I have some ideas on reworking torpedoes so they are more completive with energy weapons. First a little base information.
How total damage is calculated (I think).
Each torpedo has a base value. For Photon torpedoes it is the same as a standard issue. Not every torpedo has a standard issue but they do have a base value. They are listed below.
Photon - 1352.00
Transphasic - 978.20
Chroniton - 1157.75
Plasma - 1061.00
Tricobalt - 4153.50
Quantum - 1503.00
All damage bonuses are a % of the base value, which all get added together and then added to base. I think this is done so you don?t get bonuses on bonuses on more bonuses. The damage would start increasing very fast. Here is how all the bonuses work.
Rarity ? 2.5% per level (very rare is 7.5%)
Damage modifier ? 5% per modifier ([Dmg] x3 is 15%)
Skills - .5% per point (99 points is 49.5%)
Mk level ? 8.14% form base to Mk I and 10.2% every Mk after (Mk X is 100%)
Player Level ? really small amount per level (level 50 is 1.94%)
Consoles ? add what they say they add (+30 is 30%)
How to measure the effectiveness of torpedoes. I don?t know if this is the best way but it can be used to compare rate of fire, firing arc, and damage. You take the rate of fire and find how many shots in one minute you can get. Then find the total damage in one minute. Take that and dived by 60 you get and average dps. Now take you firing arc dived by 180(180 for front and 180 for back) and times that by your average dps.
So if you have 7000 damage, you have 8 torpedoes a minute, and a firing arc of 90 you get
(7000*8)/60=average dps and 90/180=arc%
933*.5 = 466 effectiveness rating
Note that this doesn?t factor in that some ship and stay in the firing arc no matter what.
Now let?s rate the current torpedoes. For the bonus damage calculations I will be using a MK XII Rare launcher, with max skill points in Starship Weapons Training, max skill points in Starship Projectile Weapons, and Level 50 Player(about 225% bonus to base damage).
Info will be (damage per torpedo/average dps/effectiveness rating)
Tricobalt ? 13552/226/113
Quantum ? 4904/490/254
Photon ? 4411/588/294
Chroniton ? 3777/315/157
Plasma ? 3462/346/173
Transphasic ? 3192/266/133
Now for my idea.
First, change the base damage. I used Photons as the ?base? base
@1350 then change the rest by 10% keeping the same order of damage.
Current/New
Tricobalt ? 4153/1620
Quantum ? 1503/1485
Photon ? 1352/1350
Chroniton ? 1158/1227
Plasma ? 1061/1125
Transphasic ? 978/1038
Second, change the firing arcs again Photons as the base and going in steps of 30 degrees.
Current/New
Tricobalt ? 90/30
Quantum ? 90/60
Photon ? 90/90
Chroniton ? 90/120
Plasma ? 90/150
Transphasic ? 90/180
Third, change the fire rate of all torpedoes from what they are to 4 seconds per torpedo. However this is the base value. The rate will change based on weapon power at 50 you have 4 seconds, 25 you will have 8 seconds, and 100 you will have 2 seconds(max rate).
Forth, change the way torpedoes fire. Right now you can only fire 1 at a time. I say change it so you can fire all at the same time.
So now let?s rerate our torpedoes at power rating of 50.
Info will be (damage per torpedo/average dps/effectiveness rating)
Tricobalt ? 5286/1321/220
Quantum ? 4845/1211/404
Photon ? 4405/1101/551
Chroniton ? 4004/1001/667
Plasma ? 3671/918/765
Transphasic ? 3388/847/847
Lastly, new procs.
Tricobalt ? 2.5% chance to have super critical hit 100% to base damage
Quantum ? +20% chance to critical hit, +20% to critical damage
Photon ? +30% accuracy
Chroniton ? 50% chance to bypass shields, 50% chance to do 0 damage (note could do both at the same time bypass shields and do no damage.)
Plasma ? 10% of damage applied to each shield face
Transphasic ? 40% extra bleed through, 5% chance to miss.
The average dps for all torpedoes goes up by 640% at 100 power, 320% at 50 power, and 150% at 25 power.
Or forget all that and up the firing arc to 180 on all torpedoes.
what does everyone else think?
Comments
are the special powers broken? IMHO yes, but that is a whole different thread. now that said, It's Canon that torpedos are a finite resource. I would say bump damage up, but make torps a finite resource, based on hull size. the same thoughts could be applied to cannons, since in DS9, it was clear they had to replace a component of the Defiant's cannons after every mission
First off - power levels do not affect torpedo damage.
