[Experimental] Large ship durability increase

[SerynEngi]

About The Pull Request

This PR moderately increases the health and substantially increases the armor of the Tycoon, Gladius, and Galactica. This is entirely a buff, and does not touch other ships at all.

Why It's Good For The Game

Larger ships should be able to take a lot more punishment. Ideally, this will encourage more stand-and-fight type engagements with the ships that are large enough to actually take said punishment in the first place.

Cruisers will now have 50% more medium armor and 400% more heavy armor than Atlas class vessels, enabling them to actually tank hits vice needing to somehow avoid them all with a much larger and slower hull.

Our sole dreadnaught will largely be immune to munitions that are not torpedoes or heavy munitions, enabling it to play like the dreadnaught it actually is.

Changelog

🆑
balance: Increased the armor and health of Tycoon, Gladius, and Galactica
/:cl:

[Pockets-byte]

slightly worried about power creep, the galactica is already the tankiest ship in the game, with the high armor against anything that doesn't deal heavy, and the PDSR, that's limited immunity to every damage type in the game - in addition to a higher total hitpoint pool(x2 because armor)- I won't say that this is bad, because it isn't. but I also don't feel completely certain that it'll not ramp up the durability way too high - a good galactica pilot can dodge a majority of incoming fire all the same still
if I did my math right, this is a functional HP increase of 980 against heavy damage - that's almost 1000 extra hitpoints(assuming you're hitting the same part of armor every time)
(this math was wrong, I forgot to add in the existing hp gains from the armor)
then again, that may not be huge, and I think if my memory serves, torps usually insta-wipe the PDSR, so I dunno.

[SerynEngi]

So, as I understand your comment, you functionally said: "I am concerned that this may make the Galactica too durable."

That's a fair comment! Now, keep in mind that I do not feel that balance should be done off of what a ship is theoretically capable of, but what is actually happening on a regular basis. Basically, you should not punish skill unless that skill required is mediocre.

This is labeled an experimental PR by intention. It is intended to be test-merged to see what happens, and tweaked accordingly. The idea is to create a gameplay style where larger ships are more willing to accept punishment in favor of kills. That starts by making it reasonably possible for that to happen.

[someone543]

Shouldn't this also apply to the hammerhead? It is also a cruiser that uses the exact same hull and armor values as the current tycoon and gladius.

[SerynEngi]

Shouldn't this also apply to the hammerhead? It is also a cruiser that uses the exact same hull and armor values as the current tycoon and gladius.

Good question. I could, and I'll do so if the project leads request it, though I personally consider the Hammerhead to functionally be a destroyer. That said, it will probably help to have a "control" ship as it were that does not have the increased values while still having the same maneuverability.

To continue, the original intent is to check the most frequently selected ships of the larger sizes: the Gladius uses the same values as the Tycoon, or it would not have been selected. We'll use feedback to adjust these numbers.

[Pockets-byte]

Valid, I'm looking forwards to it