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Post by Blackhead on Sept 12, 2016 9:22:24 GMT -8
We had a similar Thread, where we talked about mission and unit designs before. This time however I want to focus on improving the general game mechanics.
The main issue is still the same: The gameplay is too static. It’s simply not viable to change up your basic formation or move your units to a different position. That’s also one reason why
escort missions where such a pain in the ass for many players. Every turn you move, you waste energy and thus damage potential. On top of that you also lose all your passive advantages by breaking formation. (flak, shield,…) There is just not a single adventage for move comand. If you move forward you might get a higher chance at hitting the enemy, but that effect is negated in the following turn when your enemy doesn't even have to spend energy to get an equally good shot at you.
1. Overhauling Evasion: Every ship and Ryder should still keep a base evasion value. Your total evasion value however, should incorporate additional factors. Negative panalties for staying at the same spot and at close
proximity to allied units and positive evasion buffs for moving your unit.
This would obviously also make a lot sense from a In-universe perspective. Evasion of unit that stays at the same spot for the whole fight and is restricted in manoeuvrability due to tight formation vs unit which actually changes position freely.
I’d suggest something like this for initial testing:
Negatives:
-8 evasion per turn for unit not moving. Max: -20 (-8/-16/-20)
-3 for every allied unit in direct proximity.
Positives:
+4 evasion boost for moving 1 hex in recent turn. Max boost: +20
2. Positioning must matter!:
This is a really important one. We can only get more dynamic gameplay when it actually matters where your units are positioned in relation to your enemies. As long as you do the same amount of damage
whether you’re in front or behind your enemy, there won’t be much reason to switch things up and move out. (losing your passive buffs in the progress.)
What we need is a system that differentiates between hitting the front, side, or rear of a ship/ryder and calculates damage accordingly. You could even add something to calculate critical hits for hitting from multiple angles. Otherwise there is no pay off for setting up different flanks or playing more aggressively.
Of course we’d need an ingame action to change the direction our units are facing for this to make sense.
I don’t think that I’ve to post any specific stats for this suggestion, it’s really the concept itself that is important.
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Linaril
Civilian
The last enemy that shall be destroyed, is death!
Posts: 9 
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Post by Linaril on Sept 12, 2016 14:14:58 GMT -8
"1. Overhauling Evasion:" What about evasion cost energy? Flak shield too. Instead of them being passsives they would be changedd into optional actives that are not for free.
"2. Positioning must matter!:" Image map with Line of Sight elements like we had in Mas of Arcadius where the objective would be to eliminate the enemy in given time. The positioning of enemy ship would obviousely be set in way where map doesn´t have a single spot from where you can win in that given time.
2b Alternatively the mission where enemy is retreating from middle of the map to oppisite corner and you chase after them.
2c Those AoE ships were pretty succesful in getting my ship separated. Also Ikari went on her anti-hacker-samuray mission in pretty much every battle... Never really felt like having ships together was a big deal, but varienty of missions would be wellcomed.
3. Movement on separated resource from weapons.
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Post by warmach1ne32 on Sept 13, 2016 9:38:04 GMT -8
When I look at Sunrider I see it as Xcom with multiple weapons and no cover, since this is space. I can see the Ryder's themselves leveling up to unlock useful skills on a separate tab that have an energy cost and a cooldown like in XCom2. Stuff like Boost for the Pheonix that halfs the energy cost for movement to close in for multiple melee strikes. Overdrive to give an extra half of max energy but causes you to have only half energy on the next turn (would really help make the Paladin be even more imba). Skills/upgrades like that would be awesome, we did have a taste of it when buying some special upgrades from Sophita. You could use the Commander abilities to be accessible when selecting the Sunrider(or it's equivalent in the future game), and use the new space for Ryder abilities with cooldowns and various costs of activation. Maybe have those abilities be loadouts that can be changed in-between missions and maybe give a place to practice using that ability in a simulation or something similar to the MoA's skirmish mode to test the new ability and possible combos with the squad.
Other than that, maybe have large ships like the Sunrider or a Battleship act as cover for Ryders to hide behind. This can be good as damaged Ryders can hide behind friendly units, with ships being high cover while other Ryder's being low cover. So lasers aimed at seraphim have a chance to miss, if the attack aims true, the game would then calculate the chances of what ever the target is hiding behind to take the hit. Paladin in-front of Sunrider would be the best wall of metal to hide behind. The Paladin would take some of the shots while the Sunrider could absorb the rest. I'll leave the balance to the devs.
And maybe have more consumables with different abilities other than missiles. And maybe go the XCom2 route again just make 1 that is reusable after a mission. (I dont know how that works lore-wise but whatever)
This should spice up the gameplay and open up more ways to play the mission and maybe give some replay-ability. I don't know how to improve on the original gameplay other than make additions. Since most turn-based games with ranged combat use the same formula like with XCom. Maybe have the moon be the Avenger of the Sunrider verse and maybe have base management too (sarcasm). If the devs could make the base management work then great if not then might as well not put it in.
