On 2013-08-31 16:02, Fluttershy wrote:
In beta, the difference between the Cruisers and Destroyers seem very slight.
As far as size and maneuverability, destroyers have a very slight advantage, 5+ speed, +2 turn rate, and are maybe 20% smaller?

Overall, cruisers seem to have the best mix of coverage, toughness, and maneuverability.

I really can't see the point of using destroyers over frigates or cruisers unless they had some special benefit for their lack of EWar and overall being a "meh" in-between ship.

I'm sure Sheraton will disagree

On 2013-08-31 16:28, Sheraton *XO* wrote:
Yes I do disagree, and I am trully growing tired of having to belabor the point. Cruisers now have increased armor. This decreases the manueverability of the ship. Your desire for E-war on each ship is itself pointless since with proper piloting of a destroyer, most weapons fire can be evaded, this makes E-war either ECM or ECCM Superfluous. As to the issue of toughness, if a ship cannot hit you to begin with the actual hull and armor of your ship is irrelevant. Right now a heavy cruiser turns at about 16 in Release or thereabout. It turns much slower in beta and you need to get a 33% increase to the turn rate just to get the cruiser back to the turn rate it has now in release. This means that they will be much slower and harder to turn in 1.7 and further increases the advantage of smaller ships like destroyers who can stay in the blind spot of enemy ships longer than a cruiser or a dread can. I really dislike having to belabor this point over and over again but destroyers are not a weak ship and neither are they "meh" ships as you so casually put it. Properly piloted a destroyer can remove dreads from the field as efficiently if not moreso than any dread or cruiser and they can survive for longer periods on the battlefield because of the their manueverability.

-The VERY Annoyed Sheraton

On 2013-09-01 01:16, DiepLuc wrote:
I agree with Fluttershy on destroyer vs cruiser, especially with ICC.
UGTO/K'Luth cruiser has acceleration/thrust is as slow as current dread. It's quite noticeable.

I used T3 KLuth destroyer to attack AI UGTO dread and T2 KLuth cruiser to attack player Hive. I jumped away when I spent half of ammunition, I assumed I could have killed them only had I spent all ammunition - that would take approximately 5 minutes.

Although new destroyer is really flashy, you still want to use cruiser I believe.

On 2013-09-01 01:49, Jim Starluck wrote:
On the other hand, I was fighting Enterprise in Beta earlier. He was piloting a Bastion Dreadnought (UGTO T2, Cannons/Torps) fitted full of EMP and Flux weapons. We had multiple fights, where I tried to kill him with one ship after another. I went up against him in a Nightshade (Dreadnought) and multiple K'Luth Cruisers, but he took them all down.

But then I took out a Stinger--a humble T1 Missile Destroyer--and brought him down while taking barely any hull damage. Granted, he was using EMP weapons, but I had a much, much easier time of it than with any of the Cruisers I'd used. A Frigate would've been able to dodge his weapons even better, of course, but it would've lacked the firepower to do meaningful damage to something the size of a Dreadnought.

The advantages of a Destroyer over a Cruiser might not seem like much. What's 5 gu here or a few degrees turn rate there? But they add up. Destroyers are tougher and more heavily-armed than Frigates, but faster and more nimble than Cruisers. In the right situation, they have exactly the kind of qualities you'll need.

On 2013-09-01 01:49, Jim Starluck wrote:
But then I took out a Stinger--a humble T1 Missile Destroyer--and brought him down while taking barely any hull damage. Granted, he was using EMP weapons, but I had a much, much easier time of it than with any of the Cruisers I'd used. A Frigate would've been able to dodge his weapons even better, of course, but it would've lacked the firepower to do meaningful damage to something the size of a Dreadnought.

On 2013-09-01 02:00, Fluttershy wrote:
TBH I think missiles could use an overall tracking nerf, especially the Harpex and Cruise level missiles, they track way too well for the damage they do, one can sit around with a line dread popping AI ships all day that would otherwise take 20 times longer to kill with torpedoes/lasers/cannons, and only something 2 sizes smaller can really avoid the missiles reliably, unless the player detonates them in which case even they get obliterated.

