Shield System Redux/ (no bubble shields)

[jath]

Ok, we're all sick of this topic, and so far, I don't think anyone has come up with the best solution. Bubble shields are basically out because of performance issues. While this may change in the future with more optimization, it's not what people even want anymore anyway.

Premise:
We want to make it possible for a highly skilled strike team of fighters to disable, or damage a mega-ship. This would fit into our big v small rolls better by allowing this to happen under the proper circumstances, without:
A, making large ships overly vulnerable to other large ships, and
B making it possible for a tiny ship to take out a giant ship by itself.

Goals and Benefits
Primarily, this idea would make it possible for
1. boarding actions to take place,
2.for small ships to do strategic damage to specific parts of a larger ship, making it less effective.
3.It would also enable a highly skilled squadron of small fighters able to take down a large ship during a long hard engagement, rather than the larger ship being simply rendered invulnerable to all attacks.
4. make skill more important to the large ships pilot as well, since the pilot will now have to make more corrections because of the limitation of the shield system against smaller ships, and also,
5. make the smaller attacking ships more vulnerable to other defending fighters, causing more interesting game play.


Breakdown
The premise of this idea is based on location of shield capacitors, and scaling spread of damage to shields based on the incoming damage.

First, the shield capacitor layout functionality would remain more or less the same as they are now, requiring little to no refitting.

now lets assume a shield capacitor mass ratio of 10%, for a total of 1100 shields. Now lets assume that the ship has a mass of 100, for a total 1000 blocks. Now lets add a secondary "combat shield recharge" that is 10 seconds, instead of 60, and limit this combat recharge to only the area that's currently being shot at, after 10 seconds, the damage incurred in this area will add to the rest of the ship.

The area that is being shot at will be an area figured by this formula:

dps done(by single computer) *11(calculated from single block damage*2/ capacitance) = shield pool on area
D*11 = St
shield pool on area/total shield pool * total blocks = block area effected.
Sa/St*Bt = Ba

D=damage done, St = shield total, Sa = shield area, Bt = Blocks total, Ba = Blocks area

So, if you were to do 5 damage per hit, on the above ship it would look like this.

5*11 = 55
55/1100*1000 = 50

so basically, what would happen is each block in the ship would get it's own portion of the total shields or 1/xth of the shields where X is the total number of blocks in the ship.

A hit of 5 would spread the shield damage to the 50 closest blocks, basically an explosion radius that continues until 50 blocks have been shield damaged. This hit would mark these 50 blocks "hit" for 10 seconds, during which time they will receive no recharge from other blocks, nor the standard rechargers.

After 10 seconds of a block not being hit, or if a different area is hit, whichever comes first, the shields will begin to recharge, drawing shields from the other blocks in the ship first. The regular recharge rate would effect all non "hit" blocks.

Layman's Terms

Without all the math, whats happening here is that it's causing a shield to have weak spots depending on how much damage is received per second.

If you can focus on a specific area for 11 seconds, as long as you're precise, you should be able to break through the shields in that small area and begin damaging the main ship.

If you're not accurate, you'll wind up spreading your damage all over the place causing less effectiveness.

If a fighter squadron is uncoordinated, you'll wind up with shields basically the same as they are now.

if you go up against a ship that is much higher damage, it will spread the damage over a larger area of shields causing the 11 seconds to hold up regardless of the damage, unless your total shield pool is less than 11 times his total DPS.

This system rewards accuracy, it also doesn't leave the larger ships as vulnerable as some other systems do, to smaller ships.

Larger ships will have to do things like Roll more to keep specific zones from being targeted, adding more to large ship skill.

It may even discourage larger ships since a small ship that can out maneuver it can theoretically take it on. It may cause the pilot of said large ship to actually get into a fighter to clean his hull of small ships.

If you can punch a small hole into a large ship, you can board it. It also has interesting implications for personal weapons that might be able to finally kill doors and other systems once boarded.

