Experiences from Starsector (Solution to gigantism and binary fights)

[apelsinsaft]

A lot of the discussion revolving around "gigantism", the issue of balancing shields vs armor and what not often boils down to comparing numbers and trying to figure out an algorithm that provides the best balance. But, i think something about the current combat system is flawed. Let's make a list of all the things you have to do in a typical fleet vs fleet fight.

• Point your guns at the right target
• Make sure all your modules are on
• Make sure you're within range of the target and in the best position to help your allies in your fleet
• Hold the left mouse button
• Run before your shield drops

There's not much else you could do, maybe make sure you fire your missiles when they cool down and so on, but typically a battle in Starmade is simply down to positioning and numbers/resource advantage, and whoever has the numbers/resource advantage is usually the one who wins because positioning isn't very hard. Generally, commanding a fleet is much the same, just figure out which enemy is likely to deal a lot of damage to you and order everyone to take it out first. Winning and losing in Starmade is extremely binary; you either lose ships and take massive armor damage or you don't. There are few economical considerations other than "if we fight we will lose ships". Why is this?

• There's no economic drawback for going out of line and being reckless in a fight
• There's no economic drawback for drawing the fight out and trying to stall
• There's no economic drawback for having a single, near indestructible ship
• There's no way for Fleet A with 50% of the strength of Fleet B to inflict even 5% of the economic damage that Fleet B would deal to Fleet A.
• There's no disadvantage to fielding a much larger fleet than what is strictly necessary, and no reason to ever hold back reinforcements.

NOTE: The following set of suggestions may appear as if though they were ripped straight from StarSector. That's because they are.

Yes, i played Starsector and it all became painfully clear what Starmade needs to make the combat more interesting. StarSector has a bunch of game mechanics that struck me as solutions that would mesh perfectly into Starmade. Namely, the economic ramifications of having big metal monstrosities of war that fly through space:

• Ships require a very small amount of upkeep in order to not degrade in combat ability and eventually risk malfunctions. Every ship consumes supplies to keep itself in top shape and ready for combat. The more combat power a ship has, the more supplies it will cost to keep the ship in shape.
  • This is a no brainer to implement into starmade, as it's likely crew will require some form of upkeep and will provide the "survival" element to managing large ships and fleets. This can be extended to where you need "Food" to keep your crew from dying and "Supplies" to keep your ship from turning into a rust bucket.
• Ships cannot consume supplies to stop degradation mid-combat. Degradation only starts after a certain time period after deploying into combat, but the longer your ship is deployed, the faster it degrades. Degradation costs a lot of supplies to repair, or can be repaired cheaper at a shipyard
  • This is what puts a stop to there being no drawback in having a single big ship that does everything. If there's a timer on every ship that's put in combat, then having a single titan as your fleet is guaranteed to keep you alive for a bit but not likely to win you any battles cost-for-cost in the long run.
• Ships can be purposely kept outside of combat and put in to reinforce ships that suffer from degradation while the degraded ships make for a retreat
  • This is what gives a faction with many available players and a solid command structure an advantage. Ships not deployed into combat can take time to consume supplies and repair degradation while waiting for the order to return to combat.
• Shields can be toggled on and off and do not have hitpoints; instead they build up heat when damaged which only dissipates when you lower the shields. If the heat bar ever reaches maximum, the ship is disabled for a period of time while the heat vents and can't fire its weapons.
  • This is primarily a way to enable smaller ships and fighters a way to be able to inflict, at the very least, economic damage against a large ship that isn't trying to run away.
• Larger ships are slower than smaller ships
  • Large ships already accelerate and maneuver slower, but for some reason people seem adamant that large ships need to be able to move at the same top speed as small ships. I think this is the greatest issue contributing to gigantism: If a titan can move and travel at the same rate as a jumpstick, why bother with anything smaller?

So far it sounds like i have something personal against people who run 1-man factions and make great titans, but i'm not here to collect salt: there's more.

• As ship weapons get larger, their range increases. Larger ships are also able to carry fighters which are easily replaceable mid-combat
  • Small enemies with a brain will try to take turns to weave in and out of your range so they can vent their shield heat in safety while their allies are harassing your shield. It makes sense that a larger ship should force you to go further away before you get to safely vent heat to balance the cost of running a large ship. The ability to deal damage at longer range also offsets your slower speed.
• As ships become larger, they take slightly longer to start degrading mid-combat
  • Obviously nobody would want to ever field a titan if you'd run into malfunctions after just 5 minutes. In a fight with all cards on the table, a fleet of 5 large ships will still beat a fleet of 5 small ships.

