#9 Tau Ceti Part 3 & Conquest Rework

[Vesperion]

For the start, at least Energy field zone. Mantis detection zones is a good idea, but not necessary. Harvester or mender zones can be learned and engraved to a memory of player, but energy fields for start would be good to have checkpoints on map. Just energy field little ball checkpoints would be fine, otherwise map may be flooded with a lot checkpoints. Also don't forget that you may see marked areas from missions, and buddy list players, which is already filling the map anyhow.
However, showing and hiding symbols as you suggested, would be solution to this problem, so if devs consider those, that would be great benefit to gameplay.

Don´t forget that some maps have a bluish colour so those maps/areas would need a different colour tone so that they are still visible on the map and not "merge" with the map itself.

What also would be an idea is to give the miniradar another purpose cus it´s mostly an "not needed thing" considering the information it provides us. For example in the Siri Mission "Hidden Gas Sources" the Radar was your best friend to find those sources much quicker what made the mission at least a bit easier to complete while now it´s more a lucky moment when you lead the drone over such an source without the needed wait for it to "detect" it. In Most situations since Split removed a bunch of info from the Radar it feels... pointless to still have it cus we only see the units now on it and i rarely look at it anymore cus it provides nothing extra that could be used for it like "searching for stuff beneath the surface"

 

[TarryBark]

The minimap only shows what is happening in your immediate surroundings. It makes more sense to display the icons on the large map. Even if you have to consider the background.

 

[-BoH-]

Hey devs, i think there's this issue that might be worth having a think about with tau ceti. You have intended to make sure parsecs are the best ships to use in all the systems, which you have managed to do well. But in tau ceti, it has gotten to the level where i hardly ever see people fly a neon ship. Never have i ever i mean ever found anyone fly a bullfrog, kodiak, bobcat or a wolfhound. In fact some people who don't often sell ships sell the wolfhound because it's nothing special. The only ships i ever see people fly are the panther, thunderbird or the hawk and humpback. But once people get to calon, they immediately start flying the RDX ships and parsec ships (disruptor etc) but they also recommend flying it in venar or Earth in unrest. Again some may disagree saying that it's just how it's supposed to be. But the other reason they believe the neon ships are "garbage" is also because of their lack of strength in their abilities, an example would be the wolf hound. The allies cover by what others have been saying doesn't help much and instead relies on multiple wolfhounds in the squad to have an effect. The damage inverter still works a bit but compared to how it works on the endurer and the hathor clearly shows that our damage inverter has been nerfed or their's have been buffed. The kodiak as well is not a very good ship by the opinions i have gathered, the deflection droid doesn't seem to have much of an effect as like the ancient hathor's and that it could have also been nerfed. I.E. the deflection droid of the hathor does nearly 3 times the damage to me of my blasters to when i shoot it whereas the kodiak's deflection droid does a minimum. There also appears to be a lack of balance within the hp/armor and the speed of some of the ships, many people i play with have agreed that the thunderbird has a low speed despite it being squishy and dies a lot of the times in places like calon.
All of this has thus pushed nearly everyone to fly in calon with the same ships, CHROMIUM, Paragneiss, obsidion, SLATE, constructor, distruptor and they never fly their tau ceti ships. In fact I have seen some people just sell their ships and focus on the parsecs. The reason why i'm not particularly happy is because of the lack of use in tau ceti ships, it's a waste of design (and the ships really look nice) and it makes them lack purpose.

 

[Fission]

Hello @-BoH-

I think its normal and indended that old players or players with time will try to fly those type of ships since normally they are superior, their cost is normally X2 compared to the regular ship versions. So a player with time will try to achieve those and be using this ships in most situations, while the ne0n or any other ship are more focused into being affordable at the same time that being a solid choose in first steps (or even high-end).

If those ne0n ships were better than parsecs/RDX it would be a problem since their cost is x2 compared to the regular ships and i do think many players would be unhappy with this.

The interesting side of the ne0n ships is that they are a balanced and "cheap" while giving access to new and amazing skills.

 

[-BoH-]

Hello @-BoH-

I think its normal and indended that old players or players with time will try to fly those type of ships since normally they are superior, their cost is normally X2 compared to the regular ship versions. So a player with time will try to achieve those and be using this ships in most situations, while the ne0n or any other ship are more focused into being affordable at the same time that being a solid choose in first steps (or even high-end).

If those ne0n ships were better than parsecs/RDX it would be a problem since their cost is x2 compared to the regular ships and i do think many players would be unhappy with this.

The interesting side of the ne0n ships is that they are a balanced and "cheap" while giving access to new and amazing skills.

