1 (edited by Mroq 2017-01-07 06:25:20)

Topic: Overall tuning balance

After testing and calculations here are my thoughts on tuners (and some other modules) in the game. Before I start tho I need to say that armor resistance is the only stat with diminishing returns and is currently nicely balanced. Also 1-2 module types never cause issues really so I will focus on maximum stacking them.

1. ARMOR REPAIR TUNING

Currently we are at +50% efficiency for +30% consumption (+69% for remote)
Lets consider 5 tuners then:
759% repaired amount increase
371% accumulator consumption
This gives us a ratio of 2.05 to 1. In short, accumulator efficiency doubles, repair efficiency just gets ridiculous.
For remote rapairers accumulator consumption is 1377%. Thats ratio of 1 to 1.81 so efficiency almost gets cut in half.

Tanking observers in assault bots is fun but I'm going to assume not intended. These need to be toned down and changed for remote reps that are now useless with tunings. Tunings still should increase accumulator efficienency but not to such a degree.

My proposition:
+25% repaired amount for T1 and T2 = 305% so a ratio of 0.82 to 1
+30% repaired amount for T3 = 371% = 1 to 1 ratio)
+37.5% repaired amount for T4 = 491% = 1.32 to 1 ratio)
Reduce additional remote consumption to 5% - ratio gets only slightly better with T4.

2. INDUSTRIAL TUNINGS

Well things should be simple here as % are the same as armor rep tunings. I would suggest a similar rebalance as proposed for armor repair tuners. The current increase in ammount mined/harvested sure is nice but is slightly too much - I'm all out for more so the market might get some life touched to it but scarabs mk2 filling themselves in 3h is a bit too much in my humble opinion.

I am only going to do numbers for T4 this time:
491% with all lvl 10 extensions = 736.5% as opposed to current 1.3k% - its still much more but not completely overboard.

3. ENWAR UPGRADE

Again here I am going to consider stacking 5 of those together:
201% increased drain amount
161% drain/neut accumulator ussage
305% increased neutralized amount
Not considering robot or extension bonuses now:
T4 medium energy neutralizer = 370 acc use and 900 acc drained = 0.41 to 1 ratio, extensions improve this even further. Seriously? This will change game into neuting artemis/seth alts energy wars. Save such ratios for Ictuses and troiars please.

My proposition:

T1 and T2:
10% drained energy
10% accumulator usage
10% neutralized amount

T3:
13% drained energy
10% accumulator usage
13% neutralized amount

T4:
15% drained energy
10% accumulator usage
15% neutralized amount

Now with 5 T4 tuners a T4 unbonused medium neutralizer costs 370acc and neuts 593acc - It is still very good but not as overpowered anymore - and can actually be countered by sealings.

4. WEAPON TUNINGS

Last but not least are the weapons. Currently one can fit a few tuners for conventional firearms or missiles - but no more than a few or it just gets silly. Laser and magno weapons shouldn't use any however unless some serious energy logi is used.
I understand that stacking up weapon tunings is a practice that should cease at least for pvp for diversity. Using up head slots should not get penalized or it will prove the module invalid. I am going to assume that without any weapon tunings all weapons are balanced. The tricky part here is that they all got different dmg, acc and cycle time per shot.

Before changes 5 weapon tuners meant  approximately 245.7% dps along with better accumulator ratio. That is way too much to ignore. What will happen if we remove both damage and accumulator penalty from weapon tunings? 5 tuners will increase dps to 169% with no accumulator ratio increase (and it will consume over 50% more acc and ammo due to rate of fire).

So my proposition for all weapon tuners:
3% critical
7.5% rate of fire

Re: Overall tuning balance

Before I start tho I need to say that armor resistance is the only stat with diminishing returns and is currently nicely balanced.

if you all (including DEV Zoom) count DPS in %... can you please do reveal the corresponding unit for hitpoints?

True, resists are one of the few systems ingame that uses dimishing returns,
but they only thing that is balanced about it, is that they are simple so balanced that they are negliable to care about.
at least i have NEVER EVER hear an FC call out "blue, switch to liquidcore ammo when you shoot those yellows"... and you know how long i have been around now.

i've run so many simulations, and except for some rare exceptions, the higher base damage of each factions single-damage or PVP ammo, outclasses any damage plus you would get for matching your ammo type with the supposed resist hole of the target - and in those cases, chemo ammo would do the same against all targets.

oh,
and just to name it, there are other dimishing return things ingame that are working fine, you just did never notice because there is an alternative that has exponential returns, doing basicly the same (increasing you accumulator recharge rate):

accumulator rechargers vs. aux. accumulator modules
exponential vs. diminishing

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: Overall tuning balance

if you all (including DEV Zoom) count DPS in %...

I'm calculating dps increase in % factoring given variables using mathematics taught in schools.

