I personally would like to know (maybe via dev response ) why the basic principle of energy weapons against shields and toredoes against hull was *never* fully integrated. All enery builds have always been and are until today more efficient than including torpedoes since their damage to hull is just as good as it is to shields - and the whole shield buff and reliance on bleedthrough klls further ridicules the existance of torpedoes in the first place.
Energy hybrd torpedoes aganst shields are actually a nice idea, but I'm wondering why generally we don't have a native 40-60% resistance of bare hull against energy weapons (of course able to improve that via armour consoles as usual up to 90-ish per enery type) and vice versa shields against torpedoes. Just mirror the torp->shield situation with energ->hull, it would make much more sense.
Indeed that's the whole point of Ablative Hull Armor which first came out on the galaxy and was later added to the Defiant.
This is the one major flaw in torps in my opinion. They really should be developed as the hull crackers they are meant to be.
Now I don't know how to best do this, anything that is changed will upset somebody! I've thrown together a few suggestions, feel free to discuss, support or mock any of them!
1)Give hulls an innate resistance to energy weapon damage just as shields have with kinetic damage.
2)Make the kinetic resistance of shields drop significantly as they take damage. This removes the issue of a tiny 1% sliver of shield facing completely stopping a massive explosion just because it still has 75% resistance. A shield that's down to 10% should be barely able to stop a torp compared to a full facing.
3)Allow projectiles to cause injuries (lasting damage) to ships when impacting hulls. (possibly not favorable for PVP but in PVE it would be ok). A ship getting pummeled with torps should slowly start to fall apart.
4)Allow torps to have a higher crit rate or crit damage when impacting on bare hull.
Exactly what my suggestion would be. Number 2 definitely and number 3 especially.
The thing is that the injuries need to be more viable. The current injury system while it can stack up over time, doesn't have the visceral feeling that they have in the cinematic form.
Example: The Battle of the Mutara Nebula and its prelude. Khan nailed the Enterprise in the Torpedo room, disabling one of the launchers and then cut the engine room to pieces.
Later, the Enterprise nailed the Reliant's torpedo room with one Photon Torpedo and blew it to kingdom come. Both launchers completely annihilated.
Example2: The Battle of Khitomer. Chang was bouncing Photon torpedoes off of the Enterprise's shielded hull. As soon as the shields dropped, the next torpedo puts a hole in the ship that you could fly a shuttle through.
In order to translate this of course the injury system would need to be revamped and in some ways battles would have to be slowed down (and timer based optionals would have to go away). Injuries would need to be a bit more severe. You might be able to heal up to 100% structural integrity but if you took a few torpedo hits to critical areas the injuries are you're gonna have reduced maneuverability, you're gonna lose the ability to fire on one arc. You'll lose main power. In this instance your emergency power abilities are going to be just that. The ONLY power you'll have is the normal bonus from emergency power and the rest of your power will be gone (to the point of if you finish the mission with your warp core offline you can't go to warp until main power is restored). Engines with AUX and emergency thrusters like the Honor Guard engines become valuable in that situation. Beam Target engines will be based on how many impulse engines the ship has, (3 on a Galaxy, 4 on a Galaxy X, 4 on a Sovereign, 1 on Birds of Prey and Olympics, etc.) The same with weapons, you could have it so for a period after you activate Beam Target Weapons and for a brief period after you fire it, a torpedo that connects on bare hull or crits on a weak enough shield will actually knock out a weapon (Lord help you if it's a spread). Frankly target subsystem shouldn't be a unique beam ability, the first time we ever saw it I think was Kruge ordering his gunner to target the engines with cannons and torps.
For like an extended period, 30 seconds or so (which to an android, I mean in this game is an eternity), you don't lose a subsystem you lose the actual ability to use your equipment, while your repair teams fix it. That's where your crew mechanic comes back in, less crew, longer timers. Slotting an Engineering team becomes important as it drastically decreases the timer and gets you back up. So Cruisers engineering ships have far greater ability to repair, Escorts have far greater ability to cause the damage and are TRIBBLE at recovering from it, and science ships have better shields to negate the damage before it's critical. (if one must have their trinity).
I want to say that energy weapons shouldn't necessarily be obsoleted against hulls either. Look at the Battle of Azati Prime (poor Enterprise). But it should be highly noticeable if you have either no energy weapons resistant armor or the wrong kind. Hull tanking against energy weapons should be feasible but unpleasant, hull tanking against torpedoes should simply be a miracle.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
This is the one major flaw in torps in my opinion. They really should be developed as the hull crackers they are meant to be.
Now I don't know how to best do this, anything that is changed will upset somebody! I've thrown together a few suggestions, feel free to discuss, support or mock any of them!
1)Give hulls an innate resistance to energy weapon damage just as shields have with kinetic damage.
2)Make the kinetic resistance of shields drop significantly as they take damage. This removes the issue of a tiny 1% sliver of shield facing completely stopping a massive explosion just because it still has 75% resistance. A shield that's down to 10% should be barely able to stop a torp compared to a full facing.
