Big ships, small ships

[SkullCollector]

Over the past nine months I've seen three big topics popping up on the forums every now and then; shipyards, FTL / warpgates and the balancing of big ships vs small ships. There are more general topics like shields and thrusters, but these are what I'm interested in the most.

I haven't seen any real discussion on the subject of 'gigantism', other than monodirectional arguments like, "small ships should be able to take out capitals" and "no, they shouldn't."
People seem to agree that they disagree, but why? I hope to create one thread for this discussion to collect data for the devs, and for the community to make up their mind. And because I love to ignite debates.

As a mostly pacifist / creative player ingame thus far, I haven't gathered any combat experience on large servers with PvP aspects, so I can only argue with what I assume to be true.

The general consense of the 'no, they shouldn't' side appears to be that players who invest effort and time in capitals should be rewarded by being the biggest fish in the pond, nomming away these pesky flies others call fighters and corvettes.
The general consense of the 'yes, they should' side seems to be... what exactly? That those who simply cannot invest this time shouldn't be punished by insta-dying if their opponent is six-plus weight classes above?

Both boil down to 'just because', from what I can tell.

Real naval battleships have, in essence, been abandoned because of the tactical superiority of aircraft carriers and the dawn of intelligent missiles. So, by a real world example, small ships should indeed have a certain edge against capitals if these are a) stupid, b) undefended or c) have their anti-fighter turrets crippled / blind-spotted.
But of course, real world ships have no shields, so we might equally just cast this notion away.

So yeah. What's your opinion?

 

[Giegue]

A smaller fighter ship outfitted to kill shields (High damage energy weapons and power drain beams) should be able to kill the shields of a larger ship but only if the ship is faster and the pilot is more skilled.

A large ship should always be able to deal massive damage to a smaller ship if it hits it, As long as the builder has actually spent time on the weapons systems: Flag ships; Carriers and frigates shouldn't even find small ships a problem if they have homing missile arrays.

In general the pilot of the smaller ship needs to feel like they have a chance, But with the odds stacked against them.

To do this effectively there needs to be a line at some point on a server to punish players who enter "A high level zone" with lots of higher level ships, Such as clustering them around high level pirate stations. The only issue is on multiplayer large and small ships are strewn about the universe at complete random making balance pretty much impossible.

To fix this we need some incentive for larger ships to stay in one sector and for smaller ships to stay in another (Preferrably larger ships should need to move away from spawn more than smaller ships).

This could possibly be done by giving farther away shops more blocks to buy at cheaper rates than ones closer to spawn, So smaller ships are kept at a reasonable size to start and larger ships are pushed away from them in search of a larger supply of ship parts for less credits.

Overall this will create a tangible reason why a smaller ship is worse than a larger for a new player ("I rushed by to many sectors and i got punished for it :C"), and create an interested risk/reward scenario for more experienced players ("Do i play it slow and hang around the easy sectors for a while, or try to rush and possibly lose everything?").

 

[Mariux]

I've said it many times and I'll say it again

The problem with big ships isn't their power, it's how easy it is to get your hands on them:
a) Economy system isn't balanced yet: it has a lot of exploits like, for example, using cubatoms to make faction modules
b) you can spawn in a deathstar in no time given you have the money.

 

[Proxima_Centauri]

Small fighters are complete rubbish at the moment.

They can't hope to take down a 10k mass ship, let alone a 100k mass ship. (for example, my piddly little corvette managed to annihilate 250+ isanths all on its own.

That being said, it is very easy for a group of smaller warships to take on and destroy a lone large ship.

The main problem with trying to buff smaller ships is that a buff can be applied to on a much larger scale with capital ships. (let a fighter carry a nuke, then a capital ship can carry 100k nukes, ect. ect.)

 

[Aecetym]

Well somebody once posted it on one of the threads, but I can't seem to find it anymore, about why ppl always take the big ship over a small ship.

It pretty much came down to this:
"Everybody want to be the hero that killed everybody and everything, not the guy that just died during battle or was nothing more but a prop on the field."

Thus everybody builds bigger and bigger so they can become that 'hero'.

