New Player Archetype Role

[diremage]

So I noticed on the list of six player archetypes that there is something missing. I have to make some assumptions here because I don't have all the information yet, but I am going to assume that the imperialist is focused on global domination. They might interact with other players, but the interactions are almost always going to be focused on imperialism.

Starmade communities tend to be anemic, and every time a major game-breaking change is rolled out, more players wander off to play something else. The communities have a major unmet need for which there is no game mechanism, and that unmet need causes serious harm to the game by driving off players.

I'd like to propose the adoption of a Community Builder role. This person is often a diplomat, but unlike the imperialist they aren't necessarily focused on military alliances, and unlike the Trader, they don't care so much about trade agreements and profitability. The quintessential Community Builder's primary attribute is friends. Lots and lots of friends, so many that servers tend to lag from the number of ships in play.

The tools the Community Builder needs are not the tools that are available to other roles. The Community Builder finds, trains and retains newbies who may not have ever played Starmade before. They hold events, spend more time talking than they do "playing" and tend to get bored by solo play. They often have good relations with the other player archetypes, although sometimes fighters and imperialists irritate the Community Builder by driving off new players through ganking.

The Community Builder is sometimes a server admin (another role you didn't list), but not every server admin is a community builder. The community builder often uses third-party tools such as Discord and Teamspeak.

Creating game features that appeal to community builders is often an unintuitive task for introverts with more technical than social skills, but it can be done, and with even a few such features the game could be much more appealing to every player.

 

[Brokengauge]

The "player roles" aren't set in stone classes. They're simply there for the devs to use, as a frame of reference, to ensure they have all of their game mechanics in place.

Starmade is a sandbox (I'm sure you're aware) and as such what you do at any given moment is merely limited by game mechanics, and your imagination.

If being a "community builder" is what you want to do, then go for it, but it sounds more like an IRL PR job that you're trying to apply for in a roundabout way lol.

Being able to draw dozens of players to you(hypothetical you, not actual you lol) has nothing to do with any game mechanics that could ever possibly be in this game.

 

[diremage]

The "player roles" aren't set in stone classes. They're simply there for the devs to use, as a frame of reference, to ensure they have all of their game mechanics in place.

Right that's why I'm proposing they add another frame of reference to their game mechanics list.

If being a "community builder" is what you want to do, then go for it, but it sounds more like an IRL PR job that you're trying to apply for in a roundabout way lol.

I have a job, and it pays better than a PR job. Helping newbies is a hobby, like growing tomatoes might be, for example.

Being able to draw dozens of players to you(hypothetical you, not actual you lol) has nothing to do with any game mechanics that could ever possibly be in this game.

This is simply false. I am a software engineer, and I've studied game design. There are mechanics that can, and should, be put in place to build the Starmade community. But the first step in solving a problem is admitting you have a problem. Starmade has a problem creating and keeping communities. It is a problem that can be fixed.

To give you some context, I've watched Starmade communites go from a couple players a day to 20-30 online at the same time every night, with peaks of 50 players, to dead in the space of a couple months. Running post-mortem analysis on that kind of event should be a high priority for Schine, and I don't think it's on their radar.

 

[sayerulz]

You clearly don't understand the nature of the games current state. The LAST thing that schine want's is more players. The game is in alpha, which means most of the people who play it are hardcore fans who are going to keep track of the games progress, try and help schine out with suggestions, and mostly play to test out new features after an update, so they can then report on them to the devs, find any issues, and suggest improvements.

Your suggestion doesn't make any sense anyway, even as a way to get new players. What on earth is a player who's chosen to become a "community builder" or whatever going to be doing? Setting up servers? Building things like the old thunderdome? Those aren't special game mechanics, that's just someone setting things up and communicating with people.

 

[diremage]

You clearly don't understand the nature of the games current state. The LAST thing that schine want's is more players. The game is in alpha, which means most of the people who play it are hardcore fans who are going to keep track of the games progress, try and help schine out with suggestions, and mostly play to test out new features after an update, so they can then report on them to the devs, find any issues, and suggest improvements.