According resistances:
9.09% vs 60% is enough of a difference worst to best without modificators. I agree with the fact that faction ammo is best in most scenarios with some rare exceptions. But the culprit here is ammo damage with all standard ammo having more than half of it as its racial type. This also makes pvp more of a rock-paper-scissors unfortunately.

oh,
and just to answer:
Such diminishing returns are also with plates, number of weapons and various other factors that dont need additional mechanics as standard math facts are enough here.
Accumulator rechargers are calculated exponentialy true that. But do they have exponential returns? Lets check!:
0 T4 accumulator rechargers = 504s recharge time
1 = 415
2 = 343
3 = 283
4 = 233
5 = 192
415 / 343 = 1.21
343 / 283 = 1.21
283 / 233 = 1.21
233 / 192 = 1.21

4 (edited by Annihilator 2017-01-07 19:17:30)

Re: Overall tuning balance

Mroq wrote:

if you all (including DEV Zoom) count DPS in %...

I'm calculating dps increase in % factoring given variables using mathematics taught in schools.

According resistances:
9.09% vs 60% is enough of a difference worst to best without modificators. I agree with the fact that faction ammo is best in most scenarios with some rare exceptions. But the culprit here is ammo damage with all standard ammo having more than half of it as its racial type. This also makes pvp less of a rock-paper-scissors unfortunately.

oh,
and just to answer:
Such diminishing returns are also with plates, number of weapons and various other factors that dont need additional mechanics as standard math facts are enough here.
Accumulator rechargers are calculated exponentialy true that. But do they have exponential returns? Lets check!:
0 T4 accumulator rechargers = 504s recharge time
1 = 415,8
2 = 343,035
3 = 283,
4 = 233
5 = 192
415 / 343 = 1.21
343 / 283 = 1.21
283 / 233 = 1.21
233 / 192 = 1.21

but pvp is far away from rock-paper-scissors, when it comes to weapons+factions
and your right... the rechargers effect is proportional

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: Overall tuning balance

Well pvp is not completely rock-paper-scissors but when 1v1 in pure combat bots one is at a disadvantage. Not a big disadvantage but it is present, the fewer of it the better. If standard ammo types got their dmg types rebalanced a bit - going for somewhere around 20-30% of racial damage instead of over half of it then it should help with the issue of need to change ammo type. As it is now even for PvE I never used anything other than chemical ammo - difference is too insignifficant to bother. If it isn't good enough for PvE then I doubt it will ever get used for PvP.

Re: Overall tuning balance

Reviewing the tuning module balance is the last thing on my todo before deploying the next patch, and I just realized that repair tunings must have been bugged for quite a while.

Having an extra accumulator penalty for remote repairers on top of the self-repairer penalty is not intentional. Maybe back when the modules were created the two separate penalties were needed, but then some change made the general armor repair accumulator usage penalty affect both types of modules, I don't know. I'll probably just remove the remote penalty.

Otherwise thanks for the summary, I make good use of it smile

Re: Overall tuning balance

Further to what the op has pointed out, I would like to add that I find it very peculiar that in order to fight an NPC spawn, usually the rock-paper-scissors foundations does not work.

This game is supposed to be build upon the idea that;

Nuimqol are strong against Pellistal but weak to Thelodica
Pellistal are strong against Thelodica but weak to Nuimqol
Thelodica are strong against Nuimqol but weak to Pellistal

which in short would be normally referred to as BLUE > GREEN > YELLOW.

The way resistances and armor hardeners (against npcs) work is different from assault and below to mechs and above.

Let's take a new player starting in Attalica fighting in his little arbalest as an example. He would follow the above advice and he pops over to hershfield to seek harder green bots that are naturally his arch enemies. He would use kinetic slugs and see that he is dealing good damage while his bot is naturally tuned against these enemies. So far so good. Then he upgrades to his mesmer and tries out some T3 mech-Heavy mech spawns armed with his composite core slugs (pure kinetic) and he soon notices that liquidcore (kinetic+seismic) does more damage, but then he realises that chemo ammo is probably the best damage dealer all round since it provides a little bit more damage and is better vs industrial npc that pops up once in a while.

This story would have been all nice and dandy until one realises that the best robot overall against NPCs is actually the Seth Mk2! Yes an all around robot that overshadows all other races in almost every possible way. Let me explain this a little bit in detail below as per my findings;

Against Green spawns the best is Seth Mk2 with Machinegun chemo bullet and second Gropho Mk2 with sonic missiles. (no Mesmer here!)

Against Yellow Spawns the best is Seth Mk2 with Thermal LCL lazors and second Gropho Mk2 with chemo missiles. (should be Gropho the best no?)

Against Blue Spawns the best is Seth MK2 with Machinegun chemo bullet and second is Mesmer Mk2 with composite slugs (still mesmer tank and accumulator is a bit flimsy)

The above is taken with max skill t4 fits. Now this has been the case even before the tuning rebalance and has been tested these last days. I might be missing some details so in that case please point them out. While I point out that I do not know the coded npc resistance profiles the fits scanned from the npcs and the damage applied to them seem to tally.