Here are a few other problems with the whole 'small vs big':

• If economie would become more balanced, stuff would become expensive, shipyards would become necessary to build ships rather then insta buy them, ... Wouldn't that give bigger ships even more the right to crush anything smaller?

• If you give fighters a way to damage capitals, should the capitals get some ways to defend themselfs against this (non stop cycle of more and more)

• ... (this can go on for a while)

The 'problem' isn't that people build big ships, the problem is that the game doesn't offer you anything els or a use for smaller ships.

 

[NeonSturm]

Some servers have role-play rules which restrict big ships, but there is no mechanic to enforce it -> not good for public servers.

Ideally, you want small ships for scouting, because if you don't you lose a much bigger investment (like flying into a faction base).

could be archived by giving cloak a cost based on (second-biggest axis + third-biggest axis)* shield-capacity or some other formula which discourages using it on war-ships

On scouts, size doesn't matter - also small ships take less hangar space.​

PlexUndeathinators place-able on carriers could also help peoples using fighters more

Another reason for using small ships could be a planet-shop where you have to enter gravity (good, if you can simply backup+restore your inventory by place-all, take-all on Plex-Stores as it makes managing a trade shuttle easier)
If we make Astor-Technician more usefull, it would be another ship which carriers usually have -> nerfing their mass again.
Or imagine ship-factories which waste their current cycle output and cease to work when you fly too fast -> more weight in non-combat stuff = weaker in combat = players use smaller things too.

Some peoples suggested fuel (would greatly nerf big ships), but I think the exceptions taken to have small ships still viable without making it too easy for big ships to get are not acceptable.

I would like a warp system where big ships can't get to the exact way-point. 1% max warp reduces your max non-warp speed by 0.8% for example.



Many good solutions I've seen require a change to the game which players can't make (not even server-admins).
Exception: Role-Play rules



The only thing players love more than big ships are: highly specialized ships, all-round ships (what usually makes them big).

 

[Terramort]

I think the primary problem is the way everything scales. To destroy a small ship, you need only destroy that single core. To take out a big ship, you do the same thing as vs. a small ship, just with a few more layers to drill though. I've suggested most these changes before, but I haven't been on the forums for 2 years or so, so I'll go ahead and outline what I think would help increase the fun with big vs. small ships (based on much gameplay, many hours playing Sword of the Stars 2 -highly recommended for anyone into realistic space-navy combat-, and more space-opera sci-fi books than I care to even try to remember).

(DISCLAIMER: Much of the information I might have is old, haven't played in a while, feel free to correct any mistakes on my part)

- Directional Thrust: Thrusters should increase either acceleration/braking OR turn speed/turn brake. Since Thrusters have diminishing returns the more you have (or is power consumption? Doesn't matter I suppose), bigger ships will have choose decent acceleration OR decent turning OR not-so-good at both. Smaller ships will require much less effort to build than larger ones, and will naturally be for more mobile.

- Turret Size vs. Tracking Speed: The larger the turret, the slower it's tracking speed. Then you can't pack your cap ship with 100k block turrets and eat all the fighters. You have to choose the ability to take out fighters OR cap ships, or just kinda be mediocre at both.

- Flares: New weapon that attracts missiles. If you launch flares while being tracked, missiles go explode on them if there was enough "flare mass" to out-mass your own ship. Flare launchers have quickly diminishing returns, so a big ships would need a HUGE amount of flare launchers to misdirect incoming volleys. At about Cruiser size, it should become more efficient to to use more hull/shields than try to use flares.

