Torpedos are OP, persecutors need buff, energy suppressors should be changed

[Rinart73]

I'm currently playing on Insane difficulty on Rusty's server. Persecutors and torpedos mechanics were new to me, because I haven't played in a while. So here is my feedback and suggestions:

 

Torpedos

Torpedos completely broke the balance. They deal INSANE damage.

In the past battles were slow. You tried to make them dynamic and that's not an easy task. Currently battles in early to midgame are oneshot and that's not great.

In early to mid game you don't have a way to deal with torpedos. You don't have the money and slots to equip anti-torpedo turrets.

Also I haven't seen NPCs that can dodge or counter torpedos. Which made battles insanely easy because I can just keep a distance and oneshot enemy ships that would easilly kill me in fair combat.

 

Persecutors

Persecutors is a  great idea except that you can back-forth from one sector to another until they will give up. Of couse, warp has a cooldown, but this cooldown depends on your ship size. So.. make a small ship and rush to the center, persecutors will be annoying but that's it. Just warp again and again until they give up.

Also, generally NPC ships are slow. So you can just warp, fly as far as you can in sector, warp again..

 

Energy Signature Suppressors

They hide you from persecutors but not from pirates? Why they even hide you from persecutors, it's just nullifies the whole point of them. Maybe instead they could hide you from pirates or xsotan, so you could pay and focus on farming if your ship is strong.

[Ravien]

Keep in mind Rusty's servers are heavily modded and offer a very different play experience compared to the default game.

[DivineEvil]

- If you don't have money or slots for anti-torpedo turret, then what in the world do you have? All PD turrets are dirt cheap and take one slot, and almost completely protect you at least from a single torpedo ship. If you can't afford that, then you're really in no position to stay near the torpedo-yielding enemies. I've never had issues with torpedoes with just two PD turrets on board all the way to Trinium stage or so. NPCs can counter torpedoes if they spawn with a corresponding PD armament. They can be easily destroyed, but you pay for every torpedo you use.

 

- And? Persecutors prevent you from doing stuff in the sector. That's plenty.

 

- As far as I'm aware, Energy Signature Suppressors do hide you from pirates and Xsotans, but they do not hide NPCs, so in sectors owned by a faction pirates and Xsotans will come, but they will ignore just you until you attack them directly. At least that's how far my experience gone with these.

[Rinart73]

- As far as I'm aware, Energy Signature Suppressors do hide you from pirates and Xsotans

I looked at the code, otherwise I wouldn't post this.  Energy Signature Suppressors protect you ONLY from persecutors.

[Devious]

Rusty's damage and difficulty scaling only really kicks in from trinium area, that could explain why they are less useful beyond that point but is not related to the fact that it is the vanilla mechanic that makes them so overpowered, especially early on.

Any experienced player can work it's way around the cost of using them, as credits don't really hold their value in a game full of exploitable features.

 

I think it would be cool to be able to build torpedoes like you can with turrets, so you have to put in the effort of collecting the goods before being able to use them in great supply.