You may be able to add manual shield boosters that would require you to actively strengthen specific areas of shields that they might target. (not sure how to do this one yet)
[DOUBLEPOST=1427758153,1427756745][/DOUBLEPOST]This system rewards accuracy, without punishing higher damage weapons.

 

[jayman38]

I like it, but I think the shield effect needs to be limited to a cube of 27 blocks, centered around the hit block. On the other hand, I'm wondering what this will do to capital vs. capital combat. Will it hail the return of waffleguns, to ensure that the weapons take advantage of any weakened point on a shield?

 

[Keptick]

Not too sure that I understand everything correctly, but wouldn't that make staged missiles (two or more missiles smashing into the same spot with a small interval) or just missiles in general a bit too... effective? Missiles, and even the higher alpha beam and cannon combos would have the power to smash shields in a specific area and immediately vaporize the hull under it.

Interesting suggestion though, I got to admit . Reminds me a lot of StarWars for some reason.

 

[jath]

It would base the area on the DPS or the total damage tick of one shot, of the computer itself, not each individual group. It penalizes missing. Waffle Guns would wind up being no more effective with this system.

 

[Valiant70]

This is a legit idea. With some experimentation and tweaking, I think it could be made to balance well and complement the ship HP rework. This would wind up creating a similar approach to Battlestar Galactica Online where a small strike craft with extreme skill and maneuverability can gradually beat down a ship-of-the-line. The difference is, with Starmade's infinitely customizable turret configurations, this would be better balanced as a medium-weight support ship would frequently have to help tank and bring down one or two anti-fighter batteries before the fighters can engage.

Point of interest: Super-leviathan ships would require even more advanced tactics to burrow into and destroy. Don't worry - unless you have a vulnerability similar to the Death Star's exhaust port, you need not worry about losing to a fighter.

 

[Winterhome]

It's worth exploring on a test build.

 

[jath]

If this shield system was used, you'd be able to expand the main ships shields to a turret, and still have the individual turrets be at risk for balance. Or might be necessary to change shields to act in some way like this with the new docking system pretty much requiring chain docking for turrets.

 

[FullMetalFox]

So your idea is to transfere the shield from entity based to block based?
Aka lets say i fly around in my 25k ship with 10 million efficient shield, ill have 40 shield per block.
So, what happens when a 3.000.000 damage missile hits my shield?

Also, this could be very, laggy.

 

[NeonSturm]

Aka lets say i fly around in my 25k ship with 10 million efficient shield, ill have 40 shield per block.
So, what happens when a 3.000.000 damage missile hits my shield?

Perhaps count x damage per weapon block? or x damage per block of the attacking ship :D

I just don't like how titans have a damage-resolution of 1/1000 their size while fighters have a damage resolution 1/20 their size.
jath: Please don't make this even worse - not even more empathies on ULTRA-large ships.

Also, this could be very, laggy.

Not if it is calculated statistically per hit.

 

[FullMetalFox]

X damage per weapon block + modifiers is exactly how damage is calculated right now :p
X damage per block of the attacking ship would make big ships stronger or weaker, depending on how you use that, i personally dont think that the block count of a ship itself should change the power of its weapons, aka two identical weapons on different sized ships should do the same damage regardles of the ships size.

And lag, "no/not" is not possible here by logic. Every more complex way of doing somehing will cause more server load, how much that increase is depends on how complex the calculation is and how well the code is written compared to the previous methode, and the current one appears rather simple, so this most likely would end up being more complex.


But, i just remembered something. Did anyone here ever play Independence War 1 or 2? This game series had a not so common kind of shields, called LDAs, they essentially worked like an Active Defence System by projecting a Liniar Displacement infront of an incoming projectile, disrupting it before impact, and each one of those LDAs would ony track the currently closest and stronged threat to you. Since most smaller ships (Corvettes around 180m) did only have two of these, and each one only covered half of the ship, it was quiet common that some shoots from lesser enemies just flew right thru your shields. Maybe an approach similar to this could enable smaller craft to kinda be ignored by shields unles they are the biggest threat in that situation. Not that i would want this, but its potentionally a les laggy approach.

