9 replies to this topic

[kwm1800]

There are another bunch of changes in EA4... So, the major changes.

 

 

1. Back from EVERYTHING DOUBLED from EA3, EA4 weapons are back on the earth. But compared to EA2, generally they got about 10~20% buff in damage.

 

2. Now, the interesting is that the ships' health points are... pretty much similar to EA3 despite EA4 weapon change, let's look at the numbers..

 

	EA2	EA3(Compensated)	EA4
Frigate	45	100(50)	95
Destroyer	90	230(115)	165
Cruiser	180	420(210)	325
Battleship	450	950(475)	750
Titan	900	2000(1000)	1650
Doom Star	1800	4000(2000)	3375

 

As you see, Frigates are significantly tougher and won't be easily destroyed anymore. But other ships are definitely got far tougher.

Well, which is pretty much same direction as my balance mod does. I think this is very good change.

Still, I think ships should be more tougher, for example, from my mod, the ships have...

 

F	180
D	350
C	750
B	1700
T	4000
DS	20000

 

Based on Frigate health, the health ratio of EA4 and my mod are quite similar, so just increase the health of all ships by 50~100% will be amazing.

 

3. I am still testing, but a lot of weapon mods and special devices are working now. You can check my thread.

http://forum.mastero...ing-new-thread/

 

4. Also, I noticed that the developer finally decided to take care of missile spams. As a result, a lot of AI template ship designs have a lot of PDs (there is a bug that makes PDs slots duplicated, cripping AI ships). The interaction between AMR and PDs is also fixed so they can be used together.

However, the PD's range bug is fixed so PD cannot shot missiles from afar.

 

5. As for individual weapon balance, for some reason the disruptor cannons got nerfed (no, the damage gets reduced by range despite the description)... Despite the fact that they still need buff in EA3. Reduce the size from 20 to 14 will do the trick however, which will make comparable with gauss cannons. 

 

6. And of course, something has to be done with these fighters and bombers.....

[Mathias_Zealot]

And I've finally managed to put together the EA4 weapons list; mostly complete.

 

Spoiler

 Most interesting is that the resilience rating is now supposed to be working with armor. The problem being the question of what "Resilience rating" even means. It probably isn't a straight damage reduction, else Laser Cannons with damage of 5 would be worthless against even basic Titanium Armor's resilience of 5. Even Neutron Blaster's 9 damage would be severely reduced. Also might be interesting if the Heavy Armor mod's 2x Resilience has an effect.

Edit: I can't seem to find where I read that this was the case. Spoiler because it is probably wrong/pointless.
If anyone has had the time and patience to figure out Resilience Rating or how Armor Piercing is supposed to function, please enlighten the rest of us.
 

Another change of note is that shield's DR has been changed, it now follows a square function (1, 4, 9, 16, 25) rather than the old 'by rating' (1, 3, 5, 7, 10). This means late game shields can really shut down beam and cannon damage.

 

While mentioning beams, has anyone tried a beam build with racial beam bonuses, High Energy Focus (1.25x DPSPS), and Hyper-X Capacitors (2x DPSPS)? Add in some Heavy Mounts (1.06x DPSPS) to match missiles' range (or exceed it if you can steal/trade for Plasma Beams along with the Hyper-X Capacitors) and it should make for a frighteningly high damage build.

Fighters and bombers remain not-included because they're still abysmal

xProcs = Hits per Shot for beams; DPS = Damage Per Second; DPSPS = DPS per Size, higher is better
 

	Cost	Size	Damage	xProcs	Refire Time	Range		DPS	DPSPS
Cannons
Laser Cannon	2	6	5	1	3	50		1.67	0.28
Neutron Blaster	5	12	9	1	3	50		3.00	0.25
Mass Driver	4	8	12	1	4	50		3.00	0.38
Graviton Cannon	20	12	25	1	5	40		5.00	0.42
Gauss Cannon	8	8	30	1	4	50		7.50	0.94
Phasors	10	8	35	1	4	50		8.75	1.09
Disruptor Cannon	25	20	90	1	6	60		15.00	0.75
Mauler Device	50	50	450	1	15	15		30.00	0.60
Beam Weapons
Fusion Beam	8	12	5	6	5	40		6.00	0.50
Ion Pulse Beam	13	12	8	8	6	40		10.67	0.89
Plasma Beam	15	20	20	8	6	50		26.67	1.33
Death Ray	25	20	35	8	8	50		35.00	1.75
Missiles
Nuclear Missile	4	10	20	1	11	60		1.82	0.18
Merculite Missile	6	10	25	1	10	60		2.50	0.25
Pulson Missile	10	10	50	1	9	60		5.56	0.56
Zeon Missile	15	10	70	1	8	60		8.75	0.88
Torpedoes
Proton Torpedoes	6	15	50	1	8	70		6.25	0.42
Anti-Matter Torpedoes	10	15	85	1	8	70		10.63	0.71
Plasma Torpedoes	15	15	140	1	8	70		17.50	1.17
Other
Anti-Missile Rockets	2	3	5	1	2	10		2.50	0.83
Nuclear Bomb	5	10	20	1	7	15		2.86	0.29
Fission Bomb	6	10	30	1	7	15		4.29	0.43
Anti-matter Bomb	10	10	40	1	7	15		5.71	0.57
Neutronium Bomb	15	10	50	1	7	15		7.14	0.71
Stellar Converter		571	600	10	30?	100		200	0.35

