Simple solution to a multitude of problems

[Optapodamus]

I have a solution, one that will make everyone happy I think and is also very simple: Replace shields with automatically regenerating blocks and make systems able to fail.

This simple change will solve a multitude of problems;

1. Small ships will be able to defeat large ships.
2. Armor would be useful
3. Cloaking would be useful
4. Repair beams would be useful
5. Shipyards would be useful
6. Character weapons would be useful (I'll explain)
7. Ship to ship boarding would be a thing (I'll explain)
8. Interior ship defenses would be a thing because of boarding
9. Ships with large crews of players would be a thing (I'll explain)
10. Ship design would make a difference
11. No more massive sloppy borg cubes
12. It'd still be easy enough for the casual players/noobs
13. People who don't enjoy building ships would play this game

With the current system the only thing to do is have as much shields and damage as possible and plenty of warp modules to be able to retreat. All you do is pop in, hit your weapons, and run if your shields drop too low. Large ships only fear larger ships. There is no reason to strategically design anything, or have armor, so long as you leave before your shields run completely out. God forbid you have a nicely designed/nice looking ship and your shields drop. Might as well completely reload the blueprint because of the amount of effort it takes to find and repair every single bullet worth of damage, especially piercing rounds.

Now, take away shields and replace with blocks that regenerate, or more specifically after the player makes changes in build mode the ship is saved and upon taking damage it slowly reverts back to the last save. Healing beams from un-docked ships that are at a minimum distance (otherwise you just undock a healer inside your ship) and shipyards greatly increase the speed of repairs. Shops could also repair ships for a fee. However being required to carry around every single type of block you have would discourage the use of a wide variety of blocks, so instead in addition to power a sort of currency could be used to replace blocks. A inexpensive and expensive version, for balance. Now that fixes quite a lot of problems, but I'm not done yet.

Systems need to be able to fail. All of them. Multiple ways preferably. Without this the best strategy is still brute force or long range. With it, a small agile ship with a skilled pilot could overtake a large ship by taking out its systems with precision attacks. Why should they fail? Too much damage, obviously. More interestingly there could be a "critical block/s" like a core for each system that if damaged shuts down the system, or if accessed by a friendly player, in person, could repair the system much faster. These cores could also be accessed by enemy players to shut down the system. This would both promote multiple players per one ship but also boarding parties and the use of character weapons, which as of now are completely pointless. It would be nice if it could be required that modules be within a certain range of the core, depending on how many there are, that way people aren't able to just slap all their cores in one spot. Why should there only be one core for each system? No reason! Do not limit players. I'd be awesome to have multiple reactors, multiple engine room cores, etc. You'd set them up like modules to computers, when one fails you lose all the function of the modules attached.

Now that ship boarding is a viable strategy why not allow players to take over cores? If a person can get to another players core, they should be able to hijack it, even with the enemy player inside. It could take longer depending on how large the ship is or how much power is currently being generated or whatever. That way players would have plenty of time to defend themselves, even in poorly designed ships.

Scanning should reveal a ships system cores. Otherwise having a massive ship would still be the best strategy. A player should be alerted when and by who they are being scanned.

Massively long range ships would be the only remaining imbalance, however I think it could be fixed with a maximum range restriction that is not based on sector size.

Finally being able to "re-route power" to different systems mid-battle would make for more dynamic, strategic, and interesting battles. However too much power for too long would overload the system, greatly increasing the strength of the system for a short time before resulting in total system failure.

The amount of strategy that would naturally open up with just these simple changes would be fantastic.

You could have a cloaked ship with multiple players use warheads to slam a hole into an enemy capital ship, board it, disable systems and capture it.

A small ship with a great design and a skilled pilot could disable systems one by one on a large ship with superior dog fighting but being as how it'd take too long to completely overload the core or board the ship and capture it they could just demand money, or demand they drop their cargo. (Piracy)

There could be two capital ships with multiple people on each, both ships could be fighting each other while having battles going on inside each ship. A solo player could put his ship on auto pilot and run and fix an important system that is failing, or fight enemy boarders mid battle. Hell, if they're really ballsy they could go board the enemy ship lol

The tides of a battle between ships of equal strength could turn do to skill or strategy.


