Recognized An idea how to make it possible to build smaller fighters.

[SchnellBier]

You can make perfectly usable ships on a pretty small scale at the moment, you just need to deploy them in large numbers. I think most of the early drones in the drone thread fit into a 7x7x7 box, and they work pretty nicely.

"...into a 7x7x7 box..." there you go, you need to build a box to fit systems inside. Add a cockpit and you got the smallest fighter possible what looks like a box. Do you want your fighters to look like a flying box? Well I don´t and that´s why my 300 mass competition fighter is 40 meters long to fit this box into a hull that doesn´t look like shit.

Edit: I´m sorry if i hurt the feelings of some borg.... your ships look fine... really.

 

[Lukwan]

I think perhaps making the ship core automatically upgrade as the mass of the ship reaches certain amounts might be a neat idea. This way each tier can have it's own bonuses geared for that size ship. This could also be very useful for balancing the game later on.

These tiers could have custom boosts based on what the ship is used for.
Under the ship tab their could be a button for the ship core and then you could select if the ship is a cargo vessel, fighter, science vessel, exploration vessel, Transport Vessel, Carrier, or even more. This could also be a way to help integrate certain quests that should only be offered to one group of ships. The quest/s could then be given only to the targeted group. Way to kill 2 birds with one stone so to speak.

I really like this idea.
-This could be a mechanic to address the issue of fighter-bloat.
-This would be a tool for further development of the Capitol-class.
-This would facilitate matchmaking in any tournament or arena context.
Bravo.

 

[Awdred]

One method of condensing weapons and maybe other systems could be a sort of block stacking system. Maybe you could place multiple cannon barrel (or any other weapon) blocks in a single space. The catch would be that doing so makes them less effective. So you could place a second barrel in the space, but it would be half as effective. The cap could be something like 5 block, and block 1 would be normal, blocks 2 and 3 would do half damage while 4 and 5 do a quarter damage. Thoughts?

 

[jgames666]

One method of condensing weapons and maybe other systems could be a sort of block stacking system. Maybe you could place multiple cannon barrel (or any other weapon) blocks in a single space. The catch would be that doing so makes them less effective. So you could place a second barrel in the space, but it would be half as effective. The cap could be something like 5 block, and block 1 would be normal, blocks 2 and 3 would do half damage while 4 and 5 do a quarter damage. Thoughts?

Ideas similar to this were rejected due to the complexity of what you're asking for. There would be too much changed in the way starmade is coded. The devs would have a huge project and their could be other issues to address if this were to be implemented. Just read this thread:
Ability to have two blocks occupy the same space
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I really like this idea.
-This could be a mechanic to address the issue of fighter-bloat.
-This would be a tool for further development of the Capitol-class.
-This would facilitate matchmaking in any tournament or arena context.
Bravo.

Thanks, by the way. I was thinking about suggesting this idea as an idea of my own and flesh it out some more. I have other thoughts to add to this that might not be appropriate for this thread. If I get time to do that I'll post a link here, so you all can look at it later.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

"...into a 7x7x7 box..." there you go, you need to build a box to fit systems inside. Add a cockpit and you got the smallest fighter possible what looks like a box. Do you want your fighters to look like a flying box? Well I don´t and that´s why my 300 mass competition fighter is 40 meters long to fit this box into a hull that doesn´t look like shit.

Edit: I´m sorry if i hurt the feelings of some borg.... your ships look fine... really.

Way to totally miss my point. 7x7x7 is what the default docking area was before the rail system was introduced, and most of the early drones from the drone megathread fit in that space. The point was, compared to real world fighter craft those things were tiny, and they were still very effective. You can easily scale them up a bit to add more detail and shape to them and keep that effectiveness, you just have to remember that they're swarm fighters, their strength comes from how many of them you have.

Now there's a dedicated carrier system in the game, once PVP becomes worthwhile I'd expect to see drone swarms become more commonplace, since at the minute there's not really much you can do about them. Any kind of system that allows you to put more power into a smaller ship is only going to make that worse.

 

[SchnellBier]

Way to totally miss my point. 7x7x7 is what the default docking area was before the rail system was introduced, and most of the early drones from the drone megathread fit in that space. The point was, compared to real world fighter craft those things were tiny, and they were still very effective. You can easily scale them up a bit to add more detail and shape to them and keep that effectiveness, you just have to remember that they're swarm fighters, their strength comes from how many of them you have.

Now there's a dedicated carrier system in the game, once PVP becomes worthwhile I'd expect to see drone swarms become more commonplace, since at the minute there's not really much you can do about them. Any kind of system that allows you to put more power into a smaller ship is only going to make that worse.

And you don´t get my point. I don´t care about the 20 people trying to out pvp everything with every possible exploit and design flaw of the current game. The game, the AI and the weapon systems will change. You can complain all you want that the drones would be op but the current game isn´t the final game and almost everything that makes drones strong will get changes in the future. If the AI gets better the turrets get better and probably even the swarm missiles get better. Maybe one day you fire 30 swarmers and they kill 30 drones? Also you don´t even know how important crew will get. You can´t balance a system that isn´t final yet so stop trying it.

I simply want to make fighter that look like fighter with an actual cockpit, wings, etc, and not like cubes which consist only out of systems to be "effective". This is not about building the most efficient drone. It´s about the ability to design your small ships more freely since the space is limited on small ships.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

And you can do that now. Most of the limitation on making smaller ships look good is to do with the fact that the blocks are comparatively huge on smaller ships, making detailing a bit awkward.. Yeah, you have to make sacrifices in some places to make them effective, but that's always going to be the case.

 

[Awdred]

Ideas similar to this were rejected due to the complexity of what you're asking for. There would be too much changed in the way starmade is coded. The devs would have a huge project and their could be other issues to address if this were to be implemented. Just read this thread:
Ability to have two blocks occupy the same space

I totally get it, but perhaps, it could be not two block occupying the same space, but using the second block as a sort of "upgrade" block.

 

[Lecic]

Yeah, no thanks. Small ships do not need special buffs. They're already a superior option in terms of cost effectiveness for the damage they can do. If anything, small ships will need a NERF in the future, because drone swarms are quickly going to be the dominating tactic as soon as we get fleet control.

 

[NTIMESc]

swarms are quickly going to be the dominating tactic as soon as we get fleet control

Isn't the planned Quarters/Crew system going to make several bonuses available to larger ships? Also, at least in my version of small ship "upgrades", system blocks and armor would have reduced stats in favor of more design flexibility. There would also be limit on the size of the ship, essentially creating a small ship class.

the current game isn´t the final game and almost everything that makes drones strong will get changes in the future

This is what I keep in mind when considering all these suggestions. The current game has a large number of balance problems that will be trivial to solve (through config files) once the game feature complete.

 

[jgames666]

I totally get it, but perhaps, it could be not two block occupying the same space, but using the second block as a sort of "upgrade" block.

I suppose it might be possible, but it's something I doubt will get the needed backing. In my opinion, there are better ways to achieve the goals being sought after here.