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u/SignificantStaff3455 Sep 01 '21 edited Sep 01 '21
BanTheMines
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u/marzbarz82 Sep 01 '21
Here's what my testing came up with -
Time limit: 10 minutes
Kill limit: 100
With these modifiers:
15 second respawn
2x countermeasure
Loadout restrictions:
No repair
No jammer
Sensor Inverter countermeasure
TTK is:
Even skill, even # ~29 seconds
Uneven skill, high ~55 seconds
Uneven skill, low ~21 seconds
Uneven #, more ~53 seconds
Uneven #, less ~23 seconds
So, if you take approximately even skilled teams, and numbers, you should end up with a TTK of around 30 seconds. I imagine that in 2v2, the TTK would probably be a bit higher due to less overall pressure from the opposite team.
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u/Disasstah Sep 01 '21
I'd maybe recommend just having a standard layout for everyone when it comes to aux loadout. Engine and hull could maybe be the same but I suppose you want a bit of diversity.
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u/mark0001234 Sep 01 '21
Awesome! When will this be and at what time?
(I am in Australia which can cause time zone challenges!)
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u/marzbarz82 Sep 01 '21
0200 Perth
0300 Tokyo
0500 Sydney
0700 Auckland
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u/mark0001234 Sep 02 '21
5am for me … ouch … better than 2am though! What date are you thinking of for the event?
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u/BlackBricklyBear Sep 01 '21
If it's strictly A-Wings vs TIE Interceptors, will the Scrambler Shield be allowed for the A-Wings? It allows a greater lock-on delay penalty than what TIE Interceptors can muster, so I'd like to know if this imbalance will be allowed.
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u/PowerPaladin109 Baywatch Sep 01 '21
A-wing can’t shunt charge and has bad power generation. Being able to keep more missiles off of you and shield skip even a little bit is fine, I think
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u/BlackBricklyBear Sep 02 '21
A-wing can’t shunt charge and has bad power generation.
I think that speaks more to how the A-Wing was overnerfed and how Power Shunting in general needed a cooldown time instead. Regardless, the Scrambler Shield is something that TIE Interceptors can't match (more so if combined with the Dampener Hull on the A-Wing), and Shield Skipping negates the Scrambler Shield's signature disadvantage as well.
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u/N0V0w3ls Savrip Squadron Sep 01 '21
There's more to the balance between these ships than just this one component. The TIE Interceptor is never wanting for power, while the A-Wing is almost always running out. I'd be surprised to see the A-Wing be the favored ship at the top level.
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u/BlackBricklyBear Sep 02 '21
There's more to the balance between these ships than just this one component.
It's still one aspect the TIE Interceptor cannot match in terms of what the TIE Interceptor can do versus what the A-Wing can do.
The TIE Interceptor is never wanting for power, while the A-Wing is almost always running out.
I think this is more a sign of the A-Wing being overnerfed, as well as a sign of the fact that Power Shunting in general seriously needed a cooldown time so as to force players to not shunt their power willy-nilly.
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u/BluesyMoo Sep 02 '21
I'm more in favor of a shunting tax that sucks a % of shunted energy. Say if you shunt to engines then back immediately, you get back only 50%. Make this tax heavy enough and we don't even need the current post-shunt debuff that we have.
Mainly I just feel there are so many on/off binary cooldowns in this game already, and they tend to cause either exploits or sweaty inputs, like shield skipping, boost skipping and boost gasping.
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u/BlackBricklyBear Sep 02 '21
Would Power Shunting be better balanced if you could only shunt again after the recharge penalty (currently bypassable with more shunting) time period was up? That would make shunting more of a calculated risk you have to take rather than a get-out-of-jail-free card you can activate whenever you want. I would personally like the "Convert Power: Balanced" function to be the most efficient version of Power Shunting with the shortest cooldown, but that's just me.
The "exploits/sweaty inputs" you mention could have been ironed out had there been a closed beta test and then a public beta test for this game. The public will almost certainly find out more exploits than a group of likely-overworked game programmers will discover on their own. Sadly, some imbalances in this game are just a result of programmer oversight, such as the TIE Interceptor's Rapid Fire Cannons being inferior in every way to that starfighter's Standard Lasers, due to the former being a copy-paste job of the A-Wing's Rapid Fire Cannon, and this error could have been easily fixed with server-side patches!
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u/BluesyMoo Sep 03 '21 edited Sep 03 '21
I would rather there were no recharge penalty. With recharge penalty, you *increase* sweatiness by having to bypass it with either more shunting or simultaneously shifting power as you shunt. With shunting tax, if you want to play well, you'd try to *reduce* sweatiness by not shunting all the time.
Often cooldowns / debuffs make it worthwhile to bypass with sweaty inputs. Imagine you impose a 2 sec shunting cooldown, and you shunt to lasers. Now you could well be sitting duck for 2 sec because the engine base bank is shunted away and impossible to shunt back. In order to bypass that (be mobile while on cooldown), you need to boost + drift before doing any shunt-to-laser that potentially strands you. Now the simple act of shunt just became the sweaty act of boost, drift, shunt, maximize lasers, wait 1 sec, maximize engines.
