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The role of Vessels smaller than Dreads... |
Danek Ma`arna C`arns
Fleet Admiral
Joined: March 26, 2004
Posts: 102
From: Atlanta
|  Posted: 2009-03-19 09:45
In three weeks of asking, I still have not been given a proper, non completely refutable answer.
The concept of smaller vessels harrassing larger vessels is ludacrist. In the case of stations, we cannot overcome their repairs. In the case of Dreads, we run out of energy or ammo long before the armor arc is depleted.
This is odd, given that the most commonly quoted answer is that smaller vessels protect the larger from other smaller vessels. The first strike is that this is unnessacary. The second is that the larger vessel is far more capable of protecting itself from the smaller vessel in the first place.
When two small vessels fight, it is a long, protracted battle of many misses and light damage, until one side breaks the engagement and runs. The cause for this is small vessel weapons are low level, giving them less damage, and less range. This means that, although a large vessel might miss a great many shots, his accuracy is not any worse than that of the small vessel. Any shots that do hit, however, do far more damage. This is further compounded by beams and assault beams, where accuracy is not a issue. While the smaller vessels must be at point blank range to use their beams, larger vessels can use their beams to do killing damage from the same distance a smaller vessel has to enter to use torpedoes.
Thus, as such, a scout is in FAR greater danger of being destroyed by a dread than being destroyed by a destroyer, the supposed picket ship to counter this threat.
There is some points of phrasing to indicate that the weapons do not have a range as much as a time to live. Therefore, the longer range, higher level weapons are in fact, moving faster. This would actually make them more accuracte.
Small vessels are NOT faster. They have the potential to move faster, sub light, but it is not, by any means, much faster than larger vessels. The speed is mostly useless. The first consideration is a lack of power to move at that speed. Given that the speed/power consuption is roughly equal at 66%, larger vessels can move at a greater percentage given they have Aux Gens. The Aux Gens and more engines gives them a larger capacitor. The result is that larger vessels can move as fast as smaller vessels while shooting. My own destroyer has to run about 12 GU/S to have any chance of regening power between shots. Cloaked, I am usually doing 4-8. I can do 12 cloaked if all my systems and my capacitor are charged. This is well within the normal movement range of cruisers and Dreads.
I can turn more tightly than a larger vessel. My JD recharges faster. My base sig is lower, so I can cloak more swiftly. However, my ship is not so agile that I can avoid fire at the same ranges that I can shoot. I can get in one more jump out of every 6 or 8 when looking for a feeling enemy. I cannot do anything to the vessel when I find it, however... and my larger friends whom can are still restricted by the same JD that the target possesses. My base sig often has very little do with the cloak time, as the environment makes a great deal more difference.
Power consumption of weapons does not increase as vessel size/weapon level increases. A cannon fired from a scout costs .3 power. A cannon fired from a cruiser costs .3 power. Disruptors move from 1.0 to 1.4 in the same range. However, the larger vessel has vastly greater power reserves, and vastly greater power production. Why does it cost the same power to fire vastly inferior weapons.
Our current role is to ride arround, planet hug wiating for the larger fish to find a meal; then we steal in as swiftly as possible, putting ourselves between the two larger vessels to use our shorter range weapons. (This puts us in the way of our own larger friends, BTW, since we have to hit the same arc.) Finally, we desperately try to mass the spacebar twice to fire as much s we can in the one damaged area before the battle is over while trying desperately to avoid the fire between the larger vessels. Should the target decide to take one of us down with him instead of running, the smaller vessel dies, often before they knew they were targeted or before they could react. Our 100>0 time is often less than internet lag.
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Fattierob
Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003
Posts: 4059
| Posted: 2009-03-19 09:55
A lot of problem of smaller ships could be fixed if they went 50~60gu/s and didn't suffer energy drain at higher speeds. Makes them more "noob friendly" as well.
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Danek Ma`arna C`arns
Fleet Admiral
Joined: March 26, 2004
Posts: 102
From: Atlanta
| Posted: 2009-03-19 10:21
A lot of it would be fixed if combat vessels had combat weapons.
I assume the concept of weapon levels was intended to combat the practice of the UGTO heavy supply being a near cruiser level combatant.
Half of the "upgrades" to noncombat vessels like engineers and supplies are based arround putting more weapons on them. This might have mattered in previous versions, but an engineer could have 12 cannon and it would nto matter if they are level 1. The weapons they have are only dangerous to a scout, and they are not very effective against the swift moving scouts.
