FACT:
Torpedo and Mine (and Cannon, really) Projectile Flight Speeds are in fact almost perfectly tuned … for the Mk I to Mk II phase of the game.
If you want to play the game and "feel like you're playing a Star Trek movie" … during the Mk I-II phase of gameplay then the Torpedo Flight Speeds are, at present, just about "perfect" for recreating that FEEL of seeing little balls of light fly away from your ship to intercept and damage Foes. This means that everything involved is "hitting the sweet spot" in terms of relative movement speeds of ships and the Flight Speeds of Torpedoes and Mines (and Cannon fire).
However … this does not remain TRUE in perpetuity throughout the remainder of the game. This then leads to the following …
FACT:
Torpedo and Mine (and Cannon, really) Projectile Flight Speeds are in fact egregiously underpowered … for the Mk XI to Mk XIV phase of the game.
This is because all along the way, both Mk Levels have been increasing for Impulse Engines … going from a base +7.5 Impulse Speed to +12 at Mk XII, a +60% relative speed increase … and available Power Levels to devote to Engines have been increasing, due to Captain Skills … while Torpedo, Mine and Cannon Flight Speeds for their projectiles remains mired at Start Of Game "basic" levels, with hardly any way to improve the situation. As a consequence, EVERYTHING in the game simply moves faster and faster in combat … EXCEPT for Torpedoes, Mines and Cannon fire … which effectively have a "fixed" Flight Speed to $Target that *works* (and looks right) for ONE part of the game, but which becomes completely obsolete over time with longer gameplay.
It is my firm belief that this situation is more a matter of a historical/legacy omission of understanding how the game environment and play evolves over time as character Levels increase from 1 to (now) 60. It's a matter of starting in the "right place" for the look and feel of the game, but then omitting an important factor to allow this specific aspect of the game (Projectile Flight Speeds to $Target) to "keep pace" with all of the other changes (and power creep) happening elsewhere, such as Engine Power and Impulse Speeds, which make the game happen and resolve faster and faster as Levels and Mk numbers increase.
The problem, @darkknightucf ... is that Impulse speeds are not a constant across the entire scope and spectrum of the game from 1-60. If you tune for the 60 game, it's "too fast to look right" in the 1-10 range ... hence why I assert that the Flight Speed for Torpedoes, Mines and Cannons need to be variables that move/keep pace across the entire spectrum of the game experience from 1 to 60.
Any attempt to do a "set and forget" is going to wind up being a mistake SOMEWHERE ... unless talking about 60 Only stuff.
Updated the speed of non-targetable torpedoes to be faster.
This is only an update to the FX, not a functional change.
The speed of targetable torpedoes has not changed.
For those who haven't seen the discussion of this on r/sto yet, as far as the internal naming scheme of things is concerned, the game mechanical stats of the items you equip (the Launchers themselves) remain unchanged, so there is no "functional" change from a Powers/Mechanics perspective. Instead, what got adjusted was the Projectile Animation, which required the work of an artist, rather than a spreadsheet jockey.
As far as the PLAYERS are concerned, this will be a "functional" change in that (non-destructible) Torpedo Flight Speeds will be increased so as to yield less of a delay between firing and hitting, but for Division Of Labor reasons within Cryptic Studios this is not termed a "functional" change because no spreadsheet stats are getting adjusted. Instead, the ART that produces the "function" is being adjusted, hence the explanation of this being only an update to the FX.
In this case, we're looking at a case of different people (Players, Developers) using the exact same terms ("functional") to mean very different things.
Wow, what a ridiculously convoluted way for them to say they are actually changing the flight speed.
So the actual animation of the torp hitting initiates the damage calculation against the enemy ship, I always though it was calculated as soon as the shot left the tube and the animation didn't really mean much other than a visual display? Or is only the hit/miss part calculated on launch?
the damage IS calculated as soon as the torpedo is launched; that's where all those 'invisible' borg torpedoes come from - they aren't actually invisible, the warhead just hits long before the actual torpedo does and by the time it catches up, it's obscured by explosions
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.