Now, there's one more question left to answer. Everyone knows the homebase mechanic is flawed and promotes turtling. Could these changes somehow make it more attractive to go and raid opponents to inflict economic damage? Why, yes it can! It's simple:

• Stations don't require supplies for upkeep. However, stations will degrade much like a ship will while in combat. Rather than only homebases being invulnerable, now all stations are invulnerable. However, stations are only invulnerable while the degradation is still below 100%. If combat lasts long enough for the station to reach 100% degradation, the invulnerability drops and the station will start consuming supplies to lower the degradation level to 0%, at which point it becomes invulnerable again.

Just like ships, the degradation timer and rate of recovery depends on the size of the station. The bigger the station, the more time the attackers have to spend in order to drop the invulnerability, but the more time they have to damage the station while its vulnerable and consuming supplies.

This makes it so that in order to siege an opponent, you need to be able to field enough ships to keep up sustained pressure against the station without suffering degradation. A single large titan might be able to quickly overwhelm a small outpost within its vulnerability window, but won't be able to do much against a proper home base before it needs to back away. However, even a small band of raiders would be able to take turns to chip away at a large home base provided they're not simply chased away.

So, the obvious benefits:

• Adds much needed survival element to pvp servers
• Does away with gigantism: Large ships are now an economical strain for a benefit in battles with all cards on the table
• Does away with over the top curb stomping: Fielding an armada of battleships to delete 1-man factions is not an economically viable option (unless you're an ADVANCED bully)
• Enables attacking home bases in a balanced manner and makes stations that aren't home bases more viable

However there are a lot of questions to work out for this to work, such as:

• Do shields need to have their strength increased or decreased?
• What values for supply upkeep and how much should it scale with ship combat potential?
• How long should it take for an in-combat ship/station to start degrading, and how much should that scale by size?
• What exactly is "combat"?

 

[KaRe]

First off, why only in combat? Why economic? How is it going to affect the economy of a server, since economy means players would have to be trading with someone? How do the ships degrade, if metal only rusts when in contact to things like water? Why would all stations be invincible, especially if you could just set up a mega turret or two that instantly shred through Titans? What is the cap on weapon ranges, or can we just nuke people 10 sectors away?

A small address to the first five problems:
1. That's a no brainier. What would you do, point your guns at yourself?
2. I make sure all my modules are off before going into combat. Who wouldn't?
3. The best way to fight is from right in front of your capital ship's weapons!
4. Only if you're using something like cannons or beams, but I could see how that could annoy people.
5. If your shield drops, what are you supposed to do? Unless your enemy was using full shield-drain weapons, it's likely they can shred armor at least somewhat.

A small address to the next five problems:
1. There's a material drawback, but there's no reason there would be an economic drawback. Most players I've seen make most of their materials instead of buying them.
2. Why would there be any sort of drawback for a fight being long? It's not like you're constantly pumping supplies to a battlefield, just a couple ships and waiting for what happens.
3. There is no such thing as an indestructible ship, and the power/crew update will make them easier to board, which will take some pressure off smaller ships. That is, assuming it makes interior space a need.
4. Well no duh. Again, most players can just manufacture their blocks, which has nothing to do with economy in this situation, and I go up to a mini fighter in a jump stick with a single cannon, who do you think would win?
5. That could be fixed. Make a fleet AI block, make it so that each fleet can carry only a few ships based on something, and voila. As for holding back reinforcements, make a tool that can limit number of parent ships per, say, faction or in general. Course that would limit themselves, but whatever.

I'm not trying to ridicule you, but come up with an answer for all of these, and I'll be satisfied. Probably.

 

[apelsinsaft]

First off, why only in combat? Why economic? How is it going to affect the economy of a server, since economy means players would have to be trading with someone? How do the ships degrade, if metal only rusts when in contact to things like water? Why would all stations be invincible, especially if you could just set up a mega turret or two that instantly shred through Titans? What is the cap on weapon ranges, or can we just nuke people 10 sectors away?

Okay, i'm not trying to flame you or tell you to go read my wall of text all over again, but i think you should do a double take before you post like this.

• First off, why only in combat?

What is? What?

• Why economic?

Again what are you referring to?

• How do the ships degrade, if metal only rusts when in contact to things like water?

What has water with anything to do? It was only intended to be for gameplay purposes. If you don't like to call it a rust bucket, call it a workplace hazard where the crew slip on the greasy floor since they don't have time to clean or something. I don't know, it makes sense in Starsector. For the actual degradation mechanic, refer to

Ships require a very small amount of upkeep in order to not degrade in combat ability and eventually risk malfunctions. Every ship consumes supplies to keep itself in top shape and ready for combat. The more combat power a ship has, the more supplies it will cost to keep the ship in shape.

The idea is that ships would have another "hit point bar". Call it degradation. As degradation comes close to 100%, your ship will suffer random malfunctions, which could stop certain systems from working for a short period. Basically, things that make the ship very ineffective in combat and a nuisance to use effectively, but not something that deletes your ship from the game for not paying the upkeep.

• Why would all stations be invincible, especially if you could just set up a mega turret or two that instantly shred through Titans?

