I've been working a lot on the balance of lasers in the last two weeks, with the other weapons to follow using the same principles. The main changes are:

1) The power of lasers are being balanced as DPE * DPS * (damage type value) with the size and cost being based on the power and other things like range, tracking, and ethereal. What this means is that under the old system, lasers like the huge tracking laser kind of sucked because I included things like tracking in the main power calculation, so the huge tracking laser takes a big hit in the DPS because of the 360 degree firing arc. Now it will do as much DPS as other lasers of similar tech level, it will just be bigger.

2) I am flattening out the power curve of equipment. The way things currently are, I don't feel like I can add new tech levels (21 and 22) in line with the current power curves without those equipment being too powerful as to make all pre-existing content just way too easy. In addition, I feel that the low and medium level equipment is fairly useless compared to the tech 18-20 gear.

So I am beefing the lower end lasers (and will do for everything else) so that each new tech level adds a constant amount of additional power rather than a multiple. The new power curve goes from 1.0 at tech 0 to 1.1 at tech 1 up to 3.0 at tech 20. Tech 21 and 22 gear will have powers of 3.1 and 3.2. I feel that this is a more manageable power curve for adding in tech's 21 and 22 very soon and up to 25 and even higher later. I am aiming to keep the power of all tech 20 gear to be the same as it is now.

So, can you give me a rough idea on how this will affect capital lasers? If you say it will make the bigger I will slap you...

I cant imagine the day when Ukuk, Jiji and Merc Mag isnt the best....

And I havent even reached tech 20 capital lasers yet and now youre gonna add tech 20+... I think Im gonna cry.


But on another note, it all sounds awesome.

i dont think i can get a bigger ship to fit a cap prototype, jeff

Wow... finally. Well, rather soon™ but impressive non the less.

Notice how the first 3 posters are Fleet Focus...

Anyway, great job.

WHAT ABOUT NEW FIGHTERS!!

to my knowledge someone has the capital laser tech 20 bp.

first 4 posters are fleet focus. gunners are still fleet focus

and is there a armageddon fighter bp?

and would the T20 cap laser be so big you'd need a setup built around it to use?

little bit of this... little bit of that.... and 200mil silicon... habba habba

Jeff,
by 'power curve' do you mean the ability

If so, if a t0 weapon is power 1 and a t20 is power 3, then does that mean 3 players using t0 weapons all firing at the same target will be similar in power to a single player with a t20 weapon?

I'm sure i must be mis-understanding you, perhaps you could give a more concrete example.

thanks,
A. McDonald

he means that weapons wont be uber at T20, and T19 be noob, because tahts how it is atm

he means the T1 weps would actually be like a + version of a T0 wep, and a T2 wep being like a + version of a T1 wep

That's basically it, except that 3 players with tech 0 equipment will not put out equal power to one player with tech 20 equipment, because you also have to take into account augs, energy, and possibly other things such as overloaders.

I figure that in general, the overall power of a player is roughly equal to the cube of the avg tech level of his equipment, although it's probably more like to the 3.5th power. So if you think of it that way, you would need 27 players with tech 0 equipment to equal the power of a player with tech 20 equipment under the new power curve. (Under the existing power curve, it takes between 3000 - 4000 players with tech 0 equipment to equal a player with tech 20 equipment, depending on what tier of tech 20 equipment you're looking at.)

I was determined not to criticise but that smells awfully nerfy Jeff.... If my setup is 27 times the power why is it 75000x the price?

He already said that he wasnt going to nerf the tech 20 gear, it's the other things that are being beefed a bit.
The high end items costs more because they are the high end items. If the price followed the power curve and only cost 27 times as much as a tech 0 item you could build a Zebra for less then 500k. Does that sound balanced?

You are fully free to use the lower tech items but somehow I believe you will pay the price for the high end gear since you're gonna need it.

yes (SHHHHHH!!!)

dont forget to nerf AI respectively unless you want to intentionally beef them like this, and take pvp into account

Cool news, and thanks for the hard work. Having lived through the AT redo, Class redo, etc, I'm looking forward to this. Yes, I'm serious. This game got better after each of those changes.

Now to the questions:
Are you still looking to put these rebalancing changes in this uni?

You say the power curve's gonna be 3.0 for t20 gear, but there are several levels of gear at 20... From Titan to Venu to Merc for instance? UZ gear vs. Primal gear?

How about ships, will you be redesigning them along this curve, or leave them as is?

How are you taking a targets resists into the calculations? By the damage type? In which case, are lasers going to be any more viable considering their DPS is crippled by the high laser resists of most AI?

As to current t20 gear, you've said you're aiming to keep the power level the same, but you've also removed size/tracking/range/etc out of that calculation... Does this mean you may be adjusting those attributes on current t20 gear?

/aside to Voomy: Incorrect sir. Jeff did not say he wasn't going to nerf t20 gear... He said he was aiming not to change the power. The two are not semantically equal. Thus my question of attributs not within the power curve. /aside