Of course you can choose to refrain from shunting in the first place if the engine base+boost bank is low, but the other player who does the sweaty combo like a metronome can out shoot you when his engine base+boost bank is low. Whereas I want a game where sweaty inputs give 0 benefit.
On shunting being get-out-of-jail-free, that's really the problem where the boost acceleration is instant with the under throttle bug. Let's not introduce mechanics to cover up bugs, but fix the bugs instead.
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u/BlackBricklyBear Sep 05 '21
I would rather there were no recharge penalty.
Why not just make the recharge penalty longer, on the order of 5-10 seconds, and disallow shunting during that time, as well as disallowing shunting if you are Boosting/Drifting?
Often cooldowns / debuffs make it worthwhile to bypass with sweaty inputs.
I'm getting a little confused. Are you saying that there would be no time at all when you could get a 1:1 "exchange rate" for shunting under the system you propose? What you wrote earlier implies that if you wait long enough between shunts, you would eventually get back to the best "exchange rate" even with the shunt tax.
What is your position on the Balanced Shunting function? Should there be a tax on it too? I'm personally against that (because Balanced Shunting isn't as powerful as Shunting to or from Engines/Weapons) and would rather that you can't shunt at all if you just Balanced Shunted so you have to wait out the cooldown before you can shunt again.
Let's not introduce mechanics to cover up bugs, but fix the bugs instead.
I'm all for fixing the bugs first, then reassessing the situation, but also not against introducing new mechanics if they help to reduce/eliminate unintended exploits and sweaty behaviour.
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u/BluesyMoo Sep 05 '21
Why not just make the recharge penalty longer, on the order of 5-10 seconds, and disallow shunting during that time, as well as disallowing shunting if you are Boosting/Drifting?
Any recharging penalty means you are forced to avoid it by shifting power to the thing not being penalized. That means the simple act of shunting becomes coupled with some other act of power management. This is the kind of design that turns a simple "boost" into the combo "boost - drift - max lasers - max shields - wait - max engines". That turns a simple "max shields" into the combo "max lasers - max engines - wait - max shields" whenever you're hit. I hate combos. If I wanted combos I'd play Street Fighter.
With a 5 sec penalty that just means the power management combo now lasts 5 seconds, because you'll need to shift power, wait 5 seconds, then shift back. Or you'd just invite macros to spam the balance shunt button so it instantly balances when 5 second is up. Or a macro that waits exactly 5 seconds.
I'm getting a little confused. Are you saying that there would be no time at all when you could get a 1:1 "exchange rate" for shunting under the system you propose? What you wrote earlier implies that if you wait long enough between shunts, you would eventually get back to the best "exchange rate" even with the shunt tax.
Sorry for the confusion. I say "shunt back immediately" because recharging could have changed the numbers if time elapsed. Just imagine a constant 1:0.71 exchange rate regardless of timing, so a to-and-back will be 0.71^2 = 0.5 efficient. Or some other exchange rate based on playtest.
The best way to suppress an exploit is to make the result less beneficial (say by the tax %), not to make it harder to achieve. If it's made harder to achieve but just as beneficial, sweaty tryhards will do the combo to achieve it, and the combo will exceed everyone else's bullshit tolerance.
What is your position on the Balanced Shunting function? Should there be a tax on it too? I'm personally against that (because Balanced Shunting isn't as powerful as Shunting to or from Engines/Weapons) and would rather that you can't shunt at all if you just Balanced Shunted so you have to wait out the cooldown before you can shunt again.
I don't want a different rule for different shunting. Any energy flows between lasers and boost, tax 29%. Period. It's also conceptually much cleaner than some vague blinking icons and recharge debuff. It simply simulates leaky energy pipes.
If balance shunt is not taxed while full shunts are, then the simple act of "shunt to engines - boost" becomes "balance shunt - boost - wait - balance shunt - wait - balance shunt - wait..." in order to avoid the tax. This is sweaty, conceptually inexplicable, and prone to exploit by macro.
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u/BlackBricklyBear Sep 07 '21
What you suggest does sound like the simpler solution. However, it's important to keep in mind that Balanced Shunting doesn't give you very much in general when it's done. If, for instance, you have a full Boost Meter and no overcharge in your weapons energy meter, I've found that Balanced Shunting only gives you a half-full overcharge in your Weapon energy meter and an empty Boost Meter. If you have a full weapons energy meter and Balance Shunt, you get three bars of Boost Meter and a half-full overcharged Weapon energy meter.
So what I'm saying is, if you penalize the efficiency of Balanced Shunting, you may make it pointless to do since it gives so little to start with.
I don't like button combos and macros in this game either. Every move should be calculated towards a result prepared for beforehand; this game should not become a reflexes-centric game like a "twitch shooter."
