Big Ships are Terrible now...

[MrFURB]

Erm, you could also just add those ablative plates to your ship itself instead of docking them, it makes little difference. The only downside would be the extra mass.

A lot of people think of putting on shielded external armor plates. Those are quite efficient, but each plate\'s shields only affects the plate itself. I personally would rather have stronger overall shielding rather than a ton of directional shields.

 

[MichaelSeph]

The balance of large ships to small ships is tricky, because if we made larger ships just as powerful as all their components combined


I saw your point in the rest of the post, but that starting, c\'mon, who are you kidding, you perfectly now that splitting your ship in half, or even one of a big ship\'s canon array in two will actually make it better and more powerful than the big/full one, as in DPS, damage in a single shot, same for shields now, doubling the ammount of shield blocks only gives about 20% increase, which is multiple times less than what a smaller ship gets from them, which is way too strict, especially counting the recovery time. When under fire (big ships can\'t really avoid bullets... but for some seconds, it can happen), you could get at most few seconds with no fire on you, but for what, literally 0.5 % of your shield capacity ?

But, I never said the change was wrong, the recovery addition is ok as well as the shield nerf is logic, but the curve tends to 0 way earlier than it should, it\'s too strict, same as the new complaints lately of how a 200 mass ship turns just 1 second faster than an 800 mass ship, because of the curve is only felt between 0 and 200-300. Same for shields, after a certain level, going from 3mill to 6 mill total shield blocks only add freaking 30k of regen to the previous 100k of regen, which is too sad.



Turrets are nerfed and can\'t actually hit a fighter (saying about real fighters of ~100 mass, not those 3000 mass frigates), there are no new cannons (yet, so for sure you didn\'t had that in mind a month ago) and what powerdrain beams actually matter for, except vs stealth fighters, they won\'t kill anything. So yeah, rely on a dumbfire AI rather than on your own skills, because that\'s the only excuse for calling it a \"balance\".

 

[MichaelSeph]

That is actually better than such \"overall shielding\", because as I mentioned before, the shield curve is so low that you better have 100 small ships with 30k shield blocks each rather than having all 3 mill blocks on your main ship and get freaking 30k extra regen (when you already have a pack of 3mill shield blocks from before that have 100k regen).



You know, split and you get more juice, you already use that idea when you make the cannons on big ships.



If you prefer huge swarms and laggy AIs instead single motherships, up to you, but I don\'t know which is the worst for a server ^^

 

[MrFURB]

I did in fact say that they are more efficient, but just like the difference between a few large cannons and many smaller ones, it is much easier to put to a fewer amount of system to good use.

Imagine having to make sure that the enemy\'s damage is spread across at least a third of your shield plates evenly, when they KNOW what you\'re trying to do and they know to drill a hole straight through one and keep going at it.

 

[Morhe]

Yes, if you take any single giant capitol ship and remove all the blocks, then split those blocks evenly down the middle and use them to make two new ships, the two new ships will be more powerful than the capitol ship.

That, however, is entirely irrelevant to the discussion, because you can\'t pilot two ships at once.

Even in a theoretical future update in which the economy is finally fixed, bigger will still always be better without at least some drawbacks for piloting larger ships, because no matter how many players your faction has, blocks are infinite and pilots are a limited resource.

 

[Squatchhhammer]

Gigantism is part of war. If you look at every ship since the start of full metal hulled ships, and before; you will see the types of ships GROWING. Look at tanks, since the start of WWII tanks were constantly growing in size and firepower. Here you have space combat that will have the same effect.

There will be the upsizing in ships because someone wants to do more all the time. I was going to build a moderate ship until I saw my friends Dreadnought and I wanted to build something that would be harder hitting.

Also I dont get this whole carrier thing. Carriers are weak. If anyone using a comparison of Carrier Vs Battleship is going about it wrong. The design that was concieved WAS BEFORE THE AIRPLANE EXISTED. The MOST recent design would have been able to not care about 16 in shells. THE ONLY REASON why battleships are not on the waters and being built today is treaties. People that saw the destructive power of a battleship didnt want anything bigger.

So if you let go of the stops of building bigger, there would be a battleship that CAN hit carriers but carriers would not be able to touch it.

 

[Master_Kleinstern]

I do believe the shields have been overnerfed, but I am pretty sure schema will fix that sometime.

Until then, let us design bugswatters!

 

[MichaelSeph]

The problem is if he doesn\'t see it as an issue to be fixed, when he doesn\'t see that after a point, the shield regen curve stops growing, because the curve is way too short/closed. The modification is correct, logic, but the curve was misscalculated.

A 200 posts big thread (where just 4 are mine :P ) should give a message...

 

[Nootau]

Even if it does not change, people will design vessels to compensate for it, such as massive ships made of layers of segments. A inner hull of a hardened tank with access power to the first later of external layers which have the new \'optimized\' armor plating/shielding. Then another floating layer of protection with floating cockpits placed to see past and around this new layer. Larger ships will suddenly or rather predictably perfect the modular tactic to advance beyond the ships that don\'t.

 

[Aracturus]

\"But I\'m not wasting my time on that shit if it\'ll take me 20 minutes to activate all my turrets.\"

You just spent several days (or in my case, WEEKS) building a massive capital ship. 20 minutes to activate your turret defenses is NOTHING. It\'s tedious, yes, but Very worth it.