How many years has the game been in "alpha"? To quote someone who is way better at my job than I am, shipping is a feature. A very important feature. Your product must have it. Schine has already alienated probably everyone in their target market who ISN'T a hardcore space fan, and I can't imagine that they drove away 90% of their market on purpose.

Your suggestion doesn't make any sense anyway, even as a way to get new players. What on earth is a player who's chosen to become a "community builder" or whatever going to be doing? Setting up servers? Building things like the old thunderdome? Those aren't special game mechanics, that's just someone setting things up and communicating with people.

A community builder is friendly, and helpful, talks a lot, and makes friends. Features that aid those processes -- off the top of my head, fleets like WoW's party system comes to mind; turrets with a mechanism to let a newbie actually shoot something and be useful in a fight -- features that aid the processes of a community builder will make the game better for everyone and more profitable for schine. Features that actively hinder building a community, such as veteran PVPers in titans coming in and besieging newbie factions, are harmful to servers, toxic to the game and ultimately do damage to Schine's bottom line. This needs to be tested against as they develop new features, and having a new player archetype is a lot less painful than finding out after the fact, "oops, turns out that feature needs to come out".

 

[kiddan]

This suggestions sounds more like something server owners or forum managers would generally care about. Not people actually playing a game. If you ask me, anyways.

 

[diremage]

This suggestions sounds more like something server owners or forum managers would generally care about. Not people actually playing a game. If you ask me, anyways.

The suggestion is intended to interest admins and developers, who are more interested in seeing the game grow and flourish than necessarily playing it themselves. However, players are humans, and humans are social animals. We need to feel like part of a group in order to be psychologically healthy, and if a game doesn't meet that need, people will leave.

 

[Valck]

If you think about community builders as founders and leaders of in-game societies, call them "corporations", "guilds", "clans" or whatever you like, I agree the game needs more tools to enable them, but I think that is indeed what the "Imperialist" role intends to cover; maybe the term is just unlucky, "Community Builder" does sound much more welcoming.
"Factions" and "alliances" as they are now are only a rudimentary hint at what needs to be there.
Maybe it doesn't have to be EVE corporation style where you can designate access levels down to every janitor, third class (or maybe it does), but the currently available options are not enough, and if something can be done to keep those community functions on the design radar, then it should be done.

With regard to community building as in enabling server admins etc., I don't know if that would fit the "roles" model we have been shown in the design docs, and I don't know what would be needed from Schine's side.
I mean, most communities have their own web sites, with maybe a link or recruitment thread in the official forums, and everything else on their own sites, under their own control for design/access/intelligence reasons, and I'd reckon most would want it to be that way. What could Schine reasonably offer in that regard?
Also admin tools, what do you think would be helpful on top of what is already there or projected to be included along the road? There's a tool that sends commands between the server and any script/program you want to, and that only recently also got access to the server's internal database. It might be nice if it were possible to interact with the server and/or the DB in a less resource intensive way, but that tool exists and works.
Server modding is already possible to some extent through config files, although I think it takes some really dedicated community builders to fully exploit their potential. A modding API is planned, and while I think from a design standpoint it makes more sense to define that API as early on in the process as possible, it's Schine's decision, and if they say they will offer it at some point, then that is another item that has already been considered.

In my opinion Schine is still essentially a one-man show most of the time, even if there are several team members besides the main programmer. Whether that is a good thing or not is debatable, but I think it needs to be taken into consideration with regard to expectations of the overall design process and -progress. Fact is, progress is being made, as slow and sometimes obscure as it may be. I'm prepared to ride along for another five years, or however long it takes ;)

 

[Brokengauge]

diremage I think I see where you are coming from, but it really seems to me that this is something that should be in support of the core game mechanics, not an addition to them. It doesn't seem like this should belong with the other "player roles" since all of those deal directly with the core game mechanics. Player on player interaction is in support of those. Community interaction is in support of those.