3)Allow projectiles to cause injuries (lasting damage) to ships when impacting hulls. (possibly not favorable for PVP but in PVE it would be ok). A ship getting pummeled with torps should slowly start to fall apart.
4)Allow torps to have a higher crit rate or crit damage when impacting on bare hull.
I like all of your ideas but I would also add putting a timer on the damage in #3. Make small injuries fix quickly and red injuries take a few mins. Let Miracle Worker clear all timed injuries and Engineering team clear a a few. Having a timer would mean your crew is actually doing something rather than just hanging on for the ride. I think that would be acceptable for both PvE and PvP.
I would also like to see projectile modifiers added to normal tac consoles. Something like XII VR with 30% phaser and 30% photon damage boost.
This is the one major flaw in torps in my opinion. They really should be developed as the hull crackers they are meant to be.
Now I don't know how to best do this, anything that is changed will upset somebody! I've thrown together a few suggestions, feel free to discuss, support or mock any of them!
1)Give hulls an innate resistance to energy weapon damage just as shields have with kinetic damage.
2)Make the kinetic resistance of shields drop significantly as they take damage. This removes the issue of a tiny 1% sliver of shield facing completely stopping a massive explosion just because it still has 75% resistance. A shield that's down to 10% should be barely able to stop a torp compared to a full facing.
3)Allow projectiles to cause injuries (lasting damage) to ships when impacting hulls. (possibly not favorable for PVP but in PVE it would be ok). A ship getting pummeled with torps should slowly start to fall apart.
4)Allow torps to have a higher crit rate or crit damage when impacting on bare hull.
A list some very sensible improvements to torps there. I would even support the injuries to ship happening during PVP.
Uh, no, the Galaxy class never had ablative armor. Ever, and cite Canon that shows it did if you persist in this statement.
I think i read somewhere that it was added to the neck after that incident where a bug ship took out a galaxy by ramming it, someone more knowledgeable will have to confirm/deny if its canon though
Edit: didn't see anything on memory alpha except that the TNG tech manual suggests the galaxy may have had ablative armor. So maybe the source I had read that from was referring to non canon material. Perhaps captaind3 knows more?
I think i read somewhere that it was added to the neck after that incident where a bug ship took out a galaxy by ramming it, someone more knowledgeable will have to confirm/deny if its canon though
Edit: didn't see anything on memory alpha except that the TNG tech manual suggests the galaxy may have had ablative armor. So maybe the source I had read that from was referring to non canon material. Perhaps captaind3 knows more?
Actually the three technical manuals written by Okuda et al (TNG, DS9 and VOY (season one)). are the material the writers based their episodes on. That means as long as something on-screen doesn't directly contradict what's written in the manuals (in which case of course on-screen tops manuals) the manuals are as official as it gets. Everybody who discards those three TMs makes a mistake. They are just not "canon" because CBS ended the "debate" by stating "everything onscreen is canon", whereas this priarily was supposed to cover the stories and fluff, the technical stuff was regularily shortened or cut from movies and episodes anyway.
So, when the TM suggests that abalative armour was used then by all means it was used unless Geordi at one point said "The Enterprise has a XYZ armour".
This is a luxury no other written piece of Star Trek fluff can claim.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
1. Make shields less effective against torpedoes... How? Simple. Have the torpedoes penetrate slightly better, the lower the shield facing's current HP are.
Full shields = Full Effect... Shields at 20%... The shield mitigation against that same torp 80% less.
Or another way to do it is... If you lose a shield facing from damage, you get a lockout time before that shield can be brought back up by 'auto-recharging' As it is, 1HP of shields = same mitigation as full shields, Auto recharging of shields, basically ensures at least 1hp of shielding, or makes it very difficult to get that full-hull-hit that you want. So if your shields hit zero... They don't auto recharge for 3 seconds. However, any shield charging abilities you use, still function.
2. Introduce Hybrid consoles.
Lets say you have 5 tac console slots.
Ordinarily you'd put 5x Phaser consoles, and ignore the Photon consoles..
If you wanted to buff both, you could put 3 Phaser, and 2 Photon consoles, but the current metagame makes this a bad way to go.
Okay, introduce hybrid consoles, that would still net less damage than specialized ones, but much more than mixing different consoles.
For instance. (arbitrary numbers incoming)
Assume Current Consoles buff by 100% Energy.
If you hybrid with separate consoles, you'd get 60% Energy, 40% torpedo.
If you use all-hybrid consoles. You could get 70% energy. 50% torpedo.
There would still be a 'specialization premium' with using the more special consoles.
The bad thing with torps in my view is nothing to do with a lack of consoles. You either go the torp route or you don't, simple as that.
Hybrid consoles will not solve the fact that the major issue here is how much more effective energy weapons are than torps. Even if I can slot hybrid consoles to boost both my torps and energy weapons some random guy will come along with his all energy build and still be more effective than me.
