apply to only a single launcher for a single activation within 10s when they apply to ALL energy weapons for ALL activations for ALL 10 seconds. At the very least, "all launchers, single activation within 10s" would make sense. Shouldn't really even be that short anyways then though, more like 15s to cover tricobalts and the such.
I could deal with having a single activation affecting just one launcher, if in some way it would aid the rest of the launchers in some way, or that having several torpedo launchers equipped/slotted could influence that single activation. Such as that having additional torpedo launchers of a similar type increases the size of the torpedo spread from the chosen torpedo launcher used.
There is also the idea of giving torpedo high-yield a similar buff concept that was used with beam overload, in which after you use torpedo high-yield it might leave you with a buff to the reload speed, and a secondary buff based on the type of torpedo you used the high-yield on affecting all of your torpedo launchers. So you could have transphasic giving a shield-bypassing buff, photon/quantum giving a increased damage, plasma creating a small plasma hazard, maybe a short duration slow for chroniton, and so forth. Even if we just saw them do a initial pass of high-yield giving a buff to torpedo reload/cooldown reduction, and also a damage buff till later on when they might add the idea of each torpedo type giving a different secondary buff. I think most people would find that fine, and also appealing to use the torpedo high yield ability.
I actually also like the idea of having maybe giving beams or cannons a weakness against hulls similar to how torpedoes are weak against shields, while having the left over weapon type be neutral against both having no disadvantage or advantage against either shields or hull. This could actually work towards balancing the three/four weapon types between each other, and making mixing weapon types abit more desirable too. I could see having beam be good against shields yet weak against hulls, while torpedos/mines are weak against shields an very good against hulls, and that would leave cannons as the middle ground between them both. Which way do other testers think such a mechanic should be implemented between the three weapon types? Keep in mind that the idea of having a weapon type weak against shields i already implemented for torpedoes, so it could be feasible to convert that over into a hull version against beams or cannons with just a little bit of tweaks tot he numbers.
1) The shared cooldown needs to be beaten, dragged out back, beaten again, shot, and watch as its family is stripped of all honor and fed to targs before joining them. You can even make a scapegoat NPC like with the transporters on Qo'nos. If multiple energy weapons eat energy, the worst that should have been is that multiple projectile weapons increase the actual *base* cooldown when fired *simultaneously*. Like "Photons gain +0.25s per torpedo launched inside the same 2s window, tricobalts gain +1s" or the like.
this sounds a lot like how burst-fire torpedo tubes would be represented ingame
and while very few ships had burst-fire capabilities over 35 years ago, by 2411 i would expect ALL ships have the ability
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
With the fact of torpedoes being heavy weapons,and the idea of them maybe being something that should be in the heavy weapon slot. Now this might be true that in someways torpedoes are basically heavy weapons, I think making them only usable on ships with a heavy weapon slot would be quite bad. Yet we do have the cluster-torpedos that do scream heavy weapon type to me atleast, and so what about turning/converting them into a heavy weapon type, while also giving them a bit of a buff as well possibly.
Though also wondering what types of heavy weapons we will see brought out with the expansion, when many escort/raiders an other commander seat using ships that fall into a pre-set of parameters get the heavy weapon slot. I think that adding both heavy torpedo, cannon, and even lance weapons could be quite interesting most of all if the heavy weapon slot could be used for both forward arc an rear arc firing weapons (not merely 360 arc weapons).
We could have maybe a conversion of the lance-using dreads to have a heavy weapon slot, and I could live with losing a rear or forward weapon slot for such a change, and then giving us more selection of beam-based lance weapons of varying energy types thru them. You could even look at the Scimitar's aoe/cone type pulse emitter style weapon as another form of a beam-based heavy weapon system too.
Did some more testing on Tribble, here are some suggestions:
- Leave the old Beam Overload as it where. A lot of people have invested
in equiptment and it is part of their playstyle. Just removing the
functionality of that skill alltogether takes away an existing playstyle.
For example, most of my toons have 6 to 10% crit chance. However, with
Beam Overload I can consistently hit a single target with high damage. If
you don't want us to just FAW our way to victory, you have to present
alternatives, and the old Beam Overload is such an alternative.
My suggestion is to ADD a new skill with the new functionality of Beam
Overload instead, name it e.g. "Beam amplification" or something, so people
have more choices.
