Turret Shielding

[DivineEvil]

In this second example, small craft must hold back or risk certain annihilation while the capital ships do their damage. Once the ship's shields drop below 50%, smaller craft can swoop in and attack a turret directly with some hope that they can damage, and possibly even destroy it. The small-craft pilot will need to exercise patience at the beginning of a battle, but if the timing is right, they can then make a significant contribution to the battle. I think this would be more fun for those pilots who prefer smaller ships, and won't really effect capital combat in any significant way.

Somehow you refuse to realize, that all the difference between situations you have presented lies with the ships behavior. Shield mechanics does not influence these situations in any way. If you're taking main ship's shields down to 50% first, turret shields doesnt go anywhere either way. The target shield capacity you need to strip-off to physically damage the turret remains the same, regardless of order in which it is subtracted. So all the difference here is whether you risk your own capital more than the supporting spacecraft, or vise versa.

Okay, what about a fleet of small ships against one big one?
Like, 5-6 of them, say they bombers are squaring off against one 50k mass ship with no support.

Would/should having a half dozen 1k-2k mass bombers be able to damage a ship? Should they be able do damage a ship?

Currently, can they deal damage to a ship? I think this is a question for personal testing.
(I would define bombers as big attack craft with large alpha damage but low reload time. The Bomber is probably large enough to warent a few missile defense turrets as well.)
Could I have someone test this for us please?

- Combat power of any number of ships mathematically rounds up to the total amount of weapon modules they carry. Ten ships each carrying 100 tons of weapons are just as powerful, as one ship carrying 1000 tons of weapons, by the virtue of linear weapon DPS scale.
- Combat indurance of larger ships is better, because they have a shared pool of shield capacity regenerated by the larger amount of rechargers, while also having less surface area, which requires less amount of armor to cover, that several smaller ships. Shield aspect is counterbalanced by the fact, that smaller ships can leave the area of combat separately to recover their shields. Armor aspect is counterbalanced by the fact, that smaller ships has smaller profiles and are harder to hit, especially with turrets, which possess a server-side accuracy limitations, while large ships in most cases is a sitting duck for any and every incoming fire.
- Larger ships has greatly weaker maneuverability compared to smaller ships. Diminishing returns from Thrusters ensure that a group of ships has much easier time avoiding primary weapons of a large ship, while being able to use their own. This is counterbalanced by the fact, that being unable to avoid primary weapons spells a certain doom for a small ship. That means, that destruction of one ship from a wing of smaller ships would instantly grants a combat advantage to the large ship.
- All in all, the only definite advantage of a large ship compared to smaller ships, is that it can be piloted by one player. When planned Fleet mechanics will be involved, combined arms tactics will always be superior against larger ships due to shield, power and thrust diminishing returns, that are placed upon larger ships.

Turrets might not have the need for any other systems, but that is good and correct, as they act only as an EXTENSION of something else. Their power, shields (sadly just in half measure) and even movement (it is being transported) are absolutely dependent from the main ship. The assumption, that turrets are "more potent" is plain wrong. The power generators have to be there. The thrusters too (if it is a ship). The warp too. Shields too. They are just on the main ship. All the modules placed on the turret could also be placed on the ship directly, making no difference in power consumption and dps. There is no hidden secret bonus dropping magically off only because it is not the turret who is carrying its maintanance needs. They are an extension and not some kind of thing you randomly happened to put on your ship, which deserves only half protection.

I'm aware of that. It's all rounds up to the balance. You have a turret, which is an extension of your ship. It is a weapon module, that has the benefit of flexibility, which means it can shoot when and where your fixed-mount weapons cannot. To balance that bonus out, they cannot fully benefit from main ship's shields, as it would prioritize protecting internal structure over outer extensions, thus limiting shared shield capacity to 50%. You can as well have modular reactors and armor plating, and they will also give you benefits, which are balanced the same way.

It also tied to performance, as having multitude of entities conmplementing a ship will always be more memory hungry for all the movement, relative positions and separate parameters they have, than a ship that has no extensions. Bubble shields were denied and will not even be a thing for the same reasons.

 

[srs008]

why not "siphon" a docked entity's stats to the mothership... be it ship or turret...
any thrust, power... shielding... all get's added to the motherships stores...
then a percentage of the motherships power... and shielding is passed along to ALL
docked entities.
that percentage could go as high as 50%....
somehow the game decides the exact percentage YOUR allowed... probably like 2.5% per entity...
this encourage players to build MANY turrets, for a higher TOTAL, but also means that turrets are affected by a percentage, like having 30 Turrets sharing 300 shield regen is going to end in a very quick ending of those turrets...

this also means that as turrets are destroyed, they become more tougher.
meaning the smartest thing to do, is not to gang up on a turret, but to spread out and hammer the lot... hoping for structural damage.

this also allows players using docked "ships" (aka DOCKED REACTOR CORES)
from having to use the "power supply beam" to transfer power. resulting in the game tracking at least one less thing...

this also means a player has to choose between quantity, and quality of defence.
furthermore, it allows players to create "modular" ships... E.G by adding a shield module instead of a storage module for combat.

 

[Battle]

To balance that bonus out, they cannot fully benefit from main ship's shields, as it would prioritize protecting internal structure over outer extensions, thus limiting shared shield capacity to 50%.

