Don't forget to BUFF THRUSTERS for Power 2.0!

[DeepspaceMechanic]

Just a personal opinion, but a good overdrive system and a radical tweaking of thrust distribution in the Thrust Menu usually works for me... But when it comes to TURNING SPEED... Oh, please, change the programming behind that, rotational potential decreases in too high a rate as a ship gets bigger

 

[Lancake]

Honestly, a thorough investigation of the ship size <-> thrust to weight ratio correlation is exactly what we need. I'm sure one could be organized.

Yeah, there's a reason why I mentioned it. I can only speak from personal experiences and I would need to investigate the issue to figure out where the real problem is, and no..."not enough thrust!" is not the real problem.

I see people complain about top speed,
I see them complain about the thrust curve,
I see them complain about rotational speed.
All of these complaints are coming from personal experiences, and most certainly only apply for certain ship sizes because mobility does not scale linear at all.

This isn't... filling my ship with 50% thrusters... it's filling my ship with 100% thruster... just to achieve that 2.5 TMR. Filling it with 50% thrusters would mean, of the entire ship, it would be 25% thruster. Since the hull is around 50% of the entire ship.

Somehow I get this feeling I'll still be limited by the space AND power for thrusters in systems 2.0...

I said 50% because you can't fill a ship with 100% thrusters and have enough power or room left for anything else since there is 0% volume left to be used for that...

Please Chyr no, don't nerf thrusters even further. Why do I get the feeling you either misunderstood or don't comprehend :/
...
Somehow I get this feeling I'll still be limited by the space AND power for thrusters in systems 2.0...

Your feeling is exactly what it is, a feeling:

1. an emotional state or reaction.
   
2. an idea or belief, especially a vague or irrational one.

Neither are useful when determining what to do with balance.

"Power priority queue will help a lot to allow fast ships, yet also allow a substantial amount of defenses and weaponry...You just can't power them all at the same time."

Getting somewhere fast... like jump drives? or more overdrive 2.0? Anyways, how fast are we talking? To be honest I'm not to clear on things myself, top speed vs. acceleration is a blurry place for me.

The good old sci-fi trick of "diverting all power to thrusters". In some way, that's what the power priority queue can do. By prioritizing a system above anything else, you'll be 100% sure that if needed, all of your power will go that single system. If you want firepower above all? Prioritize weapons. If you want speed above all? Prioritize thrusters, or jump drive, or invest into mobility reactor chambers...or a combination of these.

All I know is, with absolute certainty, that achieving that top speed and acceleration shouldn't cost a (probably) frigate/destroyer sized ship literally all it's systems and interior space.

Incorrect statement: reaching the top speed and maximum acceleration of any ship is only achievable if you fully utilize the available power and space for thrusters. Or else you would not reach the maximum for that ship.

What you want, is that frigates/destroyers (small - medium size) can achieve a greater TTW ratio than they currently get.

Also, are you saying in the future, it's probable to suspect that thrusters will be even worse? With all this talk of either being able to shoot, or be maneuverable. I find it sounding a little ridiculous(!)
Can you think of any space/naval/air game where you can ONLY either move fast, or fight? This isn't exactly an FPS here in Starmade, with fast sprinting and slow Aim-Down-The-Sights. Ships function differently, they need to function differently! Because right now literally anything above 50 meters is either dayum slow, or hella slow.

I think it's safe to say in the current state all ships are pretty crippled, and not just crippled, senile! For the love of Chyr and all mankind, I do hope Systems 2.0 doesn't handicap us farther.

(Had to heavily edit since I accidentally clicked post 30 minutes too early)

I'm saying that I don't know.

The whole point I tried to get across is that it's too early to say what will happen to thrusters in the new system. Yet here you make assumptions, based on feelings of what will happen? I was being vague because I don't have the answers yet, so you fill in the blanks with your worst case scenario.

 

[Calhoun]

Yeah, there's a reason why I mentioned it. I can only speak from personal experiences and I would need to investigate the issue to figure out where the real problem is, and no..."not enough thrust!" is not the real problem.

