Empires 2.6.5 released

Discussion in 'News' started by Candles, Mar 28, 2015.

  1. Candles

    Candles CAPTAIN CANDLES, DUN DUN DUN, DUN DUN DUN DUN.

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    I'm hoping that the game will be balanced enough for more diverse gameplay to come out of this. If nothing is particularly OP like compo was last patch or salvo-homing the patch before, then it'll be at the very least two weeks before another balance update, hopefully maybe a month or so, to give some time for players to develop new strategies.

    All in all, a small update. Starting from the top, I increased e-build rate and allowed e-repair of buildings because Jesus-fucking-Christ that shit's tedious and annoying to do. Also, turns out that minimum damage for vehicle MG's was never actually implemented, even though people've been using it in the scripts, so I fixed that up in the code.

    Plasma cannon got buffed by cutting damage and cycle time by 33% and heat by 50%. I was actually going to lower heat to 15 last patch and forgot to. Anyway, Plasma cannon made the risk of missing a shot too high due to the heat and cycle time, so I felt an across-the-board cut should rectify that. Some people might ask why to get it over HE now or rails now; indeed, it has a smaller blast radius and only 5 damage more for 40 more weight than HE. The simple answer is that it's a lot more heat efficient for the damage than HE is; it might still be a bit too weak, but it's quite a good weapon. Compared to rails, it's less damage per second but a good bit more damage per heat.

    Speaking of rails, I lowered the heat back to 7. Increasing the heat was a bit presumptuous of me, so I'll be watching it.

    Composite got nerfed a good bit. It regens 1.6 hps instead of 2.8 and got the angle modifier cut, which I'm hoping will be enough to offset the increase in health. If it's still OP as fuck, I might shove out a hotfix to nerf it some more at the end of the weekend.

    3-phase now cools 1 less when idle than before, and the same as before when moving at max speed. I thought it was wrong for 3-phase to have the second-best idle cooling in the game. I might lower it another point later, depending. I also standardized its stall values. It occurred to me that there's almost no point having an engine vary in values that no one cares about; I believe its fairly low Stall On Heat value was used to justify its relatively high cooling, but no one cares about Stall On Heat anyway.

    Fission got a massive adjustment. Previously, it was an engine that penalized you for stay still and benefited you for moving, while every other engine just somewhat penalized you for moving. Now it's an engine that more or less just doesn't penalize you for moving. I'm hoping that it'll become a more accessible engine because of this; the idle cooling is on the level of standard but the max-speed cooling is still best in class.

    I did a similar bit with AC; I figured cutting the idle cooling by 1 would be a fair trade for increasing the max-speed cooling by 2 and make it a bit nicer to players.

    Finally, reflective got moved to the root of Physics, because every other armor in the game except compo is in the root of their respective trees, and compo is a very special case anyway.


    P.S. I included the spreadsheet that I use for keeping track of script values in the SVN. It's "ScriptValues.ods" in the scripts folder; each of engines, armors and weapons for vehicles have their own sheet.
     
    Last edited: Mar 28, 2015
  2. complete_

    complete_ lamer

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    looks like physics is the go to tree
     
  3. Z100000M

    Z100000M Vithered Weteran

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    sounds good

     
  4. Candles

    Candles CAPTAIN CANDLES, DUN DUN DUN, DUN DUN DUN DUN.

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    It's like 2:45 in the morning; cut me some slack.
     
  5. Sgt.Security

    Sgt.Security Member

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    Can I cut you some cakes instead?
     
  6. Candles

    Candles CAPTAIN CANDLES, DUN DUN DUN, DUN DUN DUN DUN.

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    Please do.

    I also am craving nachos right now. Really, really badly.
     
  7. Z100000M

    Z100000M Vithered Weteran

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    I always talk to you at that time :p
    Maybe you should check if youre not pregnant.
     
  8. ImSpartacus

    ImSpartacus nerf spec plz

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    Elaborate a bit more on this. This looks like a hefty nerf to me, not a buff.
     
  9. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    The real goof with plasma is raising the weight. HE cannons only weigh 60 compared to plasma's now 100. Considering it's a 3 slot it's be heavies that you'd expect to really take the most of it, so that's an extra 80 weight compared to just dual he cannon. That's a ton of armor or an extra weapon.

    I thought it might be nice to try that change if you kept the 80 weight, it's a small increase of weight compared to he, so you don't sacrifice as much versatility. At 100 weight it's very hard to justify why you should get plasma over HE, at this point HE is much better simply due to larger explosion radius and lower weight, heat is a very minor factor honestly and that extra 5 damage isn't worth all the downsides.
     
    Last edited: Mar 28, 2015
  10. Sgt.Security

    Sgt.Security Member

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    I would actually give plasma CN a try.
    Rail's 100 weight is actually affecting my will of using it because it's really bad against infantry.

    Although maybe I'd still prefer HE CN + Bio ML.
     
  11. Candles

    Candles CAPTAIN CANDLES, DUN DUN DUN, DUN DUN DUN DUN.

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    It seemed like a good idea at 3 in the morning.
     
  12. Sgt.Security

    Sgt.Security Member

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    You are drunk, Candles, go home.

    And yes, that's kinda a small buff for plasma CN's properties.
     
  13. flasche

    flasche Member Staff Member Moderator

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    i guess its the versatility you get out of this combination rather then plain stats.
     
  14. Z100000M

    Z100000M Vithered Weteran

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    Wait, plasma is a 3slot now?
    ...why?
     
  15. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    It's been 3 slot since 2.52 I think. Though it was a little more justified then.
     
