Big vs Small ship balance

[Weylin]

Right now it feels like the only way to go with your ships is bigger and bigger.

 

What if, for example, I wanted to run as a large squad of agile fighters, or mid sized bombers?

Can these alternatives be viable at all?

 

I think many weapon projectiles need to be slowed down to allow for active evasion by smaller ships, and bigger ships need to run into heavy Thrust to Weight Ratio issues that greatly limit their speed and maneuvering to sane levels for something of their size.

 

Don't get me wrong here, I don't think big ships should be discouraged, I just think they need to have a role that they excel in, but also several vulnerabilities so they aren't always the best choice for nearly everything. For example, torpedo weapons or fixed death beams that are a significant threat to capitals, but effortlessly evaded by smaller ships. On the other hand, smaller ships could be eaten alive by lighter weapons such as seeker rockets and flak-like weaponry.

[Blaine]

Yeah, I've been discussing this in other threads, as have others. It's especially brutal on fighters.

 

I assume at this point that the developers are aware of the issue and will probably do something about it sometime in the future.

[cy414]

as much as i havnt tried using smaller ships as a tactic yet, my plan would be to use a mothership with repair turrets. and long range artillery.

though i havnt actually seen a repair turret ingame yet, despite their mention in the wiki.

[LoSboccacc]

repair turrets are there, just need a higher tech level

 

whatever the game balance might be, current AI is just not quite there to play with wingmans and stuff.

[Weylin]

Even if the AI is decent, you're faced with this problem:

 

If you go with a squad of small ships, you will suffer losses all the time, individuals will be picked off one at a time and will be a total loss of materials and crew. When this happens, your overall strength diminishes and a fight can snowball out of your favor because of it.

 

With large ships, you tend to stay in fit fighting shape and at maximum firepower until you are destroyed, there is no diminishing effect unless you lose turrets.

[LoSboccacc]

that'd be an easy fix: shield/power generator to scale with the logarithm of the total block sizes on ship. it only depends on what balance the dev wish for the game.

[Weylin]

that'd be an easy fix: shield/power generator to scale with the logarithm of the total block sizes on ship. it only depends on what balance the dev wish for the game.

 

Thought about that a bit...

Perhaps shield strength would scale up as size increases, but recharge rate would go down.

On the flip side, smaller ships would have weaker shields, but would recharge really quickly so they can take several glancing hits.

[LoSboccacc]

yep you get a million ways, you need just to pick what's the largest ship you want to be effective and tune the numbers.

 

this also mean ppl will gravitate toward that size once found because math will be reversed. see: starmade :D

[Weylin]

yep you get a million ways, you need just to pick what's the largest ship you want to be effective and tune the numbers.

 

this also mean ppl will gravitate toward that size once found because math will be reversed. see: starmade :D

Starmade? What is the situation there? I haven't played it for a year or more so I'm a bit out of that loop.

[LoSboccacc]

everyone builds doom cube and levitates around 10 million shield which is what the power module can reasonably hold

[DivineEvil]

If a large ship cannot outright defeat 10 smaller ships of the same total volume, then the balance is invalid. Bigger ships are supposed to be built specifically to defeat smaller ships. If it doesn't work that way, then there's no logic behind building them in the first place.

 

Small ships already has some benefits, like 2 free weapon slots, faster warp-drive recharge and lower profile against less accurate weapon types.

[Fidtz]

With large ships, you tend to stay in fit fighting shape and at maximum firepower until you are destroyed, there is no diminishing effect unless you lose turrets.

 

The integrity field re-reinforces this. If smaller ships could gang up to attack the engines or turrets or generators, it woulds mean big ships would need to support each other with repair turrets or be gradually whittled away. Integrity fields defeat this, but removing them would probably produce very conservative designs. Maybe small fighters could have a "penetrates integrity field %" weapon attribute?

[Ohm is Futile]

If a large ship cannot outright defeat 10 smaller ships of the same total volume, then the balance is invalid. Bigger ships are supposed to be built specifically to defeat smaller ships. If it doesn't work that way, then there's no logic behind building them in the first place.

[...]

