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Ship Tiers and You |
Walrus of Apathy
Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: August 07, 2005
Posts: 466
From: Dorans Basement
|  Posted: 2013-03-12 08:45
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On 2013-03-11 13:24, Novacat wrote:
Long time no see.
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Oh, and by the way? That game where you guess a ship tier, type, faction and role combo and I'll give you the layout if there is one? That's good for everyone, for the rest of the thread. 
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Tier 2, Dreadnought, ICC, Command/Carrier
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M-318C/N Command Carrier
Command Carriers have been the chosen flagships of the ICC Admiralty for more than a generation. With heavily reinforced armor and shields, extensive electronic warfare systems and six squadrons of fighters, they are purpose-built to lead the Confederate Navy's capital fleet. Most of these ships are among the oldest dreadnoughts in the Confederate Navy, as the M-300 series dates back to the days of the loosely-aligned Farstars, the predecessors of the ICC. Since the bickering frontier colonies could not afford many heavy warships, they used what few dreadnoughts they could assemble as flagships of cruiser squadrons. Many of the surviving 318s have served with distinction in previous conflicts and senior ICC admirals have been known to pull strings to get the same ships that their fathers and grandfathers served on.
Layout:
- 1x Jumpdrive
- 1x Wormhole Drive
- 4x IE Drive
- 4x Composite Armor ( 1 F, 1 P, 1 S, 1 A )
- 4x Active Shields ( 1 F, 1 P, 1 S, 1 A )
- 8x Fighter Bay
- 1x Pulse Shield
- 2x Full-arc Point-defense Beam
- 2x Tri-arc Point-defense Beam (2 FPS)
- 2x Command Module
- 1x Build Drones
- 1x ECCM
- 3x Auxiliary Fusion Generator
Happy now?
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Kenny_Naboo
Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: January 11, 2010
Posts: 3823
From: LobsterTown
| Posted: 2013-03-12 23:27
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On 2013-03-12 08:45, Walrus of Apathy wrote:
Many of the surviving 318s have served with distinction in previous conflicts and senior ICC admirals have been known to pull strings to get the same ships that their fathers and grandfathers served on.
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Sentimentality gets people killed LOL....
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Novacat
Grand Admiral
Joined: October 30, 2001
Posts: 2337
From: Starleague Cache
| Posted: 2013-03-13 07:28
Some thoughts on the CC:
The new CC loses half of the build drones, 2/3 of the EWAR, and all of the tractor beams and half of the chemical lasers. A lot of this was extraneous fat, so not much was actually lost. Though the loss of the tractor beams and EWAR will hurt. The tractor beam loss means toting supply platforms will no longer be possible, and the EWAR loss prevents the new CC from contributing as much to the team's EWAR as the old CC.
The main gains are the Wormhole device, the two Command Modules, and the 2 extra fighters. The Wormhole/Jumpdrive combination makes the CC suprisingly mobile, able to not only enhance the team's mobility through wormholes but also still jump like a normal dread. The extra fighters, on top of the fighter buff, actually makes the CC a decent carrier and likely able to match any of the UGTO Carriers sans the Agincourt. Of course, the actual usefulness of this depends highly on the fighter buffs in question. The two new command modules are a complete unknown, and could either be deadweight, or an impressive addition.
Now, the drawbacks of the new CC is that it will not be able to serve as a crude supply ship by towing platforms anymore. This likely means that the only way you are going to be able to get supplied on field without any player-driven supply ships is through an AI supply ship, and AI supply ships are notoriously unreliable. The loss of EWAR also means that the CC cannot contribute as much to team EWAR as previously.
A potential problem of the new design is that the Command Modules may require the CC to be closer to the fight than most carriers would likely feel comfortable going.
An interesting quirk about the ship is the 3 reactors. Unless Command Modules have incredibly large power consumption, the new Command Carrier is likely to have an overabundance of energy. Thus, it might be viable for a CC to swap out its reactors for auxillary shields to make an especially durable dreadnought which might make up for the fact these ships have to remain uncomfortably close to the fighting, or keep the reactors, swap engines to AFEs, and constantly fly around at maximum speed.
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DiepLuc
Chief Marshal
Joined: March 23, 2010
Posts: 1187
| Posted: 2013-03-13 09:50
Dear Walrus,
Is there any layout available for the tier II or III of utility classes like Engineer, Transport and Supply that you can reveal?
