Big vs Small ship balance

[Gatt]

Deleted

[SageThe13th]

Forget the ECM sorry i mentioned it. The point was more along the lines of the person who suggested the cloaking mechanic, unless small ships are given some kind of advantage, whether it be speed, maneuverability, weapon avoidance or something that only a small ship can utilize then they are basically just neutered large ships and will never last in a fight. It's why our battleships don't even break a sweat when 20 alien ships and pirates warp in because the are to small and their firepower to low to do any damage. If we are not allowed to speculate beyond what's in the game how would you suggest we balance small and large ship battles.

 

You can bring it up.  But, the discussion about ECM started to turn into it's own thing separate from the actual discussion topic.  Cloaking is also a planned feature and ECM is not.  I'm fine having a long talk about ECM in the right place for it.

 

Also, don't take NPC ships as any indication of things.  I fought every boss in the game, except the pirate one, with a ship that was smaller.  Does that mean little ships always beat big ships?  No.  It means the AI was designed to lose.

[DoorsMonster]

Hey! I have a solution to big vs small problem!

 

There's a game on steam which name I'm not going to type (because it would be rude, or is not allowed) but is of space/strategy genre. It has found a nice balance on sizes and each type of ship has a role:

• Battleship: It's main role is to destroy enemy stations and other battleships, these tough guys are expected to run like little girls against swarms of corvettes
  
• Carrier/Cruiser: Support in destroying stations stations, counter other carrier/cruiser, counter destroyers, point defense against fighters/corvettes. These guys are like battleship bodyguards
  
• Destroyer: Counter smaller ships, part of main offense against other fleets, like corvettes
  
• Corvette/Frigate: Main offense. Almost no armor, but focused on speed and shields. They hunt battleships
  

 

How do these roles are possible? Accuracy. Big ship turrets have more power than their small counterparts, but have really bad accuracy, so they perfect to take down those enormous stationary targets stations are. Small ship turrets have a buff on accuracy.

 

What do I suggest on Avorion? Actually, I don't suggest to modify the actual turret accuracy, what I suggest is to make turrets firepower related to ship's volume, and most importantly adjust turret reticle movement velocity A turret in a bigger ship should have slower movement because it's bigger and heavier. A slower turret would make smaller ships hard to hit, which would make fighters really feasible. This also wouldn't hit experienced players who deserve the right of being able to kill smaller ships if they have enough experience with timing.

 

That's why I think that adjusting turrets reticle movement would balance things with ship sizes.

[LordMaddog]

Hey! I have a solution to big vs small problem!

 

There's a game on steam which name I'm not going to type (because it would be rude, or is not allowed) but is of space/strategy genre. It has found a nice balance on sizes and each type of ship has a role:

• Battleship: It's main role is to destroy enemy stations and other battleships, these tough guys are expected to run like little girls against swarms of corvettes
  
• Carrier/Cruiser: Support in destroying stations stations, counter other carrier/cruiser, counter destroyers, point defense against fighters/corvettes. These guys are like battleship bodyguards
  
• Destroyer: Counter smaller ships, part of main offense against other fleets, like corvettes
  
• Corvette/Frigate: Main offense. Almost no armor, but focused on speed and shields. They hunt battleships
  

 

How do these roles are possible? Accuracy. Big ship turrets have more power than their small counterparts, but have really bad accuracy, so they perfect to take down those enormous stationary targets stations are. Small ship turrets have a buff on accuracy.

 

What do I suggest on Avorion? Actually, I don't suggest to modify the actual turret accuracy, what I suggest is to make turrets firepower related to ship's volume, and most importantly adjust turret reticle movement velocity A turret in a bigger ship should have slower movement because it's bigger and heavier. A slower turret would make smaller ships hard to hit, which would make fighters really feasible. This also wouldn't hit experienced players who deserve the right of being able to kill smaller ships if they have enough experience with timing.

 

That's why I think that adjusting turrets reticle movement would balance things with ship sizes.

 

Agree!

 

In fact its exactly what I suggested in another post

 

 

5: Weapons

New blocks added one for each weapon type.

Plus a new weapon type called torpedo, which will move very slowly but pack a heavy punch. (Bombers anyone?)

These blocks would work off of this principle.

The width and height of the block will determine its energy efficiency and max aim angle.

