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Proposed roles for each ship hull/class |
MrSparkle
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Joined: August 13, 2001
Posts: 1912
From: mrsparkle
|  Posted: 2010-07-12 19:12
The biggest reason people don't want to fly smaller ships is because most don't have any reason to be used. Scouts do, for pinging and beaconing, and frigates lately are good for ECM bombing.
But what about destroyers and cruisers? They're just smaller, more maneuverable dreads, and in a large fleet vs fleet battle which includes protected supply ships and stations, you need FIREPOWER and lots of it, not maneuverability. You have to overwhelm them.
Here's what I propose: Dedicated roles for each ship hull/class, so that as you rise in rank you gain options rather than mere firepower.
Before I briefly explain ship hulls, I propose a type of change I don't think has ever been seen in DS: Cannons get a damage bonus vs destroyers, frigates and scouts, and torpedoes get a damage bonus vs dreads and stations. Not a large bonus, but enough to steer them toward being best vs certain ship types. Notice no bonus vs cruisers, engineers, supply ships, transports and extractors. A slight damage nerf to cannons and torpedoes might also be warranted, to further ensure that these two weapon types are best used vs their intended targets.
Engineers/Supply ships/Transports/Extractors: Exactly the same as now. No change whatsoever.
Stations: No change. Even the battle varieties are OK.
Dreads: Most remain the same. They're the powerhouses of a fleet with a good mix of most weapon types, and core weapons for anti-station and anti-dread duty. I suggest removing missile dreads though since cruisers would take over the long-range specialty in this proposal.
Cruisers: The specialty ships. They can be missile cruisers, PD cruisers, the new ECM/ECCM ships (no longer frigates, see below), interdictor cruisers, minelayer cruisers etc. as well as the traditional cannon cruisers. Cruisers are tough to come up with a dedicated role for, so if they were the "miscellaneous" ships that did most of the "gadget" work like ECM/ECCM/interdictor it could work. I admit I take some of the inspiration from Star Trek, where cruisers are an engineering ship and not really dedicated to only combat, even though they are capable when equipped so.
Cruisers would not counter any specific ship, but they'd fill all the specialty roles a fleet needs, minus the ones filled by ships already designed for the purpose like engineers and supply ships.
I would predict that since cruisers fill so many different roles, they would be the preferred ship to use.
Destroyers: Very torpedo-heavy with few other weapons besides a small amount of PD. These would be anti-capital ship ships. No more PD destroyers or cannon destroyers or really any destroyer we currently have. Their reliance on torpedoes means they can do good damage to large ships who would have a hard time dodging them, but would be putting themselves in danger when getting into firing range. They would not be effective vs other smaller ships since torpedoes have terrible speed and accuracy. They would also need a defense nerf and an increase in resources lost to compensate for their greater firepower, otherwise people would just suicide them into dreads. They should sacrifice defense and survivability for heavy anti-capital ship damage, and require skilled piloting.
Remember the bonus damage of torps means they're best used vs dreads and stations, and only destroyers and dreads carry them in significant amounts, with cruisers maybe carrying one or two but that's it.
Frigates: Very cannon-heavy. These would be the anti-small ship ship. They're very fast and carry lots of longer range, accurate cannons and short range beams for those pesky scouts. If your dreads are constantly being harassed by destroyers, a few frigates could keep them away, since the new destroyers can't take much damage and are gonna have a seriously hard time hitting them back with torpedoes. What's to stop frigates from harassing dreads though instead of destroyers? Nothing, but frigate cannon damage vs a dread is nothing compared to cannon damage vs a destroyer with the damage bonuses, and if the dread is accompanied by it's own frigates, it's suicide.
Remember the bonus damage of cannons means they're best used vs destroyers, frigates and scouts, making any ship carrying lots of cannons good vs small ships, but frigates great at it due to speed and maneuverability.
Scouts: Almost what they are now, minus the ECM/ECCM/pinging role. They're for actual scouting undetected and beaconing what they do detect, including planetary structures which I think is a great possible role for scouts. Fly a scout in, beacon the structures you want to bomb safely from far away, and let the bombers do their jobs. Cruisers would take on the ECCM pinging role, being the new specialty ships.