I believe this strategy better fulfills your goals. Thanks for reading.

Edit*
I'm convinced this wouldn't be as simple as I initially thought, it would require a massive amount of balancing. However! Still think it's worth it.
Additionally I think adding the ability to automatically replace ship blocks lost in battle wouldn't hurt anything or require any balancing.

 

[GDPR 302420]

This suggestion seems to be entirely based on the false belief that bigger ships will always beat smaller ships in any scenario.
This viewpoint has been debunked several times by players such as Aceface (who built the Cyclops) and Veilith (who pioneered "speed tanking" and has built multiple ships that can comfortably take on ships up to 10x its own size)

For that reason, I do not believe the contents of this suggestion would benefit StarMade, good suggestion though, I cannot say you half assed it and didnt try.

 

[Calhoun]

Sorry, but this wouldn't solve anything really.

1. Smaller ships being useful? Well they already are, but if they weren't this wouldn't fix that.

2. Armour? Again, no. The problem with armour isn't shields it's weapons. Weapons are stupidly simple to scale up, while trying to scale up armour results in serious drawbacks both in cost and weight.

3-13. Why? How?

With the current system the only thing to do is have as much shields and damage as possible and plenty of warp modules to be able to retreat. All you do is pop in, hit your weapons, and run if your shields drop too low. Large ships only fear larger ships. There is no reason to strategically design anything, or have armor, so long as you leave before your shields run completely out. God forbid you have a nicely designed/nice looking ship and your shields drop. Might as well completely reload the blueprint because of the amount of effort it takes to find and repair every single bullet worth of damage, especially piercing rounds.

This entire statement is incorrect.

Now, take away shields and replace with blocks that regenerate, or more specifically after the player makes changes in build mode the ship is saved and upon taking damage it slowly reverts back to the last save. Healing beams from un-docked ships that are at a minimum distance (otherwise you just undock a healer inside your ship) and shipyards greatly increase the speed of repairs. Shops could also repair ships for a fee. However being required to carry around every single type of block you have would discourage the use of a wide variety of blocks, so instead in addition to power a sort of currency could be used to replace blocks. A inexpensive and expensive version, for balance. Now that fixes quite a lot of problems, but I'm not done yet.

What issues does this fix exactly?

Systems need to be able to fail. All of them. Multiple ways preferably. Without this the best strategy is still brute force or long range. With it, a small agile ship with a skilled pilot could overtake a large ship by taking out its systems with precision attacks. Why should they fail? Too much damage, obviously. More interestingly there could be a "critical block/s" like a core for each system that if damaged shuts down the system, or if accessed by a friendly player, in person, could repair the system much faster. These cores could also be accessed by enemy players to shut down the system. This would both promote multiple players per one ship but also boarding parties and the use of character weapons, which as of now are completely pointless. It would be nice if it could be required that modules be within a certain range of the core, depending on how many there are, that way people aren't able to just slap all their cores in one spot. Why should there only be one core for each system? No reason! Do not limit players. I'd be awesome to have multiple reactors, multiple engine room cores, etc. You'd set them up like modules to computers, when one fails you lose all the function of the modules attached.

Now that ship boarding is a viable strategy why not allow players to take over cores? If a person can get to another players core, they should be able to hijack it, even with the enemy player inside. It could take longer depending on how large the ship is or how much power is currently being generated or whatever. That way players would have plenty of time to defend themselves, even in poorly designed ships.

Scanning should reveal a ships system cores. Otherwise having a massive ship would still be the best strategy. A player should be alerted when and by who they are being scanned.

So you want to bring back coring?

 

[Optapodamus]

This suggestion seems to be entirely based on the false belief that bigger ships will always beat smaller ships in any scenario.
This viewpoint has been debunked several times by players such as Aceface (who built the Cyclops) and Veilith (who pioneered "speed tanking" and has built multiple ships that can comfortably take on ships up to 10x its own size)

For that reason, I do not believe the contents of this suggestion would benefit StarMade, good suggestion though, I cannot say you half assed it and didnt try.

