Super heavy armour for capital ships
- Thread starter Amos.37
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--- On the Armor Problem ---
One idea I have for the armor would to have types of armor that can handle different types of damage better than others. For example, there could be a "reflective" armor that is strong against lasers, but weak against explosive damage and an "absorbent" armor that is strong against explosives but weak against lasers.
Small fighters would have to choose (because of weight constraints) which type of armor they want depending on what kind of damage they expect to receive. However, since capital ships would already be so huge, they could have a layer of both types of armor, in addition to standard armor.
In this way, small arms, auto-cannons, and lasers would all do negligible damage to capital ships. The only weapons that would be able to get through would be plasma throwers, rail guns, torpedoes, and standard missiles to some extent. Since auto-cannons and lasers are best for combating light craft, light craft would have to choose (again because of weight constraints) whether they would want to be able to fight ships of their own class, or larger ones.
The capital ships could easily have rail batteries and torpedo tubes for anti-capital ship battle, and laser/auto-cannon turrets, along with a fighter escort, to handle light enemies.
One idea I have for the armor would to have types of armor that can handle different types of damage better than others. For example, there could be a "reflective" armor that is strong against lasers, but weak against explosive damage and an "absorbent" armor that is strong against explosives but weak against lasers.
Small fighters would have to choose (because of weight constraints) which type of armor they want depending on what kind of damage they expect to receive. However, since capital ships would already be so huge, they could have a layer of both types of armor, in addition to standard armor.
In this way, small arms, auto-cannons, and lasers would all do negligible damage to capital ships. The only weapons that would be able to get through would be plasma throwers, rail guns, torpedoes, and standard missiles to some extent. Since auto-cannons and lasers are best for combating light craft, light craft would have to choose (again because of weight constraints) whether they would want to be able to fight ships of their own class, or larger ones.
The capital ships could easily have rail batteries and torpedo tubes for anti-capital ship battle, and laser/auto-cannon turrets, along with a fighter escort, to handle light enemies.
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I have always been a fan of specialized armour types which is good for one type or damage but not others, ie reflective give good protection against lasers but weak to everything else. So to use effectively you need to layer your armour and still manage weight.
As for ships with heavy armour they always have weak points. Besides things the obvious weak points like cockpits and windows there are also exposed devices like thrusters, take out some of these on one side and they just sit there spinning. Then you can take your time carving them up and lining up for a well placed torpedo to make it's way inside their armour.
As for ships with heavy armour they always have weak points. Besides things the obvious weak points like cockpits and windows there are also exposed devices like thrusters, take out some of these on one side and they just sit there spinning. Then you can take your time carving them up and lining up for a well placed torpedo to make it's way inside their armour.
I don't really see a problem with a small swarm of fighters being able to take out a capital ship. It is rather how I would imagine an epic space battle and quite on point for me.
With a big crew on repair, gun turrets etc it would still take a lot of fighters and time to take the capital ship down...
I m thinking battle star galactica ish.. or starwars for that matter...
The way to defend would be to have a squadron of fighters inside the capital ship that can be launched to aid it in battle together with on board turrets.
Capital ship would be means of traveling great distance producing fuel and repairs on board, maybe in search for a new place to set up a megastation
With a big crew on repair, gun turrets etc it would still take a lot of fighters and time to take the capital ship down...
I m thinking battle star galactica ish.. or starwars for that matter...
The way to defend would be to have a squadron of fighters inside the capital ship that can be launched to aid it in battle together with on board turrets.
Capital ship would be means of traveling great distance producing fuel and repairs on board, maybe in search for a new place to set up a megastation
It seems that the OP is asking for a system of "Hard Counters" rather than "Soft Counters," however due to the nature of the game a system of soft counters is almost a requirement. The main feature of the game is that although there is a fine variety of parts they can be arranged in an infinite variety of ways. Not only is there no hard distinction between a small ship and a big ship, that is kinda the point of the whole game. So gameplay that requires a hard distinction is generally a bad idea for Starbase. Though you can still have a lot of that "rock, paper, scissors" kind of thinking with soft counters; it just means that while Bomber usually beats Battleship, not always. A capital ship that has more laser turrets and fewer plasma throwers would be more likely to survive a bomber attack but less likely to win a match with another capital ship. Having different varieties of armor could have a similar affect.
Generally I don't like damage type systems, it often results in some very obvious choices. "These enemies are acid types, better equip anti-acid!" Though it could be better if damage types correspond to how weapons are used. Choosing the right armor type could complement your ability to avoid certain kinds of attacks. Autocannons represent a continuous stream of projectiles but so does the lasercannon. If they existed in the real world there would be major differences but in the game they are pretty similar, at least for the person being shot at. Thus the armor that counters one should counter the other. Meanwhile torpedoes function very differently, they deliver all of their damage at once and avoiding them is different. An armor that absorbs a certain number of hits regardless of damage would counter slow firing weapons, an armor that simply has X hitpoints would counter fast firing weapons. If 'reactive armor' existed in the game it would be the former.
I fully agree that we will need larger versions of various components. I don't think it is important in the short term, but as players start building bigger ships there should be larger components available. You can end up with some weird balance issues when you have massive capital ships that use fighter sized guns and engines. Movement thrust and firepower shouldn't be limited by surface area. There are similar games where late game ships are not only nearly invulnerable to early game ships but nearly invulnerable to each-other, such that it takes 15 minutes of constant firing to breach the enemy's armor. The reason is that their firepower is much more limited than their protection. You can't stack 15 turrets ontop of each other, but you can stack 15 armor blocks. I don't think that is likely in Starbase, if anything Starbase has the opposite problem, but still something to be wary of.