Good point. I suppose if titans were slow and unable to dodge a big mega turret shot, you'd have to use something that's able to dodge the mega turret shots. Small ships, maybe. Refer to

This makes it so that in order to siege an opponent, you need to be able to field enough ships to keep up sustained pressure against the station without suffering degradation. A single large titan might be able to quickly overwhelm a small outpost within its vulnerability window, but won't be able to do much against a proper home base before it needs to back away. However, even a small band of raiders would be able to take turns to chip away at a large home base provided they're not simply chased away.

• What is the cap on weapon ranges, or can we just nuke people 10 sectors away?

Obviously this would be up to balance changes. I can't possibly say how much weapon ranges would scale and where there'd be a soft cap if any. I do think they should scale fairly generously to not completely discourage people from making titans.

A small address to the first five problems:
1. That's a no brainier. What would you do, point your guns at yourself?
2. I make sure all my modules are off before going into combat. Who wouldn't?
3. The best way to fight is from right in front of your capital ship's weapons!
4. Only if you're using something like cannons or beams, but I could see how that could annoy people.
5. If your shield drops, what are you supposed to do? Unless your enemy was using full shield-drain weapons, it's likely they can shred armor at least somewhat.

You didn't really address anything here to be honest, you only confirmed exactly what i was trying to say: there's not really much to think about in combat.

A small address to the next five problems:
1. There's a material drawback, but there's no reason there would be an economic drawback. Most players I've seen make most of their materials instead of buying them.
2. Why would there be any sort of drawback for a fight being long? It's not like you're constantly pumping supplies to a battlefield, just a couple ships and waiting for what happens.
3. There is no such thing as an indestructible ship, and the power/crew update will make them easier to board, which will take some pressure off smaller ships. That is, assuming it makes interior space a need.
4. Well no duh. Again, most players can just manufacture their blocks, which has nothing to do with economy in this situation, and I go up to a mini fighter in a jump stick with a single cannon, who do you think would win?
5. That could be fixed. Make a fleet AI block, make it so that each fleet can carry only a few ships based on something, and voila. As for holding back reinforcements, make a tool that can limit number of parent ships per, say, faction or in general. Course that would limit themselves, but whatever.

• There's a material drawback, but there's no reason there would be an economic drawback. Most players I've seen make most of their materials instead of buying them

I think this might be a semantic issue. Economics, materials, whatever you want to call it.

• Why would there be any sort of drawback for a fight being long? It's not like you're constantly pumping supplies to a battlefield, just a couple ships and waiting for what happens.

It's to actively punish one-man factions.

• There is no such thing as an indestructible ship, and the power/crew update will make them easier to board, which will take some pressure off smaller ships. That is, assuming it makes interior space a need.

I suppose you're right, but this point mostly just tied into the previous point. A titan wins fights by outlasting its opponents, the suggestion gives the opponents a way to outlast the titan.

• Well no duh. Again, most players can just manufacture their blocks, which has nothing to do with economy in this situation, and I go up to a mini fighter in a jump stick with a single cannon, who do you think would win?

It's not about who wins; it's about the disproportional amount of economic (call it material, or ship damage, whatever) damage that the winners can deal to the losers. Of course a small advantage should mean that you win the fight, but even a very small 5% advantage can lead to something like 50% fewer ships lost. A good example of how this is visible is in an RTS game. Send 10 starcraft marines up against 12 marines and the enemy will have a bunch of marines left with low HP while you have absolutely 0 left.

The optimal equation would be one where 10 vs 20 ships come into the fight, and 5 vs 10 ships come out of the fight, but right now it'd be closer to 0 vs 20 ships out. This is an issue that causes players to be overly cautious and never consider a fight, because if you're even slightly weaker than your opponent, your opponent will shit all over you. A more linear relationship between loser and winner helps create an incentive for actually fighting.

• That could be fixed. Make a fleet AI block, make it so that each fleet can carry only a few ships based on something, and voila. As for holding back reinforcements, make a tool that can limit number of parent ships per, say, faction or in general. Course that would limit themselves, but whatever.

But hard limits like that aren't interesting. I'm not sure you understood this, so let me, again, explain what i mean.
There's no disadvantage to having a fleet that is much bigger than what you would need to defeat your enemy. Effectively, there's no reason to not curbstomp your enemy as hard as you can and with as many ships as you can, which leads to unfair fights that deal disproportionate amounts of economic damage to the loser at no cost for the winner(call it material, ship damage, whatever). It makes it so that a faction that is much weaker than another faction can be effectively deleted at literally zero cost to the attackers.

I'm not trying to ridicule you

I take personal offense when people don't try to ridicule me. Look at how autistic i'm being about this shitty voxel game.