I know the engineer & supply will have extra drone for each advance tier, but how about the rest gadgets?... For transport, maybe tier II transport/bomber and tier III transport/bomber/e-war (for human) or transport/bomber/torpedo for K'Luth? Can't think of any combination for this class.
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Novacat
Grand Admiral
Joined: October 30, 2001
Posts: 2337
From: Starleague Cache
| Posted: 2013-03-13 10:32
One of the main concerns I have about the Tier system is the overspecialization. Overspecialization is especially sensitive to balance issues, especially since not every specialization will be equal, and players will gravitate towards the specializations that have the greatest bang for their buck.
That is the primary issue with the current ship system today. Players gravitate strongly towards close-range, beam/torpedo/cannon, high-durability brawlers like the EAD, AD, and Siphon, while longer ranged fighter and missile based ships are never used because of their relative ineffectiveness. Unless you fix that problem, all this new tier system will do is replace the current flavor of the month ships with different flavor of the month ships, with the huge amount of ship variety being added being completely meaningless because they will never be used.
Here are the current major issues that Darkspace's balance team has to work through:
Low Manpower - The lack of relative manpower will generally encourage players to pick the most soloable ships. This generally results in players leaning away towards ships that require secondary support in order to be useful, like carriers and missile boats, towards ships that can effectively fight on their own without support. This also encourages players to ditch unnecessary roles if possible and encourage the usage of ships that fill as many necessary roles as possible. This is why ships like the Sector Command Base (at least, before it was nerfed) was worth its weight in gold. It had the capability to fill the Supply, Engineering, Combat, and Transport roles all at once, and three of those are still necessary roles today.
Necessary Roles - Some roles are absolutly necessary no matter the playstyle you and your teammates have. You simply cannot effectively do anything without these roles. Previously, the necessary roles were: Supply, Engineering, Transport, Interdictor, and Combat. Transport was largely eliminated as a necessary role due to the new planet capture system. Interdictor was removed from the game. Bombing is, suprisingly, never was a necessary role, but you need an excessive amount of transport roles in order to cover for the lack of bombing. The present necessary roles are Engineering, Supply, and Combat. Due to these necessary roles, you need to devote players to filling them no matter what playstyles your team has.
*Note: Combat has a large number of sub-roles such as Fighter, Beam, Cannon, Torpedo, and Missile. These sub-roles are more playstyle-based, they all do the same thing, the only difference is how they do them. Thus they are all lumped together in the combat role.
Weakness of Range - Keeping range is currently impossible in Darkspace. For ships dependant on long range, like Missile and Carrier ships, this is an extremely huge problem. The massive tactical mobility of jump drives makes it very difficult to actually keep any significant range against an opponent determined to get into close range. The removal of interdictor ships made the prospect of keeping range even more impossible. Thus, you have a general leaning towards torpedo and beam-heavy ships which pack the greatest bang for buck and their low range issues are almost completely negated by the jump drive's ability to instantly close range.
My suggestion here would be to bring back the Interdictor in some form. However, the Interdictor will not stop enemy ships from jumping away, it will only disrupt the jump drive of enemy ships that have their jump destination inside the bubble. This removes the fustrating aspect of being unable to escape/disengage from an interdictor, while still allowing the interdictor to stop close-range enemy units from point-jumping friendly missile/carrier ships. Maybe increase the range on it to compensate, say, to 2000 gus.
The Kluth Factor - The Kluth are a faction that possesses a device that completely immunizes long-range firepower. This is also a very strong factor that pushes people away from long-range ships and towards close-range brawlers, because flying a long-range ship is just asking to be screwed by cloaked Kluth. There needs to be some mechanic added that allows ICC/UGTO to force Kluth to fight them at range for longer-ranged vessels to be more effective.
Roles vs Roles - Remember that when you force people to fly a ship to fill a role, they are taking themselves away from flying a different ship. Thus, when someone docks their Heavy Cruiser to fly that EWAR Cruiser, unless that EWAR Cruiser is able to provide the same amount or greater benefit to the team than the Heavy Cruiser, it would have been a net loss. You see this play out a lot in the metaverse, a 10-man fleet with a rainbow variety of different ships and roles will get completely curbstomped by that other fleet whom just stacks 10 ADs, 10 EADs, or 10 Siphons.