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Post by bigfoot on Sept 14, 2016 23:45:32 GMT -8
We had a similar Thread, where we talked about mission and unit designs before. This time however I want to focus on improving the general game mechanics. The main issue is still the same: The gameplay is too static. It’s simply not viable to change up your basic formation or move your units to a different position. That’s also one reason why escort missions where such a pain in the ass for many players. Every turn you move, you waste energy and thus damage potential. On top of that you also lose all your passive advantages by breaking formation. (flak, shield,…) There is just not a single adventage for move comand. If you move forward you might get a higher chance at hitting the enemy, but that effect is negated in the following turn when your enemy doesn't even have to spend energy to get an equally good shot at you. 1. Overhauling Evasion: Every ship and Ryder should still keep a base evasion value. Your total evasion value however, should incorporate additional factors. Negative panalties for staying at the same spot and at close proximity to allied units and positive evasion buffs for moving your unit. This would obviously also make a lot sense from a In-universe perspective. Evasion of unit that stays at the same spot for the whole fight and is restricted in manoeuvrability due to tight formation vs unit which actually changes position freely. I’d suggest something like this for initial testing: Negatives: -8 evasion per turn for unit not moving. Max: -20 (-8/-16/-20) -3 for every allied unit in direct proximity. Positives: +4 evasion boost for moving 1 hex in recent turn. Max boost: +20 2. Positioning must matter!: This is a really important one. We can only get more dynamic gameplay when it actually matters where your units are positioned in relation to your enemies. As long as you do the same amount of damage whether you’re in front or behind your enemy, there won’t be much reason to switch things up and move out. (losing your passive buffs in the progress.) What we need is a system that differentiates between hitting the front, side, or rear of a ship/ryder and calculates damage accordingly. You could even add something to calculate critical hits for hitting from multiple angles. Otherwise there is no pay off for setting up different flanks or playing more aggressively. Of course we’d need an ingame action to change the direction our units are facing for this to make sense. I don’t think that I’ve to post any specific stats for this suggestion, it’s really the concept itself that is important. Do you want me to make a quick mod for this? my directional movement mod would be easy to tweak to do this and I could make the variables global so you can fine tune them easily yourself. It already changes ship directions and optionally provides a damage boost, although I haven't incorporated it into enemy AI (that said the AI is limited in energy so would struggle to move behind and shoot anyway) The one issue that was raised, is it makes missions you are fleeing from the enemy change difficulty significantly. About cooldowns for ability's, also easy to do, I made a testing mod in MoA which made all weapons bar missiles draw from the same number of 'attack points' which reduced energy cost letting you move more but limit the amount of firepower you could use still. That could be adapted for MoA or even incorporated in the movement overhaul to make the game very different. Basically though, for the player side all this would be very easy to implement, especially with the increased efficiency of the LD battles but hopefully still keep the feel of LD |
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Post by warmach1ne32 on Sept 15, 2016 0:54:03 GMT -8
I don't think I'll need the evasion mod cause space is huge and there is a lot of space in-between ships already. I mean if Legion takes up 1 hex then how big is 1 hex anyway? So I don't think Evasion should be messed with too much. Although if you move it might be great to give an evasion buff instead since, in real time, they are moving so makes it difficult to hit. Also while positioning does matter, Ryders should be nimble enough to rotate to face the enemy if the enemy is at least 3 tiles away. However this could bait them to focus on the closest enemy Ryder while it's weapon's are reloading (their turn is over), then you could shoot it in the back for extra damage from your side of the map if you managed to get the Ryder to focus on the enemy behind them exposing their backs to your squad/fleet. Ships probably can't spin fast enough so if you can get behind them then great, you get extra damage.
This might make my game difficult but if you could separate armor into sections like front, sides, and back then you can focus down on 1 section of the ship from the direction you are facing or cover your damaged sides by re-orientating your ship. This also gives a reason to flank since they have less armor in the sides and rear. In universe it could be explained as using cheap ammo so it's less effective and have to be even tactical in battle to make the most of your reduced damage. Maybe have modules like engines if damaged the ship is immobilized for 2 turns as the engineers on board fixes it or something might add an extra layer for gameplay. You could get a Hail Mary and cause a Torpedo tube to explode because Sola got a lucky shot at the ship's front which causes the ship to receive 1000-ish extra damage because a torpedo exploded inside it. I'm not a programmer but I know from binary that there is a way for it to be possible. Like after the rol to see if the attack would hit hhe target, you could add additional script to determine the direction of the shot and let the game then rng the chance of the shot hitting a module assigned on that side like main cannon in-front, missile silo's at the sides or engines at the back based on percentages. Sola could have an ability to be able to snipe modules that is facing her direction or increase here chance of critting if the system is implemented.