However, now that I understand where you're coming from, I think you are right, and there probably should be some tools available to server owners and admins to set these types of interactions up, at least a less obtuse way, anyway.

Also, Idk how many times they have to say it, but the devs say it's in alpha. Its in alpha till they say it isn't, and since it's their product that they're developing, then that's all there is to it. I'd love for it to be " in release" now, but more than that, I want the game to be complete. They could turn around right now and label the game as "released" and it would still be the huge, buggy, unstable, slightly frustrating mess it is today. That'll definitely win people over!

You're a software engineer. Haven't you ever worked on a program that gets "released" and sold to customers waaaay before it was supposed to because your client got impatient? I've seen it happen (with arcflash safety equipment no less!), hell you can see it in big name consumer software (mass effect andromeda, arkham knight, Windows Vista). It'll be ready when they say its ready, and after that point will it be appropriate to lament the state of the community at large.

My apologies for my verbosity.

 

[diremage]

diremage
Also, Idk how many times they have to say it, but the devs say it's in alpha. Its in alpha till they say it isn't, and since it's their product that they're developing, then that's all there is to it. I'd love for it to be " in release" now, but more than that, I want the game to be complete. They could turn around right now and label the game as "released" and it would still be the huge, buggy, unstable, slightly frustrating mess it is today. That'll definitely win people over!

You're a software engineer. Haven't you ever worked on a program that gets "released" and sold to customers waaaay before it was supposed to because your client got impatient? I've seen it happen (with arcflash safety equipment no less!), hell you can see it in big name consumer software (mass effect andromeda, arkham knight, Windows Vista). It'll be ready when they say its ready, and after that point will it be appropriate to lament the state of the community at large.

My apologies for my verbosity.

I've been in companies where the clients got so impatient they actually hired third-party investigators to determine whether my employer was actually doing any work at all or just billing fake hours (we were doing the work). I totally understand that nobody likes a half-baked cake. However...

The dev(s) currently appear to be in a push to expand brand new features that completely replace current, workable features (new power system?) at a significant measurable cost in bugs (De-sync bug?!) and a consequent cost in playerbase. Furthermore, they appear to be adding new features to the specs faster than they're actually adding in and debugging new features, even despite their feature push. If they froze the design right now, I'd believe that the product would be feature-complete in ten-ish years. But they're not planning to freeze the project design; it just keeps growing. And even if they did, now you've got a 15-year-old product trying to bill itself as a modern new AAA title for $60 a unit. That's not going to work. If Schine is not profitable today it is not ever, ever going to turn a profit. So I really hope it's at least breaking even with "alpha".

That brings us back to the player base today. Schine has already blown the hype horn for this product; they put it on steam, it's listed right next to minecraft, as far as the public is concerned the product has shipped. Schine isn't likely to get another chance at attracting widespread public attention for this game; the user base they've got is the only user base they are ever going to get. So it'd be a good idea not to alienate them. In fact, it'd be a better idea to nurture the community and let it grow and flourish, "alpha" not withstanding.

diremage I think I see where you are coming from, but it really seems to me that this is something that should be in support of the core game mechanics, not an addition to them. It doesn't seem like this should belong with the other "player roles" since all of those deal directly with the core game mechanics. Player on player interaction is in support of those. Community interaction is in support of those.

However, now that I understand where you're coming from, I think you are right, and there probably should be some tools available to server owners and admins to set these types of interactions up, at least a less obtuse way, anyway.

I really appreciate the support! I hope Schine recognizes that it needs to take its current community into account when it starts brandishing the excuse of "But we're in alpha!" They are no more in alpha than World of Warcraft is.