However, the weapon levels should not affect combat ships. Since they can be destroyed so easily, they should at least be given the right to hurt their opponents. I do not feel this is out of line, since they already are affected by severe power restrictions.
As such, I believe the combat class frigates, destroyers, cruisers ,a nd Dreads should have level 8, if not 10 weaponry. The levels 1-6 should be reserved for support vessels and their upgrades... while the Worker might be level 1, the Advanced Worker might be 2 or 3, and the Ultimate Worker might be 4-6.
I dislike speed as the answer, as I believe speed makes the game break down. It seems to be designed and balanced to play arround 10-15 gu/s.
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*COMMANDERHAWK*
Chief Marshal
*Renegade Space Marines*
Joined: February 03, 2006
Posts: 260
From: Denver Colorado
| Posted: 2009-03-19 11:23
seems like you are sugesting that dessies have close to the same firepower as dreads not gona happen. learn to work with what you got everyone flying dreads didnt get them over night we all had to learn and adapt as darkspace did
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Danek Ma`arna C`arns
Fleet Admiral
Joined: March 26, 2004
Posts: 102
From: Atlanta
| Posted: 2009-03-19 11:45
2006. Somehow, I do not believe that I can simply bomb my way to a Dread any longer. Or was that when you still got Dreads at 2RA? Let me clue you in, I used to have an ICC Command Carrier. You used to get those at VA. But really, we never used them... It and the Missile Dread was just for planet hugging. We used the Assault Cruiser, and when I went to the K'Luth side, we used the Claw.
I am not asking for a Dread's total firepower. They still have stacks of weapons. I am asking for my one cannon to be the same as a dread's one cannon. No where do i ask for beams to become assault beams, for missile racks to become Mark Two. I do not ask to have 12 cannon instead of 6.
I am merely asking, as my armor is weak, as I have fewer weapons, and far less power to use those weapons, that when I do use them, that I not be loaded with foam ammunition.
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Fattierob
Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003
Posts: 4059
| Posted: 2009-03-19 14:06
Quote:
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On 2009-03-19 11:23, COMMANDERHAWK wrote:
everyone flying dreads didnt get them over night
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where you here for .480?
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2009-03-19 14:48
Quote:
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On 2009-03-19 10:21, C'arns wrote:
As such, I believe the combat class frigates, destroyers, cruisers ,a nd Dreads should have level 8, if not 10 weaponry. The levels 1-6 should be reserved for support vessels and their upgrades... while the Worker might be level 1, the Advanced Worker might be 2 or 3, and the Ultimate Worker might be 4-6. |
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Problem with this is that device level is not unique to weapons. It applies to EVERYTHING on the ship. Including armor, shields, ECM/ECCM, jumpdrives, repair drones, etc. Everything.
This is especially important when it comes to armor & shields, since one of the big problems of 1.483 was Scouts and Frigates and Destroyers with Dread- or Station-scale defenses.
Besides, the device level system was first conceived waaaay back in the runup to 1.481 by a Dev named Gideon, now departed. He had a whole balance writeup to fix the incredibly broken balance of 1.480 (and yes, it was incredibly broken, despite all our fond memories of it). In it he had TWO systems of device leveling: devices would both scale by the size and power of the ship, but they could also be upgraded to be more powerful. Unfortunately, his plans were kinda jumbled in the implementation and the two systems were combined into one: ships had a default device level, but any ship could upgrade them to max level, which was intended only for Stations.
The current system finally makes it work the way it was intended to, and I have no desire to see it revert to the brokenness, even if that's what everyone was used to.
Mind you, I agree that small ships are getting the short end of the stick here. However, what I've been arguing for ever since I started playing again is a specialist small ship that is able to attack larger ships more effectively. It's smaller and faster, so it can evade that larger ship's fire easily. And if it packs enough of a punch, it can seriously hamper that larger ship to the extent that another larger ship can get a decisive advantage. While it won't be strong enough to kill the big ship on its own, a pack of these would be able to take out a Dread with minimal inconvenience.
However, they would also be vulnerable to other smaller ships, as their armament would be geared to damaging big, slow targets. Thus you get the aforementioned escorts.
Seriously, guys, I've been saying this over and over again for MONTHS.