I'm not sure how the MoA mod works but I'l assume it's similar to XCOM's move and attack method.
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Post by bigfoot on Sept 15, 2016 4:40:40 GMT -8
I don't think I'll need the evasion mod cause space is huge and there is a lot of space in-between ships already. I mean if Legion takes up 1 hex then how big is 1 hex anyway? So I don't think Evasion should be messed with too much. Although if you move it might be great to give an evasion buff instead since, in real time, they are moving so makes it difficult to hit. Also while positioning does matter, Ryders should be nimble enough to rotate to face the enemy if the enemy is at least 3 tiles away. However this could bait them to focus on the closest enemy Ryder while it's weapon's are reloading (their turn is over), then you could shoot it in the back for extra damage from your side of the map if you managed to get the Ryder to focus on the enemy behind them exposing their backs to your squad/fleet. Ships probably can't spin fast enough so if you can get behind them then great, you get extra damage. This might make my game difficult but if you could separate armor into sections like front, sides, and back then you can focus down on 1 section of the ship from the direction you are facing or cover your damaged sides by re-orientating your ship. This also gives a reason to flank since they have less armor in the sides and rear. In universe it could be explained as using cheap ammo so it's less effective and have to be even tactical in battle to make the most of your reduced damage. Maybe have modules like engines if damaged the ship is immobilized for 2 turns as the engineers on board fixes it or something might add an extra layer for gameplay. You could get a Hail Mary and cause a Torpedo tube to explode because Sola got a lucky shot at the ship's front which causes the ship to receive 1000-ish extra damage because a torpedo exploded inside it. I'm not a programmer but I know from binary that there is a way for it to be possible. Like after the rol to see if the attack would hit hhe target, you could add additional script to determine the direction of the shot and let the game then rng the chance of the shot hitting a module assigned on that side like main cannon in-front, missile silo's at the sides or engines at the back based on percentages. Sola could have an ability to be able to snipe modules that is facing her direction or increase here chance of critting if the system is implemented. I'm not sure how the MoA mod works but I'l assume it's similar to XCOM's move and attack method. The systems thing actually trivial to do, I had a MoA joke story mod that had a weapon that inflicted random status effects until it was caught (it was a rocket propelled animal that was used like boarding drones) that was a lot more complex than this. Now my framework is included in the base game, it would only actually take a few lines to do and apply it to any/all weapons in the game. If I get an hour spare I might make a bare-bones version of it for you. perhaps just a 5% crit chance and 5-6 options that apply and vary from where the ship is attacked. Will keep it separate/toggle-able from the main combat mod because it wouldn't actually affect combat that much as you cant plan from it. (although if the crit chance increases at over 100% acc...) (and giving Sola a called shot where she can target a specified system at a 50% accuracy 50% damage penalty...) The fun thing will be with the gravity cannons, using the move mod it will also turn the ships (left/right only) which exposes the more vulnerable back armor, now we can move cap ships it is a lot more relevant. The movement mod was unreleased but basically it changes all ships so weapons cost say 50% less but consumed x of a shared pool between weapon types based on upgrades to energy cost. Meaning you had much more mobility. The problem I never fixed was getting the AI to take full advantage of it on the enemy side. |
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Post by Blackhead on Sept 15, 2016 8:42:03 GMT -8
bigfoot : Might be worth messing around with. I just hope Vaen takes some notes. Not that we end up with 1000 gameplay mods, concepts, ideas in the end and nothing actually gets carried over to the next game. 
