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Destroyer & Frigate Balance |
deathblave
Marshal
Joined: October 10, 2007
Posts: 268
|  Posted: 2008-10-21 15:59
just so u know the combat destoryer can hull utgo dreads i know cause i hulled acetheanimal and backally before i ran out of energy and was not hulled it took four dreads and a battle station to finaly to gun me dowin........ps this is when i was a menber of fatal fleet
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2008-10-21 16:28
Another problem that contributes to Dreadspace is the economy, which currently provides resource income vastly out of proportion to its consumption. Either costs or incomes need to be adjusted so that you can't spam Dreadnoughts and stations unless you own 90% of the Metaverse.
I had some other thoughts on the subject, too. 
Edit Re Axianda:
Quote:
| for some reason the old Full torpedo Missile cruiser/dread pops into mind.
mind you those were lethal only when you got in the firing arc. |
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Yes, a Destroyer with four or five forward-only torpedoes would probably do the trick. Force it to fly straight at the enemy, so they have an easier shot, and it will have to break off eventually and circle around for another run.
[ This Message was edited by: Jim Starluck on 2008-10-21 16:33 ]
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Russian Roulette with Muskets
Grand Admiral
Joined: September 04, 2002
Posts: 393
| Posted: 2008-10-22 01:16
Ion beam frigates.
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2008-10-22 01:47
Heheh. A frigate with a single Ion Cannon or QST or SI.
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2008-10-22 22:21
Just had a nice little Destroyer vs Destroyer battle. I was a Combat Dessie armed with Gauss Guns, SABOT Rockets, Pulse Beams and Active Shields. Enemy was a UGTO Gunboat Destroyer with Particle Guns, SABOT Rockets and standard armor.
The interference of a UGTO Cruiser notwithstanding, he kicked my ass. While Gauss Guns do in fact have a much greater accuracy than Railguns, the lower damage seemed to offset that. I'm now thinking that Gauss may only be good if a Dessie is trying to fight a Frigate, as they are 20% faster and more than 50% more maneuverable.
Also, Gauss Guns (and probably Railguns as well) desperately need higher ammocounts; I started getting low on ammo just when I was beginning to hit hull. I sincerely doubt I would have been able to actually kill him. When you don't have enough ammo to finish a 1v1 fight with a ship of equal size, something is very, very wrong.
And I have one question... It seemed like I did less damage at greater range. Do Gauss Guns have the same "no damage falloff over distance" feature as Railguns? And if not, why not? They're both projectiles rather than energy weapons or particle cannons.
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Shigernafy
Admiral
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 5726
From: The Land of Taxation without Representation
| Posted: 2008-10-22 22:26
Just to address your final paragraph, Gauss have no falloff; they are, as you note, a projectile and thus (given that there's rather little drag in space to slow them down) don't lose power over time or distance. So if you felt you were doing less damage, it was either your imagination or the enemy being able to dodge part of the volley at greater range and thus take less damage.
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2008-10-23 10:43
That's good. I suppose I couldn't really say how accurate I was at long range.
One thing I have noted, however, is that there doesn't seem to be any "medium" range for Destroyers and Frigates. Past a few hundred gu, the medium range weapons--i.e. guns/cannons--can't hit them accurately. They're only effective within, say, 300 gu.
I don't see any way to change this without drastically increasing the velocity of the projectiles (which I know we had lag issues with in Beta awhile ago) or drastically reducing their speed and maneuverability, at which point we might as well just call them Light Cruisers.
I guess my point is that there's no such thing as a medium range Destroyer, just short-range (beams, guns and torps) and long-range (missiles, if they were worth a damn).
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2008-10-23 12:19
Had another Dessie Duel... this time my Combat Destroyer with Railguns vs Rhiawhyn Zerinth in a K'luth Stinger with Plasma Cannons.
We determined two things.
First, ICC desperately need more ammo for their guns. I was barely able to hull him and I certainly wouldn't have been able to kill him.
Second, the K'luth Auto-Hull Repair is not just repairing hull but armor as well. Rhia's armor repair kicked up noticably when he activated the AHR, and when my Active Shields--supposed to be the quickest-regenerating defense in the game--were at 55% his armor was fully-healed.
Oh, and a minor cosmetic note--the sound effect for the Railguns firing should be louder, I can barely hear it most of the time, even when I'm zoomed way in.
[ This Message was edited by: Jim Starluck on 2008-10-23 12:20 ]
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Rhiawhyn Zerinth
Fleet Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: October 31, 2005
Posts: 257
From: I.C.C Deep space refueling station
| Posted: 2008-10-23 12:26
Indeed, when i was taking hull damage and the AHR kicked in, my armor started gaining allmost 2% a SECOND. that is FAR higher in regen then any defence, and ahr needs to be looked at because of it. AHR should NOT be repairing armor...
along with the ammo, if a ship cannot hull another ship without running low on said ammo, something is wrong, while yes, he did hull me a couple of times, the combination of the AHRs repair and regen to my hull ANd armor, made it impossible for him to kill me, even after we just stood still and pounded away at eachother, he was at 60% hull were as i was only at 80% or so...
in short, AHR needs to be looked at, badly...
