P2 fighter/bomber scale

[AtraUnam]

So essentially schine said that they softened the stabilizer rules then implemented a mechanic so harsh as to make them mandatory anyway -_-

 

[MacThule]

So essentially schine said that they softened the stabilizer rules then implemented a mechanic so harsh as to make them mandatory anyway -_-

Exactly. That's my thought. Might as well skip the hull and just strap cannons directly onto your unshielded reactor at that point. Why even permit unstable reactors if they're so utterly gimped?

 

[NTIMESc]

I did another test with the reactor 100% stable vs another 100 fighters, this time a mix of weapons (50 Bc, 25 Cc, 25 Mc), and it went more as I expected. The fighters slowly whittled the big ship's shields down. The big ship still suffered minor block damage at some point (somewhere below 80% shields). But once the shields dropped below 50%, it looks like the reactor started exploding again.
I feel that for the scale of the game and playability, it would be more fun if the fighters were a little more effective. Perhaps the weapon update will have some interesting changes.
On a positive note, I thought the battle was pretty cool to watch. I wish there was a "cinematic" mode with chase and action cams.
The quality isn't great, but here are a couple GIFs:
Sorry for my bad piloting I slowed the second clip down by 50% so you can see better.
And two pics of the big ship's failing reactor:

 

[Brokengauge]

During weapons tests with a "destroyer" i'm working on, my shields will spontaneously explode if i sustain more than 90% drain on my power for longer than 30 seconds. This happened 4 different times.

Reactor is 50% stable, using 4 turrets. The source of the internal explosions always came from the shield blocks. I could tell because i have yet to install the outer hull, and actually saw the explosion each time.

I was NOT under fire at the time. My ship was the only one with weapons, shooting at a target cube which was made entirely of crystal armor.

I am not happy.

 

[Zoolimar]

That's cool. Not only ships start exploding from overtaxed reactors or strain on the shields but shields would explode too themselves. Really nice.

 

[Hemmingfish]

This is so much more fair and intuitive than shields that protect your ship until they run out of juice, and generators that don't take damage unless they get hit!
I've been heavily critical of this update in several threads, but I'm really starting to see the error of my ways. The game needed this.

 

[Scypio]

That's cool. Not only ships start exploding from overtaxed reactors or strain on the shields but shields would explode too themselves. Really nice.

This is the new weapon update. Weapons are useless now, you just wait for their ships to explode for whatever reason and you've won.

This is so much more fair and intuitive than shields that protect your ship until they run out of juice, and generators that don't take damage unless they get hit!

I'll wait for your monstruous cruiser to be overheated and blow up by itself with 3 drones shooting at it and then you'll tell me if that is still fair.

 

[NTIMESc]

I'll wait for your monstruous cruiser to be overheated and blow up by itself with 3 drones shooting at it and then you'll tell me if that is still fair.

Maybe not 3 drones, but if it's Wedge, Luke, and Biggs then look out!
Perhaps this is the start of a new trend, where building and operating a battleship that doesn't explode is a more challenging endeavor with great risks for hasty design.

Back to fighters, anyone have any thoughts on fighter effectiveness? I think they're still a bit weak, but my 40 RB fighters had shields, which I don't think added anything. Maybe I'll try again with a more powerful unshielded version.

 

[The_Owl]

How to make PvP even more scarce: Make your ship die when the enemy haven't even destroyed the shields.
Kudos schine, you've managed to fuck the game even more than we thought was possible.

 

[MacThule]

I did a few fighter-mob tests using my new 9RB little "Pez" fighters against some very stable 1-10M shield targets and didn't have a lot of surprise reactor problems. I'm going to start testing from the pilot seat of the target so I can variably stress the reactor and experiment with various stabilities as I go and get a better idea of what is happening.