 

[sayerulz]

Seriously, the game is IN ALPHA. It stops being in alpha the moment the devs say it it's no longer in alpha. Just because you think it shouldn't be in alpha doesn't make it so. And weather or not the game's marketing strategy is going to be profitable is not your concern. That is schine's problem, and since the game has been ticking over, with new employees slowly being added, for upwards of five years, I'd say that that they are managing. And besides that, it should be painfully obvious to you that starmade is not something schema created thinking "I'm going to make so much money off of this!". Starmade is one of those increasingly rare games created because someone really wanted this game to exist. It's a work of art, and no one tells an artist "stop changing your painting, this is taking too long and you won't make money!".

If this was some massive, overpriced AAA game, then no doubt if something like the massive flaws in the current power system was noticed, they would still squeeze the game out like the turd it is anyway, then make a bunch of flashy trailers that tell players absolutely nothing about how the game actually plays. Then they would just duck and cover from the shitstorm that came as people who bought the game realized how flawed a core mechanic was and that they had been totally ripped off. If you want a game that operates like that, feel free to play one of the thousands of them out there.

In the meantime, starmade is in alpha, and it will stay that way until it's good and ready. Until then, they DONT WANT A HUGE PLAYERBASE!

 

[diremage]

Why are you so angry? You very much come across as saying, "We don't want to have players for our game, and we most especially don't want pompous nerds who think they know how to run a business. Good day, sir!"

My proposal is to ask Schine to at least consider the impact to you and your friends when they roll out the latest features, and maybe even help you make new friends. This will directly benefit you.

Socializing isn't everyone's cup of tea. A lot of players would rather gank newbies than teach them to play, and that's a perfectly valid tactic, even though it tends to drive the newbies to some other game.

I mean, most communities have their own web sites, with maybe a link or recruitment thread in the official forums, and everything else on their own sites, under their own control for design/access/intelligence reasons, and I'd reckon most would want it to be that way. What could Schine reasonably offer in that regard?

Well, for example, Schine could add a fleet mechanic that lets you know what sector your friends are in and maybe whether they are taking damage. It could change beam/missile and cannon/missile from shotgun spread that nobody uses, to a lock-on effect that does less damage but caters to people who can't hit the broad side of a barn. Various other features that cater to almost-but-not-quite target market players. Offer small ships significant advantages when fighting large ships, especially titans. A wolf pack should be a serious threat to a lone titan.

Heck, you could add a farmville component where people grow food to craft drugs that give significant bonuses to combat. That would be a social feature, and maybe put planet plants to better use than at present.

 

[sayerulz]

Why are you so angry? You very much come across as saying, "We don't want to have players for our game, and we most especially don't want pompous nerds who think they know how to run a business. Good day, sir!"

Precisely.

Well, for example, Schine could add a fleet mechanic that lets you know what sector your friends are in and maybe whether they are taking damage..

You mean like the ingame chat? "Guys I'm getting shot, could use some help."

It could change beam/missile and cannon/missile from shotgun spread that nobody uses, to a lock-on effect that does less damage but caters to people who can't hit the broad side of a barn.

Missiles and turrets exist. If you want a crappy weapon but one that requires 0 skill whatsoever, try missile/missile.

Offer small ships significant advantages when fighting large ships, especially titans. A wolf pack should be a serious threat to a lone titan.

So... literally the current mechanics, to the letter?

Heck, you could add a farmville component where people grow food to craft drugs that give significant bonuses to combat. That would be a social feature, and maybe put planet plants to better use than at present.

Why is that social? I mean, trading mabey? I don't see how this would affect the dynamic between players in any different a way than minerals do.

 

[Lord_Greyscale]

Why are you so angry? You very much come across as saying, "We don't want to have players for our game, and we most especially don't want pompous nerds who think they know how to run a business. Good day, sir!"