Borticus: It doesn't feel good when you fire one of your big powerful weapons and the enemy dies before it gets there. We know that that doesn't feel good. But it also feels odd if you're flying quickly and outrunning your own bullets.
And yet, destructible torpedoes suck, and will continue to suck for the foreseeable future.
Ah well. This fix will boost Torp Spread. Not sure the AoE powers are the ones that need the boost, but, there you go. B:FAW's friend gets a leg up.
And yet, destructible torpedoes suck, and will continue to suck for the foreseeable future.
Your ire is misplaced. This isn't a "tweak one setting" sort of thing. There are multiple moving parts involved. There's also POOR CODE DESIGN baked in too, since a lot of the features we're talking about aren't controlled by variables in a spreadsheet, which would be easy to modify, but rather are "hard coded" art assets that aren't *meant* to be modified as the game evolves.
This means that the Projectile Flight Speed problem isn't something that Borticus (and friends) can fix on his/their own ... they have to drag in other departments (specifically, Art for animations and so on) in order to modify stuff that was designed to never be modified.
I'm reminded of something that Noble Savage said during the last City of Heroes Player Summit ... "it's all spaghetti code now" ... which helped explain how horrifically UNSTABLE the development environment for the game had become.
Examples of this sort of "it's all spaghetti code now" being the NORMAL state of affairs for STO abound. Beam down to Starfleet Academy and you'll actually spawn TWICE, with the second location actually being kept. Open the Current Map for DOffs and watch it spawn TWO lists of Missions, with the second one being the one that's supposed to be there. Names of DOff Missions show up blank, but if you wait long enough, they'll (eventually) show up (maybe).
And then there's Torpedoes and Mines, which as far as we can tell were DESIGNED as sort of "hacks" of spaghetti code that are just obnoxiously awful to try and do any modifications to. That's why so many performance parameters (flight speed, arming time for Mines, etc.) are controlled by things that to Players don't make any sense. Why would ART rather than SPREADSHEETS control the behavior/performance cycle of Mines? Why is ART the controlling feature for Torpedo Flight Speeds? Why would any SANE Developer build a system to operate this way, *knowing* that the game is going to evolve and change over time? Why are these things hard coded instead of being controlled by variables stored in spreadsheets that would be easy to tweak as needed?
This is why you can't "stack" the Romulan Space Set 2 piece bonus and the Pre-Fire Sequence Trait to stack the way you'd assume they ought to. Why? Because they're not ACTUALLY doing what they're claiming to do on the tin. They aren't ACTUALLY modifying the Flight Speed of the projectiles in question by applying a modifier to a spreadsheet variable. No, instead they're placing a function call to a different ANIMATION of the projectile(s) in question ... and if they BOTH call for the same alternate animation, then that alternate animation gets used, but you don't get the expected stacking of Flight Speed modifiers that you were promised in the tooltips, because there's only ONE alternate (faster traveling) animation, instead of TWO.
Which all loops back to ... Why? Poor Design.
How poor? Hard coded poor.
Which means ...?
In order to do it RIGHT, you'd have to do a complete overhaul and replace of the ENTIRE system. That doesn't come "cheap" when you've got something that "works" but doesn't perform the way you want it to (ultimately) because you've painted yourself into a corner by doing something "quick and dirty" all the way back in Alpha and have never "fixed" to be a more flexible/extensible system like you'd need to have NOW. That takes TIME. That takes MAN-HOURS. That takes RESOURCES. It is not "cheap" or "easy" or anything else you might want to think is as simple as wiping your nose and having done with it. And that's not even including the QA and iterations necessary to demonstrate and "proof" the replacement system can "do" everything it's supposed to do that the old system did, while making possible NEW possibilities that the old system prevented from happening.
It's kind of obvious that Cryptic isn't ALLOWED to do code refactoring except as an absolute last resort ... because it isn't "cheap" and it doesn't inherently "add" any immediate value or enhancement to what you've already got.