I see people complain about top speed,
I see them complain about the thrust curve,
I see them complain about rotational speed.
All of these complaints are coming from personal experiences, and most certainly only apply for certain ship sizes because mobility does not scale linear at all.



I said 50% because you can't fill a ship with 100% thrusters and have enough power or room left for anything else since there is 0% volume left to be used for that...



Your feeling is exactly what it is, a feeling:

1. an emotional state or reaction.
   
2. an idea or belief, especially a vague or irrational one.

Neither are useful when determining what to do with balance.



The good old sci-fi trick of "diverting all power to thrusters". In some way, that's what the power priority queue can do. By prioritizing a system above anything else, you'll be 100% sure that if needed, all of your power will go that single system. If you want firepower above all? Prioritize weapons. If you want speed above all? Prioritize thrusters, or jump drive, or invest into mobility reactor chambers...or a combination of these.



Incorrect statement: reaching the top speed and maximum acceleration of any ship is only achievable if you fully utilize the available power and space for thrusters. Or else you would not reach the maximum for that ship.

What you want, is that frigates/destroyers (small - medium size) can achieve a greater TTW ratio than they currently get.



I'm saying that I don't know.

The whole point I tried to get across is that it's too early to say what will happen to thrusters in the new system. Yet here you make assumptions, based on feelings of what will happen? I was being vague because I don't have the answers yet, so you fill in the blanks with your worst case scenario.

Lawncake pls. Exo pls. Can we all agree that thrusters need a solid once over and leave the pointless bickering out of it?

 

[GnomeKing]

No
this is the problem:

This isn't... filling my ship with 50% thrusters... it's filling my ship with 100% thruster... just to achieve that 2.5 TMR.

you want max thurst-mass ratio ? you must have thrust dedicated ship...i do not see a problem with this basic concept. If it has 'loads of armour' and presumably weapons and shields as well, then what is the surprise that it can not reach max thrust-mass ratio ?!?

to consider anything 'below 10K' as a small ship is just daft - medium ships up to 50K ?? please > that's pretty damn big !!>> build to the 'limits' the game sets, or demonstrate your mastery of mechanics through oversized creations that still function well.

And don't expect 50+K mass ships to be 'Combat Pilotable' in any meaningful FirstPersonShooter way, expect perhaps to slowly maneuver against other large ships at long range (unless of course they have dedicated majority of resources to thrust

Anything else is a case of "having my cake and eating it" :<

 

[Exozen]

No
this is the problem:


you want max thurst-mass ratio ? you must have thrust dedicated ship...i do not see a problem with this basic concept. If it has 'loads of armour' and presumably weapons and shields as well, then what is the surprise that it can not reach max thrust-mass ratio ?!?

to consider anything 'below 10K' as a small ship is just daft - medium ships up to 50K ?? please > that's pretty damn big !!>> build to the 'limits' the game sets, or demonstrate your mastery of mechanics through oversized creations that still function well.

And don't expect 50+K mass ships to be 'Combat Pilotable' in any meaningful FirstPersonShooter way, expect perhaps to slowly maneuver against other large ships at long range (unless of course they have dedicated majority of resources to thrust

Anything else is a case of "having my cake and eating it" :<

If it were to be a dedicated, armored speed craft, with no shields or weapons, it STILL could not be possible. Hell, I'm not even sure that making all of it pure standard or basic hull could knock down the mass enough for it to be possible to sustain power consumption via less thrusters.

 

[ohartenstein23]

You'd be surprised how much that advanced armor weighs, and hull blocks weigh next to nothing compared to your armored hull. I'm guessing you could get down to 10k-12k mass just by replacing some of the advanced armor with standard, and some of the standard with basic hull.