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Shigernafy
Admiral
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 5726
From: The Land of Taxation without Representation
| Posted: 2009-03-19 17:30
There is none. Lock thread.
kidding, kidding. or am I?
Anyway, I just wanted to offer a quick correction; I don't want to get involved in the greater balance discussion (at least at the moment):
There is some points of phrasing to indicate that the weapons do not have a range as much as a time to live. Therefore, the longer range, higher level weapons are in fact, moving faster. This would actually make them more accuracte.
You're right that there is no explicit range - its found by multiplying the projectile's speed and a time to live. (You could determine any of them by defining just two; we just chose to have range be the derived value) But you're wrong that they're moving faster. While not everything scales based on level - railguns have a set speed - pretty much everything else actually moves slower as it increases in level. So higher level weapons are, in fact, moving slower. The goal of this is precisely to make them less accurate against the faster-moving, smaller-cross-section lower classes.
Small vessels are NOT faster. They have the potential to move faster, sub light, but it is not, by any means, much faster than larger vessels......*snip*
That's a good point about Aux Gens and energy consumption versus speed.
Power consumption of weapons does not increase as vessel size/weapon level increases. A cannon fired from a scout costs .3 power. A cannon fired from a cruiser costs .3 power. Disruptors move from 1.0 to 1.4 in the same range......*snip*
You're right: larger ships have larger power pools. But power does scale with level. I just did a sample of a couple weapons from each faction, and all but the Core Weapons (SI, QST, IC) had scaled energy costs. The amount varied, from about 5% per level for missiles, to over 30% in some cases, but the average weapon was between 15 and 25 percent increase in energy cost per level.
I don't know how much the energy pool increases per level, though, to compare and judge whether that makes larger ships more or less efficient. Given your post, I'd assume more, but I haven't crunched the numbers.
As for your utility, I agree that its lacking, but I'm not going to advocate anything or defend it. I might venture into that later, but for now this is it.
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Danek Ma`arna C`arns
Fleet Admiral
Joined: March 26, 2004
Posts: 102
From: Atlanta
| Posted: 2009-03-19 18:39
Regardless of what it is supposed to be...
I charged my capacitor to maximum, turned off the engines and aux gens where available, and had zero regen. At full stop, I noticed the capacitor did not have a drain over time. (If it has a very slow drain over time, it would explain inconsistancies in the Destroyer Plasma Cannon and Frigate PSI Missile.)
Thus, I could fire each weapon and note how far the cap was drained after each shot while it charged. I considered fractions of less than .1 to be fairly unimportant. Thus, I repeated each test only three times. The numbers are for the complete value of one shot, some weapons drained the full value on the first tick, others drained power over time as they charged.
Format is weapon name, then frigate power drain, then destroyer, then cruiser. I have no access to dread and station weapons. For reasons unknown, I do not have the values for scouts recorded.
PSI C - .3 - .3 - .3
Plasma - .3 - .4 - .3
Shedder - .1 - .1 - .1
PSI M - .7 - .6 - .6
Shedder2 ----------- .3
PSI M2 ---------- 1.2
AM Torp - .8 - .9 - .9
Disruptor -1.1-1.2-1.4
A. Ruptor -----------7.7
AM Mine - 0 ------- .5
Note that of the pre Scale designs, only the Parasite is armed with Assault Disruptors or MkII missile bays. Only the Instars Frigate and Scarab Cruiser have Mines.
If anyone sees an error in my methodology, or has conflicting results, I welcome the post. I would like to see my error.
The destroyer capacitor is 73.6, iirc. I believe the Cruisers were 130 something, including one Aux Gen.
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Enterprise
Chief Marshal
Raven Warriors
Joined: May 19, 2002
Posts: 2576
From: Hawthorne, Nevada
| Posted: 2009-03-19 18:47
Quote:
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On 2009-03-19 11:23, COMMANDERHAWK wrote:
seems like you are sugesting that dessies have close to the same firepower as dreads not gona happen. learn to work with what you got everyone flying dreads didnt get them over night we all had to learn and adapt as darkspace did
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Its more of the suggestion that smaller vessels lack of any sort of use.
Which is fairly obvious. All smaller vessels serve to do is a test of how much you're willing to pull through until you get dreadnoughts.
It is not really many people's thoughts that dessies should have as much firepower as dreadnoughts, but merely be able to do well in their own specific role.
