Please make boost energy separate from shield

[Falcrack]

Since my 4+ year old thread (The first month that X4 was out) that was necroed asking for this was locked, and the suggestion was made to make a new thread, and the topic remains pertinent as ever, here it is! I think it would be much better if ships had a dedicated energy reserve for boost, not related to shield strength. Maybe there could be an option to transfer this boost reserve to shields in an emergency.

[A5PECT]

I'll continue to voice my support for this, as well.

Managing a shield-consuming booster as a player piloting a ship is an engaging risk vs. reward mechanic. But dealing with it as a player commanding NPC-piloted ships, it's nothing but an excercise in frustration. NPC pilots simply aren't capable of the situational awareness and decision-making required to use it effectively; it hurts ships more often than it helps them. It even takes some of the fun out of fighting against NPCs: I don't need to shoot at S or M size enemies at first, I simply force their AI into their boost routine and they'll burn down their own shields faster than my weapons can strip them. Once an S or M ship is out of shields, they're almost completely helpless.

Separate boosting from shields by default (have it use a dedicated, recharging energy system whose values vary by ship and engine type), and create a new ship mod that allows the player to apply shield-consuming boost mechanics to specific ships at their discretion.

[Tranxalive]

I had a large reply written up that I was about to post on the original thread, but then it was locked and my wall of text is gone forever, so I’ll just skip to the point, and excessively summarize my thoughts, (in a hilarious manner ) as I don’t feel like retyping it:

Current system okay. Has consequences. Short bursts good. If use large amounts, bad. Hull die from enemies.

However, not against separate bar.

If bar has small capacity, like 5 seconds, good. System perfect.

If bar has large capacity, like 15 seconds, needs consequences.

Equipment increase boost benefits, like capacity, efficiency, acceleration, etc. without consequence. Reward player for outfitting and upgrading ships.

If boost for longer than 2 seconds, temporarily disable weapons for 1 second.
5 seconds, 3 seconds.
10 seconds, 7 seconds.
And so on.

Not arcade shooter, battles about tactics and skill.

Tactics from before fight, need to make sure you can win. Have good strategy.

Skill during battle. Have good piloting skills, use boost effectively, and not waste shield/time for shooting.

Neither for or against. Main concern is that there shouldn’t be spamming of boost without consequences.

…still a relatively long post…

[Chips]

Solution to energy vs excess boosting - use an existing in game mechanic.

Boost is effectively overpowering engines right? So use overheat...

Boosting generates heat, too much causes overheating, overheating engines kills engine.

Of course, the problem of NPC thrashing the boost button may then mean they sit dead in space.

So alternative is boost is fed by power from engines to recharge. Recharging boost drains 25% of engine power until full (power diversion to recharge - could be 50%, but... super fast ships not suffer that much, slower ones would).
Means you'll be slower while boost recharges - so it really is trade off as boosting for 5s may then mean you're at 75% speed for the subsequent 15s while it charges the store. Of course after 3-5s there's charge *in* the store to use boost again briefly for a second or two, but you're back to 15s of recharge 75% speed. You should be able to figure out what I mean.
Problem there is super fast ships may not notice the speed reduction really in combat (as they're too fast anyway). So... tough one

Just having a stock boost capacity that drains and gets replenished with no drawbacks is, of course, fine by me. The above are if you think you *must* have a trade off. Personally the trade off is if you boost too much there's no boost left for when you need it. There doesn't need to be another drain mechanic.

[GCU Grey Area]

Prefer existing shield draining mechanics. Provides interesting tactical choices. For example, can be highly beneficial to boost past an enemy ship to get on it's tail rapidly, however if it's got a lot of friends around they may be able to take advantage of my weakened shields. Boosters with no immediate adverse consequences would be less interesting to use. As I recall boosters in X3 had multiple potential power sources (energy cells & spaceflies? I think), however both of the alternatives to shield draining made the boosters overpowered & much less fun to use.

[Chips]

Prefer existing shield draining mechanics. Provides interesting tactical choices. For example, can be highly beneficial to boost past an enemy ship to get on it's tail rapidly, however if it's got a lot of friends around they may be able to take advantage of my weakened shields. Boosters with no immediate adverse consequences would be less interesting to use. As I recall boosters in X3 had multiple potential power sources (energy cells & spaceflies? I think), however both of the alternatives to shield draining made the boosters overpowered & much less fun to use.

