A bit of good news for thr turning and shielding of larger ships!

[FlyingDebris]

So, if you haven't seen already, Schema posted a new prebuild. This one is going to fix the turning, and allow for an increase in turning speed. The shields will also have a boost, possibly allowing your once-indestructible-with-anything-less-than-a-dreadnaught-station viable, and possibly indestructible again! You asked for it, and Schema has heard your calls!!!

 

[Sergeant Base]

Good news...really? I don\'t remember that anyone in human history said that a step back is good news.

Well I know everyone has to decide this by himself, but I can\'t see anymore challenge playing star made if you\'re (nearely) indestructible. I couldn\'t play like this, the only ones who probably would might be griefers.

 

[Trollerbobman]

Man, you serious?

This means tiny ships wont be able to kill giant dreadnaughts again! (tiny ships shouldnt be able to do that anyway)

 

[Ninjanoto]

i sir agree with that it really is stupid that a little ship can take on a titan

 

[refirendum]

i\'d say if your ship has a 1:1 thrust mass, the turn rates are unchanged from last patch, but if it\'s less, there\'s a penalty, and if it\'s more then there\'s a bonus.

 

[Sergeant Base]

I\'m not talking about letting tiny ships taking out dreadnaughts, but there are other ways to balance this out than the turning speed...seeing such big ships spinning arround like hell just looks hillarious.

I might to have to clearify what I mean I\'il think about some specific ideas which could help for balancing the game out.

 

[LETHALVIP3RZZ]

This is good, mostly because the turning circle often allowed one small ship to circle you and destroy you, which really shouldn\'t happen.

 

[Sergeant Base]

Just add enough turrets to it and you will be fine

 

[Captain Fortius]

\"seeing such big ships spinning arround like hell just looks hillarious.\"

WHEN did they do that? I had a 100 and a 300 long ship before the turning nerf, and it was already fairly slow. Considering there\'s 500 and 1000 long ships out there, mine aren\'t even that big. And smaller ones could still easily outmanouver them.

Players like you just want big ships to sit in place defenselessly, so you can laugh as you troll around them.

Face it. Someone took the time and effort to farm up all those blocks, spent a lot of time building it, so his ship should be better than the small heap of blocks you throw together in an hour.

It\'s amazing, really. Instead of coming up with anti-capital tactics and ship designs - or goodness forbid, building their own capitals - a bunch of people just decided to push for a nerf, because it\'s a lot easier than to do any of those things themselves.

To be fair, some might think similarly without malice, or any lazyness. Maybe they just want to be like Luke, taking down the Death Star with a small fighter. -Well, bad news; Luke had an entire fleet supporting him. He\'d have been blown to bits if he flew there alone. And this time, there\'s another \"Luke\" besides you, piloting that deathstar, and he wants to be amazing as well.

 

[Trollerbobman]

\"Enough?\"

There will never be enough turrets to defend you from 10+ small ships (We are talking around the corvette class) that can easily out-fly and out-turn the bigger ship that the smaller ships are in combat with.

 

[Sergeant Base]

No need to insult me dude, it\'s my opinion so accept it or shut up.

So let me rewrite your opinion: you want that there\'s no significant disadvantage if your ship is ridicolously big. Big ships should be able to kill small ships with about 2-3 shields completely alone. So why are you putting 1000 cannons on your ship then? May it be because already no one uses such small ships? Sure it is, why should anyone play with those, just to get killed by a big bastard with just one hit? So if it\'s on you someone could just make a big ship with a wall of about 1000x1000x100 cannons and after shooting it just once every smaller ship is just annihilated. Where\'s the fun about that? Can you maybe tell me that?

And no, I don\'t want to just camp, I\'m not lazy and I don\'t want to be able to take out big ships with a small fighter BUT...I think there should be a difference between the maneuverability of small to large ships. Sure it\'s a disadvantage for big ships if they can\'t turn arround of small ones, but there are still ways how you could deal with this. Let\'s just talk about the shield capacity a 300x300x300 big ship can possibly have about 9\'000\'000x the shield-capacity of the small ship with 3 gens...is that equal? No it isn\'t because this ship can possibly hold maximum 10 cannons and maybe 10 power blocks. Let\'s say this ship attacks you...would you even notice anything? No.

I personally already have a capital ship, based on realism I could easily fly arround and annoy everyone. But sci-fi told us that bigger ships are slower because they can deploy smaller ships that fight the real war. A carrier shouldn\'t be able to fight a war vs. small ships alone.

But there\'s ONE point you\'re completely right...Luke had a whole fleet supporting him and over 100 small fighters. And that\'s exactly how it should be. The tactic of the imperium in star wars was to trap the ships with the star destroyers and let the smaller ships fight, and that is fuckin war-strategy! That\'s how it should be: a big carrier enters a sector, deploys it\'s fighters and traps the enemy. It actually doesn\'t attack them, it has just defense-towers so that the enemys ships can\'t kill them instantly and have to fight with the smallers first. And the bigger cannons are there to attack the enemy capital ship.