Thanks very much for your reply, I looked at the things you mentioned. It is clear that I need to argue the point against small ships.

The Cyclops I believe is the sniper? The strategy is to out range and out maneuver your opponent. However large ships can equip long range weapons as well, so I don't see how the small ship has a range advantage. It's advantage is then being more maneuverable, but I don't see the purpose for this either, being as how a turret on the large ship could keep up. If the turret can keep up and has decent weapons then I still see the fight in favor of the capital ship because of the advantage of having much greater shields.

As for speed tanking I believe the same is applicable. If the argument against the turret is that the ai can't track such a fast moving target then can't a player manually fire it? Using a turret with a large enough spread I think is an arguable counter.

In any scenario the large ship has plenty of time to escape if they absolutely can not touch the smaller then isn't the threat still minuscule against a ship with millions of shields. When the shields start to fall you just warp out. I see no argument against this.

I haven't played on a multitude of servers, admittedly, so the thing I can guess is that there must size restrictions in the majority of servers. If this is true then our definitions of large ships are different. If I were restricted to 50k mass or less for example.

Thanks again for your reply, I'm interested to hear your rebuttal

 

[GDPR 302420]

The Cyclops I believe is the sniper? The strategy is to out range and out maneuver your opponent. However large ships can equip long range weapons as well, so I don't see how the small ship has a range advantage. It's advantage is then being more maneuverable, but I don't see the purpose for this either, being as how a turret on the large ship could keep up. If the turret can keep up and has decent weapons then I still see the fight in favor of the capital ship because of the advantage of having much greater shields.

The Cyclops is a sniper, however I refered to the Cyclops not for its tactics but for its ability to destroy ships significantly higher then its own weight, on GenXNova during the height of its popularity two of these (at the time about 10k mass) butchered a 500k titan. It was designed to do exactly that.

However, in regards to the turret argument, its worth noting the "key" defence of the Cyclops was jamming, which significantly reduced AI accuracy at long range.

As for speed tanking I believe the same is applicable. If the argument against the turret is that the ai can't track such a fast moving target then can't a player manually fire it? Using a turret with a large enough spread I think is an arguable counter.

Tell that to Veilith (kulbolen)

Here, allow me to link an example of a speed tanking ship engaging a fleet much larger then itself and coming out on top undamaged.

In any scenario the large ship has plenty of time to escape if they absolutely can not touch the smaller then isn't the threat still minuscule against a ship with millions of shields. When the shields start to fall you just warp out. I see no argument against this.

Jump inhibitors or just killing them quickly, which is possible as demonstrated by Veilith and others



A lot of people think small ships are useless, frankly I don't blame them because a lot of the efficient building methods are only applied by the top 1% of PvPers in this game.

The best way to make a ship punch above its own weight is to just play with your ratios.

 

[Optapodamus]

Sorry, but this wouldn't solve anything really.

1. Smaller ships being useful? Well they already are, but if they weren't this wouldn't fix that.

2. Armour? Again, no. The problem with armour isn't shields it's weapons. Weapons are stupidly simple to scale up, while trying to scale up armour results in serious drawbacks both in cost and weight.

3-13. Why? How?



This entire statement is incorrect.



What issues does this fix exactly?



So you want to bring back coring?

1. I see now I need to argue the point against smaller ships, it was my misconception that it was understood.
The only argument towards small ships verses large is their ability to outmaneuver large ships, rendering their main weapons ineffective. Currently I see no argument to support a small ship beating a larger one.
Large ships can have turrets and fighters. Both can hit smaller ships. If this weren't the case and their were size restrictions or shield restrictions (which I'm starting to wonder if I'm unaware) then I'd see an argument for small ships. But being as how a turret can track as small ship, and has millions of shields because of it's parent I see the battle in favor of the large ship.
Even if the argument is that small ships can completely out maneuver every single thing a large ship can do I still see no threat being as how the large ship can warp whenever it wants. (Provided warp>the small ships inhib, which I see no argument as to why it can't be)

2. I see no reason to even use armor with enough shields. I'm sorry I didn't make that point more clear. I'm arguing that millions and millions of shields nullifies any reason to use armor.