Think their complaint is how the NPC's use it - they can boost away their shields *not* for tactical gain.

[GCU Grey Area]

Think their complaint is how the NPC's use it - they can boost away their shields *not* for tactical gain.

Often does have a tactical gain. Have often had an enemy ship centred in the crosshairs & just as I'm about to pull the trigger it boosts away out of weapon range, leaving me to find a different target & deal with the boosting ship later, by which time it will have fully regained it's shields. Have also seen my carrier-based fighters use their boosters to evident tactical gain. Do however have quite highly trained pilots flying my ships (4* minimum for fighters, 5* for anything bigger), maybe lower ranked pilots are less competent at using their boosters effectively?

[surferx]

Egosoft are not going to change one of the original fundamental tenets of the game just because some players want an easy button. This is part of the Think principals of the game.

[Falcrack]

Egosoft are not going to change one of the original fundamental tenets of the game just because some players want an easy button. This is part of the Think principals of the game.

Yes but they should at least remove boost for Large ships where it does little to no good and often much harm as it drains shields for a very tiny increase in speed. Or give us some sort of global toggle to prevent this.

[Axeface]

Egosoft are not going to change one of the original fundamental tenets of the game just because some players want an easy button. This is part of the Think principals of the game.

I would argue that the assumption is incorrect here, it isnt a fundamental tenet. In fact egosoft said before release they even they wernt sure about it. I also think that saying its because players want an easy button is very wrong too, firstly you wouldnt be able to lock down a target everytime you get the jump on them anymore, secondly its just different, not 'easier' - that all depends on how it is balanced. Another bonus is it would provide opportunities for much more interesting systems like ship power/generator capacities that we can manipulate, not to mention the variety it would bring itself.

[SphinxofBlackQuartz]

I think the boosting mechanics are good as-is. They provide the player an interesting choice between fleeing while you still can, or committing and hoping you win the fight. And no, NPC pilots aren't always smart about how they use it, but see above re: THINK being part of the game. The most important, and least explicit, resource in X4 is your time, attention, and intelligence as the player.

[Tovoklore]

I think the boosting mechanics are good as-is. They provide the player an interesting choice between fleeing while you still can, or committing and hoping you win the fight. And no, NPC pilots aren't always smart about how they use it, but see above re: THINK being part of the game. The most important, and least explicit, resource in X4 is your time, attention, and intelligence as the player.

I don't really find that this system really requires much extra thought from the player. You either risk a bit of shield to maybe get an advantage on a target or you reserve it for a GTFO moment. Not really all that different from any other speed boosting system I've seen in the end, and honestly, I end up abusing my travel drive more often than making use of the boost. If anything, this system can actually make combat in this game worse. For example: You spot a Xenon 'P' while flying around in your little fighter. "Oh, that might be fun to take on." you think to yourself. So you engage the 'P' and after a few shots the 'P' boosts away most, if not all, of its shields away. Well, now the fight just suddenly got a lot shorter and less interesting. It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens often enough.

It is also very vexing to see your 5 star AI pilot with all the advantages in the world lose in a fight it should have easily won all because it decided to boost away its biggest advantage. This happens quite often too. This is really the crux of the problem at hand. How the AI handles the system, not how we, the player, handle the system.

I opine, either the parameters for when the AI boosts and for how long they boost needs to be looked at and changed or the system as a whole needs to be changed out for another that doesn't drain the shield so that AI pilots don't practically kill themselves with their stupidity (as quickly). There just has to be something better than what we have now.

Also, HI everyone! My first post after being a lurker for quite some time.

[sd_jasper]

Nah, keep as is.

[surferx]

Egosoft are not going to change one of the original fundamental tenets of the game just because some players want an easy button. This is part of the Think principals of the game.

Yes but they should at least remove boost for Large ships where it does little to no good and often much harm as it drains shields for a very tiny increase in speed. Or give us some sort of global toggle to prevent this.

+1 for this. It's good to have options to play how you choose.