 

[KaRe]

Ok.
1. Why would ships degrade only in combat? Why not say, every space day?
2. Why should there only be a material drawback? Why not, say, every fight makes the most used set of blocks also become faulty or slightly less effective, or such and such?
3. Why do the ships degrade? It's like every time you enter combat all of a sudden this massive ship that you built for so long turns into the worst ship to be caught in after a fight or two with someone that can at least dodge your shots and has a jump interdiction module.
4. ~
5. ~
6. I don't think there will be much to combat until assets and good ways to capture/control them are implemented.
7. ~
8. Put what if the one man faction not only has more ships, but has a huge asteroid respawn right next to them, and shipyards large enough for all their ships?
9. ~
10. It's not easy for fleets to go up against each other and have an advantage if both were built for war. Both builders are likely to have an assortment of unique designs, which may counter one of the enemy ships but be shredded by another.
11. Personally, I'd hate if that were to be implemented too. It is one of the laziest ways to do that, but then again, it may be the only viable way as of yet.

 

[apelsinsaft]

1. Why would ships degrade only in combat? Why not say, every space day?
Ships would degrade every day unless you feed them supplies. In combat, ships no longer consume supplies to stop degradation, but the degradation becomes delayed by a couple minutes. I'm not sure you understood?
2. Why should there only be a material drawback? Why not, say, every fight makes the most used set of blocks also become faulty or slightly less effective, or such and such?
I'm not quite sure i understand. Do you mean a weapon would become more "used" the more you fight with it, and eventually lose efficiency? That could be an interesting idea to explore but i don't think being forced to replace weapons every now and then would be particularly fun.
3. Why do the ships degrade? It's like every time you enter combat all of a sudden this massive ship that you built for so long turns into the worst ship to be caught in after a fight or two with someone that can at least dodge your shots and has a jump interdiction module.
No reason. This is a game with dodecahedron planets, voxel space ships and warp drives.
The idea behind the degradation is it wouldn't completely cripple your ship and make it a sitting duck - it would just cause lots of random short malfunctions that make your ship essentially useless for combat. Things like guns becoming jammed for a couple seconds, engines flaring out, shields suddenly dropping, power blackouts, etc.
4. ~
5. ~
6. I don't think there will be much to combat until assets and good ways to capture/control them are implemented.
Assets? An asset is anything you own that is of use to you, directly or indirectly. Assets are already in the game. I don't really understand.
7. ~
8. Put what if the one man faction not only has more ships, but has a huge asteroid respawn right next to them, and shipyards large enough for all their ships?
If one player somehow has a large enough one-man faction that he can play in RTS mode and win against a coordinated group of players, while fighting a war of attrition with upkeep costs, i think he deserves to win. However, it should be possible for the losing player/group to deal economic damage (material damage, ship damage, whichever) to the winning player/group which is linearly proportional to the strength difference of the two fighting players/groups.
9. ~
10. It's not easy for fleets to go up against each other and have an advantage if both were built for war. Both builders are likely to have an assortment of unique designs, which may counter one of the enemy ships but be shredded by another.
That certainly plays a part in it, and having a fleet designed to completely counter your enemy should definitely be rewarding, but even then your opponent, if after taking consideration how you counter him is say 10% of your strength, should be able to deal 10% of the damage you dealt to him, to you.

Having to hold back reinforcements would make fights interesting in another way too: You may choose to hold back a certain ship with a certain kind of weapon because you think the ship it would counter is going to come in as reinforcements later. There's lots of little tactical decisions like that which become possible with Starsector's upkeep system.
11. Personally, I'd hate if that were to be implemented too. It is one of the laziest ways to do that, but then again, it may be the only viable way as of yet.
But implementing these Starsector features into Starmade literally is a viable way to fix it.

 

[Lecic]

There's no economic drawback for having a single, near indestructible ship

Wrong. Big ships are extremely inefficient. Fleets are more bang for your buck. Drone fleets are the most bang for your buck.

There's no way for Fleet A with 50% of the strength of Fleet B to inflict even 5% of the economic damage that Fleet B would deal to Fleet A.

Wrong. Not only can you win with a fleet half the strength of an enemy, even if you lose you can still do plenty of damage to them.

 

[apelsinsaft]

Wrong. Big ships are extremely inefficient. Fleets are more bang for your buck. Drone fleets are the most bang for your buck.

Wait, gigantism was already solved? Other than the power scaling cap, what makes big ships weaker?

Wrong. Not only can you win with a fleet half the strength of an enemy, even if you lose you can still do plenty of damage to them.

I don't think you're wrong, but what i'm pointing out as problematic is the proportion at which the winner deals damage to the loser.

Consider a simple theoretical example. Two fleets of 5 ships fight. Fleet A ships have 1000 shields, 1000 hull HP (lets simplify the armor and hull equation as well as shield regeneration etc) and 10 DPS. Fleet B ships have 2000 shields, 2000 hull HP and 10 DPS. Fleet B should cost exactly twice as much as Fleet A to construct, and you would think that it is also precisely twice as powerful.
The two fleets fight until the death, and can perfectly coordinate their aim at a single target for best effect.