Percentages aren't added, they're multiplied (that way multiple bonuses become less effective with each additional bonus).
To be quite honest, although I think they could be tweaked just a bit, I generally like the way they've handled torpedos.
Quantum torpedos give the greatest bang for the reload time. The really high damaging torpedos, can be destroyed en-route to target to compensate for their insane damage. Others have special abilities (some low damaging ones that don't scale have a greater shield penetration, or radiation damage bonus, etc.).
All in all, I think they're pretty good. Just have to remember that they aren't designed to attack shields. Shields greatly reduce their effectiveness (as they should being kinetic damage). Don't fire torpedos at a fully charged shield arc, use your energy weapons to weaken or take down the shields, then fire the torpedos (if using slow moving targetable torpedos fire them really close in).
Some people think torpedos are weak, only because they want to fly torpedo boats armed only with torpedos. I would argue that although "cool looking", that's a really dumb idea. Placing all of one's eggs in one basket is a recipe for failure. That kind of specialization rarely works, nor should it.
As for placing a limit on the number of torpedos carried, that's a "good on paper, not great in game" type of thing. Some fights in-game (especially on higher difficulties) would easily exhaust the entire compliment of torpedos, penalizing those who take them, while those with energy weapons would have unlimited ammo (unless you're also advocating that their phaser coils burn out after x number of shots as well).
Seriously, can you imagine an Elite STF when everyone runs out of ammo? Some of them are tough enough as is without that headache.
Tell that to every beam boat cruiser and cannon boat Escort. Both are viable builds.
Thats my biggest complaint with torps ATM.
They don't REMOTLY compare to their energy weapon bretheran. They're ok. But unless your runnign a really horribad wepaons power they're not mch cop. Science gets plenty of use out of them for that reason. And crusier often have spare weapons slots, but they're strictlly a secondery weapons thats often woefully under-utulised. And escorts really have no justificationn for bringing them atm.
Really wehat i'd like to see:
1. Bring all Torp banks DPS into line with Mk and Modifider equivelent Dual Beams
2. Come up with some new nice modifiers for Photons and Quantums, (they're going to be left behind by the rest otherwise, and doing so might help make crew more useful to boot).
3. Drop the Global Cooldown.
4. Make Torp HY and Torp Spread work like BFAW/CSV/CRF (i.e. every shot for X number of seconds)
The only reason they fire in this steady fashion they do now, (which bassiclly means even against an opponent at minimial shelds you waste most of each hit on a bare sliver of sheilds), is becuase they have such vastly higher individual DPS numbers. Bring tose down to Dual Beam levels and you can driop tha and they suddenlyl become a lot more dangerous. An opponnent on a bare sliver of sheilds can't hide away confident that the bare sliver will negate most of the DPS allmost irrespective of how many torps are being fired.
You still need some way of taking shelds out for maximum effect, but your no longer left with an overall subpar weapon setup choice.
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When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
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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.
other than that i don't think you need to do anything special to torpedoes. the problem is not with torps - it's with innate kinetic shield resistance. drop that down to like 50% and/or tie in a shields innate kinetic resistance to shield power rather than it being an always on defense mechanism.
and yes, it is quite odd that chroniton torpedoes do not have shield penetration - that was their only reason for existence in the shows, not to slow someone down.
It's simply backwards that beams are more effective weapons than torpedoes. Torpedoes were always the go-to weapon on screen. They might hit a target with beams and disable some part of it but for destruction the photons and quantums were launched.
I too suggested that maybe torpedoes should be finite with higher damage, but then we have to determine how many can be carried, where they can be replenished, how much they would cost etc. I'm still not opposed to the idea of making torpedoes a truly situational, devastating weapon rather than just another part of the spacebar mash, but not only do I not know the things I mentioned, I know with almost 100% certainty that Cryptic won't bother. I mean the Omega Torpedo has been broken for years now and it's an easy fix.
And I know the OP is over three years old but that just shows how long this has been an issue. The most damaging builds in the game don't bother with torpedoes and that's just not Star Trek.
And yes torpedoes would need a pretty dramatic boost if they were made finite, and even moreso if they had to be paid for rather than just replenished for free at a starbase or something.
