Will one efficient design suppress all creativity?

[MoonSet416]

Honestly I'm not too worried about meta/popular designs. I've been involved with combat robots IRL for around 4 years now, and my experience there told me that even if there's a clear meta in place there is still diversity and fun to be had.

If you have watched Battlebots or Robot Wars before, you already know what combat robots are. If not, combat robots, or combots, are remote controlled robots that fight in an enclosed arena with the purpose of destroying or disabling the opponent. Over the years a type of robot called vertical spinners have become very mainstream due to their effectiveness and simplicity (sounds like most video game metas?). Despite this, the sport is still growing and remains interesting and has no shortage of creativity and diversity. Metas tend to spawn counter-metas, and even within vertical spinners there are so many different design choices to be made. An example would be the Battlebots 2019 season final between Bite Force and Witch Doctor. Both robots were 4WD vertical spinners, yet they were so different from each other at the same time because they almost took opposite paths in most design details.

The example of combat robots applies to Starbase better than any other similar game because of the insane amount of design choices. Just like IRL machines, SB ships have a lot of small parts and details and every single bit of the design matters. So even if every player in SB is only allowed to build box ships there will be no lack of variety once you look closely. On the same note, I think SB wouldn't have a dominant/meta archetype of ships to begin with because details matter so much more.

 

[Cannon Machine Ballista]

Honestly I'm not too worried about meta/popular designs. I've been involved with combat robots IRL for around 4 years now, and my experience there told me that even if there's a clear meta in place there is still diversity and fun to be had.

If you have watched Battlebots or Robot Wars before, you already know what combat robots are. If not, combat robots, or combots, are remote controlled robots that fight in an enclosed arena with the purpose of destroying or disabling the opponent. Over the years a type of robot called vertical spinners have become very mainstream due to their effectiveness and simplicity (sounds like most video game metas?). Despite this, the sport is still growing and remains interesting and has no shortage of creativity and diversity. Metas tend to spawn counter-metas, and even within vertical spinners there are so many different design choices to be made. An example would be the Battlebots 2019 season final between Bite Force and Witch Doctor. Both robots were 4WD vertical spinners, yet they were so different from each other at the same time because they almost took opposite paths in most design details.

The example of combat robots applies to Starbase better than any other similar game because of the insane amount of design choices. Just like IRL machines, SB ships have a lot of small parts and details and every single bit of the design matters. So even if every player in SB is only allowed to build box ships there will be no lack of variety once you look closely. On the same note, I think SB wouldn't have a dominant/meta archetype of ships to begin with because details matter so much more.

What you said makes perfect sense. Good design may converge slightly, but there will definitely be completely different details.

 

[Dante]

Probably some designs are more effective than other, but would only matter in PvP I guess. To be creative and build some unique ships will be a part of this game.

 

[Cannon Machine Ballista]

Probably some designs are more effective than other, but would only matter in PvP I guess. To be creative and build some unique ships will be a part of this game.

I think even in PVP, good design will emerge in endlessly, just like the new tactics of modern war with new vehicles, the same materials, different combinations, forming different ships, they have their own applicable environment.

A good commander and spaceship designer is the key to success.

 

[RedPine]

After watching a few streams, I can confidently say that the meta will never grow stale. There are simply too many variables, even in the most heavily simplified situation.

Let's assume a small fighter, optimized to be a cheap, fast, and hard to hit glass cannon. This is believed to be the current meta according to the streams. Lets also assume that the only weapon is the default auto cannon on a fixed mount, and the only two thrusters are the box thruster and the maneuvering gas thrusters. Let's also assume that there is only one type of armor, and that there is no point in spaced or layered armor.

1. How big should the ship be? The larger, the easier to hit but the more dakka. The smaller, the harder to hit...

2. What shape should the ship be? Frontal gunwall? Stepped? Box? Wide disc? Angled wedge? Thin tube?

3. What Gun/Generator/Battery ratio? More guns is more firepower, but they require either more batteries (for short bursts of firepower) or generators (sustained firepower). All of the above add mass, are explosive weak points if shot, and are bulky.

4. Which axis of movement and maneuver? Do you prefer strafing and roll for maximum aiming and dodging, with no need for forward thrust? Or do you prefer the high frontal speed and yaw of a traditional dogfighter? Are you one of those weirdos with maximum backwards thrust, who can keep his opponents at maximum range? (This takes advantage of how space drag works - in any chase, the chaser is running into the bullets of the chased, giving the chaser slightly lower maximum range.)

5. Widely spaced guns or closely concentrated guns? Pinpoint firepower, or widely scattered firepower?

6. How many total thrusters? Do you want a higher max speed, or are other things - such as manueverability and firepower - more important? Do you use box thrusters for manuevering, or only for forward thrust? Do you go for an ultrasmall profile and ONLY use gas thrusters?

7. How much spare fuel/ammo/fuel rods? It doesn't matter how powerful a fighter is if it can't reach it's destination, though carriers and fuel ships can fix that problem in large scale team fights.

8. YOLOL. Do you add scripts and buttons that flip the ship a precise 180 degrees, activate staggered fire mode to conserve ammo on unlikely-to-hit shots, automatically fire all guns when rangefinders detect a nearby ship, switch between maximum thrust and maximum fuel economy? Even if you assume that there is a perfect fighter, good luck finding the perfect YOLOL programs to bring out it's true potential.

