Discovery Freelancer 4.93.0 Patch 3 Balance Changes

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Hello everyone and welcome to me stealing Antonios format for the balance part of patch 4.93.0. This is a big one; it focuses mainly on Heavy Fighters, with a few VHF fixes sprinkled in because some ships truly needed it, such as the Starblazer or Eagle. It overhauls how Heavy Fighters work, allowing them to keep being fast, low eHP (effective health) ships while remaining competitive but most importantly, not being annoying to fly or encounter. Some of the changes below might scare you at first glance, so make sure to read the note attached to each ship. Some might not as their changes may be self explanatory. To not clog up the patchnotes below it is worth noting that all heavy fighters were brought up to 150 mass, meaning they don't have ridiculous strafing anymore. Weirdos like the Centurion and Saboteur with 120 mass and 21000 strafe force were also brought to more reasonable numbers. The majority of changed ships were given quality of life changes such as a better camera or bank angle/speed changes without really affecting them in any way. In general things should feel a lot better to fly regardless of their stats.

To tie the paragraph above in a cute little bow, the main function of base armor is to define what bursts of damage a ship can survive, be it a nuke or a loadout of 2.00s and a Mini Razor. An Irezumi has 11625 armor, yes, but most of its effective health is stuffed into its 67 nanobots: 40200 HP, 51825 total. By comparison, a Black Dragon isn't that much different at face value: 10425 base armor. However, 49 nanobots only counts for 29400 HP, giving the BD a total of 39825 armor. That is a 12000 armor difference. Keep this in mind as you look over the stats below.

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Heavy Fighters

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Very Heavy Fighters

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Conclusion

They won't be rebuilding here anytime soon
Now get out of there before more of them show up
Mission commission signing off

thanks to @Venkman for Irezumi, Executioner, Labraid, Saboteur and Jackdaw images

Ship changes that we were too slow to do

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Conclusion

All I'm looking for right now is this drink

Discovery Freelancer 4.94.01 Equipment Rework

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Hello.

The following equipment rework that you're about to look through was done first and foremost to add some much needed variety into that part of the sandbox, but also to fix some glaring issues such as the absurd 90 CD and 50/90 Mine ammunition counts. We had a lot of fun playing around with these, and we hope you will too.

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Mines



Images taken from 72 meters away, click to enlarge.




Images taken from 72 meters away, click to enlarge.




Images taken from 72 meters away, click to enlarge.





Images taken from 144 meters away, click to enlarge. This one's pretty big.




Images taken from 144 meters away, click to enlarge. This one's pretty big.




Images taken from 144 meters away, click to enlarge. This one's large, vast, and big.

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Cruise Disruptors

Enough about fighters, I'm hijacking this thread.

For now it's just capital missile quality of life changes. Part buffs, part nerfs, part removal of some jank.

First off, as I go along, motor delay is being removed from missiles, in trade for them starting off slower. In singleplayer, motor delay lets missiles drift with inertia and muzzle velocity, but in multiplayer, they just sit in place for the duration, and then will suddenly accelerate from 0 to whatever speed they should be. Not only does it look extremely laggy when that's simply not the case, it's just disorientating, and janky to experience.

And now for the first real changes, beginning with Battlecruisers. I will not apologize for my formatting I am not sorry.

Javelin Cruise Missile

Motor lifetime: 12 >> 7
Acceleration: 15 >> 50
Motor delay: 2 >> 0
Muzzle velocity: 60 >> 10
Theoretical top speed: 479m/s

Hull damage: 425.000 >> 385.000

Seeker lock-on angle: 220 >> 260 degrees
Max angular velocity: 0.15 >> 0.12

Power usage: 2.000.000 >> 1.900.000

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Isn't this a nerf Saronsen?
Well, not really. Sure, it doesn't deal quite as much damage as before, and its tracking isn't the same as the Nova torpedo, but it makes up for it with being able to get that damage out to its target. And fast.

Application is the name of the game for the Javelin missile. Something that has a better chance of reaching its target before flak or, heaven forbid, the supports cruise disruptor catches it. In testing, its fairly low turnrate and high speed means that short range, spammable countermeasures just don't lead it off target in time, most often when the missile is coming in from the side. It's lost some viability against cruisers, who can steer out of the way of the missile with ease, but a distracted target is still a good target.

