Fighting Gigantism in Starmade

[Natemac327]

i feel like the larger capital ships should in the end go faster than fighters but also they have to get up to max speed this makes it like the fighters can out run it for a time but after a couple of seconds the small fighters are toast also capital ships should also have trouble slowing down this entire concept is newtons law of inertia this makes it easier for capital ships to be damaged yet the ship still has the capabilities of outrunning the attacking ships if need be

 

[MrFURB]

I don\'t like that idea. Yes, it\'s realistic, but realism is not necessariliy the most unique or fun thing out there. If we give capital ships a higher max speed than fighters, not only are you taking away one advantage that smaller ships need, but your\'e making it extremely easy to outplay smaller ships without putting any effort or specialization into doing so. Imagine a battle between two fleets. Immediately all of the larger ships begin strafing and leaving the rest of the fleet behind before they can affect the battle\'s outcome. Without the ability to keep up, ships are no longer a part of the fun and without the speed to outmaneuver larger ships, smaller ones are simply fodder yet again.

 

[MrFURB]

One point you are making that I feel some are missing is that size and quality are different things. A good small ship should stand up to a sloppily designed larger ship. A well-piloted small ship should stand up to a badly crewed large one.

A well designed and crewed large ship will blow away anything not as large as itself before it can cause massive damage. The only way I feel that a large, expensive, well designed capital ship with a well coordinated crew should ever be taken out in a combat scenario is when it is slowly pricked to death by enough opponents.

 

[Natemac327]

i completely agree with what your saying here but im not saying the fighters will be out matched i think that special cores that can be chosen by opening a menu on the core and you can only choose the type once so it limits your size range to what the ships type would normally be such as a fast lightly armored interceptor would have a build range of a 20x20x20 per say, a less fast but still quite fast fighter could have like a 40x40x40 ect then it would allow for some faster ships than others and then there would be certain modules only certain cores could use, for example an interceptor could use a shield emp and take out the shield of a ship or a fighter could have an overdrive where every aspect of the fighters function is boosted by 50% ect. that way you could specialize the ships you make and then counter a capital ship so it would become a more team based effort or a carrier that is chasing a super carrier or capital ship which btw would go the same speed as the capital ship so if the capital ship runs off it eventually has to stop therefore making things alot more oriented around fighters dont chase a capital ship down but a carrier is supposed to do this so that a fighter does not.

 

[Stakhanov]

All those considerations seem rather moot when there\'s no manoeuvering advantage to speak of - currently , ships will match speeds regardless of their size , and can also brake to disorient chasers. As a result , it\'s very easy to keep the enemy within your cone of fire , and in a predictable trajectory , while setting yourself in that exact same situation. The only factors that matter then are weapon and shield statistics.

The most promising path to experiment on is max ship speed scaling to mass , allowing light ships to close the distance with heavier ones , where they can exploit the turning rate differential. Since turrets lack proper shielding , they\'re vulnerable enough.

Once that\'s tried , we can proceed with other scaling considerations.

 

[MrFURB]

Don\'t forget to smooth out the turn rate differences! Currently anything about 100 mass has the same turn rate as something with 10,000 mass.

 

[Natemac327]

i also agree curently one way to get around this is to turn up your mouse sensetivity

 

[BDLS]

As people are building larger and larger and making more and more enemies, it seems stupid to venture out in anything but your largest ship.

Quick opinions:

1. I suggest that a formula for radar signature is worked out so that larger ships are more easily identified from greater distances, so you can stay the hell away.
2. Buff rotation speed of ships up to 400-500ish mass. 120-500 mass ships seem rather awful due to terrible rotation. \"But that isn\'t gigantism related!\" Sure it is, your carrier\'s fighters in this range will be more useful if they can maneuver around while firing.
3. Gotta nerf the hell out of thrusters on large ships. Curve time. My 20k mass ship accelerates to 150Km/h (NASS limit) in a second and a half or so. It\'s rather silly. The largest ships will always hit the max speed limit then just kite as neccesary.
4. Put rate of fire for AMCs on an S curve. Perhaps add damage bonuses to compensate for your big, dumb, slow-firing cannons.

 

[SkyTitan]

The thing is, even if huge have a higher speed, they\'ll still be at a manueverability disadvantage. An aircraft carrier may go twice as fast as a speed boat but it\'s at least 20 times the length. To a huge dumb-fire missile, it\'s still ten times easier to hit.