All of this avoids the question as to whether or not fighters are meta in the first place. Is it more cost effective to use suicide vasama bikes with warheads and rocket launcher wielding endos? Is it viable to free aim turrets in a single pilot vehicle? Is a two person gunship with a pilot and gunner better than two fighters? Can you abuse bolting partially broken asteroids and ship parts together to create junk heaps that can unleash ambushes? Do fighters even matter if all civilian craft prioritize being able to reach the 150 m/s speed limit to flee? Is it possible to design a YOLOL programmed torpedo that uses rangefinders to lock onto a target and destroy it with uncanny accuracy? (Due to YOLOL and rangefinder limitations, this would be incredibly difficult if not impossible, but you never know.)

 

[Mr.Silver]

They're not designed for avoidance though, they're designed to soak as much damage as possible from every angle, without presenting a weak-spot and equally protecting all the vital systems. They're flying bunkers, basically.

The power of cubes is kinda irrelevant it really does depend on how you make your ship or isolated components to function. In most cases seeing how this game goes im certain cubes will not be a meta but at the end of the day its speculation but im sure we wont have many borgs from star trek roaming around

 

[K-T0N]

The only way I can see a cubic design work is for cargos, who need a large volume for a small construction cost

 

[Mr.Silver]

The only way I can see a cubic design work is for cargos, who need a large volume for a small construction cost

sounds about right like a small freighter imo

 

[Varien101]

There are people out there who can create builds that are majestic and beautiful and 100% ass kicking machines lol. A flying death cube could become a meta, but only because it's easy(er).

The above is from a game called "From The Depths" and a large portion of the community just builds ships and enters them into tournaments like the above. The ship on the left at start of the video is a perfect example of a ship that is absolutely gorgeous, but also devastating. I know it's a different game, but the principals are still the same.

 

[Chewy]

One thing to consider with ship design is their purpose. Outside of station sieges, PvP between purpose built combat ships probably won't happen very often. As a result, the design of combat ships won't be that important because fights will mostly be between pirate/raider ships and civilian mining/transport ships, a one sided affair. Ships will be built for speed and frontal firepower, with surface area for bolting crates of stolen goods onto after a raid. As long as it has more guns than a civilian ship, it's effective.

As for station sieges, I think we'll see fleets mainly consisting of 2 ship types: fighters and breakers.
Breakers will be similar to the gun-bunkers already mentioned in this thread. High armor and maximum frontal firepower, specifically built for boring into the station core or inhibitor. Personally I expect something along the lines of the pyramid-shaped ships that ruled the starmade PvP meta a while back. Unlike those starmade ships however, I don't expect turrets to be utilized, only forward facing weaponry. The crew sizes of these ships will be kept as small as possible, probably only the pilot and 1-2 backup crew for repairs and to replace the pilot if they die. On the topic of pilots, these ships will utilize multiple cockpits; both as decoys to draw fire from the pilot's location and to control the ship if the original cockpit is destroyed. The cockpits themselves will be buried into the armor, only providing a front view for the pilot but also forcing enemy ships into the ship's massive line of fire to get a clean shot. The breaker's biggest threats come from the direction of the station/inhibitor it's trying to kill, so it can safely face that direction and leave protecting its flanks to the rest of the fleet.
The rest of the fleet is made up of fighters. Fighters are self-explanatory. They're already in use in the CA, and many players expect that they will be the meta. I don't disagree. The breakers only need to worry about enemy craft that are fast enough to out-maneuver their turn speed, so fighters will be used to cover their blindspots. The objective of a station siege is to eliminate the station core/inhibitor, meaning that the fighters just need to keep enemy craft away from the breakers while they bombard the station/inhibitor from their max range. In this situation, you could consider the fighters as a replacement to point defense turrets.
Other ship types might make an appearance, such as fuel tankers for the fighters, but will mostly fit into non-combatant roles and be kept as far from the battlefield as possible.

Of course, this is mostly conjecture. However, based on the current state of the game, I think it's a reasonable prediction. The fleet I described maximizes the use of the most valuable resource: manpower. Fighters have always been primarily controlled by one player, and the breakers can also be controlled by 1 player due to their lack of turrets. This maximizes the amount of ships a fleet can bring into battle on limited crew, overall increasing the fleet's firepower. Due to the lack of AI and cameras, turrets on ships are simply inferior to fighter cover as a defense mechanism. The rudimentary methods used to slave turrets to one controller cause inaccuracy, and the glass needed for the gunner to see presents a huge weak point. One of a turret's advantages is that it can aim independently from the ship, but with more glass to increase the gunner's field of view, the gunner becomes more vulnerable and the whole system becomes counter-intuitive. Fighters, on the other hand, minimize the threat of cockpit sniping with their maneuverability, and their forward facing weaponry makes accurate firing easier. If a large ship replaces 1 turret gunner with 1 fighter escort, they replace an inaccurate, vulnerable system that can only cover about 180 degrees field of view around the ship with a unit that can easily move a full 360 degrees around the ship, while also being able to break off and accomplish other tasks. As for costs, it's possible that a fighter could cost more than a turret (even considering the inflated cost of a large ship to mount the turret on). To that I say this: it doesn't matter. For factions in a game like this, manpower will ALWAYS be the bottleneck, especially with the lack of AI. Factions can more easily farm ingame resources than they can recruit new players to their cause. You also have to consider the fact that there will be many players who do not wish to pvp, and those that do want to pvp will likely want to pilot their own ship than be a gunner or repairman on someone else's. At the end of the day, the meta won't be decided based on how efficiently one ship kills another, it will be decided based on how efficiently one player can kill another.