Wait, what? I mean, I kinda see your point, but I think specialization should factor in to this. A speedy glass cannon with high DPS/Alpha should be able to destroy/severely dent a bigger ship (depending on proportions, obviously) that is built to sit there and whack other large, slow ships.

[Hûvy]

The AI in the game would need to know how to use small ship properly first rather than just sit there and throw damage and other ships, thats why right now big is just the way to go

[Weylin]

If a large ship cannot outright defeat 10 smaller ships of the same total volume, then the balance is invalid. Bigger ships are supposed to be built specifically to defeat smaller ships. If it doesn't work that way, then there's no logic behind building them in the first place.

 

Small ships already has some benefits, like 2 free weapon slots, faster warp-drive recharge and lower profile against less accurate weapon types.

I don't know why big ships need to be able to handle fighting their volume in smaller attackers, because there can be other reasons to have a larger ship.

 

Just a few possible reasons off the top of my head that don't necessarily exist in the game yet:

Logistics - It's much easier to manage a single large ship than a fleet of smaller ones

Self sustainabilty - Larger ships could spare the room for facilities that allow it to go on long journeys without supply

Support for heavy weapons - Large strong frames could act as platforms for heavy artillery that small ships can't manage

 

As for small ships:

Response time - They can get to a location very quickly

Fight on their terms - They can choose their fights, they can look for weaknesses and blind spots and exploit those easily.

Swarming - A group of small ships dipping and diving out of range and out of arcs can be extremely frustrating for a single large target to deal with, as they need to constantly reacquire targets and turrets need to rotate to new in-range targets.

 

 

[Ohm is Futile]

The AI in the game would need to know how to use small ship properly first rather than just sit there and throw damage and other ships, thats why right now big is just the way to go

Well, obviously.

 

I also agree with the points Weylin just brought forward.

[SageThe13th]

Stat changes at this stage would be putting the cart before the horse.  As it stands now, any numerical advantage a fleet of ships would have vs a single larger ship would be wasted by the AI being dopey.  Fleet controls need to be better as well.

[raz334]

  Have any of you bothered to look into the laws of physics as they exist in actual outer space? Much of the assumptions this argument is based upon are only valid within an earth like atmosphere, with the forces we live through daily.

 

  Take away the Earth physics, and you get something quite different than most people would expect. The truth of the matter is that if you put enough maneuvering thrusters on a Ship the Size of the Sun and have the power supply and all the requirements to make it functional it can be made to maneuver like a ship the size of a human. That said it would of course be an incredible feet of engineering, and anyone inside that sun sized vessel when it chose to pull a 180 degree maneuver would be exposed to some fatal G forces without some kind of inertial dampening system.

 

  My point is, The game actually does the simulation aspect Very Well. The fault comes in with the players who rather than accepting the weaknesses of the larger vessels chose to pour endless resources and mental energies into conquering those weaknesses.

    The only Fault i can find with the simulation aspect of the game is that the Maneuvering Rads are Currently Capped at 2.00 Rad/s which with a smaller vessel would be easy to exceed. I suspect the designers did this to prevent players from accidentally creating a ship that was to difficult for them to control.

 

Now then someone mentioned taking away large ship Integrity Fields, Well believe it or not the Integrity Field is Actually very close to becoming a reality. A Great deal of research still remains to be done but the basics of it are already understood. If i Said it was as simple as polarizing the Hull would that be enough to explain it? probably not, Basically it involves connecting one end of a flowing charge to the hull and emitting the other end through some kind of a plasma field just outside of the hull which forms a repelling barrier against anything that carries a positive or negative charge, which basically means everything. Incase your thinking that the repelling force might allow something to slip through it, experiments have shown that the force it repels at is equal to the force exerted toward it, meaning the only way to get through the field is by breaking it down entirely.

  The fields are also usually designed to deflect objects rather than absorb, something the game actually lacks, since this would be a percentage of damage reduction that is not in the game.

[SageThe13th]

  Have any of you bothered to look into the laws of physics as they exist in actual outer space? Much of the assumptions this argument is based upon are only valid within an earth like atmosphere, with the forces we live through daily.