Edit: Table column widths, Stellar Converter size for Battleship; guessed the refire time.

Edited by Mathias_Zealot, 28 May 2016 - 08:49 PM.

[Mikko_M]

kwm1800, on 26 May 2016 - 02:28 AM, said:

 

2. Now, the interesting is that the ships' health points are... pretty much similar to EA3 despite EA4 weapon change, let's look at the numbers..

 

	EA2	EA3(Compensated)	EA4
Frigate	45	100(50)	95
Destroyer	90	230(115)	165
Cruiser	180	420(210)	325
Battleship	450	950(475)	750
Titan	900	2000(1000)	1650
Doom Star	1800	4000(2000)	3375

 

As you see, Frigates are significantly tougher and won't be easily destroyed anymore. But other ships are definitely got far tougher.

Well, which is pretty much same direction as my balance mod does. I think this is very good change.

Still, I think ships should be more tougher, for example, from my mod, the ships have...

 

F	180
D	350
C	750
B	1700
T	4000
DS	20000

 

Based on Frigate health, the health ratio of EA4 and my mod are quite similar, so just increase the health of all ships by 50~100% will be amazing.

 

Without commenting on anything else having tougher ships in general should be good for actually making the combat more tactical as well, since this should give you more time to actually give and execute commands with your ships (before they are destroyed).  

Edited by Mikko_M, 28 May 2016 - 12:27 AM.

[Mathias_Zealot]

Impacts of Miniaturization: EA4 Edition

 

Short version: Still not much, but better. More to come.

 

Long version:

This is actually not as straightforward anymore, since the decreased base damage of weapons increased damage reduction of shields increased the Damage/DR interplay significantly from EA3 (where it was negligible). I'll try to do a bit of a write-up on this later, including some of the interesting results from it. Weapon damage falloff with range may also impact things in ways not represented by the raw numbers herein.

 

That said, isolating the impacts of miniaturization alone, things are similar to EA3 in that the new weapon system in a category tends to have stronger raw DPSPS than the previous weapon system in that category. That is to say that the Mass Driver is an upgrade over the Neutron Blaster; Ion Pulse Beams are an upgrade over Fusion Beams, etc. However, the new weapon system don't have the modifications the previous system had, meaning you sacrifice utility for raw output. The important change now is that most of the weapon modifications are functioning (many thanks to kwm1800 for testing them!), meaning that the new weapon system can be functionally worse than the modified variants of the previous weapon system! That is to say, your new Merculite Missiles are actually not going to be as potent as MIRV Nuclear Missiles your ships could be packing.

Math:
MIRV increases DPSPS by 33% [+100% damage, +50% Size: 2.00x DPS / 1.50x Size = 1.33x DPSPS]
Nuclear missiles have 0.20 DPSPS after 1 level of miniaturization (happens in same tech as Merculite), meaning MIRV Nuclear Missiles have 0.20 * 1.33 = 0.26 DPSPS
Merculite Missiles start with 0.25 DPSPS
An expensive (+100% cost to MIRV the missiles, also more vulnerable to point defense), if slight, improvement.

 

There are a few other examples of this being the case in the table, essentially anywhere the new weapon system is less than ~20% more powerful than the previous. This doesn't apply for some upgrades such as the Fusion Beam to Ion Pulse Beam transition (~60% higher DPSPS).

