Classing Ships for Fleets

[Gonzalo]

Mass is the best classifier.

 

[iAmCodeMonkey]

Mass is the best classifier.

I second this, and also feel that a combination of mass and ship function is succinct enough for the majority of ships out there.

 

[wiesshund]

About docked reactors

I do not see them heavily used for multiplayer servers.
Reasons i have noticed:

1) They are bad for the server until they server or more heavily developed.
No ones ship is god, all ships can be destroyed or broken
When the docked reactors come off, the collisions are not fun for the rest of the server population, even if they are far away from the battle.

I know, i lost one docked reactor on my pirate station killer, and it lagged everyone to hell as it passed through my ship.
Yes it worked great to make this small sub 200m long ship nuke the crap out of pirate stations, but causing everyone to lag out made it not worth using in pvp.

Now imagine some titan cutting loose 20 reactors.

2) they use up resources that could be used else where, like to power more vessels since now your not just farting out little drones

3) They are quirky and require good logic timing or instead of giving power they suck away all your power
which server lag can sometimes cause, or minor damage etc.

You kind of have to use them now, no way to bring enough to the fight unless you have 30 faction mates on line
But with fleets and the feature is fleshed out, you can bring an armada instead.

 

[Bladeriker]

Has it been considered that the use of Hull Points, Armour Value, Energy, and Shields be used as a determiner, as they are already in game as part of the new systems. I do like the idea of multiple factors for determining ship class. Ship Roll in my opinion is determined more by design and less by Size or anyone factor.

An example is a drone/carrier I got working not too long ago, it is only 120m long and caries 12 drones (The drones would be classified more like light fighters by the old system 10x11x7), has 135K shields, around 100K armor and Structure, and about 100K energy regeneration. 4 fast cannon turrets, 4 deck cannons, and 8 anti missile turrets. It is large enough to be a cruiser, but fills the roll of support carrier.

Understandably this would require several factors such as total length/height/width of the vessel, as going with one direction leaves to many designers trying to guess where their design fits. I would not use mass as using lighter blocks for the internals and heavier blocks for the outside will through this off.

 

[Edymnion]

With fleets there will be no need for docked power.

 

[MacThule]

View attachment 23760

Yup. If they ever make fleets work (and not leave them broken forever like shipyards and shops), there won't be any need.

With a functional fleet, docked power becomes counter-productive. Assuming they follow orders, a fleet of 10 entities at 2,000,000e/sec is more effective than a fleet of 2 entities at 10,000,000e/sec (*see drones). At that point using docked power to field DPS is nothing more than failure to fully advantage the new dynamics. Which isn't to say it won't be done, it will just suck (both for the comparative force projection level of the individual using it, and everyone else on their server if in MP).

 

[Edymnion]

Yup. If they ever make fleets work (and not leave them broken forever like shipyards and shops), there won't be any need.

With a functional fleet, docked power becomes counter-productive. Assuming they follow orders, a fleet of 10 entities at 2,000,000e/sec is more effective than a fleet of 2 entities at 10,000,000e/sec (*see drones). At that point using docked power to field DPS is nothing more than failure to fully advantage the new dynamics. Which isn't to say it won't be done, it will just suck (both for the comparative force projection level of the individual using it, and everyone else on their server if in MP).

Of course there will still be a need for docked power.

Lets not kid ourselves here people. Fleets don't mean people will give up their big ships with docked reactors, it means their big ships with docked reactors will be flanked by smaller ships without reactors. The demand for large ships will at least stay exactly the same, which means the demand for docked reactors will stay the same.

Fleets aren't going to kill the titan or large ships in general, its just going to mean that the titans and large ships will simply now have more backup.

If anything, I'd wager that fleets will INCREASE the demand for titans and other large ships (that will need docked reactors). Since before a lone titan was a menace, but weaker than it should be without an escort. Now an individual can build a titan and it's escort and control them by themselves. No more need for pesky faction members to fly with you. A one man faction can now build a titan, build a dozen mid-class ships, and a hundred fighters and take them all out all by themselves. Where before they'd have been happy with one mid-class destroyer, now they're making an entire fleet.

 

[MacThule]

Of course there will still be a need for docked power.

Lets not kid ourselves here people. Fleets don't mean people will give up their big ships with docked reactors, it means their big ships with docked reactors will be flanked by smaller ships without reactors. The demand for large ships will at least stay exactly the same, which means the demand for docked reactors will stay the same.

Fleets aren't going to kill the titan or large ships in general, its just going to mean that the titans and large ships will simply now have more backup.