My proposed solution:
Fit NPCs with the following: No armor plates - 1 Univ Armor - 2 Univ Armors.

This way the resistance profiles would follow something like this:
No Plates (assaults and below) - This is already the case with lots of assault and light bots.
1 Universal plate - Mechs and above (T2/T3)
2 Universal plates - Elite mechs and above (T4/T5)

And the percentages should look something like this:
Example on Yellow npcs (artemis / seth / zenith)

No resistance plates     - 23.08     60    9.09    31.03
1 universal plate.....    - 37.5     64.29    28.57   42.86   
2 universal plates...    - 54.55     70.59    50    57.45

Where the profile follow Chemo - Kinetic - Seismic - Thermal

If this is a good solution, would it be hard/take too much time to implement? To spice thing up, you can also keep the current (or even secret) damage profiles on Rare Npcs (like mighty arbitrer / observers) so that players have to explore and find out new things.

Ps. Something else needs to be done to tackle the fact that most pvp/chemo ammo is straight out the best against everything
PPS. I would like to see the devs create more NPC content as there are potentially more players that are interested in PVE and might find the situation in Perpetuum quite a bit grindy and rigid in terms of going through the mission levels. I am not sure about the tap situation, but it seems they are not much used in their current state.
PPPS. The game is great, just need some more ppl smile

Re: Overall tuning balance

imho, default resistances should be something like

0% : 0% : -20% : 0% .
and weapons need to be reduced to single damage ammo, and one chemo hybrid against plants.
the single damage ammo can have modifiers to range, damage, falloff and anything else but damage types.

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: Overall tuning balance

Toninu wrote:

And the percentages should look something like this:
Example on Yellow npcs (artemis / seth / zenith)

No resistance plates     - 23.08     60            9.09           31.03
1 universal plate.....    - 37.5     64.29    28.57       42.86   
2 universal plates...    - 54.55     70.59    50           57.45

Lets focus on one of them:

10p = 9.09%
45p = 28.57%  (+19.48) = 1 universal hardener
80p = 50%       (+21.43) = 2 hardeners

The % is increasing rather than decreasing - idk if theres any pattern to that increase but lets take best case scenario that % stop increasing:

3 hardeners = 71.43%
4 hardeners = 92.86%
5 hardeners = 114.29%

Are you supposed to be healed by damage in the resistance hole after equipping 5 universal hardeners?

I'm gonna put some numbers that are in the game atm for comparison:

10 points = 9.09%
45 points = 31.03% (+21.94)       
80 points = 44.44% (+13.41)
115 points= 53.49% (+9.05)

Notice the diminishing returns on % of resistance here.

Lets get some facts out of the way for anyone who doesn't know:
0 to 20% increase is proportionally same as 50 to 60% increase despite it being half of the raw % difference. 20% is one fifth of full 100% damage and 10% is also one fifth of the remaining 50% damage.

And now for the extreme!
Seth mk2, lvl10 skills, 5 kinetic activated hardeners =  920 points = 90.2% resistance
Seth mk2, lvl10 skills, 6 kinetic activated hardeners = 1070points = 91.45% resistance

Remaining 9.8% is reduced to 8.55% (thats 14.62% increase of remaining resistance pattern)
6800 armor becomes 79532 effective hit points in that resistance!

Resistances are very well balanced. No point changing that.

Re: Overall tuning balance

Sorry it took a while but I finally did the math using help from the above posts (thanks again) and this is what I came up with.

ARMOR REPAIR TUNINGS
  • I have created an efficiency ratio difference between tiers (efficiency meaning what you get from the module for the accumulator used). T3 became the balance point, anything worse has efficiency below 1 (less useful considering energy used), anything up is above 1 (including T2+).

  • As I mentioned eariler the additional remote repair accumulator penalty has been removed.

  • To make things more simple, cycle time modification has been removed (hence all the 1s in the new table there) so the new balance is done using only accumulator modification and repair amount modification.

  • Generally balancing was done considering what repair amounts you get from the consumed energy and harmonizing the two, meaning a reduction in repaired amount modification, and a slightly reduced accumulator usage modification.

CURRENT

TIER	Acc MOD		Repair MOD	Cycle MOD
T0	1.3		1.1		0.97
T1	1.3		1.3		0.95
T2	1.3		1.3		0.95
T2+	1.3		1.35		0.95
T3-	1.3		1.4		0.92
T3	1.3		1.4		0.92
T4	1.3		1.5		0.9
T4+	1.3		1.55		0.9

NEW

TIER	Acc MOD		Repair MOD	Cycle MOD	Ratio
T0	1.4		1.1		1		0.38
T1	1.3		1.2		1		0.73
T2	1.3		1.2		1		0.73
T2+	1.27		1.3		1		1.1
T3-	1.4		1.4		1		1
T3	1.4		1.4		1		1
T4	1.4		1.45		1		1.15
T4+	1.4		1.5		1		1.32

Example: 4x T4 armor repair tunings now provide 442% armor repair amount modification (was 772% before) for 384% more energy (was 435% before).