 

Finally, a word about miniaturization rates: since the miniaturization upgrades mostly happen with newer weapon systems unlocking, Cannons get 5 levels of miniaturization, Beams and Missiles get 3, and Torpedoes a mere 2 levels. Since all of these are the same -10%, this means earlier cannons 'keep pace' with newer systems better than the other weapon types. I expect the miniaturization effects themselves could be change to improve the system for weapons other than cannons. at a guess -15% per level for beams/missiles, and -20% per level for torpedoes would work better than the current 10%. Further, it could also possibly be tuned within a category so that cannon miniaturization levels gave (as and example) -10%, -5%, -10%, -15%, -10%, rather than straight 10% all the time.

Without further ado:
Tech tiers start numbered at zero for the core warp tech. Shields row indicates the best shields at that tech level; Armor Resilience row lists the best armor resilience at that tech level. Mod codes in these rows: MPS = Multi-Phased Shields; HS = Hard Shields; RH = Reinforced Hull; HA = Heavy Armor.
Values in bold are best in tier for raw DPSPS; Values in italics indicate weapon modifications becoming available in that tier.

 

DPSPS in Tech Tier
		Tier 0	Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3	Tier 4	Tier 5	Tier 6	Tier 7	Tier 8	Tier 9	Tier 10	Tier 11	Tier 12
Research/Tech		35	40	80	160	320	600	1000	1500	2250	3000	4500	6000	9000
Shields				C1			C3			C5/MPS	HS	C7		C10
Armor Resilience		5		10		HA/RH	15		20		25
Cannons
	Laser Cannon	0.28		0.28	0.31		0.35		0.40		0.46		0.56
	Neutron Blaster		0.25	0.25	0.28		0.31		0.36		0.42		0.50
	Mass Driver				0.38	0.38	0.42		0.47		0.54		0.63
	Graviton Cannon						0.42	0.42	0.46		0.52		0.60
	Phasors								1.09	1.09	1.22		1.37
	Gauss Cannon										0.94	0.94	1.04
	Disruptor Cannon												0.75	0.75
	Mauler Device												0.60	0.60
Beams
	Fusion Beam				0.50	0.56					0.63		0.71
	Ion Pulse Beam					0.89		0.89			0.99		1.11
	Plasma Beam										1.33	1.33	1.48
	Death Ray													1.75
Missiles
	Nuclear Missile	0.18		0.20			0.23				0.26
	Merculite Missile			0.25	0.25		0.28				0.31
	Pulson Missile						0.56	0.56			0.62
	Zeon Missile										0.88	0.88
Torpedoes
	Proton Torpedoes				0.42	0.42			0.46		0.52
	Anti-Matter Torpedoes								0.71	0.71	0.79
	Plasma Torpedoes										1.17	1.17

Now to hope I haven't made typos
Edit: Column alignment

 

Edited by Mathias_Zealot, 28 May 2016 - 07:17 PM.

[Horizon_Breaker]

Mathias_Zealot, on 27 May 2016 - 06:10 PM, said:

If anyone has had the time and patience to figure out Resilience Rating or how Armor Piercing is supposed to function, please enlighten the rest of us.

 

Math.Max(armorPenetration/Resilience, 0.75) = DamageMultipler

 

So for example,

If you have the Graviton Cannon which has armorPenetration=30 attacking a ship with Resilience=15, the DamageMultipler would be x2.0.

If you have the Mass Driver which has armorPenetration=10 attacking that same ship with Resilience=15, the DamageMultipler would be x0.75 (the minimum value allowed).

If you have a Zeon Missile which has armorPenetration=25 attacking the same ship now upgraded with HeavyArmor for Resilience=30, the DamageMultipler would be x0.833333.

And for an extreme, if you have a Death Ray which armorPenetration=35 attacking an early game ship with Resilience=5, the DamageMultipler would be x7.0

 

At least that is how it appears hull damage calculations are supposed work in 44.4 based on the code. Someone like kwm1800 would still need to verify that armor calculations are actually working as expected in-game.

 

[Mathias_Zealot]

Horizon_Breaker, on 29 May 2016 - 03:30 AM, said:

 

Math.Max(armorPenetration/Resilience, 0.75) = DamageMultipler

 

So for example,

If you have the Graviton Cannon which has armorPenetration=30 attacking a ship with Resilience=15, the DamageMultipler would be x2.0.

If you have the Mass Driver which has armorPenetration=10 attacking that same ship with Resilience=15, the DamageMultipler would be x0.75 (the minimum value allowed).

If you have a Zeon Missile which has armorPenetration=25 attacking the same ship now upgraded with HeavyArmor for Resilience=30, the DamageMultipler would be x0.833333.

And for an extreme, if you have a Death Ray which armorPenetration=35 attacking an early game ship with Resilience=5, the DamageMultipler would be x7.0

 

At least that is how it appears hull damage calculations are supposed work in 44.4 based on the code. Someone like kwm1800 would still need to verify that armor calculations are actually working as expected in-game.

