Speed

These are the stats for my 15 slot super battlecarrier (battlecruiser) variant (0.5m armor). These are the stats for the "dreadnought" variant (1m armor). A lot less maneuverable, armor is heavy! Now that torpedoes appear to be nerfed to be less dangerous than mosquitoes, maybe I'll go back to the battlecruiser variant, though I'll have to update it to the latest version by giving it torpedo tubes. The reason I put engines on nacelles is so that the rear of the ship can be reserved for thrusters. That significantly improves manueverability. Furthermore, in front of the engine nacelles I can then put thrusters, which will also be far from the center of gravity and help with pitch, yaw, or both (both, in this case, since there are four nacelles).

That's a beautiful ship, though, it's rather small (which is fine, it just means that you'll have to upgrade from it to a larger ship eventually). However, you did not address the point I make about thruster grids. A thruster grid placed on the centerline can still roll your ship, because it's capable of firing just half the grid. A single thruster block won't help you roll because the entire thing must fire.

not really ;D Why build a boring cube or sphere ship? The game can get boring and monotonous enough, with all enemy ships just exploding like popcorn the instant you target them, even on so-called "Insane" difficulty (unless "Insane" difficulty means "insanely easy", in which case, it's named correctly). Also, a cube ship is really easy to hit as opposed to a ship with a narrow frontal aspect. You are wrong about gyros being better for large ships. No matter what shape your ship is, thrusters will eventually become better once you exceed a certain ship size. It's a scaling law. But yes, I ignore the fact that the game is an incomplete model and play it more like how it might actually work if magic hyperspace drives were actually possible. Because otherwise, you just build a boring derp cube.

I break my directional thrusters up. For example, if I want to make a 12x12x5m thruster, I might use sixteen 3x3x5m thrusters. The idea is that a single shot cannot destroy all the thrusters (at the cost of making each one of them a bit easier to destroy). But this has an additional benefit: even when placed on the craft's centerline, they can provide roll, because half of the thrusters are on each axial side. Basically, when I roll, the appropriate half of the grid will fire. I also place A LOT of thrusters on my big vessels in order to give them the maneuverability I desire, and I place the thrusters behind an armored grid, which blocks incoming fire from almost all directions. This is my 15 slot super battlecarrier. I am no artist, I can't even begin to conceive how some people are able to create many of the insanely detailed and beautiful ship designs I've seen. This is the best I can do. (Also, I believe in utilitarian design over beauty.)

This probably has been discussed before on these boards, but then again, these boards are kind of low traffic, so maybe not. In case you were ever wondering the mathematical reason bigger ships turn slower (I was). I did a little bit of investigation; I looked up the dependency of moment of inertia to radius (moment of inertia is the amount of torque you have to apply to a 3d object to get a certain angular acceleration) and I realized that moment of inertia scales by the radius to the FIFTH power. Meanwhile, the torque provided by thrusters in Avorion scales by the fourth power of radius, because the amount of force a thruster produces is proportional to its volume (radius to the third), while the amount of torque it provides is proportional to its distance from the center of gravity (radius to the first). Radius^3 * Radius^1 = Radius^4. The torque provided by gyro arrays in Avorion will scale by radius to the third (because the torque they produce is proportional to volume only). So the take-aways are these: 1)For a ship shape that relies solely on thrusters for maneuverability, doubling its dimensions will reduce its maneuverability by 2. 2)For a ship shape that relies solely on gyro arrays for maneuverability, doubling its dimensions will reduce its maneuverability by 4. 3)Therefore, gyro arrays are essentially useless for large ships. 4)And conversely (and not so intuitively), there is ship size range below which gyro arrays are (in general) vastly better than thrusters! What I don't know is if that size range is larger than the smallest practical ship size. That depends on how the game is balanced, and what exactly the ship's shape is. 1-3, at least, are what we intuitively expect. Anyway, actually knowing the math allows me to make better-informed decisions for ship design. Personally, I already load up my huge ships with massive quantities of directional thrusters already, though I also use a small number of gyro arrays. I may just eliminate the gyro arrays entirely now. I had already noticed they did next-to-nothing... now I know why.

I also found a turret factory turret in the current build that doesn't follow the rules I showed above. So whatever the bug is, it doesn't appear to be consistent, maybe that's why it went unnoticed by the dev.