If anything, I'd wager that fleets will INCREASE the demand for titans and other large ships (that will need docked reactors). Since before a lone titan was a menace, but weaker than it should be without an escort. Now an individual can build a titan and it's escort and control them by themselves. No more need for pesky faction members to fly with you. A one man faction can now build a titan, build a dozen mid-class ships, and a hundred fighters and take them all out all by themselves. Where before they'd have been happy with one mid-class destroyer, now they're making an entire fleet.

I would love to see someone clash two fleets each with multiple ships using docked reactors and post the slideshow to youtube, complete with the inevitable crash XD

 

[Edymnion]

I would love to see someone clash two fleets each with multiple ships using docked reactors and post the slideshow to youtube, complete with the inevitable crash XD

Hey now, forcing the other guy's toaster to slideshow while I keep at a couple hundred FPS is a great way to win a fight. My secret weapon... the GPU Melter! :P

 

[MacThule]

Hey now, forcing the other guy's toaster to slideshow while I keep at a couple hundred FPS is a great way to win a fight. My secret weapon... the GPU Melter! :p

:D
Sad part is, some guys are actually relying on this to "win" fights even though it's a straight-up exploit.

Personally I'd like to see ANYONE post a video of a battle (to the death) between two fleets, each with even just a few (2-3) docked-power vessels plus a pack of other ships and fighters. Wonder why no one has posted one of those yet...

 

[Lecic]

Of course there will still be a need for docked power.

Lets not kid ourselves here people. Fleets don't mean people will give up their big ships with docked reactors, it means their big ships with docked reactors will be flanked by smaller ships without reactors. The demand for large ships will at least stay exactly the same, which means the demand for docked reactors will stay the same.

Fleets aren't going to kill the titan or large ships in general, its just going to mean that the titans and large ships will simply now have more backup.

If anything, I'd wager that fleets will INCREASE the demand for titans and other large ships (that will need docked reactors). Since before a lone titan was a menace, but weaker than it should be without an escort. Now an individual can build a titan and it's escort and control them by themselves. No more need for pesky faction members to fly with you. A one man faction can now build a titan, build a dozen mid-class ships, and a hundred fighters and take them all out all by themselves. Where before they'd have been happy with one mid-class destroyer, now they're making an entire fleet.

I think you're failing to account for the fact that this is both expensive and wasteful. If you dump all your resources into a super fleet like this, you'll likely be leaving your territory, planets, and stations undefended and easy to destroy with a counter attack.

This, of course, will not happen until two things happen.
1.) We get proper passive resource collection, unloaded battles, and a need to control lots of territory.
2.) Server owners stop massively spiking the resource multipliers and unbalancing things.

 

[Edymnion]

I think you're failing to account for the fact that this is both expensive and wasteful.

Well, so is running a smaller fleet. Sure, the smaller fleet will beat the titan, but odds are the titan is going to destroy it's fair share of smaller ships in the process. So you're really throwing disposable drone ships in the trash to beat the larger one. Instead of one ship being destroyed, you're destroying a dozen.

Fleets themselves aren't going to squelch the upwards trend of building bigger ships, its just going to mean more ships since every human player is going to be controlling their own fleet. Which means the engine has to not only track all those extra ships, but pilot them as well.

Which even if fleets do knock the titan off it's throne for a while, it would only be temporary. Once everybody is using fleets, then the push will be to enlarge the drones and fighters in your fleet so that you have the edge again, and the whole cycle just starts over again.

Long as the economy of scale says that one on one a larger ship (of equally skillful build in the hands of equally skillful pilots) is always going to be more likely to win, then there will always be an upwards pressure on ship size. And as long as there are limits on power generation (or shield generation, etc) that can be overcome with docked units, there will always be people overcoming those limitations with docked units.

Only way to get people to stop using docked reactors is to get rid of the power cap limit entirely, or get rid of power supply beams entirely. As long as there is a cap and a way to get around that cap, people will use it.

 

[Lecic]

Well, so is running a smaller fleet. Sure, the smaller fleet will beat the titan, but odds are the titan is going to destroy it's fair share of smaller ships in the process. So you're really throwing disposable drone ships in the trash to beat the larger one. Instead of one ship being destroyed, you're destroying a dozen.

Who cares if I lose a dozen corvettes to destroy the enemy capital? Sure, I definitely lost some ships, but the overall lost block count was greater for the enemy, AND, being the winner, I get to salvage it.

Long as the economy of scale says that one on one a larger ship (of equally skillful build in the hands of equally skillful pilots) is always going to be more likely to win, then there will always be an upwards pressure on ship size. And as long as there are limits on power generation (or shield generation, etc) that can be overcome with docked units, there will always be people overcoming those limitations with docked units.