BFAW adjustment? You mean the blasphemous nerf that I would celebrate, er, um, (coughs) despise?
When developing a game, it's important to suspend realism (relatively speaking here) for the sake of gameplay. Consumable ammo, or finite shots per battle might make more sense, but it wouldn't really add much in terms of gameplay value, especially since torpedoes and cannons are already underperforming currently.
- remove the gcd between torpedoes launchers, (there is no gcd between 8 beams, why there is a need to have gcd between two torps)
- make kinetic shield resistance based on current % shield hps, (almost depleted shield negates most torpedo damage)
- introduce more "common" types of torpedoes and leave special effects to special torpedoes, .ie common types of omega like torpedoes with preloaded torps and such. Large tubes for capital ships etc.
- increase the arcs a little to accomodate them in more possible builds (The game is designed so, that ships that used in Star Trek torpedoes the most, are least suited to use them in game, because of the whole broadside TRIBBLE and torp launchers outside of the arc (except for one))
I personally would prefer if there was simple item called "torpedo launcher, dual torpedo launcher etc."with various stats (reload time, preloaded number, accuracy , number of shots etc), and the existing torpedoes would be slotted to it for special benefit (chroniton, transphasic, etc. and other stats). Similar to new ground kits.
Speed them up significantly or slow ships down.
In a pimped Beam boat I can pull 80k in Infected... my torp boat does the same yet gets the mission done faster cause frankly there is almost no wasted DPS. Canons are the only thing lacking in PvE land, a top canon boat is likely not going to pull more then 50k ever and I would say the average for a good canon boat is likely more in the 30k range.
Anyway point is torpedos are doing better then ever. If anything there are a few things that need nerfed in relation to torps. (biggest offender is the 100% proc on Kemocite with torps)
Over the last couple of years we have gotten Omega Shear / Kemo / Fixed Spreads / Boat loads of New Rep torps / lobi sets with kinetic dmg bumps. / Photon rep set that turn photons into rapid fire quantums / Mines with AOE explosion radius in the form of [radius] mod / a total of 3 enhacned cloak ship / Massive bumps to Particle Gen dmg which benifits torpedo throwers as well as sci boat captains.
If you aren't doing well with torps its because you are trying to run more then one type of weapon. If you are running energy don't touch torpedos unless your RPing it up. If your dedicating to torps don't bother with energy unless your in a sci ship in which case one 360 beam for sub system targeting is fine.
And I have ZERO APPRECIATION for others telling me how to build MY ship.
That's the single most important change they can make to help torpedoes, just like removing or greatly reducing fall off for cannons.
If they did those two things torpedoes and cannons would instantly become a lot more useful.
Regular torpedos are fine as well though that is the thing. I have no issues with running normal torpedos. Just like most people have no issue running normal plain jane energy... yet people like to run Lockbox and Rep energy weapons. Are Thor Quantums better then normal Quantums... ah ya, and to a higher degree then rep energy weapons. For energy its mostly a case of just being different. For things like Bio-photon / or Thoron quantums they are everything the basic versions are +. (and you can put as many of them as you want on a ship... its the grand daddy one off enhanced versions you are talking about)
Torps are cutting it... its not that anyone is trying to tell you want to do to have fun. Just claiming a weapon is sub par when the evidence is contrary seems like its more an issue you are having then the weapon. They are not going to buff plain jane qunatums or photons or any of the others... just like they won't be buffing plain jane Disruptors or phasers. Cryptic improves by releasing new versions of the same. (which they have done for both photons and quantums so far) It would be nice perhaps in the next rep to get a new type of Transphasic/Chron or even plasma sure.
Just because some of us can make a few setups work well it doesn’t mean the entire system is as good as beams or cannons. Pushing projectiles up to high DPS levels is a lot harder than beams or cannons due to all the bugs and problems. Getting torpedo to cut it as you say is hard with the amount of badly designed items or broken systems. You don't have to worry about fitting an advanced beam and cutting your damage output in half. But you can fit an advanced torpedo and find you get a massive damage drop. How can you say there isn't anything wrong with torpedo's when advance costly items do less damage then basic cheap items?.
One thing that kind feels odd to me is that the equilivent weapon upgrade abilities (Hyt/Faw/Bo/Tp/cs/rf) for mines is a pair of attack patterns, which i think should be reworked to become its own varient of the weapon upgrade for beams/torps/cannons that might even have an effect on the cluster torps we have too.
