Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[2kill]

Lanc is more of a combo base defender and dogfighter, so it's not ideal for either. Its bullets cost a lot less as well (though again are slower). Not sure what to do with this. Anyone else have Lanc experiences?

in the end you are right the Lanc is a base defence ship not really meant to hold its own in a straight out dogfight but I find that in base with multi it can pin down almost anyone (even without multi the faster firing rate does give it enough to spread the bullets around)

I feel the lanc is quite boring to play. I played my lvl 27(?) lanc most of yesterday's 2nd session and it was getting OK kills but after the battle dragged on it got really boring. The ship is basically a turret that gets most of it's kills when camping while defending the flagroom.

Lancs do have a hard time killing warbirds especially when the warbird can tank one yellow shot and it's very hard to hit a wb twice (and since multifire recycle is slow you can't use it either). I guess it wasn't that bad in the flagroom though since you could just camp.

I still think the lanc bomb could be tweaked to be a bit more effective to make the ship more interesting. I think only one lanc is using it at the moment and he doesn't seem to be able to do much with it. I forgot which lanc it was (skullspace or 2kill) but it would be nice to hear a comment from him about the bomb.

I think you basicly hit the mark Mjollnir the lanc ends up being a turret mostly but, there is nothing wrong with that inherently as you can see in Metal Gear they have a ship that is just a turret its job is to attach to their form of terr and turret well the terr flys around. I know that Kcid and I were doing very well with that we would rush in take flag clear base before someone finally hit us and we would start again. (and I also enjoy doing that)

The bomb you are right is pretty useless in most circumstances though it can deal out a lot of damage I watched Skullspace bomb on to the flag well the enemy terr and two people who attached to him diedm thus clearing base...though those times don't pop up much. In the end I think that L2 bombs may make up for it (maybe not) ... I think that lancs get L2 bombs right Dug?

Lanc bombs aren't very useful but sometimes come in handy and would get better the more radius that they have.

As the Lanc is now I don't think that it will be a major ship for me in the public release especicallysince you won't get it till much later. not to say that its a bad ship it does a job and does it well but I only turret in Metal Gear rarely and since you can't skip to it when its needed my lanc well most likely remain low in the release.

I hope that answer some questions if not ask me again while wishing that I was more understandable

[Zeimonster]

okayy, the recharge issues on the board this time. And yes, there are issues with the recharge, definitely.

Levi recharge from 0 to 1710: 10.7s
Wb recharge from 0 to 1600: 4.9s

i took the time with my cell phone (warped and started the clock), so i'd say both of them are pretty exact times, max +-0.3s each

even that looks pretty awful to me, but that's not all. My levi's got 11 recharge upgrades out of 12 possible (95% recharge) and wb only 4 upgrades out of 10 (78% recharge). I dont know what else to say, just look into it.. And if it helps, try to play levi in a base with max recharge and 1600+ energy. Shouldnt take long to see my point.

[AcidBomber]

Wheres DISTENSIONNN

[gdugwyler]

okayy, the recharge issues on the board this time. And yes, there are issues with the recharge, definitely.

Levi recharge from 0 to 1710: 10.7s
Wb recharge from 0 to 1600: 4.9s

What you're seeing is that each ship has a unique design. WB (with Spider following quickly after) enjoys the very highest recharge in the game. Levi, on the other hand, has the very lowest. This is not done necessarily out of any real fairness; it's simply what carried over from conversion of pub settings to Distension upgrades, to maintain the original feel of TW. However, considering that the Levi is now significantly different than it is in pub (glider rather than tank; bombs having EMP but with much lower damage; guns firing faster), a change in recharge is definitely worth considering -- maybe something along the lines of the Jav, which is the next slowest to recharge, but still significantly faster. If anything, considering that it's meant to be mainly a gunner, with the bombs used as firing support, it might actually be wise to have it recharge slightly faster than the Jav. Opinions on this? Would like to hear from both Levis and non-Levis.