Or have you ever seen a sci-fi battle (star wars, battlestar galactica aso.), where just the capital ships where shooting each other with heavy artillery? Without any smaller jets or whatever? No, because this is fucking boring, just two giant ships shooting each other in pieces. Therefore you don\'t even need a faction you can just kickass everyone if your ship is big enough. If capitals are able to react like smaller ships you\'il be soon finding yourself in a starmade universe where the idiot with the biggest ship is the leader of everything. Is that really what you want?



BUT partially you\'re right, currently a fast small ship could probably take out bigger ones alone if the bigger is smaller. And no...I don\'t support the opinion that this should be possible.
The problem is that the BobbyAI is currently way to stupid to hit any moving targets. And I think that\'s the point that should be improved first.
If the AI is smarter, it can easily protect your ship even from smaller ships and you don\'t need to worry about your turning speed.

Let\'s stop here I understand your worries with reducing the turning speed and I understand the reason. But the current way is also no solution, like this noone will ever build & fly smaller ships and that would be sad.
I\'il soon create a thread where I want to talk about this topic (\"balance\") so we can discuss (please in a proper language, we\'re not kids we can talk decent).

c u

 

[Captain Fortius]

You won\'t see me talk trash like a schoolboy.

You explicitely stated that big ships used to turn around hillariously quickly, which is of course nowhere near the reality of it.

After that, it was pretty safe to assume you\'re just like the others who want to be able to beat any spaceship with little to no work or planning. I still believe that assessment was correct.

You also think about big ships the wrong way. You shouldn\'t be thinking about ways to limit their abilities; In competitive multiplayer, having a bigger ship is like having a few (or many) extra levels, and better gear than your opponents in an mmorpg. There\'s no talk of nerfing a maxed out end-content character\'s abilities to be fair for the lowbies; They simply realize they weren\'t meant to fight each other. (If they\'re played by healthy-minded players anyway.)

Back to the matter at hand;

There already was a serious difference. It was possible to outmanouver big ships with small ones before the update, as it should be so. Right now it\'s just too easy, not requiring any effort from the small ship\'s pilot.

It was also possible to build several powerful, multi-line turrets that could shred a swarm of fighters to drifting junk before the accuracy boost. It really is just a question of size and number of barrels. I never once bothered to line up my main guns on pirates; The hail of defensive fire enveloping my cruiser was -and still is- more than enough.

So all this turn speed issue isn\'t even combat related (unless someone built a really poorly designed battleship and all his guns are fixed forward facing). It\'s merely annoying, horribly inconvenient, and far slower than anything like what we saw on the shows you yourself have mentioned.

 

[BeefBacon]

If your massive dreadnaught is getting destroyed by little babby ship, then either your ship design sucks or you\'re a terrible pilot.

 

[Stakhanov]

Starmade combat is moot once again.

The ability to fight another ship is again tied to raw damage per second - if it\'s lower than 40% of the target\'s shield recharge , winning is mathematically impossible.

Keep in mind that large antimatter cannons now deal a lot less damage due to firing much slower , so harassing at range will be entirely pointless.

I can see how it may have sounded like a reasonable compromise , but it\'s actually one of the worst possible solutions. Capships of comparable scales will still murder each other in seconds , but now they\'re invincible to any ship that can turn around within a minute. The message is clear - if you\'re looking for fun or challenging space combat , look elsewhere.

Because arrays now have the monopoly on meaningful damage dealing , the upper limit on weapons is how many projectiles your computer can simulate at once without freezing. AI ships do not have that restriction , however - be prepared for an invasion of virtually undefeatable automated doomcubes. Also , capships no longer need a pilot - turrets will take care of trouble eventually , and blind spots being exploited no longer are cause for worry.

This is a typical result of catering to the lowest common denominator - adjusting core mechanics once enough people complain , before any kind of counter play appears. It\'s easy to give undue weight to opinions outside of any coherent game design philosophy that way.

 

[MrFURB]

Ah, excellent, the community doomsayer.

I\'m not sure where the change came from, exactly, as I have been trying to stay relatively neutral on the whole shields/sizes thing (With slight bias to supporting Schema\'s decisions, of course). My guess is that Schema is experimenting with different techniques to create a more fluid \'barrier\' mechanic to shields. The old barrier mechanic was a flat \'I\'m regenerating more than 100% of my shields every second so I\'m invincible\', which was absolutely, hilariously silly.

This new barrier mechanic needs to be tested out to see how strict of a barrier it actually is. If 40% of your regen is 10,000, and a tiny beginner vessel tries to take you down, he\'s not going to get very far... But really, who would get very far even before this barrier? It only takes a moment of firing a turret at a fighter to get it to overheat. The only difference I see it making is that you have the option of going AFK with a fly buzzing in your face.

The biggest affect it will have on overall combat is when you\'re attacked by something that\'s DPS is either just below or just above the barrier limit to your shields, where the difference in regen drags the fight on longer and longer.

Let\'s run some tests of this PRE/DEV build in this alpha game before we say something as broad as \'combat is null\'.