IE: a block of 0.05 scale can only shoot a 25° arc in front of it. While a block of 0.1 might be able to shoot at a 75° arc.

However the larger the block the slower the aiming speed. So a block of 0.5 might be able to shoot at an almost 360° angle and have excellent energy efficiency but it will take forever for it to turn and track its target. For missiles on the other hand the larger the slower they move.

The length of the block will determine its range and accuracy. In case of missiles their lock on maneuverability. There is no drawbacks to this stat, however the larger the weapon the more gunners and mechanics it’s going to require.

Once placed in the build mode a new UI option becomes available. In this option you can adjust its fire rate and damage. The higher the DPS the more power draw.

Yes with this method one could theoretically make a weapon that uses all their energy in one shot but this would be quite foolhardy. The players will undoubtedly find a good balance between power usage and damage according to their own preferences.

These new weapon blocks would not all be available when the player first starts they would have to search throughout the world to buy their blueprints. One for each type of resource and each resource would have a different effect for each type of weapon.

Turrets:

All turrets would now be independent firing. The player can also scale them increase or decreasing there DPS and power draw. Turrets as a whole should also never cost more than one gunner especially as they get more advanced.

As they scale in size though just like the weapon blocks there turning speed and aiming speed significantly decreases thus making them effective against larger slower targets and quite ineffective against fast agile ones.

There should also be no arbitrary limit placed on them other than the need of gunners and energy. I would like to see the plus more turrets module completely removed from the game along with the plus energy generated modules or they will be all the player will ever use.

 

 

[Tsunamik]

What exactly should prevent me from adding small weapons on my battleship so I can tear small ships them to space dust though? Because thats what I would do... :D

[LordMaddog]

What exactly should prevent me from adding small weapons on my battleship so I can tear small ships them to space dust though? Because thats what I would do... :D

 

The small weapons would have around the same damage a small ship can do. Unless you bumped a lot of energy into one very inefficiently increasing its damage by 30-40% however a small ship can kinda do the same. So in essences your small weapons are like another fighter attacking another fighter.

 

This would not be quite as good as a fighter attacking a fighter tho because he/she could still fly out of rang and do bombing runs with torpedoes you cant doge.

[Tsunamik]

I think we are playing different game... :D First there is talk about scalable weapons, where did those "torpedoes" came from lol...  Well if there will be torpedoes, i want anti-fighter defense rockets!

[LordMaddog]

I think we are playing different game... :D First there is talk about scalable weapons, where did those "torpedoes" came from lol...  Well if there will be torpedoes, i want anti-fighter defense rockets!

 

 

 

New blocks added one for each weapon type.

Plus a new weapon type called torpedo, which will move very slowly but pack a heavy punch. (Bombers anyone?)

 

 

:)

[Tsunamik]

hah, ok, my bad :D

[Weylin]

Oh, I only mentioned torpedoes and fixed death beams as a possible addition to the game, as "solutions" to a "problem"

 

I see people often bringing up the point of "Why wouldn't I just use a combination of heavy AND light weaponry so I can deal with everything?" This is a perfectly valid way to set a ship up, especially one that is intended to be the centerpiece of your fleet, your flagship, or as something singular and tidy you can dispatch into any situation where you outmatch the enemy.

 

The shortcoming would be in efficiency. Ideally, the specialist who focus entirely on one design philosophy, should be especially optimized for that role.

A ship with several low caliber weapons all around it could have modules that increase accuracy and velocity.

A ship with a few very large turrets in a few key locations, or a central main weapon, could have modules that trade weapon velocity, accuracy, and tracking speeds, for sheer destructive power and range.

[Tsunamik]

true, i agree with that :)  To be perfectly honest, when you build huge fcking battleship, you don´t build that to destroy few squadrons of corvettes or something like that... Such a ships will be designed to fight it in fleets against enemies of similar power, e.g. sieging huge stations or dealing with main forces of your enemies. And for that, MOST of its power and arnament would be something like enormous, half-ship-sized railgun placement capable of firing at three times the range of other weapons - because thats what would be most effective in combat of such ships.

As such, this huge ship will certainly have some self defense capabilities, but its main arnament and focus will be against its comparable counterparts, while main line of defense of such ship would be its fleet escort, something like flak frigates and fighter squadrons. Lets face it, you wouldn´t ever leave such a huge investment unprotected and give enemy even the slightest chance to destroy it in non-favorable fight.