Against targets under 2M shields, 40-50 micro fighters (9RB) actually do a decent job. They shredded my 1M. They took a good while on the 2M shield target and even 100 fighters took forever on my 6M, but I'm thinking that if I were, myself, in even a decent frigate at the same time, they'd be a valuable weapon. 50-100 basic fighters can positively wear down light capitals and prevent shield regen.

The most interesting thing to me in this is that the game is actually managing 100 small fighters in combat decently right now. My rig definitely used to stutter a lot more at numbers approaching those, but these are all single-core entities so I don't know if there has actually been any improvement or if it's just an issue of lower core numbers & less turrets.

Also (and this is going over to suggestions directly), because larger ship mobs seem to be functional now I'm wishing for a way to bulk fill & spawn identical ships in MP as a player. There needs to be a way to buy a 20x BP of fighters and turrets, fill them all collectively under one merged BP, and spawn them all in one click.

 

[Zoolimar]

Also (and this is going over to suggestions directly), because larger ship mobs seem to be functional now I'm wishing for a way to bulk fill & spawn identical ships in MP as a player. There needs to be a way to buy a 20x BP of fighters and turrets, fill them all collectively under one merged BP, and spawn them all in one click.

There is already a way to do it in a certain sense.

You make a long line with multiple docking ports and dock say 10-20 fighters to it. And save the BP. Now you could spawn 10-20 fighters from one BP.

 

[NTIMESc]

How to make PvP even more scarce: Make your ship die when the enemy haven't even destroyed the shields.

Doesn't it seem reasonable that other things could go wrong with a big ship besides its shields failing? Maybe I am too optimistic, but I predict that systems will continue to be tinkered with until a decently designed ship doesn't self destruct every time someone flushes a toilet during an FTL jump.
Did you have any thoughts on fighters?

 

[AtraUnam]

I don't even... if all this is true I can't even begin to describe the stupid. Its practically a health bar mechanic at this point only a healthbar you can't see that has very little to do with what other systems you have on the ship.

 

[NTIMESc]

Against targets under 2M shields, 40-50 micro fighters (9RB) actually do a decent job.

Yeah, my 200M shield test might not have been realistic without the fighters having some support ships to back them up. I imagine if the big ship had working turrets the fighters wouldn't have lasted long, but AI being what it is, I didn't see the point it testing that aspect.

The most interesting thing to me in this is that the game is actually managing 100 small fighters in combat decently right now.

I was impressed with this as well, although I imagine if there were several factions all fielding hundreds of fighters at the same time, it would not be a pleasant experience.

There needs to be a way to buy a 20x BP of fighters and turrets, fill them all collectively under one merged BP, and spawn them all in one click.

I agree their needs to be a way to automate ship production, and mass BP spawning would be good in creative mode for setting things up. But I would really like to see more work on shipyards, and less spawn-a-ship-out-of-my-pocket magic.

 

[MacThule]

I agree their needs to be a way to automate ship production, and mass BP spawning would be good in creative mode for setting things up. But I would really like to see more work on shipyards, and less spawn-a-ship-out-of-my-pocket magic.

True. Shipyards have just been left incomplete for so long and something would be nice. I know all of these will see more attention again once power is back up and running with weapons adapted to it, but in the meantime it would be fun to see fighters in MP battles, but no one is going to spend forever doing that.

You make a long line with multiple docking ports and dock say 10-20 fighters to it. And save the BP. Now you could spawn 10-20 fighters from one BP.

Well, this is the work-around, yeah. The tedium though... So much useless tedium getting around minor issues like this. It exhausts me. Every time I upgrade fighters I'd have to re-spawn the docking barge, spawn and dock a bunch of fighters to it before even going onto the MP server and buying the blueprint to start the chore of filling that. Also, the docking barge would need some kind of logic multi-launcher so one didn't need to individually undock all those ships once spawned. It's a lot. For every player to have to do this for every ship model or turret they want to bulk-spawn is kind of obnoxious. Sure, it's not hard, but it's so tedious that no one bothers. Not worth it. People would like to be able to bulk-spawn though! There exists code for admins to mass-spawn, it should be possible to allow bulk BPs.

