Here is another idea for big/little ship balance. What if electronic modules (computers, weapons, thrusters, and effect modules) exploded when destroyed?
Think about how you design your ships. Game mechanics encourage larger clusters of connected modules. Now imagine that one of the modules is hit by blaster fire and has a 50% chance of exploding and damaging the modules next to it which also have a 50% chance of exploding. Chain reaction, right?
Now think about how this would affect a titan, and then how it would affect a fighter. Imagine one of the computers on the bridge explodes and damages nearby computers.
Large groups of modules make your cannons faster and stronger, but they also present a weak spot in your ship's design. If a fighter can pierce your hull and shields and cause enough damage to your cannon modules then boom, a one-time large loss of hp, and as soon as the modules are exposed through hull, they become a much more inviting target.
This would encourage large ship designs to separate their mega-clusters of modules (minimizing benefit from the number of modules), and invest more in anti-pierce effect hull placement (more mass per module). It would encourage pilots to focus fire on particular areas. Large ships would now have a weakness that scales with the size of the ship, which balances the benefits of larger guns.
I assume that George Lucas had something like this in mind when he designed the Death Star.
=====A bit on mechanics of this=====
I don't think the explosion needs to happen immediately in a single tick or frame. That would probably cause some lag (like lots of missile impacts), but I don't know the technical details of this. Here is an alternative to the one-massive-explosion.
Tick 1 - Module explodes. It damages nearby modules.
Tick 2 - Nearby modules that are destroyed are put on a countdown to explosion. They still work until they actually explode.
Tick 3 - When countdown reaches zero, the modules explode. They damage nearby modules.
Tick 4 - Repeat Tick 2/3. The explosion grows in size over time, but is never more than 2 block larger than the smallest two dimensions of the module cluster.
Also, a 50% chance of explosion might be too high. This would need some testing, and might vary by module type.
Edit:
=====Another Note on Mechanics (which I will mentioned in a post below)=====
The chain reaction doesn't have to be infinite. I can see how a high chance, and large system, and infinite chain could make some people feel it is too big of a weakness. But each module type, in addition to having an "odds of exploding" variable can also have a "length of chain" and an "explosion power" variable.
So lets say we have a shield module with "odds of exploding = 50" and "length of chain = 2" and "explosion power = 20"
One module is destroyed by cannon fire. It rolls to see if it explodes. It does. It deals "20" damage to 3 neighbor blocks and tells them "chain length = 2". Two of those blocks were previously damaged, and with the new damage are now destroyed. They roll their odds to see if they explode. They both do. They deal "20" damage to a total of 8 nearby blocks and tell them "chain length = 1". Only 4 of these blocks were previously damaged enough to now be destroyed, but at this point the chain has run out and no more blocks explode.
So the chain reaction can be limited to X steps, and is more effective when neighboring modules have already been damaged, and is highly dependent upon the shape of the system being damaged. Different module types can be more or less stable.
Think about how you design your ships. Game mechanics encourage larger clusters of connected modules. Now imagine that one of the modules is hit by blaster fire and has a 50% chance of exploding and damaging the modules next to it which also have a 50% chance of exploding. Chain reaction, right?
Now think about how this would affect a titan, and then how it would affect a fighter. Imagine one of the computers on the bridge explodes and damages nearby computers.
Large groups of modules make your cannons faster and stronger, but they also present a weak spot in your ship's design. If a fighter can pierce your hull and shields and cause enough damage to your cannon modules then boom, a one-time large loss of hp, and as soon as the modules are exposed through hull, they become a much more inviting target.
This would encourage large ship designs to separate their mega-clusters of modules (minimizing benefit from the number of modules), and invest more in anti-pierce effect hull placement (more mass per module). It would encourage pilots to focus fire on particular areas. Large ships would now have a weakness that scales with the size of the ship, which balances the benefits of larger guns.
I assume that George Lucas had something like this in mind when he designed the Death Star.
=====A bit on mechanics of this=====
I don't think the explosion needs to happen immediately in a single tick or frame. That would probably cause some lag (like lots of missile impacts), but I don't know the technical details of this. Here is an alternative to the one-massive-explosion.
Tick 1 - Module explodes. It damages nearby modules.
Tick 2 - Nearby modules that are destroyed are put on a countdown to explosion. They still work until they actually explode.
Tick 3 - When countdown reaches zero, the modules explode. They damage nearby modules.
Tick 4 - Repeat Tick 2/3. The explosion grows in size over time, but is never more than 2 block larger than the smallest two dimensions of the module cluster.
Also, a 50% chance of explosion might be too high. This would need some testing, and might vary by module type.
Edit:
=====Another Note on Mechanics (which I will mentioned in a post below)=====
The chain reaction doesn't have to be infinite. I can see how a high chance, and large system, and infinite chain could make some people feel it is too big of a weakness. But each module type, in addition to having an "odds of exploding" variable can also have a "length of chain" and an "explosion power" variable.
So lets say we have a shield module with "odds of exploding = 50" and "length of chain = 2" and "explosion power = 20"
One module is destroyed by cannon fire. It rolls to see if it explodes. It does. It deals "20" damage to 3 neighbor blocks and tells them "chain length = 2". Two of those blocks were previously damaged, and with the new damage are now destroyed. They roll their odds to see if they explode. They both do. They deal "20" damage to a total of 8 nearby blocks and tell them "chain length = 1". Only 4 of these blocks were previously damaged enough to now be destroyed, but at this point the chain has run out and no more blocks explode.
So the chain reaction can be limited to X steps, and is more effective when neighboring modules have already been damaged, and is highly dependent upon the shape of the system being damaged. Different module types can be more or less stable.
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