Thermite is Fun!

[Groovrider]

I'm pretty sure that players have been carefully placing advanced armor in select, high value areas since the armor mass and armor HP updates cam out.

 

[Endal]

I'm pretty sure that players have been carefully placing advanced armor in select, high value areas since the armor mass and armor HP updates cam out.

The feature lancake displayed would warrant for better placement of armour plates in more areas. Currently there is no need for that since all-or-nothing (an actual naval armour scheme, google it.) is more efficient.

 

[Groovrider]

The feature lancake displayed would warrant for better placement of armour plates in more areas. Currently there is no need for that since all-or-nothing (an actual naval armour scheme, google it.) is more efficient.

My personal experience says otherwise but to each their own.

 

[Malacodor]

not really, you only need about 1/4 of the mass of a large ship in smaller ships to kill it

...which is why big ships aren't competitive, which in turn kills diversity.

so if anything its more for building better ships than your enemy, not just larger ships because each smaller ships needs to be well built so you can start to get away with using smaller fleets to destroy larger ships.

Optimizing big ships is way harder than optimizing small ships, even if using several different small ship types. And as soon as you meet an opponent who knows what he's doing, the richer one wins, no matter if it's big ship versus bigger ship or big fleet versus bigger fleet.

Total mass matters, but because we don't only have one type of weapon, one type of ship, the tables can be turned against bigger ships by good control of smaller well-built ships.
Additionally, on a quantitious scale the skill of build for ship is mutiplied, so shitty ships will form shittier fleets, good ships will form better fleets. It is crucial that smaller ships are built better to balance the mass difference between it and the larger adversary.

No, the small ships don't even have to be very well built or controlled. Small ships are inherently better than big ships with equal total mass.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

So big ships are bad because they were heavily nerfed because big ship haters complained. This doesn't explain the hate against big ships in the first place.

Nope, that's how they should be, that's how they are in the movies too. They just kinda sit there and shoot each other with turrets. But that's freaking boring. You don't see a Star Destroyer pull fancy maneuvers do you?

 

[Lecic]

...which is why big ships aren't competitive, which in turn kills diversity.

Actually, an important part of the "1/4" or "1/3" statements is the oft-forgotten ending to it- a large ship DESIGNED to take on small ships can handle its weight in them and then some. What's good at taking on small ships? Well, for starters, not swarmers. They're slow and they tend to group up on a single target at a time. Lots of turrets and very heavy shielding with high regen or very thick armor is how you take on small ships. Shields are probably a better choice, simply because it can take a while to take down a big drone swarm, and if you're facing armor piercing drones, you will have a bad time.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

There's a a good amount of things bigger ships are better at. Tanking, either with layers of armour (good look doing anything with a non augmented power tank using drone against a few layers of advanced armour with the passives up), or with shield recharge (devout a few million to shield recharge and again, not really much smaller ships can do without properly focusing their firepower). Bigger ships are also inherently better with missiles as well, were with beam slaves the lack of maneuverability isn't really that much a detriment if you have a the bulk of your fleet up close to keep your enemy occupied. Station busting with your giant doom weapons (which, until aircraft carriers supplanted them was the main thing battleships were used for). If you want to go the drone swarm route they're superior too, especially since as well as sheer numbers storage wise they're in a better position to provide support fire.

There's also the issue of manpower. Currently if you want to use players to main your fleets you're not going to be able to field that many ships, and AI controlled ships have plenty of short comings at the moment. And in the future once crews etc are implemented we don't know what kind of limitations there will be on how many (or how many quality crew members assuming that's a factor) you can field. Simply put bigger ships can allow a smaller number of people to field more firepower.

Now what you can't do is just turn up with the biggest stick and call it a day. Bigger ships are always going to be vulnerable to groups of smaller ships without proper support, kinda like how actual wet navy's worked, and how every fictional space navy just about worked. The issue of who has the biggest fleet will always be a factor, but as the game improves (and even now tbh) ruling out the advantage well designed and operated ships work would be a mistake.

 

[Nickizzy]

There's a a good amount of things bigger ships are better at. Tanking, either with layers of armour (good look doing anything with a non augmented power tank using drone against a few layers of advanced armour with the passives up), or with shield recharge (devout a few million to shield recharge and again, not really much smaller ships can do without properly focusing their firepower). Bigger ships are also inherently better with missiles as well, were with beam slaves the lack of maneuverability isn't really that much a detriment if you have a the bulk of your fleet up close to keep your enemy occupied. Station busting with your giant doom weapons (which, until aircraft carriers supplanted them was the main thing battleships were used for). If you want to go the drone swarm route they're superior too, especially since as well as sheer numbers storage wise they're in a better position to provide support fire.

