Ship Stuff

Measured – This ship is way off. This is a part of a greater issue across all of the ships. It seems like you are failing to keep in mind that the ships are not supposed to be equal in Star Control, the points and ship lineup make that true and allow you to have a wide variety of wildly different ships that fight each other. This should be a very low point ship. If Scyrve cost 50, and Measured costs 5... then if Measured can do just 10% damage to Scyrve then it has broken even. This is how this system actually works, and you need to keep that in mind. All of the ships seem to currently be seeking an equal balance with each other. They would all cost about the same amount of points. Remember that the points system of SC, which is really SVC's BPV system, means that the ships don't have to be equal. You are doing the natural thing and trying to make them “balanced” when, in Star Control, part of the point is that they are not balanced.

Assign some starting point values for however many “classes” you want to have. If you went with the minimum 3 classes you might have a group of ships that costs 5-15, a group that costs 16-30, and a group that costs 31-60. Make the Scyrve cost 60 and Measured cost 6. Place all your ships within these classes, and reconsider the balance between the ships from the perspective of how many points each ship is worth. This will just naturally lead to something that starts to feel a lot more like Star Control.

As it stands right now, if you are going for that “wide-variety of mismatched ships” feeling of Star Control... The Measured is out of control powerful for the tiny little thing it is supposed to be.

...and a couple general comments after my first day of playing SCO a lot.

You should show ship point value in the ship thumbnails on the ship selection and lineup screens, and on the ship cards.

The corners of the screen are irrelevant and can be used for interface. The player's attention is generally focused on a circular area of the screen and their mind is ignoring the corners. This means you can put interface in the corners “without the player even noticing”. I would move the ship cards into the top corners. Own ship on the left, enemy ship on the right. This will actually make the screen bigger than it is now, there is no reason to cut off a part of the screen with that entire side bar. You could use the bottom corners for more interface if you have a reason too. The corners really are irrelevant because the player naturally ignores them anyway, so this is the best place to put interface in this kind of game.

Great feedback! Please continue!

The Measured vs the ship with the explosive barrels (Menkmack?) is broken.  The barrels can be launched immediately once I close the distance with the Measured and always explode and one-shot the Measured ship before I can get into range for the Measured AOE.

EDIT: Never mind I figured out that the Measured AOE is slightly larger than the barrel AOE (the barrel AOE might be perfectly sized because it fooled me when I just charged in without having my reverse direction key on a hair trigger expecting barrels.  I just underestimated the barrel AOE size).  Also baiting it to release all its barrels then waiting for the barrels to expire on their own helps.

Jeff's linear speed is OK but his turn rate is too slow and Tywom can dodge him, which I don't like.  If Mowling and Tywom face off I think Mowling should be more kitey with Jeff than Tywom are with their turrets, especially since Tywom have great primary guns and Mowling don't.

The gravitational pull of the DaNath black hole should be bigger, because that might actually help players line up their next shot with the black hole because the gravity whip would pull the enemy ship in a predictable direction.  This might help against the Measured because it is very hard to harm the Measured with DaNath.  I still want this even if you have to decrease the black hole damage to compensate for the help in lining up the next shot.

The Measured primary weapon that slows other ships moves too slowly.  It only matters if ships are trying to kite you and if they are kiting you they are already moving away (this used to be a problem with the tether system, the Measured primary weapon almost never helped, especially never in anti-kiting).  The Measured primary weapon just cannot close the distance at all with any ship that is moving away from it except maybe the really slow ones, but the really slow ones don't kite in the first place.  I think the idea about the Measured primary weapon was for it to be used to win at flybys with the kiting enemy (stop them then AOE them into oblivion), which I think would happen in the new limited size area you have now.  The Measured primary weapon would be helpful against Mowling flybys, but maybe not so much for the Tywom (Tywom can out-DPS the Measured at close range) and the Earthling Cruiser has great difficulty getting its nukes to hit the Measured so you really don't need the primary just save your energy to AOE the Earthling Cruiser because you can out-DPS their point defense.  The Measured primary weapon's only other use is to decrease turning speed (I think it does that?) to make the Measured harder to hit.

Menkmack – Assuming this ship is supposed to be among the more powerful ships, it gives me the impression of being either a high-point medium class or low-point heavy class ship, then there is a good way to make this ship fun. I would suggest thinking in terms of just 3 classes because it is a lot easier that way, things start to become a lot more complicated to balance with more than 3 classes. In SC you probably never use the word “classes”, this is just a conceptual thing for the developers. This would too powerful if this is supposed to be a weak, or “light class” ship, and you can forget this suggestion if this is supposed to be a low-point ship.