Therefore the only realistic way I see improve things is some form of change to the weapon-target interactions. So i'm talking shield penetration, hull resistance to energy, lower shield kinetic resistance when damaged.
The bad thing with torps in my view is nothing to do with a lack of consoles. You either go the torp route or you don't, simple as that.
Hybrid consoles will not solve the fact that the major issue here is how much more effective energy weapons are than torps. Even if I can slot hybrid consoles to boost both my torps and energy weapons some random guy will come along with his all energy build and still be more effective than me.
Therefore the only realistic way I see improve things is some form of change to the weapon-target interactions. So i'm talking shield penetration, hull resistance to energy, lower shield kinetic resistance when damaged.
That's still not going to provide somebody with a torpedo that has a 250 arc, is being boosted to 250% damage from Weapon Power, being fired at two targets per second for five seconds, from all 8 torpedo launchers...
In many of the discussions, there tend to be two groups (more, but two) that tend to stand out, imho.
Effective Torpedo DPS
Effective Torpedo DPV
Even with that first group, there are two groups (more, but two) that tend to stand out, imho.
Effective Torpedo DPS where a full Projectile boat can match Energy.
Effective Torpedo DPS where slotting a Projectile is not a loss of DPS.
That second group tends to be more like the second group from the first split, imho.
Basically, not everybody asking Cryptic to look at Projectiles is asking Cryptic to look at the same thing - not everybody wants the same thing from Projectiles.
Personally I feel that Projectiles have lost effectiveness from their designed use as the years have gone by. They weren't designed as overall "Effective Torpedo DPS" weapons. Almost everything about them screams DPV/burst/spike/kill weapons. But where they've stagnated for the most part of the years, all sorts of things have boosted Energy. Then you add in the increased health of NPCs...and yeah...
...I'd say even ignoring the requests some folks have for that "Effective Torpedo DPS", that folks should simply be able to submit a bug report to Cryptic stating that Projectile weapons as a whole are no longer performing as originally designed/intended in the current state of the game.
So yeah, personally I'd like to see that "bug" addressed first...and then see where things stand.
Get that baseline stuff working as intended/designed...then get into any additional balance tweaks folks may want.
1. Personally they should make them 180 degree weapons with the added arc of the quantum that comes with the regent getting it boosted up to 270.
2. Add in the resist going down as your shields weaken and then add in hull resist to energy weapons with them also losing resistance as the hull goes down in percentage.
3. Make the torpedo launchers fire groups of torpedoes instead of a single shot like energy weapons do now.
4. Make torpedo high yield and spread activate as it does now affecting one of the groups the launcher fires so maybe the first would shoot out a spread followed by 3 more normal shots and high yield shots out the last of the barrage as the slow moving torpedo.
5. Make torpedo fly to targets almost instantly like on video shown and the high yields either move faster or make them harder to shoot down, but if shot they explode there causing damage if your in range instead of simply disappearing.
6. Just add in a boost for all torpedoes to the fleet tactical consoles. Say 20 to 25 percent boost on their damage. That way they dont have to set up a trade in system.
6. Just add in a boost for all torpedoes to the fleet tactical consoles. Say 20 to 25 percent boost on their damage. That way they dont have to set up a trade in system.
Why restrict something so basic to fleet consoles?
Fleet consoles already skirt enough tradeoffs with things like RCS+ResAll consoles.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Uh, no, the Galaxy class never had ablative armor. Ever, and cite Canon that shows it did if you persist in this statement.
My source is the Star Trek The Next Generation Technical Manual page 23, section 2.3 paragraph 6. It is described the outermost layer of the hull as "AGP Ablative Ceramic Fabric".
The TNG Tech Manual was written by Sternbach and Okuda and was effectively the ship side of the writers bible for TNG. Unlike the DS9 tech manual it was never contradicted onscreen. It is probably the most canon written material there is. If you don't accept that source, then there it is, but I do.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
My source is the Star Trek The Next Generation Technical Manual page 23, section 2.3 paragraph 6. It is described the outermost layer of the hull as "AGP Ablative Ceramic Fabric".
The TNG Tech Manual was written by Sternbach and Okuda and was effectively the ship side of the writers bible for TNG. Unlike the DS9 tech manual it was never contradicted onscreen. It is probably the most canon written material there is. If you don't accept that source, then there it is, but I do.
I do not accept that source, because ablative armor would not help a Galaxy class ship in a direct impact event. That's not how ablative armor works.
I do not accept that source, because ablative armor would not help a Galaxy class ship in a direct impact event. That's not how ablative armor works.
Sadly it's not very wise to discard that source. The technical manuals (all three of them, TNG, DS9 and VOY season one) are the only fluff texts that can claim official status since the episodes were written based on them. The manuals are as official as it gets, discarding info because one doesn' like it doesn't make sense.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
Ok so what we saw on tv is usually bs, we all know the writers would just say what ever to set their story, then modify a deflector pulse to get them out of it.
So lets look at how the system behaved on average.