3-13 I explained these points later on in the post. Some of which I thought were very clear so I don't understand what you're missing.

"this entire statement is incorrect" -I'm interested in hearing your argument against it. Especially against the last two sentences of what you quoted.

"what issues does this fix exactly" -I'm really surprised at this response. A large complicated ship design is hit by a missile/pulse, cutting a swath of blocks, logic, etc out. The only repairs for which is to delete the entire ship and reload the blueprint or spend countless hours trying to figure it all back out. This is a huge issue. Easily one of the greatest in the game.

Finally, Coring was where you drilled through the enemy ship directly to the core to kill it. What I proposed was similar, but for ship systems, not for the core. My proposition wouldn't result in the entire ship failing, just the system that was destroyed. Similar to games like "Starwars Empire at war" and "Homeworld 2"
[doublepost=1505308944,1505306308][/doublepost]

The Cyclops is a sniper, however I refered to the Cyclops not for its tactics but for its ability to destroy ships significantly higher then its own weight, on GenXNova during the height of its popularity two of these (at the time about 10k mass) butchered a 500k titan. It was designed to do exactly that.

However, in regards to the turret argument, its worth noting the "key" defence of the Cyclops was jamming, which significantly reduced AI accuracy at long range.



Tell that to Veilith (kulbolen)

Here, allow me to link an example of a speed tanking ship engaging a fleet much larger then itself and coming out on top undamaged.




Jump inhibitors or just killing them quickly, which is possible as demonstrated by Veilith and others



A lot of people think small ships are useless, frankly I don't blame them because a lot of the efficient building methods are only applied by the top 1% of PvPers in this game.

The best way to make a ship punch above its own weight is to just play with your ratios.

Wow, that is great video, but in the video I believe he is flying a 50k mass ship against others of the same. Still was a great video, and he I'm sure he could do the same with a small ship being as he seems to be, like you said, in the 1% of skilled fighter/builder.
I think I'm beginning to understand that my one of my problems lies in my ship classification and design is different than the norm. I'm surprised to see such low shields in the video. I think the max was 3 million? I have 10 million on my smallest ship, which is 50k mass. Which is often the one I use when starting out fresh on new servers, after doing some mining of course.

Anyway with enough warp modules I still see no way a small ship could inhibit a larger one, nor do I still see an argument for killing a ship before it can warp with the new sensor block. Which I have implemented to keep my warp core charged at 95%.

"A lot of people think small ships are useless, frankly I don't blame them because a lot of the efficient building methods are only applied by the top 1% of PvPers in this game."
I agree with you here and believe this is exactly why my proposal is valid. I believe my proposal would allow for a much higher percentage of people to be able to PvP small vrs large. But really that's not it's only intent, my intention is just for their to be a wider variety of options/strategy for the majority of players.

Thanks very much for replying

 

[GDPR 302420]

Wow, that is great video, but in the video I believe he is flying a 50k mass ship against others of the same.

No he isnt, his opposition outmasses him by about 40-50k

I'm surprised to see such low shields in the video. I think the max was 3 million? I have 10 million on my smallest ship

What you consider "low" is entirely subjective, chances are they played with their ratios and sacrafices shields for something else.

Anyway with enough warp modules I still see no way a small ship could inhibit a larger one, nor do I still see an argument for killing a ship before it can warp with the new sensor block. Which I have implemented to keep my warp core charged at 95%.

A smaller ship can disable the JDs of a bigger ship, its been done before by even the 99% who are not the "elite" pvpers.

Also, spamhibitors.

I agree with you here and believe this is exactly why my proposal is valid. I believe my proposal would allow for a much higher percentage of people to be able to PvP small vrs large.

The problem is not that the 99% can't be on the level of the 1%

Every single person reading this thread right now can be on the level of the 1%, they simply need to practise, experiment and play with their ratios.

Contray to popular belief, there is no "hidden trick" that only the 1% know that makes them good, they are doing the same thing you are all doing, they are just doing it better and you can do it better to (unless you count Vaygr using exploits over 4 years to be an example of a hidden trick)

Now, I noted what your suggestion you claim would fix, allow me to pick them apart one at a time.