The biggest advantage of your main defense SEPARATED from the body you are trying to protect, is that you can move your defense forward, effectively getting your main ship out of the reach of smaller craft. Imagine we have small, fast lasers for antifighter defense - basically same weapons that enemy fighters have. They have 10km range for example. Now when those fighters attack you, they start shooting from 10km range and before you can thin them out, our battleship would have taken some serious damage, its main arnament could be incapacitated or bridge destroyed... It would eventually win, but it would be strategical lose, as your main fleet firepower would be lost to units, which are much easily replaced.

Now the same scenario, but most of your 10km lasers are mounted on 20 corvettes, each of them just slightly bigger than enemy fighters. When they attack, you just move your corvettes to advanced position, destroying enemy fighters before they can even reach fire range to attack main battleship. Some corvettes will be destroyed, but not much, because fighters have only two options - deal with corvettes first, and waste time, ammo, fuel and numbers in fight, which is not even their goal, or try to run straight to battleship, which will be almost suicidal, as there is basically no hope to survive, even if they manage to do few attack runs...

 

Best example is seen in real life, aircraft carriers don´t move alone, and while they certainly have selfdefense capabilities, they mainly depend on their fleet of resupply ships, anti-submarine escorts, anti-AA aegis equiped destroyers, with their own fighters possible covering outer area of its sphere of influence.

[oreganor]

ATM... Combat effectiveness between players is balanced IMO because of the following factors:

 

- 2 free turrets per ship plus system slot scaling favors smaller ships.

 

- Number of turrets is dominated by the above scaling factor ATM as Energy Generation and Crew Space requirements are smaller in comparisson.

 

- Instant/Seeking weapons range (Railgun, Lasers, Launchers) is shorter than proyectile weapons (Cannons or "Speeded-up" Launchers).

 

- Maneuverability worsens gradually the bigger the ships are.

 

- Shield Damage & Hull Damage are, ATM, linear systems regarding different sources.

 

 

This means small agile kiters operating outside "deadly range" (ie instant/seeking wepons range) are the best source of DPS per unit of resources spent... IF the faction/group/guild can field as much human pilots as required.

 

 

Meanwhile in PvE, current AI do not know how to keep its range which means the outcome of an engagement were deadly weapons are used (Instant/Seeking) is a matter of DPS vs TTD...

 

...Due to how Hull HP & Shield HP scales with the ammount of system slots, combined with the gradual degradation on DPS a "cloud" of small ships suffers when facing a single big enemy... Bias is on the Big Ships side, so far.

 

 

So far looks ok to me... As in PvP, the side with more pilots have the upper hand while on PvE it's not reallistic to expect at this moment in Development a sophisticated combat AI, there are more pressing uses for those CPU cycles regarding Galaxy Simmulation.

[LordMaddog]

ATM... Combat effectiveness between players is balanced IMO because of the following factors:

 

- 2 free turrets per ship plus system slot scaling favors smaller ships.

 

- Number of turrets is dominated by the above scaling factor ATM as Energy Generation and Crew Space requirements are smaller in comparisson.

 

- Instant/Seeking weapons range (Railgun, Lasers, Launchers) is shorter than proyectile weapons (Cannons or "Speeded-up" Launchers).

 

- Maneuverability worsens gradually the bigger the ships are.

 

- Shield Damage & Hull Damage are, ATM, linear systems regarding different sources.

 

 

This means small agile kiters operating outside "deadly range" (ie instant/seeking wepons range) are the best source of DPS per unit of resources spent... IF the faction/group/guild can field as much human pilots as required.

 

 

Meanwhile in PvE, current AI do not know how to keep its range which means the outcome of an engagement were deadly weapons are used (Instant/Seeking) is a matter of DPS vs TTD...

 

...Due to how Hull HP & Shield HP scales with the ammount of system slots, combined with the gradual degradation on DPS a "cloud" of small ships suffers when facing a single big enemy... Bias is on the Big Ships side, so far.

 

 

So far looks ok to me... As in PvP, the side with more pilots have the upper hand while on PvE it's not reallistic to expect at this moment in Development a sophisticated combat AI, there are more pressing uses for those CPU cycles regarding Galaxy Simmulation.