At the start of the fight, Fleet A has a total of 5000 shields+HP and 50 DPS, and Fleet B has a total of 10000 shields+HP and 50 DPS. I'll write it like this:
A: 5000/5000, 50 DPS
B: 10000/10000, 50 DPS

40 seconds in, Fleet A loses a ship.
A: 4000/4000, 40 DPS
B: 8000/10000, 50 DPS

Fleet B can kill ANOTHER SHIP from Fleet A before it suffers its first casualty.
A:3000/3000, 30 DPS
B: 8000/8400, 50 DPS

13 seconds later, Fleet B loses its first ship.
A: 2350/3000, 30 DPS
B: 8000/8000, 40 DPS

33 seconds later, Fleet A is down to 2 ships.
A: 2000/2000, 20 DPS
B: 7010/8000, 40 DPS

50 seconds later, Fleet A is down to its last ship.
A: 1000/1000, 10 DPS
B: 6210/8000, 40 DPS

50 seconds later, Fleet A is deleted.
A: 0/0, 0 DPS
B: 6000/7810, 40 DPS

Fleet B lost literally only one ship, and got the armor slightly scratched on another.
Fleet A loses all ships, even though on paper, they were essentially half as powerful as Fleet B.
The same result can be observed when the difference in strength comes from numbers, eg 10 ships vs 20 equal ships, or difference in DPS, eg 10 DPS ships vs 20 DPS ships.
The result becomes even more extreme when there is less focus firing: having every ship target an opponent that only they are targeting causes Fleet A in the above example to lose without dealing a single point of lasting damage; Fleet B would win completely for free.

 

[Raisinbat]

Wait, gigantism was already solved? Other than the power scaling cap, what makes big ships weaker?

Mobility.

Your entire post reeks of someone who has NEVER been in combat before, no offence. You're focussing entirely on numbers and ignoring every practical issue in combat:

• Big ship = Big target; you can hit a 100k mass ship from much further away then you can a 10k mass ship. Hitting a fast moving small target past 4km other than lucky hits is impossible, while larger ships you can hit 7-10km away.
  
• Rotational speed. Main guns are easier to build into a ship than turrets, especially with high DPS, but since you're easily strafed by smaller ships they end up being completely useless. Small fast ships can easily strafe large ones at a distance then close in once they're outside the main weapons coverage. After that just find a nice spot to hide in and wait while your guns chip away at them.
• Lower mass efficiency since reactors don't scale past a certain point. Modular ships can aleviate this a lot since they're basically multiple small ships strapped together, but fleet of small ships doesn't have this issue at all.
  
• Same cost for less efficiency: smaller ships have better power production AND require less power to move. You also gain less shield HP the more shield blocks are added the less they contribute, which sucks because you can't evade at all so you end up taking more damage while being less durable. This all adds up to the small ship fleet being cheaper for the same statline, so what should be evenly matched ends up with small ships having a huge stat advantage for the same cost.

Let's improve your example; two fleets one has two ships with 10.000.000 HP and 10.000 DPS, the other has ships with 100 HP and 10 DPS. The first fleet is able to hit the 2. fleet at 2km range, while the second fleet can hit the 1. fleet at 8km range. First fleet can move 100m/s, second fleet 300m/s.

Who wins?

Health and DPS end up not mattering at all because the tiny ships can outrange the big ones and just wear them down. Flanking has the same effect in most situations, anyone thinking large ships are OP have never been in a fight with them.

This example isn't even representative of what two fleets requiring the same amount of work to aquire would be like; the small ship fleet wouldn't have lower stats at all, but most likely higher because of better power efficieny.

There's also the fact that you waste DPS whenever you switch a target; lets say you can kill something with 0.5 seconds of fire from your super gun. You have to wait for the projectiles to hit, then switch new target and find a lead, easily wasting 90% or more of your DPS.

 

[MrFURB]

Some sort of supply upkeep is a concept I completely agree with. However I think the issue with gigantism and the entire big vs. small ship arguments can be primarily attributed to manpower instead of disproportionate differences in combat power.

A big massive club of a ship is much less efficient than a more lean vessel per block in almost every regard. Not only in power but also shield capacity, passive defenses, thrust, maneuverability, damage application, and armor efficiency per block. If you split up the mass of the larger ship into multiple smaller ones the difference in effectiveness becomes absolutely immense.

Buuuuuuut, and this is a huge but, a ship with a human pilot is almost always more effective than one flown by an AI. If you don't have the pilots for multiple smaller vessels you are still better off consolidating your forces into something you can easily control. Telling three fleets to keep up in the middle of a moving firefight isn't quite the definition of easy.