It isn't just him, (though he does sometimes exemplify the angry gamer who hates all these fucking casuals shitting up his game) it's word of fucking god from the dev-team themselves, they don't want a big-ass push of new players, and their "preventative measure" is that they don't advertise.
Is that the right way to handle it? I don't think it is, for many of the reasons you state, but that is the way they're doing it.
(I believe it was either Criss or Saber that said it, and it isn't paraphrasing, they outright said it)

Some of the problems with the dev team, RE: word of god, is that they've often said these things in the middle of an hours-long stream, (that most of the playerbase has neither the time or inclination to watch) and never actually wrote it down on their own bloody forums. (you'd think that'd be easy, put it in the FAQ fer fuck's sake)
(I've had to tell a few people on the Steam forums this very same thing, and one of the mods there even backed me up by finding the precise time in said multi-hour stream)

My proposal is to ask Schine to at least consider the impact to you and your friends when they roll out the latest features, and maybe even help you make new friends. This will directly benefit you.

Oddly enough, those sorts of concerns are why they've hired some of their team members. (I think that's why they hired Criss, though that may have just been for his [at the time] bitchin' station)
They're just really goddamn terrible at preventing the echo-chamber effect, because for the most part they aren't actually a presence on their own forums, so they aren't really seeing/hearing the strongest complaints, and instead stay sequestered in Mount-DEV, chugging ale with the "Good Idea Fairy". (let it be known, the fairy's name is a filthy lie)

This means most of what they do see/hear, is their own thoughts on "what to do next"/"what needs fixing next", and so they sub-consciously forget that there are these enourmous gaping holes in the core-gameplay loop (I could drive a goddamn Space Shuttle, with SRS boosters, and the crawler that moves it to the launchpad, through some of these holes) that desperately need filling in/fixing/adding-on to.

If they actually sat down even just every other week, and played the bloody game, (let's say, devs vs the usual "big" PVP focused factions) they'd both realize more directly what needs filling in, (NPC crew/better AI) and what needs fixing due to being less interesting than watching paint dry.

For example: Mining is fucking boring, (as in, I'd rather mow the lawn, that at least saves me an extra bill from the power company) and the proposed "make some resources rarer" won't fix the core problem, it'll either delay it, or make it that much worse.

Socializing isn't everyone's cup of tea. A lot of players would rather gank newbies than teach them to play, and that's a perfectly valid tactic, even though it tends to drive the newbies to some other game.

I know I've left damn near every game where "pick on the new guy" was not only the most common tactic ever, but was actually encouraged by about half of the developers of those games. (and/or encouragesd by the reward tables/xp system)

It doesn't encourage most gamers to "faction up", (because let's face it, most of the assholes doing the newb-ganking are factioned up in some manner, and more than willing to gang-bang anyone who ever tries to fight back) it encourages them to leave the stinking cesspit of assholes they've mistankenly wandered into. Usually while getting a refund and/or leaving the foulest of reviews.

Well, for example, Schine could add a fleet mechanic that lets you know what sector your friends are in and maybe whether they are taking damage.

You mean like the ingame chat? "Guys I'm getting shot, could use some help."

The in-game chat is generally woefully insufficient for the sort of tactical-level re-enforcing that is being implied.

Voice-chat with said friend is the level of speed we're after, where it takes about 2 to 3 seconds to rattle off where (xyz coordinates) how many, and what they're flinging.

Typing that shit in, rather than flying/fighting, gets you dead.

Heck, you could add a farmville component where people grow food to craft drugs that give significant bonuses to combat. That would be a social feature, and maybe put planet plants to better use than at present.

I'm going to have to echo Sayerulz here, precisely how is farming a social thing, barring the blind-stinking obvious Roleplay aspect, which the dedicated roleplayers are allready doing?

Allso, that treads dangerously close to "fuel" mechanics, which have allso been repeatedly nixed/86'd/rejected by word of god.

 

[diremage]

Thanks Lord Greyscale, you've got a really informative and useful post.