- Chain Reactions: One problem with Cap. Ship vs. Smaller Ship is they both have the same weakness - hit the core. It would help even things up if the options were "Kill, Die, OR Disable + Run". There are few ways to go about this. 1. Add a max radius to the Core (20 blocks in a cube shape?). Then allow linked Cores (i.e. to build a 40L x 20W x 10H would take 2 Cores) If any Core besides the main is destroyed, it heavily damages all blocks in it's radius. You can then take out a cap. ship in pieces, instead of receiving full fire until you get a lucky shot at the core which disable the whole ship. 2. Have Reactors explode upon death with enough damage to destroy any touching Reactors. You could heavily cripple your enemy with a well-placed missile (and will have the added bonus of discourage max. spec builds, structural integrity would actually be a thing)

- Shipyard: Instead of buying a blueprint, and then using Alchemy to transfigure to the blueprint into a spaceship, there should be one more, realistic step. You buy the blueprint (and own it until you lose it), take the blueprint and put into your shipyard. The shipyard then takes the materials you put into it and builds your ship (much faster than you could) if the ship fits within the Shipyard walls. That manages to do all sorts of things at once! 1. Realism. No more join server, buy Deathstar, Win. 2. Owning a capital ship would actually be somewhat impressive. 3. MASSIVELY help reduce server lag, as anyone who invests time to build a shipyard + get a ship won't likely leave it lying around. 4. A reason to have a huge, well defended base in space instead of hiding in a planet with a faction module at the center. 5. Shops can have their shipyards up to a certain size, meaning players will still have easy access to Fighters and other smaller ships.

Now, don't me wrong. I don't want people in fighters running around taking out capital ships. What I want to see is someone with a bad build/bad pilot in a cap. ship CAN lose against a Fighter with a very well build ship who knows what he's doing. You know, not even taken out, but able to do more than pathetic damage. Think of fighters like Mosquitoes - small, annoying, easy to kill (if you can hit them!), incapable of doing real damage unless you ignore them, in which case one of them is gonna give you West Nile 'cause you didn't defend yourself.

 

[MrFURB]

This thread here: http://starmadedock.net/threads/a-manifesto-on-the-relationship-between-fighters-and-ai.1686/ makes some decent points and seems so far to be the most widely agreed upon take of the 'gigantism' issue. That's partially due to it talking to both sides of the argument instead of past one of them, like most debates tend to do. "I want tiny ships to destroy big ones" isn't really what one side of the debate is saying. Same with the other side saying "I have more blocks thus I automatically win."
The above mentioned thread clearly understands that and speaks to both sides of the issue, which is my advice to you; Speak to both sides of the issue and automatically assume that people mean the best they possibly can instead of the worst. We all want this game to do well.

In my opinion the larger the mass difference between two vessels, the less direct interaction the two should have in combat. If a 15,000 mass vessel attempts to fight a 10,000 mass vessel, it'll naturally have a distinct advantage being that it can field more statistical firepower while the difference in maneuverability between the two is negligible. However, if the 15,000 mass vessel attempts to fight a 150 mass opponent then it should have extreme difficulty in getting it's weapons on target. That doesn't mean that the 150 mass vessel wins. It doesn't have the firepower to break through the shielding of the opponent in any reasonable amount of time.
The offensive power of heavy vessels is directly countered by the defensive speed of smaller ones, and vice versa. Neither small nor big wins... They just sorta 'dance' for awhile, unable to make a massive impact on each other due to the massive... Mass difference.
Well, all that assumes that a turret's turn rate is also affected the same way a ship's would be, which would necessitate point defenses against smaller ships, and hey, who doesn't like point defense turrets?

A good example of this method is in the popular sci-fi MMO Eve Online, where a dreadnought couldn't possibly imagine hitting a frigate, and a frigate couldn't possibly imagine chewing through the shield-tanking of a dreadnought. Both sides would require either reinforcements or some way of disabling the other's advantages in order to actually do some damage. Now imagine all that but in first person, with the frigate's pilot attempting to weave through firing arcs to survive and the dreadnought cursing his AI's poor gunnery.

 

[Comr4de]

MrFURB IIRC aren't turrets going to have their size affect their tracking speed soon?