 

[NeonSturm]

I like that "Independence War"-approach.
But as you said "Every more complex way of doing somehing will cause more server load".

And lag, "no/not" is not possible here by logic. Every more complex way of doing somehing will cause more server load

Nobody cares about <1% more server load if the results would provide a nice balance.
If lag means + >5% server load, this is logic.

X damage per block of the attacking ship would make big ships stronger or weaker, depending on how you use that, i personally dont think that the block count of a ship itself should change the power of its weapons

Some games call shield a weapon.
At least it really is a combat system...

But what really matters is weapon-block / total-blocks ratio.

 

[FullMetalFox]

Nobody cares about <1% more server load if the results would provide a nice balance.
If lag means + >5% server load, this is logic.

Like i said, that really depends on the complexity and execution of the code.
If you compare to what coredrills or salvage beams can cause, dealing with block based calcuations like HP or Salvage Power can cause a lot of server load, dealing with Shielding per block could end up similar.

Some games call shield a weapon.
At least it really is a combat system...

But what really matters is weapon-block / total-blocks ratio.

Combat is not only offence.
Again, i personally dont think a ships size should affect its weapons damage per block efficiency. The overall size of a ship already affects weapons in terms of limiting them based on size and power available.
I assume this comes from you based on your RP views? Aka the wish that ships with a higher ration of blocks sacrificed for RP purposes would gain a bonus to their weapons due to a higher block to block ratio?

 

[jath]

So your idea is to transfere the shield from entity based to block based?
Aka lets say i fly around in my 25k ship with 10 million efficient shield, ill have 40 shield per block.
So, what happens when a 3.000.000 damage missile hits my shield?

Also, this could be very, laggy.

First thing, if you have 40 shield per block and someone hits you with a 3 million damage missile (assuming you have more than 3mil shields), the damage would spread across an area using the same calculations to figure normal missile damage, except it's only changing the health of the blocks, not the presence of them. Several numbers would be pre-determined on weapon and target, and the actual calculations would take place instantly. The area of effect would be calculated the same way as a normal missile strike, so it wouldn't be any more laggy.

Perhaps count x damage per weapon block? or x damage per block of the attacking ship :D

I just don't like how titans have a damage-resolution of 1/1000 their size while fighters have a damage resolution 1/20 their size.
jath: Please don't make this even worse - not even more empathies on ULTRA-large ships.


Not if it is calculated statistically per hit.

yes, a large ship would have a smaller damage to resolution of thier size, and thats the point. The close in size you are, the less this resolution should matter. if it's a tiny ship vs. a larger ship, the tiny ship must be MUCH more accurate, a larger weapon has to be less accurate. That's more fair than saying, Big ship = invincible, tiny ship = vapor dust. I'd rather fly for 10 minutes around a giant ship with some hope of doing damage to it than trying to escape same ship who can then get lock on me after 5 seconds and boom.

If this idea doesn't make sense to you, try plugging your own numbers into my equation, it will make more sense to you after that.
[DOUBLEPOST=1428884896,1428882958][/DOUBLEPOST]size disparaging would be fixed, and maneuverability would become much more important in combat. Right now, it's just point and shoot and pray your numbers trump theirs.
[DOUBLEPOST=1428884953][/DOUBLEPOST]this solution adds skill to dogfights where there was none before. You are getting pounded in the face, maybe turn a different side of your ship toward them for a moment to let your shields recharge.

 

[FullMetalFox]

First thing, if you have 40 shield per block and someone hits you with a 3 million damage missile (assuming you have more than 3mil shields), the damage would spread across an area using the same calculations to figure normal missile damage, except it's only changing the health of the blocks, not the presence of them. Several numbers would be pre-determined on weapon and target, and the actual calculations would take place instantly. The area of effect would be calculated the same way as a normal missile strike, so it wouldn't be any more laggy.