- All Dyson Rep consoles should be reworked and considerably buffed in
order to come in line with other consoles.
- Torpedoes should be BUFFED, a lot of people seem to agree with that.
That includes leaving Omega Kinetic Shearing at its current state on
Holodeck.
- Torpedo High Yield should be useful over Torpedo spread. Right now it
is laughable. Why fire TWO torpedoes on ONE target when I can use a
Spread 1 and fire FOUR torpedoes on MULTIPLE targets? High Yield, on
normal torpedoes (i.e. not Plasma) should do something worthwile for the
player.
- Increase base damage on some torpedoes.
Right now, all beam arrays Mk12 do exactly the same base damage. They
only differ in procs and modifiers. Torpedo types however fastly differ
in base DPS they do. I think the "special" thing about a torpedo should
be more treated like the procs on beams, and they should be given more
equal base damage. This of course can be balanced out with fire
rate/damage, i.e. some high damage low firing torps and some faster,
lower damage torps. But in the essence, their base damage should be more
consistent. Right now we have torpedoes which practically no one uses,
because their base DPS is so bad. If you intend to make "all options
viable", this is a way towards this goal. (Note, I'm talking about
standard torpedoes in the game, not reputation gear ones).
- Mixed Beam or Cannon/Torpedo Builds should be more viable.
I also suggest to add a new type of console for that purpose. Currently,
Vulnerability Locators are the go-to tactical consoles, surpassing the
normal energy type consoles because they additionally give +crit
chance/severity.
Its a good idea to introduce new tactical consoles that give e.g. +35%
Phaser damage and + 20% Torpedo damage, but no crit chance like the
Vulnerability consoles. Numbers of course would need to be tested, but in
principle, this can make mixed builds more viable. It should be more than
just taking 4 phaser and 1 torpedo console in an escort to be useful.
- This may be personal preference, but I'd like to have 30 secs of
activation capacity back after loading a torpedo skill, over the 10 secs
it is currently on tribble.
- Mines still suck. Seriously. It takes ages for them to fire, and more
often than not, if they hit at all, they hit another targets shields and
do not noteworthy damage, because the primary target is long gone. I
tried my best to use some Mk12 mines and Disperal Pattern Beta, shot down
the targets shields, lay some mines in a flyby so they would hit the
unshielded target. Result: 300 DPS from mines. If I took another beam
array mk12, I would have gotten 4 times as much. Mines should be
reworked, maybe in a later patch.
A zero cost way for Cryptic to finance and expand the foundry
Comments
I see, sorry, I don't know much about the subject of mines as they aren't effective enough as a rule to put into my builds. I just know from experience that if someone drops a bunch of tricobalt ones that I want to avoid them like the plague
That said, now that I know it's 3km (up to 5km) I'm wondering where 7.5km came from... A mystery for another time, I hope the range buff they got is worth having though.
I had to find out that my Drain Infection went from roughly 2,2k to 700 dmg. That's a bit unfortunate. Deteriorating stayed roughly the same.
I can confirm this:-
Holodeck: Rift: 563.1 (5.2 Drain, 1989.7 Infection)
Tribble: Rift: 1499.2 (20.5 Drain, 561.4 Infection)
The inhibiting deflector arrangement however does appear to work as stated in the notes.
Holodeck: Grav well: 1972.8 (-0.25 Repel, 9,388.6 Inhibiting Def)
Tribble: Grav well: 1405.5 (-0.25 Repel, 11,937.3 Inhibiting Def)
For reference, I have 430-ish EPG skill, 73 aux power and the Delphic Tear Generator equipped when taking these numbers.
Well... EPG gets better if you can draw threat and it's better than what I produce if you run a torp boat so you can have 130 aux power. I run a mix beam/EPG Nova so I need my weapon power although when I combine that with my APB and my Sensor Scan, especially on a large health pool where SA is worth it I do produce some rather decent numbers.
So it's more about what kind of science is the 'right' fun.