But yeah, Yetimania's post is the much needed chemo on the cancer that is the gigantism argument

 

[Rhyunix]

Hello all,
First off, this is an interesting and long subject to discuss, so to have something like this is always nice. Secondly, skull, where do you play R?p and creative? I would like to go to some creative areas- pm me if necessary.
I give what I think is a pair of decent opinions on the subject:
1.
In a future world, a few fighters, most 4, spot a lone cruiser (or something big of that nature) and move in to attack- after a relatively quick period one of the fighters has brought down the shields of the ship, another draining it's power, another launching missiles; the cruiser is rendered defense-less and "dead" by a few fighters- a few scratching of heads? OK - I shall explain the theory
Knowing that at the time of the starmade world, where there is space-jump, shields, pulse weapons etc, long past the clumsy projectile era, what this scenario shows is that size is no longer a concern- this is because the weapons available are so specialised, that they can be the size of a thumb and yet punch a hole the size of a room through hardest materials. Hence, the bigger it is, the harder it falls- the pilots just have to stay alive, dancing around the clumsy dreadnought. But wait!? The dreadnought aught to have the same weaponry, it should shrug off a small fighter? Unlike the dreadnought, the fighters are agile, so much so, that they can avoid most* key most, of the weapons shot at it- similar to the evolution of the aircraft carrier from the battleship, it's the versatility that brings the beasts down- small craft, big punch.
2.
The other story is as follows- a few fighters are moving to engage a dreadnought cruiser thing- they try with little success, like flys on a hippo, to do anything; their size and numbers prevent any decent attack and the dreadnought uses turrets and missiles to destroy the fighters with little effort, no matter how hard they try. Huh, a bit polar? Of course!...
The reason why the dreadnought batted the fighters out of he way is because the bigger the ship, the more room it has for tech. Example?- in Starmade, we see that the more shield blocks one has, the better the shields will be** therefore indicating the necessity to have a bigger ship- the bigger ship will be better in every way compared to the fighters. It would face other dread noughts because they are the heavier units, once done, then would it attack a fighter squadron.

So I'll draw this to a close- fighters at this point in time and forever, should not be able to attack larger ships, even with special tech- to store that kind of weaponry would mean that the other ship would have vast amounts of space for defense tech. In order for larger ships to avoid engaging smaller ships regularly, an increasingly difficult area of opponents must be faced the further out they go from spawn- the area near spawn would also have to have regenerating, but dull materials, forcing people out. I think this shouldn't be done as the experienced gameplay may be lost. I will let you guys decide.

From my IPad

** yes, they need power blocks too, also backing up hat argue meant on size

 

[Qweesdy]

My opinions are:

1) Like most games, players should be rewarded for their effort. If someone spends months earning resources (credits, blocks, etc) then they should be rewarded by being able to afford to build/purchase and run a large ship.

1a) Currently the economy is mostly unfinished/unbalanced/broken. Because of this people can get their large ship/s with little or no effort. Fixing the economy will solve most of the gigantism problem.

1b) Currently there are no running costs - a tiny ship costs nothing to fly around, and a massive ship costs nothing to fly around. There needs to be "running costs" that are proportional to a ship's capabilities (e.g. power consumption); so that people have an actual reason to use smaller ships designed for various purposes instead of just using a massive ship for everything. In addition, power currently comes from nothing (it just magically appears in power generators), which is nonsense. For both of these reasons the game needs fuel and fuel costs; so that a massive ship ends up costing a lot to fly around (and small ships end up costing almost nothing to fly around).

2) The (recurring) comparison between large space ships and large naval ships is completely and entirely moronic. A naval ship is only able to move in 2 dimensions (e.g. on the surface of an ocean) and therefore benefits greatly from carrying air-craft that are able to move in 3 dimensions. A space ship is not restricted to moving in 2 dimensions and can move in 3 dimensions, and therefore does not benefit much from carrying smaller ships (at least, not unless those smaller ships are able to move in 4 dimensions). Basically; a large space ship is much more like a large air-craft; and a large space ship that carries smaller space ships makes about as much sense as a large air-craft that carries small air-craft.

