test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
[Recommendation] Complimentary Torpedo Flight Speeds
autumnturning
Member Posts: 743 Arc User
Relatively simple idea.
All Torpedo projectiles already have a flight speed associated with them. So far so good. Keep those numbers, because we're going to keep using them.
Introduce a new factor into the equation that determines Torpedo projectile flight speed ... current Impulse Speed of the launcher/caster. The way this would work would be partially dependent on Throttle setting.
IF the Throttle is currently "forward" and not 0 ... add the current Impulse Speed to the flight speed of all FORWARD firing Torpedoes.
IF the Throttle is currently "reverse" and not 0 ... add the current Impulse Speed to the flight speed of all AFT firing Torpedoes.
In the inverse cases, such as "forward" throttle but firing AFT Torpedoes, the flight speed bonus to the Torpedoes remains 0 (so status quo unchanged). And obviously, at stationary "zero Throttle" there is no added flight speed for projectiles fired either FORWARD or AFT.
The basic idea here is that the motion of the ship gets ADDED to the flight speed of Torpedoes ... IF ... the Torpedo is fired in the same direction the ship is moving. Forward movement adds to forward flight speeds, and reverse movement adds to aft flight speeds. This would then prevent Torpedoes from being launched by fast moving ships and "pacing" the launching ship, such that the launching ship NEEDS to turn aside to avoid being caught in any kind of "shared" danger zone.
As far as "tuning" goes for this suggestion, if a 1:1 addition is deemed unbalanced, there are a lot of ways that this suggestion could be adjusted. For one thing, a straight up fraction of current Impulse Speed could be added instead of 100% of it.
I am recommending this change be made to *ALL* Torpedo projectile launches, by both PCs and NPCs, as a fundamental augmentation of the underlying game mechanics for Torpedoes of all flavors and kinds. Note that such a change would introduce an entire NEW meta game around use of Torpedoes in conjunction with Player "piloting" skills to determine strategies and anticipation of how to employ (and deploy) Torpedoes most effectively. Furthermore, such a change could potentially have a very positive impact on the "viability" of Destructible Torpedoes, particularly when used in a dedicated/intelligent fashion using forethought and tactics which rewards the employment of Player Skill in ways that break the cookie cutter of How (and When) to use such weapons, and in what fashion.
Furthermore, such a change would obviously create an opportunity for Emergency Power to Engines and Auxiliary Power to Dampeners to become much more desirable Bridge Officer Skills than they currently are.
S imple
E asy
E ffective
How hard would this be for Cryptic to implement? It's literally adding two values together that the game is already making use of but not (yet) combining to make a more interesting and diverse game.
Your move, Devs.
All Torpedo projectiles already have a flight speed associated with them. So far so good. Keep those numbers, because we're going to keep using them.
Introduce a new factor into the equation that determines Torpedo projectile flight speed ... current Impulse Speed of the launcher/caster. The way this would work would be partially dependent on Throttle setting.
IF the Throttle is currently "forward" and not 0 ... add the current Impulse Speed to the flight speed of all FORWARD firing Torpedoes.
IF the Throttle is currently "reverse" and not 0 ... add the current Impulse Speed to the flight speed of all AFT firing Torpedoes.
In the inverse cases, such as "forward" throttle but firing AFT Torpedoes, the flight speed bonus to the Torpedoes remains 0 (so status quo unchanged). And obviously, at stationary "zero Throttle" there is no added flight speed for projectiles fired either FORWARD or AFT.
The basic idea here is that the motion of the ship gets ADDED to the flight speed of Torpedoes ... IF ... the Torpedo is fired in the same direction the ship is moving. Forward movement adds to forward flight speeds, and reverse movement adds to aft flight speeds. This would then prevent Torpedoes from being launched by fast moving ships and "pacing" the launching ship, such that the launching ship NEEDS to turn aside to avoid being caught in any kind of "shared" danger zone.