 

your argument is flawed because you assume larger ships have worse Maneuverability. My main design 15 slot ship has 1 in ever stat meaning I can spin on the dime and blast you with all 60 weapons at 7k+ range. Any ship that's not 15slot and bigger dies in an instant even teeny tiny npc fighters.

[cy414]

your argument is flawed because you assume larger ships have worse Maneuverability. My main design 15 slot ship has 1 in ever stat meaning I can spin on the dime and blast you with all 60 weapons at 7k+ range. Any ship that's not 15slot and bigger dies in an instant even teeny tiny npc fighters.

 

square-cube rule.

every time you double the size of a ship you tripple the mass.

to keep agility, you need to triple thrust each time you double size, which also means more  space used for generators and crew.

 

you will have made compromises in your design to keep that agility.

[Guswut]

square-cube rule.

every time you double the size of a ship you tripple the mass.

to keep agility, you need to triple thrust each time you double size, which also means more  space used for generators and crew.

 

you will have made compromises in your design to keep that agility.

 

Just as a quick note: Every time you "double the size" (make it twice as long, tall, and thick), you actually octuple (by eight) your mass, not by three/tripling.

 

That's because you are "doubling" the ship in each direction (all three of them), and each time it doubles the mass of the ship. So three doubling-s equals an octupling.

 

And just to be sure that Avorion followed the proper laws of physics, I popped in and made sure that doubling a ship (in this case a simple starting block) would octuple, and it does (see below for my notes):

 

Size	Mass	Delta
2³	0.41	N/a
4³	3.26	7.95121_
8³	26.11	8.00920...

 

Both delta values (mass divided by previous mass) are within the assumed rounding-error range of eight that I'd say it is safe to safe Avorion follows the square-cube law.

 

 

 

[Bimdurian]

square-cube rule.

every time you double the size of a ship you tripple the mass.

to keep agility, you need to triple thrust each time you double size, which also means more  space used for generators and crew.

 

you will have made compromises in your design to keep that agility.

 

Just as a quick note: Every time you "double the size" (make it twice as long, tall, and thick), you actually octuple (by eight) your mass, not by three/tripling.

 

That's because you are "doubling" the ship in each direction (all three of them), and each time it doubles the mass of the ship. So three doubling-s equals an octupling.

 

And just to be sure that Avorion followed the proper laws of physics, I popped in and made sure that doubling a ship (in this case a simple starting block) would octuple, and it does (see below for my notes):

 

Size	Mass	Delta
2³	0.41	N/a
4³	3.26	7.95121_
8³	26.11	8.00920...

 

Both delta values (mass divided by previous mass) are within the assumed rounding-error range of eight that I'd say it is safe to safe Avorion follows the square-cube law.

 

 

What?

When you have a cube and want to bobble it size you simply remove it's armour on 3 of it's 6 sides, copy the existing cube and paste it in 7 times to form a new cube. To exactly calculate the loss of mass due to removal of armour is impossible but you still have to do it to be accurate because it's a lot.  Secondly it's an simple 700% increase of volume, with some of it's mass still intact.  But removing those 3 sides of armour before copy and pasting it in to a new cube removes a huge amount of armour you don't need in the middle of a cube.

 

Also worth noticing that overtime you double your mass you need to more then double your thrust to get the same result, in real lift that is.  So if the game where to use more realistic approach here this huge cubes would not be a rpoblem in the first place.

[Guswut]

What?

When you have a cube and want to bobble it size you simply remove it's armour on 3 of it's 6 sides, copy the existing cube and paste it in 7 times to form a new cube. To exactly calculate the loss of mass due to removal of armour is impossible but you still have to do it to be accurate because it's a lot.  Secondly it's an simple 700% increase of volume, with some of it's mass still intact.  But removing those 3 sides of armour before copy and pasting it in to a new cube removes a huge amount of armour you don't need in the middle of a cube.

 

If your point was that it isn't an exact doubling-of-size-octupling-of-mass because of how you handle armor I certainly understand that is a variable to account for (and it certainly isn't possible, as in your spherical-cow example you'd still be multiplying the armor in two dimensions, but I'd assume you would keep it at the same thickness so the armor would only be quadrupled, not octupled) but not one that I accounted for as normally when people "double" their ship they just copy it and paste it at twice the scale (thus also "doubling" your armor).