Here's an example with a faster-firing weapon (so that there is less rounding error) at three different points as you vary the number of servos. First, here is the turret with reduced servos until it no longer overheats. The turret is a triple turret, so the number of barrels is 3. Using the non-overheating turret formula, DPS = Nb * D * R where Nb is the number of barrels (i.e., double, triple, quad), D is the damage, and R is the fire rate, the DPS should be: Nb*D*R = 3*2640.4*1.5 = 11881.8 (Yes, I know many of you believe the number of barrels to be meaningless, but please stay with me on this...) However, the displayed DPS is VERY close to 1/3 of that value, suggesting that the number of barrels is meaningless: Dispalyed DPS = 3913.9 11882/3 (or simply 2640.4*1.5) = 3960.6 I believe that the difference between these two numbers is caused by rounding error on the firing rate. The actual firing rate of the weapon is probably 3913.9/2640.4 = 1.482, which of course would round up to the displayed value of 1.5. NOW, I add just ONE more servo so that the weapon now can overheat, and the displayed DPS jumps by a factor of 3!: Now that the turret overheats, I will use the overheating turret formula: DPS = Nb * D * R * Ft / (Ft + Ct) where Ft is the continuous firing time, and Ct is the cooldown time. So I calculate the turret should have a DPS of: DPS = Nb * D * R * Ft / (Ft + Ct) = 3*2640.4*1.7*104.2/(104.2+5.6) = 12779.25 which matches the in-game displayed value 12534.7 pretty closely. Again, the difference is probably caused by rounding error on the displayed firing rate. Finally, this is what the turret looks like with the maximum number of servos: As you can see, now that the weapon is cooldown-limited, increasing the number of servos only increases the burst DPS; it doesn't affect the weapon's average damage over time (which is the displayed value). So calculating the DPS in this scenario, I get: DPS = Nb * D * R * Ft / (Ft + Ct) = 3*2640.4*3.7*4.2/(4.2+5.6) = 12560.76 which is significantly closer the the in-game displayed value of 12534.7. Again, the difference is probably caused by rounding error. So I ask again: What is the turret's actual DPS? Because it seems very unlikely to me that switching a turret from non-cooldown to cooldown should suddenly cause the DPS to increase by the a factor equal to the number of barrels the weapon has. (If it DOES, then that itself it likely a bug). Based on my gameplay experience, I think that most likely, the number of barrels is meaningless and the displayed DPS value for any turret with a cooldown is incorrect by a factor equal to the number of barrels. Slightly less likely to me is that the number of barrels DOES matter and the displayed DPS values for turrets without a cooldown is wrong.

The overheat values seem "outlandish" (as in, it takes a very long time for the weapon to overheat) because the turret is a normal, overheating turret, with the number of servos reduced (thereby reducing the fire rate) until the weapon no longer overheats. Those screenshots show the boundary behavior of the in-game DPS calculations, right at the boundary between the weapon eventually overheating, and it shooting so slow that it never overheats. As you vary the number of servos, there should not be a discontinuity in the DPS value, but there IS a discontinuity, by a factor of the number of barrels the turret has, and it occurs right when it becomes possible for the turret to overheat.

Just look at my example I give the screenshots for. Just run the numbers. I can post a better example (where there is less rounding error) but "double", "triple", or "quad" clearly multiplies the DPS in the turret tooltip by 2, 3, or 4, but apparently only if the turret has a cooldown. So is the tooltip wrong or does the DPS really increase?!

But that's not correct, because they are NOT just names. Double, triple, or quad appears to multiply the turret DPS by 2X, 3X, or 4X respectively, at least for turrets that have a cooldown period. Not sure about turrets without a cooldown period. The question is, does it ACTUALLY increase the DPS, or is the DPS tooltip wrong?

I guess I don't understand how the DPS of a turret with multiple barrels (or possibly, a cooldown) calculated. If a turret is a "Quad" <whatever> turret, do you multiply the base damage by 4X, for example? The DPS shown on turrets would suggest that is the case. HOWEVER, there used to be (maybe still are?) turrets that would show their damage as something like "2X39". If, for example, on a quad turret, the damage should be multiplied by 4, why does it not say "4X<damage>"? Also, I did an experiment with a turret that was a quad turret. It was some obscene quad bolter that supposedly did 8k DPS (2k dps per barrel). However, the amount of damage it actually did suggested to me that the turret did NOT do quad damage, it did single-barrel damage (i.e., it felt more like a 2k dps turret). I thought I understood turret DPS on turrets with cooldowns. I THOUGHT that the turret DPS was this: DPS = Nb * D * R Where Nb is the number of barrels (i.e., double, triple, quad), D is the damage, and R is the fire rate. For weapons with cooldown, I thought that this would be the formula for DPS: DPS = Nb * D * R * Ft / (Ft + Ct) where Ft is the continuous firing time, and Ct is the cooldown time. This appeared to match the DPS shown on the turret when I would mouse over it. Though again, I am not confident that a "quad" turret actually multiplies your damage by 4. ANYWAY, so I came across this just now and realized I really have NFC how DPS is calculated or how much DPS a turret really does. See this railgun? It is a triple railgun with no cooldown. Its DPS should be 3*1263.1*0.6 = 2274. However, the DPS shown on the tooltip is about 1/3 of that value (I assume the reason it's not exactly 1/3 of the value is that there is a rounding error on the firing rate, which is actually something like 0.62). Now, I take that exact same turret, and simply add an additional servo: WTF? Now the DPS is 2712?! The DPS ought to be: 3*1263.1*0.7*(513.7/(513.7+8.3)) = 2610. That is reasonably close, again, possibly the difference is rounding error on the firing rate of 0.7. (Edit: In case it wasn't clear, the confusing part is that the DPS was only 1/3 of this value with ONE less servo (and no cooldown). Does the number of barrels only matter when the turret has a cooldown?!) So in short: 1) How do you calculate the DPS of weapons with multiple barrels? Do you multiply by the number of barrels, and if so, why do weapons with multiple barrels not say, like, "4X139.1"? 2)How do you calculate the DPS of turrets with cooldowns? Is my formula correct? I mean, my formula is the common-sense approach, but... 3) As we see from the example above, the common-sense approach fails to correctly predict the turret DPS sometimes. Thanks for any help you guys can give.