 

  Take away the Earth physics, and you get something quite different than most people would expect. The truth of the matter is that if you put enough maneuvering thrusters on a Ship the Size of the Sun and have the power supply and all the requirements to make it functional it can be made to maneuver like a ship the size of a human. That said it would of course be an incredible feet of engineering, and anyone inside that sun sized vessel when it chose to pull a 180 degree maneuver would be exposed to some fatal G forces without some kind of inertial dampening system.

 

  My point is, The game actually does the simulation aspect Very Well. The fault comes in with the players who rather than accepting the weaknesses of the larger vessels chose to pour endless resources and mental energies into conquering those weaknesses.

    The only Fault i can find with the simulation aspect of the game is that the Maneuvering Rads are Currently Capped at 2.00 Rad/s which with a smaller vessel would be easy to exceed. I suspect the designers did this to prevent players from accidentally creating a ship that was to difficult for them to control.

 

Now then someone mentioned taking away large ship Integrity Fields, Well believe it or not the Integrity Field is Actually very close to becoming a reality. A Great deal of research still remains to be done but the basics of it are already understood. If i Said it was as simple as polarizing the Hull would that be enough to explain it? probably not, Basically it involves connecting one end of a flowing charge to the hull and emitting the other end through some kind of a plasma field just outside of the hull which forms a repelling barrier against anything that carries a positive or negative charge, which basically means everything. Incase your thinking that the repelling force might allow something to slip through it, experiments have shown that the force it repels at is equal to the force exerted toward it, meaning the only way to get through the field is by breaking it down entirely.

  The fields are also usually designed to deflect objects rather than absorb, something the game actually lacks, since this would be a percentage of damage reduction that is not in the game.

 

Here's a fun game.  Look up what the fastest naval warships are or even the fastest aircraft.  Here's a hint:  They aren't the smallest ones.

[Weylin]

I don't know, I think if an aircraft carrier tried to pull the maneuvers of the jets that it launches, it would probably snap in two and kill everyone who wasn't within a few meters of its center of gravity.

 

Can we just assume that strong inertial dampening is only practical on smaller ships for the sake of this sheer rediculousness of 5km long battleships pulling a quick U turn because they have the thruster strength of 20 nuclear fucking warheads per second?

[SageThe13th]

I don't know, I think if an aircraft carrier tried to pull the maneuvers of the jets that it launches, it would probably snap in two and kill everyone who wasn't within a few meters of its center of gravity.

 

Can we just assume that strong inertial dampening is only practical on smaller ships for the sake of this sheer rediculousness of 5km long battleships pulling a quick U turn because they have the thruster strength of 20 nuclear fucking warheads per second?

 

And there's another trap people fall into.  Trying to compare aircraft to surface ships and thinking that means something.  It's a total apples to oranges comparison.

[Blaine]

If a large ship cannot outright defeat 10 smaller ships of the same total volume, then the balance is invalid. Bigger ships are supposed to be built specifically to defeat smaller ships. If it doesn't work that way, then there's no logic behind building them in the first place.

 

Small ships already has some benefits, like 2 free weapon slots, faster warp-drive recharge and lower profile against less accurate weapon types.

 

You must be new to space sims if you believe that bigger = better is the end-all, be-all of ship role design.

 

In EVE (using it as a convenient example), most types of battleships have serious trouble taking on frigates, which are the smallest player-operated ship class in the game. Destroyers specialize in killing frigates: they're somewhat larger and heavier than frigates, and are designed to fit a lot of small turrets that can easily track and hit frigates, among a few other technical factors.

 

Battleships on the other hand can be destroyed by a couple of frigates swooping in to inhibit its engines and jam its warp drive while their buddies flying a couple of battlecruisers with long-range weaponry pummel it from afar.

 

It's more complicated than that, but that's the gist of things.

 

This sort of rock-paper-scissors-style role balance may not be feasible for Avorion, but I assure you it's superior to and much more interesting than bigger = better. Bigger = better is easy, simple, and boring. That doesn't mean a game without complex ship roles is bad, but it does means it's missing the additional interest to be gained from nuanced ship roles.

[SageThe13th]

You must be new to space sims if you believe that bigger = better is the end-all, be-all of ship role design.

 

In EVE (using it as a convenient example), most types of battleships have serious trouble taking on frigates, which are the smallest player-operated ship class in the game. Destroyers specialize in killing frigates: they're somewhat larger and heavier than frigates, and are designed to fit a lot of small turrets that can easily track and hit frigates, among a few other technical factors.