Of course more stable shipyards would be a better way...

 

[The_Owl]

Doesn't it seem reasonable that other things could go wrong with a big ship besides its shields failing? Maybe I am too optimistic, but I predict that systems will continue to be tinkered with until a decently designed ship doesn't self destruct every time someone flushes a toilet during an FTL jump.
Did you have any thoughts on fighters?

The Only Sci-Fi i can think of where fighters are able to damage capital ships easily and destroy shields is starwars, which is not a Sci-fi that i feel has much of a focus on Ship warfare as it uses them to stage key events, with ships that fit this purpose and seem to change randomly depending on the preditermined outcome. A sci-fi where admirals are incompetent when they need to be, and deadly when the plot also suits it.

Maybe it's just that the sci-fi i prefer (Warhammer 40k) Has Ships so monstrously large as line vessels that fighters, even in mass numbers, cannot outcompte these vessels because of the sheer power and size of them, but I Honestly Think that a system that allows your ship to die with shields up to a bunch of tiny fighters is a really, REALLY poor system.

 

[MacThule]

The Only Sci-Fi i can think of where fighters are able to damage capital ships easily and destroy shields is starwars, which is not a Sci-fi that i feel has much of a focus on Ship warfare as it uses them to stage key events, with ships that fit this purpose and seem to change randomly depending on the preditermined outcome. A sci-fi where admirals are incompetent when they need to be, and deadly when the plot also suits it.

Maybe it's just that the sci-fi i prefer (Warhammer 40k) Has Ships so monstrously large as line vessels that fighters, even in mass numbers, cannot outcompte these vessels because of the sheer power and size of them

Star Wars, Galactica, Battletech, and a few anime/manga come to mind just off hand. Real life as well - air superiority is of key importance to be able to safely deliver large ordinance, and small groups of fighters properly outfitted can pose a threat over time to capital ships if not dealt with.

Note that in testing just on this thread, even 300 heavier 40RB fighters aren't really touching a 200M-shield, epic mega-beast like what you are describing. I don't think that everyone should be forced to play at that scale though... Fighter mobs do great at a more modest scale (under 50m shields per capital, probably), that should be fine.

I Honestly Think that a system that allows your ship to die with shields up to a bunch of tiny fighters is a really, REALLY poor system.

Yeah, but in real life, human beings are composed of trillions of cells and we have advanced medical technology yet most of us are still brought down by a bunch of tiny single-cell microbes, scale be damned.

Handfuls of minutemen and guerrillas, well-deployed, can absolutely shatter larger military units including those outfitted heavy equipment and armor. Not as a given, but in the right situation, being well-led and having a bit of luck it does happen.

It feels more realistic to me, more in tune with the way life really is - you can never actually be too big or powerful to fail. That makes play better, IMO, but I've never played SM the way some people do of basically living out of one, constantly evolving super-ship. I've always played with collections of specialist ships that are intended to be individually disposable in service to the whole, so the notion of losing a large ship isn't threatening to me. It seems par for the course. I think to many players, the idea of losing a flagship capital is appalling, because that is practically their whole force. Maybe this isn't you, but I've gotten this sense from a lot of players at any rate. It's not 'wrong,' I just prefer more balance in my play, and generally scale/=success.

At any rate, I don't think any fighter mob is going to be a serious threat to a 200M shield ship properly turreted unless the "fighters" each have 1M shields themselves and punch a bit more like frigates.

 

[The_Owl]

Star Wars, Galactica, Battletech, and a few anime/manga come to mind just off hand. Real life as well - air superiority is of key importance to be able to safely deliver large ordinance, and small groups of fighters properly outfitted can pose a threat over time to capital ships if not dealt with.