You have some decent ideas, definitely torpedoes are launched too quickly at players warping into sectors and pirates do seem to be too well equipped early in the game vs later in the game. However, I think that the early-game vs. late game issue you mentioned isn't because the early game is too hard, it's because the late game is too easy. "Insane" difficulty should be hard, but it's a joke. I understand that the developer doesn't want the game to get "too hard"... and I would share his concern if there wasn't a difficulty slider and if the game wasn't already vastly too easy. A few of your ideas might make gameplay sense but they don't make logical sense. While it could be argued that you shouldn't let logic get in the way of good game design, one would think that in the age of interstellar travel, a guidance system for a torpedo would be very simple and cheap to make, so all torpedoes would have some form of guidance. Also, torpedoes exploding in the tubes or in the torpedo hold for full damage due to damage incurred on the blocks holding them would make sense for antimatter weapons (which aren't in the game last I checked...) but it doesn't make sense for nuclear or kinetic weapons. Nukes won't explode high-yield unless they are triggered correctly (IRL, most likely only the chemical explosives would release any energy), and the reason kinetic weapons shouldn't do full damage is obvious... I guess MAYBE the fuel could be explosive. I can't comment on the fictional warhead types. It does bring up an interesting point for gameplay. What if some torpedoes types could detonate in the torpedo hold if the hold is damaged, while other types (like kinetic or nuclear) wouldn't explode? Could make some of the torpedo choices more meaningful. Funny. I also just started a fresh game and I ALSO had a heck of a time finding turret upgrade systems. Wonder if the drop rate was nerfed?

Two problems that currently negatively impact gameplay are the ridiculously overpowered turrets that can be created at turret factories, and the fact that found/researched/bought turrets are worthless by comparison. I play only at "Insane" difficulty, and the game is so easy it's a joke! As many others have mentioned, found turrets are nothing but vendor trash, so when those drop, I never look at them. So, what if we make it so that players cannot create original turrets at the turret factories? Players would only be able to create copies of turrets they have found, bought, or researched (or been traded, I guess, though I haven't considered the multiplayer implications yet). It could work similarly to fighters, except you would need crafting materials. So, a player could destroy ("reverse engineer") a turret in their inventory to make a turret "blue print". Higher rarity turrets could simply require more materials and credits than lower rarity turrets. With this change, players would actually care about dropped turrets throughout the entire game, not just at the beginning. The game would no longer be quite as obscenely easy. AND it would leave the turret-building economy intact! It would make the game more fun because it wouldn't be so stupidly easy anymore, AND now you would get excited every time you saw a turret drop off an enemy.

As far as I can tell, the only point of them seems to be to allow you to get Ogonite before you cross the hyperspace barrier.

DOH! I THINK I figured out the problem. I had that stupid smuggler cargo buried in my hold and forgot all about it. Jettisoned now.

Actually, I'm getting both messages- I get scanned and the space police try to screw me, and I also get the message that says I've been scanned and I have a legal permit.

Do I have to buy a new permit for every faction I come across? I jumped into a new faction's space, searching for the last components I need for my turrets and here come the space police, trying to steal my cargo and fine me. WTF. I take a huge faction rep hit and jump out. Yes, I had the permit installed but I bought it from another faction. The whole idea of dangerous cargo is idiotic unless it's like antimatter or Von Nuemann nanobots or something. A starship can slag a planet from orbit, or just crash into a planet and also nearly slag it. Yet, I get fined for hauling around CHLORINE?!?! I can make chlorine gas in my garage IRL, FFS!!! Compared to a starship, chlorine is about as hazardous as kool-aid. Much, much less so, actually. Wouldn't the best mod for this be something that just disables scanning altogether? It's clearly an incomplete feature and should never have been partly implemented...