INDUSTRIAL TUNINGS
  • Pretty much the same changes happened here, except for the cycle time modification removal since these modules didn't have that in the first place.

CURRENT

TIER	Acc MOD		Gather MOD
T0	1.3		1.1
T1	1.3		1.3
T2	1.3		1.3
T2+	1.3		1.35
T3-	1.3		1.4
T3	1.3		1.4
T4	1.3		1.5
T4+	1.3		1.55

NEW

TIER	Acc MOD		Gather MOD	Ratio
T0	1.4		1.1		0.38
T1	1.3		1.2		0.73
T2	1.3		1.2		0.73
T2+	1.27		1.3		1.1
T3-	1.4		1.4		1
T3	1.4		1.4		1
T4	1.4		1.45		1.15
T4+	1.4		1.5		1.32
EnWAR TUNINGS
  • EnWar tunings did not have a diminishing returns factor so far, quite the contrary actually. The more tunings you used, the better your drainers/neutralizers became. This is turned around with the new values, so efficiency is reduced the more tunings you equip.

  • This is more interesting for neutralizers since the used and neutralized energy amounts are more closer; for T4 tunings the turning point in efficiency (when you need to sacrifice more energy than the amount you neutralize) arrives at using 7x tunings. (For those curious, in the case of drainers this theoretically happens at 47x tunings.)

  • The difference between drained and neutralized energy modification has been removed.

CURRENT

TIER	Acc MOD		Drain MOD	Neut MOD
T1	1.1		1.1		1.2
T2	1.1		1.1		1.2
T3	1.1		1.13		1.23
T4	1.1		1.15		1.25

NEW

TIER	Acc MOD		Drain MOD	Neut MOD
T1	1.2		1.1		1.1
T2	1.2		1.1		1.1
T3	1.2		1.13		1.13
T4	1.2		1.15		1.15
WEAPON TUNINGS
  • Creating a difference in accumulator usage modifiers between the weapon types was a bad idea, now all types of weapon tunings use the same values. This retains the specific accumulator usage traits of each weapon and creates the same efficiency reduction curve when using multiple tunings.

  • The same tier efficiency ratio differences are used here as for repair and industrial tunings.

  • Cycle time modification has been removed here as well, efficiency is controlled by only accumulator usage versus damage modification.

  • Generally DPS modification remained about the same, and accumulator usage modification has been drastically reduced.

CURRENT

TIER	Acc MOD		Damage MOD	Cycle MOD
T0	1.5		1.03		0.97
T1	1.5		1.05		0.95
T2	1.5		1.05		0.95
T2+	1.5		1.055		0.95
T3-	1.5		1.075		0.95
T3	1.5		1.075		0.95
T4	1.5		1.075		0.925
T4+	1.5		1.085		0.925

NEW

TIER	Acc MOD		Damage MOD	Cycle MOD	Ratio
T0	1.35		1.06		1		0.38
T1	1.19		1.1		1		0.73
T2	1.19		1.1		1		0.73
T2+	1.085		1.11		1		1.1
T3-	1.13		1.13		1		1
T3	1.13		1.13		1		1
T4	1.12		1.16		1		1.15
T4+	1.1		1.18		1		1.32

Re: Overall tuning balance

DEV Zoom wrote:
  • I have created an efficiency ratio difference between tiers (efficiency meaning what you get from the module for the accumulator used). T3 became the balance point, anything worse has efficiency below 1 (less useful considering energy used), anything up is above 1 (including T2+).

halt there
THATS basicly whats wrong with the overall balancing attempt do beginn with.
its good that you think, T3 should be the balance point,
but the execution is exactly the wrong way round.

1. T4 needs to have best impact but poor efficiency, or else its T4 or f* off
2. T3 equals
3. T2 needs to have best efficiency, but overally, less impact
3. T1 could be then same impact as

if you do not change to something like this for your overall balance, you will still have fitting ingame that only consist of T4 -> or you change the fitting costs accordingly

removing cycletime bonuses is a good idea, but IMHO you should put a cycletime differences into variants of the weapons.

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: Overall tuning balance

give me back my perpetuum 2011-2012 balance

Just @ Game

13 (edited by logicalNegation 2017-02-06 15:23:28)

Re: Overall tuning balance

I like the direction of these changes.

However to balance Anni's concerns: it looks like T1 is not just "less good" for accum/dps, it looks just plain "bad".
For example: there exists the possibility that on some bot B, fit with quantity N T1 tunings will be unstable and have lower dps, than the Same bot B with same quantity N T4 tunings where this fit would be stable and have superior dps to the T1 fit.
I argue that lower tier goods should not be bad in both factors, but should be just considerably weaker in all factors.
Ideally: Using the same number of T1's vs T4's should not have a worse accum penalty and worse dps.  I would argue that both just become some fractional amount of total effect of the other.