Unfortunately, Torpedoes and Mines need a complete, end to end, overhaul and total code refactoring in order to "work" the way that Players really want them to work, and for Developers like Borticus would prefer them to "work" under the hood so as to make them easier to support and maintain. Without that code refactoring, you're stuck with a "sunk costs" paradigm where things can't get improved because they "already work" (badly) and moving to a new method/system to do things "better" will simply cost too much time/resources/schedule disruption to fix PROPERLY. So you wind up with a "muddle through" mentality where the old problems persist and the workaround just continue to pile up and the code base just gets more and more unstable and difficult to work with.
So I'm not saying you're wrong about Destructible Torpedoes taking longer to do anything about. I am however saying that the solution to the problem is a lot more complex than you're (glibly) implying. I, for one, am willing to give Cryptic a kudos for addressing the issue AT ALL ... and have no problem with admitting that Destructible Torpedoes is an additional "layer" of complexity to be dealt with given the limitations of the currently existing software paradigm for how Destructible Torpedoes "work" at present. So I can understand that it will take MORE WORK to deal with the Destructible Torpedoes, and will not begrudge our hard working Devs releasing updates as they can complete them rather than all at once in a big massive lump sum "fix" for the entire problem.
So I'm not saying you're wrong about Destructible Torpedoes taking longer to do anything about. I am however saying that the solution to the problem is a lot more complex than you're (glibly) implying.
Flight speed is ONE issue with destructible torps. With powercreep has come the issue that destructible torps are underpowered given their longer cooldowns. The fact that more enemies fire more beams (some even having B:FAW) means that the default Defense value of destructibles ALSO does not keep up with level (same as flight speed). Then there are enemies that use Tractor Beam Repulsors, to which there are no counters. It's like flying a beam-cruiser and fighting an enemy that can't be harmed by Beam weapons; tedious and frustrating. Then there is the fact that most destructibles splatter harmlessly against a ship with 1 point of shield health remaining; reducing it's damage by 90% (95% for Absorptive shields).
I admit, your thread is probably the wrong place to be "glib" about the issues with destructibles, since destructibles are terrible in so many ways. I apologize.
no counters for destructible torpedos or players against TBR?
I have Phasic Artillery from Temporal Spec and make use of the Romulan Hyper-Torpedo in the aft weapon slots on my EBC Raiders (Kor and Malem). I routinely see Tractor Beam Repulsors fired by NPC ships score "1 hit destruction" against Destructible Torpedoes, even with the Phasic Artillery bonus temp HP, with multiple Plasma Torps being eliminated per second. Considering that they can take my Hull from 100% to 50% in seconds, I suppose that makes sense ... but still ...
Borticus: It doesn't feel good when you fire one of your big powerful weapons and the enemy dies before it gets there. We know that that doesn't feel good. But it also feels odd if you're flying quickly and outrunning your own bullets.
And yet, destructible torpedoes suck, and will continue to suck for the foreseeable future.
Ah well. This fix will boost Torp Spread. Not sure the AoE powers are the ones that need the boost, but, there you go. B:FAW's friend gets a leg up.
I feel bad for telling Odenknight of all people to check back on the previous page, but I'll do you the courtesy of making life easy for you (timepoint 38m24s where Borticus begins his disclaimer for context).
@e30ernest posted the link to the interview first on 16 July 2016. You can also file a "thank you" note with Timberwolf (I'm sure he'll appreciate the extra paperwork!) for leading the conversation in this direction when he got the chance.
Um..no counters for destructible torpedos or players against TBR?
Allow me to share an abridged version of a communication from the Terran Empire.
"Dear Romulan Scumbag,
We are pleased to inform you that all of our Science Vessels (and most Cruisers) are equipped with F*ck You Repulsor Beams. These render your heaviest weapons totally impotent. Eat sh*t, and have a pleasant day!
Hugs and kisses,
Terran Empire"
As a result, the Terran Empire are my least favorite enemies in all of STO. They are a total bunch of jerks. And yes, TBR renders them immune to destructibles. From the lowliest chroniton mine to the mighty Romulan Destabilized Plasma torp, most Terran ships automatically destroy destructible projectiles before they get close enough to deal damage.
Comments
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.
The problem, @darkknightucf ... is that Impulse speeds are not a constant across the entire scope and spectrum of the game from 1-60. If you tune for the 60 game, it's "too fast to look right" in the 1-10 range ... hence why I assert that the Flight Speed for Torpedoes, Mines and Cannons need to be variables that move/keep pace across the entire spectrum of the game experience from 1 to 60.