First there never seemed to be actual penetration, the only time that happened was when a weapon operated at a frequency the shield wasn't designed to filter or has been set not to filter. Suggesting that the shield operated through absorption then dissipation of energy rather than mitigation.
This makes sense considering they were frequently referred to as defense screens. My assumption is that the state would absorb and store energy then dissipate it gradually somehow using the ships energy to maintain the absorption field, which could be enhance with additional power.
Second, the system also appears to have a physical component to it, possibly being related to force fields. This seems to give it the ability to stop solid objects and cause detonation of payloads on it perimeter rather than inside it. It also appears that doing so is significantly more taxing.
So what about the damage? Well you shield stopping the hit has some side effects. First is kinetic energy, like a medieval shield the sword might not cut you but the bruise is gonna hurt. Being tossed around inside your bubble caused problems, mostly being you sudden re acquaintance with a bulkhead or floor.
Second I energy buildup, as shields reached maximum absorption we saw that that energy overload would cause all kinds of havoc with the power distribution system, usually killing the hapless red shirt just sitting at his station playing galaga.
So what was the point of me saying all this?
Well if we want to be true to the fell of trek space battles the current damage model really doesn't support it.
I would simply remove bleed through from shields entirely and treat them as a first layer of hp.
Then I would change what kinetic damage is, I would set it as un resistible, and add it in appropriate amounts to all weapons.
Next I would convert torpedoes to the existing energy damage model separating it as appropriate to avoid them interacting with energy weapon buffs. Basically your photons would do their standard damage which a shield would absorb, but also dead a good portion of kinetic damage that it would not. Your phasers would deal their regular damage with a portion dealt as kinetic damage.
The portions would be small in comparison to what it does now but then kinetic damage would be moved to a secondary effect so the overall performance should be similar, you would just get a bigger bang against a shield facing.
The last thing I would change is the crew system, its useless. I would change it to an effectiveness bar. At full strength your abilities and stats get a buff, the lower it goes the weaker you get. It would be damaged mainly by kinetic energy and receive a scaling damage percentage based on hull strength so as you loose hull hp energy damage starts to reduce it more and more.
Probably have to add healing it to a team ability or some such but w/e
As a time traveller, Am I supposed to pack underwear or underwhen?
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
I do not accept that source, because ablative armor would not help a Galaxy class ship in a direct impact event. That's not how ablative armor works.
That depends on what they mean by ablative. Seeing as Sci fi writers aren't engineers I could see them confusing ablative with reactive. They both do similar things.
As a time traveller, Am I supposed to pack underwear or underwhen?
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
I want to say that energy weapons shouldn't necessarily be obsoleted against hulls either. Look at the Battle of Azati Prime (poor Enterprise). But it should be highly noticeable if you have either no energy weapons resistant armor or the wrong kind. Hull tanking against energy weapons should be feasible but unpleasant, hull tanking against torpedoes should simply be a miracle.
You could also consider a canon source for stating energy weapons are effective vs hull for example ST2: WOK when the Enterprise fails to raise her shields as Khan approaches and all but destroyed the Enterprise in a single pass with just energy weapons, [taking their main power grid offline, so no phasers , no shields, no warp drive and only barely able to crawl around a 1/4 - 1/2? Impulse power].
I like the diminishing returns ideas for shield powers effective resistance vs torpedo damage, but its doubtful they will recode significant interactions in the game code at this point in time [ aka no profit for the work required, especially since the code base doesnt seem to be well documented so seemingly minor tweaks could have major negative gameplay interactions.]
This is the one major flaw in torps in my opinion. They really should be developed as the hull crackers they are meant to be.
Now I don't know how to best do this, anything that is changed will upset somebody! I've thrown together a few suggestions, feel free to discuss, support or mock any of them!
1)Give hulls an innate resistance to energy weapon damage just as shields have with kinetic damage.
2)Make the kinetic resistance of shields drop significantly as they take damage. This removes the issue of a tiny 1% sliver of shield facing completely stopping a massive explosion just because it still has 75% resistance. A shield that's down to 10% should be barely able to stop a torp compared to a full facing.
3)Allow projectiles to cause injuries (lasting damage) to ships when impacting hulls. (possibly not favorable for PVP but in PVE it would be ok). A ship getting pummeled with torps should slowly start to fall apart.
4)Allow torps to have a higher crit rate or crit damage when impacting on bare hull.