This takes a page from SFB and the PDU where drones/missiles are more of a distraction than an offensive weapon. You distract the enemy with a missile, and then shoot at them while they are focused on evading the missile. If the mines moved a little bit faster (not much), and the Menkmack had some type of “pure gun”, it would distract the enemy with the mines and then shoot at the enemy while it evaded the mines... and this is fun! But this would be very powerful, and make this one of the more expensive ships.

The “reinforcements” thing is confusing, it can be hard to figure out which ship you are actually flying, and the “moving mines” are so slow that they aren't all that useful by themselves. I would imagine this is a part of the lore and has to remain in the game at this point. The extra ships should have something about them that makes it easy to tell which ship is yours, they could be a different color, for example. I would make this an extra passive ability for this ship that the player has no control over, if the player's ship gets below 50% health and is still alive a single reinforcement ship arrives. As if it had a wingman that was nearby and has responded to a distress call. This is a one time thing. One wingman can appear once during the fight. Of course, having this ability in addition too it's two active abilities means this would be an expensive ship... but it seems too me like it is supposed to be. If this is supposed to be a low point ship it is probably pretty close as it is, but it's not very fun to use.

Mowlings – I am really taken aback by Jeff, that Brad mentioned was supposed to be Sinistar like. I can't imagine that this is a tribute to Sinistar: Unleashed, a game that I would guess less than 5,000 people ever even played, but Jeff doesn't look like the original Sinistar at all... it looks a LOT like the best functioning and must fun to fight Sinistar of Sinistar: Unleashed (there were 24 different Sinistar's in Unleashed). This has to be just an awesome coincidence, but I love it. This ship is not really any fun, though, because you just call the Sinistar and fly around evading waiting for it to win the fight for you. Where is the fun in that? I think a Sinistar tribute could be really cool in Star Control, but “Sinistar” means needing to mine asteroids to recharge your energy as you fight. Without that aspect, it's not Sinistar-like at all. Maybe you could think of Jeff in a different way, and do the Sinistar thing as a boss-fight against a “space monster” that is reminiscent of the original Sinistar. It would just be like a single Sinistar level within Star Control.

I would need to know the lore of this ship, and of Jeff, to make any kind of suggestions of what to do with this ship. This is a key story ship so it is critical that it matches the lore, which I don't know at all. This makes it impossible for me to know what this ship should be like, or be capable of.

EDIT: I had this idea and just had to add it too this.  If you make a "space monster boss fight Sinistar level" the Sinistar could begin dormant as you enter the level.  Almost as soon as you enter it could activate, lighting up and beginning to move as if it is coming out of some kind of hibernation.  As it does this it would, of course, in a Sinistar-sounding voice, say... "I awaken!!!".

Drenkend – I like the design of this ship a lot and this ship is already fun to use. The weapon and boarding parties are really cool the way they work together, and both are easy for a player to use and understand how to use. I don't like the HUGE boarding pods. They should be a lot smaller, and maybe be a little “jittery” in their movement. They move too perfectly now, like they are on rails in space or something, and it makes it feel “incomplete” or “not polished”. Also, currently most ships have about the same speed and maneuverability, they all feel like they move about the same. For some reason I can't explain, the fact that all the ships move about the same is more noticeable too me when I use this ship. This is also a part of something I mentioned earlier, that so far you have fallen into the natural thing (it is hard to break out of this thinking) of wanting to make all of the ships “balanced” with each other. So as things stand, it's kind of like all of the ships are “medium class”, and for some reason this also stands out too me more with this ship than any other... and I can't explain why that is.

Measured (again...) - I assume this is supposed to be SCO's version of the Airilu. If that is the case, you could use this ship to get a start on making the ships more different by transforming this ship into your version of the Airilu. There is no functional difference between the Airilu's (I know the spelling is way off here, haha) auto-aiming beam weapon and a 360 AoE centered on the ship. They are functionally identical. So the Measured essentially already has the Airilu's weapon. Measured also moves in an odd way that makes it hard to aim, just like Airilu, which is why both ships need a “auto-aiming” weapon like this. So to transform this from being among the most powerful ships, to the weakest but still effective ship... make it even more like Airilu. Like Airilu's inertia-less drive, Measured will become hard to control and aim with the faster it moves, which is why it needs the auto-aim weapon. “Speed is life”, speed equals hit points. Make Measured VERY fast, and take away most of its hit points so that it gets one shot by most weapons, and can't survive two hits from anything. Then give it back the warp beacon it originally had and take away it's beam weapon. You also make need to weaken its AoE attack because this thing is insanely powerful for it's size and the idea that it is like the Airilu ship. Just like the Airilu, this version of Measured will have to find a way to dart in quickly to get in one or two hits and then get back out, because if it gets hit once it is dead. Remember, this would be like a 6-10 point ship, if it gets in more damage health damage to its enemy than it costs in points then the Measured “won” even though it is the ship that got blown up.