Egosoft are not going to change one of the original fundamental tenets of the game just because some players want an easy button. This is part of the Think principals of the game.

I would argue that the assumption is incorrect here, it isnt a fundamental tenet. In fact egosoft said before release they even they wernt sure about it.

I didn't know that

I also think that saying its because players want an easy button is very wrong too, firstly you wouldnt be able to lock down a target everytime you get the jump on them anymore, secondly its just different, not 'easier' - that all depends on how it is balanced. Another bonus is it would provide opportunities for much more interesting systems like ship power/generator capacities that we can manipulate, not to mention the variety it would bring itself.

It would depend on balance. I just think boosting should have some kind of consequences or trade off. Otherwise it is nothing but an easy button.

[A5PECT]

It would depend on balance. I just think boosting should have some kind of consequences or trade off. Otherwise it is nothing but an easy button.

One of my arguments in an earlier post is that the current setup makes things too easy, because NPCs will habitually sabotage themselves by boosting their shields away and it's trivial to exploit that behavior as a player.

And part of my proposal for changing default boost mechanics is to make shield-consuming boost a ship mod that players can opt into.

[GCU Grey Area]

One of my arguments in an earlier post is that the current setup makes things too easy, because NPCs will habitually sabotage themselves by boosting their shields away and it's trivial to exploit that behavior as a player.

Find it's usually the opposite in my games. More often than not it's been an effective escape mechanism for them - right at the point where they'd otherwise be dead (i.e. lined up in the crosshairs, all I need to do is pull the trigger) they boost out of weapon range &, since I'm generally in a one against many scenario, it's not wise to focus exclusively on that single ship while there are still so many nearby which are shooting at me. As a consequence I'll generally have to leave it for later, by which time it's shields will almost certainly have recharged.

[Falcrack]

One of my arguments in an earlier post is that the current setup makes things too easy, because NPCs will habitually sabotage themselves by boosting their shields away and it's trivial to exploit that behavior as a player.

Find it's usually the opposite in my games. More often than not it's been an effective escape mechanism for them - right at the point where they'd otherwise be dead (i.e. lined up in the crosshairs, all I need to do is pull the trigger) they boost out of weapon range &, since I'm generally in a one against many scenario, it's not wise to focus exclusively on that single ship while there are still so many nearby which are shooting at me. As a consequence I'll generally have to leave it for later, by which time it's shields will almost certainly have recharged.

Small and medium fighters usually use it in an effective manner, using it to temporarily escape a bad situation. Capital ships mostly do not use boost, but there are some edge cases which have still not been resolved. The most obvious to me are some cases where ships incoming to a boarding operation will sometimes completely boost away their shields (I've reported it as a bug several times, no action has yet been taken on it though).

[GCU Grey Area]

The most obvious to me are some cases where ships incoming to a boarding operation will sometimes completely boost away their shields (I've reported it as a bug several times, no action has yet been taken on it though).

Encountered the same during one of my Split games, where I was doing my boarding with a bunch of Cobras operating from a (stolen) Colossus. Found the best workaround was to give them a fly & wait order near the target, ahead of the boarding command in their order queues. Meant they tended to use travel drive (rather than boost) to get into position. Agree though this is not an appropriate use for boost.

[dreamer2008]

I like how the my AI ships boost for no reason and then get killed in situations where they aren't in danger at all, even at pilot skill 4.

[A5PECT]

Find it's usually the opposite in my games. More often than not it's been an effective escape mechanism for them - right at the point where they'd otherwise be dead (i.e. lined up in the crosshairs, all I need to do is pull the trigger) they boost out of weapon range &, since I'm generally in a one against many scenario, it's not wise to focus exclusively on that single ship while there are still so many nearby which are shooting at me. As a consequence I'll generally have to leave it for later, by which time it's shields will almost certainly have recharged.

And the AI would still be perfectly capable of doing that if boosters didn't draw from shields, with the additional benefit of saving them from their own (understandably engine overhead-induced) stupidity.

The alternate solution is to give NPCs massively expanded situational awareness and tactical decision-making capabilities so they don't squander their shields on a regular basis. I'd love that, but it simply isn't going to happen when the developers are stretching themselves across all their different design goals for the game.