I like 1 and 2
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
But that still leaves the arc concern, this however could be resolved by adding a brief, 3 or 5 second turn rate buff to torpedo abilities, enough time to turn, fire, and get back into broadside positioning.
basically that idea would interest me generally, but i think its the only thing distinguishing crusiers from escorts. escorts are meant to turn fast, also because its easiert to use torps on them.
if everything movesl ike an escort, escorts fully loose their justification at all.
so basically the prob with torps is for me, that they suck up 3 doff places, and 5 traitslots and 1 tacability (spread or hy) just to become "NOT A DPS LOSS"
while energyweapons are kind of having no malus whatsoever even if "naked" (so without skills and traits and proccs, beams/energy still deliver a good dps)
somehow I think they should implement a 30% dmg malus for energy weapons on hull, which can be countered by 10,20,and 30% by directed energy modulation.
torps are basically a loss because they suffer a secere disadvantage on shields, while energy wepaons dont suffer anything (but range ... but really, who stays at 10km anyway?!)
the first problem is and always was, that energyweapons dont suffer a 30% malus on hull thing, while torpdos suffer a 90% malus on shields.
now they implemented a torp that doesnt suffer, and thats why its OP now, like energy was before basically. they should have FIXED opness of energy instead of making a torp thats equally ignoring the malus/bonus rules ...
basically that idea would interest me generally, but i think its the only thing distinguishing crusiers from escorts. escorts are meant to turn fast, also because its easiert to use torps on them.
if everything movesl ike an escort, escorts fully loose their justification at all.
so basically the prob with torps is for me, that they suck up 3 doff places, and 5 traitslots and 1 tacability (spread or hy) just to become "NOT A DPS LOSS"
while energyweapons are kind of having no malus whatsoever even if "naked" (so without skills and traits and proccs, beams/energy still deliver a good dps)
somehow I think they should implement a 30% dmg malus for energy weapons on hull, which can be countered by 10,20,and 30% by directed energy modulation.
torps are basically a loss because they suffer a secere disadvantage on shields, while energy wepaons dont suffer anything (but range ... but really, who stays at 10km anyway?!)
the first problem is and always was, that energyweapons dont suffer a 30% malus on hull thing, while torpdos suffer a 90% malus on shields.
now they implemented a torp that doesnt suffer, and thats why its OP now, like energy was before basically. they should have FIXED opness of energy instead of making a torp thats equally ignoring the malus/bonus rules ...
Only cannons have a range drop off.
As a time traveller, Am I supposed to pack underwear or underwhen?
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
- Rate of fire/travel time: A torpedo fires once every X seconds and then has to travel to it's target. Energy weapons are constantly firing (within arc, of course) and have no (Beams) or far less (Cannons) travel time.
- Shield kinetic resist not scaling: The "1% sliver of shields" effect that is well documented and known.
- They are a "DPS loss": Equipping a torpedo causes your damage to drop considerably due to the previous 2 reasons, and because you can't have a fully forward facing torpedo boat. Beams can use Omni beams + KCB to fill out the aft 3 slots and Cannons have Turrets. Torpedoes have mines, but you'd be foolish to use any of those, except for Bio and Cloaked Tractor in PvP.
Beams have a drop off as well (at around 7-8KM), it's not just nearly as noticeable.
If the Engines Cannae Take It chart is right beams suffer drop off after 1 km but at a much slower drop off than cannons which don't have drop off until 2 km but drop off at a drastically increased rate.
This is my Risian Corvette. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
The issue with torp users and their DPS is that they are not grouped to optimized with DPS.
With EAP Nerf and Plasma doping nerf, the game has been going to a direction that is anti-PuGs and pro/friendly to premades.
Before the EAP nerf, you literally do not need recluses to debuff for you as long as everyone had the EAP slotted. The Plasma doping skipped the shield and went directly to the debuffed hulls which made it higher Dps but lower base DPS than beam weapons.
So if you want to plug in a high performance torp boat, you need to put it in a premade group just like how the beam premades do it.
But all this talk of making torps more powerful is luxury just like the complaints about making Eng toons as powerful as Tac in DPS. All weapons, including torps, are capable of all elite content except that Beams are head above the rest.
Comments
Exactly what my suggestion would be. Number 2 definitely and number 3 especially.
The thing is that the injuries need to be more viable. The current injury system while it can stack up over time, doesn't have the visceral feeling that they have in the cinematic form.
Example: The Battle of the Mutara Nebula and its prelude. Khan nailed the Enterprise in the Torpedo room, disabling one of the launchers and then cut the engine room to pieces.
Later, the Enterprise nailed the Reliant's torpedo room with one Photon Torpedo and blew it to kingdom come. Both launchers completely annihilated.
Example2: The Battle of Khitomer. Chang was bouncing Photon torpedoes off of the Enterprise's shielded hull. As soon as the shields dropped, the next torpedo puts a hole in the ship that you could fly a shuttle through.