I never said make the neon ships stronger than the parsecs, i was saying that there was so much of a gap with their strength that it has become an issue with some of the ships. Even on the lower ends of tau ceti i never see people fly a bullfrog or a wolfhound or anything rather than the panther, hump, hawk or thunderbird (which people sell in calon). Balancing of their HP and speed is definitely something and no, some of the skills don't work very well, they are interesting but ones available for us such as deflection droids, allies cover have little effect on our enemies and the damage inverter for us has either been nerfed or the endurer/hathor's damage inverter has been buffed. It isn't something normal as in lower systems people fly everything, every ship is fun to fly even if parsecs are the best but in tau ceti it almost demands a parsec as if anyone who are to fly a neon ship R.I.P. It's no fun if there is little variation in the ships you see people flying. There always needs to be uniqueness in the game.

 

[Fission]

Regarding lower systems, since the very beginning of the game, players always tried to choose the most strong and useful ships and left some others a bit more behind, we could talk about the poor Shocks , aiming for variation of ships is one of the keys, but its impossible to have all ships in pair to the others and some ships will be seen as stronger because of their items, HP, speed or even design.

It is true that some items could get some adjustements or buffs in order to keep them at the same level as others, but that requires a bit more of focus on this .

 

[NGSpeed]

Don't worry -BoH- in three years the shipclasses are all balanced

 

[Vesperion]

The shift of the Ships started more or less when the latest set of RDX ships have been introduced to the game. Para is ship with a good endurance and high firepower and if used correctly can stand his ground even solo at Calon.

Chrom for some reason seems to be the "superior" Emp despite the lack of an SB and the Thermo but due of the Speed balancing that out considering that the OS is currently the "strongest AoE" Weapon that can deal tons of damage.

Slate on the other hand had a rough start cus for some weird reason a lot of Pilots didn´t give the QL a lot of credit (i must admit though that i can´t compare the old QL to the new QL when it was reworked in CD and range) and now it´s one of the most used ships for fast traveling over a planet cus of reasons^^.

In terms of the Ne0n ships most of them suffer from the old "the ai has way stronger tech then we players have even when we use top tech against them". Just compare an DR MT vs. an Top Level MT at Calon and the slowdown effect of AI and Pilots inside them. Next to this many of the Ne0n Ships have a lack of "feeling unique" and usefull cus the items mean nearly nothing.

Imo from all Ne0n Ships the Thunder and the Hawk are the "best Ne0n ships of the bunch". Hump is somewhat usefull if exploring a new planet eventually but when the DI isn´t at your disposal it´s more an buffer when used in SQ. The Wolf is something like an striped engi with no real usage. To Bob and Kodi i can´t say anything because i have never seen any in action... and that says a lot already lol. And Pilots who have access to Slate don´t need a Panther cus imo it´s the debuffed version of it.

In terms of some TC Items i would have made their effect a bit different but i guess this would require another post in the Feedback section instead of posting it here lol.

 

[Vesperion]

In addition to my previous post:
Making TC Ships "more attractive" again (Changing TC Item Effects)

 

[Poland]

Episode about energy right here:

 

[Poland]

The second release of the episode, because of announcement about energy changes coming on 30th of June.

Greetings, RavenPL.

 

[Vesperion]

Well with the announced Update Split should try to base the energy a Player can obtain on it´s level rather then on the planet considering Events and stuff that take place in lower systems.

All in all the change sounds nice so far cus less time needed to sit in fields but still no full remedy if a High level player is messing around in lower systems cus he wants to help/do an event and after "feeding the beasts" (aka drones) or using self mat he is hanging in an low system e-field.

But 1st... i would say let the update come and see how well it works and when everything is fine the next finetuning can be considered. At least 1 of the few QoL Updates that make sense for the game.

 

[gonzaabel]

I have a question about this new update: The self-materializion will still matching the 60% of the e-cap ? or it will be lower?

 

[Highway]

All energy costs will stay the same as before the upcoming update if not stated otherwise in the changelog. We adjusted all e cap dependant costs accordingly to not increase together with the cap increase.

It might not be very clear from the changelog but overall time to spend collecting e has been speed up in relation to the time using it for combat. Takes about ~190 seconds to fill up the new full 3x cap.

 

[Vesperion]

Considering the anouncement it states that the remat timer will be set to 5 mins when self mat is used 2 times in a row. The question here would really be if self mat costs will with the update be the same like now so that we can self mat 1 time and then have to refill or if we now will basicly spend around 30% so that after the 2nd self mat the 5 min timer kicks in.

One issue i see eventually is that some missions with this change may become a bit more tedious to finish them if you have an unlucky moment... Alone Triang Fun comes here into mind when a bad rndm os is striking and you already poded 2 times you have no chance of completing the mission and can directly restart again lol.

It might not be very clear from the changelog but overall time to spend collecting e has been speed up in relation to the time using it for combat. Takes about ~190 seconds to fill up the new full 3x cap.