1. Small ships will be able to defeat large ships.
2. Armor would be useful
3. Cloaking would be useful
4. Repair beams would be useful
5. Shipyards would be useful
6. Character weapons would be useful (I'll explain)
7. Ship to ship boarding would be a thing (I'll explain)
8. Interior ship defenses would be a thing because of boarding
9. Ships with large crews of players would be a thing (I'll explain)
10. Ship design would make a difference
11. No more massive sloppy borg cubes
12. It'd still be easy enough for the casual players/noobs
13. People who don't enjoy building ships would play this game

1. They already can, this point is redundant
2. Your suggestion is essentialy turning armor into shields, armor would not be usefull because it would no longer exist, its just a glorified shield
3. It already is
4. If your ship regenerates, then no it wont be usefull because I can just wait
5. The only reason they are not usefull atm is because of all the bugs associated with them, without bugs shipyards would be already usefull (but the blueprint system would still be better)
6. They already are, they serve their purpose well
7. It already is usefull, if successfull you can capture intact hostile ships which you can blueprint to study and break down for mats
8. Interior defence is already a thing, See: Damage Pulse
9. No they would not be, the only time more than 1 player on a ship would be usefull is if you are in a cloaker carrying a boarding party
10. You have to be joking right now, it already is
11. How will your sugggestion prevent this? I see no way you prevent this in your entire suggestion
12. The current system is easy enough, noobs and casual players simply need to put in some effort and learn
13. Umm what?

 

[Zyrr]

Take a gander over to Veilith or my YouTube channels, watch the videos, report back. Small ships fare fine.

 

[Az14el]

Aye, offence greatly outscales defence in starmade, you can't really insure yourself against ships anywhere even close to your mass if consider the actual mathematics of it. When you consider lower thrust reqs for a high ratio, better accelleration at all ratios, lower economic risk & a harder target to actually hit due to smaller profile, there are advantages that can be utilized when bringing less mass than your opponent.

Obviously ship design (something you've disregarded) is key here. Believe it or not that's a huge deal!

*not attacking all your points btw, though as red pointed out a lot are more issues of bugged mechanics than simply bad ones. Only that mass isn't really as much of an advantage compared to good design & piloting, and without those it's mostly just a scaling debuff.

 

[Stalker_HUN]

No u. I think this is a very bad idea which wouldn't solve anyting. In fact i believe this would make it worse. Didn't read the whole thing just the points and if you want your systems to fail just build a ship.

 

[Reilly Reese]

7. Ship to ship boarding would be a thing (I'll explain)

It is and has been for a while.

 

[Optapodamus]

No he isnt, his opposition outmasses him by about 40-50k



What you consider "low" is entirely subjective, chances are they played with their ratios and sacrafices shields for something else.



A smaller ship can disable the JDs of a bigger ship, its been done before by even the 99% who are not the "elite" pvpers.

Also, spamhibitors.



The problem is not that the 99% can't be on the level of the 1%

Every single person reading this thread right now can be on the level of the 1%, they simply need to practise, experiment and play with their ratios.

Contray to popular belief, there is no "hidden trick" that only the 1% know that makes them good, they are doing the same thing you are all doing, they are just doing it better and you can do it better to (unless you count Vaygr using exploits over 4 years to be an example of a hidden trick)

Now, I noted what your suggestion you claim would fix, allow me to pick them apart one at a time.



1. They already can, this point is redundant
2. Your suggestion is essentialy turning armor into shields, armor would not be usefull because it would no longer exist, its just a glorified shield
3. It already is
4. If your ship regenerates, then no it wont be usefull because I can just wait
5. The only reason they are not usefull atm is because of all the bugs associated with them, without bugs shipyards would be already usefull (but the blueprint system would still be better)
6. They already are, they serve their purpose well
7. It already is usefull, if successfull you can capture intact hostile ships which you can blueprint to study and break down for mats
8. Interior defence is already a thing, See: Damage Pulse
9. No they would not be, the only time more than 1 player on a ship would be usefull is if you are in a cloaker carrying a boarding party
10. You have to be joking right now, it already is
11. How will your sugggestion prevent this? I see no way you prevent this in your entire suggestion
12. The current system is easy enough, noobs and casual players simply need to put in some effort and learn
13. Umm what?