In order to translate this of course the injury system would need to be revamped and in some ways battles would have to be slowed down (and timer based optionals would have to go away). Injuries would need to be a bit more severe. You might be able to heal up to 100% structural integrity but if you took a few torpedo hits to critical areas the injuries are you're gonna have reduced maneuverability, you're gonna lose the ability to fire on one arc. You'll lose main power. In this instance your emergency power abilities are going to be just that. The ONLY power you'll have is the normal bonus from emergency power and the rest of your power will be gone (to the point of if you finish the mission with your warp core offline you can't go to warp until main power is restored). Engines with AUX and emergency thrusters like the Honor Guard engines become valuable in that situation. Beam Target engines will be based on how many impulse engines the ship has, (3 on a Galaxy, 4 on a Galaxy X, 4 on a Sovereign, 1 on Birds of Prey and Olympics, etc.) The same with weapons, you could have it so for a period after you activate Beam Target Weapons and for a brief period after you fire it, a torpedo that connects on bare hull or crits on a weak enough shield will actually knock out a weapon (Lord help you if it's a spread). Frankly target subsystem shouldn't be a unique beam ability, the first time we ever saw it I think was Kruge ordering his gunner to target the engines with cannons and torps.
For like an extended period, 30 seconds or so (which to an android, I mean in this game is an eternity), you don't lose a subsystem you lose the actual ability to use your equipment, while your repair teams fix it. That's where your crew mechanic comes back in, less crew, longer timers. Slotting an Engineering team becomes important as it drastically decreases the timer and gets you back up. So Cruisers engineering ships have far greater ability to repair, Escorts have far greater ability to cause the damage and are TRIBBLE at recovering from it, and science ships have better shields to negate the damage before it's critical. (if one must have their trinity).
I want to say that energy weapons shouldn't necessarily be obsoleted against hulls either. Look at the Battle of Azati Prime (poor Enterprise). But it should be highly noticeable if you have either no energy weapons resistant armor or the wrong kind. Hull tanking against energy weapons should be feasible but unpleasant, hull tanking against torpedoes should simply be a miracle.
I like all of your ideas but I would also add putting a timer on the damage in #3. Make small injuries fix quickly and red injuries take a few mins. Let Miracle Worker clear all timed injuries and Engineering team clear a a few. Having a timer would mean your crew is actually doing something rather than just hanging on for the ride. I think that would be acceptable for both PvE and PvP.
I would also like to see projectile modifiers added to normal tac consoles. Something like XII VR with 30% phaser and 30% photon damage boost.
A list some very sensible improvements to torps there. I would even support the injuries to ship happening during PVP.
Uh, no, the Galaxy class never had ablative armor. Ever, and cite Canon that shows it did if you persist in this statement.
I think i read somewhere that it was added to the neck after that incident where a bug ship took out a galaxy by ramming it, someone more knowledgeable will have to confirm/deny if its canon though
Edit: didn't see anything on memory alpha except that the TNG tech manual suggests the galaxy may have had ablative armor. So maybe the source I had read that from was referring to non canon material. Perhaps captaind3 knows more?
Simple : make'em fly faster .
... it's cannon ...
Actually the three technical manuals written by Okuda et al (TNG, DS9 and VOY (season one)). are the material the writers based their episodes on. That means as long as something on-screen doesn't directly contradict what's written in the manuals (in which case of course on-screen tops manuals) the manuals are as official as it gets. Everybody who discards those three TMs makes a mistake. They are just not "canon" because CBS ended the "debate" by stating "everything onscreen is canon", whereas this priarily was supposed to cover the stories and fluff, the technical stuff was regularily shortened or cut from movies and episodes anyway.
So, when the TM suggests that abalative armour was used then by all means it was used unless Geordi at one point said "The Enterprise has a XYZ armour".
This is a luxury no other written piece of Star Trek fluff can claim.
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1. Make shields less effective against torpedoes... How? Simple. Have the torpedoes penetrate slightly better, the lower the shield facing's current HP are.
Full shields = Full Effect... Shields at 20%... The shield mitigation against that same torp 80% less.
Or another way to do it is... If you lose a shield facing from damage, you get a lockout time before that shield can be brought back up by 'auto-recharging' As it is, 1HP of shields = same mitigation as full shields, Auto recharging of shields, basically ensures at least 1hp of shielding, or makes it very difficult to get that full-hull-hit that you want. So if your shields hit zero... They don't auto recharge for 3 seconds. However, any shield charging abilities you use, still function.
2. Introduce Hybrid consoles.
Lets say you have 5 tac console slots.
Ordinarily you'd put 5x Phaser consoles, and ignore the Photon consoles..
If you wanted to buff both, you could put 3 Phaser, and 2 Photon consoles, but the current metagame makes this a bad way to go.
Okay, introduce hybrid consoles, that would still net less damage than specialized ones, but much more than mixing different consoles.
For instance. (arbitrary numbers incoming)
Assume Current Consoles buff by 100% Energy.
If you hybrid with separate consoles, you'd get 60% Energy, 40% torpedo.
If you use all-hybrid consoles. You could get 70% energy. 50% torpedo.
There would still be a 'specialization premium' with using the more special consoles.
But the penalty for hybridization would be less.
Hybrid consoles will not solve the fact that the major issue here is how much more effective energy weapons are than torps. Even if I can slot hybrid consoles to boost both my torps and energy weapons some random guy will come along with his all energy build and still be more effective than me.
Therefore the only realistic way I see improve things is some form of change to the weapon-target interactions. So i'm talking shield penetration, hull resistance to energy, lower shield kinetic resistance when damaged.