I can't remember off hand if high yield affected the innate effect of the torpedo type it is used on, like that if you used torpedo high-yield on a transphasic torpedo it would super-charge the shield by-pass effect of it, or even cause the target's shields to destabilize leaving a debuff that causes your weapons to by-pass more of the target's shield for a short duration. In a way we have this abit with how plasma torpedoes create the large destructible torpedoes under the effect of high-yield, but if we had this kind of effect that torpedo high-yield did more than merely buffing the damage of your torpedo it fired than it might be more appealing to use.
Rather than dream up whole new mechanics for torpedoes, we could try working with what's there. Number adjustments are a LOT easier to apply and test. Clock is ticking, so low hanging fruit are the only fruit. Personally I don't think they were off in the concept "incredible while shields are low/down". That's consistent with the setting. We've just gotten so used to spamming them, and for beam kills to be so abrupt/fast that that window is now both incredibly short and only once per ship. Torpedo utility has eroded in the Great DPS Runnaway.
If they deal with some of the damage runaway, torpedoes become a little more desirable. They used to be your spike - now EVERYTHING is a spike because the damage values are so high. Rank XIII and XIV base values, I'm looking right at you. Upgrading still need to have value, but not such wildly non-linear degrees of improvement. Abilities aren't the only things that need to be touched by the balance pass.
And yes, 'precision tricobalt bombardment' used to be a (fun) playstyle all its own and they nerfed those way past right into the ground. Relative performance of weapon flavors, both projectile and energy (alas poor tetryons, we hardly used thee) need a tweak.
And ultimately torpedoes having more effect vs shielded targets defeats the point of Star Trek-style torpedoes. Torpedoes in the setting aren't spam against shields weapons. We already have tools for that - beams and cannons. They're used in the stories as decisive finishers. Which the higher base DPS + 75% kinetic resistance of shields has always simulated fairly well.
So if we're not going to overturn basic gameplay in the quest for more all around DPS (uhg...), we need to look for small tweaks that can improve both balance and faithful representation of the source material. Upon consideration, it'd be nice if one of the three lagging projectile types had a bit of built-in hull penetration as its basic property. Still a poor choice for spamming against shields, but if you do drop it through a hole... WHAM! Shades of the former glory of tricobalts.
Unfortunately, no...although the adapted destroyer for the third part is cheap right now. Thanks for the idea, I'll look into it (absolute values will differ a bit since the toon with the other 2 parts is not the scientist that generated the above numbers).
Edit: Bought the third part, but it looks like no dice...sames 588 dmg/tick for the ability on Holodeck and Tribble. As per the description, it looks like the only way to effect the magnitude is EPG skill points (and Aux power level).
The big issue with Torpedoes is that some have terrible cooldowns (Tricobalts and Transphasics are the worst offenders) and are pretty much useless unless enemy shields are totally offline (as even the tiniest bit of shields negates a huge part of a Torpedo's impact), which it won't be, because shields regen a small amount every few seconds which is enough to negate most of the torpedo's damage.
A cheap fix would be to lower cooldowns on some of the worst offenders (Tricobalts are supposed to be an unsure hit, for a massive payoff, but they take over twice as long as a Quantum to fire again, have a lower effective hit chance due to their destructible nature, and only do about double the damage of a Quantum which makes them totally useless in combat), and give all Torps a small degree of shield pen (say 20%, like the Railgun, and say 60% - 75% for Transphasics (to make up for their minimal damage they were always supposed to ignore more shields)) until a sliding effectiveness can be implemented.
Or make Beams less effective against hulls. (Cannons are fine, since they are underused already, and take much more piloting to keep on target than the easily spammed beams).
Meant To Be:
Beams = Easy To Use, Middling Damage
Cannons = Harder To Use, Higher Damage Potential Than Beams
Torpedoes = Easy To Use, High Burst Damage
Mines = Harder To Use, Massive Damage if used right
Reality:
Beams = Easy To Use, Max DPS
Cannons = Harder To Use, Minimum DPS Gains (if any) over Beams
Torpedoes = Easy To Use, Any amount of Shields make damage almost useless
Mines = Harder To Use, Target is Dead before they prime and fire. May hit secondary target or boss if lucky.
P.S. Want to stop DPS Bloat? Make Crit Severity have diminishing returns just like armour rating does.