 

In the case of my tests I had no armor (just the standard hull block that you start out with as your root part) as I was just verifying that Avorion properly dealt with mass (which it does, of course).

 

If your point was something else entirely, I did not understand your remark, sorry!

 

Also worth noticing that overtime you double your mass you need to more then double your thrust to get the same result, in real lift that is.  So if the game where to use more realistic approach here this huge cubes would not be a rpoblem in the first place.

 

That certainly doesn't make sense, so I may be misreading your statement. But if you double your mass (not the size, volume, deliciousness, or any other such thing. Mass) then you should need to double your thrust (engines, as well as directional thrusters/gyroscopes/etc) to retain the same movement profile. Twice the mass means twice the energy to move it at the same speed. If we had to account for other variables such as drag, fuel, or whatnot, then your point would make sense.

 

I did a verification as follows:

 

 

 

Size	Mass	Thrust	Max V.
2³	0.48	504.2	259
4³	3.81	504.2	526
8³	30.46	504.2	831

 

 

This was done with a cube of crew quarters and a cube of engine of equal size (the size of each stated under the "Size" column), with exactly the amount of crew as required. Each step I added seven more cubes of the same size for each part ("doubling" the ship's size), and made sure I had enough crew to operate the ship effectively.

 

As I stated in my last table, and thus I did not duplicate here, the ratio between the current and previous mass is pretty much eight (as it should be). The thrust, as noted, stayed the same because I'm producing exactly the same amount of thrust per mass.

 

Interestingly the top speed increased, which is why I decided to record it. Of course, there is no actual "top speed" when you deal with a situation where you have an engine that can run constantly without changing the mass of your ship (especially so in that it doesn't require a fuel source). I'd assume the top speed may have more to do with the size of the engine (or amount of engine mass in total for the ship) but that's another duck for another pond.

 

And as stated above, this isn't accounting for the possibility of doubling a ship but then adjusting the armor to retain the same thickness (while still increasing the other two dimensions). Doing so isn't exactly "doubling", although if you want I can run a quick idealistic test similar to the last two.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cy414]

well, shit.

seems i misunderstood something about square-cube rule.

after googling again, seems its specific to surface vs volume.

[Guswut]

well, shit.

seems i misunderstood something about square-cube rule.

after googling again, seems its specific to surface vs volume.

 

No worries, glad to be able to make sure things get sorted!

[oreganor]

your argument is flawed because you assume larger ships have worse Maneuverability. My main design 15 slot ship has 1 in ever stat meaning I can spin on the dime and blast you with all 60 weapons at 7k+ range.

 

Unless you abuse bugged factories you don't have instant weapons that can outrange a cannon... The problem of ANY 15 slot ships is the size that presents as target...

 

...Do the following excersise:

 

- Check the ammount of resources that monstrosity costs.

 

- Get a 3 slot ship of the same materials. Divide the resources of your 15 slot machine with the cost of a 3 slot to know how many ships your opposing fleet can build.

 

- As both can mount equal weaponry... Now use cannons (the 2nd longest range weapon on the game) on both.

 

- Now compare how easily your Monstrosity can be hit and compare to the next to nothing chances to hit any small ship at long range with cannons.

 

 

On a server were players actually have to gather those resources... Instead of creative were resources are irrelevant...

 

...Who do you think will win a war?

 

 

The relative scale betwen the "Monstrosity" and the smaller ship fleet that can kill it is just controlled by how many players the "small scale" fleet can field.

 

And maneuverability is not rotation alone... Strafing also... I would like to see the inertia of that "Monstrosity" compared to the 3 slot ships.

 

That's why I distinguished PvE from PvP... On a PvP server environment... Balance is ok, even if a player is able to hoard the ammount of resources to build a "Monstrosity" ... Others can take it down with a fraction of the same resources.

[Ohm is Futile]

your argument is flawed because you assume larger ships have worse Maneuverability. My main design 15 slot ship has 1 in ever stat meaning I can spin on the dime and blast you with all 60 weapons at 7k+ range.

 

Unless you abuse bugged factories you don't have instant weapons that can outrange a cannon... The problem of ANY 15 slot ships is the size that presents as target...

 

...Do the following excersise:

 

- Check the ammount of resources that monstrosity costs.