Fighters really shouldn\'t be able to do anything to a supermegahuge ship. It should be able to do something to a frigate though and that frigate should be able to take on a cruiser, but that cruiser should stomp the fighter. There\'s a reason different ship classes exist in real life. It\'s fine as it is.

 

[Stakhanov]

As of now , there is no manoeuverability disadvantage to speak of. All ships regardless of size can accelerate in all 6 directions just as easily , making it practically impossible to change your position relative to a decently reactive player in any useful way.

Larger ships certainly are easier to hit , except you need large guns to fire from a distance where it makes a difference. Then large ships can retaliate with a wide array of larger guns that is sure to hit you. Up close , this doesn\'t matter because you can\'t fight using a core and 3 scattered hull blocks.

 

[Visitor]

This time I\'ll be short (relatively :P). I have to agree that most of the balancing would just require proper curves in the climb of power. Make it that first few blocks of some system/cannon add quite some stats, but the more you add and more modules of the same type combine, the higher the power demand and difference in stats smaller. Only so many groups of engines can help before the power consumption is exponential, only so many shield modules per ship will offer noticeable profit (while power consumption still rises).

That way it will be the design that\'s important. Ships won\'t be great because they have s---load of weapons covered in s---load of reinforced hull and shields with hardly any drawback but difference in costs which, let\'s be frank, is one of the easiest things to find a solution to.

It would also make tonnage count - weight would play factor important enough that really big ships would need really lots of thrusters to move and if the game would actually count different sets of thrusters together (to avoid people making many separate thruster blocks and thus workaround the curve) then such would also need sufficiently lot of power. Same with weaponry, shields, what have you. Right now, the only real problem in small vs big design I see is that there are no limitations, weak points or drawbacks - big ships, with enough modules can still be as nimble as small ones, while offering far, far superior firepower and defense.

This discussion makes me even more eagerly uphold my earlier idea to create two types of thrusters - ones that are omnidirectional, but weak and you can group only a couple before the ratio of power demand to speed bonus will be horrible and regular, but mostly offering thrust \'forward\' from where they are positioned. Large ships this way can get different sets of the latter to move but still sacrifice some swiftness to go and turn in every direction (especially they shouldn\'t be able to strafe so easily) while small ones can move relatively easily and fast just on those omnidirectional ones because of their lower weight, for the sake of dogfighting and nimble maneuvers.

 

[Stakhanov]

A general issue with power curves is that if it becomes unprofitable to link modules , then you may just as well place lots of isolated ones. When those have their own effects , that\'s a recipe for lag.

A solution is to make computers themselves link up to enable arrays. Then , arrays of more than a hundred groups would require massive volumes of computer blocks.

However , there\'s also the problem of turrets. Being sub-ships , they can circumvent all those rules and just add firepower to big ships. That is why a new type of computer block is necessary to limit the number of docked turrets. This would generally encourage large turrets on large ships , as opposed to countless small ones.

 

[Ketran]

• The larger the total ship mass is the slower the base firing rate of cannons becomes

I don\'t understand this, the total mass of an object has nothing to do with the fire rate of a weapon attached to it. The fire rate of a weapon should be determined by the physical makeup of the weapon itself. Bigger ships with slow weapons would be much less realistic.

 

[Zyrr]

***Wordwall here, skip if you have a short attention span***



Since we\'ve gone into my favourite subject - ship class and balancing them- I think I\'ll weigh in. Be mindful that I\'m going to relate some spaceship classes to actual ship classes from WW2 or around then. I\'m also going to add a few weapons that I hope make it to the game. Of course, people build differently but this is how I would build them and how quite a few people build them as well.

Basically, we can make (roughly) 5 classes out of these.

Fighter class: Fast, nimble ships with mostly anti matter cannons. Designed to combat bombers and other fighters.

Bomber class: Slower, less nimble ships but still fast and nimble, these carry some heavier loads, like a torpedo that ignores shields, but has a short range. Does good damage to exposed systems and turrets, but lacks the firepower to do substantial hull damage to capitals or cruisers. Designed for anti-turret and anti-module combat, good against cruisers, frigates, and previously mentioned systems.

Frigates: The first real \"ship\" you\'d think of. Decent armor and firepower combined with the mobility to outflank capitals and big cruisers and heavy enough to take most turret fire, unless dealt with these can rain on your parade. However, not big enough to mount good anti fighter weaponry. Good against cruisers, capitals and other frigates.