At 3:18 seconds you can see his ship mass and name in the nav menu. "50k tsa wip" is it's name. The other ship are 50 and below.

"What you consider "low" is entirely subjective, chances are they played with their ratios and sacrifices shields for something else."
I agree. I believe I admitted my definitions of size are apparently different than the norm.

"Spamhibitors" is something I was completely unaware of. From looking it over it seems as though it should be counter-able with a decently sized group of warp modules on a similar clock. If it isn't then shouldn't it be? I think that would be considered an imbalance.

I agree, it is possible to reach the 1%, but that still doesn't change the fact the vast majority don't reach it. I have something like 800 hours into the game and still am obviously not in the 1%, and don't intend to be, because I don't want to devote myself, don't think I should have to devote myself that much to simply be able to enjoy all the strategies I should be able to. Imagine playing Starcraft and you can only easily use 2 units, the rest are available but have an incredibly high learning curve. The game would flop. This game is not successful, I believe this is why.
I believe you have higher intelligence than most, and a likely a predisposition that facilitates your competence. Myself, and the vast majority do not and it makes majority of the games mechanics inaccessible to the majority. Maybe you don't see it as being so difficult because it isn't for you.

1.The can't for the majority
2.I don't really understand. Armor would just do exactly what it does not. Shields completely mitigate damage across the whole structure until completely wiped out, whereas armor can be destroyed in the area it is hit, revealing ship systems.
3. I don't see what a cloaked ship can do to 10 million shields or more before they can jump.
4.I thought I made it clear that the ship would regenerate at a much reduced rate compared to shipyards and beams
5.I ment more useful, for repairs
6.You'd have to explain this one because I see no use whatsoever
7. People only board ships after they've been overheated so far as I've ever seen. I mean that boarding would be a possible replacement for ship to ship combat
8. I forgot about pulse. It would have to go as well lol
9. In my proposal I suggested that players that directly interact with systems would could increase the speed of repairs, and with the ability to attack systems from inside the ship, another player could focus on internal defense or offense, another player could man turrets or fly fighters as needed. In that scenario there is 1 pilot, 1 engineer, 1 boarding/security officer, 1 fighter pilot/gunner.
You may argue that some of this is already possible, but my argument is still that it is too difficult for the vast majority.
10. This is my opinion for various reasons I thought were clear, but it was my mistake.
11. The borg cube would be prevented because sloppy ship designs would be too easy to destroy systems. Interior and exterior defense would have to be considered. Which, with enough shields I argue makes it pointless.
12. The learning curve is way too high. The majority of the people I regularly game with, who enjoy similar games, for example space engineers and emporium, will not play this game because the majority of the mechanics require too much effort or are completely beyond their ability. Again, I think you, and the few others who are have a natural affinity for this game don't realize how difficult, impossible even, it is for the majority. You seem to think people are lazy lol. I 100% guarantee that some people, no matter how much they try, will NEVER get the majority of the mechanics. Again, you have to realize you are smarter than average.
13. My friend enjoys dog fighting. I made ships for him to fight in and he tried to play, but the combat was too stale. His response to it was, "So I just hit the weapons and orbit? That's all there is to do?" "The graphics aren't even good, why would I play this?"
Now I'm sure you'll have multiple counter arguments, as I did, because I wanted him to play with me, but the majority of strategies are too inaccessible for causal players, the learning curve too steep.

Thanks again for your reply, although I feel I've angered you for some reason. I didn't intend this and deeply appreciate your criticism

 

[Calhoun]

Thanks again for your reply, although I feel I've angered you for some reason. I didn't intend this and deeply appreciate your criticism

You haven't "angered" anyone, it's just that your post screams "I haven't played on a server and seen what people do and what works or researched and tested systems" and yet you're trying to propose major balance changes.

 

[Optapodamus]

Take a gander over to Veilith or my YouTube channels, watch the videos, report back. Small ships fare fine.

