This is going to be a fairly lengthy post given the refinement of the topic and discoveries of major roadblocks and interactions along with additional evidence for reference to. This will likely be fairly disjointed with no proper links between subtopics
Disclaimer out of the way - let’s begin with the big one.
1. Progression and Gear
Destroyer progression has been extremely difficult in comparison to standard ships for a very long time - more specifically since Destroyer modules, weapons and modifiers were split into components with the trade update. Although standard progression is now just as bad (this discussion can be had another time), Destroyers are still in a far more difficult spot with new Destroyers owners being met with this:
There are a total of no purchasable Destroyer modules for credits - leaving new Destroyer owners with no option for outfitting their fresh Destroyer. This is problematic for multiple reasons - such as:
- Fresh Destroyer users in PvP will be unable to help their team or keep up with the objective
- Fresh Destroyer users have no viable way to defend themselves in Open Space or PvE
- Fresh Destroyer users are given the worst Destroyer weapon in the game - leaving them nearly defenseless due to how the Ai interacts with radiation of Halo Launcher if attempting to farm modules
This problem only gets worse with the ranks as with rank 8 Destroyers there are only two modules unable to be obtained via Open Space - this leaves new players with the option to either:
A) Farm for their modules via Open Space with no modules and the Halo Launcher
B) Neglect usage of their Destroyer
This can be extremely tedious to work around due to both the horrendous drop rates of specific modules in Open Space and their effort in obtaining the ship being effectively nullified.
There is also a secondary issue with being forced to grind so heavily for what is effectively mandatory for ship usage - players are severely restricted when it comes to freedom of choice and time investment. What I mean by this is that players new to the class will often simply search for what is the “best in slot” and go for those choices rather than trying out every option and making up their own setup; leading to excessive usage of the “best in slot” or “meta” choices and restricting PvP setups/counters are the majority of users will be running the same or extremely similar loadouts.
So how can this be fixed?
Quite simply - roll back the Open Space acquisition method and allow for the following modules to be purchasable for credits:
- Blaster Turret
- Plasma Turret
- Multiphase Shield
- Pyro Emitter
In an ideal world however - all modules would be available for credits as to allow for new players to experiment with every module and weapon and design a loadout that best suits them rather than either using the “free loadout” or the “best in slot” loadout.
What else could be improved?
The acquisition method of the weapon and module components is severely limiting, even as an experienced player - chasing down one specific component via the daily Iridium containers is extremely tedious and more often than not it is easier to simply sell off resources such as Monocrystals and Xenocrystals to purchase the component outright via trading.
Although Destroyer weapons, modules and modifiers were split up to give purpose to the trade economy - trading itself has effectively nullified the value of the Iridium containers as often the amount of Iridium spent attempting to obtain a full set of components for one item could be used to purchase rare resources which could be traded for a built version of the item instead.
Ideally - a simple solution for this would simply be to remove the Iridium containers and the associated parts and compensate owners of the nullified components with credits/iridium and allow for all equipment to be purchasable via credits as they were in the past.
With so many different tradeable resources the removal of the individual components should not affect the economy too heavily with the exception of components of the “best in slot” equipment.
In reality - with how overcomplicated new ship deployments have been - if all modules, modifiers and weapons were given the same treatment and allowed for purchase via credits there would still be over 70 valid unique trade listings and potential of several more if the Tornado and Raven are given permanent releases.
2. Mobility
A long standing issue since the very first nerf of the “Federation Router” and global Destroyer mobility has been traversal of larger maps and keeping up with objectives. This has only been further reinforced with the increase of the speed cap and addition of the Ellydium faction as the Destroyer “Ze’ta” has claimed the crown as the most mobile Destroyer in the game; completely undoing the purpose of the Federation’s faction identity.
Ze’ta dillemmas aside - all Destroyers have been suffering via mobility for multiple reasons;
- Unique warp speed cap of 500m/s
- Warp gates with low speed leaves Destroyers vulnerable to attack via Interceptors and Fighters
- Low base speed has made the usage of wormhole projector effectively mandatory, limiting freedom of choice for module slots even further
So how could this be fixed and what evidence is there?