 

- Get a 3 slot ship of the same materials. Divide the resources of your 15 slot machine with the cost of a 3 slot to know how many ships your opposing fleet can build.

 

- As both can mount equal weaponry... Now use cannons (the 2nd longest range weapon on the game) on both.

 

- Now compare how easily your Monstrosity can be hit and compare to the next to nothing chances to hit any small ship at long range with cannons.

 

 

On a server were players actually have to gather those resources... Instead of creative were resources are irrelevant...

 

...Who do you think will win a war?

 

 

The relative scale betwen the "Monstrosity" and the smaller ship fleet that can kill it is just controlled by how many players the "small scale" fleet can field.

 

And maneuverability is not rotation alone... Strafing also... I would like to see the inertia of that "Monstrosity" compared to the 3 slot ships.

 

That's why I distinguished PvE from PvP... On a PvP server environment... Balance is ok, even if a player is able to hoard the ammount of resources to build a "Monstrosity" ... Others can take it down with a fraction of the same resources.

You've got this "equation" wrong. First, a 15 slot ship requires far, far more volume than 15 1-slot ships added together, or even far more than 5 3-slot ships and still more than 3 5-slot ships as the requirements for each additional slot is not linear but exponential.

 

This means that if you split the resources of a 15-slot ship into multiple smaller ships, you can easily end up with way, way more slots and, as such, way more weapons.

 

While this does sound like it would favour making a fleet of smaller ships, it's not really the case, because your 15-slot ship is going to be alive and kicking for a very long time compared to each individual smaller ships.

 

Bottom line is smaller ships means more DPS, but you lose DPS as the battle goes on because ships die. One large ship means less DPS, but until that ship pops, you have full DPS throughout the battle.

 

EDIT: nevermind the fact that you need more players to control the ships. If you factor in the number of players, then there's a good chance that 15 monstrosities are better than 15 smaller ships.

 

Also, maneuverability *is* mostly rotation. We have a newtonian-ish flight system, there's nothing stopping you from only having good forwards thrust, accelerating, turning your ship sideways and then just holding the strafe key to prevent the auto-brakes from firing. Then you can abuse rotation once more to turn your monstrosity and bring all its guns to bear while being very much on the move.

[LordMaddog]

your argument is flawed because you assume larger ships have worse Maneuverability. My main design 15 slot ship has 1 in ever stat meaning I can spin on the dime and blast you with all 60 weapons at 7k+ range.

 

Unless you abuse bugged factories you don't have instant weapons that can outrange a cannon... The problem of ANY 15 slot ships is the size that presents as target...

 

...Do the following excersise:

 

- Check the ammount of resources that monstrosity costs.

 

- Get a 3 slot ship of the same materials. Divide the resources of your 15 slot machine with the cost of a 3 slot to know how many ships your opposing fleet can build.

 

- As both can mount equal weaponry... Now use cannons (the 2nd longest range weapon on the game) on both.

 

- Now compare how easily your Monstrosity can be hit and compare to the next to nothing chances to hit any small ship at long range with cannons.

 

 

On a server were players actually have to gather those resources... Instead of creative were resources are irrelevant...

 

...Who do you think will win a war?

 

 

The relative scale betwen the "Monstrosity" and the smaller ship fleet that can kill it is just controlled by how many players the "small scale" fleet can field.

 

And maneuverability is not rotation alone... Strafing also... I would like to see the inertia of that "Monstrosity" compared to the 3 slot ships.

 

That's why I distinguished PvE from PvP... On a PvP server environment... Balance is ok, even if a player is able to hoard the ammount of resources to build a "Monstrosity" ... Others can take it down with a fraction of the same resources.

 

I can one shot any ship under 15 slot man you could throw all you want against it but you loos 500x more resources while my  Ships would barely be scratched.

 

As for the jab about creative mode the multiplayer server I play on I have over 15mill avorion and 20mill Xanion with 4 capital class ships already made. And no there is no cheats of any sort on the server. Just jump into a salvage sector and release the horde and go afk. come back an hour latter to 5-8mill of every resource in the sector.

[Brigadon]

shields being the real factor of ship size.