 

[Lavantant]

it goes without saying that logically large ships should not be able to turn superfast, or even moderately fast, really turning for a giant planet sized vehicle should be difficult, they shouldnt be ably to turn to face a tiny ship buzzing around them

 

[z1967]

I have a feeling that may come in handy.

As it stands, the small ship v. big ship argument is based around a few points, cost, turn speed, firepower/shields, and turrets/cloaking.

As it stands, a head on battle is suicide for the smallest ship. But that is under the assumption of a gentleman\'s duel, no human would EVER decide to go head-to-head in actual combat. So we cannot assume that all battles will end in the same fashion. Even so, each ship is unique in some way or another sometimes by pilot skill or armament.

We can assume that a person who builds a large ship will use turrets, it makes sense as your guns will only kill anything that is within a 180 degree firing arc that all current guns have (btw, the AI love to exploit that excessively, I would recommend reducing it to about 30 degrees). Turrets on large ships allow you to strike at anything around you assuming a good placement. The AI also ranges from sharpshooter to drunk cowboy, which really doesn\'t help too much but adds a bit of variety on servers.

We can assume that a small ship is not a brand-noob type ship with no shields and (unintelligible ranting). A good, small ship should include jamming, cloaking, or both. Guns should be arranged in a shotgun alternating style for the most DPS at the short 300 meter range. Shields are recommended for fighting other small ships, but optional. The jamming allows you to get in with minimal chance of detection and evade ANY type of AI support (turrets or fighters). Attaching turrets is not recommended as they can weigh you down or make your ship rather cruddy in terms of jamming, but can be useful as they can counter enemy fighters.



Now that we have the groundwork as to ideal ships, lets compare the apples and oranges. Small ships will (obviously) cost less; time to make, set up, and of course, money. Big ships cost more and require more resources (time, money, materials) to construct. A small ship SHOULD be able to out turn a big ship (I have yet to see one that can\'t). Big ships have an undeniable firepower supremacy and shields whilst the fighters have small pew pew guns. Big ships have their turrets, and can\'t cloak (or at least not with that attitude). Small ships can cloak and jam but usually lack turrets.



Basically, the entire argument is silly. There is no better word (at least that I can think of) that better describes it. We assume a small ship can not go take down a big ship, but assuming that both pilots aren\'t complete idiots, then it could easily be an equal match. I could make 1,000 million credit fighters for the cost of one Billion credit battleship. But that is irrelevant as no server can hold 1,001 people at one time. I could use AI, but how am I supposed to move 1,000 fighters? Basically, the argument is pointless as long as it is a 1v1 battle. with the new shield set-up, one fighter is going to have a fun time countering a Damocles (the prime example of a big ship) as its guns will likely not have the ability to take down the shields. But of course, who travels alone (I usually do :| ) as you can do much more damage by attaching another fighter that is AI controlled to you! and with chain docking, you can add EVEN MORE (note: hypothetically speaking) to you and the docked ship.



To this strange argument I add one last thing, This was typed in a text editor so Its a bit of a format experiment and Large ships should have their day again. Mainly so I can continue to kill them and loot.

 

[elmairin]

\"But there\'s ONE point you\'re completely right...Luke had a whole fleet supporting him and over 100 small fighters. And that\'s exactly how it should be. The tactic of the imperium in star wars was to trap the ships with the star destroyers and let the smaller ships fight, and that is fuckin war-strategy! That\'s how it should be: a big carrier enters a sector, deploys it\'s fighters and traps the enemy. It actually doesn\'t attack them, it has just defense-towers so that the enemys ships can\'t kill them instantly and have to fight with the smallers first. And the bigger cannons are there to attack the enemy capital ship.

Or have you ever seen a sci-fi battle (star wars, battlestar galactica aso.), where just the capital ships where shooting each other with heavy artillery? Without any smaller jets or whatever? No, because this is fucking boring, just two giant ships shooting each other in pieces. Therefore you don\'t even need a faction you can just kickass everyone if your ship is big enough. If capitals are able to react like smaller ships you\'il be soon finding yourself in a starmade universe where the idiot with the biggest ship is the leader of everything. Is that really what you want?\"

i have two points to make about this:

A) in the original star wars (not episode 1 or 2, episode three) at the beginning, the star destroyer takes leias ship without any fighters to help (it used its front cannons)

B) and yes: i have seen a sci-fi battle with only capital ships: its called almost every star trek movie/episode!

 

[Filarius]

Big ship can be killed by small ? Blah.

Few days ago me with one friend had to capture harmless undocked big ship for war reason. I had to use not so small \"stick\" design ship with very rapid 2k-3k damage shots, and I had to spend about 4-5 minutes(or even more) to kill shields. And as ship was pretty fat - it was hard to get core if ship not standing at one place, and after a while shields starting to recharge...

It took pretty many time to overheat core of this HARMLESS ship, I can`t even mind what so ship can be killed my smaller ship if it will fight off with even one turret

 

[FlyingDebris]

I posted this before the most recent shielding changes. The change has happened, and that\'s the result. Thank you schema.