Balancing OH Hammer

[Clay_Pigeon]

So after a hilarious game vs spidey today where Hammer 3 OH sbs DESTROYED all things Giga, I decided to try to identify where Hammer 1/2/3 feels out of sync with the other AB weapons. I looked at a scenario where a 0 kb bomber in a 1.0 missile dmg faction kills a basic techbase (with 1.0 station shields hull). AB 1/2/3 requires 5/4/4 missiles to kill the base. Hammer 1/2/3 requires 84/50/36 shots to kill the base.

When looking at the case of basic bombers, OH is pretty in sync with the other factions

Taking into account loading times, AB 1/2/3 kills the base in 21/12/9 seconds.
Assuming the OH bomber doesn't have a reload in the middle, Hammer 1/2/3 kills the base in 21/12.5/9 seconds.

AB Hammer was obviously[?] rigged to be equivalent to AB missiles in this scenario.

Stealth bombers are radically different however.

With 2 abs per rack, reload times really hamper time-to-kill on missile-bearing sbs. In addition to that, most bombers are eyed once they mount their missiles, while OH bombers are eyed when they begin firing. In the case of missile-bearing SBS, they are usually eyed when they mount missiles, so I added that initial 8-9 second loading time to the time to kill. OH sbs carry 300 ammo per clip. This works out to about 37 shots per clip. Unlike regular bombers, I have to take reload times into account (I just can't divide the # of shots by 4 to how many seconds it takes to fire those shots), but I don't have to worry about getting eyed early. OH SBS are eyed when they start firing.

AB 1/2/3 requires 35/26/22 seconds to kill the techbase.
Hammer 1/2/3 requires 31/17.5/9 seconds to kill a techbase.

Well there's your problem! Hammer is balanced for regular bombers, not SBS.

So, how can we bring them into line. One option is to make a separate AB weapon for SBS. I kind of think that idea is lame, since the such a new weapon would probably be in the Tac tree. So let's try to do this using our existing equipment

Reducing clip size helps, but you have to reduce it enough to force the pilot to reload more often. Reducing the clip to 200 ammo (25 shots) gives Hammer 1 and 3 an extra reload, but not Hammer 2. TTK times become 36/17.5/14 seconds. Reducing it farther to 150 kills Hammer 1 (41 seconds) and gives Hammer 2 an extra reload (22.5 seconds), but does nothing to Hammer 3.

So what else can be do? One idea is to increase ammo consumption on Hammer 2/3 to force additional reloads for sbs (while having a minimal impact on reg bombers). Could a mountable gun also result in a sig increase? That would get the SBS eyed earlier, increasing TTK.

Ideas?
-T

[cashto]

QUOTE So what else can be do?[/quote]

Go the Rix/TF route and make Hammer a PE or EW weapon? Make it so bombers have plenty of energy to kill a techbase, but stealth bombers (which are typically at half energy due to cloak) have it low enough for energy recharge to be a limiting factor?

QUOTE I don't think OH needs a nerf.[/quote]WAT?

[zombywoof]

I don't think OH needs a nerf.

EDIT: to clarify, I'm not saying that what CP is saying is wrong, I'm simply saying that while it is slightly out of line I don't think it is something that necessarily needs to be changed. Rix SBs are more powerful and rix is an all around better faction, yet we're not talking about nerfing those SBs.

[juckto]

QUOTE Could a mountable gun also result in a sig increase?[/quote]
No.

One thing to consider is making the hammer energy dependant. Or even ammo and energy - give the bomber heaps of energy and balance it via ammo supply, and give the sb lots of ammo and balance it via energy supply.

[NightRychune]

I don't think anything drastic needs to be done here. AB Hammer is a weapon unique to OH, and as such should have its own unique benefit to being used - being able to kill bases faster with it seems fair, and it can be very easily changed by tweaking ammo per rack, ammo consumption, damage, rate of fire, or really any aspect of the weapon. I don't think there's any need to do anything fancy with it, and personally I'm not convinced that it's overpowered to the extent that it's broken - especially considering OH is most certainly not superior to all other factions by leaps and bounds simply because they can kill bases faster.