TUC: photons fired against targets with FULL shields
Yesterday's Enterprise: photon torpedo spreads fired against targets with FULL shields
Q Who?: photon torpedoes fired against a target barely damaged (and possibly still FULL shields, though whether or not borg had shields at the time, or ever did, is still unclear)
BOBW: same thing as Q who? if torpedoes were actually fired (i forget if they were)
the entirety of DS9: torpedoes spammed against targets with shields, though potentially already damaged by phaser fire in the case of WotW & Call to Arms and spiral-wave disruptor fire in the case of the first battle of chin'toka during Tears of the Prophets, plus all the times the defiant used quantums against targets that had yet to be fired on by its pulse phaser cannons
Insurrection: son'a photon torpedoes fired against the enterprise with no indication that energy weapons had been used prior
Nemesis: quantums spammed against a fully-shielded scimitar
voyager i have no idea, since i've only seen most episodes in it once or twice, so i can't recall any relevant examples
but sufficed to say, torpedoes were HARDLY EVER used as finishers and were more often used to batter down shields, sometimes alongside energy weapons
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
I definitely agree it could be hard to get a shift from a static torpedo/kinetic resistance converted into a variable resistance in before april 25, but still think it would be good to start testing such a change, as well as even asking some players what they think would make sense for how much resistance should be lost as the shield's hp is depleted. I mean to me even if something is on tribble it should still be in testing till they feel it has been vetted an tested enough to be released on to the main servers. I could live with waiting an extra few weeks or a month for a variable torpedo resistance system that would make torpedoes more of a competitive choice to the other types.
For me photon and quantum torpedoes baseline are fine as is, transphasic could use a bump in the amount of resistance they by-pass on shields. The hard two would be tricobalt, as well as chroniton torpedoes for how to improve them, without making them op or overshadow the other types. Trico I could see having a innate hull resistance effect maybe, though chroniton's slow is pretty nice in some points, and if we had more points that slowing a target mattered more it could be enough to warrant it.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
*theGreatForumPostEaterStruckAgain*
Discussing wether "Torpedoes as Hull Finisher" has canon evidence to back it up or not is pointless. It is the model Cryptic settled for, and changing it would open a can of worms that Cryptic will not open.
It's more constructive to stay with the existing paradigm and think about how to adjust from there.
What are existing problems, what could be done about it?
Maybe one compromise between the idea of removing the 75 % kinetic damage reduction of shields could be that most buffs that grant shield damage reduction do no longer apply to kinetic damage. The damage reduction from these sources usually caps at 75 %, too , if I understand correctly. So torpedoes currently take both the 75 % kinetic resistance and whatever damage reduction the shields otherwise get. If Torpedoes were only subject to the 75 % kinetic reduction, energy weapons would still always be more effective against shields then torpedoes, but they had the same "cap". (Some shield damage reduction sources should probably still apply, maybe the one from the power level, which would make naked shield power more valuable.)
I am personally against adding more shield penetration sources, however, be it for torpedoes or otherwise. It makes shields not relevant enough, and they should be the primary defense of a starship by canon.
On the techinical reason behind Torp Cooldowns. Unlike Beam Arrays and Cannon which charge from a capacitor, Torps have to be loaded mechanically. They also have to be fuelled with their payload, which takes a little time. Torps shouldn't be firing left right and centre from 2 fore launchers as fast as Beams in any universe!!
Torp's are meant to be most effective against a solid object. Against an energy shield as in ST, the shield disperses the energy easily enough as it's mostly kinetic energy and easy to disperse, unlike a focused particle beam, which is pin-point and harder to disperse. The values of resistance currently applied are reasonable, but I do agree that Torp damage is supposed to be much higher than any energy weapon.
The biggest issue I have is the non-canon hardpoints and arcs we have been spoiled with. Alot of people just want 'moar powa' and have been spoiled. Energy Weapon and Torp hardpoints should be kept seperate. There's now precedent with the Heavy Weapon Hardpoint, which, by the way, are what Torps are actually!! The primary weapon of any Starship is it's Energy Weapons, not Torpedoes! Why we don't have a limit on how many Torpedoes we carry, like in ST Series, I don't know!
I do think poor tricobalts need a little rebalance.
I think it would definitely be a good idea to look into the cannon/torpedo/mine/beam buff consoles. Their bonus being lower than that of energy type consoles is still hard to justify, IMO.
