Ship and Combat balance?

Kewl. I still think laterals are waaaay too weak for combat. Patcoms and Tugs I can handle, but those little fighter-craft dance circles around me.

I balanced several factors when trying to bring the combat 'closer'. Although it is not obvious why it works, I believe it is the lower overall forward and lateral accelerations, as well as the lower bolt speeds. There is also the fact that a weapons spread is tighter. This forces ships a little closer to get a hit. However, because there is also a higher maximum velocity, your combat can also devolve into a very high speed, longe range combat type, which differs from the swooping/chasing short range combat.

In my original testing the disable_attentuation switch made very little actual difference. Thus after a point I disregarded it.

Changing the missile ranges, while making the missiles blow up at a further sensor range, usually just seemed to make the missiles more accurate. They don't need to hit you to blow up, just get within range, and thus you are getting rocked by their blasts more often. An option for missiles would be to make them twice as deadly, a little slower, and targetable on the contact list.

Adjusting the laterals is entirely possible if people think they are too weak. I am open to doing a more I-war 1 like revision based off what GrandpaTrout showed us. That or simply strengtheing the laterals a little across the board. Still, I enjoy the feel now. You can really notice the difference when you switch ships. Flying a Dreadnaught and a patcom are two different games.

Hulls are much tougher. The strengthening is based off hull class, so very small ships actually got no increase, whereas destroyer cruiser class ships went up almost an order of magnitude. They are TOUGH now. Do not mess with them. Unless you have a small fleet to back you up. Combat lasts minutes now, not seconds.

Adjusting the laterals is entirely possible if people think they are too weak.

That would be my vote. I've been cruisin around most of the day, and the tug just doesn't handle like a escort combat craft. It takes too long to alter directions at any speeds, using the main engines to turn.

It kinda takes the finesse outta flying a newtonian model. But I'm used to flying engines off most of the time anyway, and you need good lateral thrusters for un-assisted flight.

Well, to be fair, the tug is not a combat escort craft. It is a tug, that is also used as a low end option for escort craft. Thus it should feel like a lump to fly. It will give the player encouragement to save up and upgrade to a better ship, such as the advanced patcom.

Well, to be fair, since most of the escort craft in the Middle States cluster seem to be Tugs, I would assume the role of the tug is as an escort craft.

Still, I prefer the old EoC tug specs just the same. I tried the patcom and it also seems to fly like a lump. No handling. Just my opinion though, and that's what u guys said u wanted.

We do want your opinion. Balance is super tricky. One wants logical consistancy, great fun, unique experience, and somehow work around the limitations of the flux engine. Needless to say, there will be many iterations. I am just glad to see that the game is stable enough that play balance issues are getting some attention, and are not overwhelmed by bugs.