The first and most important change that needs to be made is to allow Destroyers to travel via Warp gates at 2000m/s like all other classes. This will prevent allied deaths due to Destroyers using Warp gates, allow for traversal of larger maps (Iridium strand, Derelict Stronghold) without remaining at risk of close range attackers and allow for the warp gates of Engineers to be used with severe penalty or risk.
Evidence set 1: Iridium strand, from spawn to Beacon C (left side spawn), no wormhole or teleport sphere
- Ze’ta (no speed modifiers, fast swarm, 269m/s) : 1 minute 14 seconds
- Sirius (speed modifiers, Fed router, 323m/s) : 1 minute 6 seconds
- Tyrant (no speed modifiers or penalties, 123m/s) : 2 minutes 3 seconds
- Vigilant (Armour plated + Galva hull, 113m/s) : 2 minutes 11 seconds
This is the time it takes for a Destroyer of varying setup degrees to both spawn and reach beacon C - this route is to simulate heading to a beacon to either head off an engineer fortifying the location or travelling throughout the map (B is the same distance roughly as C from spawn) without the usage of the wormhole projector. To highlight how much time is spent in warp however:
- Dragon (max synergy, armour plated + lightweight, 267m/s, no module use): 55 seconds
This Dragon is setup with a speed similar to the Ze’ta at 267m/s with Ze’ta having the speed of 269m/s but manages to cut off 19 seconds of warping which if the missing 2m/s was added would be closer to 20/21 seconds.
This evidence explained, it would be beneficial to Destroyer players on larger maps to have standard warp speed as despite only being a difference of 19 seconds - it can be a difference of arriving at a beacon in time to fend off attackers or being able to contribute to the capture or defence of the beacon.
To counter the argument of ship choice however - with the mode and map of PvP being random; the possibility of a player having slotted 4 Destroyers and being given a large map with a mobility based objective mode such as beacon hunt is very possible. Players who are subject to such a situation should not be practically forced to sit out of a battle because their ship class is so heavily penalised in movement.
As for mobility issues of vanilla Destroyers however:
Let me just throw the suggestion initially pushed to, accepted and forwarded via the “Community Balance Server” which never saw implementation.
Increase base speed of Jericho Destroyers to 160m/s (from 102m/s)
Increase afterburner speed of Jericho Destroyers to 192m/s (from 123m/s)
Increase acceleration of Jericho Destroyers to 17m/s from 11.3m/s)
Increase base speed of Empire Destroyers to 144m/s (from 102m/s)
Increase afterburner speed of Empire Destroyers to 172m/s (from 123m/s)
Increase acceleration of Empire Destroyers to 17m/s (from 11.3m/s)
Increase base speed of Federation Destroyers to 176m/s (from 135/s)
Increase afterburner speed of Federation Destroyers to 211.2m/s (from 162m/s)
Increase acceleration of Federation Destroyers to 17m/s (from 11.3m/s)
This suggestion was aimed to:
- Only increase the mobility floor of Vanilla Destroyers, not Ze’ta
- Implement the faction speed differences
- Currently all Destroyers share the same base speed regardless of faction with the exemption of Ze’ta
- Allow for Destroyers to attend “escort” PvE objectives in Open Space and PvE scenarioes more freely
- Allow for faster Destroyer movement, potentially allowing for wormhole projector to no longer be classes as mandatory regardless of map size
3. Damage Intake and Output
The core issue with current Destroyers, large enough to even plague the “Ze’ta”. All Destroyers take 2.5x increased damage from all sources within 1000m - this includes module destruction. The key part of this subtopic is going to be addressing the removal of module destruction, EHP changes to compensate and the removal of the “danger zone”.
Module Destruction
Module destruction currently is one of the core offenders when it comes to the invalidation of the vanilla Destroyer lineup as it is possible to take up to 99,000 damage as a result of module and component death. This damage cannot be reduced in any way, shape or form as it is “true damage” and ignores resistances.
