Hi all,
We've adjusted how weapons work after their target are lost in the update on Dec 22. After the adjustments have been made, we heard many different voices from you, which is of great importance to us. Therefore, we would like to take this opportunity to let you know our considerations behind the adjustments.
Before adjustments, if destroying or losing its target at the firing stage, a weapon would discontinue its current attack cycle after stopping attacks. Instead, it would enter the firing stage after the lock-on time was over, causing extra firing duration. It does not conform to the weapon firing settings of ships and also breaks the in-game balance.
When designing ships and weapons, much attention has been paid to whether they comply with the industry design standards of Infinite Lagrange. Weapons based on ships and aircraft are both huge mechanical devices with a strict working process. The actual amount of loaded ammunition is not enough to support weapons to fire for an extra period. Moreover, the extra firing duration brought by target switching deviates from the current industry technology system settings. After adjustments, ships' combat performance will be more consistent with the stats and rating displayed on the panel and fit the background settings better.
In the background settings of Infinite Lagrange, the first round of attack cycle of a weapon includes the following stages:
Target-Selection Stage, Firing Stage, and Cooling-Down Stage
If the target exists continuously, the weapon will continue to lock onto it and conduct the next round of firing. Then the attack cycle only includes 2 stages:
Firing Stage and Cooling-Down Stage
Weapons will be making judgments at the firing stage. If their target is destroyed or lost, they will stop firing immediately and select a new target within a certain period, which is called "lock-on time."
If weapons switch their target at the cooling-down stage, the lock-on time and cooldown will not be triggered separately. Cooling-down and target switching can be conducted simultaneously.
The original intention of designing the "lock-on time" mechanism is to better simulate weapons' working status. It is inevitable for weapons to have a certain degree of efficiency loss during target switching, which makes creating a fleet consisting of ships against different targets a feasible formation scheme and brings more choices to the fleet line-up strategies. Meanwhile, we will add the description of the weapon attribute "lock-on time" in the subsequent update to help you better understand the target-switching mechanism of weapons.
Thank you all for your support. We will keep focusing on the fun and balance of the combat system to provide you with a better gaming experience.
