Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[Mjollnir]

Although I posted yesterday that the warbird seemed okay I am about to change my opinion on them. Today I played against multiple 20+ warbirds with my level 26 spider and it was nearly impossible to kill them because of their huge amount of energy. Even when they shoot they won't die from a bullet and since they are so quick it is very, very hard to hit them with 2 bullets in a row AFTER they have actually shot.

The weasel was a bit better but I would still like them to be stronger somehow. Maybe make the movement upgrades less costly? And now that they aren't very strong anymore it seems to be very slow to level them because of the low amount of kills they get compared to the other ships. Since their main purpose is usually killing the terr you could possibly give them an even higher bonus on killing a base terr (weasel specific bonus of like 100% more from the current amount).

[Edify]

I played today for the first time. It was fun. Good job.
Although, I'd like to know if it runs on some sort of schedule without reading the entire 5 page thread.

[project dragon]

The Shark is a powerful ship to play against, but it is in no way hard to shut it down.
When I'm in my shark, it's still relatively easy for a single high leveled spider to make me use all my reps and die even before I reach the flag. A flagroom full of spiders make an easy job of me, seeing as how I could probably never be at full health (due to lag bullets sometimes getting through my reps, which happens and I know it's a part of the game), which basically renders me useless, unless I mine a bunch, but reckless mining usually results in my team being TK'd. It is not hard to take me down, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to give a fight before you do.
Also, with the tiles around the flag, it has become kind of useless to kamikaze to the flag, because once I've wasted my reps to get there I'm basically a sitting duck unless my team follows me to the flag (which kind of rarely happens), and the other team should be able to take me down easily and recover the flag before it switches over.


I thing I was thinking of, and suggested to gdugwyler (briefly, and he seemed to not hate my suggestion :P) was to find some way to utilize the ?buy command. If players have been playing for quite some time, why not give them something of a reward (other than ranks and rp haha)? If there was some way to give them something simple - perhaps a decoy, or maybe a 3 tiled brick, something simple (or a thor! if we get adventurous) - at a high cost of your points, it could shake up some things in base. This way, you don't have to use a point to invest something on your ship that you won't always be using.

Anyways, I thought this could be an interesting idea. Input would be nice.

[Burzum]

Finally, energy required to fire a shark bomb is up a bit, and the rate at which afterburners decrease energy is increased very slightly.

Is the energy requirement for a shark bomb the same at all levels? It sure seems to me that it increases in linear correlation to the total energy, rather than having a fixed energy cost.

[HateTheFake]

Honestly i think the weisel is fine before the use of rockets, i even saw mj warp? I think the x lovers just want another over powered ship. As for shark i think they to are also fine, the only problem i seem to encounter is the constant lag of a few players (sin) being one of them. Will the lag limit for beta decrease a bit? Also is there any way of getting a nightwasp maybe without cloaking?

In warbird i noticed the decoy doesnt last as long as the spiders, it cost 2 ups to get but, definately not worth the 10 secs of time it gets to spend in base.

[Vergilius]

The weasel seems to be very tricky to alter. It is either too weak, or too strong. NLS, I cant remember ever seeing you in the weasel, so basically you only notice it when it kills YOU. You see it cloak, or port, and scream "it is overpowered!" Well, I am a fulltime weaselplayer in distension, and I think i can say how the ship feels. Believe me, if you are not camping, it is extremely difficult for a weasel to go positive. Dont forget it takes quite a lot of practice for us to manage the ship. killing something with slow-bullets only really is a pain in the ass, its a way bigger handicap than you can imagine.
The past week dug was experiencing with the weaker weasel. rockets being short, bullets costing more energy, and I must say i really considered quitting the ship, cuz I had a hard time even getting 1:2 in it. Now, it looks like a decent ship again. I can maneuvre it pretty good now, got used to it now. We really need that extra's, cuz bullets alone? were defenseless. really. I dont want to be forced into becoming a camping player (oh how i love taking the terrs out now) so please, dont weaken it again. Now it is decent, dont tweek to much of it anymore. (speaking bout lvl 26, well see how it goes at +10 lvls at a time)

[HateTheFake]

verg then you my friend havent been paying attention, Most of my ships are 10+, except for jav they dont really appeal to me. I definitely dont think the weasel is weak. MJs x has port cloak stealth multi l2 bullets and a rocket? I wouldn't call it weak

[Epic li]

I play lev because i like it, BUT i don't kill that much

wbs: they chase me, afterburner+shots isn't hard for them, i actually got killed in the neutral area, where i can get to my highest speed easily, and this wb reached me and killed me

the rest:the rest is ok=p, they die, i die, etc etc

the problem with lev is that we don't move well=(, our rotation has 20 different levels, our thrusters only upgrade every 20 levels. The only way we kill, is a lucky l2 bomb against ppl w/o full energy, or a yellow bullet that can be barely aimed=p(no chance to dodge if we are at full speed and in the right direction thought, unless you have a portal)

[Jeenyuss]

drop the l2 bullet damage and revert the weasel back to the way it was before?

