This is a brief post bringing forth some issues/ideas that are relevant to combat balancing in regards to large ships.
There are a number of issues that prevent the use of multi-crew/large ships in Starbase, but I believe that it could be possible. In PVP combat sandboxes, its very common for people to build/use whatever is the most absolutely efficient craft to complete the most basic tasks, the two which only matter is simply to have maximum potential for attack, and maximum potential for defence. Anything beyond it is fluff and gets in the way of completing the two tasks that matter, due to the primitive nature of the sandbox and environment crafts live in the results can be really ugly.
ARMOUR
First and foremost, the survivability of large ships are very poor, compared to things like dedicated fighters. Naturally in Starbase things are damaged and break off from getting shot as is intentionally designed, but because of the phenomenon of 'Meta' armour, it draws an enormous contrast to ships that don't effectively utilize 'Meta'.
Large/Multicrew ships need to be protected from all angles due to their size, speed and maneuverability. Part of 'Meta' armour involves directional placement which is much easier to deal with on smaller fighter craft that only need to face incoming fire.
Large/Multicrew ships cannot be completely armoured, there is simply not enough building budget to effectively do this, and because of quirks of the combat system, utilizing Magic HP and voxel armour on these ships is not straight forward at all. Its janky and frustrating to make, and ultimately looks like shit.
The smart answer is to compartmentalize and armour only critical sections, while its kind of the only answer, it doesn't ultimately provide the breakthrough large ships need to be viable.
Solutions
The combat system and Armour metas in starbase are already a siginificant problem and need to addressed. I'm not going to go into great detail about this, but there is one simple suggestion. Refer to Figure 1. This test shows that singular pieces are MUCH more effective at preventing penetration. All elements in this test are Oninum (the material isn't important here, it just needs to be the same) and all elements have their Magic HP removed. Element A is a column consisting of 12cm sticks, while Element B is a single piece. As you can see there is a drastic difference in penetration depth between the two despite it being the same material and effective depth.
The current damage system has too much focus on singular pieces which doesn't make a lot of sense since ships consist of so many pieces.
The proposed solution is that either testing element would of had the same penetration depth. This would allow for a significant improvement in freeform armour design, that isn't slaved to un-creative specifics. That in itself would remove almost all of what makes up the identity of the current armour 'Meta' (alongside the removal of Magic HP)
while this will have a large effect on the typical fighter design, it will also allow for the easier design of effective compartmentalized amour on large ships. For example, a Large ship with much thrust and power available can afford to have sections that are armoured beyond the limits of standard weapons.
Armour is a crucial component of Large ships. By design they're a large target, and consist of more critical components than smaller ships. They also typically need to be flown gently in order for gunners to be effective. There's no possibility of Large ships being viable if this isn't addressed.
TORPEDOES
Torpedoes and rockets have been such an oddball device since the beginning, as cool as they are they are crazy stupid and unbalanced.
Normal use of a torpedo flying and hitting a target itself creates a very large explosion that literally deletes everything in a sphere, it's an insanely cheap way to disable/destroy a very expensive large ship.
Dumb fire torpedoes are pretty hit and miss, however since large ships are pretty slow it's not too difficult to hit one.
Inventory torpedoes are the most stupid and insanely unbalanced thing ever, essentially pocket torpedoes that are launched out of the inventory, far easier to aim and launch than a moving ship and are a huge threat.
Tracking torpedoes are insanely unreliable. Keeping a laser designator on target is a lot harder than one would expect. Even if the target isn't moving, a tracking torpedo would completely miss the target because the tracking does not account for drift, so the torpedo simply drifts in circles around the target (funny to look at)
Kamikaze ships are a good use of torpedo warheads. Instead of using an actual torpedo, a warhead is strapped to a scooter and is manually rammed into a ship.
All in all torpedoes are an incredibly cheap way to destroy expensive ships, If the above armour fix makes Large ships perfectly viable, torpedoes are next inline to kill the idea of Large ships in the crib. The normal expected uses for torpedoes suck, and the unconventional uses are hilariously unbalanced and effective.
Solutions
Reign in the crazy stunts by preventing handheld/inventory use, and just getting rid of modular torpedo pieces. Double the size of torpedoes, halve the explosion radius, and remove drift.
These bastards are kind of hard to balance since they're so deadly, so I'm not totally sure about torps.
CAPABILITIES
What can Large/Multicrew Ships even do? What's the point... These machines typically make for a really enjoyable group experience. But if they're useless, they'll never see the light of day. Larger ships are typically capable of many things, but in this case I'll be talking combat specifically. Normally a Multicrew ship is considered a gunship as players are placed into turrets. Why place people into turrets instead of smaller ships? With a Multicrew ship that now has the possibility of exceeding the durability and capability of smaller ships so it can at least have a reason to exist, we look at providing ways that a multicrew ship can make an effect.