 

Battleships on the other hand can be destroyed by a couple of frigates swooping in to inhibit its engines and jam its warp drive while their buddies flying a couple of battlecruisers with long-range weaponry pummel it from afar.

 

It's more complicated than that, but that's the gist of things.

 

This sort of rock-paper-scissors-style role balance may not be feasible for Avorion, but I assure you it's superior to and much more interesting than bigger = better. Bigger = better is easy, simple, and boring. That doesn't mean a game without complex ship roles is bad, but it does means it's missing the additional interest to be gained from nuanced ship roles.

 

Your example makes no sense.  You say frigates can beat a battleship.  But, they need battlecruisers to do it?  It doesn't sound like these two forces are on equal footing at all.  Also, Avorion is a building game.  If fast tracking turrets are what's required to kill smaller ships and in a free building game there's nothing stopping me from putting those same turrets on my battleship.  Why would I need a destroyer?

[Weylin]

In that case it's more a matter of composition than size, I guess?

 

If you go with numerous fast-tracking turrets and high mobility on a large ship, then you'll get utterly crushed by a heavily armored ship with weaponry optimized for hitting something of your size and handling.

 

Thrusters have 1/8th the strength of basic hull, and armor is something like 3x stronger than hull, so you'd be hopelessly fragile against such a ship in any kind of direct confrontation.

[Tsunamik]

Yeah, eve sacrified lot of sensible things for game balance... understandable for game, but it then gives these stupid ideas to many players.

 

Bigger ship = more engines, more crew, more weapons, more armor, more shield, in more complex package, as you don´t really need as much parts just for structural integrity, as you would need for 10 smaller ships with 1/10 of its mass.

 

What is this nonsense about outranging anybody? If you can mount long range weapons on smaller ship = you can mount them on bigger ship. And probably in better enlarged version with more ammo/generators, so they will be even better.

If you can mount small, fast weapons on small ship... What kind of idiot wouldn´t place 20times more of these weapons on their capital ship?  It is usually called a point defense, and there is no way any designer would create massive hulking battleship, pride of their nation... and leave it vulnerable to small attack craft and torpedoes. 

Even today, Aegis equipped cruisers and destroyers are capable of shooting down incoming missiles , few hundred years in future, this will be common practice, especially when weapons firing at speed of light (lasers and such) will get much more common.

 

Basically only two things limits the use of huge ships - at certain point, you will need to add more "blank mass" just to keep the structural integrity of the ship. At this point, adding more mass starts to have serious diminishing returns. This is already present in game, as at certain points, when you for example double the amount of your engines, you will get only like 10% thrust upgrade. This depends on quality of material, especially its mass vs its strength.

Second thing, is tactical availability. It sure might be great to have 10 huge battleships - but then you can be only on 10 places at once. And on 8 of these places, your battleship will have to fight only something like small frigates, which is waste of everything. Something along the lines of heavy cruiser or two would make much more sense... Thats the main reasoning for smaller craft in space.

 

Generally, battleship is the only ship, that is designed to go toe-to-toe with another ship and comparable foes.  Frigates, corvettes and destroyers are usually scouting-patrolling-fleet escorting ships as they are too small for individual missions.

Cruisers and heavy cruisers are the main class for long unsupported missions, usually convoy escorts and long range patrols, or defense screening of fleets. Thing about heavy cruisers is, that they can be as big as battleships, but they sacrifice ammo/armor/weapons for more speed and more supply for longer solo missions.

Battlecruisers are usually ships just big enough, so that no cruiser can match them in firepower - and they are designed exactly as that, to counter cruisers when attacking convoys, and killing all smaller ships in fleet battles, so battleships can deal with other battleships only.

 

It would be very hard to break this class system, as it is battle proven, tested and built on good foundations, and there is very small reasons why this wouldn´t work in space. On earth it got broken by aircraft carriers, but there is really no such thing as effective aircraft carrier in space, as there is no reason why battleship couldn´t be as fast or faster than any small attack craft.

 

If you want to know how real space battles would look in future, I think that honoverse series of books would be the best example of future warfare - while star wars and eve are probably the worst by far