I am however not sure that they could feasibly be turned into "mutli-type" buffs - how would you determine what kind of buff existing consoles should have? It would be a bit frustrating to see all your torpedo consoles turn into torpedo cannon consoles if you're running a beam/torpedo build, even though it's "technically" an improvement, you don't gain anything.
I am still for buffing them - maybe they could add a crit/proc, accuracy or armor penetration related buff (possibly lower or replace the existing damage bonus?).
Consoles that boost weapon combos would definitely be desirable to have and would obviously help encourage mixed weapon builds. But creating a whole new console type whole cloth is probably out of scope for a balance change, isn't it?
What you're describing is potential canon reasons, but as I said, these are not really relevant anymore for a balance patch. Canon doesn't need to worry about having things balanced or how it all fits together in a cohesive game.
And where are the enterprise d cluster photon torpedoes?
There's nothing wrong with pointing out that the meta cryptic chose for the torpedoes has been and remains *wrong*. It doesn't work well, and most attempts to fix it while keeping to it have been bandaids or shadow-nerfs. Because, the overwhelming rule that they chose at the beginning, and which has haunted it ever since, complicating the ever-living TRIBBLE out of its mechanics, is this:
"But it has to suck against shields unlike in all of the movies and the shows".
And when your first and foremost consideration for a weapon or ability is "it has to suck", this is the result.
Yeah the general type consoles having a lower bonus gained compared to the consoles that buff specific types makes them overall less desirable to slot, but maybe don't replace any of the general weapon buffing consoles an merely just have it go forward that you start seeing them drop. I don't think you can not have some people annoyed with a change that affects existing slotted consoles they have, if the mod/buff gained is not specifically for what they are flying, though most players use specific energy/weapon type buff consoles over the general types. The other thing is that a lot of players I think could deal with a bit of frustration from such a change, if that change actually improved the viability of mixed builds.
The question of adding something like an additional effect such as crit/acc/pen is how powerful would that added effect need to be to make them useful to slot in player's eyes, and having them add a proc would be something more akin to a rep console like we saw in the dyson rep. The same issue with having a random or even chosen mod buff given to the console like pen/crit/acc honestly, since getting more acc or critical hit on your existing torpedo/cannon/beam general buffing console an that mod is not one that is desirable like acc or critical hit.
Creating them from scratch as a new implementation, or depending on how the existing general weapon type buffing consoles are implemented. If they are implemented that you could add an additional weapon type onto the console, or convert it fully into having one energy an one torp type on them. Though would need I think some way of making sure you can't get dual energy or torp/mine types on the same console, like tetryon/plasma or transphasic/quantum buffing combos as that might be worthless, but who knows might be useful to allow it too. I don't think so,m but it would be good to actually get a dev's opinion as they know how the consoles are implemented an if such a conversion could be done (an how easy).
Most of these changes could be on the board for a later patching, maybe kept on the tribble for further testing after 25, if they do not meet up to the desired state.
It's Torpedo's/Mines themselves that need the buff (and if they are a viable option, then people may slot Torp/Mine boosting powers/consoles over energy ones). Generally being useless against shields and no more effective against hull than energy weapons makes them undesirable. Maybe if Energy (specifically Beams, we need Cannons to be more viable as well, as the harder to use, and supposed to be harder hitting cannons end up doing less damage than the easy to use single beams) did less damage to hull, it would make slotting a Torp/Mine a viable option for hull smashing.
Also, unrelated note. Any Ship model Revamps coming up? Quite a few early Federation ships are looking old and tired in their not very detailed Launch-Era forms. The ones that have been revamped look beautiful now.
Also, another totally unrelated note. Can someone get that Typhoon out of Fluidic Space (Episode "Fluidic Dynamics")?. It irks me every time I play that episode to see a randomly generated Fed Battleship (normally one of the Command Battlecruisers) turn into a Typhoon (which has otherwise been wiped from non-foundry existence). Also, in "Broken Circle", the same swapping issue occurs with the R.R.W. Cretak, which is a Ha'apax in Kyana, but when you warp to the Iconian Dyson Sphere, it's suddenly turned into a D'deridex. Similar deal with the U.S.S. DeWitt in "Second Star To The Right, Straight On 'til Morning", as it's a randomly generated Federation Mob Battleship, it can be a Command Battlecruiser when you beam aboard, but upon beaming out, it can be an Akira, Chimera, Prometheus, Different CBC, etc.
