I don’t pay a ton of attention to star citizen but I keep hearing about a “stat crunch” or “normalization”.
Can someone explain that to me in basic terms?
In 3.14 CIG standardized all component stats to help them collect stats and perform a balance pass for SQ42. Their goal is to create a rough balance for component archetypes as a whole, so they’ve reduced the overall variation in stats across all components.
One of the CIG devs explained it in more depth on Spectrum.
The result is that all components of the same Size and Grade are largely the same. If you look on SPViewer, you can see this clearly:
Almost all stats across the board are the same. There are only slight differences where CIG has tuned each archetype (Civilian, Competition, Industrial, Military & Stealth).
This is even more visible when you look at weapons:
Weapons of the same size will share stats with all other weapons with that type (Laser Cannon, Laser Reapter, etc). Beyond choosing the weapon archetype, there is no difference in brands besides the color of the projectile and sound the gun makes.
When CIG implemented this change (3.14 dropped in Aug 2021) we certainly didn’t think it would take them 2 years to complete their balance pass… but here we are today.
Thanks! That pretty much explains it!
/thread ?
Also thanks for the link, I hadn’t seen that site before and it makes looking at all the stats really easy.
You can also have a look at https://www.erkul.games/. It has the same info, and also includes a ship loadout helping tool!
erkul is the best!
One thing extra to note: the one component that still makes a difference are the quantum drives.
Their status did get normalized somewhat, but each one can still be very different and they all change your gameplay up quite a bit. I don’t change many other components out, but I almost always change drives.
True!
Generally for Size 1 people pick up an Atlas because it lets you go between planets without the need to refuel. Unless you’re trying to intercept for PvP, it has such better efficiency than anything else that it’s a pretty easy choice.
For size 2, the XL-1 and Yeager have been clear fan-favorites, but with the stat crunch the Crossfield is also a good option. Those are the only three with sub-5min travel times from Crusader to Microtech.
Does this apply to shields as well? There used to be a lot of variation for them.
Yeah if you look at the shield page, you can see that everything got normalized:
There are minor differences when it comes to how much distortion damage it takes to shut them down, but the use of distortion is rare.