But its my own desire to see that all ships do well in a specific niche rather than any one class being better than everything else period. Which is what you have now.
Anything smaller than Dreads don't need to be able to take on dreads on their own. They really just should be better at fighting each other than the Dreads are. That is, cruisers are better at killing other cruisers, dessies against dessies, and etc.
There have been many things highlighted in which all point to the fact that this doesn't happen. And so, you get DreadSpace, and about 80% of the ships in Darkspace becoming redundant the second you get VA.
(It kind of makes you wonder why any of the factions bother to produce any smaller ships.)
-Ent
[ This Message was edited by: Enterprise on 2009-03-19 18:51 ]
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punk(DaFoosh!)
Cadet
Joined: July 31, 2007
Posts: 4
| Posted: 2009-03-30 17:38
.480 cruisers....thats all i remember lol i havnt played in a long time...but the cruisers had no problem holding their own against the dreads...with a good pilot of course
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punk(DaFoosh!)
Cadet
Joined: July 31, 2007
Posts: 4
| Posted: 2009-03-30 17:43
but like i said...i havnt played in forever
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Ham&Swiss
Grand Admiral
Joined: October 12, 2004
Posts: 418
From: 10$ to whoever finds me
| Posted: 2009-03-30 23:52
Before you flame or anything, listen.
Dreads are supposed to be weps platforms that have the ability to move. It's why we call them DREADNAUGHT'S...frigates are supposed to be weaker to anything above it's own hull class. I believe the ratio is 2:1. 2 scouts to 1 frigate, 2 frig's to 1 dessie and so forth. It just doesn't make sense for 2 frigates to be able to take out a dread with moderate difficulty at best. Maybe 2 crusiers, but not frigs...The role of smaller ships is to learn how to use them effectively, and for things like point defence and other fun things like that. Thats the reason they were given mines and lazers and EMW's.
The balance is good right now, if I come in my mandible, which was made for dread killing purposes mind you, and just happen to turn my attention (and incidently my weps) on a frigate/dessie that happens to be annoying me, logic dictates it should go boom....or really, REALLY close to boomage.
Do not increase anything on the smaller ships, they're fine. Continue with other aspects of the game that could use tweaking.
H&S
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Leonide
Grand Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: October 01, 2005
Posts: 1553
From: Newport News, Virginia
| Posted: 2009-03-31 03:20
Quote:
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On 2009-03-30 23:52, Ham&Swiss [R33] wrote:
Before you flame or anything, listen.
Dreads are supposed to be weps platforms that have the ability to move. It's why we call them DREADNAUGHT'S...frigates are supposed to be weaker to anything above it's own hull class. I believe the ratio is 2:1. 2 scouts to 1 frigate, 2 frig's to 1 dessie and so forth. It just doesn't make sense for 2 frigates to be able to take out a dread with moderate difficulty at best. Maybe 2 crusiers, but not frigs...The role of smaller ships is to learn how to use them effectively, and for things like point defence and other fun things like that. Thats the reason they were given mines and lazers and EMW's.
The balance is good right now, if I come in my mandible, which was made for dread killing purposes mind you, and just happen to turn my attention (and incidently my weps) on a frigate/dessie that happens to be annoying me, logic dictates it should go boom....or really, REALLY close to boomage.
Do not increase anything on the smaller ships, they're fine. Continue with other aspects of the game that could use tweaking.
H&S
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translation: i love dreadspace, don't take easymode away from me!
dude, we need to make smaller ships more viable again, cruisers cannot even cut it in the MV anymore because if this, because everyone and their grandmother is in a dreadnought. only a hard limit of dreadnoughts would bring cruisers to viability again.
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Pegasus
Grand Admiral
Pitch Black
Joined: August 02, 2005
Posts: 434
From: Eleventh galaxy on the right!
| Posted: 2009-03-31 06:01
I have no problems with flying a cruiser against a dread, whether its a battle cruiser, heavy cruiser or a scale/parasite. Just stick yourself on the Dread's six and just fire on his rear arc and he will start to get worried, and will jump out because he cannot out turn you, if he turns one way you just turn in a slightly larger arc keeping your speed and distance and position where he not able to fire back apart from the few rear facing weaponary he has available.
If you cant do this simple maneuver then go back to flight school, youre obviously doing something wrong like doing a head-on *facepalm*.
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Retired K'luth Combateer
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