 

[starhaiden]

there are fusion and fission rectors. electricity is electrons

 

[Jerry_Brinefield]

Basically, no, that'd just be silly; however under certain circumstances, yes. Namely, if squadrons are ever introduced, it is reasonable to believe that a squadron based fighter group could out-maneuver a larger, slower cruiser. Most cruisers have a strong shield so it should take a long amount of time. Of course, most capital ships also almost always have a dedicated fighter screen, so the very idea of fighters attacking a capital ship is preposterous, as normally a capital ship would send out fighters to counter the enemy fighters. Also, it is also reasonable that a squadron of bombers could take out a capital ship, again assuming that the fighter screen is either being dealt with or is non existent. If capital is lacking fighters, it could counter with turrets however anti-fighter guns are ususally not seen on cruisers since normally fighters play that role.

 

[Terramort]

Do... any of you guys discuss here, or just gloss over everyone's comment in a rush to make your own?

MrFURB: This is an excellent approach to games where sheer numbers come into play (MMORPGs and RTS games), but I don't that route will work in Starmade, due to turrets. The only way to cause that would be to cause ALL turrets on a cap ship to have terrible tracking speed, or have a min. turret size based on ship size. Both of those options are cop outs that hurt the overall game. It's up to the designer of the cap. ship to decide if he's going to use resources on his ship for anti-fighter duty, or rely on teammates (lots of AntiFighter guns vs. few AF guns)

Rhyunix: A scenario balanced between the two you described would be best - a large number of *skilled* fighter pilots should be make a difference in a fight. A group of fighters should not be able to take a huge ship (unless massive skill & tech differences), but a group of fighters should be able to support a large ship. Example: they are pathetic against shields, but should be able to scout the cap. ship and exploit hull damage from allied cap. ships in an attempt to take out core system. Wiping out your opponent bit by bit is more effective than taking his full firepower for the duration of the fight.

Qweesdy: Yes, fuel costs combined with a harder method of obtaining cap. ships would do a lot to help balance the game, as would adding a Warp Drive mechanic - the large the Drive, the more efficient the returns, so Carriers could actually be a thing.

@Jerry: This seems to best sort scenario in the final stages of the game, where fighters do not win alone, but play important roles.

 

[MrFURB]

This is an excellent approach to games where sheer numbers come into play (MMORPGs and RTS games), but I don't that route will work in Starmade, due to turrets. The only way to cause that would be to cause ALL turrets on a cap ship to have terrible tracking speed, or have a min. turret size based on ship size. Both of those options are cop outs that hurt the overall game. It's up to the designer of the cap. ship to decide if he's going to use resources on his ship for anti-fighter duty, or rely on teammates (lots of AntiFighter guns vs. few AF guns)

Yeah... I kinda use MMO's in comparisons a lot due to my past experience with them. I like that you noticed that tidbit I added about turrets. I don't think that any limitations to turrets are necessary, either. If turrets were to be put under the same mass/turn-rate rules that other entities are then any turret designed to hit a fighter would need to be smaller than an anti-capital turret in order to track the fighter. That might be fighter-frigate sized, or if you're risky maybe even a bit bigger.

Either way, it's an optional addition to your ship which helps it interact directly with vessels of a vastly different class. Due to them being designed smaller, they'll actually be a weakspot that fighters and bombers can target, essentially acting similarly to a protective screen of interceptors or destroyers. When a big'un decides to mess with a little'un, the big'un is engaging the little'un in it's own game with it's own weakness, and the little'un has a chance to bite back at the point defense turrets that are much less shielded than the big anti-capital turrets.

 

[NeonSturm]

If you can make 2 turrets 500 dmg each or 1 with 1000 dmg, what would be your choice? If we start lowering tracking, it just splits turrets into two.
Of-course they would be easier to destroy, but they would -together- kill a fighter much faster before it had time to take out one.

In a large battle, the turret size (other than ~1/10+ of ship size) would not matter. if you need 0.5 seconds to kill one or 2*0.25 to kill two is not important.
in an even fight, small turrets may even survive longer as they require more different targeting-cycles.


Quote "Everybody wants to be Luke Skywalker", but when you can place a PlexUndeathinator in your carrier and order it to stay at a certain distance of your target, you can be the one of the many who try to be Luke Skywalker again and again until you are (as defences now have weak points)

 

[Rhyunix]

If you can make 2 turrets 500 dmg each or 1 with 1000 dmg, what would be your choice? If we start lowering tracking, it just splits turrets into two.
Of-course they would be easier to destroy, but they would -together- kill a fighter much faster before it had time to take out one.

