It's hard for players to determine the relative merit of various weapons, shields, etc. We propose improving the item display UI to show more relevant stats. See the attached image.
The core design is as follows:
- Show a single number that represents the relative strength of the item. For weapons, this might by DPS; for shields it might be some combination of HP and regen.
- Show appropriate stats with a bar indicating the item's stat relative to other items of the same type. For example, we show a Fire Rate bar for weapons in which howitzers score low and fast-fire laser cannons score high.
Weapons
The primary stat for weapons should probably be DPS (damage per second), potentially scaled. We show the damage type underneath the stat.
In addition, we show the following stats:
- Damage: The damage per shot in hit points. The bar shows damage per shot relative to standard damage for the level. For example, if standard damage for a level 1 weapon is 8 hp and the weapon does 8 hp, then the bar is in the middle.
- Fire Rate: The number of shots per second. The bar shows fire rate relative to standard rate (~4 shots per second).
- Range: The maximum range in light-seconds. The bar shows range relative to standard (60 light-seconds).
- Power Use: The amount of power used (in MW). The bar shows the power use relative to standard power use for the level.
Shields
The primary stat is a combination of maximum hp and regen rate. Perhaps something like the number of hit points it can absorb at the standard fire rate.
In addition, we show the following stats:
- Max HP: Maximum HP. The bar shows maximum relative to the average for shields at this level.
- Regen Rate: Regeneration rate. The bar show regen rate relative to standard.
- Power Use: The amount of power used (in MW). The bar shows the power use relative to standard power use for the level.
Note: We continue to show damage resistance stats as before.
Armor
The primary stat is hit points, possibly adjusted by resistance.
In addition, we show the following stats:
- Mass: The mass of the armor.
- Regen Rate: For regenerating or powered armor, we show this stat.
Just spitballing, maybe armor's primary stat could be effective HP vs. same-leveled damage types, as compared to the average for armor of that level?
@derakon: Good idea! Will try that.
Showing the range for weapons would be awesome. Very helpful.
Not sure if the Fire Rate and Power Use need a bar.
More Fire Rate is better, full stop, so any comparison won't mean much? But the fire rate should definitely be used in the calculation of the relative strength number.
Same with Power Use. Generally you can either power a weapon or not depending on your reactor. A comparison doesn't seem to mean much.
But I haven't thought it through so YMMV.
A bar for the WMD value might be handy.
With limited slots, WMD is one of the most important stats on a weapon. Non-omni energy weapons are useless once matter weapons with significant WMD become common.
Also, shield recovery is important for shields (fast recovery is a big hit on the balance algorithm), although few standard shields deviate from the standard twelve seconds.
What happens if a mod goes off the map? How much of this would be based on internal scales being hard coded? How are the averages for the standard level calculated? What happens if a mod wants to use it's own damage scales, hp, etc - and reset the standard within the confines of **99999999 which appears to be the max damage / hp - there is room for mods to play around but if half the system is tied to esoteric internal scales it becomes difficult or impossible to work around limits that keep everything in the Transcendence content model. How open to modding will this be? What if we want other stats to be important?
- actually that is only for what the ship select screen will display (100000000 if you use 2d99999999, but -1.7xxxx overflow or something if you do laser:100000000 ) after some testing with various damage max, it would appear that the real allowed damage max caps at 99999 : darksteel:99999 vs 1hp armor = destroy, darksteel:999999 vs 1hp armor = no effect other than a major display bug with station hp bar.
From discord discussion today: This would allow deprecation of the term 'WMD' and replacing it with a clearer term (eg my pet favourite "Structural damage') as another value shown.
for WMD, we do have item property
'damageWMD180: this property returns the average amount of WMD damage per 180 ticks.
Might be great to create useful comparisons?