Torpedo Boats

[Killer_Rabbit]

With the missile video Froxenbyte has shown both missiles and torpedoes which I imagine will be quite expensive to offset the ability to track and follow ships so how practical would it be to have a fast attack craft armed with torpedoes and maybe bow mounted missiles for greater accuracy with maybe two crew one pilot and one gunner to launch the torpedoes and could anyone come up with any early designs to show what this could look like

 

[CalenLoki]

Guessing by WW2 naval warfare examples (which seems to be closest) it may be the most effective way of taking down big ships, once fighter escort get disabled.

But it could also go the opposite way. If torps/missiles end up being easy to shoot down (i.e. slow, predictable flight pattern or aoe flak guns) then we'll be closer to FtD balance. There missiles are effective only in great volume, because fewer just can't get through ciws screen.

One of devs said nobody was able to hit vasama at long range, which indicates very small ships may be virtually invulnerable. So your typical torpedo boat may be space scooter with few torps and laser designator.

 

[Lionard Freezer]

We allready know we will be getting flack cannons at some point.
Idk if torpedos can actually follow a target, i only know that missiles cant.
Dont know if things would work out will but i hope we can have some kind of fast and stealthy bomber shooting with missiles at the enemy.

 

[Amos.37]

They said in the missile feature videos that torpedos would be able to track targets, but would be slower.
The role of bombers and torpedo boats are anti-large ships. So whether they would be effective really comes back to whether players will invest in building large, multi-crew ships, or smaller, faster ships. Currently from what's been shown, smaller ships seem to make more sense, but that's all subject to change. Really comes down to, wait and see, I guess.

 

[Killer_Rabbit]

They said in the missile feature videos that torpedos would be able to track targets, but would be slower.

I mean I know they said torpedoes can track ships I don't remember them saying they are slow

 

[Verbatos]

I think that small spacecraft would be the most efficient kid of ship for mounting torpedoes, you can easily have a vasama-style craft with a seat at the front fro piloting and maybe a seat behind the first one if you want to be able to aim the missiles and torpedoes seperate from flying the ship. You could also swap out the torpedoes for a more conventional gun emplacement so you could have a ship that would be better for fighter combat.

 

[Amos.37]

I mean I know they said torpedoes can track ships I don't remember them saying they are slow

I meant would be slower than missiles. Don't know if they'll be slower than average ships.

 

[Bloodlance]

With the missile video Froxenbyte has shown both missiles and torpedoes which I imagine will be quite expensive to offset the ability to track and follow ships so how practical would it be to have a fast attack craft armed with torpedoes and maybe bow mounted missiles for greater accuracy with maybe two crew one pilot and one gunner to launch the torpedoes and could anyone come up with any early designs to show what this could look like

Ingame price has no meaning in games.

After some weeks credits/materials are meaningless. = there is player groups that will just mine so much that they can build endless amounts of ships.

 

[cranky corvid]

Ingame price has no meaning in games.

After some weeks credits/materials are meaningless. = there is player groups that will just mine so much that they can build endless amounts of ships.

I take it you're not an EVE Online player.

(That said, if torpedo spam turns out to be the most effective way to win battles, I fully expect large factions to invest in huge stocks of them.)

 

[Splashcat]

I take it you're not an EVE Online player.

As someone who half played Eve. and has tried the economy, I agree, even with the near infinite resources, there will still be a market for all of it, meaning that even years sdown the line, trade will be active and plentiful.

 

[Bloodlance]

I take it you're not an EVE Online player.

(That said, if torpedo spam turns out to be the most effective way to win battles, I fully expect large factions to invest in huge stocks of them.)

actually i am an EVE player, been since launch week.

 

[PopeUrban]

I take it you're not an EVE Online player.

(That said, if torpedo spam turns out to be the most effective way to win battles, I fully expect large factions to invest in huge stocks of them.)

I am. You know why they had to nerf Titan doomsdays after they released them, and why they now require escort to not get effortlessly tackled and killed by a guy with a single frigate and enough time on his hands?

They assumed cost would be a sufficient balancing factor to limit their power. Turns out, cost isn't useful for balancing combat mechanics. If something is powerful enough, people will make the effort to get tons of them. They will then use that power to steamroll everyone who didn't and in the process sieze control of more territory and resources that makes affording even more of that thing even easier.

EVE had a similar finding with the balance of their tech 1 ships. Turns out making a ship objectively inferior to another ship that costs more and is harder to make didn't prevent literally the entire galaxy from just throwing away their cheaper T1 ships. They ended up having to rebalance things to T1s are more valuable as multipurpose ships and t2s are more specialized.

