I wouldn't define this as a bug, so i didn't go to bug forum. But because of shields, then with Alpha 10, in PvP anyone can make a tiny ship, put weapons on it, and it'll beat any other ship that havn't done the same. And that isn't even it. Because of HV/CV/BA targetting, you can put "Decoys" in front of your SV, and you can Easily avoid all shots. This part REALLY needs fixing. If people begin doing this, it'll ruin the last bit of PvP in this game. This is coming from a experienced PvP'er, with 2.000 hours in empyrion. I know what i'm talking about. I already tried making the server owner fix it by increasing rocket speeds. Didn't help a lot. This fix is on you/Eleon.
The SVHV only have 4k-6k Shield HP .. a CV should be able to survive this, even without Shields. What do you mean with "Decoys" ? Shields cover the whole ship, so it makes no difference where you get hit.
I mean a thruster, generator, and weapon, and then you'll only be tagrgetted there by a HV/CV, and then you can easily dodge the shots, so you'll never get hit. It breaks PvP. Earlier today i was able to 6v1, escape alive with no damage, and almost got a kill.
Sounds like an interesting strategy. Perhaps turrets could use some more targeting options but I doubt pvp will really be balanced for awhile. Server owner can tweak or disable shields too.
Sry, still do not get it. The targeting options have not changed and the shields are only adding a layer on top of any block or device.
Alright i'll try to explain it with a screenshot. Here on this SV's there's 2 decoys on the sides. If you fly a tiny bit up while fighting, the shots coming towards the decoys will miss, and the SV will never get hit. An HV can do absolutely Nothing if an SV does this. And because it's a small SV and mobility is on top level because of shield, then SV will be unable to hit it easily. This design even works against CV's.
Not really a shield issue then more a Turret Targeting AI issue; that really does improving, they're shockingly bad at landing shots in general. On my private server I boosted their rotation speed, fire rates and projectile speed (by at least double in places) (mostly for the Zirax!!) and they still struggle to hit.
I was wondering if someone was going to try this/figure it out. To be honest... not sure this is an exploit. Just cleverness and cunning. Is there something similar you could do on an HV or a CV?
This is no exploit, but a clever building tactic to take advantage of auto turret targeting. Also, if the server chose to use the CPU metric (I know it's not done) then you would be wasting precious CPU on those "decoys".
first of all, no its not wasted, being able to survive forever is well worth the 100 cpu, even though all real servers have cpu off also, yes its not an exploit its horrible configs and turret ai here ill give an example say youre in a sv fighting a cv in orbit, obviously the cv outguns you by a ridiculous amount and you should be basically screwed, right? except, youre not screwed, since the cv cant hit you, and any random shot that may hit gets eaten by the shield that then regens in a few seconds now you might be wondering how you dodge every shot from a cv, and in reality its so easy that anyone can do it. theres 2 steps, high up/down accel, and holding the spacebar for the plasma/arty on cvs, the projectiles have no homing and can barely hit a moving cv, much less the smaller sv for rockets, which do the majority of a cvs real damage, the rockets curve too slowly and dont move fast enough to hit the sv, meaning that they just sail right past the sv (this was made much worse in a9 when rockets were nerfed) cannons/sentry do the best since theyre hitscan, but they still miss the majority of the time at range since the turrets fire where the sv used to be and still miss also, all the types of turrets can get confused and stop firing all together for a few seconds the whole time while dodging all the cvs shots for basically free the sv can be dumping volleys or just firing homing rockets into the cv, meaning that it will veryyyy slowly kill the cv, this means, stupidly enough, that if you put a skilled cv pilot against an equally skilled sv pilot the sv pilot will eventually win, it will just take a realllllly long time also the guy above stating that you needs decoys to do this is just plain wrong, you can do this with any sv, even in atmo due to the high vertical speed cap in atmo. if you dont believe me, ill happily take you onto our test server and show you how dumb it is as stated above, not an exploit, just bad configs and turret ai you can do something kinda similar in a hv, just not nearly as powerful, using high strafing thrust you can dodge a lot of shots from enemy hvs since hv rockets were nerfed into oblivion (idk why they did that change, it completely killed hv combat, i.e. veil and i tested our big brick hvs in a fight and we gave up after about 15-20 minutes because we hadnt even taken off the decorative name plates off the front of our ships since the turrets missed so much) however, hvs arent too good at dodging since their mobility is really bad compared to svs and cvs, they can dodge sv fire since svs realllly suck at hitting moving objects but they struggly to dodge base fire consistantly and for cvs you can absolutely do something similar, however it requires much more skill to do, since cvs are a lot larger so you need to throw off the enemy turrets aim a lot more, our main combat cv is only 30k sathium (really small by most peoples standards) because its built really well so it can tank for a long time and it can dodge extremely well (dodges >50% of incoming fire normally, sometimes it can even regen shields while fighting people lmao) tl;dr hvs kinda but not really, cvs absolutely but you have to be slick, and svs are super easy to do it with lol
How about the hidden turret decoy on CV's? 1 turret buried in a mass of blocks that act as a damage soak, while all other turrets are pretty much untouched and are free to take out the opponents turrets wich does not make use of this decoy method, since the nearest turret is always first target. If it is i would call this an exploit of the current targetting mechanic. I'd compare it with zirax shooting you through walls. AI shouldn't be able to target "hidden" turrets imo. This goes further with hidden main pilot guns (CV), wich is not intented to be so . On another note i still feel CV's should not be able to manouvre like SV's. Allthough that discussion has been hot for a while and has been damped down, probably because of the introduction of the weight /volume system. But in general if the manouverability of the vessel can outperform the turret on it, something ain't right. I can carry on that these so called most effective pvp CV's are merely build as an overgrown SV with turrets. A huge ship filled with decoys and the only space inside is a 1 block pipehole , pilotseat with a fridge , couple of halfburied constructors and an armorlocker .... no rooms at all. That's no definition of CV's imo. Again i can only offer my opinions.