It isn't just him, (though he does sometimes exemplify the angry gamer who hates all these fucking casuals shitting up his game) it's word of fucking god from the dev-team themselves, they don't want a big-ass push of new players, and their "preventative measure" is that they don't advertise.
Is that the right way to handle it? I don't think it is, for many of the reasons you state, but that is the way they're doing it.
(I believe it was either Criss or Saber that said it, and it isn't paraphrasing, they outright said it)

Trying to engineer a slow trickle of new players is different from driving off everyone except for 50 people that play your game. There's literally like 50 or 100 gamers that are actually playing this game right now (at least on the multiplayer servers) and for a five-year-old game with 90%+ positive reviews that's just pathetic. I can't explain to you how pathetic that really is, because I'm hoping against hope that someone on the dev team actually reads this and I don't want to alienate them.

issiles and turrets exist. If you want a crappy weapon but one that requires 0 skill whatsoever, try missile/missile.

I actually kind of like heatseekers, except you can only use them in solo play. This is a bad feature that should be evaluated against my proposed archetype.

So... literally the current mechanics, to the letter?

Right now if you've got a 500k-mass ship and you're facing three 300k mass ships, yes, you're at a disadvantage. If you're facing three 150k mass ships you're going to roflstomp them.

I know I've left damn near every game where "pick on the new guy" was not only the most common tactic ever, but was actually encouraged by about half of the developers of those games. (and/or encouragesd by the reward tables/xp system)

It doesn't encourage most gamers to "faction up", (because let's face it, most of the assholes doing the newb-ganking are factioned up in some manner, and more than willing to gang-bang anyone who ever tries to fight back) it encourages them to leave the stinking cesspit of assholes they've mistankenly wandered into. Usually while getting a refund and/or leaving the foulest of reviews.

+1 insightful.

For example: Mining is fucking boring, (as in, I'd rather mow the lawn, that at least saves me an extra bill from the power company) and the proposed "make some resources rarer" won't fix the core problem, it'll either delay it, or make it that much worse....I'm going to have to echo Sayerulz here, precisely how is farming a social thing, barring the blind-stinking obvious Roleplay aspect, which the dedicated roleplayers are allready doing?

For casual gamers who currently don't play starmade, farming offers a tradeable alternative to mining that allows them to accumulate enough wealth to buy everything they need (from shops! Yes, I know the shops don't stock five million grey hull for your titan. That's not who this is for). Farming typically involves a three-stage effort: one, plant fields (probably on resources that could otherwise be mined); two, go away and wait for a day; three, harvest fields. Note that the wait discourages grinding from hardcore gamers who are better off spending four hours eating planets; it encourages a larger number of players who play for fewer hours per day, and then trade to produce (generally) smaller ships.

Actual demand for combat drugs as a consumable would be very limited; even if you want to spend four hours planting crops (and then four hours harvesting the next day) there's no use for a million stimpacks; your whole faction is not ever going to use that many.

In other words, it doesn't directly aid social play, but it sets up an infrastructure where social play is desirable in the meta-game.

 

[sayerulz]

Right now if you've got a 500k-mass ship and you're facing three 300k mass ships, yes, you're at a disadvantage. If you're facing three 150k mass ships you're going to roflstomp them.

This is demonstrably false.

 

[diremage]

This is demonstrably false.

Last fight I saw like that, the titan disconnected partway through the fight and the hunter ships got to shoot at a sitting duck for about 5 minutes. That's not the kind of advantage I really had in mind.

The math says the titan should be able to one-shot the first cruiser (which makes it now 2v1 instead of 3v1, let's say), tank the next 2 for a minute while its big guns reload, two-shot the second cruiser, and then stand off against the third with low shields. The third cruiser dies a minute later, after possibly getting a minute to chew on the titan's internals.

I admit I am a little bit of a newbie, so why not share your experiences? I would really be interested in some anecdotes that substantiate your claim.

 

[sayerulz]

Last fight I saw like that, the titan disconnected partway through the fight and the hunter ships got to shoot at a sitting duck for about 5 minutes. That's not the kind of advantage I really had in mind.