Explanation
Perhaps the way to bring this in-line is to make them fractions of the same Overall Effect of the other higher tier tunings.
Let's suppose a new balance where we see fitting 4 T1's is ~= 1 T4.  Same overall accum performance cost (that's total, not the accum % modifier divided by 4) and dps total % the same. 

So let's use your new T4 as the benchmark on the weapon tuning:

With 1 T4 tuning; that is 1.12x accumulator cost, 1.16x dps.
With 4 T1 tunings; the same _overall effect_. (1.12x accum; 1.16xdps)
1 T1 tuning then would be: 1.03~ (because 1.03^4 ~= 1.12) for accum; 1.04x for dmg

We can now argue about how many T1s should equal a T4, T2 or T3 etc.. But this at least begins to talk about how effectively slot real-estate gets used, and higher tech levels should make more use of them.
Now this may turn out a head full of T1s is STABLE but a head full of T4's is NOT.  However the critical point here is that the T4 in fewer modules will out perform the T1s. 
Then we get another point here:
By using T4's you can't fill all your slots or risk accum instability (or energy transfer logi..) either way there is a tradeoff.
So this encourages fit diversification like we have seen recently with pvp since the last balance which, in most cases, has been GOOD for shaking up the pvp meta.

Now this gives you a tool to target an ideal number of tunings at a T4 fit bot.
You can see where what accum % modifier with some ideal number of tunings begins to adversely affect the accum stability on that bot (Note: weapon types' cycle and accum cost will make this different per bot).  Yes you can make it stable with larger numbers of lower tier tunings, but the overall dps will be best with that number of T4 modules.
The effect of this would then be: T4's would be used for their performance increase, but will prevent all slots from being used all the time, forcing head slots to open up for other modules.  New players or those without access to T4 can equip lower tier modules, achieve performance increase, but not kill their accum faster than they would with the same number of T4's.

Re: Overall tuning balance

btw, with the removal of cycletime bonuses from tunings, i have no idea how to pve with a missile bot. Assault nexus and range extender?

the promised higher arc for missiles LoS wasn't implemented, ever, right? so no shooting from cover either

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: Overall tuning balance

Just some crazy thought - what if stacking the tunings of same type will also cause interference? Higher the tier, more interference stacking would add

Not that full head of t4 would make you blind to death, rather it's not even cross the line. Instead, it will make you more vulnerable to interference both being in blob or under effect of interference emitters, or TP-anomalies, or whatever.

So you have to diversificate not just your personal fittings, but a whole fleet composition.

Optional: Stacking tuners would also increase the amount of interference your robot emits.

Have a productive day, runner!
R.I.P. Chenoa, you'll never be forgotten.
DEV Zoom: Line, sorry, I was away for christmas.
http://perp-kill.net/?m=view&id=252086

16 (edited by Annihilator 2017-02-06 12:42:37)

Re: Overall tuning balance

hmm,
btw, you wanted to have diversity between the weapons.

how about Lasertunings give you RoF bonus and no damage bonus? something that equals a damage bonus of a compareable EM tuning.

Firearm tunings could be RoF based too.

*edit*
oh and i totally forgot - the 1 tuning for great impact but high cost balance had a much nicer sound than "you need 4x t4 tunings to even notice a difference"

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

17 (edited by DEV Zoom 2017-02-06 21:16:38)

Re: Overall tuning balance

Making lower tiers more efficient is a good point, and I also widened the tier gap for weapon tunings, so here are the revised numbers:

(Note: The efficiency ratio columns in my previous post were accidentally shown using 4 tunings, so it could have been a bit misleading regarding differences. Ratios are now shown using 1 tuning module here.)

ARMOR REPAIR TUNINGS

CURRENT

TIER	Acc MOD		Repair MOD	Cycle MOD
T0	1.3		1.1		0.97
T1	1.3		1.3		0.95
T2	1.3		1.3		0.95
T2+	1.3		1.35		0.95
T3-	1.3		1.4		0.92
T3	1.3		1.4		0.92
T4	1.3		1.5		0.9
T4+	1.3		1.55		0.9

NEW

TIER	Acc MOD		Repair MOD	Cycle MOD	Ratio
T0	1.4		1.1		1		0.79
T1	1.2		1.2		1		1
T2	1.1		1.2		1		1.09
T2+	1.15		1.3		1		1.13
T3-	1.4		1.4		1		1
T3	1.4		1.4		1		1
T4	1.6		1.45		1		0.91
T4+	1.7		1.55		1		0.91
INDUSTRIAL TUNINGS

CURRENT

TIER	Acc MOD		Gather MOD
T0	1.3		1.1
T1	1.3		1.3
T2	1.3		1.3
T2+	1.3		1.35
T3-	1.3		1.4
T3	1.3		1.4
T4	1.3		1.5
T4+	1.3		1.55

NEW

TIER	Acc MOD		Gather MOD	Ratio
T0	1.4		1.1		0.79
T1	1.2		1.2		1
T2	1.1		1.2		1.09
T2+	1.15		1.3		1.13
T3-	1.4		1.4		1
T3	1.4		1.4		1
T4	1.6		1.45		0.91
T4+	1.7		1.55		0.91
EnWAR TUNINGS
  • Only T3 and T4 have diminishing returns now, for T1 and T2 accumulator usage and drain/neut modification scale uniformly.