So why does this need to be removed?
Destroyers have always been extremely vulnerable at close range due to how the camera functions on Destroyers regardless of mode and makes it near impossible to track a target directly below or above you and literally impossible to track a target orbitting you. Module destruction makes a close quarters scenario a near guaranteed death with the sustained damage from per say, a plasma arc or “sting” overdrive being high enough to allow the attacking ship to kill the Destroyer by simply shooting under it’s shields and attacking the remaining hull capacity directly. Coupled with various bugs, Ai interactions (over-aggressiveness) and a respawn time for modules so high it is faster to simply die outright and respawn the entire ship; it is simply too penalising for Destroyer players when coupled with other penalties.
The “Danger Zone” (close range co-efficient)
This modifier was responsible for the death of the class upon initial release with personal experience of the PvP population dropping to the point where instead of seeing 5-6 players with Destroyers in their lineup per game, you would be lucky to see 1 enemy destroyer every 2-3 games.
This modifier which is currently at 2.5x damage intake is responsible for Ze’ta taking the crown as the only viable Destroyer as it is the only Destroyer mobile enough to escape any attacker able to enter the 1,000m radius and potentially fight them off successfully.
For example of how much this field has harmed the regular Destroyer lineup
- Self damage from Photon when coupled with the high explosive modifer pushes damage up from the base 9035 EM damage to 32,552 EM damage
- A singular EM torpedo goes from 17,433 to 30,508 just from the explosive modifier to 76,269 within the close range co-efficient.
- Singularity cannon (Mk5, Rank 17) goes from 2974 to 5205 just from the explosive modifier to 13,011 within the close range co-efficient.
- A single firestorm missile (rank 17, no implants or bonus) goes from 2,320 to 4060 just from the explosive modifier to 10,150 within the close range co-efficient.
- A total volley of firestorm missiles (rank 17, no implants or bonus) goes from 11,600 to 20,300 just from the explosive modifier to 50,750 within the close range co-efficient.
If it isn’t apparent already, the burst DPS potential against Destroyer players is absolutely insane within this field with weapons that have a base of close to 3,000 damage are boosted beyond 10,000 damage due to overlapping modifiers for incoming damage with the damage potentials from pure explosive setups being able to kill some lower rank Destroyers within seconds and even Ze’tas with only a little more effort.
So what would need to change after this modifier is removed?
First of all - the EHP (total shield and hull) will need to be severely adjusted. The main mindset Destroyer players currently have to take into battle is that they have an extremely large amount of temporary health with module Destructions being responsible for this ideology. With both module destruction and the close range co-efficient out of the picture the damage intake is down significantly - which with this in mind the hull capacity on average should be reduced by 33-50% to both compensate for an average increased time to kill, keeping class discrepancy in line (guards are able to push 45,000 shield total without penalising resistances) and compensate for the significantly larger hitbox.
With this in mind potential hull numbers for Destroyers may be closer to:
Federation
- Procyon: 40,500 (+4,250 max rank)
- Antares: 50,625 (+4,625 max rank)
- Sirius: 59,484 (+3,000 max rank)
Jericho
- Archon: 36,450 (+4,250 max rank)
- Sibyl: 45,563 (+4,625 max rank)
- Tyrant: 53,536 (+3,000 max rank)
Empire
- Invincible:46,575 (+4,250 max rank)
- Brave: 58,219 (+4,625 max rank)
- Vigilant: 68,407(+3,000 max rank)
These numbers are of course only a suggestion - they are without up for debate as these are proposed with these factors in mind:
- Hitbox compensation (inability to dodge)
- No module destruction hull loss (due to removal of the mechanic)
- Severely reduced incoming damage (due to removal of the close range co-efficient)
Numbers were found with roughly 3,500 incoming DPS
Faction identity were given via Federation as a baseline, Jericho with -10% hull, Empire with +15% hull. The extremes of the regular ship tree would be far from ideal to match for identities as the Jericho penalty would allow for insanely fast kills via slipping under shields akin to the current time to kill issues with the current iteration of Destroyers.