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Post by warmach1ne32 on Sept 15, 2016 9:46:43 GMT -8
The systems thing actually trivial to do, I had a MoA joke story mod that had a weapon that inflicted random status effects until it was caught (it was a rocket propelled animal that was used like boarding drones) that was a lot more complex than this. [Having PACT SPort give random buff and debuffs would be a nightmare (;n;)]Now my framework is included in the base game, it would only actually take a few lines to do and apply it to any/all weapons in the game. If I get an hour spare I might make a bare-bones version of it for you. perhaps just a 5% crit chance and 5-6 options that apply and vary from where the ship is attacked. Will keep it separate/toggle-able from the main combat mod because it wouldn't actually affect combat that much as you cant plan from it. (although if the crit chance increases at over 100% acc...) (and giving Sola a called shot where she can target a specified system at a 50% accuracy 50% damage penalty...) [Having the possibility of losing your Ryder to a random crit might cause player to be more cautious then again it might give hope in a pretty tough situation. Crits would make the game more.. volatile maybe having a cover system or something else taking the hit might help mitigate the fears of a death crit.]The fun thing will be with the gravity cannons, using the move mod it will also turn the ships (left/right only) which exposes the more vulnerable back armor, now we can move cap ships it is a lot more relevant. [That is good to know]The movement mod was unreleased but basically it changes all ships so weapons cost say 50% less but consumed x of a shared pool between weapon types based on upgrades to energy cost. Meaning you had much more mobility. The problem I never fixed was getting the AI to take full advantage of it on the enemy side. [This might benefit for the weapon mods as now you can't just upgrade the reactor and energy cost enough so you can shot twice, now you have to use your resources and AP more efficiently. I have no idea how to program enemy AI so I'll just wish you luck when you have the time.][If weapons can be upgraded with attachments, like in XCOM then it would be awesome as a replacement to the old Ryder upgrade system, since we don't have a chief engineer anymore we need to buy upgrades off Black Market store shelves Icari brought which might give a different way to play the game. I don't know if I want exactly the same mods as in XCOM2, but something similar and basic like scopes or custom ammo would be helpful at the beginning levels and then you throw in crazy stuff like full custom built weapons with unique stats and bonuses like from Gary's Loot mod. Basically turning Sunrider into an RPG with Loot. Maybe have missions to steal advanced weapons to be used on the Ryders. This could also gives the option of having the Ryders change weapon types, maybe give the Phoenix Pulse and Assault (which halves the cost of Assault and the damage but gives her Pulse lasers to take out weakened targets that still have too much armor for Assault to deal with). Not every Ryder would benefit from changing their weapon type like that tho so the most common weapon switches are probably weapons with better stats and bonuses. Not asking for Borderlands levels of weapons just a moderate amount at your discretion. This is just brainstorming, and asking if this is possible in the next Sunrider that could be released in 3-4 years later.] |
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Post by Nemjen on Sept 17, 2016 1:31:14 GMT -8
One of bigfoot's concepts I am really fond of is the wreckage mod, for me I see an untapped element of gameplay that could be manipulated both for the player and the enemy unit strategies. It could also lead to some new mission designs which seems to be one of the most common bits of feedback I hear.
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Post by bigfoot on Sept 17, 2016 9:35:02 GMT -8
The wreckage mod was actually the first part of a salvage mod, where you can deploy expensive vulnerable salvage ships to collect ship parts used to upgrade your own ships to have special effects on the weapons like shield-piercing or missile EMPs that disrupted systems, salvaging Ryuvian cruisers would let you upgrade the Seraphim with an auto-repair system. This was all back in the MoA version but I never got around to finishing it.
It is something I would like to get back to but i like it purely as an environmental mod and it would be very annoying to balance without necessarily adding that much to gameplay.
Haven't done much on the gameplay ideas mod but did some planning on the walk back from work:
Evasion mod:
2 Modes
Turn based: If you move, you gain a stack, if you don't you loose two stacks. Buffs by x amount. Can only gain the buff once per turn and can set a cap
This is the original idea but I thought its not realistic, ryders should get more
Hex based: Whenever you move you gain a stack of evasion for every hex (small amounts, 2-3% or something). This is reduced at the start of the next turn to an adjustable amount. Again there are penaltyies for not moveing.
This is more realistic because a ryder would be able to move more and would get a higher reward for doing so, cap ships would move less and obviously this would mean they arn't dodgeing fire as much
Special rules:
Cover: If you end turn on cover, it removes any negative stacks as you are less targitable)
Renewal: If you move, it doesn't remove the penalty for not moving the previous turn entirely but alleviates it a bit (basically you don't go from sitting still to zipping around the battlefield)
Target Positioning mod:
2 Modes:
Basic: Attacking from above/below or rear gives bonus to accuracy and damage
Advanced: Attacking from outside a 45* angle deals prepositionally more damage per angle than attacking from the front (so a very smooth scale depending on where you attack from)
Special Rules:
Critical Hit mod:
1 Mode:
Criticals: Ships below 100% accuracy have X chance to crit, that is increased by Y for every 5% above 100
Options:
Shields: Reduces Shields (any direction)
Engines: Reduces movement (only when attacked from behind)
Missiles: Deals x bonus damage and destroys a missile (only front damage)
Rockets: Deals xx bonus damage and destroys a rocket (only front damage)
Sunder: Damages armour (any direction)
Targeting: Reduces Accuracy
Maneuvering thrusters: Reduces Evasion
Reactor: Reduces energy generation
Special rules:
Boss Immunity: Bosses are immune
All of these would be disableable at will and the magnitude of the effects adjustable.
Only triggers on ships that are valid for them (out of rockets wont let you crit rockets on a battleship)
A few nice things:
You can set buffs as buffs and use negative magnitude to apply curses that cannot be removed by restore. (ok probably only I am excited about that)
Special rules can be toggled at will
All values will be modifiable from the top of the file, so can be tweaked/disabled at whim such as enabling/disabling crit effects and adjusting chance for each to happen.