CURRENT

TIER	Acc MOD		Drain MOD	Neut MOD
T1	1.1		1.1		1.2
T2	1.1		1.1		1.2
T3	1.1		1.13		1.23
T4	1.1		1.15		1.25

NEW

TIER	Acc MOD		Drain MOD	Neut MOD	Ratio
T1	1.1		1.1		1.1		1
T2	1.1		1.1		1.1		1
T3	1.2		1.13		1.13		0.94
T4	1.3		1.15		1.15		0.88
WEAPON TUNINGS

CURRENT

TIER	Acc MOD		Damage MOD	Cycle MOD
T0	1.5		1.03		0.97
T1	1.5		1.05		0.95
T2	1.5		1.05		0.95
T2+	1.5		1.055		0.95
T3-	1.5		1.075		0.95
T3	1.5		1.075		0.95
T4	1.5		1.075		0.925
T4+	1.5		1.085		0.925

NEW

TIER	Acc MOD		Damage MOD	Cycle MOD	Ratio
T0	1.4		1.05		1		0.75
T1	1.1		1.1		1		1
T2	1.05		1.1		1		1.05
T2+	1.05		1.2		1		1.14
T3-	1.3		1.3		1		1
T3	1.3		1.3		1		1
T4	1.55		1.4		1		0.9
T4+	1.7		1.5		1		0.88

18 (edited by logicalNegation 2017-02-07 04:30:41)

Re: Overall tuning balance

Ok.  Let's see these numbers now applied to stacked tunings.
Zoom's numbers on stacked modules (weapon tunings)

Accum
# Mods:   1x     2x     3x     4x     5x     6x
T1        1.1    1.21   1.33   1.46   1.61   1.77
T2        1.05   1.1    1.16   1.22   1.28   1.34
T3        1.3    1.69   2.2    2.9    3.7    4.83
T4        1.55   2.4    3.72   5.77   8.95   13.88
T4+       1.7    2.9    4.9    8.35   14.2   24.14
Damage
# Mods:   1x     2x     3x     4x     5x     6x
T1        1.1    1.21   1.33   1.46   1.61   1.77
T2        1.1    1.21   1.33   1.46   1.61   1.77
T3        1.3    1.69   2.2    2.9    3.7    4.83
T4        1.4    1.96   2.74   3.84   5.38   7.53
T4+       1.5    2.25   3.38   5.06   7.6    11.4

Some case studies:
Let's assume a bot will have an unstable accum with weapons drawing 2x accum.
This bot could fit:
6 T1's, or 2 T3's, or 1 T4 or 1 T4+
This would achieve dmg increases of:
1.77, 2.2, 1.4, or 1.5
If I want to get the T4 fit or the T4+ fit to perform better, I am looking at accum cost of 3x!

That doesn't make a lick of sense. 

Why would people bother buying T4+ or making T4 if they are less useful than T3?  I must protest this.

T4 should be better in most cases 1:1 vs other module tech levels.  So too with T4+.
If T4 is literally made of all the tech levels below, and if T4+ is going to continue costing a ***, then they should be superior.  My post was about making T1, T2, and T3 just usable, but not better than T4. 
It seems this is an over-correction.

What would make more sense is that if we could begin discussing how much raw damage multiplication a bot should get with any configuration of head slots before some critical accumulator threshold. 

Let's instead frame this around the end-results of the stacking and how they play out, as with the chart above.

Let's say 2.0x accum is the breaking point for weapon tunings, where bots will be unstable (NOTE: this is not true for all weapon types, and certainly not all bots...)
So using this as a tipping point, we can calibrate the ideal fit, with the accumulator penalty as-stacked and resultant damage modification, as-stacked.

A proposed framework (weapon tunings)

Accum
# Mods:   1x     2x     3x     4x     5x     6x
T1        -.-    -.-    -.-    -.-    <2     2.0
T3        -.-    -.-    -.-    <2     2.0    >2
T4        -.-    -.-    <2     2.0    >2     -.-
T4+       -.-    <2     2.0    >2     -.-    -.-
Damage
# Mods:   1x     2x     3x     4x     5x     6x
T1        -.-    -.-    -.-    -.-    <1.5   1.5
T3        -.-    -.-    -.-    <1.75  1.75   >1.75
T4        -.-    -.-    <2     2.0    >2     -.-
T4+       -.-    <2.25  2.25   >2.25  -.-    -.-

* T2 omitted because it would not read as clearly, and I don't give a ***.

You see the accum "stability point" is used to control the measure of performance and be the anchor by which to balance across the tech levels.  This makes it easy to look at how to adjust the performance of the higher tech levels since we know the accum will curve too steeply after this by +1 module.