The math says the titan should be able to one-shot the first cruiser (which makes it now 2v1 instead of 3v1, let's say), tank the next 2 for a minute while its big guns reload, two-shot the second cruiser, and then stand off against the third with low shields. The third cruiser dies a minute later, after possibly getting a minute to chew on the titan's internals.

I admit I am a little bit of a newbie, so why not share your experiences? I would really be interested in some anecdotes that substantiate your claim.

I'll freely admit that I am not the person to go to for first-hand PvP experience. I'm a thinker and a builder, not a fighter. What I am good at though is listening too and remembering other peoples experiences. So for first hand knowledge, there are other people you should ask, something that I encourage you to do rather than just taking my word for it. I can promise you that most of them will back up what I have said though.

Anyway, what I do know is that the power curve means that bigger ships are less efficient. So there's a big boost to a smaller craft right away. Addressing your specific scenario, killing a ship in SM with a single shot is almost impossible, as long as you don't do anything silly like spam aux reactors. It's not completely impossible, mind you though. To do so, however, on a ship about a third of your own size, probably is, unless you dedicate your whole ship to the biggest missile/pulse/explosive you possibly can. Now, let's say this hypothetical titan does that. Simple solution: lots of PD. A few PD turrets will easily deal with a missile/pulse, and a cruiser-sized ship can fit plenty. So assuming the smaller ships are well designed, this mega-alpha titan is probably sunk already. Alpha strike oneshot missiles were the meta a long, long time ago, but the effectiveness of PD, as well as some other changes, mean it's not a good strategy anymore.

So, your cruiser squadron has successfully negated the titan's main weapon. Now, onto it's tanking ability. As long as your three cruisers equal roughly the titan's own mass between them, and assuming you are equally well designed, you will, between you, have greater DPS and shield regen. That's just how the power system works. So it won't be able to tank you forever.

In short, the alpha-titan strategy is a poor one. Even assuming it did work as you said, it could still be easily defeated just by replacing the 3 cruisers with a bunch of frigates, as the alpha-titan could still only take out one per reload, and doing so would remove a much smaller portion of total DPS.

For a more sensibly designed titan, the three cruisers will just have higher power output, meaning more DPS and shields. This is, again, assuming that they are on a similar level of design skill. A really, really good titan builder who min-maxed everything would probably beat three just ok cruisers. But that should be expected.

The whole regen+alpha strike theory to remove enemy DPS as quickly as possible is sound on paper, and it works in some games, but in SM it just tends to break down due to lack of single shot devastation capability and also the fact that, unlike in say most RTS games, a ship actually loses function as it gets damaged. So while in an RTS game a massive ship can often bet better than a swarm of smaller ones with the same total HP/DPS because the large ship will have the same DPS no matter how low it's HP, while the small ones lose DPS whenever one of them dies, in SM, damaging a ship will cut power lines, destroy turrets, Ect., making that theory much less effective, as a big ship on 50% HP will have lost a similar amount to the swarm with 50% of it's ships lost. The big ship still has shields of course, which allow it to take damage without losing function, but these are limited and in closely matched fights it will often end up that the ship that can take more hull damage is the winner.

 

[diremage]

I'll freely admit that I am not the person to go to for first-hand PvP experience. I'm a thinker and a builder, not a fighter. What I am good at though is listening too and remembering other peoples experiences. So for first hand knowledge, there are other people you should ask, something that I encourage you to do rather than just taking my word for it. I can promise you that most of them will back up what I have said though.

Anyway, what I do know is that the power curve means that bigger ships are less efficient. So there's a big boost to a smaller craft right away. Addressing your specific scenario, killing a ship in SM with a single shot is almost impossible, as long as you don't do anything silly like spam aux reactors. It's not completely impossible, mind you though. To do so, however, on a ship about a third of your own size, probably is, unless you dedicate your whole ship to the biggest missile/pulse/explosive you possibly can. Now, let's say this hypothetical titan does that. Simple solution: lots of PD. A few PD turrets will easily deal with a missile/pulse, and a cruiser-sized ship can fit plenty. So assuming the smaller ships are well designed, this mega-alpha titan is probably sunk already. Alpha strike oneshot missiles were the meta a long, long time ago, but the effectiveness of PD, as well as some other changes, mean it's not a good strategy anymore.