 

[apelsinsaft]

Health and DPS end up not mattering at all because the tiny ships can outrange the big ones and just wear them down. Flanking has the same effect in most situations, anyone thinking large ships are OP have never been in a fight with them

I definitely overlooked this. Turrets, missiles and to some extent beams alleviate the need to aim well, but at long range small ships do indeed have an advantage because even autoaim weapons will miss small targets at max ranges.

 

[Lecic]

Wait, gigantism was already solved? Other than the power scaling cap, what makes big ships weaker?

-Thruster effectiveness losses
-Shield capacitor effectiveness losses
-Increasing cost for thicker armor
-Reduced turning speed
-Increased target profile size
-Weapon damage scaling is not actually linear for block damage

Any more I'm missing? God knows that's not all of them.

I don't think you're wrong, but what i'm pointing out as problematic is the proportion at which the winner deals damage to the loser.

Consider a simple theoretical example. Two fleets of 5 ships fight. Fleet A ships have 1000 shields, 1000 hull HP (lets simplify the armor and hull equation as well as shield regeneration etc) and 10 DPS. Fleet B ships have 2000 shields, 2000 hull HP and 10 DPS. Fleet B should cost exactly twice as much as Fleet A to construct, and you would think that it is also precisely twice as powerful.
The two fleets fight until the death, and can perfectly coordinate their aim at a single target for best effect.

At the start of the fight, Fleet A has a total of 5000 shields+HP and 50 DPS, and Fleet B has a total of 10000 shields+HP and 50 DPS. I'll write it like this:
A: 5000/5000, 50 DPS
B: 10000/10000, 50 DPS

40 seconds in, Fleet A loses a ship.
A: 4000/4000, 40 DPS
B: 8000/10000, 50 DPS

Fleet B can kill ANOTHER SHIP from Fleet A before it suffers its first casualty.
A:3000/3000, 30 DPS
B: 8000/8400, 50 DPS

13 seconds later, Fleet B loses its first ship.
A: 2350/3000, 30 DPS
B: 8000/8000, 40 DPS

33 seconds later, Fleet A is down to 2 ships.
A: 2000/2000, 20 DPS
B: 7010/8000, 40 DPS

50 seconds later, Fleet A is down to its last ship.
A: 1000/1000, 10 DPS
B: 6210/8000, 40 DPS

50 seconds later, Fleet A is deleted.
A: 0/0, 0 DPS
B: 6000/7810, 40 DPS

Fleet B lost literally only one ship, and got the armor slightly scratched on another.
Fleet A loses all ships, even though on paper, they were essentially half as powerful as Fleet B.
The same result can be observed when the difference in strength comes from numbers, eg 10 ships vs 20 equal ships, or difference in DPS, eg 10 DPS ships vs 20 DPS ships.
The result becomes even more extreme when there is less focus firing: having every ship target an opponent that only they are targeting causes Fleet A in the above example to lose without dealing a single point of lasting damage; Fleet B would win completely for free.

Congratulations on your assumption that both sides sit and fire at eachother like morons and do zero maneuvering, and that the fleets are both exclusively using DPS and no alpha.

In a simple mathmatical set up like this, YES, the fleet of bigger ships wins. You need to use tactics and specialized craft to take on larger vessels and triumph or at least cause substantially more damage.

Serious question, have you ever done any real fleet PvP? With players vs players? Using properly designed ships and tactics? Come on.

 

[apelsinsaft]

You guys are quick to jump at the fact that i don't have a lot of combat experience (i've been in maybe 3 actual fleet fights and some minor scrabbles but not much else) but that is entirely besides the point because that theoretical example was a theoretical example designed to prove NOT THAT THE STRONGER FLEET WINS but rather THAT THE STRONGER FLEET WINS A DISPROPORTIONATELY MUCH LARGER VICTORY THAN YOU WOULD THINK.

In a simple mathmatical set up like this, YES, the fleet of bigger ships wins.

Reading comprehension. I'm getting tired of repeating myself. See:

I don't think you're wrong, but what i'm pointing out as problematic is the proportion at which the winner deals damage to the loser.

It's not about who wins; it's about the disproportional amount of economic (call it material, or ship damage, whatever) damage that the winners can deal to the losers. Of course a small advantage should mean that you win the fight, but even a very small 5% advantage can lead to something like 50% fewer ships lost. A good example of how this is visible is in an RTS game. Send 10 starcraft marines up against 12 marines and the enemy will have a bunch of marines left with low HP while you have absolutely 0 left.

Regardless of from where the relative combat strength of a ship/fleet stems, the end result will always mirror what i described in that purely theoretical mathematical example. Is Fleet A stronger because they can reliably hit the much larger ships of Fleet B at maximum range? That's the same as effectively having higher %DPS, and carries into the equation. Is Fleet A stronger because they can successfully flank the enemy and take less damage that way? That's again the same as lowering the opponent's effective %DPS. Fleet A stronger because they have support weapons and can blackout the enemy ships? Lowers the opponent's effective %DPS. Fleet A is stronger because they are better at dodging, focus firing and coordinating scanner/jammer/missile use (they are simply better players)? Not relevant to the discussion, (let's assume equal skill for the sake of balance discussion), but this would still mirror the theoretical example and result in higher effective %DPS.