Keeping the 15k mass though, to get at 2.5 T:M ratio, you should need ~45600 blocks, which would fit in a 114x20x20 block box, or about half of dimensions of what looks like your main hull and about half your total block count. This should take ~1.5 M e/s to power, but that's perfectly reasonable for a vessel of the mass you're using - I'd expect something of that size to already be at the power softcap. You'd have to compromise on the design and shape of the shell to get that ratio, but that's an important design choice, which is one of the things that makes the game interesting. I agree that it could be a bit less punishing, but I also think expecting a heavily armored ship to also reach max thrust is not reasonable.

 

[Lecic]

This isn't... filling my ship with 50% thrusters... it's filling my ship with 100% thruster... just to achieve that 2.5 TMR. Filling it with 50% thrusters would mean, of the entire ship, it would be 25% thruster. Since the hull is around 50% of the entire ship.

Your ship is 50% advanced armor and you're wondering why it takes a huge amount of thrusters to get it to accelerate and move quickly?

Because right now literally anything above 50 meters is either dayum slow, or hella slow.

If it is heavily armored, yes. I have personal experience fighting some ridiculously fast ships in the 80k mass range that have little to no armoring but can achieve a 2.0 or higher TMR. Too much of your ship's weight is in armor.

 

[Benevolent27]

Your ship is 50% advanced armor and you're wondering why it takes a huge amount of thrusters to get it to accelerate and move quickly?



If it is heavily armored, yes. I have personal experience fighting some ridiculously fast ships in the 80k mass range that have little to no armoring but can achieve a 2.0 or higher TMR. Too much of your ship's weight is in armor.

0 armor builds ftw.

 

[Methuselah]

Gonna nerd out on everyone for a minute. Brace yourselves.

The Enterprise D for example is over 600 meters, and i use that as a benchmark for realism in space.

(I used your quote, but its directed at everyone, not you personally).

The Enterprise D was not necessarily a "benchmark" for the fleet. In fact only twelve space-frames were built, and of those, only six became commissioned warships. That is until the Borg Incursion, when the other six frames were built out. It was a battle-cruiser and designed to be the center of a battle group, escorted by smaller more maneuverable ships. It had a normal cruising speed of warp 8 while smaller more maneuverable ships had a normal cruising speed of warp 9 or higher.

Just like the navies of today, where the center of the battle-group is a battle-cruiser or carrier, built in small numbers, each slow and cumbersome, flanked by smaller more maneuverable/faster destroyers, frigates, and cruisers. In the 1940s the United States fielded patrol torpedo boats (PT boats). These were wooden hulled, 25 meters long, and had a cruising speed of 25 knots. The Fletcher class destroyer was steel hulled, 115 meters long, with a cruising speed of 15 knots. The largest ship in the fleet was the Pennsylvania class battleship, steel hulled, at 185 meters long with a normal cruising speed of 10 knots.

I agree that we should revisit the numbers and maybe do some tweaking, but under no circumstances should my battleship be able to keep up with my destroyers, let alone my fighters. They're not meant to. They have different roles. Even in space, there's still the laws of physics, acceleration, and momentum. I think Starmade does a decent job of balancing the thrust/size ratio. Or at the very least, its much better now than what it used to be.

 

[Deserea]

Gonna nerd out on everyone for a minute. Brace yourselves.


(I used your quote, but its directed at everyone, not you personally).

The Enterprise D was not necessarily a "benchmark" for the fleet. In fact only twelve space-frames were built, and of those, only six became commissioned warships. That is until the Borg Incursion, when the other six frames were built out. It was a battle-cruiser and designed to be the center of a battle group, escorted by smaller more maneuverable ships. It had a normal cruising speed of warp 8 while smaller more maneuverable ships had a normal cruising speed of warp 9 or higher.

Just like the navies of today, where the center of the battle-group is a battle-cruiser or carrier, built in small numbers, each slow and cumbersome, flanked by smaller more maneuverable/faster destroyers, frigates, and cruisers. In the 1940s the United States fielded patrol torpedo boats (PT boats). These were wooden hulled, 25 meters long, and had a cruising speed of 25 knots. The Fletcher class destroyer was steel hulled, 115 meters long, with a cruising speed of 15 knots. The largest ship in the fleet was the Pennsylvania class battleship, steel hulled, at 185 meters long with a normal cruising speed of 10 knots.

