Opinions needed with balancing out vanilla ships

Mon Jun 19, 2006 6:28 am by Gotcha!

(Sorry about starting a new topic, the forum wouldn't allow me to post in my older topic.)

What do you all think? I am overhauling the current turning rates of the ships;
Purpose: Making a clear difference between heavy, light and very heavy fighters. Right now it's a freaking mess. Basically everyone ends up flying an eagle.

All ships support level 9/10 weapons, have around the same armor and energy as their class counterparts.
LF run out of energy sooner than other ships. Also have about half the armour of HF, but are very agile.
HF are the midclass, good handling, good weaponry, armor etc etc.
VHF should be the slowest of them all, but packing a big punch and have the most armour (besides FR).
Liberty, Kusari have better handling ships with less armor/energy vs Corsairs, Rheinland, who have slower/tougher ships. The rest is somewhere in between. The differences are not severe though.

Shipname Type Old/new handling Notes
(1=fast, 9=slow)

Rhino FR 8 8 No speed changes here with freighters
Clydesdale FR 8 8
Drone FR 8 8
Humpback FR 9 9 Will have increased armor/energy vs other freighters
Dromedary FR 8 8
Mule FR 8 8

Defender HF 5 5
Crusader HF 7 6 Slightly faster
Dragon HF 7 5 Much faster, less armor and energy
Valkyrie HF 7 7 Increased strength, power
Stiletto HF 7 6 Slightly faster
Centurion HF 7 7 Increased strength, power
Barracuda HF 3 5 Slower, right now it's imbalanced
Falcon HF 3 5 Slower, right now it's imbalanced
Wolfhound HF 7 6 Slightly faster

Starflier LF 2 2 Less armor/energy
Startracker LF 6 2 Should have the same as Starflier, has 3 weapons, increase armor?
Patriot LF 1 1/2 Less armor/energy
Cavalier LF 4 3 Slightly faster
Drake LF 2 2 Less armor/energy
Banshee LF 4 4 More armor/energy
Dagger LF 4 3 Slightly faster
Legionaire LF 4 4 More armor/energy
Piranha LF 4 3 Slightly faster
Hawk LF 4 3 Slightly faster
Bloodhound LF 4 3 Slightly faster

Sabre VHF 7 7 Has 2 extra lvl6 guns
Titan VHF 7 7 Will get huge armor/energy increase to make this thing interesting
Anubis VHF 7 6 Has 1 extra lvl7 gun, reducing armor
Hammerhead VHF 3 6 Has 1 extra lvl7 gun, reducing armor and speed
Eagle VHF 3 6 Will make this much slower, this thing is waaaaaay too overpowered

Remarks and opinions are VERY welcome.

Fri Jun 23, 2006 1:03 pm by Moonhead

I agree in general to what you write.

Right now it's a freaking mess

and to that in particular

I haven't really made my mind up about if and how the ships should be changed, but I think it would a nice idea to customize the cruise_charge_time per ship (in engine_equip.ini, and if I remember correctly you'd also have to lower the CRUISE_STEADY_TIME in constants.ini if you wanna make it faster than 2 seconds). So, a Starflier would be able to go much faster into cruise than a Titan, which on its turn would do that much faster than a Rheinland Battleship. That way there would be a real advantage, in some respects, in flying a Starflier (or another light fighter).

EDIT: because it's not possible (at least I didn't find out how, please prove me wrong!) to add class to engines, engines should be created in such a way that it's not really convenient to put a light fighter engine on a capship, or vice versa (though the player should have the choice - at least that's what I think)

Edited by - Moonhead on 6/23/2006 2:09:49 PM

Thu Jul 06, 2006 11:02 pm by Gotcha!

Well, the turning speed of all the ships are alright now.
Liberty/Kusari/Civilian ships being the fastest and a bit weaker and Rheinland/Corsair being the slowest and a bit stronger. Rest is inbetween.

I don't know if I should change the engine speed though. If I would, then heavy fighters should have a higher speed. (Bigger engine + vacuum/no gravity etc = faster)
It's a shame that you cannot change the cruise speed separately for each ship.

Now I am a bit lost what else I can add to my mod. *puts on thinking cap*

Mon Jul 24, 2006 4:43 am by raycrasher

I think you should change the engine speed, but only a bit (about +-20 or so). Also, you can make capital ships have high top speeds (they have BIG engines after all), but also give them very slow turn rates and acceleration.

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