I guess if by harm you mean melted servers sure... I have said a few times kemo needs a hard core nerf bat and should trigger 33% or so on torps not 100% which is a complete joke.
If you think spread is broken your right... it always hits. Hardly not in a torp users favor though. You also seem to forget what spread was, back when it just fired at a general area instead of an actual target.
Lobi weapons suck in general. They are rich peoples toys nothing more. I use them cause there fun but ya there not practical weapons... just like the Long range tetryon turret thing isn't a real weapon. Or the chron dual beam bank sucks for dps. Lobi weapons exist for 2 and 3 pc bonuses nothing more really. The radius mines you may not like but they do the same dmg as a normal photon mine only hit everything with in 2k... that is good. If it doesn't fit your build fine, they have accounted for a large chunk of my dps in 80k runs though so I know they are in fact very good if you can line up some targets. Omega Grav amp in its first incarnation was to powerful... it got a nerf, so will kemo at some point. (for the sake of the server in the very least they will do that)
I stand by my opinion so I guess we will just have to disagree. 40% more dmg from sheer and a good supply of new weapon types has kept me happy with them. Always hitting spread should get fixed at some point and kemo is just an issue on its own really.
As for Pgen skills your right only really the one torp gets boosts directly. Sitll Pgen dmg is a part of pretty much any good torp boat build I have seen. Gravity well might not be major dmg but for grouping targets which you need to do with torp boats its great and gets a boost. Reversed TBR has become a great weapon that benifits torp boats. I guess there are really 2 classes of torp boat builds that I see... the cloaked bombers where Pgen is aprox 10-20% of the build, but the other build option I consider viable is the Science ship/science heavy ship builds... where Pgens can account from anywhere from 20-80% of the dmg. Anyway everyone is seeing more and more torp boats because they are in fact quite viable even in the hands of the torp novices out there.
I rather have Quantum mines which have radius built in and hit for more damage. But new players don’t know that due to all the broken systems related to projectiles.
It wasn’t that powerful and it got nerfed due to a badly thought out design not because it was too powerful. It’s a Kinetic boosting power that got changed so it is x10 better on energy weapons then projectile weapons.
As far as I recall it always had a 100% hit chance. It’s an AoE explosion which you cannot doge. It’s meant to always hit just like mines that explode. As for torpedo spread and high yield are you aware many of the torpedoes are not getting the full damage bonus from the spread or yield? For example Chroniton, and Transphasic Torpedoes total damage bonus is 72.8% less then photons. Quantum isn’t as bad but gets less then photons. The damage bonus is messed up and broken. Some of the Quantums not only get a smaller damage bonus but shoot out fewer shots in the worst case the advanced torpedo shots out are cut in half. The Omega plasma torpedo shots are random as well.
How can you say its not broken?
You opinion comes across that you have a setup that works so you are ignoring all the broken and bugged systems and saying it all works. It’s not an opinion it’s a fact the current projectile system is massively flawed and broken. There are a few viable setups but a large amount of it is broken. You might be happy with all the new rep gear like the advanced Quantum torpedo Mk XII doing less damage then a MK 1. With torpedo spread but I am not. Just look at the upgrade system I have level 20 projectile and cannot upgrade my own projectile tac consoles.
The fact it requires a science captain to create a subspace rift is a testament to the broken nature of torpedoes. Torpedoes should have absolutely nothing to do with such silliness to be "effective".
- Reduce innate kinetic resistance dramatically
- Adjust damage resistance debuff abilities so they affect shield resistance and innate kinetic resistance of shields
- Fix the myriad of broken torpedo mechanics
- Increase the dmg output of each torpedo for HY, dont reduce it (or at least leave them the same)
- Connect innate kinetic resistance to shield power levels the same as with normal shield resistance
- And Reduce innate kinetic resistance dramatically
Interesting I have 5 or 6 toons running kemo and have never had them blow up in my face. Odd. Ya not sure what your saying about the hits. Bottom line is the 100% kinetic proc of kemo is broken... if Cryptic was capable of complicated work I would say the proper fix is 33% chance on HY and Spread and 100% chance on non buffed torps... but Cryptic would mess that up.