I agree that we should revisit the numbers and maybe do some tweaking, but under no circumstances should my battleship be able to keep up with my destroyers, let alone my fighters. They're not meant to. They have different roles. Even in space, there's still the laws of physics, acceleration, and momentum. I think Starmade does a decent job of balancing the thrust/size ratio. Or at the very least, its much better now than what it used to be.

Be that as it may, the enterprise D to me at least had by far and away the best design of that generation of star trek ships when it came to ship design, and interior usage(i mean...i could pick holes in most designs in star trek anywho, but..) i do remember in the show at least the Enterprise D going warp 9 multiple times, it just...couldnt stay at that speed forever, so.

As for the real ships you listed, there are some mistakes. The Pt boats speed maxed out at 37 knots, the fletcher class destroyer at 36 knots and The Pennsylvania class battleship had a maximum speed of 21 knots. The most technologically advanced battleship the USS Missouri could max out its speed at 32 knots.
There where also battlecruisers in WWII, one of which USS Alaska, had a speed of 33 knots, and was essentially a fast battleship.

The current ship im on a Ticonderoga class Cruiser can go 32 knots., and when it comes to carriers, they can go faster than my cruiser can, far far faster. I know, ive seen how fast they can go first hand, the cruiser i serve on cant go anywhere near their max speed ;-; they can also turn faster than we can too. The now decommissioned nuclear Enterprise could go faster even than the other nuclear aircraft carriers due to the shear amount of reactors it had(Eight, compared to two) and that just scares me.

In other words, they shouldnt be able to keep up, but they should be able to come close. At least if you are going off realism. And if you are going off modern realism, carriers at least in the United States Navy can go faster than any other ship in the service, so...

 

[Methuselah]

Touche'.

I was actually referring to cruising speeds, not max speeds. The Alaska had given up armor and armament to be able to reach those speeds. That was its role. Our carriers yes, are very fast, but not well armored or armed. It gives up those aspects in favor of mobility, and makes up for its losses with its escorts. I did not properly state my opinion, apologies. Let me try this one out. If someone fills up their starmade ship with thrusters, they may get close to the same speeds as their fighters, but will have to trade off the armament and armor. The armor tank that Exozen is referring to should not be able to keep up with other ships of similar size, without giving up armament. I'm failing miserably at saying that there should be a balancing act on the part of the designer dealing with speed vs. armament vs. armor. We should not be able to have all three aspects at their most efficient levels at any one time. I think Starmade shows that well.

 

[Deserea]

Touche'.

I was actually referring to cruising speeds, not max speeds. The Alaska had given up armor and armament to be able to reach those speeds. That was its role. Our carriers yes, are very fast, but not well armored or armed. It gives up those aspects in favor of mobility, and makes up for its losses with its escorts. I did not properly state my opinion, apologies. Let me try this one out. If someone fills up their starmade ship with thrusters, they may get close to the same speeds as their fighters, but will have to trade off the armament and armor. The armor tank that Exozen is referring to should not be able to keep up with other ships of similar size, without giving up armament. I'm failing miserably at saying that there should be a balancing act on the part of the designer dealing with speed vs. armament vs. armor. I think Starmade shows that well.

They arent well armed(defensive weapons only), but they do have armor, probably as much as the cruiser im on has.

But what im referring to specifically with my statement and opinion, is ships like the Alaska, they currently cant really exist anymore in this game.

The Ravens Claw(my battlecruiser) was designed to give up armor, and firepower in exchange for speed. Prior to the thruster update, it could reach a insanely high maximum speed (128 m/s) at 91k mass due to the amount of engine blocks it had( also had a shortage of shields too), while still having the power needed to fire its weapons weak that those where and yes it was entirely standard armor.