There's also the issue of manpower. Currently if you want to use players to main your fleets you're not going to be able to field that many ships, and AI controlled ships have plenty of short comings at the moment. And in the future once crews etc are implemented we don't know what kind of limitations there will be on how many (or how many quality crew members assuming that's a factor) you can field. Simply put bigger ships can allow a smaller number of people to field more firepower.

Now what you can't do is just turn up with the biggest stick and call it a day. Bigger ships are always going to be vulnerable to groups of smaller ships without proper support, kinda like how actual wet navy's worked, and how every fictional space navy just about worked. The issue of who has the biggest fleet will always be a factor, but as the game improves (and even now tbh) ruling out the advantage well designed and operated ships work would be a mistake.

I'll just show up with my semi-auto missile carrier(cloaking not included. Free refills): and drill though their ship until something breaks. I hope the warheads get a rework with the new explosion mechanics too.

 

[Malacodor]

What's good at taking on small ships? Well, for starters, not swarmers. They're slow and they tend to group up on a single target at a time. Lots of turrets and very heavy shielding with high regen or very thick armor is how you take on small ships.

Don't have turrets the same grouping-up-on-single-target problem?

 

[Lecic]

Don't have turrets the same grouping up on single target problem?

Yes, but cannons and lockons are much faster traveling. They can quickly kill one and move on to the next. Also, on larger ships, where turrets can be a hundred, two hundred meters or more away from eachother, they often target different drones. Having your front and rear turrets target randomly and your middle turrets target at selected means you can take out 3x as many drones.

 

[Master_Artificer]

In general you use lots of armor and primary weapons when specializing to kill ships bigger than you efficiently

You use shields (primarily the regen aspect) and turrets/missiles to kill ships smaller than you efficiently
[doublepost=1473104488,1473103295][/doublepost]

Like this,
Left has only armor on the outside of the reactor
Right has that too but also sheets inside. Makes it less block efficient but also less blocks die from random explosions.
View attachment 31603

Yes, internal bulkheads!
Now protecting from more than just missile explosions!

Spoiler: This is a generalized view of what I often use

(blue is core, yellow is computers. Gotta protect your computers with that black box like planes!

 

[Madman198237]

Just gonna point out that the description of an all-or-nothing armor scheme here does not fit with the actual naval term, or maybe people are just referencing vessels that I'm unfamiliar with. By and large, the majority of vessels I've seen in StarMade focus on a complete armor scheme, rather than all-or-nothing.

All-or-nothing schemes armor only the "citadel", where ammo and fuel are stored. They have heavier armor there than a ship of equivalent displacement will, assuming the second vessel uses the everything-armored approach.
All-or-nothing---either all your armor's where you get hit, or none of it is. Either condition is an advantage. One produces the best chance for a ricochet/non-penetrating round, the other gives a good chance for a near-useless overpenetration of the vessel (In one side, out the other, no detonation)

 

[Nuclear Doughnut]

I have been working on my "Super-Titan" That Lecic mentioned for years now. It is most likely the heaviest ship in SM currently. It takes me days just to fill in sections. Not because I don't do it. Mainly cause the amount of blocks. It takes a while for computers/servers to process placing down a million blocks at the time.

 

[Tamren Shade]

I'm going to wait and see how it's implemented to decide. I wouldn't mind a having a choice between the standard low yield reactors we have now and a higher yield yet more dangerous reactor.

I could see having a standard +2 million safe reactor and a few pockets of highly armored and carefully spaced internal reactors that go into meltdown when hit.

Plus depending on the energy yield of the new reactors, they may represent a smaller target then we expect, and it adds a fun cinematic (though arguably less fun in a game) sci-fi trope of hitting a reactor and messing up or vaporising a capital ship.

To be honest, if they're too dangerous, no one will use them and if they're too safe, everyone will use them, something in between would add another interesting decision point to a ship design.

 

[Lecic]

I'm going to wait and see how it's implemented to decide. I wouldn't mind a having a choice between the standard low yield reactors we have now and a higher yield yet more dangerous reactor.

I could see having a standard +2 million safe reactor and a few pockets of highly armored and carefully spaced internal reactors that go into meltdown when hit.