Economy of scale? lmao. The game doesn't work like that any more, beyond extremes size differences, which are, as we already discussed, incredibly wasteful and expensive. What wins battles are ships designed to beat the enemy. Does your enemy rely on armor tanks? Then don't have a giant, useless ion gun. Do they use lots of piercing cannons? Install docked shield generators into your ship. With a ship designed to counter your enemy, you can beat them one on one with significantly less blocks. It's not a case of "skillfull building" in these cases, it's a case of who adapts faster.

 

[Edymnion]

Who cares if I lose a dozen corvettes to destroy the enemy capital? Sure, I definitely lost some ships, but the overall lost block count was greater for the enemy, AND, being the winner, I get to salvage it.

Assuming they don't start disassembling it as soon as its clear they're going to lose.

But the point was before the best case scenario was you destroy his ship, you keep yours with a few minor holes in it, and you don't really expend much if anything in the way of resources to do it. With the fleet design, you are guaranteed to lose ships. There is no high alpha damage anymore because your ships no longer have the size and power to fire them, so its going to be more drawn out.

Which means the loser still loses everything, but now the winner loses more as well. So I'd say its a coin flip over which method actually wastes more resources.

Economy of scale? lmao. The game doesn't work like that any more, beyond extremes size differences, which are, as we already discussed, incredibly wasteful and expensive.

Except that like you just said, if you outsize them enough, you win anyway because one on one they can't get through your defenses before you roll over theirs.

What wins battles are ships designed to beat the enemy. Does your enemy rely on armor tanks? Then don't have a giant, useless ion gun. Do they use lots of piercing cannons? Install docked shield generators into your ship. With a ship designed to counter your enemy, you can beat them one on one with significantly less blocks. It's not a case of "skillfull building" in these cases, it's a case of who adapts faster.

And that can't be accurately judged, because for every time you successfully bring the right build to the fight, there's another time you bring the wrong build and get steamrollered because you brought armor tank weapons and they show up with shield tanks with insane amounts of regen. You load up on Ion, they bring an armor tank, and a good chunk of your damage is wasted because they aren't relying nearly as much on their shields.

I'm talking generic builds. You don't know what you're going up against, they don't know what they're going up against, given roughly equal sizes and that AIs are piloting, whoever built the better ship is going to win.

And its likely a safe bet to say that if there aren't already, there will be an upper limit on the number of ships you can have in a single fleet, either hard coded or simply due to server performance. Which means an equal number of generic ships on each side, the person with the overall larger ships is going to win simply by virtue of being able to out guard and out gun due to it effectively coming back down to being just multiple one on one fights.

 

[Lecic]

Assuming they don't start disassembling it as soon as its clear they're going to lose.

LMAO

How the fuck are you going to "disassemble" your ship once your start losing? You'll almost instantly overheat yourself, and astronaut inventory capacity is tiny.

And that can't be accurately judged, because for every time you successfully bring the right build to the fight, there's another time you bring the wrong build and get steamrollered because you brought armor tank weapons and they show up with shield tanks with insane amounts of regen. You load up on Ion, they bring an armor tank, and a good chunk of your damage is wasted because they aren't relying nearly as much on their shields.

Can't be accurately judged? lol. Sure it can. It's called "scouting your enemies." Everyone intelligent does it, and it'll only get more important as 1v1 battles between some random solo players become less commonplace, and actual fleet composition becomes more important.

But the point was before the best case scenario was you destroy his ship, you keep yours with a few minor holes in it, and you don't really expend much if anything in the way of resources to do it. With the fleet design, you are guaranteed to lose ships. There is no high alpha damage anymore because your ships no longer have the size and power to fire them, so its going to be more drawn out.

Which means the loser still loses everything, but now the winner loses more as well. So I'd say its a coin flip over which method actually wastes more resources.

With a fleet design, I can beat someone with only 30% of their block count. Even if I lose half my ships before killing the enemy, I've still lost fewer blocks overall, and can recoup my loses by salvaging the dead enemy titan and my own wrecks. Even if the titan completely destroys my fleet, chances are, I've STILL lost fewer blocks than they have.

 

[MacThule]

What wins battles are ships designed to beat the enemy. Does your enemy rely on armor tanks? Then don't have a giant, useless ion gun. Do they use lots of piercing cannons? Install docked shield generators into your ship. With a ship designed to counter your enemy, you can beat them one on one with significantly less blocks. It's not a case of "skillfull building" in these cases, it's a case of who adapts faster.

This is another aspect of fleet-oriented warfare that strongly favors fleets composed of smaller modular components(ships). If I'm going up against an enemy I know, it's more economical and effective (block for block) to compose a fleet from ships each highly specialized to tackle that enemy. A titan cannot replicate this - it will always have to have anti-armor, anti-ion, stand-off, and point-blank weapons all on the one ship. So when facing an opponent that is primarily armor tanks at standoff range, the titan's ion weapons & point-blank weapons are literally nothing but dead weight; useless (but not cost-less) mass being risked in battle, slowing the ship down in a variety of ways.