 

[SafetyTurtle]

First of all...this is alpha! they\'re supposed to change things around and testing it...it\'s like beta testing a game and complaining because you found a bug.
If you can\'t handle that they change things around in ALPHA without making a whine post and more or less saying the game is broken...then you shouldn\'t play a game in ALPHA.

Secondly...capitol ships aren\'t supposed to fly around on their own \"pwning noobs\" and whatnot...they\'re the centerpiece of a fleet of ships...a carrier should have destroyer and cruisers to protect it.

To me this sounds fine, if we can get a decrease in capitol ships I\'m all for it...everyone and their dog has one and it\'s getting silly.
A capitol ship should be something a larger faction has, not 3-4 members of that faction, and they should be used in large engagements.
Heck, if it were up to me they\'d make it impossible for ships over a certain mass to dock.

 

[Nootau]

People use this term \'Capitol ship\' often yet they are forgetting one major thing. Most 5,000 or even 125,000 mass ships are not actually \'capitol ships\'. They are simply over sized fighter crafts. These are one manned vessels which go from a stand still to max speed within a fleeting few seconds and almost as agile as any 300 mass vessel.



Side note, I am very happy it is not up to you what ships are or aren\'t allowed to dock.

 

[Gusius 1]

Even though capital ships have lower shield regen, they do have a very very high capacity. Fighters about the size of maybe 50 or 40 blocks have low shield capacity but very fast regen. Here\'s what your not getting, fighters have slower shooting cannons around 300 or 200 dps. You in the large capital ship, if built like a normal builder with common sense, should have cannons with at LEAST 2000dps, I have built ships, many, with around 5000dps each cannon, and my ship has more than 10 cannons. The fighter will be there for a long time trying to lower your shields, While you easily rip his ship apart within a good 3 seconds of fire.

Besides this will promote people, to create factions, and teams, instead of seeing massive capitals alone. With more player factions people can actually form fleets with their teammates. With fleets, capitals would finally have their place in the game, along side carriers. To protect carriers and capitals are the frigates, fighters, and light cruisers. To protect slow moving cruisers and battleships, you have fighters which come from carriers, and to destroy carriers, you have battleships and dreadnaughts, to destroy battleships and dreadnaughts, you have destroyers and frigates.

Basically it\'s a spaceship food-web, no single person alone with too much money, shouldn\'t be able to buy himself or build himself the best ship in the catalog and go around dominating the server, and if you like to build big ships like me, then you should join or make a faction and be their ship builder.

 

[platinum467]

I just feel like my capital ship should be able to take on atleast 3-4 fighters with out losing a hundred hull bricks that take a large chunk of time rebuilding

shots get through the shield anyways, which means your always going to have to do some repairing

the only solution I can think of is to allow capital ships to control their own mini fleet of ai drones, which will distract the fighter(s) while ships like bombers etc. will focus on the capital ship

but this would require a whole new feature and a big boost to AI

which I\'m ok with, pirates are childs play after an hour of playing, so having a challenge is good

 

[elmairin]

i go internet dark for a month and quietly build my 1000 meter long flagship, and when i come back to civilization i find its usless???? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡?????????????????¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿

 

[MrFURB]

Capital ships aren\'t useless, they just aren\'t invulnerable anymore. If an enemy ship can maneuver behind you and stay behind you, you\'ll need to rely on other systems besides primary weapons to take \'em out... Namely turrets.

 

[Master_Kleinstern]

But if you have as many capital ships as the enemy has ships alone then the capitals should win by logic.

 

[SafetyTurtle]

Being big and heavily armed dosn\'t mean to always win...in a line battle, face to face, yes, but not in a proper battle.

 

[EspiOwnage]

If you do not want to accept the fact that others no matter the size, \"MUST\" be able to take down your large ship, then you are missing the point of the entire game.

 

[Joe-2.0]

Okay, so I saw the one comment that referenced WWII get shot down, but here\'s anothr go: The Bismarck. Single battleship, biggest european ship ever constructed at the time. Fate? Two swordfish biplanes, completely obsolete aircraft, hit it\'s aft with torpedoes, and froze the rudder, basically crippling it. At that point, the fight was over, and all the Royal Navy had to do was get warships in close enough to lob it with shells.

That prior comment got tossed because of the difference between Ships and Aircraft. Spacecraft are essentially aircraft so I\'ll throw in another example. B-17 versus BF-109. B-17\'s were ripped to shreds by german fighters despite having great defenses, and being in larger numbers, simply due to the fact that the BF-109\'s had a bitchin\' cannon running through their propeller hub. 1 BF-109 versus a B-17? I\'d take the BF-109.

Simply put, Large ships have their place: Mass bombardment. Planet crackers. However, if a small fighter can crack your shell, too damn bad. You weren\'t paying attention, failed to take evasive action, didn\'t have a good set of turrets, or any number of things. And so, it\'s up to you to respond to this and modify your design (Aircraft manufacturers dont keep building the same damn plane if it\'s killing its crew, thay made modifications: B-17A thru B-17G, cas in point.) So rather than bitch like you are now, start thinking up clever designs and modifications to your ships. Bristle the thing in turrets. Add more thrusters to make it more nimble (Try adding podded thrusters at various points on the hull, a-la RCS?) As my grandfather once said: Quitcher-bitchin\', and go do something.

Addendum: Order of the day? EXPERIMENTATION!