Early game modular armor rebalance

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greep
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Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by greep »

The lowly modular armor, so interesting, but so worthless. Newbies can't get the required materials to make use of it, and more experienced players just skip it for cheap tanks followed by power armor.

Looking at the achievements, only about half the players who seriously get into the game really make it to blue science automation, so I think it would great if modular armor could be both accessable and allow for more tinkering than it currently is designed for. That is, allow for a small taste of the later game power armor abilities while not being overpowering, and also allow any new player with green science to easily build and kit it out. Solar panels get a buff, since at ~13 power kw averaged over a day, with batteries, they're still way inferior to fusion reactor's 47 per slot.

Modular armor

Current: 50 steel, 30 red, 5 blue
New: 40 steel 30 green, 15 red
Rebalance: 5x5 grid -> 4x4 (reasoning below)

Portable solar
Current: 5 solar, 1 blue, 5 steel
New: 1 solar, 1 red, 5 steel
Energy: 10->25

Energy shield
No change

Battery Mk1
No change

Night vision
No change

Exoskeleton
Material cost: same
Energy cost: 200 kW -> 80 kW
Tech cost: Remove blue science

Personal roboport
Material cost: same
Tech cost: Remove blue science

The addition of exoskeleton and personal roboport look powerful at first, but is more of a demo than anything. This is why the modular armor would be reduced to 4x4: Having only 16 slots rather than 25 severely limits how powerful you can get with these new items: a single exoskeleton isn't too powerful, and a single roboport with 10 green science cargo bots without a reactor isn't too crazy.

Furthermore, the removal of the blue circuits in the less powerful items would otherwise make processing in the green science era worthless; however, adding exoskeleton and roboport to green science with unchanged material cost gives players both new and experienced a reason to try out processing units in the earlier era.

A 4x4 modular armor now may look something like:

-2 Mk1 shield, 4 solar panel, 1 battery, 1 night vision
-1 exoskeleton, 6 solar panels, 1 battery
-1 roboport, 6 solar panels, 1 night vision, 2 batteries

Edit: On further thought, there's no need even for a 5x5->4x4 nerf, 2 roboports after blue circuits and then end of a long green chain right before blue science isn't that big of a deal, and it would allow a smaller buff to exos like 200->120 kw
Last edited by greep on Wed Jan 11, 2017 6:03 am, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

Achievements might not be such a good indicator, players might get a few achievements then start installing mods. I remember when I first started playing I really wanted a smart splitter but was determined to finish vanilla first, then achievements came out so I went and got (almost) all those and now I realise it's a stupid idea ^^

The devs realised in a FFF a few months ago that Roboports need to be available earlier, this might involve Modular Armour being available much sooner and hopefully we'll get progressive crafting where each armour builds into the next tier so building a tier of armour doesn't feel like such a waste of time.
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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by greep »

Well I just used you've got a package / eco unfriendly as a crude estimate. About half sounds right. As for progressive armor, that would be really nice, although the oly one that needs it now is power armor -> power armor mk2, and they could just get rid of that issue by making the mk1 cheaper.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by Ranakastrasz »

When I created my modular armor mod, I followed something similar. I made the basic modular armor fully accessible with green tech and at most red circuits.

Also added lower level exoskeleton and buffed solar.

I agree something like this needs to be part of the base game.
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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

The trickiest part of balancing this is that Robots themselves require Lubricant for the Electric Engines, therefore the way it is now you need oil one way or another. At least if the research for bots isn't buried in blue science you can get them pretty much as soon as you set up oil. Maybe an alternate and temporary recipe for lubricant that doesn't require oil, though nothing really makes sense there. Wood? Coal? Stone? None of it really says "lubricant". Maybe you could squeeze one lubricant out of a hundred Wood lol as trees do contain oils.