[Vergilius]

the way it was before = with nrg draining bullets and short rockets, or the version before that? I agree that the very first version was too powerful. The one after that too weak. It is decent now, id say dont touch the weasel too much anymore. Imo the wb is more powerful than the weasel, spider and shark too, it takes a whole lot of training to fly it decently...

Stay away from my favourite ship now please I like it how it is now

[Mjollnir]

verg then you my friend havent been paying attention, Most of my ships are 10+, except for jav they dont really appeal to me. I definitely dont think the weasel is weak. MJs x has port cloak stealth multi l2 bullets and a rocket? I wouldn't call it weak

A little correction: I do not have stealth. The ship may well be close to okay now but I still think the leveling is way too slow (and that's why I suggested a bigger RP bonus for killing terrs before). Also with the new yellow bullet cost (that is huge) it seems the multifire is pretty useless. Even at level 30 I can't shoot 2 multis right after each other and the terrs are starting to have enough energy to survive one yellow bullet. Single bullets can be shot twice in a row though.

On the topic of strong ships and like I mentioned before, the warbird seems to be the most overpowered ship right now. It can take way too much punishment and if it doesn't shoot, no one with red bullets can kill it. Even when it does finally shoot, it's very hard to kill and if you miss your second bullet the warbird can't be killed until it shoots again.

[HateTheFake]

mj i would definately say the wb isnt overpowered. For 1 i have maybe 1/3 of my upgrades on armor. When also some ships are meant to be long term ships, dug said this earlier, the wb will take forever to upgrade and when its at level 60 it will finally be decent. But if u take a stock wb and the distension wbs they are practically the same, cept for the beam splitter and decoy.

[gdugwyler]

Updates:

- The no-mine zones around flags have been reduced. Let me know if there are any problems.
- Repels returned to stock TW settings; before they gave a little more push, and lasted slightly longer.
- Warbird bullet energy costs have gone up a little: 50 more per bullet level for non-multi, and 100 more per level for Multi. You're now looking at 1000 to fire L2, and 1300 for L2 Multi. This is an attempt to push the ship back closer to its normal style -- an agile 1-hit-killer that uses up nearly all of its energy to fire, leaving it vulerable. Before, it was able to deliver one-hit kill shots in the manner of a normal WB, but have quite a bit of energy remaining for a reasonably upgraded bird. I've been playing the ship quite a bit to test the new settings, and I'm still able to make kills without too much problems on ships of higher rank... the only difference seems to be not being able to tank shots and fire, or fire and still take a red bullet afterward. It will now be much more likely to get caught in a corner by a spider that has its way with you, as it should be. The WB is meant to succeed at a distance, and fail when it gets trapped up close.

Shark bomb costs: it's the same no matter your energy requirement. However, it was upped back to 1000 recently (this might be what you're seeing).

Lag limits: I'm no expert on them. If someone wants to suggest some settings, we can try adjusting. Until then they stay as they are.

Nightwasp: With what we're already doing this can't be done.

Decoys: They all last the same amount of time, which is 10 seconds. This was greatly reduced from the previous time, to make it more of a tactical weapon rather than annoyance. Read up the thread a bit for more info.

Weasels: They're not getting any weaker than they are presently. This ship is going to be special unlock, so chances are I may actually increase its strength a bit. However, part of the reason it's a special unlock is just due to its many strange abilities. It's not a normal ship, but a special one that should only be in the hands of a few lucky players. Also, as it's been said don't be fooled into thinking that just because the weasel has port, cloak (w/o stealth until later), a rocket, and small size, it's a perfect ship. It's actually still not very easy to do well in. I'll be playing it more extensively to confirm this, and will adjust as I go. (Will be doing this for every ship.)

Levi: Levi gets L2 thrust later on for a reason: it begins to kick a lot of proverbial ass at that point. And L3 is a huge boon for it, regardless of low damage. I've been able to do decently in the Lev, and I think that the substantial number of players that continue to play it despite its setbacks testify to the fact that it's a decent ship -- at least as far as enjoyment goes.

Warbird: Is not meant to be a ship in for the long haul. It has pretty much average upgrade cost. It's meant to be middle of the road in most stuff, kind of like Mario in a cast-of-characters game such as Smash Bros or Mario Kart. It's quite a bit above "decent" right now ... even with the new energy costs for bullets, I find I can kill faster in the WB than in any other ship. The WB also receives a few extra abilities later on.

Mj ranking up slowly: You're level 30 and pretty much every player is below you in rank! What do you expect? Read back on what I've said a couple of times about front-runners for an explanation about why it's so hard to rank up ... the basic gist: the amount of RP required to rank up was arrived at by the number of players you kill at your rank... so if no-one is flying ships above your rank, or even at your rank, your average will be very far below that, and every single rank will take 2 or 3 times longer than it should under the "calculated" situation. In other words, pack leaders can't bitch!

[Burzum]

Will we be seeing some sort of schedule in the near future? It's a bit unnerving coming on at the same time on two different days and either having missed it or having to wait quite some time for it to start.

[moltenrock]

So do Terriers still get that much energy to resist Lvl 2 Bullets from Warbirds?