Note that in testing just on this thread, even 300 heavier 40RB fighters aren't really touching a 200M-shield, epic mega-beast like what you are describing. I don't think that everyone should be forced to play at that scale though... Fighter mobs do great at a more modest scale (under 50m shields per capital, probably), that should be fine.



Yeah, but in real life, human beings are composed of trillions of cells and we have advanced medical technology yet most of us are still brought down by a bunch of tiny single-cell microbes, scale be damned.

Handfuls of minutemen and guerrillas, well-deployed, can absolutely shatter larger military units including those outfitted heavy equipment and armor. Not as a given, but in the right situation, being well-led and having a bit of luck it does happen.

It feels more realistic to me, more in tune with the way life really is - you can never actually be too big or powerful to fail. That makes play better, IMO, but I've never played SM the way some people do of basically living out of one, constantly evolving super-ship. I've always played with collections of specialist ships that are intended to be individually disposable in service to the whole, so the notion of losing a large ship isn't threatening to me. It seems par for the course. I think to many players, the idea of losing a flagship capital is appalling, because that is practically their whole force. Maybe this isn't you, but I've gotten this sense from a lot of players at any rate. It's not 'wrong,' I just prefer more balance in my play, and generally scale/=success.

At any rate, I don't think any fighter mob is going to be a serious threat to a 200M shield ship properly turreted unless the "fighters" each have 1M shields themselves and punch a bit more like frigates.

The difference is that the shields, Impenetrable to the weapons, are still up. And the ship is dying, which is the main issue i have.
the issue with fighters is entirely personally based. Im not familiar with Galactica and battletech, and most managa/anime are just stupid in other ways so i treat them like starwars.

 

[MacThule]

Yes. The concern is seeing a capital ship dying with shields still up and no substantial block damage.

I am fine with the idea of shield damage stressing the reactor. I am fine with the idea of some shots penetrating shields without a mechanic of shields ever completely going down. Anything like that is going to require extensive balance though, and right now it looks like shields are almost certainly putting too much stress on reactors.

 

[Brokengauge]

Star Wars, Galactica, Battletech, and a few anime/manga come to mind just off hand. Real life as well - air superiority is of key importance to be able to safely deliver large ordinance, and small groups of fighters properly outfitted can pose a threat over time to capital ships if not dealt with.

Note that in testing just on this thread, even 300 heavier 40RB fighters aren't really touching a 200M-shield, epic mega-beast like what you are describing. I don't think that everyone should be forced to play at that scale though... Fighter mobs do great at a more modest scale (under 50m shields per capital, probably), that should be fine.



Yeah, but in real life, human beings are composed of trillions of cells and we have advanced medical technology yet most of us are still brought down by a bunch of tiny single-cell microbes, scale be damned.

Handfuls of minutemen and guerrillas, well-deployed, can absolutely shatter larger military units including those outfitted heavy equipment and armor. Not as a given, but in the right situation, being well-led and having a bit of luck it does happen.

It feels more realistic to me, more in tune with the way life really is - you can never actually be too big or powerful to fail. That makes play better, IMO, but I've never played SM the way some people do of basically living out of one, constantly evolving super-ship. I've always played with collections of specialist ships that are intended to be individually disposable in service to the whole, so the notion of losing a large ship isn't threatening to me. It seems par for the course. I think to many players, the idea of losing a flagship capital is appalling, because that is practically their whole force. Maybe this isn't you, but I've gotten this sense from a lot of players at any rate. It's not 'wrong,' I just prefer more balance in my play, and generally scale/=success.

At any rate, I don't think any fighter mob is going to be a serious threat to a 200M shield ship properly turreted unless the "fighters" each have 1M shields themselves and punch a bit more like frigates.

In which case most ppl will simply rescale their fighters until they are the size of current frigates. This is a bad system. I liked starmade because it was space-minecraft. Thats literally what i googled when i found it. This just puts it more into line with being something i dint care to get into.

I play games to relax and have fun. I'm afraid that currently starmade doesn't allow me either of these.