Plus depending on the energy yield of the new reactors, they may represent a smaller target then we expect, and it adds a fun cinematic (though arguably less fun in a game) sci-fi trope of hitting a reactor and messing up or vaporising a capital ship.

To be honest, if they're too dangerous, no one will use them and if they're too safe, everyone will use them, something in between would add another interesting decision point to a ship design.

You say "everyone using them" like it's a bad thing.

These aren't meant to replace regular power on small ships. They're meant to replace docked reactors. One feature of docked reactors is that it's easy for them to get lost before the main ship is dead. A slow burn that can be contained by a few layers of armor is the best way to mirror that.

 

[Madman198237]

I think that (If possible) it might be nice to simulate the increased volatility of larger reactors by really punishing extremely large reactors, but letting them be more efficient. I'm imagining these dangerous reactors as something like (Metaphor/reference point only) nuclear power sources:
You have RTGs (Radioisotope thermoelectric generators. They take the heat from a piece of radioactive rock, and turn it into electricity. Small amounts, yes, but it's a long-term (50000 years of radiation...and then you're only down to 1/2 power), safe (Unless you have a problem with radiation. Which we obviously don't), and completely non-explosive. Minimally damaging to be hit.

Next: Fission reactors. Dangerous due to the heat they produce, also the amount of radioactive material. When one of these gets off the hook, you poison your ship's crew (Not necessary to reflect in-game, since we still don't give a rip about radiation. We're all mutants or cyborgs or something. Maybe we're part-tardigrade) and melts through lots of stuff...unless you manage to contain it. Could be mirrored with a slow burn.

Next: Fusion reactors. Dangerous. Because cracking open one of these would essentially expose the outside of the reactor to conditions like the inside of the Sun. Except less contained by gravity, and more free to violently explode/rush out/melt things.

Last: Matter/antimatter annihilation. Hahaha, hahaha, don't mess with antimatter. Seriously. Just don't. If your fuel gets hit, then you go good-bye, along with most of your fleet.

Now that I've gone and nerd-ed out on all of you, I'll summarize. There's different levels of power. The larger your power source, the more efficient it can get. However, it gets exponentially more dangerous. So why not make it a mix of risk and reward to use these: There's a reward for building them bigger rather than more plentiful (Besides the ridiculous and unnecessary clicking-in-hotbar thing), but there's also danger. But if you want to build a Star Destroyer, you might just be able to protect that 5,000,000,000 power-per-second reactor inside the dome. By surrounding it in about 100 layers of advanced armor and half a billion shields.
But if you're wrong...

 

[StormWing0]

lol I could see someone using an Antimatter reactor solely as a flying nova bomb.

 

[Thalanor]

I was/am busy for a week or two and suddenly we get a new and better way of handling large ships than docked reactors? I always looked forward to this, but didn't expect it in 2016. Now it is already in devbuild, wow. I like this.

 

[Lancake]

Looks like there's a lot of talk about big ships versus small stuff. A single big ship taking on a (good) fleet just doesn't work.
What does work is putting a ton of turrets on it, but then you're pretty much a fleet on your own just docked.

Each fleet has a capital ship, if we give the capital ship more purpose like fleet wide boosts then it makes sense to have the biggest ship as the capital one:
-> Big ships usually survive for much longer in a fight
-> Big ships have plenty of room for support systems (fleet wide systems?)
-> Big ships kill other big ships fast

If 2 fleets fight each other, they'll most likely focus each other's big ship to get rid of its provided bonuses. That's easy enough when there's 1 big ship and 100 tiny ones...

But what if you have 2 big ships + 5 medium ones and 20 small ones? The enemy might shoot the one that's player controlled (since that's most likely the capital ship) but as soon as that one dies, the second biggest ship would take over that may have redundant fleet wide systems too. Sure that makes the ship itself less effective in combat but makes sure the fleet has its bonuses for much longer.

The player on the original capital ship is most likely dead at that moment, but we could have ship based re-spawning so you could "reconstruct" your body on the new capital ship and take control within 10-15 seconds. Or some other system allowing you to still control ships when you're astronaut is full of holes.

These are all ideas though...individual big ships don't have to be strong on their own when together with a fleet they obliterate any drone spam coming your way.

Doesn't mean that big ships are perfect they way they're right now, just that later they'll serve more purpose.

 

[Master_Artificer]

snip

a tangent on that thought, should respawning cost resources?
food for thoughts