I am not saying these are the "right" numbers, I am saying that you can look at how bots perform with their accumulators, see what multiplier renders the bot useless, find a threshold value, and that is your constant across the accumulator chart.  Cool, accumulator done!

On the Damage chart, follow this same diagonal, and specify some value a certain tech level at the SAME STABILITY should perform relative to the others.  Hell, it could be all equal.  But do NOT make T4 less damage than T3!

Reading this chart you can then say:
The stacked-accum multiplier of [2x] is achieved with = 6:T1's, 5:T3's, 4:T4's, 3:T4+'s
The Damage multiplier as-stacked of these are then = 1.5x(6 T1's), 1.75x(5 T3's), 2x(4 T4's) 2.25x(3 T4+)

See?  You can fit more tunings of lower tech levels 'as stably as' 1 less tuning of a higher tech level.
BUT, the higher tech level gets more dps at the SAME STABILITY.  Ideally this stability-point should be known and balanced among factions and bot types... I'm sure someone did the math on that somewhere..

So now (again, just an example) reverse engineer this with maths to produce the original tuning multipliers for the new balance and apply them across the matrix

A proposed framework, filled out (weapon tunings)

Accum
# Mods:   1x     2x     3x     4x     5x     6x
T1        1.12   1.26   1.41   1.58   1.77   2.0
T3        1.14   1.30   1.48   1.69   2.00   2.28
T4        1.19   1.42   1.68   2.00   2.38   2.84
T4+       1.26   1.59   2.00   2.52   3.18   4.0
Damage
# Mods:   1x     2x     3x     4x     5x     6x
T1        1.07   1.14   1.22   1.31   1.40   1.5
T3        1.12   1.25   1.40   1.57   1.75   1.97
T4        1.19   1.42   1.68   2.00   2.38   2.84
T4+       1.31   1.72   2.25   2.95   3.86   5.06

Now everyone can try with their own ideal damages on that accum-critical diagonal and see how the damage multipliers work out, stacked and with different tiers and slots for tunings.
Try it!  Think of what the ideal max damage should be, at what cost to the accumulator, how many tuning slots should this use?  Then cascade that down with each tech level and take the fractional power of those numbers to get the module's new multiplier.

Also note I haven't looked closely at the effects of the other tuning types and their changes, but I reckon they could benefit from the same methodology.

Re: Overall tuning balance

The point in turning around tier efficiency was to give usefulness to lower tiers too. Higher tiers DO perform better (as in: provide higher damage modifiers) but this happens at the cost of efficiency.

If your goal is pure damage and can handle the penalty, you go for higher tiers. If you are concerned about accumulator stability, you go for T3 or T2, or a mix of them.

Re: Overall tuning balance

Do you plan on changing npc health and or loot to compensate for this drop in efficiency?

Re: Overall tuning balance

"stability" is not primary balance factor in PvP, neither is it in a multiplayer centric pve enviroment.

its kinda right to ask for loot tables to be looked at as primary work after this was implemented, but after questioning why "stability" does matter in PVE at all. (what do you GRIND npcs for?)

tbh,
armor repair, and accumulator recharge should be linked to combat status. make accumulator recharge and self repair efficiency higher when out of combat. something that makes a seth with 8k accumulator not have to wait 8 minutes to be ready to repair itself, and then wait another 8 minutes to be repaired, and then another 8 minutes to wait for the accumulator to recover from the repairers drain.

We have that nice "in combat" status blinking for everytime something starts shooting us, but only to prevent the ultra frequent event of someone destryoing his cargo content or log off while beeing chased by someone who is actually only interested in epeen killboard entry. (the thing could have been solved like they do in elite dangerous - you can't magically destroy cargo, you have to dump it into space).

about DEV Zoom's number regarding the weapon tunings:
1xT4 tuning equals 1xT2 + 1xT3 in damage increase.

not only do you need only 1 slot for it, in production you also pay one less t1 and t2 module.

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

Re: Overall tuning balance

Yes, but why do I have to ALSO pay more for Accum!
With zooms numbers from most recent post:

1(T2)+1(T3) = Accum: 1.365 Dmg: 1.43
1(T4)       = Accum: 1.55  Dmg 1.4

T2+T3 OUT PERFORMS T4 on both metrics, cost and benefit.

I'd take your argument if they were the same, but they aren't.  The incentive here is to use T2+T3s instead of T4's almost always because the rate-of-increase.
So for a high dps fit, you would almost always do T2 because the ratio is better and you can get higher DPS with a usable accum cost, whereas the higher-end modules can't get you that dps without nuking your accum.
Maybe if this is the balance-point, make T4 x1.365 on accum (and T4+).

And I do not buy your argument that costing 1 less T1/T2 in production matches the material/cost/process-time/research embedded in the T4 to begin with.