That's still not going to provide somebody with a torpedo that has a 250 arc, is being boosted to 250% damage from Weapon Power, being fired at two targets per second for five seconds, from all 8 torpedo launchers...
In many of the discussions, there tend to be two groups (more, but two) that tend to stand out, imho.
Effective Torpedo DPS
Effective Torpedo DPV
Even with that first group, there are two groups (more, but two) that tend to stand out, imho.
Effective Torpedo DPS where a full Projectile boat can match Energy.
Effective Torpedo DPS where slotting a Projectile is not a loss of DPS.
That second group tends to be more like the second group from the first split, imho.
Basically, not everybody asking Cryptic to look at Projectiles is asking Cryptic to look at the same thing - not everybody wants the same thing from Projectiles.
Personally I feel that Projectiles have lost effectiveness from their designed use as the years have gone by. They weren't designed as overall "Effective Torpedo DPS" weapons. Almost everything about them screams DPV/burst/spike/kill weapons. But where they've stagnated for the most part of the years, all sorts of things have boosted Energy. Then you add in the increased health of NPCs...and yeah...
...I'd say even ignoring the requests some folks have for that "Effective Torpedo DPS", that folks should simply be able to submit a bug report to Cryptic stating that Projectile weapons as a whole are no longer performing as originally designed/intended in the current state of the game.
So yeah, personally I'd like to see that "bug" addressed first...and then see where things stand.
Get that baseline stuff working as intended/designed...then get into any additional balance tweaks folks may want.
2. Add in the resist going down as your shields weaken and then add in hull resist to energy weapons with them also losing resistance as the hull goes down in percentage.
3. Make the torpedo launchers fire groups of torpedoes instead of a single shot like energy weapons do now.
4. Make torpedo high yield and spread activate as it does now affecting one of the groups the launcher fires so maybe the first would shoot out a spread followed by 3 more normal shots and high yield shots out the last of the barrage as the slow moving torpedo.
5. Make torpedo fly to targets almost instantly like on video shown and the high yields either move faster or make them harder to shoot down, but if shot they explode there causing damage if your in range instead of simply disappearing.
6. Just add in a boost for all torpedoes to the fleet tactical consoles. Say 20 to 25 percent boost on their damage. That way they dont have to set up a trade in system.
Why restrict something so basic to fleet consoles?
Fleet consoles already skirt enough tradeoffs with things like RCS+ResAll consoles.
My source is the Star Trek The Next Generation Technical Manual page 23, section 2.3 paragraph 6. It is described the outermost layer of the hull as "AGP Ablative Ceramic Fabric".
The TNG Tech Manual was written by Sternbach and Okuda and was effectively the ship side of the writers bible for TNG. Unlike the DS9 tech manual it was never contradicted onscreen. It is probably the most canon written material there is. If you don't accept that source, then there it is, but I do.
I would love to be able to use torpedo's and mines again. Nothing beats the sound of high yield 2 and quantum torpedo's. (First contact flashbacks.)
Don't really need to I suppose but as Fleet consoles are a bit more troublesome to get thought those were the ones that needed the easy fix the most.
I do not accept that source, because ablative armor would not help a Galaxy class ship in a direct impact event. That's not how ablative armor works.
Sadly it's not very wise to discard that source. The technical manuals (all three of them, TNG, DS9 and VOY season one) are the only fluff texts that can claim official status since the episodes were written based on them. The manuals are as official as it gets, discarding info because one doesn' like it doesn't make sense.
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So lets look at how the system behaved on average.
First there never seemed to be actual penetration, the only time that happened was when a weapon operated at a frequency the shield wasn't designed to filter or has been set not to filter. Suggesting that the shield operated through absorption then dissipation of energy rather than mitigation.
This makes sense considering they were frequently referred to as defense screens. My assumption is that the state would absorb and store energy then dissipate it gradually somehow using the ships energy to maintain the absorption field, which could be enhance with additional power.
Second, the system also appears to have a physical component to it, possibly being related to force fields. This seems to give it the ability to stop solid objects and cause detonation of payloads on it perimeter rather than inside it. It also appears that doing so is significantly more taxing.
So what about the damage? Well you shield stopping the hit has some side effects. First is kinetic energy, like a medieval shield the sword might not cut you but the bruise is gonna hurt. Being tossed around inside your bubble caused problems, mostly being you sudden re acquaintance with a bulkhead or floor.
Second I energy buildup, as shields reached maximum absorption we saw that that energy overload would cause all kinds of havoc with the power distribution system, usually killing the hapless red shirt just sitting at his station playing galaga.
So what was the point of me saying all this?
Well if we want to be true to the fell of trek space battles the current damage model really doesn't support it.
I would simply remove bleed through from shields entirely and treat them as a first layer of hp.
Then I would change what kinetic damage is, I would set it as un resistible, and add it in appropriate amounts to all weapons.