On 2013-09-01 01:35, Fluttershy wrote:

Quote: On 2013-08-31 16:28, Sheraton *XO* wrote: Yes I do disagree, and I am trully growing tired of having to belabor the point. Cruisers now have increased armor. This decreases the manueverability of the ship. Your desire for E-war on each ship is itself pointless since with proper piloting of a destroyer, most weapons fire can be evaded, this makes E-war either ECM or ECCM Superfluous. As to the issue of toughness, if a ship cannot hit you to begin with the actual hull and armor of your ship is irrelevant. Right now a heavy cruiser turns at about 16 in Release or thereabout. It turns much slower in beta and you need to get a 33% increase to the turn rate just to get the cruiser back to the turn rate it has now in release. This means that they will be much slower and harder to turn in 1.7 and further increases the advantage of smaller ships like destroyers who can stay in the blind spot of enemy ships longer than a cruiser or a dread can. I really dislike having to belabor this point over and over again but destroyers are not a weak ship and neither are they "meh" ships as you so casually put it. Properly piloted a destroyer can remove dreads from the field as efficiently if not moreso than any dread or cruiser and they can survive for longer periods on the battlefield because of the their manueverability. -The VERY Annoyed Sheraton

No reason to get annoyed, I'm talking about beta destroyers, not those in release.

You're better off using a frigate, it costs no resources, it's even faster and more maneuverable than the destroyer, it can jump very often, it has area EWar, and I'm sure a skilled pilot could take down destroyers, cruisers, and maybe dreads if given time.

On 2013-09-01 03:44, DiepLuc wrote:

Quote: On 2013-09-01 01:49, Jim Starluck wrote: But then I took out a Stinger--a humble T1 Missile Destroyer--and brought him down while taking barely any hull damage. Granted, he was using EMP weapons, but I had a much, much easier time of it than with any of the Cruisers I'd used. A Frigate would've been able to dodge his weapons even better, of course, but it would've lacked the firepower to do meaningful damage to something the size of a Dreadnought.

It's the missle vs non-escort dread, Jim. You picked the suite tool. Your Nightshade (beam/torp) didn't drill in Baston's weakness.
Here you show us an example how a correct choice benefits. I totally agree that the role system works fine here.
But how could Enterprise take down all several K'Luth cruisers by himself while defending against a Nightshade? Err... there is something wrong here. A lonewolf conquered the fox pack drove.

Quote: On 2013-09-01 02:00, Fluttershy wrote: TBH I think missiles could use an overall tracking nerf, especially the Harpex and Cruise level missiles, they track way too well for the damage they do, one can sit around with a line dread popping AI ships all day that would otherwise take 20 times longer to kill with torpedoes/lasers/cannons, and only something 2 sizes smaller can really avoid the missiles reliably, unless the player detonates them in which case even they get obliterated.

Decrease cooldown to 75% and damage to 60% maybe? Nerf tracking would require Jim a lot of work.

On 2013-09-01 02:00, Fluttershy wrote:

Quote: On 2013-09-01 01:49, Jim Starluck wrote: On the other hand, I was fighting Enterprise in Beta earlier. He was piloting a Bastion Dreadnought (UGTO T2, Cannons/Torps) fitted full of EMP and Flux weapons. We had multiple fights, where I tried to kill him with one ship after another. I went up against him in a Nightshade (Dreadnought) and multiple K'Luth Cruisers, but he took them all down. But then I took out a Stinger--a humble T1 Missile Destroyer--and brought him down while taking barely any hull damage. Granted, he was using EMP weapons, but I had a much, much easier time of it than with any of the Cruisers I'd used. A Frigate would've been able to dodge his weapons even better, of course, but it would've lacked the firepower to do meaningful damage to something the size of a Dreadnought. The advantages of a Destroyer over a Cruiser might not seem like much. What's 5 gu here or a few degrees turn rate there? But they add up. Destroyers are tougher and more heavily-armed than Frigates, but faster and more nimble than Cruisers. In the right situation, they have exactly the kind of qualities you'll need.