All mods will be designed to work together but can be individually toggled off or on.
You can use the gravity guns on your own ships to grant them extra stacks of evasion.
Making a ship run away makes them harder to hit by moving, good for escort/damage control
Most importantly:
THE SAME RULES APPLY TO THE ENEMY SHIPS
Is anyone prepared to balance test this or does anyone have extra ideas to add to it?
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Post by warmach1ne32 on Sept 17, 2016 10:32:02 GMT -8
My 2009 Windows XP PC is available for testing, I just need a really dumbed down instruction manual since I know next to nothing about modding files. You could probably add more target options like "Cannons: disable the use of kinetic for x turns", "Bridge: can only do 1 action (fire once or move once)", & damaging the Reactor would probably be an instant kill but it must be done using special armor piercing shells that can penetrate into the heart of a ship and be at 80%-100% accuracy to have a chance of actually getting the instant kill. It is a high risk high reward move and if it hits the ship but doesn't hit the reactor then you get 1/2 damage as the shell just pokes a hole and not crunched the body.
And interesting option would be to give a counter-measure to kinetic weapons, armor is okay but not good enough. Maybe give the ability to buy armor attachments like spaced-armor like in WW2 tanks or reactive armor for the ships, maybe give combat shields attached to the side of a shoulder of Ryders to give extra armor. I have a few ideas for additional counter-measures for missiles like Laser Point Defense Drones could be deployed to provide additional flak and can last for 1 turn and act like missiles and replenished after the battle and maybe give option to deploy decoy flares to reduce missiles aimed in that area. Something really fun would be damage over time attacks, maybe give Ryders Armor Piercing Incendiary ammo for a chance to cause fires for 2 turns which would cause damage while the crew try to put it out... wait a minute if there is a hole then there would be no air no air means no fire... wait then how come when in [Re]turn that droid got in and there isn't any sign of decompression? Another type of ammo that could work is EMP rounds which reduces the energy the ship regens when it's their turn, basically damages their energy bar along with their health bar at a specific ratio. Get hit enough times and the enemy might not move or shoot that turn.
This are just suggestions any comments are welcomed to help refine the ideas or scrap them.
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Post by bigfoot on Sept 18, 2016 13:24:26 GMT -8
Drum roll please! (if your lazy Drum Roll!) Right, I've done the movement/evasion part of the mod. Rest to follow at some vaguely defined future. This mod has two modes, you can only use one: - EM_T: You gain a stack of evasion if you move at least once a turn, or loose two if you don't
- EM_H: You gain a stack of evasion for every hex you move, and loose a specified percentage every turn. If you don't move you also loose X stacks.
Both of these modes have the same special rule that can be toggled: - EM_A: If you end turn in cover, any negative move buffs are removed
Stacks are added and decreased on movement, so it is possible to build a deficit of stacks on slow ships/stations.
And additionally there is an Evasion Group Penalty which gives you a penalty for every adjacent ship
Settings: All of these settings can be edited and toggled as needed.
Turn Mode:- EVMag: The Evasion buff Per Stacks
- EVCap: The number of stacks that can be built up
- EVPen: The number of stacks you loose per turn for not moving (Penalty cap is (EVCap*EVPen)*-1)
Hex Mode:- EMHB: The Magnitude of evasion per hex moved
- EMHB_Pen: Number of stacks lost by not moving
- EMHB_Cap: Max Number of stacks that can be built up
- EMHB_End: Stack count modifier per turn end (0.75 looses you 25% stacks)
- EMHB Penalty cap: derived by half Cap * EMHB_End (so a stack cap of 20 and a 0.75 End would give you a max negative stack of -7 (Not Modifiable atm)
Group Evasion:- EVG: Magnitude of penalty per ship
