Anti-Fighter/Anti-Air Defences ?

[Killer_Rabbit]

Since the majority of people I have talked to on this forum think that fighters will be the game meta compared to larger ships then the obvious question is how do you shoot them down. As shown in the Starbase Videos player manned point defence systems seem to be the main defence however if you're in a Naval ship you would want to have your crew focused on attacking rather than defending and so you would want to make anti-fighter turrets as efficient and automated as possible. Some possible ways to do this are creating YOLO systems to lead guns aimed at the target on the players compared to the players aiming reticle however this runs into a few problems with range, speed and direction however it would still be more effective than a simple point a shoot system certainly for longer ranges say as fighters are approaching or attacking another ship. But in terms of automation it would be remarkably difficult if not impossible for unmanned turrets to track let alone acquire targets with rangefinders or transponders (although transponders can be turned off) however if a system for certainly tracking targets could be found then it would certainly reduce the pressure for players to man anti air defences however turrets could be attached to a rangefinder and the turret is quickly moved in all rotatable directions so if an oncoming target is detected it could fire at it.

Now in terms of weaponry the most effective would likely be: lasers, autocannons, missiles and torpedoes as railcannons while very fast could easily miss and plasma cannons are slow. Swarmer missiles would be quite effective against oncoming fighters as they would be hard to dodge torpedoes could potentially be shot in the vague direction of a target and in theory track it so that could be automated. and autocannons and lasers are probably going to be the most effective manned anti-air systems due to their fast rate of fire. Multiple turrets using lasers and autocannons could potentially also be automated with pre-programmed overlapping arcs of fire however it would use up a lot of ammunition is unlikely to successfully hit anything and potentially shoot allies

 

[CalenLoki]

There is flak cannon in the works. They already made model for it, but it's not functional yet. That should work pretty well against light/not armoured targets (like Doomorb).

Aiming is only keyboard based right now, which of course lack precision. But we gonna get better control options (joystick, mouse). Although that helps small ships shoot from greater distance as well, so it's hardly any help here.

Weapons are currently tested with major nerf - their energy consumption got tripled. Which helps big ships that have more internal space for extra generators. That may lead to small ships simply not having enough dakka to effectively disable bigger ones.

Dev battle is hardly representative of any sort of meta. Most of them use first ship they ever made, or some quickly retrofitted civilian/meme ship armoured in cardboard. They also don't have much practice fighting with them.

Speed as defence will be also less efficient in tighter battle spots, like stations or dense asteroid fields, due to risk of collision. There big ships with their superior durability may stand a chance.

I wouldn't go for any automation as solution for small ship meta. I'd rather increase importance of natural advantages of bigger ships: bigger internal space (and internal access corridors), better armour, longer operation time.
So for example reduce weapon mag capacity, so reloading is more important. Small caliber ship weapon to make standing outside more dangerous (ship gatling gun and flak cannon). Respawn modules. Reduce tank capacity and mass (so it's less volume efficient, but more mass efficient). Further increase in weapon energy consumption.

And last: small ship meta is much more fun IMO, as long as big ships excel in other fields (i.e. fire support, tenders, carriers, miners, freighters, ect)

 

[Brushes]

Dev battle made armor seem pointless on fighters.

Flak and lasers are where its at... The inability to expand weapon ammo capacities is frustrating though. We're in space with sentiant robots but weapons all have small mags only?

All ships, big or small, will have the same weapons (for now) so i doubt big ships are going to excel at anything other than being expensive, or hauling stuff. Maybe tons of armor would help but i havent seen armor being really effective yet. Weapons appear to just slice right through everything.

 

[Killer_Rabbit]

I heard the devs deliberately buffed the damage of the weapons compared to what they will actually do in EA launch presumably this is because lots of explosions and damage are very cinematic however the empire and kingdom ships shown could be comparatively lightly armoured

 

[CalenLoki]

In dev battles all armour is made out of paper.
Bastium (the used material) has over 5x worse durability per mass than decent stuff that could be used instead.

Damage in vids (except first trailer afaik) is not buffed. It's not balanced either, as that requires extensive testing (CA)

We're primarily in game that's meant to be fun and balanced. If it requires not having some mechanics that would be obviously available, so be it. I.e. cameras, big mags, ect.

If we'll get bigger guns, they'll be most effective against big ships. That only helps small ship meta. And ships would be only as big as needed to spine-mount one of these. Anything bigger makes it too hard to aim the whole ship precisely and too easy target.
I'd rather have some mechanics for building bigger, tougher turrets. Those would benefit mostly bigger ships.

 

[Killer_Rabbit]

The thing is though the bigger the guns even if you wanted to put them on fighters you would still have to have a bigger fighter to accommodate the gun, ammunition and more generators to supply the gun with power as well as more engines so more propellant to carry the bigger load at the same or faster speeds compared to the old smaller fighter. Also bigger ships do have the advantage of being able to shoot at multiple targets at once as anything more than a two person fighter is effectively a corvette and so would count as a larger ship

 

[CalenLoki]

How big guns are we talking about?
22m long? That's Yamato main guns size.
32m? Shwerer Gustav, biggest gun used in combat.

Ship that could carry one of these would be probably just that length, following classic brick proportions 4:2:1.
That's still within small-medium ship range, well under dev made gunships.
They'd hold enough destructive power to penetrate any armour in game. And they'd be virtually useless against targets too small and nimble to be hit.