Cost is not a meaningful effector on combat balance. If something is overpowered it doesn't matter how much it costs, people will stockpile tons of them, start wars of conquest to afford doing so, or sell everything else they own so they can use them to afford even more of them.

EVE figured that out the hard way.

It isn't that resources, currency, or rarity are meaningless. Its that they're unreliable as ways to balance items or spaceships because your most organized players WILL have tons of them, and build entire economies around obtaining tons of them.

 

[cranky corvid]

Yes, a high price tag is not an adequate balancing measure for an I-win-button (pre-nerf Titans), and yes, there's a floor below which cost doesn't really matter (the frigate example - no real reason to bring the cheaper but weaker ship to a fight where anything serious is at stake when the stronger one is still cheap enough to be very casually replaceable). The same is not true at all scales of power and cost; at others, cost-effectiveness can be relevant, and there are MMOs (including EVE) with meaningful economic aspects to warfare.

What might make torpedoes overpowered is if, say, a lone player can press a button to launch 100 torpedoes that home onto targets autonomously from long range, while the opposing side bringing 50 autocannons (50 instead of 100 because the autocannon count requires hefty reactors to feed their electricity requirements, while the torpedoes don't) needs to have a gaggle of gunners along to aim them effectively. In that case the power of craft armed with guided torpedoes & missiles would scale up way better with resource investment compared to other weapons.

 

[PopeUrban]

Yes, a high price tag is not an adequate balancing measure for an I-win-button (pre-nerf Titans), and yes, there's a floor below which cost doesn't really matter (the frigate example - no real reason to bring the cheaper but weaker ship to a fight where anything serious is at stake when the stronger one is still cheap enough to be very casually replaceable). The same is not true at all scales of power and cost; at others, cost-effectiveness can be relevant, and there are MMOs (including EVE) with meaningful economic aspects to warfare.

What might make torpedoes overpowered is if, say, a lone player can press a button to launch 100 torpedoes that home onto targets autonomously from long range, while the opposing side bringing 50 autocannons (50 instead of 100 because the autocannon count requires hefty reactors to feed their electricity requirements, while the torpedoes don't) needs to have a gaggle of gunners along to aim them effectively. In that case the power of craft armed with guided torpedoes & missiles would scale up way better with resource investment compared to other weapons.

The point here is that when you're designing combat or engineering systems and balancing them you need to balance them under the assumption that all players have easy access to them.

Once you're satisfied with the engineering/damage tradeoffs THEN you determine the materials or manufacturing complexity to rig their value relative to everything else based upon that.

Designing power around cost (e.g. titan aoe doomsdays) is a road to failure.
Designing cost around power that's already balanced without it, and then inflating costs or rarities for flavor is how you successfully design your economy.

 

[Bloodlance]

i will give you a good example of what players will tend to use.

1. long range spammable weapons (that has ok hit rate)(the longer range the better)

2. auto tracking or laser pointed tracking weapons that has 100% hit rate with a good player ( will be the most used if the range is good ).

FACT1 : Price of ships or weapons are irrelevant, only thing that matters is that you win.

FACT2 : If something has lower range then an another weapon system and both has tendency to APPLY damage, then only the one with longer range will be used ( it will be the meta ).

FACT3 : Even if you have HYPERBOMB OF DOOM from 100 meters away, it will not be used in normal PvP.

FACT4 : the biggest and most important thing, only weapons that apply damage will be used. = amount of guns is irrelevant, only thing that is relevant is that when you shoot, you apply damage to your enemy.

Sidenote : a lot of players tend to look about the AMOUNT of firepower some ships have... they lack the understanding that if you do not hit = its the same as having 0 guns.

 

[Killer_Rabbit]

I must admit I started this thread to have a discussion about the practicality of torpedo boats but it seems to have just dived into the economics of weapons and stockpiles.

 

[Bloodlance]

I must admit I started this thread to have a discussion about the practicality of torpedo boats but it seems to have just dived into the economics of weapons and stockpiles.

i think torpedo boats are, go in to range, fire em, and get out.

 

[Killer_Rabbit]

Yeah a bit of a glass cannon because they would need to be fast so they would have less heavy armour

 

[Bloodlance]

i was personally thinking if torpedo thrusters could be used as extra speed with the ship and then refuel the torpedo before launch.

could be interesting also.

 

[PopeUrban]

i was personally thinking if torpedo thrusters could be used as extra speed with the ship and then refuel the torpedo before launch.

could be interesting also.

I was also wondering this. I like the idea of a warhead-less rack of missiles bolted to a ship as a sort of "panic acceleration" or "emergency brake" one shot device for emergencies.