On 2010-07-10 22:07, Light-of-Aurora wrote:
I like this solution much better than increasing/decreasing the actual combat effectiveness of ships from what it already is. If losing a large ship resulted in a more prohibitive prestige loss, I think it would help address the issue better than if Dreads and stations were hit with a nerf; people wouldn't feel underwhelmed when earning a rank to fly a bigger ship, but would be more cautious when deciding to pull one out.

On 2010-07-11 02:21, Talien {SOE} wrote:

Quote:

On 2010-07-10 22:07, Light-of-Aurora wrote: I like this solution much better than increasing/decreasing the actual combat effectiveness of ships from what it already is. If losing a large ship resulted in a more prohibitive prestige loss, I think it would help address the issue better than if Dreads and stations were hit with a nerf; people wouldn't feel underwhelmed when earning a rank to fly a bigger ship, but would be more cautious when deciding to pull one out.

Apparently it used to be that way, I wasn't around back then so I can't say for sure why it was lowered, but I'd imagine a river of tears had something to do with it.

On 2010-07-10 22:16, Azreal wrote:
Works great till you get above GA. A little buffer pres and its not really an issue. Personally I have never been one to care about pres. I throw ships away quite often covering a wingmate who is about to die. I dont think unless it was an osurdly obscene amout that it would ever make me hessitate pulling the ship, fighting and dying in it.

What am I gonna lose? Marshal rank? I dont think so....

The thing I would like to ask, is will that also scale to the amount of pres I get when I kill one?

For some reason, that has never been equivalent from what I have seen. You lose XXX for dying in a ship. Kill the equivalent and you get XX pres. Seems kinda....cheater-like.

On 2010-07-11 02:40, Starcommand of ICC *XO* wrote:

Massive pres loss will not phase some people, and it will phase others. Still if you lost 2k pres for a dread and 3-4k for a station, you would think twice about pulling one out. You would pull one out when you absolutely were sure it was going to be protected, and would hardly take it into combat for fear of losing it. Since you would lose 2x or more what you could make in one, that massive ship suddenly becomes much less appealing. You would then start looking for the smaller ships, that trade off of pres loss vs pres gain. Thats where dessys and cruisers start becoming more appealing, a good trade off of damage(pres gain) vs pres risked.

On 2010-07-11 03:49, Kenny_Naboo wrote:
Exactly. Pres loss won't bother GAs n above much. What we need is to increase small ship combat effectiveness in terms of damage output.

Less beams, more med range projectile weaps like PCs, rails, n PSIs, and .... Dare I suggest... reducing or removing weap levelling.

Tractor scouts, thats what got it lowered. You would lose tons of pres for being pushed into a planet, thus QQ was involved.

Massive pres loss will not phase some people, and it will phase others. Still if you lost 2k pres for a dread and 3-4k for a station, you would think twice about pulling one out. You would pull one out when you absolutely were sure it was going to be protected, and would hardly take it into combat for fear of losing it. Since you would lose 2x or more what you could make in one, that massive ship suddenly becomes much less appealing. You would then start looking for the smaller ships, that trade off of pres loss vs pres gain. Thats where dessys and cruisers start becoming more appealing, a good trade off of damage(pres gain) vs pres risked.

On 2010-07-11 13:51, Enterprise wrote:
For people who are saying increase the prestige loss for big ships, this was already done once before.

In 1.483 (which lasted around a couple years), prestige loss for a station was around 1k, and a Dread would take around 500 prestige. You want to know what happened?

People still pulled out dreadnaughts. The only difference was, they ran the second their armor/shields were gone. The only way you killed a dreadnaught or a station is if you kept a dictor around. And if you kept a dictor around they just wouldn't play.

I by no means would complain if prestige loss for just dreadnaughts and stations was increased, but I'm just going to tell you it probably won't do any good.




-Ent

On 2010-07-11 10:53, MrSparkle wrote:

Quote:

On 2010-07-11 03:49, Kenny_Naboo wrote: Exactly. Pres loss won't bother GAs n above much. What we need is to increase small ship combat effectiveness in terms of damage output. Less beams, more med range projectile weaps like PCs, rails, n PSIs, and .... Dare I suggest... reducing or removing weap levelling.

I've been thinking along the same lines, but I've been thinking even more lately that smaller ships should have more torpedoes and fewer cannons. Torpedoes are a lot more accurate vs dreads than they are smaller ships, but the drawback is range and energy usage.

I'm thinking of ways to make ships counter other ships without making one ship or one ship type the best vs every hull size. Say for instance destroyers were heavy on the torpedoes, light on the cannons and beams. They'd be dread hunters and to a lesser extent cruisers, but you wouldn't want to use one vs another destroyer because you'd be lucky to hit a competent destroyer pilot. Since destroyers are short-medium range at best, you're putting yourself in danger when getting into firing range on a dread.

Dreads would be like they are now, a multi-weapon death machine that comes specialized as either long-range missile, medium-range cannon, or short-range beam and torpedo.

Cruisers could have the same variety of weapon layouts as dreads, and could also be the "special purpose ships" like minelayers, PD (no more picket destroyer, but picket cruiser - it can carry more PD beams) or special missile types. I'd rather most small missile ships be cruisers than destroyers.

Frigates have no use except in early scenario maps, so they could be electronic countermeasures ships. They're the ones that carry a lot of ECM or ECCM.

Scouts are what they are.

That kind of setup would make cruisers the most popular ship due to what they can do, but for certain actions like dread hunting you might prefer a destroyer, or if there's enemy stations or an entire fleet of dreads you might want the awesome firepower of your own dread instead of a destroyer you know is gonna get destroyed trying to use it's torpedoes.

I don't know. It's really hard to make smaller ships appealing and yet not make them the one ship everyone wants to use, like we had in older versions and like we currently have with dreads. I don't like the idea of ship hull variants having good all-around combat abilities. Destroyers are merely small versions of a dread. In small skirmishes the maneuverability of a destroyer is valuable and the lack of firepower is offset by it, in large fleet vs fleet battles which included protected supply ships you have to bring lots of firepower.

I like the idea of ship hulls being specialized. I like thinking about why the factions designed all these different ship hulls; if a frigate is no good at combat then what purpose do they have? I also like thinking about what ships counter what, like in many other games.