Dreadnaught - Guidelines (Help!)
- Thread starter Meshua_x
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CyberTao
鬼佬
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Needs more Dakka.
Other than that, "Dreadnaught" is too vague, if you posted a picture and listed the dimensions/etc (I assume mass is irrelevant because it is unfinished?), some of the more experienced players could eyeball you some estimates and benchmarks.
Other than that, "Dreadnaught" is too vague, if you posted a picture and listed the dimensions/etc (I assume mass is irrelevant because it is unfinished?), some of the more experienced players could eyeball you some estimates and benchmarks.
MrFURB
Madman of the Girders
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I'm going to just assume that dreadnought means an exorbitantly high mass. In that case there's a few neat tricks one can use to maximize a large ship's strengths and minimize it's weaknesses.
The first point is going to be power, which is going to be your backbone. I've seen a few ways people have done power in large ships, and they all revolve around getting past the 1 million bonus power regen soft cap.
My favorite is to focus on power capacity, since it scales up with group size. I always have a ton of the cheap, glowing, green power capacitors because they enable large ships to have that dreaded 1 shot KO alpha strike or even temporary cloaking capabilities. Think of a high capacity as having infinite power for x seconds and it's uses will become apparent.
Another trick is to have docked reactors; separate ships with just enough power blocks to reach the regen soft cap and logic-activated power supply beams docked either onto or into a large ship to give it lots of power regen with a low cost in space. It can be very effective even in smaller capital ships but suffers from the same weaknesses at turrets. Unless you make them substantially larger and more expensive then they are going to be defenseless targets for just about any size of enemy to pick off. Heck, if someone lets loose a swarm of heatseeker missiles you could lose lots of them at once.
If your ship's design and shape has an area that isn't likely to be shot, it would make a prime location for externally docked reactors for a huge boost in power regen.
The most common one is simply spamming bricks of power generators all over the place. It might seem noobish, but it's effective considering large ships have the space needed to brute-force their way past the power soft cap, it'll just take tons of space. A 100x100x100 cube of power regen blocks will give you 25 million regen. Yeah, that's a ton of space, but compared to weapons and shields power regen blocks are dirt cheap, so space is pretty much the only cost.
The first point is going to be power, which is going to be your backbone. I've seen a few ways people have done power in large ships, and they all revolve around getting past the 1 million bonus power regen soft cap.
My favorite is to focus on power capacity, since it scales up with group size. I always have a ton of the cheap, glowing, green power capacitors because they enable large ships to have that dreaded 1 shot KO alpha strike or even temporary cloaking capabilities. Think of a high capacity as having infinite power for x seconds and it's uses will become apparent.
Another trick is to have docked reactors; separate ships with just enough power blocks to reach the regen soft cap and logic-activated power supply beams docked either onto or into a large ship to give it lots of power regen with a low cost in space. It can be very effective even in smaller capital ships but suffers from the same weaknesses at turrets. Unless you make them substantially larger and more expensive then they are going to be defenseless targets for just about any size of enemy to pick off. Heck, if someone lets loose a swarm of heatseeker missiles you could lose lots of them at once.
If your ship's design and shape has an area that isn't likely to be shot, it would make a prime location for externally docked reactors for a huge boost in power regen.
The most common one is simply spamming bricks of power generators all over the place. It might seem noobish, but it's effective considering large ships have the space needed to brute-force their way past the power soft cap, it'll just take tons of space. A 100x100x100 cube of power regen blocks will give you 25 million regen. Yeah, that's a ton of space, but compared to weapons and shields power regen blocks are dirt cheap, so space is pretty much the only cost.
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My (often maligned) opinion:
Do you really like the look of yer new behemoth? If not, just let it sit there and make new (smaller) stuff -- cuz yer gunna spend a lot of time trying to figure out what to put in it, where to put it, questioning why you decided to do whatever you just did, forgetting to LINK stuff and other frustrating issues, and generally sinking tons of time into something yer not ready for (voice of experience here...). Then you'll discover all the cool things other people have done and want to change everything all over again. AND it's gunna be a really slow s.o.b.
So unless yer IN LOVE with it, set it aside and maybe come back to it later (or even maybe even if you are in love with it...) You can always look at it and admire your design and imagine the future possibilities.
~ee
Do you really like the look of yer new behemoth? If not, just let it sit there and make new (smaller) stuff -- cuz yer gunna spend a lot of time trying to figure out what to put in it, where to put it, questioning why you decided to do whatever you just did, forgetting to LINK stuff and other frustrating issues, and generally sinking tons of time into something yer not ready for (voice of experience here...). Then you'll discover all the cool things other people have done and want to change everything all over again. AND it's gunna be a really slow s.o.b.
So unless yer IN LOVE with it, set it aside and maybe come back to it later (or even maybe even if you are in love with it...) You can always look at it and admire your design and imagine the future possibilities.
~ee
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Note that you can dock power reactor modules inside the ship as well if you build the bays and access tubes for it, and seal the door behind them. Huge power capacity is a must though.
You'll probably want to use lock-on missiles on it as primary weaponry, maybe multiple computers. As long as you can get a target in your camera's view you can probably lock on, and the missile will track as best possible. This means if you have at least one camera facing each direction, you can in theory target and fire on craft anywhere around you, if they're slow enough.
You're going to want shield capacity and charge, and a max capacity ion effect; that 60% resistance more than doubles your effective shield load, and huge vessels already have space for enormous shield capacity...
You'll probably want to use lock-on missiles on it as primary weaponry, maybe multiple computers. As long as you can get a target in your camera's view you can probably lock on, and the missile will track as best possible. This means if you have at least one camera facing each direction, you can in theory target and fire on craft anywhere around you, if they're slow enough.
You're going to want shield capacity and charge, and a max capacity ion effect; that 60% resistance more than doubles your effective shield load, and huge vessels already have space for enormous shield capacity...
Thalanor
CEO Snataris Colonial Fleetyards
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This is absolutely golden advice right there. Be like a car designer: not afraid to scrap 1000 designs, start out in known terrain and develop from there.
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I've got one down to a 27m cube with a dock on the top face that can fit anything up to 61m, which let's me chain dock them. I haven't figured out a way to accurately determine how much power it provides per second, but I think its around 600k. The reactor modules are all straight lines parallel to each other in a waffleboard pattern, with a 5m gap at the middle all the way around for core access and power supply beams.
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Thank you very much, i was hoping for something like a cube, rather then a 200m stick because that way i will be able to prottect them nicely inside my ship.