Early in the history of SFB SVC's staff members would slip cultural referances and words past SVC that he didn't know the meaning of, so it became a thing to inform him of any meanings words might have that people were proposing.  The classic example is that SVC had no idea that the "Plasmatic Pulsar Device" had been named after Wendy O' Williams and the Plasmatics until many years after he had published it.  

I don't see how this one could matter, but the person calling the shots should be aware of any meanings of words being used in their game.  Maybe the don't want it because of that, or maybe they can use that meaning in some way in their lore/story.  So, in this spirit...

"Drenkend" is a Dutch word meaning "drenched" or "soaked".

Now that I've played this for a while, and am at the point that if I was doing this would be ready to start changing things, this is how I would start...

Forget all of the other ships exist. Make the Scyrve the highest point ship, and the Measured the lowest. 60/6 would work as a starting point for their points, in the end the range might narrow a little but at first go overboard in wanting to make the Measured as fragile and weak as it can be while still being balanced. In the end Scyrve would be the slowest ship, Measured would be the fastest ship in SCO. Work out this fight first. The Scyrve “controls the center” and the Measured “has the initiative”. Scyrve is entirely defensive in this fight, all it can do is wait for Measured to come too it. Then get this fight to a point that you think it is balanced in Measured being able to do its worth in points of damage to Scyrve. Start with making it so that if Measured gets hit by 2 flak shots or one main gun shot it is dead. If Measured can hit Scurve 4 times it will break even on points. Just forget about all of the other ships until this fight is both fun and balanced. This will then give you a range to work within for all of the other ships, after having started out by balancing the most extreme mismatch.

I don't think the sustained beam weapon is going to work well for Scyrve. It “controls the center” and generally has to wait for its enemy to attack it. If it is the slowest ship, like it should be, it can't catch up to anything. A long range weapon can address than, but not one that locks in place like Scyrve does, it's always luck or hoping they fly into it to hit with that at long range. The missile would work great on Scyrve, focing the enemy to come close before it gets picked apart missile by missile... but the Earth ship has that and is the one ship from SC you have because they are the humans. The “energy net” I had mentioned works to make Scyrve powerful, but a ship that must wait for the enemy to come to it. Some type of long range seeking weapon would work better, it would force the enemy to come too it or eventually lose to being hit by the seeking weapon.

This will get the two most extreme ships up and running, and break you out of the natural place you are at now with all of the ships seeking the same balance. It gives you goal posts to work between, the extremes of both ends of the spectrum balanced with each other in a way you are happy with. I think this would be a good place for you to start from where you are now.

I agree with a lot of this! Want to comment particularly on the Scryve. It doesn't feel "heavy" enough - to me, it's emblematic of how a lot of the ships feel off in general. It handles too much like most of the other ships, like starting with midrange and tweaking a few knobs tweaked a bit. If it had lower acceleration it would have more of the feel of a capital ship - notice how it feels to change a Dreadnought's course in SC1/2.

I would say, though, that the Scryve doesn't necessarily have to be THE slowest ship. Just on the lower end - the Dreadnought in SC1 wasn't the slowest either. For the beam weapon, one thing to try is to let it move while firing. To balance this out with the range, have it take a brief moment to charge - you can see a thin "ghost" beam at first where it won't damage you, then it kicks in at full power.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.  We just posted a fairly large update including balance and gameplay changes.  We'd love to get your thoughts on it.

Something is wrong with the camera because the planet surprises me.  It's like the camera tethers to your two ships (the center of the view is the point between your two ships) and if you are doing the retrograde maneuver (eg. with the Earthling cruiser) there is almost no space for the camera to show up behind you and so a surprise planet can happen.  This is only an issue with planets not the asteroid belt because the asteroid belt has less gravity so you have more time to react.

Everything below is on Crazy Cyborg and I am not judging based on points only on battle performance.

The Measured is OP against the Drenkend Carrier.  You can pretty much always dodge their shots and the Measured AOE laughs at any boarding craft.

The Earthling Cruiser is OP against the Scryve Battlecruiser because it is easy to line up nukes and dodge their laser.  Then again I was always very good with the Earthling Cruiser.

The Earthling Cruiser is OP to Tywom because you can two-nuke the Tywom immediately and kill them.  But I do not want the nukes to always target the closest thing because that could be a tiny Tywom turret or Drenkend boarding party, because the point defense should be the one to handle that a nuke just costs too much energy to kill those tiny targets.

The Drenkend Carrier is OP to the Earthling Cruiser because the Drenkend primary weapon is almost as fast as the nukes and it also halts your movement making it even easier to hit the second and third time for the kill.  And the carrier has a lot more hitpoints than the Crusier.