However I will still be skipping it unless I'm required to build it anyway. If I know I'm going to have to build it later, I might as well build it sooner. And if I've got it, I might as well use it. I still don't like the fact it relies on solar power and batteries, especially because both will be ditched the moment I get a reactor, but there isn't really a sensible way around that. I'm still not sure I would bother, might just fill it with roboports and pick them out of the air to "charge" them lol.
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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by Ranakastrasz »

Currently, making modular armor use the previous armor is somewhat problematic, since it isn't well implemented.

The main issue with lubricant, honestly, is the fact that it is the only non-solid end product of the Oil chain. Everything else can be produced in an oil area and belted away, but not lubricant.



My way of making Fusion reactors not the end of all power generation thought was to make them consume alien artifacts to use. Not extremely fast or anything, but enough to make you want to use other generators too.
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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by mophydeen »

Ranakastrasz wrote:
The main issue with lubricant, honestly, is the fact that it is the only non-solid end product of the Oil chain. Everything else can be produced in an oil area and belted away, but not lubricant.
and acid?

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by Deadly-Bagel »

Ranakastrasz wrote:Currently, making modular armor use the previous armor is somewhat problematic, since it isn't well implemented.

The main issue with lubricant, honestly, is the fact that it is the only non-solid end product of the Oil chain. Everything else can be produced in an oil area and belted away, but not lubricant.

My way of making Fusion reactors not the end of all power generation thought was to make them consume alien artifacts to use. Not extremely fast or anything, but enough to make you want to use other generators too.
The only problem is if you forget to remove everything from the inventory it gets deleted, there are two ways of handling this I guess. Either just let it get deleted, if the player wants them back they can reload an autosave (this approach is taken for picking up fluid tanks so not exactly new), or ideally anything in the equipment grid would be transferred to the new armour's grid. This would probably require extra checks but if this can be triggered only on items with an inventory then it shouldn't be a problem for performance since they're typically not mass-produced. Don't know how feasible that is though.

Universal barrelling is coming with 0.15 so transporting Lubricant on belts will not be an issue. However as barrels hold 25 fluid (currently), averaging 88.75 lubricant per belt (using only one belt lane) can be a rather obscene amount to bus so you might want some sort of circuitry in place to provide as needed, or put it through the logistics network instead.

As for fusion reactors, no. They're big and take up a lot of room but they're a set-and-forget power source, once in they power the suit indefinitely. Adding any sort of maintenance would just make an occasional tedious task, no extra gameplay, and adding a fuel is just more junk in your inventory. Also note Alien Artefacts are being removed with 0.15 so you'll need to come up with something else.
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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by Ranakastrasz »

mophydeen wrote: and acid?
Eh, You can belt sulfur away, add Iron and water. Water is way easier to get, especially since other things use it unrelated to oil.

But yes, Acid as well, I just don't find it as much an issue.

Admittedly not as much an issue with universal barreling now, as long as you setup a belt for both directions.
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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by thereaverofdarkness »

I have played using the modular armor mod, and I'd say it's MUCH better than vanilla armors. The change to make modular armor only take red/green science was the first step in making it usable, but the addition of lower-tier modules in the modular armor mod made it much more useful. It's not particularly strong but it's fun to tinker with, and it confers a substantial bonus.

I wouldn't increase the power generated by the solar panels, rather I would add more ways to generate power. In the modular armor mod, you can get power from a burner generator, or use a device to draw it from your own power grid. The solar panels act as a source of free power, while the fusion reactor (now fission reactor) costs nuclear fuel to run.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by bobingabout »

I don't think the grid on the modular armor needs to be smaller, it's painfully small as it is .

Solar panels are so naff that I agree to this change, and the personal roboport changes too.