I might be wrong here but atm it takes ~70 Seconds to go from 0 Energy to Max Energy (11.750) at Calon with Cells of ~600 value what is ~20 Cells to collect what makes with CD and variable Collection time ~4 Seconds/Cell.

With your Info with about ~190 seconds (3 mins and 10 seconds) + Cells with up to x2 of the current cells value (~1.200) this makes for one ~30 cells to collect (what makes somewhat sense due of the new Cap 35.250) and ~6 Seconds/Cell with CD and variable Collection time what is 2 seconds more to spend time in E-Field/Cell.

I have no real comparision of active Battle time vs time spend in E-Field cus of using Ult Mem all the time cus i already spend enough time in E-Field after feeding the beasts (still manually) and if i should use an self mat.

Speaking of the "The Beasts" will drones then still use the same formula or will it with the change then be so that we can refill all 3 drones with 3/4 of max E-Cap or will it still be 3/4 full E-Cap every 1 hour for just 1 drone?

So after rethinking now this whole change of Energy somehow sounds now worse then nice in compare to my previous post for some reason

 

[Water]

self mater 2nd time in a row 5 minutes cooldown ?? im very happy do be on calon and dont have to make the earth in unrest story missis ..... players who are now on venar or earth in unrest have a realy hard time .... especally for earth in unrest with random planet orbital strikes .....

 

[Vesperion]

self mater 2nd time in a row 5 minutes cooldown ?? im very happy do be on calon and dont have to make the earth in unrest story missis ..... players who are now on venar or earth in unrest have a realy hard time .... especally for earth in unrest with random planet orbital strikes .....

Venar i wouldn´t really say is the issue here cus no rndm factor of devestating rndm OS... as i mentioned alone the Mission Triang Fun at the 2nd part when the mountain climb is a thing 1 rndm os can mess you up if you did pod already 2 times cus you have no chance to remat in time before you will leave the mission circle of the commander unit...

Would be interesting to know if the timer really just then resets when chosing to rescue to hangar or geting rezed by another pilot OR if it also resets when going to Orb and then enter the Hangar manually.

 

[NGSpeed]

@Highway since you are fixing a lot of bugs, I would really appreciate it if you fix the AoE Damage bug for which I edited a video. video link

The bug on the lightning chain was something else I know, but after 1 year and 3 months you should give it the attention it deserves. There are many missions where several NPCs land at the same time and I only tested it on the orbitalstrike, but I am very sure it will be the case for the mine, aggrobomb, sticky bomb and rocket aswell.
This could also be thing during conquest battle/pvp on surfaces. The squadmembers land and their existence mid air reduces the AoE Damage, so the player on the surface which will get hit by any AoE recieves less damage, while the players in mid air take of course no damage.
I can't tell since when this bug is in the game, maybe it was always there haha

 

[Vesperion]

[...]I only tested it on the orbitalstrike, but I am very sure it will be the case for the mine, aggrobomb, sticky bomb and rocket aswell.[...]

You do realize that you basicly condradict yourself with that sentence alone... In the Vid you state the following:

This is not only a bug of the orbitalstrike, it happenswith all other AoE weapons as well.

So what is now the truth? You tested it with all AoE weapons or only with the OS? Another thing i would now bring up here as well is the following:
You show us 1 round vs a Harv with the 6 Interc where the OS kills them all and 1 round vs a Harv with 6 Interc and the landing group and the OS doesn´t kill them.

Imo this is not "proofing" that the landing group really does absorb the dmg and this was just a bad dmg round of the OS because all weapons have a fluctuation of the actuall dmg and don´t have a base value that always counts.

They have a base value of course BUT this has a +- fluctuation that can change an outcome if used and the rng factor has finied + a major difference between the 1st situation and the 2nd is that in the 1st situation a few units receive a crit while in the 2nd situation no unit received a Crit at all what already changes the dmg outcome a lot.

Another thing is: Did you retest it after all this time to see if it still is a thing? If yes i suggest you make a vid in full lenght (not edited) that shows 5-10 times both situation and then we really can say that something is off with the AoE when landing units are involved.

 

[NGSpeed]

@Vesperion , yes that is a contradiction, because I didn't rewatch my own video. Back then I analyzed why the bug is happening and I assumed it for all AoE damage items. So now there two statements and if there are two statements I suggest sticking to the most recent one.

You already replied one year and 3 months ago to that topic.

I keep my videos short so I don't waste the viewer's time. I just present the result to highlight it one time, but of course I have tested that out many times! That drives me to work on a video! I don't do these videos for my personal attention. My intention is to point at a bug and hope it gets fixed asap, because it improves the game and this way it is visualized to the devs.

This thread is about upcoming updates and not arguing about peas.