Offensive
First and foremost the ability to deal out effective damage in any situation, with the exclusive use of torpedoes and weapons. Turrets are the most obvious way that a Multicrew Ship exhibits this ability.
Currently, the turrets that we have are awful. They are weak, cumbersome, difficult to control. The worst part of it all, is that all turrets are hosted by the pilot or whoever is nominated to host. This results in lag while using a turret. So forget about being a fat vulnerable wart on the side of a ship, you're also completely useless, good luck working that thing effectively.
The introduction of tripods were a great first step. In the beginning they were quite OP, being as powerful as ship mounted weapons with the hugely advantageous mechanic of being mouse controlled, and hosted by the gunner for no lag use.
Now they're only really decent against endo's, and thats ok. Multicrew ships need some real turrets. This was proposed in the form of Ball turrets, which were glass covered emplacements of ship-grade weapons that were mouse controlled and hosted by the gunner. Big ups on this!
I can't find the concept art for it anywhere, but I remember what they look like and they seem quite large and cumbersome. It would be nice if they were smaller.
Weapons
The current roster of the 4 weapons we have is limited. 4 weapons only isn't much at all but it hasn't been bad.
I'll assume that there will be ball turret variants that have each of the 4 weapons, but I'd like to propose the addition of a weapon that specifically exists for larger ships to deal with smaller ones, Flak.
Looking at the current Flak model, it looks kind of like a machinegun. We already have auto/lasercannons, so ditch that old Flak concept and go for a more truer Flak, a large caliber proximity explosive launcher. This would dramatically improve the survivability of Multicrew ships by giving them good strong teeth. Gunner hosted mouse controlled turrets are an excellent boon for Multicrew ships, but some more exclusive large weapons will do well to solidify the identity and real tangible role of Multicrew Ship.
There are some other things to consider to make these beasts not only viable but desired.
Support: reconstruction machines can make these ships more self sufficient and a force projecting element of any battlefield.
Boarding: due to the LOD changes now boarding is a real possibility, with better balance in armour and crap nicer and more practical designs will be possible, and it will be fun to consider such things when building large ships.
Performance issues: I think further improvements need to be made here, large ships loaded in are very performance heavy.
That's as much as I can be bothered typing for now.
There are a number of issues that prevent the use of multi-crew/large ships in Starbase, but I believe that it could be possible. In PVP combat sandboxes, its very common for people to build/use whatever is the most absolutely efficient craft to complete the most basic tasks, the two which only matter is simply to have maximum potential for attack, and maximum potential for defence. Anything beyond it is fluff and gets in the way of completing the two tasks that matter, due to the primitive nature of the sandbox and environment crafts live in the results can be really ugly.
ARMOUR
First and foremost, the survivability of large ships are very poor, compared to things like dedicated fighters. Naturally in Starbase things are damaged and break off from getting shot as is intentionally designed, but because of the phenomenon of 'Meta' armour, it draws an enormous contrast to ships that don't effectively utilize 'Meta'.
Large/Multicrew ships need to be protected from all angles due to their size, speed and maneuverability. Part of 'Meta' armour involves directional placement which is much easier to deal with on smaller fighter craft that only need to face incoming fire.
Large/Multicrew ships cannot be completely armoured, there is simply not enough building budget to effectively do this, and because of quirks of the combat system, utilizing Magic HP and voxel armour on these ships is not straight forward at all. Its janky and frustrating to make, and ultimately looks like shit.
The smart answer is to compartmentalize and armour only critical sections, while its kind of the only answer, it doesn't ultimately provide the breakthrough large ships need to be viable.
Solutions
The combat system and Armour metas in starbase are already a siginificant problem and need to addressed. I'm not going to go into great detail about this, but there is one simple suggestion. Refer to Figure 1. This test shows that singular pieces are MUCH more effective at preventing penetration. All elements in this test are Oninum (the material isn't important here, it just needs to be the same) and all elements have their Magic HP removed. Element A is a column consisting of 12cm sticks, while Element B is a single piece. As you can see there is a drastic difference in penetration depth between the two despite it being the same material and effective depth.
The current damage system has too much focus on singular pieces which doesn't make a lot of sense since ships consist of so many pieces.
The proposed solution is that either testing element would of had the same penetration depth. This would allow for a significant improvement in freeform armour design, that isn't slaved to un-creative specifics. That in itself would remove almost all of what makes up the identity of the current armour 'Meta' (alongside the removal of Magic HP)
while this will have a large effect on the typical fighter design, it will also allow for the easier design of effective compartmentalized amour on large ships. For example, a Large ship with much thrust and power available can afford to have sections that are armoured beyond the limits of standard weapons.