Any attempt to do a "set and forget" is going to wind up being a mistake SOMEWHERE ... unless talking about 60 Only stuff.
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
For those who haven't seen the discussion of this on r/sto yet, as far as the internal naming scheme of things is concerned, the game mechanical stats of the items you equip (the Launchers themselves) remain unchanged, so there is no "functional" change from a Powers/Mechanics perspective. Instead, what got adjusted was the Projectile Animation, which required the work of an artist, rather than a spreadsheet jockey.
As far as the PLAYERS are concerned, this will be a "functional" change in that (non-destructible) Torpedo Flight Speeds will be increased so as to yield less of a delay between firing and hitting, but for Division Of Labor reasons within Cryptic Studios this is not termed a "functional" change because no spreadsheet stats are getting adjusted. Instead, the ART that produces the "function" is being adjusted, hence the explanation of this being only an update to the FX.
In this case, we're looking at a case of different people (Players, Developers) using the exact same terms ("functional") to mean very different things.
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
So the actual animation of the torp hitting initiates the damage calculation against the enemy ship, I always though it was calculated as soon as the shot left the tube and the animation didn't really mean much other than a visual display? Or is only the hit/miss part calculated on launch?
#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!"
And yet, destructible torpedoes suck, and will continue to suck for the foreseeable future.
Ah well. This fix will boost Torp Spread. Not sure the AoE powers are the ones that need the boost, but, there you go. B:FAW's friend gets a leg up.
Your ire is misplaced. This isn't a "tweak one setting" sort of thing. There are multiple moving parts involved. There's also POOR CODE DESIGN baked in too, since a lot of the features we're talking about aren't controlled by variables in a spreadsheet, which would be easy to modify, but rather are "hard coded" art assets that aren't *meant* to be modified as the game evolves.
This means that the Projectile Flight Speed problem isn't something that Borticus (and friends) can fix on his/their own ... they have to drag in other departments (specifically, Art for animations and so on) in order to modify stuff that was designed to never be modified.
I'm reminded of something that Noble Savage said during the last City of Heroes Player Summit ... "it's all spaghetti code now" ... which helped explain how horrifically UNSTABLE the development environment for the game had become.
Examples of this sort of "it's all spaghetti code now" being the NORMAL state of affairs for STO abound. Beam down to Starfleet Academy and you'll actually spawn TWICE, with the second location actually being kept. Open the Current Map for DOffs and watch it spawn TWO lists of Missions, with the second one being the one that's supposed to be there. Names of DOff Missions show up blank, but if you wait long enough, they'll (eventually) show up (maybe).
And then there's Torpedoes and Mines, which as far as we can tell were DESIGNED as sort of "hacks" of spaghetti code that are just obnoxiously awful to try and do any modifications to. That's why so many performance parameters (flight speed, arming time for Mines, etc.) are controlled by things that to Players don't make any sense. Why would ART rather than SPREADSHEETS control the behavior/performance cycle of Mines? Why is ART the controlling feature for Torpedo Flight Speeds? Why would any SANE Developer build a system to operate this way, *knowing* that the game is going to evolve and change over time? Why are these things hard coded instead of being controlled by variables stored in spreadsheets that would be easy to tweak as needed?
This is why you can't "stack" the Romulan Space Set 2 piece bonus and the Pre-Fire Sequence Trait to stack the way you'd assume they ought to. Why? Because they're not ACTUALLY doing what they're claiming to do on the tin. They aren't ACTUALLY modifying the Flight Speed of the projectiles in question by applying a modifier to a spreadsheet variable. No, instead they're placing a function call to a different ANIMATION of the projectile(s) in question ... and if they BOTH call for the same alternate animation, then that alternate animation gets used, but you don't get the expected stacking of Flight Speed modifiers that you were promised in the tooltips, because there's only ONE alternate (faster traveling) animation, instead of TWO.
Which all loops back to ... Why? Poor Design.
How poor? Hard coded poor.
Which means ...?