Thank you for correcting me on gigantism, though.

 

[Calhoun]

El Snippo

The problem with your hypothetical scenario is that it doesn't take into account the strengths of the smaller fleet, namely manoeuvrability and tactics.

I get what you're saying about losses, but it is fairly common knowledge really. However, it only applies if a) They both just sit there, ignoring the strengths of a smaller, likely faster fleet and b) all ships focus fire on one of the enemy at a time.

It's not a realistic scenario, and as such has very little merit.

 

[apelsinsaft]

The problem with your hypothetical scenario is that it doesn't take into account the

Why does everyone keep failing to understand the point of that post.

See:

Regardless of from where the relative combat strength of a ship/fleet stems, the end result will always mirror what i described in that purely theoretical mathematical example. Is Fleet A stronger because they can reliably hit the much larger ships of Fleet B at maximum range? That's the same as effectively having higher %DPS, and carries into the equation. Is Fleet A stronger because they can successfully flank the enemy and take less damage that way? That's again the same as lowering the opponent's effective %DPS. Fleet A stronger because they have support weapons and can blackout the enemy ships? Lowers the opponent's effective %DPS. Fleet A is stronger because they are better at dodging, focus firing and coordinating scanner/jammer/missile use (they are simply better players)? Not relevant to the discussion, (let's assume equal skill for the sake of balance discussion), but this would still mirror the theoretical example and result in higher effective %DPS.

It's not about who wins; it's about the disproportional amount of economic (call it material, or ship damage, whatever) damage that the winners can deal to the losers. Of course a small advantage should mean that you win the fight, but even a very small 5% advantage can lead to something like 50% fewer ships lost. A good example of how this is visible is in an RTS game. Send 10 starcraft marines up against 12 marines and the enemy will have a bunch of marines left with low HP while you have absolutely 0 left.

However, it only applies if . . . b) all ships focus fire on one of the enemy at a time

You didn't understand my point and it's in fact the absolute opposite, see:

The two fleets fight until the death, and can perfectly coordinate their aim at a single target for best effect.

The result becomes even more extreme when there is less focus firing: having every ship target an opponent that only they are targeting causes Fleet A in the above example to lose without dealing a single point of lasting damage; Fleet B would win completely for free.

Just to reiterate: the effect the hypothetical scenario details would actually become WORSE if the players are NOT coordinating perfectly and magically dealing damage to the correct target at all times. If every player shoots his own target, the winning fleet would WIN EVEN HARDER.

Of course it's worth noting that in a situation where there's no target firing and none of the ships involved are carrying shields, the effect is much more muted since there is no temporary shield damage that the winning team can recharge for free and the inverse to what i stated is true.

 

[Comradecolonel]

I like how the ideas work in Starsector but I don't think it works as well for Starmade. Starmade isn't instanced at all so the idea that you deploy into combat would probably feel clunky. I wouldn't mind ship degradation but if done like Starsector I think it would be too hardcore. I could see it turning off builders who were on the fence about survival.

As far as the hypothetical scenario, I wouldn't even worry about it as Starmade's isn't nearly set in stone. The actual cost to players will be vastly different in the final game I am sure of it. Creating a purely mathematical example with nothing behind it doesn't really support your argument. There is a lot more to it than health pools and DPS, as others have already brought up.

I do like many of the mechanics in Starsector and I feel some could certainly be an example to Starmade. The trading, quests, combat systems and more all have mechanics that I would like to see in Starmade as well. Right now I've playing a lot of Starsector since the 0.8 update. It really is a fantastic game.

 

[Calhoun]

Why does everyone keep failing to understand the point of that post.

The point is moot because it's not realistic to gameplay. Which a couple of people have said but you keep ignoring.

 

[apelsinsaft]

I've literally said this 2 times already. It doesn't NEED to be perfectly 100% accurate to a real gameplay scenario because whatever gameplay effect you think would affect the result can always be translated into effective DPS, effective HP etc and carried into the equation.

Regardless of what gameplay effects cause Fleet A to lose to Fleet B, the end result mirrors the example: In a fight to the death, the winning fleet will always win with more resources over than is proportional to the strength they had versus Fleet A at the start.

Fleet A had precisely 50% as much combat power as Fleet B, and the end result was that Fleet A had 0% remaining and Fleet B had 69% remaining, out of which some of it was shields which is free to recharge. I was saying i think it would be better if Fleet B had 50% remaining, in some shape or form. Whether it's actually losing 50% of your ships or that 19% comes from extra costs related to repairing degradation, is where the suggestion comes in.

