I’ve been doing some bug fixes and it turns out that…
A bug was preventing a second or third PD module shooting at a missile once the first shot fails to destroy it, making multiple PD modules less effective
A bug meant that DP was firing pretty much all the time, rather than givinga damn about fire inetrvals, or indeed degrading them with damage, making PD modules much more effective
Guidance scramblers were not even using the stated FireIntervals, but the beam duration as the only method of controlling their rate of fire, making GS modules much more effective
I’ve fixed 1) and 2) which I think cancel each other out, but fixing 3 would seriously nerf GS’s. I think I’ll set the new beam duration to be the new effective fire interval, and pick one which seems to compensate for the differences in power, cost, weight, crew between it and the various PD modules.
This will all be in the next patch 1.39 due in some while.
Thoughts?
The guidance scrambler seems effective but not all-powerful as it currently functions. I’m glad you fixed the bugs, but I believe if you leave it as effective as it is now the game will be just fine.
Point defense, however, seems useless to me, at least compared to the scrambler. Please consider improving PD until it is comparable with GS. Perhaps one of the two could be allowed on normal modules (vs hard points) to differentiate them - GS works better, PD doesn’t cost a hard point.
I don’t think I’m just speaking for myself - I regularly read on the forums how useless PD is.
Yeah, GS have been breaking the rules for a while now.
1 will serve to help PD substantially, possibly to the point of being an actual alternative. Picking out and assassinating the actual missile (out of the decoys launched with it) destroy the entire set, lessening the load - something scramblers can’t do. Cruisers can mount PD scanners to exploit this.
Frigates can also finally use great volumes of cheap PD without making some missiles less likely to be shot down.
I wonder though, what allowing multiple attempts will do for the targeting AI - usually when PD gets way behind, they tend to attack missiles that have already passed the craft.
While you’re reviewing anti-missile defence, have you noticed that fast missiles are even more resistant to it than their statistics might suggest? Not only do they cross the defence zone faster, but they get hit much less often. It’s a double whammy, balance wise. Pretty much GS is the only thing that works on faster missiles, which is big + for it that isnt shown statistically.
(Personally, I took decoys off most of the missiles anyway and increased their damage a bit - the decoys get a bit blinding. Heh.)
I’m glad the bugs are fixed, but I still don’t see how the point-defense options are improvements over the scrambler. Has anyone done tests on these, or had designs that worked better with PD?
The only thing unique to PD is sniping the real missile out of a decoy set with assistance from a scanner, which is more expensive than a scrambler to begin with.
Scramblers still fire faster with much higher success rates, especially against faster missiles. I think the main difference now is that having forward screening frigates with cheap PD doesn’t hurt your cruiser’s chances of shooting down missiles later.
Just open the game and be connected to the net. If you’ve enter your key, it will automatically DL the patch on startup. If you use Steam, you’ll have to tell it to use the correct install folder, but it otherwise works with Steam too.
Call me crazy, but I never understood why PD lasers wouldn’t attack fighters when no missiles we present. Obviously they wouldnt be too powerful, but personally I feel that would be a nice extra boost for PD lasers. They already track fast targets, and they use lasers to destroy incoming ballistic missiles, why not fighters?
I have GSB 1.38 installed on two computers, registered on both (can see challenges etc), and neither has picked up the patch. I purchased my copy from the positech website. It may be that the game only checks once per day - I’ll post back if I don’t get the updates tomorrow either.
For those who bought directly - you should be able to just re-download from the emailed link as well. I’m too lazy to try that.
The patch was put on hold because it introduced a crash bug on some machines, but I suspect I have now fixed that, I’m just trying to confirm that with people who did have a crash before I switch the patching back on.
There was another game that had PD work like this.
Space Empires IV or something? Its been a long time since I played it. The game was a lot like the old Starfleet Command games, where shields and weapons have different firing arcs. You could also customize your ship, tinkering with armor, weapons, shields, repair bays, and so forth.
The nice thing about that game is how useful PD weapons were. PD weapons would first attempt to shoot down incoming missile weapons. If there are no missiles then they’d go shoot at fighters. Fighters are very similar to missiles in that they are both small, fast, agile, and fragile objects.