The missile role is actually the only one I found to be truly useful on destroyers, having 2 more than a T1 frigate, good enough tracking to nail cruisers at 250gu if pointed right at it, and about 350 if facing away, and the damage is respectable.

TBH I think missiles could use an overall tracking nerf, especially the Harpex and Cruise level missiles, they track way too well for the damage they do, one can sit around with a line dread popping AI ships all day that would otherwise take 20 times longer to kill with torpedoes/lasers/cannons, and only something 2 sizes smaller can really avoid the missiles reliably, unless the player detonates them in which case even they get obliterated.

Missiles are basically the go-to weapon when attacking distracted or less than very skilled players. Cannons can be dodged and do wimpy damage, missiles are accurate even at range and hurt like hell.
[ This Message was edited by: Fluttershy on 2013-09-01 02:02 ]

On 2013-09-01 00:58, Jim Starluck wrote:
The sluggishness of UGTO ships is largely due to the way turn rate is calculated.

All ships have a Mass value for their hull, and then each armor gadget adds a bit onto that, based on its HP value. The total mass of the ship is then pitted against the Thrust of all the engines aboard it. The product of this determines both turn rate and acceleration.

The problem is that UGTO have the heaviest armor of the three factions. ICC shields don't add mass, and their Composite armor has less HP than a single plate of UGTO Standard Armor, so the amount of mass contributed by armor is less than half. Most K'Luth ships have 1 less armor plate than normal to make room for their Cloak, and the remaining Organic armor plates have even less HP than Composite.

Currently, the armor mass equation gives a ship 1 unit of mass for every 125,000 HP. At Cruiser level, UGTO Standard Armor has 116,156 hp, ICC Composite Armor has 99,231 and K'Luth Organic Armor has 69,960. UGTO Tier 1 Cruisers have 10 armor gadgets, K'Luth T1 Cruisers have 9, most ICC T1 Cruisers have 6.

This means UGTO Cruisers get 9.3 mass from armor, while K'Luth crusiers only get only 5 and ICC merely 4.8. Cruisers have a hull mass of 16. This gives UGTO Cruisers a total mass of 25.3, K'Luth 21 and ICC 20.8.

I'm going to experimentally raise the bar to 1 unit of mass for every 250,000 hp. That should chop armor mass in half across the board, and help to level the playing field.

On 2013-09-01 10:27, Sheraton *XO* wrote:

The actual point of a line dread is to attack ships at LONG range. The line dread has NO rear armor and can very easily be taken out if you manage to get and stay behind it. this makes it a powerhouse at long range but very vulnerable to short range attack, since as you argue the cannons are "Wimpy." Why not just close distance? and no the missiles are not go to weapons. When more than 1 AI ship is around with point defense the missiles become relatively pointless weapons.

On 2013-09-01 12:11, Fluttershy wrote:

The whole thing with missiles being aimed towards attacking ships 2 sizes larger ends up being more or less like this instead: Corvettes nearly unhittable by even frigate missiles, frigates only get hit if they fly straight or stay still, destroyers can manage dodging most missiles if they pay attention, cruisers need to concentrate very very intently to dodge missiles and are almost a guaranteed hit from frigates and destroyers, dreads will be hit by all missiles, stations will be hit by all missiles.

On 2013-09-01 12:51, Chewy Squirrel wrote:
I'm not sure I see the problem here. You were just complaining that there is no difference between a cruiser and a destroyer and here you say that a destroyer can avoid missiles much more easily than a cruiser. Well there is your difference! Corvettes, frigates, and destroyers should not be vulnerable to missiles since they are not 2 hull classes above anything with missiles. Cruisers should be moderately vulnerable to missiles, requiring pilot skill to avoid them. And dreads and stations should be vulnerable to all types of missiles because with great firepower comes great sluggishness and large hitboxes.

This is the first version missiles actually do something in a long time. Let's not be over-zealous about nerfing them before it is even released.