 

 

Ah, more code values that aren't shown to the player. Trying to present the damage progression throughout the game is involved enough with all the data on hand; without, it's a fool's errand and I'm not willing to go code mining for it

 

Nevertheless, thank you. I suppose I'll have to save deeper analysis and presentation of how the weapon balance is working until another couple of patches from now when they get around to fixing weapon data tooltips. I'm still waiting on rate of fire to be shown outside of combat so I don't have to back-calculate it from DPS. Why even have separate tooltips for in combat, tech tree, and ship designer screens?

Also strange to have a minimum armor damage reduction, but no maximum; Laser Cannons still do 3.75 damage to the Xentronium? Assuming it's functioning at all, of course.

[kwm1800]

Horizon_Breaker, on 29 May 2016 - 03:30 AM, said:

 

Math.Max(armorPenetration/Resilience, 0.75) = DamageMultipler

 

So for example,

If you have the Graviton Cannon which has armorPenetration=30 attacking a ship with Resilience=15, the DamageMultipler would be x2.0.

If you have the Mass Driver which has armorPenetration=10 attacking that same ship with Resilience=15, the DamageMultipler would be x0.75 (the minimum value allowed).

If you have a Zeon Missile which has armorPenetration=25 attacking the same ship now upgraded with HeavyArmor for Resilience=30, the DamageMultipler would be x0.833333.

And for an extreme, if you have a Death Ray which armorPenetration=35 attacking an early game ship with Resilience=5, the DamageMultipler would be x7.0

 

At least that is how it appears hull damage calculations are supposed work in 44.4 based on the code. Someone like kwm1800 would still need to verify that armor calculations are actually working as expected in-game.

 

 

And it doesn't. If that is correct formula, it is broken and probably not implemented. It is very evident when you use weapons that does same damage in all range such as mass driver and gauss cannons (disruptor is broken in this regard and will do less damage as range goes up), and for any armor, all weapons do max damage in very close range as shown in the description not the modified damage done by armor.

[kwm1800]

And because of it, as I shown in my weapon mod thread, Continuous Fire is non-functional and will not alter any damage. Vice Versa for Heavy Armor.

[Mathias_Zealot]

Modelling Damage Reduction by tech tier

 

The raw DPSPS by tech tier above makes for a basic analysis, but completely neglects damage resistance of shields. In trying to more properly show the weapon progression it is critical to include damage reduction. To that end I've worked up a modified version of the table to show average DPSPS against a target of the same tech tier. Since the damage against shields and armor is different, this table is weighted by the total HP available in the best shields and armor available at that tier and the DPSPS against them.

 

Math:

Spoiler

 If Shield DR > Damage or Armor DR > Damage, DPSPS = 0

else

modified DPSPS = [ (Damage - Shield DR) * Procs / Refire / Size * Target Shield% + (Damage - Armor DR) * Procs / Refire / Size * Target Armor% ] / Miniaturization

 

I have still made the assumption that a single weapon system is used, shield piercing is not a factor, armor/hull are not distinguished, armor resilience and armor piercing are not functioning, and neglected range dissipation of damage which seems inconsistent. While a better analysis, there are still some limitations, as several of the non-functioning elements should be fixed in time and multiple-weapon system fleets are rather common, so a shield buster lead ship followed by an armor buster follower ship could exceed the values here, or fall well short due to range dissipation.

With Hard Shields and Multi-Phased Shields (Maximum Shields)