The Scryve battlecruiser's flak has been buffed enough that it does well against the Measured's AOE.  Great!

It seems that the Trickster's black hole has been buffed (it seems to do more damage) but it's gravity well is still very weak.  This is the hardest ship for me because the black hole is too slow and goes in a straight line.  The black hole only works at mid range or at harassing someone stuck in the asteroid belt.  Wild idea: maybe the black hole could home towards the mouse cursor so it's not always a straight line?  Either that or make its gravity well more powerful so it slingshots the enemy around so you can line up a second shot.

The Mowling's Jeff summon is buffed a lot in speed, turning speed, and how fast it fires.  This is good because before you could dodge Jeff (eg. with a Tywom) because his turning speed was so slow.

Something is wrong with Jeff.  I was Mowling vs. Measured and my Jeff bounced into the planet then wandered around instead of going for the Measured.  I think this bug happens when Jeff does not account for gravity because the Measured also has this problem (if you and the Measured are on opposite sides of the planet, the Measured becomes indecisive and jiggles back and forth perpendicular to the planet because it cannot decide which orbit to do.

The Mowling speed vs. the Measured speed is good, because the Mowling can barely outrun the Measured.

The Crazy AI is able to sometimes dodge the nukes with the Mowling (I can't do that), but is not satisfactory because the AI gets confused about whether it wants to go short-range laser or long-range Jeff, so it is easy to confuse the AI to get the Cruiser into range to fire its nukes and kill the Mowling.

The Crazy AI does a better job with the Measured by pulling off some clutch no-inertia flying to dodge the nukes sometimes.

I personally don't have a problem with the Menkmack being hard to remember which was the original ship I can keep track just fine because the barrels move so slowly I can keep track of the ships.  What I don't like is the Nukes targeting the closest Menkmack.  Maybe Nukes could have a targeting system where if you click on a ship the nukes will target that ship and ignore turrets, boarding parties, and other Menkmack ships to target that highlighted ship.  On the other hand I actually like the nuke targeting the little Plinthi guys as well as the main ship because that's a nice way for the Plinthi to have a nuke defense (otherwise they would be too easy).

The nuke's biggest problem is that it targets Jeff.  Jeff is invincible and the nuke targets him!  I saw the nuke curve around and to the left where Jeff was and the Mowling was to the right and behind me.

The Trandals speed burst is hilarious when it launches you beyond the Oort cloud.  Is that a feature?  The ability to take a few bumps from asteroids to have the ultimate kiting?

The Trandal AI is completely broken at this point.  Somehow when it uses speed burst it just sucks the battery away without actually moving fast.  Also they are terrible at their weapon you have to really get close and stop moving for them to hit you.  A Trandal with a working speed burst could be a nightmare for the Cruiser because it could always flee the nukes and the primary weapon is much more powerful than point defense.  Please fix the Trandal AI so I can see how annoying its ability to always speed away from nukes will be.

Is it a feature that when you speed burst with the Trandal the primary weapon is suddenly stretched out a lot and has longer range?

The Trandal speed burst is a little weird.  If you hold speed burst and a turning key it makes you go in a helix instead of a gentle curve.  I can see the Trandal ship spinning in circles as it flies in a helix.  I think the physics of a ship spinning in circles while flying in a helix is not proper inertia.  If you want it to be hard to turn when in speed burst then please just make it a gentle turn, or make it so you fly in a straight line and have to stop the burst to change direction.

I am not good with the Plinthi Contagion.  The Contagion does not seem to understand orbits and it does not seem to understand flying towards the enemy.  It seems like some combination of Androsynth chaotic bubbles and Ur-Quan fighters.  You have the battery to crank out 3-4 contagion at the start, but the regen is so slow that trying to fill the screen with them like the bubbles does not work and they are too dumb to be like fighter craft.  But if you upped the regen or made them home like bomber craft as well as the Cruiser nukes do then the Plinthi might go from hard to OP, especially since they do not cost crew.  I do not know how to fix this, but I am just not satisfied with the Contagion wandering aimlessly.

EDIT: I reopened the game and the Trandal and Plinthi got better.  The Trandal speed burst made it a little faster but not as much as a human player holding it down.  The Trandal still does not fly very well.  The Plinthi fighters actually home towards the enemy now (although they still do not understand orbits).

EDIT: This is my last versus match for tonight.  Plinthi vs Trandal is OP right now because Crazy Cyborg Trandal AI is way too passive does not fly well and cannot hit you with their primary.  The Plinthi has plenty of time to build up lots of Contagion.

EDIT: I am glad that all Contagion dies before the next ship arrives.  Good night everyone!  I will be checking the Discord for when people are available for matches!