As far as "tuning" goes for this suggestion, if a 1:1 addition is deemed unbalanced, there are a lot of ways that this suggestion could be adjusted. For one thing, a straight up fraction of current Impulse Speed could be added instead of 100% of it.
I am recommending this change be made to *ALL* Torpedo projectile launches, by both PCs and NPCs, as a fundamental augmentation of the underlying game mechanics for Torpedoes of all flavors and kinds. Note that such a change would introduce an entire NEW meta game around use of Torpedoes in conjunction with Player "piloting" skills to determine strategies and anticipation of how to employ (and deploy) Torpedoes most effectively. Furthermore, such a change could potentially have a very positive impact on the "viability" of Destructible Torpedoes, particularly when used in a dedicated/intelligent fashion using forethought and tactics which rewards the employment of Player Skill in ways that break the cookie cutter of How (and When) to use such weapons, and in what fashion.
Furthermore, such a change would obviously create an opportunity for Emergency Power to Engines and Auxiliary Power to Dampeners to become much more desirable Bridge Officer Skills than they currently are.
S imple
E asy
E ffective
How hard would this be for Cryptic to implement? It's literally adding two values together that the game is already making use of but not (yet) combining to make a more interesting and diverse game.
Your move, Devs.
THE Balanced Budget Build
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
0
Comments
It's always struck me as odd why torps don't obey the laws of general relativity when being fired.
Agreed that it seems ... odd ... that the movement speed of the "caster" does not influence the flight speed of the projectiles that get launched from that "caster" in game. I can understand the notion that the game was trying to mimic the cinematic experience seen on film, in terms of projectile flight speeds, and in that regard they got things pretty much in the sweet spot as far as LOOKS go. The problem with that is that in almost every single Star Trek film where torpedoes are being used (i.e. the reference material), the ships aren't moving all that "fast" relative to their surroundings. Most of the time, torpedoes (usually photons) are getting fired from (and at) Stately Sailing Tall Ships that are hardly performing Pedal To The Metal maneuvering on film.
So the way the projectile flight speeds work for "slow moving casters" works out extremely well when judged against he reference material of Star Trek films ... but then it breaks down for "fast movers" which can potentially fly FASTER than the torpedoes they're dumping out of the (usually forward) tubes. Hence ... this recommendation.
The biggest advantage I can see out of making this change is that it means that projectile flight speeds stop being a "constant" and instead become a variable influenced by situational circumstances. That makes the game a lot more inter(re)active, engaging to play, and ultimately more rewarding in terms of visceral playing experience. Rewarding how? Why ... FUN ... of course!
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1210239/an-idea-for-an-escort-revamp-the-momentum-system
Some similar ideas thrown about with speed affecting torp penetration values and such.
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
I, for one, support your idea. It's canon, it makes sense, and it's a busted mechanic that is long overdue for an adjustment.
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
/e bow
Permission pre-emptively granted to reference this [Recommendation] in The Show next week if you find yourself otherwise short on things to discuss. No obligation to do so, of course.
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
Currently making a full impulse attack run on a target and shooting torps is more like making a bombing run as often the ship will overtake the projectiles as soon as they leave the launcher, it looks more like they come out of a bomb bay or out the rear launchers.
That actually makes it even more deadly to use things like plasma torps or tricobalt where you really want them out in front of you or you get caught in the blast! Quite often they go off right under you which can be real nasty.
Cannons suffer the same issue, but they have a whole galaxy of problems wrong with them these days so just altering the speed to target is only part of the solution.
With respect to adamkafei and lordsteve1 ... I was not aware of projectile speeds being an issue for Cannons (also), simply because I myself almost never use Cannons (and when I do, I'm not being a speed demon). However, now that you mention it, that does sound like a similar issue. Depending on the underlying programming code, it is theoretically possible that the [Recommendation] I'm advocating for could be at such a "level" that it would also need to enforce the same kind of change to Cannon fired projectiles because it would get applied to ALL projectiles in space. If that is so, I for one would consider that a bonus "feature" of my [Recommendation] rather than any sort of "bug" to be prevented or avoided.
