Balance and Effects

After seeing lots of questions on the thread for this dev build, we thought it would be helpful to put some of the answers in the news so more players can easily understand what is occuring in the dev build as far as balance and effects in the new weapon system.

• Power - Its true that you current weapons may be using more power than before, currently I'm testing with everything using 10 power per 1 damage done, this may change, but I have to start testing somewhere.  There may also be changes to increase the power system in the future, so things may change from that as well.  
• Shields - Yes, shields are overpowered right now per block usage, but this will be decreased.  We'd like to see the power/block usage requirements of shields be just slightly cheaper than your weapons, this will put a higher efficiency on defense over offense, lending towards longer instead of shorter fights, this gives you time to actually apply your piloting skills instead of simply running an equation on whose ship is bigger.
• Range - The thought behind the 3 range values being used are this;
  • Long range - Cannon and Missile systems have a travel time and only impact a single point
  • Medium range - Beam systems have no travel time, giving increased accuracy
  • Short range - Pulse systems have a minimal travel time, but apply their damage amount to all blocks in range, the more blocks hit, the more damage overall damage occurs (50 dmg system = 50 dmg per block)
• Tertiary Effects - These are still having their mechanics adjusted to function properly, particularly the most recently added momentum effects and Ion effect.  I talk with Schema daily about changes we need, solutions to problems that come up and report bugs encountered.  I'm as anxious to get them working as the rest of you.  Also, since there's been some confusion about what does what, here is a rundown;
  • EMP - This mechanic is for you converting weapons damage into power reduction on the target ship. 
  • Ion - This effect converts weapons into shield ablating types.  They gain an increased damage to shields at the cost of reduced damage against solid matter.
  • Punch Through - This is to allow any damage remaining in a shot to punch through a block it just destroyed to impact the next block behind it, this may occur multiple times until a shots damage amount is used up.
  • Piercing - This system will convert your weapons damage into a radiant type of damage, passing through all blocks in its path and dividing its damage among the blocks impacted, regardless of whether any are destroyed.
  • Explosive - This effect converts your weapons impact point into an explosion, reducing the damage you do to the primary impacted block, but additionally doing damage to the blocks neighboring it.
  • Stop - This acts like brakes to an affected target.  Your system uses pulses (non constant) of inertia dampening, attempting to counteract the thrust of the target ship and bring it to a stop.
  • Push - Pushes the affected target away from you. Your system uses pulses (non constant) of inertia to push the target ship.
  • Pull - Works in the opposite manner of the Push Effect
  • All Tertiary effect blocks also have a defensive use when not linked to a weapon system.  
• New Weapons Menu has been added and should make assembling your new designs of weapons and understanding their output far easier.

Thanks for playing,

Calbiri