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Predator Missile

Acceleration: 20 >> 25
Motor delay: 2 >> 0
Muzzle velocity: 80 >> 30
Theoretical top speed: 349m/s

Bugfix: dsy_marauder_missile_explosion >> dsy_predator_missile_explosion
Hull Damage: 150.000 >> 185.000

Missile lifetime: 15 >> 25
Seeker lock-on angle: 240 >> 300
Max angular velocity: 0.55 >> 0.45
Ammo limit: 50 >> 70

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Firstly; Yes, the Predator was using the explosion meant for the cruisers Marauder missile, meaning it was dealing 35.000 less damage than it was supposed to for.. Years? A bugfix that's also a buff.
Secondly; Cruisers beware. The Predator missiles likes ya, and it wants ya. There's no easy way to do this, so we're doing it the hard way. It will come around after missing to chase you down again, but with its low agility, it will continue missing as long as you keep evading. Or have a countermeasure. It still has its blindspot from behind, so if it overshoots, it loses track of you entirely. I'm still not set on the tracking speed, but I didn't want to render it useless by hitting it too hard. I'll be watching and waiting for the @'s on discord if this gets out of hand.

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That's the two changed battlecruiser missiles out of the way. Now for the cruiser launchers.

Devastator Torpedo

Acceleration: 18 >> 20
Delay: 2 >> 0
Theoretical top speed: 364m/s

Lock-on range: 3000 >> 2750
Mass: 100 >> 85
Lifetime: 30 >> 25

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I'll be honest, it's just a straight nerf. Outranging Light Mortars (which it still does, just not so badly), being very difficult for battleships to flak, and often doing two full loops to try and hit someone as a very powerful deshielding tool, all on a light and quick capital ship like the cruiser. I would still like for the missile to remain a good long-range option, but forcing a battleship to tunnel vision for ten or so seconds trying to flak a single missile was excessive. It goes a little faster though, as a consolation. This might need further down-tuning, but I'm hopeful it's in a better spot.

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Suicide Surprise Trinity Torpedo

Motor delay: 2 >> 0
Theoretical top speed: 349m/s

Lifetime: 20 >> 30
Mass: 10,000 (!!) >> 65
Max angular velocity: 0.11 >> 0.10
Seeker range: 2000 >> 2400
Seeker lock-on angle: 35 >> 180
Ammo limit: 51 >> 60

Dispersion angle: 6 >> 30
Power usage: 1.200.000 >> 1.299.000

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Straight buffs, or rather, usability here. With a lock on FOV of 35 degrees, you could often defeat the trinity by strafing as they got closer, even if they were on a path to smash right into you. They'd simply lose track of you a couple hundred meters away. Not so anymore. They just turn that much slower now. They're a power move from cruisers, and I'm also watching these to see if they're useful, not INCREDIBLY STRONG.

And for your reference, the LABC has 800 mass. Have you tried deflecting one of those with flak? Trinities are now fairly lightweight, and flak should be very useful against them.

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That's all for now. You know where to find me if you have a problem.

Happy missile spamming folks.

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Discovery Freelancer 4.95.2 Balance Changes

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It's me, ya' boy Probation back with another balance post. This time, we primarily focused on Super Heavy Fighters, but we do have a few other things we looked at.
The main idea with this class of ships was to have a bunch of ships that have a lower entry skill requirement, but are "skill-capped", so to speak, due to their size and low turn rates. Think of them as military-grade tricycles. We fumbled around in the dark for a while until finally deciding on what to do with the ship class, but we're pretty confident in their stats now. Lastly, we've decided to remove their ability to use bomber equipment, as that stepped on the actual bombers and the role that they play.

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Super Heavy Fighters

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Very Heavy Fighters

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Heavy Fighters

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Light Fighters

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Ceres Innovations ships

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Conclusion

You probably noticed that the game has more than three Light fighters. Indeed, we noticed that too, and we'll get around to them soon enough. Them three big ones are a bit of a test run to see how those stats go. Have fun! Don't forget to take cool screenshots of these new ships now that @Val improved their turret view cameras so you can actually look at them.
Worth mentioning that our main man @Haste re-did every hitbox and every shield bubble of every ship you see above. well done Hasteric.

Once again, big thanks to @Swallow and @aerelm for the new models.