Like i said, 25k mass, 10 million shields, means 40 shield per block.
1: If the damage would spread as with a regular missile, the damage would totaly overwhelm the tiny 40 shield per block = nuke the shield in that area, wasting the remaining damage, or if the remaining damage is applied to the blocks health: total utter destruction of the impact areas.
2: If the damage would be spread wider to a point where it wouldnt nuke the blocks shields, it would have to be spread over 7500 blocks, thats way more than the regular impact area of a missile.
3: Currently, if a missile hits a shielded target, is substracts the missiles damage from the shield value of the entity, should the shield fail the remaining damage gets used in the regular missile impact waves.

So no, this either would make shiels useles against high alpha attacks (case 1) or requiere a lot of calculations each impact (case 2 vs 3).
So yes, in as in case 2 it would be rather laggy with so many blocks affected.

yes, a large ship would have a smaller damage to resolution of thier size, and thats the point. The close in size you are, the less this resolution should matter. if it's a tiny ship vs. a larger ship, the tiny ship must be MUCH more accurate, a larger weapon has to be less accurate. That's more fair than saying, Big ship = invincible, tiny ship = vapor dust. I'd rather fly for 10 minutes around a giant ship with some hope of doing damage to it than trying to escape same ship who can then get lock on me after 5 seconds and boom.

Acutally its not more fair. The person in that big ship spent a lot more time and resources building his ship than you did. While ill agree that currently ship combat is size dominated, a small fighter ship alone still shouldnt be able to do jack shit against a big battleship. Youre tiny ship is: Cheaper, takes les time to build, is easy to replace, and cant carry any weapons that would be a threat in a realistic scenario.
Hence, there is no logical reason, nor any fair justification in a player vs player environment for this.
But, tiny ships can be a threat to big ships, but here is the thing, the quantity does it. Think about what would happen to combat involving drones, those are already a threat right now due to their quantity, imagine how insanely drones would benefit from your suggestion.

If this idea doesn't make sense to you, try plugging your own numbers into my equation, it will make more sense to you after that.
size disparaging would be fixed, and maneuverability would become much more important in combat. Right now, it's just point and shoot and pray your numbers trump theirs.
this solution adds skill to dogfights where there was none before. You are getting pounded in the face, maybe turn a different side of your ship toward them for a moment to let your shields recharge.

I understand your reasoning behind this, i understand how you came up with this, that still doesnt change that i dont agree with your reasoning nor see your suggestion as anything else than unbalanced and a potential lag fest.
There are other ways of changing the size issues, but youll never get rid of them in a game where every ships cost and total possible stats are based on its block count. While i agree that maneuberability should be important, it should be in terms of design, should someone build a ship to be maneuverable, it should be maneuverable and able to utilize that.
There is some skill in dogfights right now, but thats rarely seen. And thats primarly an issue resulting from the way weapons work and scale currently, the retarded turn speed calculation and same max speed on all ships.

 

[jath]

Like i said, 25k mass, 10 million shields, means 40 shield per block.
1: If the damage would spread as with a regular missile, the damage would totaly overwhelm the tiny 40 shield per block = nuke the shield in that area, wasting the remaining damage, or if the remaining damage is applied to the blocks health: total utter destruction of the impact areas.
2: If the damage would be spread wider to a point where it wouldnt nuke the blocks shields, it would have to be spread over 7500 blocks, thats way more than the regular impact area of a missile.
3: Currently, if a missile hits a shielded target, is substracts the missiles damage from the shield value of the entity, should the shield fail the remaining damage gets used in the regular missile impact waves.

So no, this either would make shiels useles against high alpha attacks (case 1) or requiere a lot of calculations each impact (case 2 vs 3).
So yes, in as in case 2 it would be rather laggy with so many blocks affected.

