The Rant of Big Ship VS Little Ship

[FORGE9unsc705]

So everyone knows that a big ship beats a little ship, but what if we throw in some variables.

Ship classes would have to be added somehow. This would take an official index of mass, shields, dps, and all the other ship stats to figure out what you are making. Say a 100 mass ship would be a light fighter. By adding missiles it becomes a light bomber. If there are both AMCs and missiles, the dominant group would judge the class. If both are equal it would register as a whatever was placed first. (AMCs = fighter/Missiles = bomber) The expansion of the types would grow as the ship got bigger. From heavy missile frigates to fast battle cruisers. This would allow a rock, paper, scissors effect in the game. Where fighter beats bomber, bomber beats bigger ship, and bigger ship beats fighter.

This still wouldn't mean that 1 bomber could kill a Titan class ship, it would simply make bombers more important to the gameplay. And we all know that missiles don't do much against shields, so by adding an EMP, strategies can be used in game more often.

EMPs would only damage shields, with the same statistics as the AMC. Bigger array of EMPs, more the shields would go down. The only downside to this would it being useless on hull. 0 damage to anything other then shields. Making a good bomber to both have an EMP and any other missile.

The EMP missile itself would be much like a D1000, but only much faster and with greater range per block.

To keep it from getting overpowered, or exploited, the larger the array the longer the relaid time. This would make it so large ships could not spam the missiles in anyway.

With all that being said, it should be pointed out that this does not make little ships better then big ships. It would take swarms of bombers to kill anything, considering the long reload times of missiles and the fact any good ship would have ample defence against such ships. It would simple make the chances of killing a big ship much greater then spending 3 hours trying to knock out its shields with a fighter.

And so ends my rant. Any ideas?

 

[jackofo]

+1

 

[jzimmerman4]

http://star-made.org/content/scale-turret-aim

 

[Stakhanov]

Starmade is a game of freeform spaceship building. Roles must emerge from module configurations , not be forced by artificial class restrictions that kick in once arbitrary conditions are met.

 

[FORGE9unsc705]

But shouldn\'t there be a diffenate way to define ships? So far everyone is either using their own system or no system at all. Not only would this help classify ships, but it would make it easier to compare ships with others without confusion. Say a huge faction creates what they say is a frigate, and a smaller faction creates what they say is a frigate. Both factions publish it and get in an argue net over who\'s frigate is the better one. Or even if the other one has what they say is a frigate. A system is needed. As with the roles, it would have to be discussed whether or not it should be used or not. It wouldn\'t really define the ship, but I would understand why not everyone wants a preset class thrust upon their ship.

 

[Keptick]

A small shil can\'t kill a big one.

A big ship can\'t kill a small evasive one.

Smaller ships just take more skill to pilot and are much more agile, sacrifying power. Big ships are the opposite.

 

[Comr4de]

Solution: create a new standard for everyone to follow.

Soon: Too many different competing standards +1.



Starmade is a game all about creativity. By forcing ship classifications on people you\'re inherently forcing them to draw between the lines.

 

[Keptick]

No need to change the game because of ship classification. We should just vote one as being the official classification.

 

[NeonSturm]

If this would ever to come live (which I support) I\'d nerdrage and quit because small turrets are a joke to kill, and they never hit a moving target, which is why we\'re forced to make monster turrets on PvP servers.

Now if turrets channeled ship\'s shields - you have my vote.




My ideas::

Bombs: 30-100m range. Very fast, but do less damage the longer they travel (better at very close distance).

The bomb adds EMP damage: damage * (100% - enemy.newShield%) = EMP damage.

• EMP damage has a regeneration of x% and is a multiplicator for power+shield regeneration, thus may lower AMC and thrusters too - if the enemy has low power regeneration.
• EMP damage or regeneration may additionally dependent on hull between hit point and center of mass or core, the closest block of an array, mass of bomber vs ship, grid size, etc - I haven\'t thought about what fits best.

The important point is, that it slows down shield regeneration as it allows small ships to do damage (if some EMP remains till the next bomb run, ofc) and reduce AMC dps if the hit turret has not a bit of excess power.



Fighters will do much better vs bombers, because they are agile and small enough to evade bombs.



Though, if a ship has more than 2x the mass (=avg, exact number depends on FLAK vs Arty-turret and main gun balance) it will either killl a bomber or suffer no permanent damage (depends on offense vs defense balance).



An even more role-specific build would be enabled by Shield-Hardeners.

• These would add armor to shields (multiplicative, inverse-exponential increase), but also decrease your own weapons of the type they protect you against (AMCs, lasers, whatever).

These would not only be interesting for bombers, but also for Carriers and may even promote taking the (big) turrets out first before you drill for the core (which would be protected by hardened shields).