Also, for the benefit of those who are still confused about what happened recently with energy and recharge adjustments (DaKo, et al.), here's a graphic display of what was done to EVERY ship for energy and recharge:

What this is showing (roughly) is where ships "start" (no upgrades in either recharge or energy) and "end" (all upgrades for one or the other ... or for ships that have additional slots past 10, upgrades to the 10th position -- the extras considered bonus slots and not worked into the calculation).

Before the change, ships started with much lower energy and recharge. However, their maximum energy and recharge was also much higher. Consequently, each upgrade also gave more energy and recharge than it does at present: to be exact, in almost every case, each energy and recharge upgrade gave double what it does now.

After the change, ships start with much more energy and recharge, but also have a lower maximum energy and recharge. The amount of energy and recharge with which they now start is such that if a ship upgraded half energy or recharge in either system, energy and recharge would be roughly equivalent.

What this means is that no nerf occurred. Some are under the impression that one ship or other was "nerfed" by this change. This is simply a matter of perspective. Why? Well, if you had no energy or recharge upgrades in, say, spider, and then you started playing spider and noticed that you have a lot more energy and recharge than previous, you'd think there was a spider buff. On the other hand, if you were a spider with more than half of total upgrades in energy or recharge before the change, you'd think a spider nerf had occurred. You'd especially think this if you had near max or max in either. But in both cases, you'd be wrong.

What's ironic about the situation is that the first person to bring this up was a rather arrogant Levi player (not referring to Zei's post here), complaining that Levi recharge was nerfed. Recharge wasn't nerfed on the Levi; furthermore, interestingly, Levi was the ship that actually received the greatest benefit from this change. Each upgrade of energy in Levi previously used to give 100 energy. Now it gives 60 (as opposed to the 50 it should if it were standardized). It didn't seem fair to the Levi to be only given 50 per upgrade, as everyone else receives more, so I set it a bit above the norm, effectively increasing the power of the Levi relative to all other ships.

Again, all this doesn't mean Levi recharge shouldn't be changed. (It just wasn't changed relative to all other ships, from a purely mathematical perspective. You'll still find it's slower to recharge with 8 chg upgrades now than it was with 8 before, just like every other ship.) Levi does enjoy one benefit that others don't as far as energy and recharge are concerned, though: there are no rank requirements for any level of either.

[gdugwyler]

Talked with some people on the chat and went ahead with some changes.

Shark weapons buff:

- 6 mines.
- 20 total team mines.
- Single fire weapon cost now 40% of old cost; fire delay increased slightly.
- Multifire delay greatly reduced (to minimum delay -- 10ms); spread adjusted slightly (though it still shoots in triangle formation, much like Terr's burst)
- Bullet speed increased very slightly.


Leviathan:

- Recharge buff: initial recharge increased 50% (it was damn low); this means Jav now has the slowest initial recharge, but this makes sense because it's the only real bomber. Levi is only slightly higher. Max recharge increased accordingly. Upgrade amount not altered, so Jav may eclipse Levi very slightly in recharge after many upgrades. They're pretty much the same, though.

[Epic li]

I find the leviathan quite ok now, our upgrades are good and also the ship if you build it right, but in the other side, the upgrades are damn expensive, i find it somewhat balanced o.o

[gdugwyler]

Yeah, the Levi upgrades do still seem a bit on the pricey side ... but then again most of them do pretty well -- for example the speed and thrust upgrades both give you huge additions, making up for their costs (actually cheaper than on some ships).

In the public release, with the new changes to energy and recharge, I'll probably increase the costs for the maneuver upgrades, and reduce costs very slightly for energy/chg, though they'll still be more expensive. Should create a fair balance. For now I'll leave it as is to prevent having to do another refund.

Another ability added

I added another ability today. In order to make the Lanc more unique, it no longer has the Vengeful Bastard ability. Instead this has been replaced by Leeching, which gives it a chance of getting full charge after a kill. Each upgrade gives 20%. A lot of people have said that (like the shark) it's a bit boring to play. This may make up for it, if you can rush in blindly to make a kill, with the chance that after it you might be able to immediately go at someone else without fear of being caught off-guard with low energy. The first level of this ability is available at the relatively early rank of 15, so, uh, check it out.