I see the following analogy: You work in a business. Because you cannot fulfil the amount of work you are supposed to do each day, instead of (for example) reducing your income by that deficite percent, your boss tells you, you may not go to the park with your kids.
-> Because turrets are AI controlled, they should get a penalty, which does not even refer to their advantage of being a turret, but instead just refers to some random reason which just happen to come along with Luke Skywalkering down turrets.

In the case AI turrets should in fact get a penalty for being super effective (which I doubt, because they are more vulnerable than anything else on the ship without shields already), it should be something like +30-50% power consumption for weapons, which is explained by AI computers having to calculate for aiming and controlling the turrets or any technical reasons. This makes them less cost effective, but the additional energy requirement is still a nice sacrifice to make, but still a choice you have to make. Also docked entities which have no active AI will not get any penalties. Also my hangar doors which can be opened and closed via shortcut and also at several places don't suffer from that bad "turret-penalty."

Also, you did happen to forget to refer to the possibilities of having segmential spaceships and the Battlestar Galactica version with expandable hangars... and the impossibility of that quite interesting feature (at least I think it is quite a fancy way to build spacecraft this way and having optional modules... the possibilities are huge and the coding requirement minimal - just a play with numbers).

There as so many flaws with that regarding design and balance and gameplay, I can't imagine why anybody would want that to stay that way... it's just something that will bug me forever as long as a play this game.

 

[DivineEvil]

I see the following analogy: You work in a business. Because you cannot fulfil the amount of work you are supposed to do each day, instead of (for example) reducing your income by that deficite percent, your boss tells you, you may not go to the park with your kids.
-> Because turrets are AI controlled, they should get a penalty, which does not even refer to their advantage of being a turret, but instead just refers to some random reason which just happen to come along with Luke Skywalkering down turrets.

Better analogy will be as: Your business is in temporary crisis. Your budget is taking a hit, so it might be more reasonable to cut the spending on secondary personel to maintain payoffs for central management to keep the company trough the issues, rather than keeping the same salaries and going bankrupt next month because of that. If that secondary personel will choose to withdraw from the team, so shall it be.

Also, you did happen to forget to refer to the possibilities of having segmential spaceships and the Battlestar Galactica version with expandable hangars...

I do use segmental armor plating in order to replace damaged parts, rather than manually repair them, and I don't see the issue with extendable hangars or rail-driven doors either. Drones are usually deployed before the carrier takes any significant fire, and when your main ship is below 50% shield capacity, damage to these secondary components is not such big of a deal.

 

[Battle]

Better analogy will be as: Your business is in temporary crisis. Your budget is taking a hit, so it might be more reasonable to cut the spending on secondary personel to maintain payoffs for central management to keep the company trough the issues, rather than keeping the same salaries and going bankrupt next month because of that. If that secondary personel will choose to withdraw from the team, so shall it be.

Quite not a fitting analogy. 1. it is a decision, which you do not have in StarMade. It's a setting for all. 2. The decision is horribly bad (regarding StarMade), because why would you sacrifice the only thing which protects you the best from the danger? You would want it to survive for the longest time possible.
Also the attacks going on the turrets will eventually hit the main ship anyways, and the amount of damage they can absorb with only blocks is no more than 99%-ly insignificant.

To correct your analogy regarding StarMade, you would cut the personel who could actually deal with the crisis, and without them you are only more and more screwed.

I would be glad if it were a personal choice... or customizable by blocks. I would always prefer 100% shield protection for alle docked elements on my ships. Always. But it is none, because this is the way of "balancing" turrets, which is, as I often said, bad gamedesign choice (not the balancing itself, but the way to do it). And even though StarMade has a very nice concept, it is still improvable by a lot, especially regarding numbers.

 

[friendofvampires]

Thinking in customizable terms, making the "shield share" block or adding purpose to capacators would be interesting. lets say if __#1% of the docked entity is this block, then it gets 100% shield share. half of __#1% is 50% share, ect. alternatively, make it a buff, so its __#2% share with no special blocks and goes up based on a percentage of the entities mass, so "real" ships with shields get more protection than some random, half @$$ed armor plates, but GOOD plates, and well thought out parts get full coverage

thoughts?

 

[Kaamio]

One option you do have, is to build a docking module for your turrets with separate shield and power system. Dock the module on your ship and add turrets on it, get extra shielding that doesn't bloat the turret and reduce or negate power drain on the main ship. Of course, should the turret come under fire it still gets drained, and the turret docking module doesn't add shielding to the main ship... so it's kind of redunant in that aspect, but also possibly useful in protecting and powering your main turret defense.

Anyway, attacking a ship with fighter that does only 1% of the damage involved is kinda silly. I understand small ship vs large ship encounters in terms of several smaller ships making up at least third to half of the block count of the target to gain any real and reasonably fast effect. Ion weapons to alpha the shield down to 50% and weaker anti-block weapons with possibly stop effect or just overdrive passive to keep manouverability advantage while shooting off the turrets.

Combine with the somewhere in the future interdiction system and enjoy the tears.

 

[Lecic]

You have a turret, which is an extension of your ship. It is a weapon module, that has the benefit of flexibility, which means it can shoot when and where your fixed-mount weapons cannot. To balance that bonus out, they cannot fully benefit from main ship's shields, as it would prioritize protecting internal structure over outer extensions, thus limiting shared shield capacity to 50%. You can as well have modular reactors and armor plating, and they will also give you benefits, which are balanced the same way.

This is exactly what I've been saying about full shield sharing for literally 2 years. What kind of moron would put their weapons onto a fixed dock when they could have them move around freely on turrets? The same power weapons, with additional mobility as well.