It would also allow for a new type of turret - it does a lot less damage, but also lives a lot longer. Weapon speed remains the same offcourse

 

[MineCatFTW]

This is how it should work. But right now big ships CAN kill small ones easily with perfect-accuracy turrets that are bigger than the ship they are shooting.

 

[Raok]

I\'ve been away a few months waiting on updates but did they ever change the fact that small ships and large ships have the same top speed? If so then a large ship will destroy a small ship every single time as long as it\'s piloted by a somewhat decent pilot. All you have to do is keep the same trajectory and turn your ship so you end up flying backwards aiming at them. If they try to dodge then they fall behind more and become an easier target. This was an old discussion and everyone agreed that agility matters not at all as long as ships have the same top speed. The situation becomes even worse if the larger ship has turrets.

 

[Megacrafter127]

I had the ship comparison problem too, but I could easily solve it by creating a ship rating system, that can compare any battleship of any class in all aspects. And it was pretty easy too.

 

[NeonSturm]

Small ships can\'t compete with big ships.



They have to use the bigger ship\'s velocity as offset (take profit from a all ships that are a few times bigger)

 

[jzimmerman4]

If you have your top speed set at around 300ish you will notice that large ships normally cant reach at high of speeds as a fighter. I do think that the more thrusters a ship has, the more the top speed lowers from what the servers max speed is. Therefor, a fighter can go the top speed while a large capital can only go to 2/3 of it.

 

[kikaha]

Why oh why do you absolutely want to classify ships ? My ships are what they are, they can or cannot take down that ship or this ship. I don\'t care, i know my ship and what they can do and thats that.

 

[NeonSturm]

Me?

I am for smooth transitions. A ship 2 times bigger may have some influence on your top speed while you are around it (it\'s velocity has a small effect on your offset). It can increase up to maybe 100x your mass, after which your velocity is just relative to the other ship\'s velocity *0..100% at 2500..0 km (server setting?)

(For multiple bigger ships, either take the biggest influence or use the sum of offset-effects)

 

[Keptick]

You simply can\'t expect to kill a ship 10 to 100 times your size solo, it just doesn\'t work even if the enemy pilot is an idiot.

If you group up against a single enemy big ship, than its a different story.

 

[-Moose-]

You simply can\'t expect to kill a ship 10 to 100 times your size solo, it just doesn\'t work even if the enemy pilot is an idiot.


You\'re right, this isn\'t Star Wars, this is Star-Made, a game about fighting with spaceships, as such we should reward good piloting skills and good building skills. If they enemy pilot is an idiot, then there is no reason why he should win. Rewarding bad skill in a game just leaves skilled and experienced players frustrated and rewards braindead tactics.




If you group up against a single enemy big ship, than its a different story.


Teamwork does not equal balanced. If Big Ship > Small Ship, and Big Ship < 2 Small Ships, then Big Ship < 2 Big Ships, so why not just have two big ships at once instead of hindering yourself with two small ships?

 

[Captain Fortius]

Small vs big ship = LVL 10 barefoot newbie with a wooden stick vs LVL 90 full-epic warrior with a sword that has ten times more damage than said newbie\'s total health.

It\'s mosquito vs elephant.

It\'s opossum vs speeding pickup truck.

Balance between the two was never meant to be.

Anyone who keeps bringing it up is;

A - a troll who would like to see the game ruined.

B - another troll who wants to fly around killing titans with a tiny trollcube.

C - yet another Luke Skywalker wannabe who forgot Luke had an entire fleet supporting him on the famous bombing run.

D - starved for attention.

 

[Tomino_sama]

hmm. Stak has a very good point though

\"Starmade is a game of freeform spaceship building. Roles must emerge from module configurations , not be forced by artificial class restrictions that kick in once arbitrary conditions are met.\"



you can go play many games where the dev\'s decide what you can ar cannot be capable of doing. Starmade\'s biggest strength is the open nature in design. New approaches emerge as new pilots come to the game. If we were to make it so it was possible for a \"super Bomber\" class to take down a \"titan\" that would require some intense perks or boosts to the little ship and some generous nerfs to the large ship.

That would stifle build originality.



Big = slow, tough & powerful weapons. Vulnerable to EWAR (Drain/Pulse/Mines) Easy Target, Stealth impossible.

Small = fast, weak & average weapons, Almost invulnerable to Drain, high numbers means pulse and mine are less effective. Stealth + Jamming possible.

That is what we have already ^



All Ship classes are misnomers, that is to say it is relative to your point of view and choice of flavour regarding naval nation/timeperiod. It actually is only meaningful to those sharing your knowledge and chosen flavour. E.G. 1940\'s USA Naval Classes are not the same are 1780\'s Spanish designations.



TLDR:

It is what you want it to be. That\'s the game\'s true strength on this issue, please don\'t nerf that!