First, the damage done will be 10% of each block's shield health, the total number will spread out over an area to make that happen. It will take 10 shots to get through the shields regardless (I'm normalizing here since each weapon will actually take different numbers of shots depending on their DPS). You have to be repeatedly accurate on the same spot in order to get through the shields there, and then, you will only do minimal damage to the larger ship since the area you've weakened the shields is pretty small. it would definitely be bigger than the impact area of a normal missile, but the way it would work, it would calculate the impact once, then as long as you continue hitting in that impact zone, it doesn't recalculate. Once you hit outside that impact zone, it recalculates, and the recharge on the previous zone goes back to normal.

Acutally its not more fair. The person in that big ship spent a lot more time and resources building his ship than you did. While ill agree that currently ship combat is size dominated, a small fighter ship alone still shouldnt be able to do jack shit against a big battleship. Youre tiny ship is: Cheaper, takes les time to build, is easy to replace, and cant carry any weapons that would be a threat in a realistic scenario.
Hence, there is no logical reason, nor any fair justification in a player vs player environment for this.
But, tiny ships can be a threat to big ships, but here is the thing, the quantity does it. Think about what would happen to combat involving drones, those are already a threat right now due to their quantity, imagine how insanely drones would benefit from your suggestion.

If it was a small ship vs. a large ship, how is it more fair that the small ship automatically =s vapor dust, just because more was put into the big ship? Under that reasoning, rich people have more right to live than poor people.

No, I'm not saying a small tiny ship should be able to solo a large ship, but be able to at least scratch the thing. Think bee vs. man. It can sting you, you can squash it. It's not fair that you have to spend a week recovering from your bee sting when that bee only took 6 days to gestate? Think X-wing Vs. Death star.... You should at least be able to blow a few holes in the thing before you're annihilated....
yes quantity does help, but you still have to work as a team in smaller groups to hit the same spot, or you'll be sabotaging each other's shot zones. Drones won't even try to hit the same spot, so the mechanic will act much like it does now. Larger ships will simply have to roll a little more often to ensure smaller ships don't get longer times to weaken certain spots.

I understand your reasoning behind this, i understand how you came up with this, that still doesnt change that i dont agree with your reasoning nor see your suggestion as anything else than unbalanced and a potential lag fest.
There are other ways of changing the size issues, but youll never get rid of them in a game where every ships cost and total possible stats are based on its block count. While i agree that maneuberability should be important, it should be in terms of design, should someone build a ship to be maneuverable, it should be maneuverable and able to utilize that.
There is some skill in dogfights right now, but thats rarely seen. And thats primarly an issue resulting from the way weapons work and scale currently, the retarded turn speed calculation and same max speed on all ships.

It won't be a lag fest, it will work. Small ships should be able to wear down big ships over time. This is simply not possible currently, not within reasonable numbers.

a ship that requires 100 drones to take it out, you'd be able to do the job with 10 people, slightly bigger ships, longer amount of time. Which one would lag more? Drones would become an anti-fighter technology, not an anti capital ship one.

If they made the AI smart enough, they could fly on your wing and target spots you shoot at. That could become a fun way to do space battles, hopping into a fighter and outmaneuvering. Boarding enemy ships, and battling your way to the bridge in astronaut mode.

Talk about COOL!
[DOUBLEPOST=1428967437,1428966945][/DOUBLEPOST]in the scenario of a small ship sitting in a blind spot, pounding away at your shields, you could deploy drones or fighters to force him to move, you could then try to maneuver so you can 1 shot the small ship. recall drones, salvage his ship, repair your hull (using blueprint in future update) and it's like you never got touched. It makes things a little more interesting for the large ship..

To me it sounds like you're saying that you think your large ship should simply be invulnerable no matter what. I'm trying to make things more interesting by making weaker opponents even a little bit of a threat because they can drill into your ship and stow away on board.