And while I am most definitely NOT qualified to discuss the "whole galaxy of problems wrong" with Cannons, I'd like to think that if applying this [Recommendation] serves as merely one step on the path to rectifying those problems with Cannons that render them inferior to Beams in too many circumstances, then I will count myself as having been fortunate to have brought this idea forward in the first place, for the consideration of all, where it could be judged on its merits and found to have value beyond my expectations.
/e D'k_Tahg
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
Torps have the same issue but it still affects pretty much any projectile based weapon in the game, flight speeds are not able to compete with insta-hit beam weapons.
Please.. we just play and have fun. @e30ernest and I just like to have fun with what we do, and we found a way to "pay it forward" and honor those who have educated us in the past.
Granted, and thank you for offering. Now, go blow something up, and bring Glory and Honor to the Kinetic Kommunity!
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
In addition, I think we should also bring up one of the other HUGE benefits of doing this, which is that visually, it will look so much better than it does currently. It's really annoying to have my ship launch torpedoes while under AP:Omega or EPtE and have them fall backwards through my ship's hull because I'm outpacing them.
Good suggestion OP, 10/10.
Your support is appreciated.
I'll say "No" for two reasons.
The first is that Torpedoes are designed to not be dependent on Weapon Power (and if anything they're dependent on Aux Power instead). Binding any aspect of (baseline) Torpedo Performance to Weapon Power should be a non-starter from the get go. Weapon Power is for Energy Weapons, not for Kinetics (and whatever Nukara Web Mines are, with their Physical Damage).
The second reason is one which I've already mentioned previously. I'm not looking for modification of anything other than Flight Speeds. That means no extra Damage (let alone [Dmg]) or even Shield/Armor Penetration. Why? Because I'm trying to confine this [Recommendation] to only a single performance parameter ... the Flight Speed of Projectiles ... which essentially affects both Torpedoes as well as Cannons (including Turrets). In other words, I want to resist the impulse towards Feeping Creaturism in which an otherwise good idea gets loaded down with wishlists like a christmas tree until it collapses under its own weight. In that respect, I want to keep modifiers (such as [Pen]) confined to the Equipment aspect of the game, rather than conflating it into other areas. Basically a Keep It Simple Stupid approach of making ONE change, see how that goes, and then circle back around later to determine later if there are other deficiencies to be addressed.
In that respect, I'm advocating for carefully considered incremental change rather than a revolutionary upset. This seems (to me, anyway) like some pretty low hanging fruit that can be implemented with a scant couple of IF-THEN statements in the programming that relies on use of variables that the game is already using and keeping track of, meaning that implementation "ought to be" relatively easy. Start larding things up with extra complexity and you lose that inherent simplicity and ease of implementation ... and as we all know, "hard" stuff becomes exponentially less likely to happen (EVER).
So, "No" ... I'll stick with my relatively modest "Ask" in this case and see if anything ever comes out of this [Recommendation].
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
As someone who tends to run with torp builds I do have to agree with the absurdity of out racing my own salvos. I think the only one I haven't caught is the isokinetic projectile but I haven't actually tried to chase it.
I do seem recall a scenes about transferring power from launcher systems to engines and torps simply being dropped out of the tubes like mines...if I understand the system correctly the launch system is a hybrid gas/induction system, so more or less power to the coils will affect launch speed and by extension flight speed. It would probably be too much a pain for someone to code though. Not necessarily weapons power but something to enhance the speed.
Just an alternate path to the same concept if for some reason ship momentum if undoable
Easily solved by putting EptE back to where it was pre-Legacy of Romulus.
Back then battlecruisers with DHC's actually had a fighting chance against escorts. But as it stands EptE is one horribly broken skill as it gives a flat speed bonus that is completely unrelated to the ships engines.
To see how broken the skill literally is, just unslot your engines and hit EptE and see yourself zoom away.
The skill needs to be percentage based on your own velocity.
That was the idea behind my suggestion: it doesn't require complex changes and would solve a lot of issues.