[ This Message was edited by: Novacat on 2013-03-13 10:34 ]
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Riley!
Chief Marshal
Joined: May 29, 2002
Posts: 257
| Posted: 2013-03-14 09:53
I skipped a bunch of pages so sorry if this has already been suggested but can there be ship-level or crew rank system that works similar as this proposed tier system?
role specific prestige earning actions earn the ship "crew experience"
the crew is able to level up in rank after reaching X experience.
each increase in crew rank would raise the ship stats higher.
ship destruction resets crew rank.
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Ignorance
Grand Admiral
Joined: October 27, 2012
Posts: 85
| Posted: 2013-03-14 21:24
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On 2013-03-14 09:53, Riley! wrote:
I skipped a bunch of pages so sorry if this has already been suggested but can there be ship-level or crew rank system that works similar as this proposed tier system?
role specific prestige earning actions earn the ship "crew experience"
the crew is able to level up in rank after reaching X experience.
each increase in crew rank would raise the ship stats higher.
ship destruction resets crew rank.
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+1
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Lt. Commander Data: \"In the game of poker, there is a moment when a player must decide if an opponent is being deceptive, or actually holds a winning hand.\"
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*FTL*Soulless
Marshal
Joined: June 25, 2010
Posts: 787
From: Dres-Kona
| Posted: 2013-03-16 00:23
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On 2013-03-14 09:53, Riley! wrote:
I skipped a bunch of pages so sorry if this has already been suggested but can there be ship-level or crew rank system that works similar as this proposed tier system?
role specific prestige earning actions earn the ship "crew experience"
the crew is able to level up in rank after reaching X experience.
each increase in crew rank would raise the ship stats higher.
ship destruction resets crew rank.
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i like that a lot...be kinda like a ehn, but non staking . And resets with ship death
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Kenny_Naboo
Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: January 11, 2010
Posts: 3823
From: LobsterTown
| Posted: 2013-03-16 01:33
The ship/crew level has been suggested before, and the team has considered adding it in but it needs to be carefully thought out and planned first. Personally, I'm a proponent of that idea. But some has raised potential issues like players avoiding combat out of fear of death and losing their crews and blahblahblah... but I think it's still an interesting idea.
As for Novacat's subject of ranged ships bring jumped by brawlers, a good fix besides bringing interdictors back would be to set a min range for jumps. Something in the neighborhood of 3500 gus would stop point jumping quite effectively.
Again, this is under consideration, as with any other major gameplay affecting issues. A lot of thought have to be put in before it's implemented, if ever.
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Talien
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: May 11, 2010
Posts: 2044
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2013-03-16 12:39
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On 2013-03-16 01:33, Kenny_Naboo wrote:
As for Novacat's subject of ranged ships bring jumped by brawlers, a good fix besides bringing interdictors back would be to set a min range for jumps. Something in the neighborhood of 3500 gus would stop point jumping quite effectively.
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I like that idea. It would still let you track people who jump away from combat and would still let people make surprise attack jumps from long distances, but it would get rid of the "in your face" point jumps that everyone complains about.
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Zero28
Grand Admiral
Joined: August 25, 2006
Posts: 591
| Posted: 2013-03-16 21:44
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On 2013-03-16 01:33, Kenny_Naboo wrote:
The ship/crew level has been suggested before, and the team has considered adding it in but it needs to be carefully thought out and planned first. Personally, I'm a proponent of that idea. But some has raised potential issues like players avoiding combat out of fear of death and losing their crews and blahblahblah... but I think it's still an interesting idea.
As for Novacat's subject of ranged ships bring jumped by brawlers, a good fix besides bringing interdictors back would be to set a min range for jumps. Something in the neighborhood of 3500 gus would stop point jumping quite effectively.
Again, this is under consideration, as with any other major gameplay affecting issues. A lot of thought have to be put in before it's implemented, if ever.
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+1
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Novacat
Grand Admiral
Joined: October 30, 2001
Posts: 2337
From: Starleague Cache
| Posted: 2013-03-20 08:46
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On 2013-03-16 01:33, Kenny_Naboo wrote:
As for Novacat's subject of ranged ships bring jumped by brawlers, a good fix besides bringing interdictors back would be to set a min range for jumps. Something in the neighborhood of 3500 gus would stop point jumping quite effectively.