 

[Snk]

+1

 

[FullMetalFox]

First, the damage done will be 10% of each block's shield health, the total number will spread out over an area to make that happen. It will take 10 shots to get through the shields regardless (I'm normalizing here since each weapon will actually take different numbers of shots depending on their DPS). You have to be repeatedly accurate on the same spot in order to get through the shields there, and then, you will only do minimal damage to the larger ship since the area you've weakened the shields is pretty small. it would definitely be bigger than the impact area of a normal missile, but the way it would work, it would calculate the impact once, then as long as you continue hitting in that impact zone, it doesn't recalculate. Once you hit outside that impact zone, it recalculates, and the recharge on the previous zone goes back to normal.

10%, so 10 shots. thats not much. you do know that a lot of people use salvos on missiles to counter point defence? Some like me even build them in specific patterns to not only decoy point defence, but also breach several hundret meters of armor and blocks to reach a core even on big ships in one hit? Essentially all my missile systems would literally abuse this to their design, and yes if you use them right, they all hit in the same spot with milliseconds between the hits, and im talking 24 to 128 missile + decoys. Or the famous multicannons, cannons with a lot of projectiles very close to eath other, often used to make visually more appealing shoots and/or to stack the punch-thru or pierce effect, or coredrill beams, beams stacked behind each other to cause tons of accurate hits in a very shot time.

If it was a small ship vs. a large ship, how is it more fair that the small ship automatically =s vapor dust, just because more was put into the big ship? Under that reasoning, rich people have more right to live than poor people.

Thats a really bad analogy. But if you want to make a comparison like this, hard working people have more right to enjoy the fruits of their labor than lazy people/people who refuse to work hard. Also, there are other ways of making smaller ships somewhat more survivable, currently their biggest bane is homing missiles, you could reduce the turn speed based on the missiles damage, would only be logical, bigger missile = more damage and more mass = needs more NM to change course = easier to evade missiles that would instakill small ships.

No, I'm not saying a small tiny ship should be able to solo a large ship, but be able to at least scratch the thing. Think bee vs. man. It can sting you, you can squash it. It's not fair that you have to spend a week recovering from your bee sting when that bee only took 6 days to gestate? Think X-wing Vs. Death star.... You should at least be able to blow a few holes in the thing before you're annihilated....
yes quantity does help, but you still have to work as a team in smaller groups to hit the same spot, or you'll be sabotaging each other's shot zones. Drones won't even try to hit the same spot, so the mechanic will act much like it does now. Larger ships will simply have to roll a little more often to ensure smaller ships don't get longer times to weaken certain spots.

With the way "repairing" currently works, it would seriously piss me off if any derp with a small ship whos not on my KOS list could damage my ship by simple shooting the same place with a tiny ass gun. The bee dies from stinging something, so that analogy is the equivalent of someone dieing from ramming me with an explosives loaded kamikaze ship, something that wouldnt suprise me if it does damage.
Drones focus fire on the core as any AI does, and depending on how you use them, their fire can be pretty pin point, especially on missile mine "drones" in tight clusters, and on big swarms thats a lot of hits in a very tight area in a small time frame.

It won't be a lag fest, it will work.

Do you have any development experience of knowledge to back that claim?

Small ships should be able to wear down big ships over time. This is simply not possible currently, not within reasonable numbers.

a ship that requires 100 drones to take it out, you'd be able to do the job with 10 people, slightly bigger ships, longer amount of time. Which one would lag more? Drones would become an anti-fighter technology, not an anti capital ship one.

Its possible if the big ship is build bad, or the small ships manage to shoot of all turrets that could pose a threat, and out dps its shield recharge. Ive killed a lot bigger stuff with comparibly smaller ships, like literally picking apart a buddies 300k mass titan with a 25k cruiser on a joke match. And i did that by picking of some of his turrets with long range fire, using my jumpdrive to get behind him, and simply saying behind his slow as fuck turning ship shooting his engines.
Drones are also quiet often the same size or even larger than what most people would call fighters, and depending on how they are build and used, can pretty much combat everything currently. 10 slightly bigger ships pretty much can do what 100 small drones can do if those 10 people are skilled, the thing again is scale relation, pilote skill and build skill, literally 10 1k ships can fuck up one 50k ship pretty badly. And i never claimed that huge ass drone swarms wouldnt be les laggy than just 1/10 of that in player controlled ships, so dunno where you pulled that from. The whole drone example was just to proof that smaller ships currently can be very effective, its just the mass that does that.