With damage input out of the way, it is time to address damage output as one issue with Destroyers in current iteration is they are simply not balanced with having more than one on field in mind with extreme AoE and DPS capabilities being blown out of proportion in objective based modes (beacon hunt, domination, sector conquest).
With the capability to survive close range engagements being possible thanks to the removal of module/component destruction and the close range co-efficient the average damage output of Destroyers should not be as high so as to allow for more than one Destroyer to be present on field without slowing down the game extremely due to excessive damage output capability.
With this in mind, here are some potential adjustments for most weapons that would allow for them to mimic only marginally higher damage output than per say, a Long Range Frigate
- Coilgun
- Rank 7-11: 1,501 damage
- Rank 10-14: 1,551 damage
- Rank 13-17: 1,601 damage
- Meson Cannon
- Rank 7-11: 650 damage
- Rank 10-14: 702 damage
- Rank 13-17: 723 damage
- ‘Halo’ Launcher
- Rank 7-11: 3,026 damage → Radiation range reduced to 125m, Increase projectile speed to 2,250m/s
- Rank 10-14: 3,182 damage → Radiation range reduced to 125m, Increase projectile speed to 2,250m/s
- Rank 13-17: 3,307 damage → Radiation range reduced to 125m, Increase projectile speed to 2,250m/s
- G’thar’du Cannon
- Rank 7-11: 2,649 damage → 650 DoT damage
- Rank 10-14: 2,844 damage → 767 DoT damage
- Rank 12-17: 3,038 damage → 883 DoT damage
- Thermoactive Weapon
- Rank 12-17: 2,322 damage
- Vacuum Resonance Laser
- Rank 12-17: 4,266 damage
- ‘Kai’ Fission Launcher
- Radiation range reduced to 115m
- Plasma Burster
- Remove bonus Destroyer damage
- Reduce cloud radius to 115m
- Reduce cloud duration to 2 seconds
- Reduce range to 4,400m
Okay, now with main weapon damage output out of the way - some problematic modules would need to be addressed to allow for more than one Destroyer to be on field without drastically slowing down the gameplay. There shouldn’t need to be much explanation on the reason given the topic of the modules.
- Gravitational Lens
- Reduce activation range to 4,500m (from 6,000m)
- Reduce active duration to 7 seconds (from 12 seconds)
- Reduce delay to 3 seconds (from 5 seconds)
- Reduce pull range to 1,500m (from 2,200m)
- Rank 7-11: Reduce Destroyer hull damage to 3,431pts/sec, Reduce regular damage to 550pts/sec
- Rank 10-14: Reduce Destroyer hull damage to 4,631pts/sec. Reduce regular damage to 765pts/sec
- Rank 13-17: Reduce Destroyer hull damage to 5,831pts/sec. Reduce regular damage to 877pts/sec
- Pyro Emitter
- Reduce active range to 4500m (from 5400m)
- Rank 7-11: Reduce total thermal damage to 16,510pts, Increase recharge time to 40 seconds
- Rank 10-14: Reduce total thermal damage to 17,630pts. Increase recharge time to 39 seconds
- Rank 13-17: Reduce total thermal damage to 18,550pts. Increase recharge time to 38 seconds
- Reduce active range to 4500m (from 5400m)
- Crystalline Suppressor
- Increase recharge time to 38 seconds (Mk4)
- Devastator Beam
- Reduce active range to 4500m (from 5500m)
- Rank 8-12: Increase beam damage to 2,764pts/sec. Increase recharge time to 43 seconds. Increase intial beam duration to 3.5 seconds.
- Rank 13-17: Increase beam damage to 3,414pts/sec. Increase recharge time to 42 seconds. Increase intial beam duration to 3.5 seconds.
- Reduce active range to 4500m (from 5500m)
Okay that is that. Now post is done. Now it may drown.