And you should be able to get started without a single blue circuit cost, so removing that from the modular armor and solar panels seems fair. (Especially when you consider that... in my mod at least, blue circuits are on advanced electronics 2, which costs blue science to research)

Modular armor with a roboport, solar panels and batteries, and MAYBE a couple of shield MK1, night vision and exoskeletons as options does sound about right for a green science. (I mean, they don't want you automating a logistics system until yellow science, what else are you going to use your green science construction robots for?)
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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by Frightning »

Everything other than the Exoskeletons can be made with R+G science only and no processing units in current version of the game, problem is that energy usage v production with PSPs is kinda atrocious. A agree that PSPs ought to be at least twice as strong as they are now (25kW peak power seems pretty fair to me, still much less peak power per grid slot than fusion (400 v 750 for 16 grid slots worth; barely over half), but would make using roboports and recharging batteries between combat feel MUCH better. Also, once you get to Power armor MK1 keeping up power demands of Exoskeletons, PLDs, and such is a lot more feasible.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by Ranakastrasz »

Frightning wrote:Everything other than the Exoskeletons can be made with R+G science only and no processing units in current version of the game, problem is that energy usage v production with PSPs is kinda atrocious. A agree that PSPs ought to be at least twice as strong as they are now (25kW peak power seems pretty fair to me, still much less peak power per grid slot than fusion (400 v 750 for 16 grid slots worth; barely over half), but would make using roboports and recharging batteries between combat feel MUCH better. Also, once you get to Power armor MK1 keeping up power demands of Exoskeletons, PLDs, and such is a lot more feasible.
Yea. The submod I made on request triples the output. It boosts you to 480/750, which is probably too high, but given the day-night cycle, it drops to an average of 336, which is close enough.
Its sufficient to power a single Exoskeleton with some practicality, and offset the insane consumption of Personal roboports (which have way more battery capacity than they really should)
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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by bobingabout »

Frightning wrote:Everything other than the Exoskeletons can be made with R+G science only and no processing units in current version of the game, problem is that energy usage v production with PSPs is kinda atrocious. A agree that PSPs ought to be at least twice as strong as they are now (25kW peak power seems pretty fair to me, still much less peak power per grid slot than fusion (400 v 750 for 16 grid slots worth; barely over half), but would make using roboports and recharging batteries between combat feel MUCH better. Also, once you get to Power armor MK1 keeping up power demands of Exoskeletons, PLDs, and such is a lot more feasible.
I think some previous calculations for solar did say that double their current power output is a good ballpark figure to buff them to.
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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by thereaverofdarkness »

I really think the main problem is that they expect you to rely on solar as the only method of power generation until fusion. It was strong enough for free power, but they should have some options with a cost to run so that you can make the choice to get more power or have power be lazy.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by bobucles »

I'm surprised this year old thread lasted this long.

Suit modules are cheap. Suit energy is EXPENSIVE. This is pretty messed up.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by Engimage »

I do agree on following changes:
  • Make Modular Armor available with only red circuits (no blue)
  • Buff PSP to 25
Also the game really needs a connector to main base power grid so that you could consider an option to use batteries for your suit on short travels instead of relying on built-in power generation.

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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by Jap2.0 »

PacifyerGrey wrote:I do agree on following changes:
  • Make Modular Armor available with only red circuits (no blue)
  • Buff PSP to 25
Also the game really needs a connector to main base power grid so that you could consider an option to use batteries for your suit on short travels instead of relying on built-in power generation.
I agree with the first too; the third has previously been dismissed as fairly OP.
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Re: Early game modular armor rebalance

Post by bobucles »

I agree with the first too; the third has previously been dismissed as fairly OP.
But that's completely wrong. The only energy production attribute that really matters is energy/tile. Modular solar is awful, generating 7kW/tile over time (including night). Pocket fusion generates an overwhelming 47kW/tile, easy enough for 1 or 2 to satisfy even the most demanding things. It's not a tall order to find a convenient middle ground. A 2x2 induction unit that generates 80kW is producing 20kW per tile, which is a very strong number for that stage of the game.

A low cost charging unit that connects to the grid is an excellent idea. It not only helps fill in the GIGANTIC gap between pocket solar and pocket fusion, but it creates a useful defense mechanic that plays well in PvE or PvP. You can charge a suit on defense but not on offense, or take advantage of exo suits on friendly turf without REQUIRING end game tech. That's all good stuff.

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