I appreciate it and I will. Others have shown me similar things but the capital ships that the fighters were fighting were small (imo) and their shields were (also imo) very low. I still don't see what a small ship can do against a 10-20 million+ shields ship. Although since joining the forums I have been made aware of a great many new things I still don't see a clear rebuttal to the majority of my points. I still believe massive shields and warping out as soon as they drop is still currently the vastly superior strategy.

Aye, offence greatly outscales defence in starmade, you can't really insure yourself against ships anywhere even close to your mass if consider the actual mathematics of it. When you consider lower thrust reqs for a high ratio, better accelleration at all ratios, lower economic risk & a harder target to actually hit due to smaller profile, there are advantages that can be utilized when bringing less mass than your opponent.

Obviously ship design (something you've disregarded) is key here. Believe it or not that's a huge deal!

*not attacking all your points btw, though as red pointed out a lot are more issues of bugged mechanics than simply bad ones. Only that mass isn't really as much of an advantage compared to good design & piloting, and without those it's mostly just a scaling debuff.

I'd say I agree on your point about offense, but I'm not sure how that refutes my proposal, rather it suggests that armor be buffed. Which I agree. On your other point, I can't disagree, those are definitely advantages but still offer no recompense to the imbalance that I believe shields create. Even if a fighter is completely untouchable, the cap ship can simply retreat before shields completely drop and any damage is taken. Unless there is a completely uncounterable inhibitor set up, which I don't believe to be the case. Especially not for the majority of players who don't use logic.
What I mean about ship design is that so long as your shields are up ship design doesn't matter defensively, I'm sure their are workarounds but the majority of players don't use them.

No u. I think this is a very bad idea which wouldn't solve anyting. In fact i believe this would make it worse. Didn't read the whole thing just the points and if you want your systems to fail just build a ship.

You'd have to explain why you think that, I don't know on what planet people just accept it when others just say "nope wont work" without any explanation whatsoever. Is the last sentence suppose to be an insult? Lol You don't even bother to read my explanation, nor offer rebuttals, but you're so confident it'll fail that you insinuate everything else I do will also fail? Nice.

It is and has been for a while.

Your post talks about boarding a ship after the battle, unless I'm mistaken. I'm talking about being able to board a completely intact ship and taking it over that way.
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You haven't "angered" anyone, it's just that your post screams "I haven't played on a server and seen what people do and what works or researched and tested systems" and yet you're trying to propose major balance changes.

I don't see why not knowing every single thing should stop me from proposing balance changes. It seems to me that very few people know of/use a lot of the things your talking about anyway.

I'll admit I only have 800 hours, must of which was likely just tooling about, or working on aesthetics, but I feel I've played enough to at least have some idea as to how the majority of people play.

Well, although I am not convinced on any point by anyone thus far, judging from the response continuing seems to be an exercise in futility.
I did learn some things so it wasn't a total waste, thanks cya

 

[Thingie]

Your post talks about boarding a ship after the battle, unless I'm mistaken. I'm talking about being able to board a completely intact ship and taking it over that way.

If they have open docking blocks you can see and get to then you can do that... Alternatively blow open their hanger bay and board. Seems almost irl right...

Correct me if I'm wrong though, I don't pvp. That's just my current understanding of the game mechanics.

 

[kulbolen]

Offense scales way more than 10x defense. Shield count is irrelevant, because on a per mass basis any amount of shields or shield recharge will be easily overshadowed by a decent ion weapon. Small ships SHOULD have a hard time with large ships, and why would you reasonably expect to interdict a big cap ship in a fighter?

Regardless, a fast ship is already a huge threat to (any) large ship. And the large ship if built well can probably kill the small ship using the right combo of reliable guns, but those guns are worse in most scenarios and make the ship "worse" to account for that versatility. If the small ship is not dealt with or run from quickly, it can and will kill you if it's not crap. At any reasonable size comparison .

Jumping away will be a solid option for you if your jump pcs don't get taken out before you make the Oh shit call, because a small ship shouldn't be interdict you, but...

A 5k ship can kill the average statted 200k ship if not quickly dealt with (most setups cant quickly deal w my 5k ship)

A 10k ship geared towards offense can destroy a 50k ship that's literally 100% made of shields and the energy to run them.