Armour is a crucial component of Large ships. By design they're a large target, and consist of more critical components than smaller ships. They also typically need to be flown gently in order for gunners to be effective. There's no possibility of Large ships being viable if this isn't addressed.
TORPEDOES
Torpedoes and rockets have been such an oddball device since the beginning, as cool as they are they are crazy stupid and unbalanced.
Normal use of a torpedo flying and hitting a target itself creates a very large explosion that literally deletes everything in a sphere, it's an insanely cheap way to disable/destroy a very expensive large ship.
Dumb fire torpedoes are pretty hit and miss, however since large ships are pretty slow it's not too difficult to hit one.
Inventory torpedoes are the most stupid and insanely unbalanced thing ever, essentially pocket torpedoes that are launched out of the inventory, far easier to aim and launch than a moving ship and are a huge threat.
Tracking torpedoes are insanely unreliable. Keeping a laser designator on target is a lot harder than one would expect. Even if the target isn't moving, a tracking torpedo would completely miss the target because the tracking does not account for drift, so the torpedo simply drifts in circles around the target (funny to look at)
Kamikaze ships are a good use of torpedo warheads. Instead of using an actual torpedo, a warhead is strapped to a scooter and is manually rammed into a ship.
All in all torpedoes are an incredibly cheap way to destroy expensive ships, If the above armour fix makes Large ships perfectly viable, torpedoes are next inline to kill the idea of Large ships in the crib. The normal expected uses for torpedoes suck, and the unconventional uses are hilariously unbalanced and effective.
Solutions
Reign in the crazy stunts by preventing handheld/inventory use, and just getting rid of modular torpedo pieces. Double the size of torpedoes, halve the explosion radius, and remove drift.
These bastards are kind of hard to balance since they're so deadly, so I'm not totally sure about torps.
CAPABILITIES
What can Large/Multicrew Ships even do? What's the point... These machines typically make for a really enjoyable group experience. But if they're useless, they'll never see the light of day. Larger ships are typically capable of many things, but in this case I'll be talking combat specifically. Normally a Multicrew ship is considered a gunship as players are placed into turrets. Why place people into turrets instead of smaller ships? With a Multicrew ship that now has the possibility of exceeding the durability and capability of smaller ships so it can at least have a reason to exist, we look at providing ways that a multicrew ship can make an effect.
Offensive
First and foremost the ability to deal out effective damage in any situation, with the exclusive use of torpedoes and weapons. Turrets are the most obvious way that a Multicrew Ship exhibits this ability.
Currently, the turrets that we have are awful. They are weak, cumbersome, difficult to control. The worst part of it all, is that all turrets are hosted by the pilot or whoever is nominated to host. This results in lag while using a turret. So forget about being a fat vulnerable wart on the side of a ship, you're also completely useless, good luck working that thing effectively.
The introduction of tripods were a great first step. In the beginning they were quite OP, being as powerful as ship mounted weapons with the hugely advantageous mechanic of being mouse controlled, and hosted by the gunner for no lag use.
Now they're only really decent against endo's, and thats ok. Multicrew ships need some real turrets. This was proposed in the form of Ball turrets, which were glass covered emplacements of ship-grade weapons that were mouse controlled and hosted by the gunner. Big ups on this!
I can't find the concept art for it anywhere, but I remember what they look like and they seem quite large and cumbersome. It would be nice if they were smaller.
Weapons
The current roster of the 4 weapons we have is limited. 4 weapons only isn't much at all but it hasn't been bad.
I'll assume that there will be ball turret variants that have each of the 4 weapons, but I'd like to propose the addition of a weapon that specifically exists for larger ships to deal with smaller ones, Flak.
Looking at the current Flak model, it looks kind of like a machinegun. We already have auto/lasercannons, so ditch that old Flak concept and go for a more truer Flak, a large caliber proximity explosive launcher. This would dramatically improve the survivability of Multicrew ships by giving them good strong teeth. Gunner hosted mouse controlled turrets are an excellent boon for Multicrew ships, but some more exclusive large weapons will do well to solidify the identity and real tangible role of Multicrew Ship.
There are some other things to consider to make these beasts not only viable but desired.
Support: reconstruction machines can make these ships more self sufficient and a force projecting element of any battlefield.
Boarding: due to the LOD changes now boarding is a real possibility, with better balance in armour and crap nicer and more practical designs will be possible, and it will be fun to consider such things when building large ships.
Performance issues: I think further improvements need to be made here, large ships loaded in are very performance heavy.
That's as much as I can be bothered typing for now.