Also, idea for Season 14, multiple new FE's, no new Reputations or queues (maybe revamp some older queues nobody plays so people may actually play them), graphical (and sometimes gameplay) revamp of all old missions (notably the old Featured Series. Spectres for example would really benefit from the beautiful new TOS assets, "Second Wave" through to "Boldly They Rode" could really do with a new, more accurate and accurately sized DS9 (K-7 also suffers from uber-gigantism, both stations are so oversized that a Galaxy Class feels as big as a shuttle, heck, I could fit a Scimitar's nose in the Defiant's docking port at DS9! (Speaking of which, the Defiant C would be nice to see at a properly scaled DS9 since it's still stationed there) (can't use the old "They need to be big because Social Zone" excuse anymore, it's no longer valid with the 1x-1.5x scale stations like the Krenim Research Lab, K-13, TOS ESD, etc.)) You could call it Season 14: Rebirth (in a nod to that April Fools joke you pulled a few years back).
It is in fact single pinpoint bursts that shields are best against due to producing a localized spatial distortion where they're hit: the slight AoE and all-at-once release of a torpedo's energy throw shield coolant loops into overdrive much ore effectively. Beams don't run out, and once shields are down you basically no longer *need* torpedoes as they will slice into the hull like hot chainsaws through butter.
Canon aside, the balance is skewed, and that much is fact.
What would fix it with the least amount of work/destruction would be a few things, keeping in mind that every launcher equipped is quite literally being installed *instead* of several beam assemblies or cannons and all that.
1) The shared cooldown needs to be beaten, dragged out back, beaten again, shot, and watch as its family is stripped of all honor and fed to targs before joining them. You can even make a scapegoat NPC like with the transporters on Qo'nos. If multiple energy weapons eat energy, the worst that should have been is that multiple projectile weapons increase the actual *base* cooldown when fired *simultaneously*. Like "Photons gain +0.25s per torpedo launched inside the same 2s window, tricobalts gain +1s" or the like.
The values could be unique even as a balancing factor if you want, and would ideally (if done right) serve as a counterpoint to going for insane alphas like "five tricobalts" by leaving you basically dry for longer than normal afterwards. Mixed weapon and/or type builds would be naturally aided by staggered firing after the initial volley from different reload rates.
2) Haste needs to apply to launchers as well and to the recovery rate of charged ones like the omega launcher.
3) Are they good against hull but not shields, or vice-versa (which would have been more sensible), or not? *CHOOSE*. But if they're to be bad against shields as they currently are, they need to *ACTUALLY* be better against hull than the energy weapons that vastly outmatch them with shields up - currently those hit hull harder as well, and that just ain't right.
4) Bridge Officer Abilities have no reason whatsoever to apply to only a single launcher for a single activation within 10s when they apply to ALL energy weapons for ALL activations for ALL 10 seconds. At the very least, "all launchers, single activation within 10s" would make sense. Shouldn't really even be that short anyways then though, more like 15s to cover tricobalts and the such.
There is also the idea of giving torpedo high-yield a similar buff concept that was used with beam overload, in which after you use torpedo high-yield it might leave you with a buff to the reload speed, and a secondary buff based on the type of torpedo you used the high-yield on affecting all of your torpedo launchers. So you could have transphasic giving a shield-bypassing buff, photon/quantum giving a increased damage, plasma creating a small plasma hazard, maybe a short duration slow for chroniton, and so forth. Even if we just saw them do a initial pass of high-yield giving a buff to torpedo reload/cooldown reduction, and also a damage buff till later on when they might add the idea of each torpedo type giving a different secondary buff. I think most people would find that fine, and also appealing to use the torpedo high yield ability.