Discovery Freelancer 4.95.3 Balance Changes

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Hello, me again with another apocalyptically long patch notes post. This time's the fabled Bomber rework, and - somehow - the Light Fighter rework all in one. We don't know how this happened. Set aside an evening or ten.

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But first, a brief - and probably boring - interjection by your friendly neighborhood Haste

Strafing

We've made some class-wide adjustments that aren't listed in the individual ship changelogs below. For one, after @Lex figured out the exact formulae behind strafing, we went ahead and applied our newfound knowledge to adjust strafing forces for Light Fighters and Bombers depending, in part, on their mass:

Light Bombers: 20,000 -> 17,000.
Medium Bombers: 20,000 -> 17,500.
Heavy Bombers: 20,000 -> 18,000.

Standard Light Fighters: 20,000 -> 15,000.
"Class 9" Light Fighters (Hawk, Dagger, etc.): 20,000 -> 17,500.

In the case of Bombers, the goal here was primarily to make it possible for caps to somewhat consistently hit boxing bombers at close range. Heavier bombers are also literally heavier in terms of physics, meaning they require more strafe force to match their lighter cousins.

For Light Fighters, the numbers may look disturbingly low, but people have to keep in mind that these ships are - literally - lighter than other fighters, meaning their strafe acceleration is - by default - significantly higher. As a result, the boxing performance of even the 15,000 strafe force ships is only ever-so-slightly worse than that of a Very Heavy Fighter, even though the ships often have much better front profiles. "Boxing in a Liberator" isn't dead - it's just a little less infuriating for your opponent to deal with.

Detailed strafing statistics are now listed at the bottom of ship infocards, in addition to various other agility-related stats.

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Shields

Class 8 Light Fighter shields have been upgraded a fair bit to encourage a more aggressive Light Fighter playstyle:

- Recharge: 120 -> 156.
- "Offline time" when downed: 12s -> 9s.

Bombers now have their own shield classes, specialized to offer significantly more protection against capital ships, but similar performance against fighters (compared to class 10 VHF shields).

Light/Medium Bomber Shield:
Capacity: 14178
Recharge: 354

Heavy Bomber Shield:
Capacity: 17722
Recharge: 443

These shields take an additional 25% damage from all standard weapon types (Plasma, Neutron, Pulse, etc.), but take 35% less damage from Gunboats and Cruisers, and 55% less damage from Battlecruisers and Battleships. These modifiers are also listed in the shields' infocards.

As with most class reviews, we have standardized shield hitboxes across the Light Fighter and Bomber classes, with the actual size of the shield depending - in part - on their subclass (and thus, shield strength). This means capital ships should be hitting bombers a little more reliably, and light fighters' shields are significantly easier to hit as well.

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Bomber Weapon Changes

As bombers gained improved anti-cap defences, higher agility and more weapon slots, we had to adjust their weapons accordingly. Our goal here is to force bombers to take some damage while fighting capitals, so that a swarm of bombers can't simply chew through an infinite number of caps. At the same time, powercores have gotten buffed and the efficiency of virtually all anti-cap bomber weapons has been significantly increased, reducing time-to-kill.

Bomber EMP Cannon
Energy Usage: 206 > 165
Speed: 600ms > 750ms

Designed to be paired with some of the faster bomber weapons. Also just much easier to hit things with.

Bomber Energy Cannon
Damage: 938 > 850
Energy Usage: 169 > 165

Some small nerfs to make up for bombers being able to mount up to six of these, rather than four.

Bomber Gatling Laser (former Bomber Chaingun)
Damage: 640 > 1060
Energy Usage: 100 > 254
Range: 750m > 600m

A very strong heavy slot laser. No longer capped by ammo. Fighters should fear these.

Bomber Neutron Blaster (former Bomber Scattergun)
Damage: 1425 > 3350
Energy Usage: 300 > 740
Refire: 4.00 > 0.50
Speed: 650ms > 700ms
Range: 150m > 500m

Scatterguns were effectively deleted from the game - by reducing their range to 150 - as nobody quite figured out how to balance them. Neutron Blasters, their successor, are more about chunking smaller ships for large amounts of their health.

Scorcher Bomb
Energy Usage: 1688 > 1300
Dispersion: 0.75 > 0.25

A large efficiency buff and improved ease of use & accuracy. Scorchers can bring down even larger caps relatively quickly.