If you could detail precisely how it doesn't work and present a counterexample that showcases that Fleet Loser wouldn't in fact lose a disproportional amount of materiel after fighting Fleet Winner, after taking every single combat aspect into account, i'll stand corrected. But so far it doesn't even seem like you even understand what i was trying to say.

I like how the ideas work in Starsector but I don't think it works as well for Starmade. Starmade isn't instanced at all so the idea that you deploy into combat would probably feel clunky.

Yeah, what would count as combat is up for discussion because i wasn't quite sure of that myself. Instancing Starmade is definitely a no-go. Damaging another ship means that a support ship or carrier wouldn't count as "in combat", taking damage means that a fighter hiding in a deadzone for long enough can avoid combat degradation. Some ideas could be:

• Damaging another ship/station
• Taking damage from another ship/station
• Having a ship which undocked from you in the same sector do one of the above
• Simply being in a sector with combat in it

Personally i like the last one the most

 

[Olxinos]

I've literally said this 2 times already. It doesn't NEED to be perfectly 100% accurate to a real gameplay scenario because whatever gameplay effect you think would affect the result can always be translated into effective DPS, effective HP etc and carried into the equation.

True, assuming you do model accurately those changes in DPS, effective HP etc. Honestly, your previous example is a very gross approximation whose results are very dependent on those changes.

Regardless of what gameplay effects cause Fleet A to lose to Fleet B, the end result mirrors the example: In a fight to the death, the winning fleet will always win with more resources over than is proportional to the strength they had versus Fleet A at the start.

Errr... yes? How is that a problem? It's only logical that the winning side (who invested more and deserved the victory) is able to lose less than the losing side, otherwise this'd be a pyrrhic victory.

Fleet A had precisely 50% as much combat power as Fleet B, and the end result was that Fleet A had 0% remaining and Fleet B had 69% remaining, out of which some of it was shields which is free to recharge. I was saying i think it would be better if Fleet B had 50% remaining, in some shape or form. Whether it's actually losing 50% of your ships or that 19% comes from extra costs related to repairing degradation, is where the suggestion comes in.

As I (and other people) said earlier, your model is not accurate enough for you to draw conclusions.
Even if I assume you model this accurately, then fleet A lose 5 ships while fleet B lose (at least) somewhere between 1 and 2 ships (but which costs twice as more as A's ships!). Basically, A loses 5 units of value and B loses 2~4 units of value. Sure it isn't completely fair, but hey, it wasn't a fair fight, and B's losses aren't completely negligible either.
That seems like a perfectly normal and desirable result to me, again, how is that a problem?

If you could detail precisely how it doesn't work and present a counterexample that showcases that Fleet Loser wouldn't in fact lose a disproportional amount of materiel after fighting Fleet Winner, after taking every single combat aspect into account, i'll stand corrected. But so far it doesn't even seem like you even understand what i was trying to say.

Well, for starters, even in your example, the loser fleet doesn't lose "disproportional amount of materiel".
Now, let's take your example and assume that halving the DPS [edit: I mean, relatively to a linear increase] wasn't enough to accurately model the loss of accuracy of the bigger ships, instead, let's say that you'd need to multiply by 0.75 0.25. You'll see drastically different results.
I don't say that 0.75 0.25 is the correct factor, or that there even is a correct factor. I'm just saying that you have provided absolutely no basis for the implicit claim that a ship that is twice bigger and costs twice as much deal as much "effective" DPS and not half as much or twice as much or whatever. So I can provide you with a similarly credible example with drastically different results.
That's not the only problem, the same can be said about durability (to a lesser extent).
Besides, the ratio between dps (or durability) is also dependent on whether you're watching ships at 1k mass/2k mass or 100k mass/200k mass.
[Edit: besides, Raisinbat already did precisely what you asked]

 

[Calhoun]

I've literally said this 2 times already. It doesn't NEED to be perfectly 100% accurate to a real gameplay scenario because whatever gameplay effect you think would affect the result can always be translated into effective DPS, effective HP etc and carried into the equation.

Well in that case there's no point having an equation at all, because you'd have to account for ever single variable possible, which is not possible.

Furthermore, how do you tell which fleet is which? For example, if fleet A consists of two cruisers and fleet B consists of 3 corvettes, which has the better fleet strength? The logical conclusion would be fleet A, but then you have to consider if fleet B has better range/better manoeuvrability/better tactics etc.

The 'equation' is flawed because it's virtually useless. The likely hood of you losing the battle but inflicting more damage is quite low, which is all your equation really says, and everyone knew that already.

 

[Raisinbat]

New I've literally said this 2 times already. It doesn't NEED to be perfectly 100% accurate to a real gameplay scenario because whatever gameplay effect you think would affect the result can always be translated into effective DPS, effective HP etc and carried into the equation.

Let's do that then. Big ships can't hit little ships, so big ship DPS = 0%. that's why they suck.