Settings can be changed using a text editor, and modifying them from the top of the rpy file. If you want to change modes, doing a dev-restart won't work but closing and reloading should to it. Enemy AI has not been adjusted but all changes affect them. At default settings the lowest evasion penalty you can get for sitting still is -14 on hex mode and -24 on turn mode, along with a -16 penalty for being surrounded by 6 other ships. The upper cap on evasion is 12 on Turn mode and a theoretical 40 on hex mode (but due to the turn by turn stack reduction there is a much lower practical cap dependent on ship speed, it is more likely to be +6 for cap ships and + 12-16 for Ryders) You can make hex mode more reactive by increasing EMHB and decreasing EMHB_Cap. Increasing EMHB_End will reduce the penalty for firing. You cannot gain negative stacks through hex mode if you have moved at least 1 hex per turn. I would appreciate feedback/crash reports/ideas. It has been tested on three battles and works with spawning ships, destroyed ships, new battles and all that but its worth a few more eyes. Link is: Here |
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Post by bigfoot on Oct 19, 2016 15:52:09 GMT -8
Well now I hate maths forever! Mapping angles to a circle made out of hexes while correcting for every other line being offset on the x axis is awful! If someone mentions angles to me be prepared to have a protractor to the brain! Nonetheless in addition to the Evasion part of the mod above, the other two ideas have been implemented! Location Aware Damage
Now there is a damage bonus/penalty depending on where the ship is attacked from. As you can tell from the excellent diagram below, there is a 180* arc going right to left or left to right, depending on the ship's direction. This is reduced by the Offset (modifiable) that is -45 by default. The angle is then multiplied by a value to give a damage adjustment (by default 0.2) 180* (-45 = 135) (135*0.2 = 27%) <Sunrider ~~> 0* (-45 = -45) (-45*0.2 = -9%) 0* (-45 = -45) (-45*0.2 = -9%) <~~Sunrider> 180* (-45 = 135) (135*0.2 = 27%) Basically if you attack/are attacked head-on there is a penalty, if you attack from the behind/top/bottom whatever there is a damage boost. This applies both to enemies and you. If using the Movemod it auto-corrects for ships changing their direction and it is highly recommended for use here. it is included in the Rar. Critical Hits
Ships now have a basic 5% chance to critically hit For every 1% above 100 accuracy they gain an additional 0.2% chance (so at 105% to hit, a 6% crit chance) If they critically hit, then there are 8 effects that might happen (but you won't deal armor damage to an unarmored ship for example, they are all relevant) Damage Shields ( reduce shield gen by 50% ) Damage Engines (Stop movement) Damage Armor (Armor reduced by 30% for entire battle) Damage Targeting (Reduce accuracy by 50%) Damage Evasion (Reduce evasion by flat 30) Detonate Missile (Destroys a missile and deals 200 damage) Detonate Rockets (Destroys a rocket and deals 500 damage) Critical Damage (Deals 150 damage) Crit effects cannot be double applied and if no other options are viable, it will deal critical damage. ---Modifiable Values---
As before, as many of the variables are modifiable as possible and all of them are toggleable Location aware damage:TL_offset (This gives the -45* angle at the front of ships. You could change this to -20 for example to give a smaller protected area TL_percentage ( This is the percentage of the angle that gives the damage modifier. If it is changed to 1, the damage modifier would be the same as the angle.) Critical Hits:
CM_Chance (This is the basic crit chance) CM_Inc (This is the % of acc above 100 added to the crit chance) CM_Weapons (This is the list of weapon types that can crit. Adding or removing will let it trigger on other types) CM_Boss (If False, stops crits affecting bosses) Crit effects: All crit effects can be toggled on or off at whim by changing their variable to False CM_Shields_Mag: % of shields lost on crit effect CM_Missiles_Mag: Bonus damage dealt CM_Rockets_Mag: Bonus damage dealt
CM_Sunder_Mag: Percentage of armor lost CM_Targeting_Mag: % of accuracy damage CM_Evasion_Mag: Bonus damage dealt If its used as supplied, you will benefit from moving, getting close to the enemy and playing very reactively by getting evasion buffs and damage bonuses by outflanking the enemy and damage reduction with correct positioning, whilst if you huddle, you will take extra hits, have evasion penalties and such. As always, please let me know how it goes, I would greatly appreciate feedback. If there's no problems, I will upload it to the mods area in a few days/weeks. Download |
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Post by Blackhead on Oct 21, 2016 13:05:09 GMT -8
bigfoot : Unfortunately I already had quite a few issues after superficial testing. I’ll give some proper feedback, including tracebacks, once I actually have some spare time again… and that could take a while. 