This is what would definitely happen, also increasing the chance to hit the target

Terramort , this would be a bit similar to 6 Star Wars, would require lots of team play, not the kind we see now

 

[Keptick]

A small wave of fighters equipped with pulse-ion weaponry is actually capable of cracking the shields of a much larger ship. The thing is that people that fly fighters are 99.9% solo. You can't really expect a lone fighter to take down a battleship.

I also take "big shipz OP" with a grain of salt. Since most of the time the people that make these claims actually believe a 125m long ship to be a really big ship, which it isn't. "Big" should be defined imho.

Someone made a very interesting post on the importance of AI fighters. Basically, if we could get the ability to remotely control multiple fighters with "attack" commands and such then a big part of the problem would be solved.

 

[Mikisew01]

My opinions are:

2) The (recurring) comparison between large space ships and large naval ships is completely and entirely moronic. A naval ship is only able to move in 2 dimensions (e.g. on the surface of an ocean) and therefore benefits greatly from carrying air-craft that are able to move in 3 dimensions. A space ship is not restricted to moving in 2 dimensions and can move in 3 dimensions, and therefore does not benefit much from carrying smaller ships (at least, not unless those smaller ships are able to move in 4 dimensions). Basically; a large space ship is much more like a large air-craft; and a large space ship that carries smaller space ships makes about as much sense as a large air-craft that carries small air-craft.

I do not believe that movement is critical to this. It is projection of power. The three primary fighting platforms in ocean warfare are each limited in movement, but all have the ability to project power into the other environments. A surface ship is limited to the surface of the water, but can project power to the air above it (anti-air missles; CIWS, 57mm gun, etc) and into the sea below it (torpedo; depth charge, etc.). Aircraft can only operate in the air above the ocean, but can move virtically within it. However, it can project power to the ocean's surface (missles, bombs, etc) and into the sea below it (depth charge, torpedo, etc.). Submarines are limited to movement under the water and on its surface (though the latter location provides it with severe disadvantages), and it can move virtically within it. However, it can project power to the ocean's surface (torpedos; missles; guns) and to the air above the ocean (missles; AA guns; etc.). Note that I am lumping modern warfare and the past 100 yrs of naval warfare with regard to weapon systems.

That being said, I believe that comparing starmade to limited naval warfare is appropriate. What I mean is to remove air power and sub-surface power out of the equation. The history of naval warfare and the tension between the advantages of large over small has been constant. The reason we have destroyers (short for torpedo boat destroyers) was to defend the capital ships from small manuverable torpedo boats. The stories of small carabean pirate vessles attacking huge gallions with pinances effectivly; or of barbery pirates attacking French and Spanish ships with their rowed longships are clear about this tension. Small ships have an advantage and in those cases can do massive damage to larger ones...if not destroy them. Even now our navies practice defending against fast-boats (speedboats that might be filled with explosives) by using remote-control boats the size of a small speedboat for target practice and defensive drills. They practice because it is a threat.

The main player in our equation though is shields. Their effectiveness at defense can be frustrating for smaller ships, but so can heavy armour on battleships. It is just the obsticle that must be overcome. A small ship that is nothing more then engine and weapon should be able to be as effective against large ponderous targets as torpedo boats before it. The large ships need ensure they have adequate defenses on board...or have an effective screening of lighter ships to take care of the threat.

I agree with others in that a cost to opperate (gas, crewing, whatever) needs to apply. There needs to be a cost of doing business...of flying a huge ship. The maritime nations of the world have this issue and it drives their decisions on what type of naval assets they opperate. Just like buying a big truck that you have the money for....it is only good if you have the income to pay for gas, insurance, and repairs. Otherwise, it will quickly become a lawn ornament.

 

[NeonSturm]

Maybe just apply a cost for active use.
Pirates everywhere killing your turrets!

Or some strong missiles for which you have to reload with dis-integrators connected to your missile array - a nice sweet spot.