  16. Ikalx

    Ikalx Member

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    They were kind of crap, but also lots of our maps are pretty open, since Empires is designed to be that way. So running away/flanking/distracting an enemy can usually be done if it's not something like crossroads or slaughtered. And as it was cyc, that's basically what I did, drive around a bit. It's really not uncommon at all to do that, unless you somehow feel you need to smash the other guy or all is lost.

    Which would be pretty silly. Part of Empires tactics is not having that mindset, because you have other options.

    The point is, composite has an ability that basically occludes that other armour, on top of being an armour that provides a lot of protection. Yeah, comp doesn't feel insane, but my actual issue is that the regeneration it provides is something that shouldn't be there in the first place.

    Composite is supposed to be a strong armour. It's not supposed to be an armour that eclipses the overall effectiveness of other armours. That's why people use it so much! Because it has a bunch of abilities from all the other armours, meaning you don't need to get a niche armour, instead you can get a catch-all armour.

    So you basically only need one armour in the game.

    How is that not an obvious side-effect. Yes, composite seems like a pretty princess now because it has a combination of other abilities - to a lesser degree - meaning it's a jack of all trades armour. But because those abilities mesh together to also give you a pretty strong armour, and a large loadout, it means it's also the Master of All, too. Not master of none.

    This is really really really basic. The point about armours in empires is they're a tradeoff. You'll get a special ability but it means you lack the rest. That means that in some situations you might be outclassed. With Composite now, you get all of the abilities, meaning you can use the armour in ANY SITUATION and it'll still perform Moderately Well. Which makes it perfect for any normal game.

    Because all teams have a mix of still and ability and a number of jobs they need to be good at. Having an armour that does everything means it's the number 1 armour for the game, because it's good enough for every situation!

    I don't understand how that's not obvious. I never thought I'd miss BSID elitistly pointing out this kind of thing.
     
  17. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    No I get that, what I don't get is why no one chased, it really shouldn't be hard to keep up with an apc and kill it with a light tank or even a med.

    Looking back older scripts because I was wondering what's making this version so much better then the version in 2.41 or whatever, I noticed that this version has the speed to damage modifier, it didn't before. It probably didn't feel as bad when spart added that because the health and regen was lowered I think.

    Anyway I just have the thought that the idea behind compo isn't a bad idea, a really good armor is an ok thing. One thing that used to be besides compo costing more was it was changed at some point to have a longer research time. People were less willing to get it due being able to get both armor and engine in some other tree compared to just getting compo, which was worth it in early game. I know cost isn't the best way to balance anything, but there is in fact less tanks on the field if cost is increased.
    Yes, we constantly have this problem. When compo was nerfed in like 2.5 with a weight increase and a research time increase everyone got abs instead because it was super cheap, had its weight lower, and had that speed to damage thing which was a very general resist to everything. So it was the go to for a while because it was simple to use and easy to get.

    Reactive kinda has this, it's just a lot of hp on a single plate, no resists or weakness. People don't like seeing 3 plates though even if it's the same as 6 plates of abs, so people think it's a crap armor on anything not a light tank.

    Reflective is straight up better then reactive, it has the potential to have more hp then it and you honestly don't need to really adjust it to have a good angle to get it to at least reactive health, it really doesn't have a trade off.

    Only armors that are actually situational are capacitive, can't get it if you don't have a team that can actively repair their tanks, regen for the obvious reasons, and budget. Budget is super cheap and light, it would almost seem like it would have that general blanket problem that the other general use armors have, but it never gets researched due to it only really being useful on a heavy tank.
     
  18. Ikalx

    Ikalx Member

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    You talk about when composite was nerfed, abs was buffed. I remember that. Why was it difficult to move from that point, fix abs's modifier, change only either the weight or research time on comp, and let it run?

    Why do we move with this hop hop idea, where we need to create new armours to take the place of what we already have? Budget has taken the niche of what abs used to be - the cheap armour. Capacitive for the super lolz, and regen now has downplayed strength and upped regen to compensate. Because obviously a more moderate regeneration factor and a higher hp would infringe on composite.

    Which is now the jack of all trades.

    Still in the most accessible place.
     
  19. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    Uhmm, that argument of hopping around is incredibly silly when spartacus was making big changes everywhere and had to compensate accordingly. If you mean when candles reverted back to older scripts, well Regen hasn't actually changed, it used to be 55 or 60 hp with something like a 4.4 regen rate. No wait, it was 5.5 I think, but compo was regening at 2.4 in that patch that changed compo's weight or the one right before it. Point is it hasn't actually shifted really. This was when it couldn't regen at 0 plates too, so it was absolutely worthless on lights and any apc with a weapon.

    You got a point in budget taking abs's cheap place, but as far as I can tell when budget was introduced was also when abs was made a lot more useful against cannons, so it didn't make sense for abs to remain cheap. I think abs in it's current form is more useful against cannons too compared to back then, so in a way there is still a place for abs and budget, though it might not be the worst idea to lower abs's usefulness and make it basically budget with a slight buff against cannons.

    Funnily enough, the few times I played and someone got budget everyone said they'd rather have abs, even if they knew it wouldn't have been as good as any other armor.

    I do believe capacitive has a place, It's like the opposite of regen in that it's amazing for short fights but not for the long haul. I'd personally use cap over compo in a lot of fights, but the only time I could get it if I was commanding, so that doesn't work.:(
     
    Last edited: Apr 4, 2015
  20. Paradox

    Paradox I am a gigantic asshole who loses people's hard wo

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    bump for visibility
     

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