Zoom: Yes, but higher damage with unusable costs.  I want to fit T4 to be better than a fit with T3s or T2s, because they cost more.  If they all cost the same and were made of assortments and different but roughly equal bits of materials, then I would not care; more variety of fitting strategies here makes sense.
But if T4 costs more in time/material/nic/research etc.  and underperforms, what happens to T4 modules?  Who uses them? ever?
The base accum cost of 1 module is so high on some weapon systems 1 T4+ is killing the accum, hell even T4 and T3. 
Again, we haven't even broached the subject of the weapons systems base accum cost, and how these multipliers are not in the ball-park to accommodate EM or laser weapons.


Listen, I play the game.  I am saying what I'd like to see.  I have concerns about fit diversity, PVP and PVE, and what that experience is like, because I experience it.  But I also have concerns about how valuable tech levels of modules are because I am engaged in the material economy and experience this as well.  These things all factor into my pitch on this issue.  Yes, its hard to argue about an economy that doesn't exist, but if you design the game around the way its being played now, it will be completely rekt if anyone else begins coming back to abuse the system.

*** it, ship it, get the new bots in the game and breath some life back into it.  As I posted previously, I don't understand why all this balancing and new bots have to be lumped together in one big patch, considering it should be -iterated- upon just like you said it would in the Blog post that was advertising the incremental development and release schedule.

23 (edited by Mroq 2017-02-08 05:00:11)

Re: Overall tuning balance

I think diversyfiing between t1-t4 is a great idea! It made me scratch my work that I had ready to post prior to reading it and redo it but I think it was worth it.

First lets get some facts out of the way.
1. 20% increase to the power of 6 (6 modules equipped) is 2.985 or basically almost ideally 3 times increase.
2. T4 is harder to make than T3. T3 is harder to make than T2.

Now for my proposition:
T0 = terrible tunings, might be considered better than nothing but thats about it
T1 = Increase in effectiveness but not efficiency
T2 = Identical to T1 but with lower fitting requirements. (basically as they are now - lets not mess up fits we all love to use shall we?)
T3 = Same increase in effectiveness as t1/t2 but better efficiency.
T2+ = Stats of T3 with fitting requirements of T2 (easiest solutions = best solutions)
T3- = Stats of T3 but higher fitting requirements
T4 = Best increase in effectiveness, slight increase in efficiency (but not as high as T3)
T4+ = Better increase in effectiveness and almost as good in efficiency as T3.

Basically if lacking TF and PG = fit T2 , accumulator = T3, power = T4

T4 is still best if you can afford both fitting and accumulator requirements (it is most expensive and difficult to build right?)
T3 will help you stable accumulator greatly.
T2 when you are missing TF or PG or need mre velocity.
T1 is not as good - but hey its cheap and infinite.

Now for numbers:
-It doesnt take rate of fire into factor - I absolutely agree on eliminating too many variables.
-Im going to call repaired/gathered/drained ammount and damage as power.
-Repair, Industrial, Enwar and Weapon tunings have identical increase in power and accumulator becouse above.

Tier 0
Power = 6% increase
Accumulator = 12% increase

Tier 1 and Tier 2
Power = 12% increase
Accumulator = 12% increase

Tier 2+, Tier 3, Tier 3-
Power = 12% increase
Accumulator = 5% increase

Tier 4
Power = 18% increase
Accumulator = 15% increase

Tier 4+
Power = 20% increase
Accumulator = 14% increase

Now to make other propositions easier for anyone not willing to do the mathematics here is a link to those values calculated into number of modules and accumulator efficiency associated with it. Copy it , change only values with yellow background, observe how values change and post your counter propositions if You have them.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ … sp=sharing

(EDIT: its T3- not T3+)

Re: Overall tuning balance

Thank you for math
+1

25 (edited by Inda 2017-02-08 06:24:45)

Re: Overall tuning balance

I still dont think so its necessery to increas accumulator with tunings! (I am sure this much is dont needed.)

WHY?
1st)))
--------

There is not much module you can use in your head for combats, like comepletely change the "meta" PVP game.

Imagine 2 group with 8-10 people facing each other, there should be shooters and ew robots in it, but if the shooters dont use tunings (they cant use just 1-2 beacuse of energy) then they will use ECM and Supressors most of the time, sometimes even dont reach the enemy. So you have no idea who is ecm ing or supressing. (Didnt even mentioned EnWar robots, imagine a depressed team about accu and have 1 Ictus the other side.)

You screw up the "old balance" about group PVP, that is no needed really.

2nd)))
--------

Because you aleady was in need in energy when shooting, there wasnt such a really "stable" robot until you have max skills (and I still had troubles to killing NPC by own mostly beacuse of energy), just the missile robots and the Autocannons has that. So getting that even worse is that what I dont like. And in PVE not real option to use anyting on your headslot!!!


OVERALL: I dont see any point to increase energy consumption when you use tunings, but if we need to do, not like this HUGE amount we should take a bit more but thats it!!!

This is why I really dont want to go into Math about this.

Energy to Earth!

18.01.2014. [12:57:58] <BeastmodeGuNs> after that i remembered all those warning about 1v1 you lol, and i found out why xD