I actually also like the idea of having maybe giving beams or cannons a weakness against hulls similar to how torpedoes are weak against shields, while having the left over weapon type be neutral against both having no disadvantage or advantage against either shields or hull. This could actually work towards balancing the three/four weapon types between each other, and making mixing weapon types abit more desirable too. I could see having beam be good against shields yet weak against hulls, while torpedos/mines are weak against shields an very good against hulls, and that would leave cannons as the middle ground between them both. Which way do other testers think such a mechanic should be implemented between the three weapon types? Keep in mind that the idea of having a weapon type weak against shields i already implemented for torpedoes, so it could be feasible to convert that over into a hull version against beams or cannons with just a little bit of tweaks tot he numbers.
this sounds a lot like how burst-fire torpedo tubes would be represented ingame
and while very few ships had burst-fire capabilities over 35 years ago, by 2411 i would expect ALL ships have the ability
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Though also wondering what types of heavy weapons we will see brought out with the expansion, when many escort/raiders an other commander seat using ships that fall into a pre-set of parameters get the heavy weapon slot. I think that adding both heavy torpedo, cannon, and even lance weapons could be quite interesting most of all if the heavy weapon slot could be used for both forward arc an rear arc firing weapons (not merely 360 arc weapons).
We could have maybe a conversion of the lance-using dreads to have a heavy weapon slot, and I could live with losing a rear or forward weapon slot for such a change, and then giving us more selection of beam-based lance weapons of varying energy types thru them. You could even look at the Scimitar's aoe/cone type pulse emitter style weapon as another form of a beam-based heavy weapon system too.
- Leave the old Beam Overload as it where. A lot of people have invested
in equiptment and it is part of their playstyle. Just removing the
functionality of that skill alltogether takes away an existing playstyle.
For example, most of my toons have 6 to 10% crit chance. However, with
Beam Overload I can consistently hit a single target with high damage. If
you don't want us to just FAW our way to victory, you have to present
alternatives, and the old Beam Overload is such an alternative.
My suggestion is to ADD a new skill with the new functionality of Beam
Overload instead, name it e.g. "Beam amplification" or something, so people
have more choices.
- All Dyson Rep consoles should be reworked and considerably buffed in
order to come in line with other consoles.
- Torpedoes should be BUFFED, a lot of people seem to agree with that.
That includes leaving Omega Kinetic Shearing at its current state on
Holodeck.
- Torpedo High Yield should be useful over Torpedo spread. Right now it
is laughable. Why fire TWO torpedoes on ONE target when I can use a
Spread 1 and fire FOUR torpedoes on MULTIPLE targets? High Yield, on
normal torpedoes (i.e. not Plasma) should do something worthwile for the
player.
- Increase base damage on some torpedoes.
Right now, all beam arrays Mk12 do exactly the same base damage. They
only differ in procs and modifiers. Torpedo types however fastly differ
in base DPS they do. I think the "special" thing about a torpedo should
be more treated like the procs on beams, and they should be given more
equal base damage. This of course can be balanced out with fire
rate/damage, i.e. some high damage low firing torps and some faster,
lower damage torps. But in the essence, their base damage should be more
consistent. Right now we have torpedoes which practically no one uses,
because their base DPS is so bad. If you intend to make "all options
viable", this is a way towards this goal. (Note, I'm talking about
standard torpedoes in the game, not reputation gear ones).
- Mixed Beam or Cannon/Torpedo Builds should be more viable.
I also suggest to add a new type of console for that purpose. Currently,
Vulnerability Locators are the go-to tactical consoles, surpassing the
normal energy type consoles because they additionally give +crit
chance/severity.
Its a good idea to introduce new tactical consoles that give e.g. +35%
Phaser damage and + 20% Torpedo damage, but no crit chance like the
Vulnerability consoles. Numbers of course would need to be tested, but in
principle, this can make mixed builds more viable. It should be more than
just taking 4 phaser and 1 torpedo console in an escort to be useful.
- This may be personal preference, but I'd like to have 30 secs of
activation capacity back after loading a torpedo skill, over the 10 secs
it is currently on tribble.
- Mines still suck. Seriously. It takes ages for them to fire, and more
often than not, if they hit at all, they hit another targets shields and
do not noteworthy damage, because the primary target is long gone. I
tried my best to use some Mk12 mines and Disperal Pattern Beta, shot down
the targets shields, lay some mines in a flyby so they would hit the
unshielded target. Result: 300 DPS from mines. If I took another beam
array mk12, I would have gotten 4 times as much. Mines should be
reworked, maybe in a later patch.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1247522/foundry-sunset-april-11th-2019/p15
Look at my post about a Foundry Ship
BRING BACK THE FOUNDRY!