[Broodwich]

yeah really, barely killing an adv techbase with 4 hammer2 sbs is not something i really consider op. plus considering this was a tac v tac game, with both teams having sup at one point, the reason oh won had nothing to do with their sbs.
an ammo nerf to their sbs would be pretty easy and painless though

[Clay_Pigeon]

I don't think Hammer itself is a problem. More I'm thinking that mounting Hammer on SBs is the problem. Making Hammer PE may help, since you have to manage nrg better. Most of the time, I just make sure I have enough juice to make it to the base since my primary weapon is PW and I'm not eyed until I start firing.

And/Or you could make it so that SBS only mount hammer as a turret, at least requiring some teamwork and reducing the overall # of sbs in play.

And/Or untying AB missile tech to Hammer when docked, so that OH at least has to shell out the cash for it.

[Xeretov]

I see spidey finally did that OH Suptical game I had been bugging him about! Following some complaints about hammer a little while back I put it on the list of topics to look at for CC_10.

Here was my comment from the last time complaints came up:

QUOTE (Xeretov @ May 10 2010, 05:36 PM) Hammer 1 is fine. Hammer 2 and 3 should be toned down a bit.

Hammer 3 would be fine if it did the current Hammer 2 damage (which is roughly equivalent to AB3 missiles). Right now Hammer 3 does more damage than even TF AB3 and has almost twice the range (range being the reason TF has high damage AB cannons) which is excessive.

For those of you wanting some comparison numbers, here they are from some crunching I did. These are just the flat numbers and don't fully take into account missile salvo/burst or Rix's special damage class for Stinger:
QUOTE Net Damage per Second (dps) output for each weapon:

Note: Since Rix Stinger1 is equivalent (dps wise) to a salvo of 6 AB1 missiles, that is the DPS value I used for AB missiles to compare.

SRM AB1: 24K / 25s = 960 dps
SRM AB2: 30K / 25s = 1200 dps
SRM AB3: 30K / 20s = 1500 dps

Stinger1: 480 (x2 on a Rix bomber) = 960 dps
Stinger2: 800 (x2 on a Rix bomber) = 1600 dps

TF A-B 1: 666 (x2 on a TF bomber) = 1333 dps
TF A-B 2: 833 (x2 on a TF bomber) = 1667 dps
TF A-B 3: 1000 (x2 on a TF bomber) = 2000 dps

Hammer 1: 960 (x1 on an OH bomber) = 960 dps
Hammer 2: 1600 dps (x1 on an OH bomber) = 1600 dps
Hammer 3: 2240 dps (x1 on an OH bomber) = 2240 dps[/quote]
My idea for CC_10 was to change Hammer 3 to do Hammer 2's current damage, and change Hammer 2 to do a bit more than AB2 missiles (about 1250 or 1300 dmg/sec) to compensate for the lack of burst damage.

The 300 ammo per rack is fine as-is though.

Consider that an SB carries two AB missiles and takes 4 seconds to fire both missiles once they're loaded (the load time being 5s to mount and 4s to arm) and then another 13s to load and fire two more. (or 9s to load & fire just a third). Most SBs only get 2-3 missiles off from my experience.

Hammer on the other hand requires 8 ammo per shot and fires four shots per second. That eats up 32 ammo per second, which gives the bomber just over 9 seconds of firing before it has to reload. On the same note, it doesn't have to arm the weapon after a reload like missiles do. Lets compare some damage & time numbers:

SB firing AB2: Does 5000 damage in 0s and 10000 damage in 4s with the second missile. It then reloads (another 9s) and fires its third before getting podded. Total damage is 15000 and time is 13s or so. If it lives to get a fourth off the damage is 20000 and time is 17s.

SB firing Ham2: Does 160 damage per second for ~9s before reloading. Damage done is 14800 from 300 ammo. The reload takes 5s before it can begin firing again, so if we assume it lives to 17s as its missile cousin does then it'll do another 4800 damage. Which is just slightly under what the missile SB did in the same time.


The issue in comparing is that the missile SB has to load and arm its first set of missiles while the OH can fire at any time. It also gets closer without having the extra signature. This is why I support a nerf to the damage output of Hammer 2 and 3. Firstly because they're already far more powerful than their level of tech should be, and secondly for being able to move an SB around with reduced sig and begin firing with little to any prior warning which gives them the extra time they need to match AB missiles.

[Adept]

Sounds perfect Xeretov.

[lexaal]

Use PW ION blaster? Or the PW ION blaster values.

All non-missile factions have Stealth Bomber-AB weapons independant from Bomber AB-weapons probably for balance purposes.