2 or 3 of those 10k ships at a hefty size disadvantage can take down even the best pvpers 100k ship. That's more than anyone should ask for.

 

[Calhoun]

You'd have to explain why you think that, I don't know on what planet people just accept it when others just say "nope wont work" without any explanation whatsoever.

Is it the same planet that people can make statements that are completely incorrect and present them as fact with no evidence whatsoever?

 

[Optapodamus]

If they have open docking blocks you can see and get to then you can do that... Alternatively blow open their hanger bay and board. Seems almost irl right...

Correct me if I'm wrong though, I don't pvp. That's just my current understanding of the game mechanics.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with starwars battlefront 2, in the space battles you could destroy systems internally and externally, not just the core, that's what I thought might be fun/achievable. But I suppose you can attack the core now, once the problems with the torch is fixed. Although I don't connect my core to my hangers, I use teleporters, so there's a major flaw in my idea. I suppose you'd have to make a tool that allows enemies to "hack" the teleporter, but then it could just be deleted in build mode in mid battle, so you'd have to make it to where you can't make changes in build mode while in combat... which seems like something that should be anyway lol. Then I suppose people would make mazes in their ships and that would be hilarious

Offense scales way more than 10x defense. Shield count is irrelevant, because on a per mass basis any amount of shields or shield recharge will be easily overshadowed by a decent ion weapon. Small ships SHOULD have a hard time with large ships, and why would you reasonably expect to interdict a big cap ship in a fighter?

Regardless, a fast ship is already a huge threat to (any) large ship. And the large ship if built well can probably kill the small ship using the right combo of reliable guns, but those guns are worse in most scenarios and make the ship "worse" to account for that versatility. If the small ship is not dealt with or run from quickly, it can and will kill you if it's not crap. At any reasonable size comparison .

Jumping away will be a solid option for you if your jump pcs don't get taken out before you make the Oh shit call, because a small ship shouldn't be interdict you, but...

A 5k ship can kill the average statted 200k ship if not quickly dealt with (most setups cant quickly deal w my 5k ship)

A 10k ship geared towards offense can destroy a 50k ship that's literally 100% made of shields and the energy to run them.

2 or 3 of those 10k ships at a hefty size disadvantage can take down even the best pvpers 100k ship. That's more than anyone should ask for.

Seems like a lot of people are telling me what you're saying here, that offense way out scales defense, and that is the major counter to my proposal. If this weren't true then would what I proposed be viable? What would have to change to make my proposal viable?
I'd be interested to see your ship designs, or designs that do what you say. Not that I don't believe you, seems like everyone is telling me about these ships but I've just never seen them. Would you mind linking the stardock to them so I can try em out?

Is it the same planet that people can make statements that are completely incorrect and present them as fact with no evidence whatsoever?

Initially I did assume that the consensus was that large ships were the trump all, but every rebuttal I've given explanations, details, examples, strategies as to why I believe what I believe. Why on earth do people insult, talk down to, and belittle people they disagree with? Even if I'm blatantly wrong there is no excuse and it serves no purpose. When encountering someone you believe to be informationally or intellectually more disadvantaged than yourself there are only two courses of action: You either don't waste your time explaining things or you do me the incredible favor and educate me. Belittling people who are incorrect only serves to discourage people from asking questions or making statements for fear of being wrong.

 

[Reilly Reese]

Your post talks about boarding a ship after the battle, unless I'm mistaken. I'm talking about being able to board a completely intact ship and taking it over that way.

It was during the battle that I boarded it but it sounds fancier taking over the ship afterwards.

 

[Optapodamus]

It was during the battle that I boarded it but it sounds fancier taking over the ship afterwards.

Ah I gotcha, I realize it is possible, and I know there's currently a bug with the torch that has caused problems regarding that. I should have been more precise when I said "boarding would be a thing", that was my mistake. By adding the ability to destroy systems internally with my proposed system core mechanics (shield core, engine core, etc.) It was my intention to promote the popularity of boarding combat. Being as how currently the only thing to do upon boarding is attacking the core.