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2008-10-23 21:03
A big part of the problem, I think, is not that ships are useless--I was very surprised the other day when my ICC Destroyer was actually damaging the aft armor of a UGTO EAD, but then again that arc of theirs is weak and he might've been using Reflectives which helps my Railguns--but more that people won't fly them.
It seems, by and large, that ships are designed to fight on even terms with their equals. Destroyers are geared to fight other Destroyers, Cruisers to fight other Cruisers, Dreads to fight other Dreads, etc. They aren't quite as good at fighting other ships; Destroyers have a hard time hurting Cruisers and Dreads, Dreads have a hard time hitting Destroyers and Cruisers (not as much, though), etc.
In theory this is a good idea, because it encourages the pilots of those ships to focus on their peers, who will in theory be of similar skill. The problem is that we have mostly players who can fly any ship of any class; it isn't that hard to work up to max level very quickly. So when everyone has access to Dreads, there isn't as much of a reason for people to fly them. Even if Destroyers were perfectly balanced in relation to each other, they can't pose a serious threat to anything bigger than them unless they outnumber it, and if everyone else is flying Dreads you want something that can fight them effectively. We need to find a reason for people who can fly Dreads to instead fly something smaller, or else fleets will always be skewed towards the upper end.
We have ships that are fine vs each other, can't easily hit things smaller than them and can't easily damage things bigger than them. What we need are ships that can't easily hit each other but can easily damage things bigger than them. The bigger ships will be unable to kill them on their own, so they'll need smaller ships to act as screening elements. This makes it not just a nice thing to have smaller ships but more a necessity, to counter the enemy's smaller ships.
It gives new players and those who like to fly smaller ships an effective role within the game, and encourages player fleets to be more diverse rather than just grabbing the biggest ship they can.
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Russian Roulette with Muskets
Grand Admiral
Joined: September 04, 2002
Posts: 393
| Posted: 2008-10-23 21:11
yeah. more ammo would be awesome.
And again:
Ion beam frigates.
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Fattierob
Vice Admiral
Joined: April 25, 2003
Posts: 4059
| Posted: 2008-10-23 21:30
Quote:
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And again:
Ion beam frigates.
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This is Darkspace, not Homeworld.
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Gejaheline
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 19, 2005
Posts: 1127
From: UGTO MUNIN HQ, Mars
| Posted: 2008-10-24 08:27
Quote:
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On 2008-10-23 21:11, Russian Roulette with Muskets wrote:
yeah. more ammo would be awesome.
And again:
Ion beam frigates.
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Again, I don't think this is a bad idea. Have a cripplingly overspecialised ship (similar to bombers, transports and engineers, all of which sacrifice combat effectiveness for some other function) designed around a single huge-yet-unwieldy weapon that can punch holes in larger ships. I'm not saying that they should be able to outright kill dreads and stations on their own, but at least take big chunks off their armour, and at best perhaps do a few percent hull damage. Of course, their huge mass would slow down their turn rate, and you'd only be able to get a few shots off before you had to stop and recharge, even with a reactor.
These ships, of course, would suck against anything their own size, so the counter to them is to deploy smaller ships rather than trying to pop them with dreads. Give them a disproportionately high rank to use, and perhaps silver combat or something, so you need to work for them like other extra-lethal ships.
This is, incidentally, the principle behind torpedo boats. Ironically, the full name of the destroyer class was "torpedo boat destroyer:" Killing torpedo boats was its primary function, albeit large, steam-powered torpedo boats. Later torpedo boats were smaller and faster.
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2008-10-24 13:22
That's similar to what I'm proposing, except I'm thinking a few forward-mount torpedoes instead of a single big spinal weapon. That forces the small ship to get in close, which gives the big ship some ability to counter it. It's when the big ship is preoccupied fighting other big ships that it'll need its own small ships to watch its back. It also ensures that the attacking small ship won't be very good against other small ships.
And later real-world Destroyers had torpedoes of their own, so they basically played both roles at once.
[ This Message was edited by: Jim Starluck on 2008-10-24 13:24 ]
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-Shadowalker-™
Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: September 23, 2007
Posts: 709
From: Shadows
| Posted: 2008-10-24 15:58
Quote:
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On 2008-10-21 14:30, wibbleonide *FM*{Recruiting} wrote:
i agree with Jim here...we have dreadspace all over again, nothing but dreads and stations out there in the MV. we need something to persuade the people to use the lower ships.
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I am using dessies alot. and so far ive been able to acutally say afloat in a fight i do great against crusiers and anything below. but dreadspace is definatly coming back. (BORING)
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