Neutralizer Bomb
Energy Usage: 1875 > 1280

Kill shields with these. As good as ever, just more efficient.

SNAC:
Range: 1400 > 400

Unfortunately throughout our testing we kept bumping into a problem: no matter how strong we made other bomber weapons, it was never worth exposing yourself to taking damage if you could just lob one SNAC from a thousand meters. Combined with the new, stronger bomber shields, bombers were effectively invulnerable to capital ships as long as they stuck to only using the SNAC. Worth noting guns inherit the parent ship's velocity, and the effective range is roughly 630 meters - still plenty good enough to see use.

Nova Torpedo
Energy Usage: 18000 > 11000
Range: 4200 > 1400
Refire delay: 5s -> 10s
Turn rate: 0.15 > 0.05

Virtually a dumbfire Torpedo, Novas gained a large chunk of efficiency and some speed, but can no longer be fired from the other side of the system. You'll now have to expose yourself to at least some danger to fire these.

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Light Fighter - Misc. Changes

Light Fighter guns have received, save for some very specific exceptions, a flat +20% damage buff. Their energy use has been scaled up proportionally (with a small exponential factor). A more in-depth review of their guns - and an increase in variety of faction and codename guns alike - is in the works, but wasn't ready for this patch.

Light Fighters now have a built-in 25% resistance to explosion damage. This means the arch-nemesis of the Light Fighter, the Mine Dropper, now poses slightly less of a threat to them. Of course this statistic is now also listed in ship infocards.

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Thanks Haste. - piller
Now let's talk stats.
For clarity's sake, Red means old, and Green means new.

Bombers

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Light Fighters


















































































Starboys










Super Heavy Fighters

To not repeat myself 600 times, the general gist of these changes is that they SHFs listed got more agility, with some even getting some extra bots like the Anzu and Magpie.

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Conclusion

these patch notes were harder to do than the balancing im gonna go play kenshi

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Discovery Freelancer 4.95.3 Capital Ship Balance Changes

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Hello there folks, this is your resident ex-Colonial boi Shooter. While I would love this patch note to be the capital ships rework, it is not, that thing has a rather long way ahead. Instead we have rather small additions and changes for y'all this time. With this patch we focused on outlier battlecruisers and helped the new Corsair "Tribunus" Battlecruiser to get implemented.

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Changes










New Additions

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Conclusion

This is my first time writing a section in patch notes, so I hope my long rambling did not bore you to death. I want to thank to @bakugone for rigorously testing and doing hardpointing stuff, @Val for balancing Vidar.

Big thanks to @AngelofMercy for the model.

Contents List

New Features and Miscellaneous Changes

Fighter Crafts, Bombers, Freighters

Capital Ships

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As stated previously in our balance-focused dev blog, The Inter-Class Balance Puzzle, Aftershock's balance changes are focused on the interplay between the many classes of combat ships available in Discovery Freelancer. After years of gradual powercreep, we have applied an across-the-board reduction of overall armor, shield and damage output stats to all larger ship classes, from Gunboats and Transports to Battleships. This, of course, then required us to make many changes to Fighters and - especially - Bombers to keep snub versus capital gameplay fair, balanced, and most importantly enjoyable for both sides. After extensive testing, we're finally satisfied with the results, so let's get into it.

Given the large structural changes in the patch, we're choosing not to provide line-by-line, item-by-item patch notes, as individually they wouldn't make a great deal of sense and would just present players with an impossible to parse wall of text. Instead, we're aiming to provide as much useful information as possible.

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NEW FEATURES AND MISCELLANEOUS CHANGES

Reticle Snap




Arming Time


Cruise Power Drain


Disabling Shield Recharge


Deep Core Mining



Class-Agnostic Changes

Overall, scanners have had their range increased. In addition, we have done a balance pass over the various scanner types to make each of them viable:

Miscellaneous Changes:

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FIGHTER CRAFT, BOMBERS, FREIGHTERS

General Fighter Craft Changes:


Fighter Craft Equipment Changes


Fighter Craft Changes


Bomber Changes

Freighter Changes

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CAPITAL SHIPS

General Capital Ship Changes

Gunboat Changes

Cruiser Changes

Battlecruiser Changes

Battleship Changes

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