new Sphere design proposal

[Tryptic]

posted on December 7th, 2011, 5:01 am

Last edited by Tryptic on December 7th, 2011, 7:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

I've been working on a new design for the Sphere that is to be both diverse and properly balanced.  I just wanted to show my work and see if the devs are interested in my ideas.

I started with three basic rules:

1. There should be two defensive options for the sphere; one that adds a large amount of hitpoints, and one that grants regeneration abilities.

2. In order to discourage players from going full-defense, these defensive modules should be more expensive than the rest.  Another result of this is that more offense-focused spheres are cheaper, which is acceptable because they are harder to keep alive.

3. To take advantage of the current setup's history of balance tuning, it should be possible to recreate some of the sphere configurations we have now with almost the same cost and stats.

The current module layout looks like this:
Beam Module:    10/10/0
Torp Module:      20/0/0
Prime Module:    15/5/8
H-Beam Module: 0/7/14 (1 allowed per ship)
Regen Module:   7/7/7

The new layout I propose is this:
Beam Module:  10/10/0
Torp Module: 20/0/0
Prime Module: 15/5/8
H-Beam Module: 0/7/14 (2 allowed per ship)
Regen Module: 11/7/3
Integrity Module: 0/20/0 (limited to 2)

In addition, the Regen module will be limited to 2 per sphere but grant its regeneration ability with fewer modules (so 1 Regen module grants 200 energy/second regeneration and 2 modules grant 100 energy/second)

This way, Regen modules allow the ship to regenerate but the ship's system value will be lower than the current sphere unless it is increased by other modules.  You can get the effect of a (current) 3-Regen sphere by using 2 Regen modules and 1 Holding Beam module:

Old 3-Regen/1-Prime:                74/64/67
New 2-Regen/1-Holding/1-Prime: 75/64/66

Old 3-Regen/1-Holding: 59/66/73
New 2-Regen/2-Holding: 60/66/72

Old 2-Beam/2-Regen:                72/72/52
New 2-Beam/1-Regen/1-Holding: 69/72/55

This will allow pretty much every setup we have right now involving 2 or more regen modules by replacing one with a Holding Beam module.

Now, I've shown that Regeneration-based spheres will stay pretty much the same, but what about Integrity spheres? Here are some examples of the new Sphere layouts you could build with this system:
2-Integrity/2-Prime:   68/88/54 (Tactical Sphere)
2-Integrity/2-Beam:   58/98/38 (Max-Hitpoint Sphere)
2-Integrity/2-Holding: 38/92/66 (Assimilation Sphere) without regen
1-Integrity/1-Regen/2-Holding:             49/79/69 (Assimilation Sphere) with regen
1-Integrity/1-Regen/1-Holding/1-Prime: 64/77/63 (Hybrid Sphere)
1-Integrity/1-Regen/2-Prime:                79/75/57 (Hybrid Sphere 2)

The defense values don't look much higher than a Regen sphere, but if you keep in mind that the Defense Value->Hitpoint equation is exponential, it's actually a pretty big difference.  Not to mention, it might be fun to grant some sort of defensive bonus to the Integrity module.

Here are some new "cheap" spheres.  Since they only use one defensive module, they're a few hundred resources cheaper than average:
1-Integrity/3-Prime: 83/73/62 (Soldier Sphere)
1-Regen/2-Holding/1-Prime: 64/74/67 (Bargain Regen Sphere)

Spheres with no defensive modules would be cheaper still, and pack quite a punch.  However, keeping one alive would be difficult since its hitpoints are about the same as a refinery and it can't use Regeneration.
3-Prime/1-Torp: 103/53/62 (RAWR Sphere)
2-Prime/2-Beam: 88/68/54 (Artillery Sphere) (enemies will autotarget the super-regen sphere before this one)

On the other hand, more tanky spheres will cost the player extra:
2-Integrity/1-Regen/1-Holding: 49/92/55 (Vinculum-tank Sphere)
1-Integrity/2-Regen/1-Prime:    73/73/56 (Stone-wall Sphere)

And finally the single most expensive Sphere of all:
2-Integrity/2-Regen: 60/92/44 (Full-tank Sphere)

Note that it still doesn't have much special energy to regenerate which keeps it from being overpowered.


So what do you guys think?  Obviously it's far from being done, but I think the idea is sound: choose either hitpoints or regeneration, cheap attack spheres or expensive, tanky spheres.  It's flexibility in its purest form.

posted on December 7th, 2011, 9:42 am

Any ideas are welcome, but since i rarely play as Borg i find it difficult to estimate what the impact of these changes will be.

posted on December 7th, 2011, 1:21 pm

without getting into too many numbers, a low health fighting sphere is an interesting idea. i'd guess cc would still be a big limiting factor though. as 50 cc is a lot for something that is a glass cannon.

posted on December 8th, 2011, 1:29 am

Maybe have the modules themselves cost CC instead of the chassis?  Or cut the chassis CC cost to a fraction of what it is now and have the other modules increase/decrease it based on the values?