 

See, here's the thing... That 15 slot monstrosity, if it were mounting the same sorts of weapons as (approximately?) 35 5 slot ships, would probably never do any real damage... because 5 slot ships can mount enough shielding to easily play 'pop goes the weasel' with thrusting.

 

But that 15 slot ship has so MUCH shielding that all of the 5 slot ships, combined, will probably never have the combined strength to overcome it's regeneration.

 

 

I think it would be an interesting test... a fleet of players/NPC's with a combined total of one monster ship. I get the weirdest feeling that the monster ship would actually lose.

[oreganor]

Maybe I didn't explain it correctly...

 

Ohm is Futile wrote:

You've got this "equation" wrong. First, a 15 slot ship requires far, far more volume than 15 1-slot ships added together, or even far more than 5 3-slot ships and still more than 3 5-slot ships as the requirements for each additional slot is not linear but exponential.

 

This means that if you split the resources of a 15-slot ship into multiple smaller ships, you can easily end up with way, way more slots and, as such, way more weapons.

 

OFC that the same ammount of players per side should win the ones with bigger ships...

 

...But that's not what I'm talking about.

 

I'm talking of what to do when the Bully of the server comes to your door with a gigantic ship simply because he WAS FIRST on the server.

 

That's why it's balanced now... Because with enough players in far smaller ships with a fraction of the resources you take down that big ship...

 

...A PvP game that doesn't work as this, is dead before even starting... Some tittles make this mistake, and they kill the initial flux of players in no time.

 

I get the feeling that creative players want to mimic the big powerful multiturret capital ships they have seen on their prefered Scifi... Meanwhile the problem comes when PvP griefers get this same net operative advantage that can make life misserable to ENTIRE GROUPS of players.

 

LordMaddog wrote:

can one shot any ship under 15 slot man you could throw all you want against it but you loos 500x more resources while my  Ships would barely be scratched.

 

With cannons? I highly doubt it.

 

Brigadon wrote:

But that 15 slot ship has so MUCH shielding that all of the 5 slot ships, combined, will probably never have the combined strength to overcome it's regeneration.

 

Erm... And how that changes with the size of the ship? What matters is the DPS applied... And as ATM, there is no non-linear protection mechanism that operate based on different damage sources, doesn't matter if the X turrets required to beat Y regen rate... Are on a single ship or split between 10... And you have seen, if you have the players, it's far cheaper to field those X turrets in multiple smaller ships than on a single big one.

 

 

Ohm is Futile wrote:

Also, maneuverability *is* mostly rotation. We have a newtonian-ish flight system, there's nothing stopping you from only having good forwards thrust, accelerating, turning your ship sideways and then just holding the strafe key to prevent the auto-brakes from firing.

 

Erm... The fact that WHILE rotating you are denying your own shooting capabilities and the fact that your "dodge technique" will just make yourself a target following a stable trayectory? Try that on the current game... Even AI shooting cannons with its basic predictive behaviour (Target Lead = Target Relative Speed * Bullet Travel Time) will hit you all the time. In fact, your tactic HEAVILY favors the multiple ships against a single Big one... Because the current target can do that (Forfeiting his firepower) while the rest keep attacking the Big one.

 

Dodging fire is about moving your smaller axis back and forth so you become unpredictable... Can be done by increasing YOUR ACCELERATION and reducing your "dodge axis"... The Bigger the ship the harder this become (in fact this simple factor ALSO helps fighting the "cube syndrome")... And it's not accidental... That's why there are instant weapons on the game that deny this fact... And that's why SO FAR they have less range than the proyectiles... The Dev seems to be perfectly aware of this, while at the same time provides the tool for ppl to "customize" their experience between Big vs Small on their servers... They just need to "remove" this key factors.

 

 

EDIT: Sorry for the multiquoting... I'm used to forums that also link the user also on partial quotes, I added them manually... Hope it gets clearer this way.

[Brigadon]

right, do we want to field-test this someplace?

 

Obviously, we would have to use NPC Pilots for the smaller ships, but on a creative server we should be able to get a useful method of having tonnage vs equal tonnage with all the wonderful added perks per-ship such as shield enhancers, power enhancers, and weapon boosts

 

To be realistic, though, it would have to be 15 slot monster vs what... 12 slotters? any smaller than that and it might be too big for a server. Because mass-wise it would be what... 8? with no running off and regenerating?

Player-created ships or procedural monsters?