After the update, i tried to fill more of the empty space on that ship with thrusters so it could approach the speed it had originally and couldnt come close, i had to strip a bunch of its engines in the end because they where useless.

its speed is now maxed out at 80M/S, accelerates slower than dirt, and the ship is essentially useless for its role in my small fleet. Also it cant use its weapons anymore while accelerating due to the power drain from them. Which i think is my major problem with the thrust update, if they required less power to use per block, i wouldnt mind adding more, but to even get close to 25% on a 740k block ship(which is 185000 blocks, by the way.), as soon as you turned your engines on you would be out of power. Currently it sits at just under 10% of its block count towards thrust, because i *cant* take anything else out of the ship to make room and still keep the ship usable.

If if i was to try and reduce its mass to make up for the sudden shortage of thrust from the update, id have to change it from standard armor to hull, and then theres no point to it even existing because its supposed to be a battlecruiser/fast battleship.


Edit : Obviously a ship like the Avelos(come on, over 600k mass) shouldnt be able to go anywhere in a hurry through standard thrust alone xD

I have the exact opposite opinion of how well starmade deals with this under the current system, when comparing it to the older thrust we used to have. Yes there should be a balancing system, but i dont think that starmade has a good one.

 

[Calhoun]

Gonna nerd out on everyone for a minute. Brace yourselves.


(I used your quote, but its directed at everyone, not you personally).

The Enterprise D was not necessarily a "benchmark" for the fleet. In fact only twelve space-frames were built, and of those, only six became commissioned warships. That is until the Borg Incursion, when the other six frames were built out. It was a battle-cruiser and designed to be the center of a battle group, escorted by smaller more maneuverable ships. It had a normal cruising speed of warp 8 while smaller more maneuverable ships had a normal cruising speed of warp 9 or higher.

Just like the navies of today, where the center of the battle-group is a battle-cruiser or carrier, built in small numbers, each slow and cumbersome, flanked by smaller more maneuverable/faster destroyers, frigates, and cruisers. In the 1940s the United States fielded patrol torpedo boats (PT boats). These were wooden hulled, 25 meters long, and had a cruising speed of 25 knots. The Fletcher class destroyer was steel hulled, 115 meters long, with a cruising speed of 15 knots. The largest ship in the fleet was the Pennsylvania class battleship, steel hulled, at 185 meters long with a normal cruising speed of 10 knots.

I agree that we should revisit the numbers and maybe do some tweaking, but under no circumstances should my battleship be able to keep up with my destroyers, let alone my fighters. They're not meant to. They have different roles. Even in space, there's still the laws of physics, acceleration, and momentum. I think Starmade does a decent job of balancing the thrust/size ratio. Or at the very least, its much better now than what it used to be.

I'm sorry, but you're completely wrong. More than 12 Galaxy-class ships were built, I can recall three that were destroyed (Enterprise, Yamato and Odyssey), and there were at least ten in Starfleet's Task Force to retake DS9, plus the ships that "welcomed" Voyager.

Secondly, it most certainly was not a battlecruiser. Galaxy-class ships were designed to be relatively self sufficient to aid in it's mission of exploration. Nor was it particularly slow or cumbersome, if fact the Galaxy was considered manoeuvrable for it's size, and was capable of performing extremely accurate Warp Speed Jumps. Not to mention that it was easily the most advanced ship in the fleet upon it's launch, with the fastest and most reliable Warp Core Starfleet had ever produced. Most "smaller" starfleet ships were older designs, the only advanced small ship design I can think of that was faster than the Galaxy is the Defiant, which was built specifically for war.

As for small ships in Star Trek, we've seen how that goes. The full cover phaser arrays and computer targeting make fighter sized ships next to useless, which is shown best in Next Gen's Conundrum episode.

 

[sayerulz]

I'm sorry, but you're completely wrong. More than 12 Galaxy-class ships were built, I can recall three that were destroyed (Enterprise, Yamato and Odyssey), and there were at least ten in Starfleet's Task Force to retake DS9, plus the ships that "welcomed" Voyager.