A forward thinking commander not pointlessly attached to size facing the same aforementioned enemy can compose a fleet of only ships outfitted to handle standoff opponents and chew through armor. Committing NO blocks that aren't necessary to the engagement. Staying light, fast, maneuverable. Small ships are great - they outrun missiles and cannons, turrets have a hell of a time tracking them. Fielding a fleet of 20 fast ships gives your whole force the advantages of speed & small target size. Fielding the same mass of blocks in a single entity brings none of these benefits (it'll be slow, big and easy to hit with every salvo). So a fleet of small ships actually "dodges" a significant portion of the enemy's DPS, a titan dodges nothing. Some advantage is gained for the titan from economy of power cores at large sizes (if designed with 2M e/sec single-strand reactors), but even a thumbnail look at the math seems to indicate it's not worth it. Even if the titan garners 50% more DPS & HP over an equal mass of small ships, it's unlikely this will offset the dodge capability of a swarm of small ships that turrets barely keep up with. I've seen fighters that dodge 70-80% of attacks.

IMO, players may profit if they stop thinking of the individual entities as "ships," and try to think of fleets as "ships" and the individual entities themselves as non-docked, modular components of the greater composite "ships" we're calling fleets.

EDIT: spelling correction

 

[Gasboy]

Assuming they don't start disassembling it as soon as its clear they're going to lose.

And just how will they do that? Overheat the ship? Then probably die? I know I wouldn't let a guy who was trying to disassemble their ship leave, they're going to get shot, and I'm going to take the loot that falls out of the loot pinata.

 

[Bladeriker]

I classify my ships by size and then roll.

Light craft include (drones, fighters, and corvettes). (typically around or less than 100K {Structure averaged by Armour}, this was based off the default in-game Pirate fighter) These are all typically no larger than (6000 cubic meters) (30x20x10 in any variation)

Medium ships include (barges, light cruisers, frigates, and destroyers). Between 100K and 250K

Heavy Ships include (drone carriers, battle ships, full carriers). Between 250K and 1Mil.

Super Heavy ships include (Titans, motherships, flagships, Space Fortress). Over 1Mil

Other ships. (Anything larger than a super heavy)

Ship Rolls include: Mining, Transport, Cargo, Construction Support, Fleet Support, Canonization, Defense, Assault, Bomber, Torpedo, Heavy, Light, Medium, Omni, ... ect

Also I classify Bomber as a roll instead of a class because most bombers are fighters kitted out differently, but are still fighters.

I choose Structure because that is the amount you have to destroy to cause an overheat of the primary ship. Thus rail docked entities are not included for this determination. I averaged total Armour with total structure due to these values being the determiner of how survivable a ship could be. I did not include shields or Energy as those blocks are already included in the structure value. Also the greater the Structure and Armour the larger the ship.
[DOUBLEPOST=1459185667,1459185174][/DOUBLEPOST]It seems there are two different conversations going on in this thread. Good times.

 

[Vader_is_Bored]

I haven't played much multi-player yet, so I'm not sure I understand this classification system debate, so maybe you guys can clear up my confusion...
I mean, when you're on a server about to go into battle, and you lock onto your enemy's ship, the only stats that are displayed are its name/faction and how far away it is, right?
It doesn't show you the enemy's mass, or block count, or power stats does it?
So, how does a classification system based on any of that stuff help you? Are all your potential enemies going to helpfully publish the stats of their ships for you to study at your leisure?
And if not, it would seem that the only classification system you would be left with then is "How big does it appear from a distance", sad and imprecise though it is.

Edit: Pay no attention to the noob who wasn't thinking straight. Carry on with your debate...

 

[Madman198237]

I agree that the fleet will beat the titan. Especially once ships in a fleet/Bobby ships use speed properly. Because then...well...........

Face the Trench Run Disease, Death Stars!

Build titan, get swarmed by that faction down the road with 3 members, 3 fighter/bomber fleets, and a lot of time. They will win. Your alpha-strike, one-shot-kill doomsday Death Star-sized superlaser cannot hit a fighter, or a bomber.

So good luck with that.

As for classifications, I think that a role-based system is best, augmented with something else to give an idea of scale. Perhaps max dimensions.
Something meant to tank hits is "Heavy", while a maneuverable ship is "Light".
If it's meant to destroy vastly larger vessels, it fulfills a bomber-type role.
A support warship meant to augment firepower is a cruiser, while a ship-of-the-line or battleship is meant to engage similar-sized ships.

Now you've gone and made me interested, so tomorrow I'll probably come back and dream up a complete system.
You see what you've done to my time?