So, your cruiser squadron has successfully negated the titan's main weapon. Now, onto it's tanking ability. As long as your three cruisers equal roughly the titan's own mass between them, and assuming you are equally well designed, you will, between you, have greater DPS and shield regen. That's just how the power system works. So it won't be able to tank you forever.

In short, the alpha-titan strategy is a poor one. Even assuming it did work as you said, it could still be easily defeated just by replacing the 3 cruisers with a bunch of frigates, as the alpha-titan could still only take out one per reload, and doing so would remove a much smaller portion of total DPS.

For a more sensibly designed titan, the three cruisers will just have higher power output, meaning more DPS and shields. This is, again, assuming that they are on a similar level of design skill. A really, really good titan builder who min-maxed everything would probably beat three just ok cruisers. But that should be expected.

The whole regen+alpha strike theory to remove enemy DPS as quickly as possible is sound on paper, and it works in some games, but in SM it just tends to break down due to lack of single shot devastation capability and also the fact that, unlike in say most RTS games, a ship actually loses function as it gets damaged. So while in an RTS game a massive ship can often bet better than a swarm of smaller ones with the same total HP/DPS because the large ship will have the same DPS no matter how low it's HP, while the small ones lose DPS whenever one of them dies, in SM, damaging a ship will cut power lines, destroy turrets, Ect., making that theory much less effective, as a big ship on 50% HP will have lost a similar amount to the swarm with 50% of it's ships lost. The big ship still has shields of course, which allow it to take damage without losing function, but these are limited and in closely matched fights it will often end up that the ship that can take more hull damage is the winner.

I've talked to people who can alpha 150 million shield damage on a ship they are currently flying. On a sensible titan, there is no power advantage because most of the firepower is from self-powered turrets. I will grant you, I don't think a titan can drop a good cruiser from full health to overheating in one salvo. But it can definitely drop a good cruiser's shields in one volley and immediately start chewing down its internals. And most people I've talked to advocate a good follow-up missile volley to remove large portions of the cruiser within seconds of the shield going down. Yes, you will lose some missiles to AMS, but you won't lose all of them.

Someone let me peak at a titan BP with more than a million power cap modules. That is a lot of alpha.

And yeah, it'll be 30-90 seconds before the titan can do that a second time, and during that wait period its DPS is probably pretty low. But its shields are likely still up by the time it's ready for the second volley.

One weird thing about titan construction I've noticed is a tendency for paper-thin, unarmored hulls. People rely on the fact that they have 10 million blocks to shield them from damage rather than the heavy and expensive armor blocks, and they tend to present good reasons for that: an armor block not directly under weapons fire isn't contributing significantly to your defense, and on a titan that's likely to be 99%+ of your armor blocks.

 

[Lord_Greyscale]

One weird thing about titan construction I've noticed is a tendency for paper-thin, unarmored hulls. People rely on the fact that they have 10 million blocks to shield them from damage rather than the heavy and expensive armor blocks, and they tend to present good reasons for that: an armor block not directly under weapons fire isn't contributing significantly to your defense, and on a titan that's likely to be 99%+ of your armor blocks.

The bigger, and less-often stated reason is because Titans can't turn for shit.

No, I'm not joking, on my incomplete Titan, just to have it turn at 3/4 the speed of my battleship, I have to set "thrust" to 99% turning. That leaves 1% for the other three thrust factors, and means I won't be going anywhere.
(and with the 15 second "reconfigure" cooldown, I'll probably be dead via one too many shots to the ass before I can even start turning.)