If they made the AI smart enough, they could fly on your wing and target spots you shoot at. That could become a fun way to do space battles, hopping into a fighter and outmaneuvering. Boarding enemy ships, and battling your way to the bridge in astronaut mode.

Talk about COOL!

Fleet Control for AI is a desired future feature, one that propably will come after the AI rewrite, but im guessing it wont be what you want.
Wouldnt call that cool, i find the classic WC/FS "ultra tiny fighter ships fuck up huge ship" style combat very generic and cliche, i was happy as a madman when games like IndependenceWar or Eve Online allowed us to finally fly the bigger stuff.

in the scenario of a small ship sitting in a blind spot, pounding away at your shields, you could deploy drones or fighters to force him to move, you could then try to maneuver so you can 1 shot the small ship. recall drones, salvage his ship, repair your hull (using blueprint in future update) and it's like you never got touched. It makes things a little more interesting for the large ship..

To me it sounds like you're saying that you think your large ship should simply be invulnerable no matter what. I'm trying to make things more interesting by making weaker opponents even a little bit of a threat because they can drill into your ship and stow away on board.

Or, i seem him anyways because i use "camera drones", and then i could simply press the button for my anti drone swarmer launchers, ruin his day, and get annoyed about fixing some damage again because some crack head thought pissing off a much bigger ship would be a good idea. Or depending on how the HP System turns out, id be laughing my ass of about just loosing some overall HP but not any blocks while he lost his tiny ship. And later ill be pissed off because someone with with a similar sized ship and needler weapon design abused this to pretty much just nearly ignore my shield, althou or combat should have taken much longer.

To me it sounds like you lack combat experience and knowledge about what is actually possible in terms of weapon designs in starmade (not meant as an insult, but stuff like the 10 hits, makes it seem like you dont know the most common pvp weapons), and/or are one of the Wing Commander / Freespace fanboys, who only want to fly fighter size ship while still being able to piss off everything, no matter if it makes any sense or not.

[...] Think like in Eve online. You, by yourself, cannot take on a Titan.
It makes sense, and nobody complains.
The reason it happens here Is that everyone wants their ship to be awesome, and it's hard to accept that there are limits to our own creativity and time.

 

[LittleJoe]

I think if a group of small ships COULD compete with larger ships (at least to some extent) that will bring down the NEED for people to have "the biggest ship" to survive, hopefully canceling out alot of bad performance caused by server lag :D

 

[mrsinister]

hmm, my 2 cents....
Well, to be honest, I don't mind the shields the way they are... OMG WHY!!?? you ask? simply put, If I am in a fighter and I happen to see a leviathan or something close, pick your large poison, I am fairly sure I would not mess with it. Not out of fear, but knowing the limits of my own ship. I may take a shot or so at a cruiser or something similar just to see if I do any damage, but normally no I will leave it alone. On the flip side, if I was with another 9 - 19 other fighters then sure we could pound on it and see if we do anything at all to it. But thats how it is. That's why other large ships exist and other role specific ships exist. I wouldn't want to take a RIB against a Destroyer, sure I could pound on it with my machine guns, but would I or even SHOULD I do damage to it enough to cripple it? (hull wise).

 

[NeonSturm]

Perhaps it should be inefficient to use more than 100 small entities against a single ship.
But using between 25 and 75 entities against a single ship should be effective.

1. Setting up numbers would be an admin-job (if you don't want defaults).
   
2. What exactly "effective" and "ineffective" means in terms of "require x% of cost compared to the big ship", should be up to the admin.
3. 1+2 may be different for each server.

How this is implemented doesn't really matter (as long as it does not hurt something else).