Secondly, it most certainly was not a battlecruiser. Galaxy-class ships were designed to be relatively self sufficient to aid in it's mission of exploration. Nor was it particularly slow or cumbersome, if fact the Galaxy was considered manoeuvrable for it's size, and was capable of performing extremely accurate Warp Speed Jumps. Not to mention that it was easily the most advanced ship in the fleet upon it's launch, with the fastest and most reliable Warp Core Starfleet had ever produced. Most "smaller" starfleet ships were older designs, the only advanced small ship design I can think of that was faster than the Galaxy is the Defiant, which was built specifically for war.

As for small ships in Star Trek, we've seen how that goes. The full cover phaser arrays and computer targeting make fighter sized ships next to useless, which is shown best in Next Gen's Conundrum episode.

Fighters being useless might be what was shown in that episode, but it sure wasn't what was shown in multiple instances in voyager and DS9. Starfleet ships CAN miss, depending on the epidode and series in question. Also, if the galaxies warp core was so reliable, how come something went wrong with it every other dammed episode? That and the holodeck. Did all the other ships have the warp core go on the fritz and the holodeck become sentient EVERY episode? Also, how come in DS9, in all these battle scenes, you have something like those cardassian turrets killing galaxies, romulan warbirds, klingon battlecruisers, and every other massive capital ship in star trek in one shot, but the defiant, which is tiny even by star trek standards, gets hit and it's just "shields down to 60%!". Are they saying that the defiant is tougher than a D'eridex (or however you spell that things name).

Sorry, offtopic rant, but ST really annoys me sometimes. Also galaxy class is butt ugly.

 

[Deserea]

Fighters being useless might be what was shown in that episode, but it sure wasn't what was shown in multiple instances in voyager and DS9. Starfleet ships CAN miss, depending on the epidode and series in question. Also, if the galaxies warp core was so reliable, how come something went wrong with it every other dammed episode? That and the holodeck. Did all the other ships have the warp core go on the fritz and the holodeck become sentient EVERY episode? Also, how come in DS9, in all these battle scenes, you have something like those cardassian turrets killing galaxies, romulan warbirds, klingon battlecruisers, and every other massive capital ship in star trek in one shot, but the defiant, which is tiny even by star trek standards, gets hit and it's just "shields down to 60%!". Are they saying that the defiant is tougher than a D'eridex (or however you spell that things name).

Sorry, offtopic rant, but ST really annoys me sometimes. Also galaxy class is butt ugly.

ive been binge watching Star Trek TNG i think the problems with the warp core and the holodeck are exaggerated. Most of the problems with the warp core come from external things, not the core itself, same with the holodeck.
i dont know enough about DS9 but if its a planetary turret, or a stationary turret that might be why.
i mean...plot armor does alot xD

 

[MacThule]

This is an issue of expectations & perspective, there is no correct position.

My personal position:
2.5 is the maximum speed. Take a minute to stop here and think about what "MAXIMUM" means...

... no, really... imagine if there was a "max armor" or "max dps"...

...ok, so MAX speed is 2.5. This means that only the fastest ships should be hitting. Ships optimized for speed. Adding heavy armor and substantial weaponry doesn't sound much at all like "optimizing for speed." I don't think every ship under 1k or under 100k or at any size somehow "deserves" to hit server max speed and also be tough and offensively powerful. If you're going for kinda tough and kinda powerful you're gonna end up with kinda fast too. No one gets to be super tanky, super fast (2.5 is SUPER FAST), and super DPS with super fast jump and super great cargo. Pick one thing to be super at per ship and build a variety of ships for different tasks, or build a generalist and be comfortable with the fact that it cannot and will not excel in any way other than being "OK" at everything and never needing to swap ships.

IF a ship could be max everything, there would be no trade-off. No balance. Sadly, because of the overwhelming AI meta at the moment, I don't think most players even understand the role that speed and maneuver are meant to play as a balance against ship mass & size.