decoys add a lot of depth to pvp building and are not at all an exploit. they allow much more interesting designs since you dont have to rely entirely on dodging to make your turrets last longer. without decoys fights end up being a match of who can strip the other persons turrets off and then have them run away so that nobody ever really takes any damage to the main ship. also if you make it so that turrets cant target buried systems then congratulations, you just made every ship immune to turret fire
Depth ? Surely you are joking. With versus without is an unfair unbalanced advantage, it's that simple. Nothing deep about it. Try this in a pvp shooter game for example and it will certainly be considdered a hack feature, but since the current dynamics allow this i call it an unintented exploit. Definition exploit : 2. Computers A program or system designed to take advantage of a particular error or security vulnerability incomputers or networks. tr.v. (ĭk-sploit′, ĕk′sploit′) ex·ploit·ed, ex·ploit·ing, ex·ploits 1. To employ to the greatest possible advantage: exploit one's talents. 2. To make use of selfishly or unethically: a corporation that exploited peasant labor. And with decoys one automaticly fools the non decoy ship and will strip its turrets first, wich is the very point of these decoys. So what is your point exactly ? And are you saying that it is not smart to retreat in a conflict when one has no means to defend left ? From the moment your last turret and/or gun has been destroyed, the battle is over. If their is no means to escape you can yield, if you can you escape . Self preservation is natural. No shame to that. Only the bully will continue battering away in a bestial manner. I wouldn't be surprised if said person boasts their self proclaimed superiority by mentalising how "deep" they are ... ahum... Turrets can target certain internals in the current targetting list like warp drive and generator. And where it not that thrusters can still be buried and hence used as a decoy feature aswell, those are on this list aswell. But it is only in time this dynamic will be taken out, as mentioned by the dev plans. Back in the day the core was on that list aswell, but was taken off due to the same unfair dispute. (https://empyriononline.com/threads/should-core-remain-a-target-for-turret-sub-targeting-list.9541/) In summary, if we ever want to bring balance in to this matter, we are forced to make every design an exploit. Wich quit frankly is a very boring design in general to begin with. Nothing that features to be called as a Capital Vessel. But again all i can offer is my opinion.
with turrets one automaticly shoots the non turret ship and will strip its systems first, wich is the very point of these turrets. Try this in a pvp shooter game for example and it will certainly be considdered a hack feature, but since the current dynamics allow this i call it an unintented exploit.
CV RCS remains terribly broken: CV RCS devices not only put out more torque-per-volume than SV RCS, but they have an extra 10x multiplier on top of that for some unknown reason. It still needs fixing.
This sounds a lot like a problem real navies have. Very big battleships have been taken out of naval doctrine because of the speed of small craft which can deliver a big punch. Only big ships might be used in combat effectively are aircraft carriers, and that is because of their capability to carry lots of small craft. So if you asking developers to fix this, it is not possible. At least if you want to preserve some level of realism.
The underlying problem seems to be the turret targeting logic, in that it's not doing a good job selecting useful targets in a timely fashion or predicting movement. The remedy for a bunch of lightly armored fast attack craft are long-range low-caliber rapid-fire turrets, railgun turrets, and/or directed energy weapon turrets. Enough of these exist in-game that a properly-armed CV (i.e. focusing on minigun and cannon turrets (and flak if they actually worked like flak)) shouldn't have trouble swatting small SVs. In any case, the targeting algorithm needs to be able to assess the threat level of a given weapon system, and possibly remember what it's taken damage from on an enemy ship, in order to determine what to fire at. That would largely eliminate the whole decoy issue, at least.