Next I would convert torpedoes to the existing energy damage model separating it as appropriate to avoid them interacting with energy weapon buffs. Basically your photons would do their standard damage which a shield would absorb, but also dead a good portion of kinetic damage that it would not. Your phasers would deal their regular damage with a portion dealt as kinetic damage.
The portions would be small in comparison to what it does now but then kinetic damage would be moved to a secondary effect so the overall performance should be similar, you would just get a bigger bang against a shield facing.
The last thing I would change is the crew system, its useless. I would change it to an effectiveness bar. At full strength your abilities and stats get a buff, the lower it goes the weaker you get. It would be damaged mainly by kinetic energy and receive a scaling damage percentage based on hull strength so as you loose hull hp energy damage starts to reduce it more and more.
Probably have to add healing it to a team ability or some such but w/e
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That depends on what they mean by ablative. Seeing as Sci fi writers aren't engineers I could see them confusing ablative with reactive. They both do similar things.
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You could also consider a canon source for stating energy weapons are effective vs hull for example ST2: WOK when the Enterprise fails to raise her shields as Khan approaches and all but destroyed the Enterprise in a single pass with just energy weapons, [taking their main power grid offline, so no phasers , no shields, no warp drive and only barely able to crawl around a 1/4 - 1/2? Impulse power].
I like the diminishing returns ideas for shield powers effective resistance vs torpedo damage, but its doubtful they will recode significant interactions in the game code at this point in time [ aka no profit for the work required, especially since the code base doesnt seem to be well documented so seemingly minor tweaks could have major negative gameplay interactions.]
I like 1 and 2
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Launchers have more torpedoes per cycle based on rarity, is a white launcher fires one torp and a purple launcher fires 4
Adding in high yield launchers that fire large targetable torpedoes as standard, with secondary effects appropriate to their type.
Torp spread, fire at will, and scatter volley are merged
Rapid fire and beam overload are merged. Adding a kinetic resistance debuff to shields and enabling your next torpedo attack to travel faster.
Subsystem targeting works with all energy weapons now
Add evasive patterns.
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basically that idea would interest me generally, but i think its the only thing distinguishing crusiers from escorts. escorts are meant to turn fast, also because its easiert to use torps on them.
if everything movesl ike an escort, escorts fully loose their justification at all.
so basically the prob with torps is for me, that they suck up 3 doff places, and 5 traitslots and 1 tacability (spread or hy) just to become "NOT A DPS LOSS"
while energyweapons are kind of having no malus whatsoever even if "naked" (so without skills and traits and proccs, beams/energy still deliver a good dps)
somehow I think they should implement a 30% dmg malus for energy weapons on hull, which can be countered by 10,20,and 30% by directed energy modulation.
torps are basically a loss because they suffer a secere disadvantage on shields, while energy wepaons dont suffer anything (but range ... but really, who stays at 10km anyway?!)
the first problem is and always was, that energyweapons dont suffer a 30% malus on hull thing, while torpdos suffer a 90% malus on shields.
now they implemented a torp that doesnt suffer, and thats why its OP now, like energy was before basically. they should have FIXED opness of energy instead of making a torp thats equally ignoring the malus/bonus rules ...
sounds valuable to me.
call it "spread fire" and "rapid fire" or sth.
evrything i heard in this thread was better solution to the problem than "oh lets release a torp thats equally ignoring the rules"
Only cannons have a range drop off.
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Occidere populo et effercio confractus
- Rate of fire/travel time: A torpedo fires once every X seconds and then has to travel to it's target. Energy weapons are constantly firing (within arc, of course) and have no (Beams) or far less (Cannons) travel time.
- Shield kinetic resist not scaling: The "1% sliver of shields" effect that is well documented and known.
- They are a "DPS loss": Equipping a torpedo causes your damage to drop considerably due to the previous 2 reasons, and because you can't have a fully forward facing torpedo boat. Beams can use Omni beams + KCB to fill out the aft 3 slots and Cannons have Turrets. Torpedoes have mines, but you'd be foolish to use any of those, except for Bio and Cloaked Tractor in PvP.
Beams have a drop off as well (at around 7-8KM), it's not just nearly as noticeable.
If the Engines Cannae Take It chart is right beams suffer drop off after 1 km but at a much slower drop off than cannons which don't have drop off until 2 km but drop off at a drastically increased rate.
Beams do as well
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
With EAP Nerf and Plasma doping nerf, the game has been going to a direction that is anti-PuGs and pro/friendly to premades.
Before the EAP nerf, you literally do not need recluses to debuff for you as long as everyone had the EAP slotted. The Plasma doping skipped the shield and went directly to the debuffed hulls which made it higher Dps but lower base DPS than beam weapons.
So if you want to plug in a high performance torp boat, you need to put it in a premade group just like how the beam premades do it.
But all this talk of making torps more powerful is luxury just like the complaints about making Eng toons as powerful as Tac in DPS. All weapons, including torps, are capable of all elite content except that Beams are head above the rest.