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I doubt this fix will be as effective as you imagine it. It would certainly make it take longer to point jump, but most people would just point jump beyond the 3500 gu min range, wait for recharge, then point jump back in. On top of this, a 3500 gu min range would make playing slow ships slightly more fustrating as you would not be able to use your jumpdrive to move short distances out of combat, say, from a planet to its moon.
[ This Message was edited by: Novacat on 2013-03-20 08:46 ]
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Kenny_Naboo
Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: January 11, 2010
Posts: 3823
From: LobsterTown
| Posted: 2013-03-20 11:29
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On 2013-03-20 08:46, Novacat wrote:
I doubt this fix will be as effective as you imagine it. It would certainly make it take longer to point jump, but most people would just point jump beyond the 3500 gu min range, wait for recharge, then point jump back in. On top of this, a 3500 gu min range would make playing slow ships slightly more fustrating as you would not be able to use your jumpdrive to move short distances out of combat, say, from a planet to its moon.
[ This Message was edited by: Novacat on 2013-03-20 08:46 ]
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It was meant to stop Dreads from pointjumping the little ships and instagibbing them. It also works against those ships who want to extend their distance slightly out.
In other words, this would force you to play smart. If you're a dessie or cruiser wanting to make an attack on a dread, you jump in to around 500 gus and maintain your distance. The dread cannot pointjump you and you have the advantage.
It also means that if you're careless and allow the dread to close to within 200 gus and you get pounded, you can't just short jump 800gus to cannon range. You'll have to jump beyond 3500 gus and start again. And if you jump badly, the dread can still PJ you at 3500.
So all in all, this negates close range point jumps to the point where it allows the smaller ships to keep their distance and maintain their fire on larger slower ships. It was never meant to negate long range point jumps.
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Zero28
Grand Admiral
Joined: August 25, 2006
Posts: 591
| Posted: 2013-03-20 12:23
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On 2013-03-20 11:29, Kenny_Naboo wrote:
It was meant to stop Dreads from pointjumping the little ships and instagibbing them. It also works against those ships who want to extend their distance slightly out.
In other words, this would force you to play smart. If you're a dessie or cruiser wanting to make an attack on a dread, you jump in to around 500 gus and maintain your distance. The dread cannot pointjump you and you have the advantage.
It also means that if you're careless and allow the dread to close to within 200 gus and you get pounded, you can't just short jump 800gus to cannon range. You'll have to jump beyond 3500 gus and start again. And if you jump badly, the dread can still PJ you at 3500.
So all in all, this negates close range point jumps to the point where it allows the smaller ships to keep their distance and maintain their fire on larger slower ships. It was never meant to negate long range point jumps.
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i will also add that if the dread decided to jump out to avoid this cruiser, well the cruiser got a faster JD recharge, it can still follow the dread and remain at range. Should the dread decided to leave the battle, then its his lost, the cruiser can do damage elsewhere or cap planets in the mean time
also remember, the game is not based on 1 vs 1. If a cruisers forces a Dread to emergency JD, 2 other cruisers/ dessie can track it easily. keepign range and keep pummeling it with out having the dread able to do antyign back
wich would mean, Dread would requires Cruiser/dessy escorts, Thus makign small ships more popular.
[ This Message was edited by: Zero28 on 2013-03-20 12:25 ]
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DiepLuc
Chief Marshal
Joined: March 23, 2010
Posts: 1187
| Posted: 2013-03-27 13:15
Set the minimum range of jump will affect all ships. There are transport, supply, station, engineer that also need short jump.
If the minimum is set, the killboard will rarely list destroyer nor cruiser. It could take hunting enjoyment out of the game. Clearly, it is not a good solution.
BTW, WH precisement should be cut down from 2000gu to 700gu, and the opening gate should be closer to the maker, for the sake of stations. Since playing the game, I've never seen any WH-kill succecced. It's extremely rare. On the opposite side, I can say that WH unprecise affect Command ship all the time. In the RoC, WH-fishing is forbidden but is there any guy whose patience is long enough to spend 2:30 minutes, non-stop, just to open the gate and hope the target destroyed in a sudden? And is there any fool station stay steady and wait the WH to catch itself?
WH-kill is hard, and it prevents station space in game, and make command ship more like a special tool in game, indeed.
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