In order to do it RIGHT, you'd have to do a complete overhaul and replace of the ENTIRE system. That doesn't come "cheap" when you've got something that "works" but doesn't perform the way you want it to (ultimately) because you've painted yourself into a corner by doing something "quick and dirty" all the way back in Alpha and have never "fixed" to be a more flexible/extensible system like you'd need to have NOW. That takes TIME. That takes MAN-HOURS. That takes RESOURCES. It is not "cheap" or "easy" or anything else you might want to think is as simple as wiping your nose and having done with it. And that's not even including the QA and iterations necessary to demonstrate and "proof" the replacement system can "do" everything it's supposed to do that the old system did, while making possible NEW possibilities that the old system prevented from happening.
See: Code Refactoring
It's kind of obvious that Cryptic isn't ALLOWED to do code refactoring except as an absolute last resort ... because it isn't "cheap" and it doesn't inherently "add" any immediate value or enhancement to what you've already got.
Unfortunately, Torpedoes and Mines need a complete, end to end, overhaul and total code refactoring in order to "work" the way that Players really want them to work, and for Developers like Borticus would prefer them to "work" under the hood so as to make them easier to support and maintain. Without that code refactoring, you're stuck with a "sunk costs" paradigm where things can't get improved because they "already work" (badly) and moving to a new method/system to do things "better" will simply cost too much time/resources/schedule disruption to fix PROPERLY. So you wind up with a "muddle through" mentality where the old problems persist and the workaround just continue to pile up and the code base just gets more and more unstable and difficult to work with.
So I'm not saying you're wrong about Destructible Torpedoes taking longer to do anything about. I am however saying that the solution to the problem is a lot more complex than you're (glibly) implying. I, for one, am willing to give Cryptic a kudos for addressing the issue AT ALL ... and have no problem with admitting that Destructible Torpedoes is an additional "layer" of complexity to be dealt with given the limitations of the currently existing software paradigm for how Destructible Torpedoes "work" at present. So I can understand that it will take MORE WORK to deal with the Destructible Torpedoes, and will not begrudge our hard working Devs releasing updates as they can complete them rather than all at once in a big massive lump sum "fix" for the entire problem.
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
I admit, your thread is probably the wrong place to be "glib" about the issues with destructibles, since destructibles are terrible in so many ways. I apologize.
Um..no counters for destructible torpedos or players against TBR?
Rouge Sto Wiki Editor.
I have Phasic Artillery from Temporal Spec and make use of the Romulan Hyper-Torpedo in the aft weapon slots on my EBC Raiders (Kor and Malem). I routinely see Tractor Beam Repulsors fired by NPC ships score "1 hit destruction" against Destructible Torpedoes, even with the Phasic Artillery bonus temp HP, with multiple Plasma Torps being eliminated per second. Considering that they can take my Hull from 100% to 50% in seconds, I suppose that makes sense ... but still ...
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
Can I get a source for this quote, please?
@autumnturning as usual, good work!
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!
I feel bad for telling Odenknight of all people to check back on the previous page, but I'll do you the courtesy of making life easy for you (timepoint 38m24s where Borticus begins his disclaimer for context).
@e30ernest posted the link to the interview first on 16 July 2016. You can also file a "thank you" note with Timberwolf (I'm sure he'll appreciate the extra paperwork!) for leading the conversation in this direction when he got the chance.
Pshaw. I'm fumbling around in the dark just as much as the rest of you when it comes to this stuff.
Protonic Kool-Aid Down The Drain Cruiser
Immortal BOff Skills combo for Ground
"Dear Romulan Scumbag,
We are pleased to inform you that all of our Science Vessels (and most Cruisers) are equipped with F*ck You Repulsor Beams. These render your heaviest weapons totally impotent. Eat sh*t, and have a pleasant day!
Hugs and kisses,
Terran Empire"
As a result, the Terran Empire are my least favorite enemies in all of STO. They are a total bunch of jerks. And yes, TBR renders them immune to destructibles. From the lowliest chroniton mine to the mighty Romulan Destabilized Plasma torp, most Terran ships automatically destroy destructible projectiles before they get close enough to deal damage.