[Jeansi]

Edit: ur right. no idea how that filter ever got on, mustve been on accident. but still, the bounty issue?

If things haven't changed, obscene is always turned on when you enter TW. So even if you have turned obscene off from options, you'll have to add ?obscene to your autocommands to make it go off every time you enter TW.

[gdugwyler]

YET MORE CHANGES

• All players now start with Terr in addition to Warbird
• Spider "Refueler" replaced by "Energy Tank." Rather than randomly being prized a full charge as with Refueler (not all that useful), Energy Tank gives you a much smaller percentage chance to have an energy tank refueled every 30 seconds. Once filled, this tank can be used to provide a full charge at any time by PMing !! to the bot. Those who had the Refueler before will now have equal levels of Energy Tank.
• Players now receive a small bonus when changing to a Terr or Shark if the ship is needed. Whether or not it's actually needed is determined by the number of ships presently on the team, the size of the team, and how recently the bonus was given out ... the last being to prevent abuse.

[FarScape]

few suggestions:

1) The tank idea is bad imo. in middle of battle no one will type !! to bot... I really liked it automated.

2) Reduce Terrier bursts. its not make sense that terrier goes into the base and do 3 bursts in a row. what the fun of it? keep it as it now, even increase the speed they gain it, but limit their bursts to 1.

3) Why there is need of thrusts and speed? it could be reduced to just speed no?

[gdugwyler]

1) The tank idea is bad imo. in middle of battle no one will type !! to bot... I really liked it automated.

The idea is to make it more of a tactical ability: you get to use it exactly when you need it. However, because of that it doesn't pop up as often. I think that as time goes on, regular spider players will probably macro it -- and then redefine a particular macro message to a close-at-hand keydef ... something like z, x, c, what have you.

Reduce Terrier bursts. its not make sense that terrier goes into the base and do 3 bursts in a row. what the fun of it? keep it as it now, even increase the speed they gain it, but limit their bursts to 1.

I've heard some annoyance with bursts. There may be too many given out presently; I'm not sure. I might be willing to make the maximum starting burst only upgradable to 1, but not reduce the max to 1: that's just too harsh. They should at least be able to build up several if they can't start with multiple. Anyone else care to weigh in on this?

Why there is need of thrusts and speed? it could be reduced to just speed no?

Thrust is acceleration; speed is top speed. The difference is set in the way SS settings are laid out. However, I don't think it's all that bad that they're separate, considering that they're pretty cheap. If they were not separate, for example, ships like the Levi would be impossible (gliders with low thrust but high top speed). As would the close-call dodgers -- those with great thrust but not much top speed.

[2kill]

few suggestions:

2) Reduce Terrier bursts. its not make sense that terrier goes into the base and do 3 bursts in a row. what the fun of it? keep it as it now, even increase the speed they gain it, but limit their bursts to 1.

point 2... the burst is all the terr has especially at lower levels it maybe annoying to one person if the terr comes in and bursts but thats all the terr has after that he doesn't have anything else really to pull out of his bag he's a sitting duck waiting (if no teammates come) to be killed, and also the terr has to rank somehow the profit sharing helps but it isn't that much.

[Edit: I just remembered that I only start with two bursts and I am a level 35 terr, but I quite often have 3 burst cause of my regen so it isn't the maximum burst its the regen but I still think that it works out in the end]

[HateTheFake]

terrier burst is fine
and its not all that hard to macro !!

[project dragon]

2 burst max would seem fine to me, 1 could do, but I think for this situation 2 is fine.

I think if you want to tinker around with it, if you lower the max burst / portal a terr can carry, you should increase the percentage in the regeneration option in the armory. It's currently at 5% for every upgrade, why not make it 10% per upgrade and increase the up points needed to get the upgrade? That way, the terr can't spam all their bursts at once, but will have burst/ports rearmed more frequently.

[Vergilius]

If things haven't changed, obscene is always turned on when you enter TW. So even if you have turned obscene off from options, you'll have to add ?obscene to your autocommands to make it go off every time you enter TW.

It is in my autocommands, thats why i dont understand how the hell that ever got on.. anyways, not important