Slower heavies make for a better game

Honestly there shouldn't be a weight "limit" like we have now. There should be consequences/rewards for going over/under a slightly higher then standard equipment loaded weight.

If we actually tie in the weight limit when your packing shit on your tank to the engines we can get some better dynamics. Pack practically nothing on your tank and it should be overflowing with speed and HP. Load it up and it could be hard to get up a hill and have a much slower speed.

 

This was experimented with. The problem is that the margin you can play with is very small : go over it, and vehicles can no longer scale hills (or even very small inclines)

 

You could tie it to max speed, not horsepower. It would be effectively similar from a user perspective.

Or you could replace "horsepower" with "min horsepower" and "max horsepower" for each engine and scale within that vetted range.

Or, hell, do both. Work within the horsepower range when possible and then vary top speed slightly once you run past the horsepower range. Peg your slowest configuration at the weight limit and peg your fastest configuration at some weight point a bit lower than that. You still have the same weight limits, but you get a modest speed range to play with while still maintaining exactly the same climbability that we have today.

 

Top speed is probably easiest to limit.

 

acceleration is pretty damn easy to adjust with no hit to max speed or HP and it can be done in scripts.

 

I have next to zero understanding of the code that dictates that part of the game, but I would intuitively expect both max speed and horsepower to be equally easy (or equally hard) to edit since they are both currently in the engine scripts.

Though the range of horsepowers is more limited, so if I had to pick only one, I'd pick max speed. Maybe we'll have that in a few versions, eh?

 

Just an idea - Get rid of the weapon type slots. Make heavys just have universal slots( 2 x3 and 3 x2.
Give BE lighter cannons and NF lighter MLs.

Also make weight cap dependent on engine. As opposed to the opposite that we have now. 3phase is a strong engine. It should raise your weight capacity.

Also- Max weight should over heat faster then being under your weight capacity.

 

I've always wanted universal slots, but that shit needs code support.

If you have some new sounds, particles & icons, then I'm 100% on board.

I think we might have cannon sounds lying around, but I'd rather not poach too many particles from other weapons. Also icons aren't as fun to make as they look. Do you think the 3-slot guided salvo & 3-slot plasma cannon icons popped out of nowhere?

Or batteries are really big & heavy and 3phase should need like 60 weight. I love it.

Seriously though, turbine totally fits that "strong engine" thing. 5 weight is less than standard, so it's effectively an increase in weight capacity.

That would be cool, but it needs code support.

 

I feel strange reminding people of this, but keep in mind that the more complex you make vehicles and the more variability there is, the hard it becomes for players to wrap their heads around it.

 

Yeah, if I could do it again, I'd just have research unlock straight upgrade to tanks. Maybe there are limitations and you have to pick your upgrades, but you always have a cannon, missile and mg. I.e. an HE upgrade might increase damage and splash, but also increase cycle time and heat. It might be effectively identical to current system, but you frame it in a way that's much more approachable.

But there are a lot of other things that might seem complex, but actually harness intuition. For example, tanks moving slower with less weapon/armor weight. That's pretty intuitive. Or a stronger weapon firing slower - might sound stupid, but it's a HUGELY useful way to teach because it's nigh universal.

 

Agree with candles. If there was some kind of tank stats displayed while building the tank... it could fix that though.

When in the engine selection area... show the current HP, max speed, cooling, and any special traits of the current engine. when the user highlights an engine to replace it with new stats show up next the the current engine stats in red or green to show changes either for good or bad. Repeat similarly for armor panel.

When in the weapons area show stats for total damage per salvo(mouse click) for all weapons, total DPS, and Time Till Overheat.

 

That's not a bad idea, but cooling math doesn't always line up with what the game does (go make an mg with 1 heat and 1 cycle, then make one with .01 heat and .01 cycle). Shit can get crazy.

 

It's just a lot of information to show all at once.

I don't think anyone would be against trialing numerous ways to communicate that information once the gui update is out. I believe it's planned to include the vehicle creation menu based on what beerdude has created so far:



And of course I'm only posting this unfinished placeholder data to show that there is expected to be a system where new vehicle guis could be easily created (see the "vehicle" tab).

 

Just wondering if this is worth investigating - most of us have a good feel for vehicles and know what we like and don't like. Are there other options for coolant that won't OP it but enables it to be worth using?

"horsepower" "250" // engine power
"maxrpm" "1500" // max rounds per minute

First - LOL the RPM comment.

Seems if you increase HorsePower and decrease RPM, you might have a vehicle that will climb hills or maybe just burn out on take off like you're on ice. I don't think many people enjoy ice.

It would be good to get to a point where five different players liked five different engines. Right now we're down to two - 3Phase and Bio. No one runs Nuclear or Gas and only rarely do we run Coolant - but that would probably be the third choice if you researched three engines.

 

maxrpm actually effects a few things. Mostly shift timing though. So it doesn't really matter much. Although if you give it weird numbers you get WTF effects.

 

I know it wouldn't take too much time. Kind of surprised it hasn't been done yet.
What about changing the heavy mg slot to a UGL slot?

By lighter cannons I meant lighter weight.
Basically if one day we do get universal slots. To keep the factions different. Have 2 different weapon script files. So that BE's cannons would be lighter and NF would have lighter MLS.
But speaking of new new things why isn't the new UGLs in game yet ?