Generally I don't like damage type systems, it often results in some very obvious choices. "These enemies are acid types, better equip anti-acid!" Though it could be better if damage types correspond to how weapons are used. Choosing the right armor type could complement your ability to avoid certain kinds of attacks. Autocannons represent a continuous stream of projectiles but so does the lasercannon. If they existed in the real world there would be major differences but in the game they are pretty similar, at least for the person being shot at. Thus the armor that counters one should counter the other. Meanwhile torpedoes function very differently, they deliver all of their damage at once and avoiding them is different. An armor that absorbs a certain number of hits regardless of damage would counter slow firing weapons, an armor that simply has X hitpoints would counter fast firing weapons. If 'reactive armor' existed in the game it would be the former.
I fully agree that we will need larger versions of various components. I don't think it is important in the short term, but as players start building bigger ships there should be larger components available. You can end up with some weird balance issues when you have massive capital ships that use fighter sized guns and engines. Movement thrust and firepower shouldn't be limited by surface area. There are similar games where late game ships are not only nearly invulnerable to early game ships but nearly invulnerable to each-other, such that it takes 15 minutes of constant firing to breach the enemy's armor. The reason is that their firepower is much more limited than their protection. You can't stack 15 turrets ontop of each other, but you can stack 15 armor blocks. I don't think that is likely in Starbase, if anything Starbase has the opposite problem, but still something to be wary of.
Well they could still have maybe like some navigator deck just so that they know where they are or if there is any debris or objects in the way probably. The main pilot would be only piloting the vessel anyway so them not having a camera feed might not be that much of a problem. And gun turrets would either be automated or have like some dome or something probably with the gunner manning the gun so that they could see or something
Where does everyone keep getting this idea that rear mounted thrusters are more efficient? I heard the same thing on a few youtube videos. And unless FB completely screwed up their physics engine, this is not correct. As long as your thrust is balance across your center of mass in the direction of thrust, your efficiency will be the same.
In reality it should be more efficient to place thruster on a wider midsection of your ship than at a narrow rear section, unless your ship is perfectly balanced. Wider spacing of the thrusters would give more rotational torque for less thrust. This means that in a ship that is heavier on one side would require less thrust reduction on the lighter side to compensate providing overall higher thrust output.
Think about aircraft, planes have their engines in the front or on the wings. Military jet has theirs in the rear because it is inherently unstable and allows for sharp turns and has nothing to do with efficiency.
In reality it should be more efficient to place thruster on a wider midsection of your ship than at a narrow rear section, unless your ship is perfectly balanced. Wider spacing of the thrusters would give more rotational torque for less thrust. This means that in a ship that is heavier on one side would require less thrust reduction on the lighter side to compensate providing overall higher thrust output.
Think about aircraft, planes have their engines in the front or on the wings. Military jet has theirs in the rear because it is inherently unstable and allows for sharp turns and has nothing to do with efficiency.
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In this case it specifically concerns thrusters that are embedded in the craft's sides and have their fronts pointed inward somewhat, which allows them to be stacked in a row from front to back without further increasing the craft's profile and still contribute to forward thrust. It also makes thrusters on opposite sides waste a portion of their output, depending on the angle, pushing against each other. Running out of rear-facing surface area to put thrusters in is a real issue in the game if you're trying to make a craft, especially a large one, with a high-end thrust to mass ratio and care about your frontal profile.
You could just make your craft wider and taller instead, but that comes with its own tradeoffs, such as making it more difficult to safely navigate the asteroid field and being a bigger target when pursuing an enemy or being pursued.
You could just make your craft wider and taller instead, but that comes with its own tradeoffs, such as making it more difficult to safely navigate the asteroid field and being a bigger target when pursuing an enemy or being pursued.
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No ship, endo or object should ever visibly blip into existance. I hope they'll make all object spawning out of players sight at some point.
For ships (big and small) I'd just require a hangar. You fly in, walk out, press a button -> door closes, magic happens inside. Reverse for spawning.
At starter station, if you park your ship where it's not allowed, small AI drones should appear and just start erasing the ship with grinders. People would learn parking rules quick enough.
At player stations the job should be done manually by station police forces.
Ore cubes and small objects should appear in a openable box connected to the resource network (either on ship or station). Then same mechanics as for hangars -> magic happens behind closed doors.
For ships (big and small) I'd just require a hangar. You fly in, walk out, press a button -> door closes, magic happens inside. Reverse for spawning.
At starter station, if you park your ship where it's not allowed, small AI drones should appear and just start erasing the ship with grinders. People would learn parking rules quick enough.
At player stations the job should be done manually by station police forces.
Ore cubes and small objects should appear in a openable box connected to the resource network (either on ship or station). Then same mechanics as for hangars -> magic happens behind closed doors.
I really like your idea there. The way that I would probably want to handel it is using a shield powered by a generator. This would eliminate the need for the implementation of a different armour type. Because the problem that I see with this is: Small fighters will abuse this heavy armour to protect their cores from incoming fires. For example the A-10 warthog has stronger armour where it counts to protect. This would make fighter battles more of: who can shred the enemy to pieces instead of using precise aim to melt the core and win. The shields could be balanced in a way that they need to much energie and are to large to fit into a small fighter but could maybe fit in a heavy fighter/bomber like the role of the y-wing in the Star Wars universe. These shields could be given a certain health pool with a regeneration rate with add on modules. For example in star citizen you can buy shield modules with less health that recharge faster or more health but recharge slower. I would also suggest making these shields be able to be shot through from the inside. The way a smaller fighter could attack a capital ship alone would be to dive into the shield, closer to your guns and easier to take down. With this you will still need specialised spacecraft to destroy the ship but I bet it would look really good if a capital ship has its shields up and tons of explosive explode outside of this bubble.