Ok I see where your going. Those are not broken, you are talking about the games design. Neut torp fires less torps in a spread yes that is by design. As for dmg numbers on HY... I have always found it consistent. Again for Salvo fired torps HY 1 is the only skill that increases dmg per torpedo fired. HY 2 and 3 both reduce the amount of base dmg the torp does but increase the overall dmg by pumping more torps. That is the way it has always worked. The differences in dmg comparing one torp type to another is due to different base dmg numbers. I haven't noticed anything wrong with HY.
What torp are you talking about exactly ? Advanced Quantum ? are you talking about the Neut ? As far as consoles again what are you talking about... I seem to remember upgrading all my torpedo consoles with no issues.
Anyone can shoot a Gravity well... its about basic build smarts. If you are firing weapons that require your targets to be grouped up perhaps its a good idea to use skills that force them into groups. lol
To your points though;
- Reduce innate kinetic resistance dramatically
- Adjust damage resistance debuff abilities so they affect shield resistance and innate kinetic resistance of shields
There is no need for this. Shields get 75% resist, that really isn't that bad... also if your going to run a torpedo build you need to get the Projectile school done so you can enable the trait for an extra 10% bleed. Also 2 Rep type torps have secondary direct to hull dmg procs... almost all of the "advanced-enhanced" one off rep/mission/lobi torps all have direct to hull secondary dmg components. Not to mention the Omega sheering which is 40% added dmg that is also direct to hull on what ever bleeds. So if you have 10% go though + 10% from a trait and you land a 30k crit you have 6000 direct to hull base + 2400 bleed. Factor in another 1-4k in Rad dmg ect... and I think you get my point.
- Fix the myriad of broken torpedo mechanics
I keep hearing about the broken mechanics and to be honest I have yet to have anyone list something that is in fact broken and not simply a design they don't understand.
- Increase the dmg output of each torpedo for HY, dont reduce it (or at least leave them the same)
As I have said above by design for a reason. Having said that folks... it has always been more advantageous to run HY 1... which is good. Run spread 2/3 HY 1. Useful ensign slots crazy idea.
- Connect innate kinetic resistance to shield power levels the same as with normal shield resistance
On this point you are on to something. 75% standard no matter what is a bit crazy... the problem is knowing Cryptic at high shield power it would jump up to even higher then 75%... but I do agree in theory, at zero shield power it should be 50 or so and max at 75 with 125 shield power.
Or perhaps make those weak [Beam]-, [Cannon]-, [Mine]- and [Torp]-modded tactical consoles give out stat boosts for all weapon types but favor just one type. For instance, a Mk XII VR beam console that increases beams by 20, torps by 18, and cannons/mines by 15.
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I get the impression you use photons which are the ones that get full damage boost. Try using Chroniton, or Transphasic which do not get the correct full damage boost.
I was talking total damage. For example High Yield 3 should give Fires 4 Torpedoes, each dealing 74.2% of normal damage, (total 296.8% of normal), Some torpedo get as little as 55.5% of normal damage, (total 222% of normal). High Yield and spread is not consistently giving the full damage to all torpedoes.
It’s not down to base numbers its down due to the powers acting different with different torpedoes. Just like kemo which only works correctly on some torpedo these power are inconsistent as well.
I cannot upgrade any of my Vulnerability locator projectile consoles with projectile tech. The advanced Quantum torpedo works fine with high yield but does half the damage with torpedo spread over other Quantum torpedoes, a full cut in half damage. The Thoron Quantum’s have a mod missing. The Omega Plasma torpedo seems to have a random amount of targets and shots with torpedo spread. Anywhere from 5 hits 40. There is a massive list of broken, bugged and unbalanced projectile items. A far bigger list then what energy weapons have.
I agree projectiles are viable and some builds work well. The point I was trying to get across is a large part of projectiles systems are broken, bugged, unbalanced or missing information. Mines for example have a lot of key information missing from the tooltip. But some parts and some builds do work.
Take a look at my old thread http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1188158/kemocite-laced-weaponry-is-broken-with-projectile-weapons-plus-other-problems#latest
and this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWh1FouHLv8 from Odenknight. Both the video and thread together both have a list of broken mechanics. One example being the Plasma DoT which is inconsistent.
None of the main ships I fly have access to Gravity well via bridge officers, my main builds do not have any sci powers at all. As for weapons I am Quantum’s focused so no access to Gravity well either. If I have Quantum tac consoles it doesn't seem wise it fit photon torpedo's.