DPSPS in Tech Tier With DR	Tier 0	Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3	Tier 4	Tier 5	Tier 6	Tier 7	Tier 8	Tier 9	Tier 10	Tier 11	Tier 12
Shields			C1			C3			C5/MPS	HS	C7		C10
Armor Resilience	5		10		HA/RH	15		20		25
Shield HP	0	0	50	50	50	70	70	70	130	130	170	170	230
Armor HP	100	100	150	150	150	200	200	250	250	300	300	300	400
Shield HP %	0%	0%	25%	25%	25%	26%	26%	22%	34%	30%	36%	36%	37%
Armor HP %	100%	100%	75%	75%	75%	74%	74%	78%	66%	70%	64%	64%	63%
Shield DR	0	0	1	1	1	4	4	4	9	12	19	19	28
Armor DR	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Cannons
Laser Cannon	0.28	0.28	0.26	0.29	0.29	0.28	0.28	0.33	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Neutron Blaster		0.25	0.24	0.27	0.27	0.28	0.28	0.32	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Mass Driver				0.37	0.37	0.38	0.38	0.43	0.35	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Graviton Cannon						0.40	0.40	0.45	0.41	0.45	0.38	0.43	0.00
Phasors								1.07	1.00	1.09	0.98	1.10	0.97
Gauss Cannon										0.82	0.72	0.80	0.69
Disruptor Cannon												0.69	0.66
Mauler Device												0.59	0.59
Beams
Fusion Beam				0.48	0.53	0.44	0.44	0.46	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Ion Pulse Beam					0.86	0.77	0.77	0.79	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Plasma Beam										1.09	0.88	0.97	0.00
Death Ray												1.41	1.24
Missiles
Nuclear Missile	0.18	0.18	0.20	0.20	0.20	0.22	0.22	0.22	0.19	0.21	0.17	0.17	0.00
Merculite Missile			0.25	0.25	0.25	0.27	0.27	0.27	0.24	0.27	0.23	0.23	0.00
Pulson Missile						0.54	0.54	0.55	0.52	0.57	0.53	0.53	0.49
Zeon Missile										0.83	0.79	0.79	0.75
Torpedoes
Proton Torpedoes				0.41	0.41	0.41	0.41	0.45	0.43	0.48	0.45	0.45	0.41
Anti-Matter Torpedoes								0.70	0.68	0.75	0.72	0.72	0.69
Plasma Torpedoes										1.14	1.11	1.11	1.08

(Post too long)
 

[Mathias_Zealot]

Without Hard Shields or Multi-Phased Shields

DPSPS in Tech Tier With DR	Tier 0	Tier 1	Tier 2	Tier 3	Tier 4	Tier 5	Tier 6	Tier 7	Tier 8	Tier 9	Tier 10	Tier 11	Tier 12
Shields			C1			C3			C5/MPS	HS	C7		C10
Armor Resilience	5		10		HA/RH	15		20		25
Shield HP	0	0	50	50	50	70	70	70	100	100	140	140	200
Armor HP	100	100	150	150	150	200	200	250	250	300	300	300	400
Shield HP %	0%	0%	25%	25%	25%	26%	26%	22%	29%	25%	32%	32%	33%
Armor HP %	100%	100%	75%	75%	75%	74%	74%	78%	71%	75%	68%	68%	67%
Shield DR	0	0	1	1	1	4	4	4	9	9	16	16	25
Armor DR	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Cannons
Laser Cannon	0.28	0.28	0.26	0.29	0.29	0.28	0.28	0.33	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Neutron Blaster		0.25	0.24	0.27	0.27	0.28	0.28	0.32	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Mass Driver				0.37	0.37	0.38	0.38	0.43	0.37	0.44	0.00	0.00	0.00
Graviton Cannon						0.40	0.40	0.45	0.42	0.47	0.41	0.47	0.00
Phasors								1.07	1.01	1.14	1.04	1.17	1.04
Gauss Cannon										0.87	0.78	0.86	0.75
Disruptor Cannon												0.71	0.68
Mauler Device												0.59	0.59
Beams
Fusion Beam				0.48	0.53	0.44	0.44	0.46	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Ion Pulse Beam					0.86	0.77	0.77	0.79	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Plasma Beam										1.18	0.99	1.10	0.00
Death Ray												1.50	1.33
Missiles
Nuclear Missile	0.18	0.18	0.20	0.20	0.20	0.22	0.22	0.22	0.20	0.23	0.19	0.19	0.00
Merculite Missile			0.25	0.25	0.25	0.27	0.27	0.27	0.25	0.28	0.25	0.25	0.00
Pulson Missile						0.54	0.54	0.55	0.53	0.59	0.55	0.55	0.51
Zeon Missile										0.85	0.81	0.81	0.77
Torpedoes
Proton Torpedoes				0.41	0.41	0.41	0.41	0.45	0.44	0.50	0.47	0.47	0.43
Anti-Matter Torpedoes								0.70	0.69	0.77	0.74	0.74	0.71
Plasma Torpedoes										1.15	1.12	1.12	1.10

 

Thoughts:
Neutron Blasters seem to be a downgrade from Laser Cannons in EA4.

Nuclear Missiles are actually rather weak, other than the range advantage

Missiles in general seem to be quite a bit weaker in EA4

Ion Pulse Beams are still King for several tiers
Phasors, Plasma Beams, and Plasma Torpedoes are all competitive choices late game (before Death Ray)

Both Hard Shields and Multi-Phased shields are very underwhelming