Cruisers: The real \"Jack of all Trades\", it has better overall armor and firepower than frigates at the cost of mobility. They have the firepower to tick off capitals and the armor to take a few hits. They also mount some turrets. However, because have somewhat sub par speed they can be outflanked sometimes and also are victim to bomber attacks. Good against fighters, bombers, other cruisers and ok versus a capital.

Capital: The big boys of the fleet, they combine excellent armor and firepower with bigger turrets that can cripple fighters, bombers and frigates. Designed to slug out damage and take a slugging, they have large cannons and many missile arrays. They often have hanger space for fighters and bombers. They suffer from very poor speed and mobility, and can be flanked by the lighter ships quite easily. Good against space stations, other capitals, and cruisers. Turrets aren\'t quite designed to fire at the small fighters and bombers.

All in all, each ship has a role to fufill and if you expect anything more you\'re going to be disappointed. It irritates me when people complain that their light ship can\'t damage a huge titan, when they aren\'t suppose to. If people truly want an efficient fleet you need to have enough of all classes.

Quick run down of roles: Fighters defend bombers and fight other fighters, bombers take out turrets of all kinds and exposed modules, frigates outflank the bigger ships and deal damage there, cruisers provide anti fighter support and do damage to everything, and capitals launch fighters and slug it out with the other ships.

Back to the OP, lol. Bigger ships will be balanced when better economy is added. Capitals are something that is a huge accomplishment and needs to be worked for. They deserve to be powerful, but they aren\'t godlike. Well, thats my thoughts. If you stuck around to here you deserve a medal haha.

 

[Otto von Hartvich]

if the regular antimatter weapon had such a limit, it would open up space for new types of \'bullet\' weapons, like a slow rate mega gun etc.

 

[Duck in Space]

The biggest problem to me, as of now, is the difficulty of taking down a \"Capital\" ship. However, the only way to take out one of these, is by using a ship the same size, or larger. Smaller ships can\'t even get past the regen rates of shields to do any kind of damage. That, and if significant damage is done, these \"Capitals\" just speed away due to the massive number of engines they have. At this point, I can easily maneuver around a large ship, but I can never put a dent in the shield. And if somehow I manage to take down some shields, it speeds away faster than I can keep up.

I can\'t write an amazingly-in-depth post like some other people here, but I am a player and my opinion counts too. But devs, seriously, people with massive \"God\"-ships can\'t be taken down, unless you have a bigger ship.

 

[Frosth]

Core notions I operate with:

• Skill must be a decisive factor.
• Piloting and Designing are two equaly valid skills to test
• Risk vs Reward ratio is an essential core concept

So here is what I think would \"fix\" the issue:

General:

• Permanent power draw(PPD) is reserved energy that reduces power load regardless of regen.
• Object Icon is at center of mass.
• Larger objects appear in the navigation tab from more sectors away
• Directional thrust calculation requiring straffing/maneuvering/braking thrusters.
• Each thruster has a PPD of 10 for \"stabilisation\" purposes.
• Larger arrays of any kind of weapon have slower refire rates.
• Weapons can no longer shoot trough your ship, firing blocks need to be exposed
• All docked items are counted in the mass calculation of a ship.

Shield mechanics:

• Shields only absorb 95% of AMC damages.
• Shields only absorb 80%(dumb) - 85(%heat) - 90%(lock) of missiles damages.
• Shields only absorb 50% of Dis-integrator damages.
• Shields have permanent power draw equal to their regen rate.
• Shields draw 1.1 energy x damage taken for recharging.

Missile mechanics:

• Heat seeking missiles detect objects only in a cone in front of them. No more circling.
• Lock on missiles lock faster on larger targets, longer on smaller targets.
• Turn rates are reduced for both to be easier to evade with proper maneuverability.
• Dumb Fire missiles reload faster.

CPU and networking mechanics:

• One cpu can handle only one grouping of weapon block OR one grouping of similar cpus.
• A cpu can handle at most 3 other cpu.
• Each cpu has a permanent power draw of 100.
• Ship cores have a fixed value of 5 Networking
• Network Router blocks add 1 / current networking. (15 networking = ship core + 55 routers)
• Networking Routers have a permanent power draw of 250.
• Cloackers and radar jammers count as one cpu both in PPD and networking.