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Post by bigfoot on Oct 22, 2016 1:07:11 GMT -8
Thats alright, I specialize in breaking things and buggy code. Haven't yet managed to get a traceback though
Edit: looking for it, found an error with TrueAcc (accuracy when over 100% chance to hit) and fixed that not being set correctly
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Post by bigfoot on Nov 2, 2016 11:56:52 GMT -8
Fixed and updated the mod for when you get a chance (but there really isn't any rush), bugs that I could find are fixed and the crit chance has been correctly limited to weapon types listed in the settings. Crit chance has been tweaked (at 150% chance to hit, there is a ~33% chance to crit) Crits now tell you what the crit effect was on the screen. (although occasionally it doesn't) I have the feeling it may completely break chase missions, if your getting hit for ~+20% damage, you won't last long... might need to summon mathmancer Drath from Mundania to have a look at that. |
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Post by Nemjen on Nov 5, 2016 9:47:59 GMT -8
I have the feeling it may completely break chase missions, if your getting hit for ~+20% damage, you won't last long... might need to summon mathmancer Drath from Mundania to have a look at that. The best way to summon him is offer up a badly design UI as tribute. May I recommend his favourite dish, Mordheim: City of the Damned? |
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Post by Blackhead on Dec 12, 2016 10:55:02 GMT -8
Okay, I’m finally back after doing some testing. Also: Tested this mods compatibility with MoA to Libday port+Character side missions mod. Errors: Cosette uses melee to attack Asaga: imgur.com/a/8A9oRLegion battle crashes at start: imgur.com/a/EqBvySola side mission crash: imgur.com/a/aUITROther errors: Cancel movement sometimes messes around with the direction your unit is facing. Example: You start a battle with a unit facing west, you misclick and move it backwards. It’s now facing west. After pressing the cancel movement button it's back at its original grid position but still facing west. Critical hits need to be reworked. Before you made the changes there were way too many crits, but now neither me nor the enemy did hit a single one. And I started from the beginning of FA and played till the Legion battle. So either the hit chance is way too low or something else isn’t working properly. Overall impression was very good though, quite an improvement compared to the original. Especially dynamic evasion stats are something I’d consider an absolute must for a next Sunrider. |
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Post by bigfoot on Dec 12, 2016 14:02:17 GMT -8
Okay, I’m finally back after doing some testing. Also: Tested this mods compatibility with MoA to Libday port+Character side missions mod. Errors: Cosette uses melee to attack Asaga: imgur.com/a/8A9oRLegion battle crashes at start: imgur.com/a/EqBvySola side mission crash: imgur.com/a/aUITROther errors: Cancel movement sometimes messes around with the direction your unit is facing. Example: You start a battle with a unit facing west, you misclick and move it backwards. It’s now facing west. After pressing the cancel movement button it's back at its original grid position but still facing west. Critical hits need to be reworked. Before you made the changes there were way too many crits, but now neither me nor the enemy did hit a single one. And I started from the beginning of FA and played till the Legion battle. So either the hit chance is way too low or something else isn’t working properly. Overall impression was very good though, quite an improvement compared to the original. Especially dynamic evasion stats are something I’d consider an absolute must for a next Sunrider. Thanks supertester as always its very helpful (especially including the crash screens) and glad you like it! Will work on the bugs tomorrowWill boost the crit chance although it was intended as an occasional thing that mostly happened above 100 chance to hit (when there was too many that was me setting it to 50% base chance rather than 0.5% base chance because I'm awful at maths) If you wanted to fiddle with it yourself then the probability options are at the stop of the evasion file. As you apparently tested a number of missions, how did you find the balance? Edit:
Ok fixed the three crashing bugs, and critical hit chance is now 5% + 1% for every point of chance to hit over 100 (so at 120% chance to hit, would be 25% chance of a crit) The legion bug was from MoA in LD. I'm not sure why its suddenly starting up now but its fixed and the MoA.rpy file also needs to be re-downloaded. Will work on the cancel movement tomorrow, I haven't had a reason to play with that yet. Edit:
Was a simple fix, cancel movement now resets the ship direction as well |
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Post by Blackhead on Dec 13, 2016 11:08:30 GMT -8
Thoughts on balance and gameplay:
-Generally speaking the skill ceiling increased by quite a bit, which means that as a good player you can really capitalize on the changes and dish out significantly more damage than before, making it overall slightly harder for the AI to keep up with you.
-As a weaker player the roles are reversed however. If you aren’t able to inflict enough “pain”, you’ll get punished hard, because your enemy usually has an advantage in numbers and also hits from multiple angles doing some decent extra damage. + more opportunity for criticals due to higher numbers.
-What really is much harder now is the first half of First Arrival, because your tasctical options are definitely limited when you just have the Sunrider and a couple of Ryders. Some of these early missions might be impossible on Space Whale. (Had to test it on Space Whale first though. I’m currently testing on standard Captain difficulty.) You’re probably right about chase/escort missions. I did play the alternate Versta mission this time around, but I’d expect the escort version to be insane. (Going to test this one too.)
-Kinetics are more prevalent in the mid-game now, since capital ships like to camp on their position and can effectively be hit from farther away.
-All of your Ryders are more or less evenly effected by the changes, but the one unit that profits the most, is the Phoenix. I still remember the early FA days in 2014 and how terrible she was back then. You could never move out and desperately tried to finish of weak units with assault from a safe distance to draw aggro. Then you dodged a few shots until you got a torpedo in your face that One-Shotted you. Now she’s more of a solo hit and run unit and you can make some serious magic happen. In original LibDay stealth was an absolute must if you decided to get aggressive, now it has become a highly situational dependent order, thanks to the new evasion mechanic. And then we have critical hits, which is obviously a massive buff for a unit that relies on highly accurate melee attacks. Even more so, should you choose to upgrade her melee accuracy. One cut, one kill emoticon_icari2_small
So these are a few of my initial thoughts. I think I’ll be able to continue with the Legion battle, and be back with more feedback soon.