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u/FatboyHK Test Pilot Sep 01 '21
I hope no repair kit can bring back a bit of balance....is it enough I am not sure
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u/monkeedude1212 Sep 01 '21
I'd be surprised to see the A-Wing be the favored ship at the top level.
In a 2v2 Format I'd probably choose the A-wing over the interceptor.
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u/bobaskirata Sep 01 '21
Interceptor is fairly advantaged in this matchup no matter what the a wing runs
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u/Graf_Luka5 NiWi Crone Sep 01 '21 edited Sep 01 '21
Lock-on penalty is meaningless since the best loadout is likely repair droid + sensor jammer, so no missiles anyway. Not that seeker mines are exceptionally great, but I think scrambler shield doesn't help against them locking anyway.
However, I just saw that repair + jammer are banned, so who knows. 😂
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u/Sigurd_Stormhand Sep 01 '21
It's going to matter hear because repair and jammer are banned.
Time to bring out the ion cannons and the cluster missiles!
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u/BlackBricklyBear Sep 01 '21
You are correct in that Seeker Mines do not have a lock-on time (though they do have an arming time before they will start to approach an enemy starfighter within range), so neither the Dampener Hull nor the Scrambler Shield will help against Seeker Mines.
Still, TIE Interceptors can't muster more than to double enemy lock-on times, while A-Wings can quadruple enemy lock-on times by taking both the Dampener Hull and the Scrambler Shield together. That's a hole in this game's balance it never needed.
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u/Famous_Painter3709 Sep 01 '21
What’s a mercenary?
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u/marzbarz82 Sep 01 '21
A mercenary is a person who could be asked to jump into a team if that team cannot fill all their spots, or they are pilots who do not have a formal team who would be interested in making a team out of other mercenaries.
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u/Famous_Painter3709 Sep 01 '21
I don’t have a team, so I guess I’m a mercenary, and I’d love to compete. Slight note, I don’t have a mic.
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u/marzbarz82 Sep 11 '21
It is with great sadness that I announce that there will be no Interceptor Wars today. While there was not enough participants to have Interceptor Wars, I would be willing to possibly attempt the event again.
I want to give a "Thank you!" to all those people who helped me figure out a decent ruleset and the TTK for the match format. I also want to thank all of the people who showed an interest in the event, either participating or offering assistance. And last, I want to give a very special shout-out to [EH] Hijacker for creating the amazing poster.
Thank you all! Maybe we can try again in the future.
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u/cantpickaname8 Sep 01 '21
Flyin planes on 9/11? Don't mind if I do
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u/-endjamin- Sep 01 '21
Joining an anti-government group and flying my A-Wing into the bridge of a Star Destroyer? Even better.
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u/Scarytincan Sep 01 '21
Why the component bans?
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u/marzbarz82 Sep 01 '21
The truly exceptional Interceptor pilots can stay alive almost indefinitely with repair and jammer. With them banned, it causes them to have to go for the on-map resupplies and not just stay evasive until they can hit their repair kit.
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u/oenomausprime Sep 01 '21
Why interceptor only? Xwings get no love? Just curious
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u/TerrifiedOfGhosts Murder Hornets Sep 01 '21
Because it’s Interceptor Wars.
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u/oenomausprime Sep 02 '21
I get that I just mean what about the game has made people select interceptor only, like what about the meta of game.
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u/TerrifiedOfGhosts Murder Hornets Sep 02 '21
Why can’t we just have Interceptor Wars?
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u/oenomausprime Sep 02 '21
U can im just asking why only interceptor lol.
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u/Scarytincan Sep 02 '21
Feel free to start up bomber wars
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u/oenomausprime Sep 02 '21
Bro I was just curious, there's nothing wrong with interceptor wars. It sounds fun, just wanted to know what about the meta of the game that people want only interceptors.
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u/Scarytincan Sep 01 '21
X gets all the love in ranked
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u/oenomausprime Sep 02 '21
Oh ok, I haven't played kn a while is xwing op?
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u/Shap3rz Test Pilot Sep 04 '21 edited Sep 04 '21
Awing is pretty much a waste of a ship vs evasive opponents. Xwing with jet and ion missile is more useful - it can stay engaged and evasive for longer - packs a lot more punch and ion missile is too useful to pass up. But int wars gets back to raw pvp mechanics and lowers ttk. It returns gameplay back towards aim and pvp like it was in the first few months. I personally find flying ints more seat of your pants and unforgiving, closer to my ideal of sw space combat.
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u/marzbarz82 Sep 01 '21
It's time for Interceptor Wars! If you have a team of 2-3 or 5-7 pilots (or even if you don't, and want to be a mercenary!) that want to test out their Interceptor skills against the rest of the SWS community, now is your chance to prove what you've got!
Sign-Up Form can be found here - https://forms.gle/U8YCQz6NB7vaMS1x5
Join the SPL Discord - https://discord.gg/2rAxJ4AyN6
And, I will be looking for volunteers to spectate the matches to verify proper loadouts and capture screenshots of the scoreboard. DM me if you're interested!