Turrets and Docking:

• Turret docking blocks and turret enhancers count as cpus.(100 PPD and 1 networking)
• Active Bobby AI on turrets count as cpus for the main ship too.(100 PPD and 1 networking)
• Other cpus on turrets do not take the main ships networking slots but do have 100PPD.
• Turrets have their own networking limitations. (5 for their ship core, can have routers)
• All Energy requirements for a turret is1.5 more when draining from the main ship.

Conclusions:

Overall, the design of a ship of larger size would be a more interesting challenge.Directional thrusters, powerload and networking issues affecting them incrementally more than smaller ships, a larger chunk of the internal roomspace will have to be dedicated to more than power regen and shields only.

Networking encourages making larger weapons with turrets or many smaller weapons but be limited by the reduced mobility. Making larger weapons refire rates slower is a direct vulnerability against more maneuverable crafts while remaining dangerous in the hands of a great players. (leading targets and making every shot count) Relying on turrets for damage means that over time, the dps of a ship is reduced trough the destruction of the turrets giving small ship a chance to criple the larger one without straight up destroying it.

The shield changes remove the complete invlunerability of large ships and make hull and hardened hulls more than cosmetics. Missiles are also easier to hit larger targets with already pack a bigger punch in smaller array so smaller ship will be able to use them more effectively. Notto mention than kamikaze attacks with teh dis-integrate blocks will only be possible against large ships. It will also give a role to the astrotechnician beam because now blocks will be damaged more often than they are destroyed.

To be honest, I think that just the shield mechanic changes would be enough to \"fix\" the problem. The other ideas I have mentioned would just make the game more interesting.

 

[Duck in Space]

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First, the way ships move. Smaller ships should be able to move fast, but as the ship gets bigger, the max speed it can reach decreases. Second, a higher max shield count but slower regen, possibly sap-cannons to \"steal\" shield or energy from ships that isn\'t limited to an exposed generator. Last, slower fire rates on weapons for much larger ships.

 

[heskey30]

So the problem is that big ships are literally invincible to small ships. It doesn\'t matter that they have really strong guns, (they should, they are big and expensive) and while their speed is annoying, it isn\'t the root cause. All I want is a snowball\'s chance. No need for sweeping nerfs.

Here\'s an idea: add a module called a phase module. It works a little like a cloaker, but requires a lock-on. Once locked on, it will allow all of your weapons to ignore the target\'s shields, while (possibly) draining energy. There you go - problem solved. To avoid having bigger ships just use it too, making shields obsolete, maybe it should drain power proportional or exponentially proportional to a ship\'s mass, or need a lot of modules to work on ships with high mass. Either of these should make big ships with this system at best weaker against similar sized ships without this module, and at worst (for those big ships only), a useless block of metal with self-propulsion.

Big ships would still be stronger, as they should, but one big ship would have a lot of trouble against a bunch of little ships - as they should! Every one of those little ships is a player, and they should be able to do something. Taking down turrets is not a valuable role, really, and neither is draining energy, unless a really big ship is doing it, which is beside the point.

 

[Gorthoss]

I have a thought about weapon scaling for large and small ships. what you\'d do is split the weapons into different categories and adjust scaling from stacking appropriately.

Say for instance you\'ll have fighter laser weapons that move quickly and fire rapidly and scales to max damage output quickly but is capped or exponentially less useful when each additional weapon is added to the array, so this would encourage their use for AA and fighters but not large main guns.

then say we have large plasma canon that fires slowly and move slowly and damage scales like the weapons do now, so that they would be used on larger craft that have space and energy for such a weapon.

and then you could do a couple in between that mathematically scale (damage\\Range) between the two extremes (fast and rapid fire, and slow and dangerous)

with the more dynamic weapon systems people can specialize their ships according to how they love to play\\fight.

Shields on the other hand could perhaps allow partial mitigation for certain weapon types, like a special weapon that takes a lot of power to use (stored power for example) and again scales to it\'s peak efficiency fairly quickly but severely less returns after that, could be used to fire shot that mitigate a small portion of shields.

Summary: Lets add more variety to our ways of killing and protecting each other and ourselves. Balance would come from our skills and knowledge rather than gimping the really cool massive ships that cause huge lag. StarMade makes a HUGE galaxy so when the engine is perfected, HUGE ships won\'t cause so many issues.(hopefully)

edit: fixed a grammar mistake