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Post by bigfoot on Dec 13, 2016 12:48:25 GMT -8
Ah-ha! Feedback!
The first half of FA was already harder in the LD port, I probably will need to do something about that in the future.
I was wondering how much the evasion changes would make the Phoenix overpowered, right now you loose 25% of evasion stacks on every turn so a quick ship looses more than a slow ship and it should ideally reach a point that every attack means you move less and evasion shrinks until it reaches an equilibrium.
I am considering instead of a base percentage, adjusting it by the move cost of ships although that is much less satisfying as it would become a flat decrease rather than reactive to how much the ship is moving.
The max evasion penalty right now is -14 by not moving for 4 turns, the highest buff is +40 by moving 20 hexes but given you would need to move 5 hexes every turn just to maintain that, it would hugely limit your attacking power
With the Phoenix then moving is going to be a huge buff but how are you finding it with ships where you can either move or fire two shots?
With the capital ships, they struggle to fire and move at the same time, so I'm not surprised they are suddenly much more vulnerable, there is an option turned on at default that clears negative evasion when hiding behind cover, and I am thinking the wreckage mod (that makes cover when a non-Ryder is destroyed) might help even the scales a little bit. Otherwise perhaps I should tweak their movement costs a bit, try and get them more mobile.
You said kinetics are more powerful atm which is one of the goals, I know lasers don't have the same raw power as kinetics, but I was wondering if the decrease in evasion is enough to push them into critical territory, the crits could take out shields/armor or do high damage even if they would only do 1-2 dmg through shields which is not something we really want.
Have you been using the gravity gun to move ships backwards and gain bonus damage, given it still counts as moving for evasion stacks? with kinetics then that would be a -17% chance to hit for a potential 36% damage increase (-9% vs +26%)
The same thing applies with player ships, I am concerned moving forward to increase evasion actually gives you +13% chance to be hit by enemy kinetics, and there are a lot more of them than most players field. Have you had any issues with this? One possibility I see is reducing kinetic accuracy but also reduce accuracy degeneration. I am worried about kinetics stepping into lasers role and doing it better.
The final thing is difficulty, Ideally I want the mod to raise the skill ceiling but still be usable for either newcomers or space whale masochists. I will probably link it to difficulty settings but when playing on captain is there any thing that clearly stands out as too game warping?
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Post by Rellek on Jan 19, 2017 12:01:42 GMT -8
In my personal opinion, having movement tied to a separate resource from your weapons would be, though a simple and crude solution, a step in the right direction. I often find myself wanting to move forward to engage the enemy point blank (because brakes are for wimps!), but I decide not to due to that restricting my liberal use of firepower that turn. Therefore, I usually just end up sitting in one spot and taking pot shots across the map with lasers, until I have enough command points to use a short range warp to get closer.
I'm probably wrong, though. I play on easier difficulties, and there is a reason I don't get paid to design game mechanics.
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Post by nomotog on Mar 5, 2017 9:49:16 GMT -8
In my personal opinion, having movement tied to a separate resource from your weapons would be, though a simple and crude solution, a step in the right direction. I often find myself wanting to move forward to engage the enemy point blank (because brakes are for wimps!), but I decide not to due to that restricting my liberal use of firepower that turn. Therefore, I usually just end up sitting in one spot and taking pot shots across the map with lasers, until I have enough command points to use a short range warp to get closer. I'm probably wrong, though. I play on easier difficulties, and there is a reason I don't get paid to design game mechanics. Your thought was my thought. Split energy into energy for weapons and thrust for movement. Something else I want to put forward is dynamic battles can come from more then moving around. I have just gotten into front mission, so let me throw out an idea. Limb damage. Divide the ships and mechs into different parts each with their own HP bar. Diffrent parts can be shot off and disabled in battle to change up the battlefield. |
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Post by looniestrumble on Jun 19, 2017 10:22:40 GMT -8
I think the best way to "fight" against the heavy defensive play that the Sunrider games force on you is not by penalizing it, as there a are players who like to play like that, a better option could be encourage a more mobile play with the introduction of new abilities, Liberation Day already took a step in this direction changing the aggro system, allowing the Phoenix to become more of an assasin than the best tank of the team, same with the introduction of the Falcon or the Cera Gunboats. Some abilities that encourage both static and mobile play will give everyone the choice to play as they want.
Even so, the enemies also requiere new tools to deal with this, the idea of a bonus to accuracy vs target that did not move last turn is a good way to fight vs static play, only if the defensive systems allow to balance this with better upgrades to withstand the ever growing fire power. After all, the idea is to give players the choice, not to force them to play one way or the other.
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