What I don't have in mind is gadget layouts for all the various cruiser types. I'm more concerned right now with coming up with specific roles for each ship hull.
[ This Message was edited by: MrSparkle on 2010-07-12 19:26 ]
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MrSparkle
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Posts: 1912
From: mrsparkle
| Posted: 2010-07-12 19:20
How would this affect rising in ranks? Easy. You gain options as you gain ranks, instead of the current system where you gain firepower.
You start out flying scouts and frigates, which means you practice maneuvering and accuracy vs small ships. That's your role as a lower rank. It's a good role, and cannon damage bonus damage means you'll have the most success vs small ships anyway.
Once you gain access to some destroyers, you have the option of piloting a risky anti-capital ship ship. Your piloting skills learned from frigates will be needed as you dodge your way toward an enemy capital ship, ready to unload torpedoes on it's hull. You may also die, but that's the risk. Piloting a destroyer is not for those who want to maintain a good kill/death ratio or are afraid of losing prestige.
More powerful destroyers will become available with higher ranks and badges.
Once you gain access to some cruisers, you have many options available like dictoring, bringing the ECM/ECCM, using long-range missiles, flying a cannon cruiser etc. You can almost do it all now. Cruisers are safe, large enough to deal damage and small enough maneuver, and no other ship provides the utilities a cruiser can provide.
More powerful cruisers/more gadget options become available with higher ranks and badges.
Once you gain access to some dreads, you are now a powerhouse. It's just like now, they are the ultimate offensive ship. You have to be wary of enemy destroyers, so make sure you have frigate and cannon cruiser support.
Once you gain access to stations, that's it you can do it all.
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Forger of Destiny
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| Posted: 2010-07-13 05:57
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Here's what I propose: Dedicated roles for each ship hull/class, so that as you rise in rank you gain options rather than mere firepower.
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+1 if destroyers don't get more than 3-6 torpedoes each, and torpedoes get 50% energy damage (falloff).
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MrSparkle
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Posts: 1912
From: mrsparkle
| Posted: 2010-07-13 16:06
Torps right now suck, so 3-6 could be a good amount.
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Talien
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Joined: May 11, 2010
Posts: 2044
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2010-07-13 22:00
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But what about destroyers and cruisers? They're just smaller, more maneuverable dreads, and in a large fleet vs fleet battle which includes protected supply ships and stations, you need FIREPOWER and lots of it, not maneuverability. You have to overwhelm them.
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Not so much. A few Scouts/Frigates is a threat to even a fleet of DN/Stations simply because they can't be hit unless they get careless and get too close or someone does a lucky point jump and lands in just the right spot to kill one before they can react. 3 Scouts can hull a DN in a surprisingly short amount of time as long as they're coordinated and keep focused on the same arc, I've participated in attacks like that and it's actually a lot of fun, especially when the other side starts crying about it and jumps back to hug a planet instead of some of them getting into smaller ships of their own.
Yes it's possible to easily destroy them by having someone in an Interdictor point jump, followed by combat ships, but how often do you see anyone thinking of that let alone doing it?
And, well, like I posted in the "smaller ships" topic on the main forum.....we already have PD Cruisers, AC/TC/Scale work just fine in that role as long as you don't switch the heavy beams into PD mode.
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MrSparkle
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From: mrsparkle
| Posted: 2010-07-14 12:26
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On 2010-07-13 22:00, Talien {SOE} wrote:
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But what about destroyers and cruisers? They're just smaller, more maneuverable dreads, and in a large fleet vs fleet battle which includes protected supply ships and stations, you need FIREPOWER and lots of it, not maneuverability. You have to overwhelm them.
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Not so much. A few Scouts/Frigates is a threat to even a fleet of DN/Stations simply because they can't be hit unless they get careless and get too close or someone does a lucky point jump and lands in just the right spot to kill one before they can react. 3 Scouts can hull a DN in a surprisingly short amount of time as long as they're coordinated and keep focused on the same arc, I've participated in attacks like that and it's actually a lot of fun, especially when the other side starts crying about it and jumps back to hug a planet instead of some of them getting into smaller ships of their own.
Yes it's possible to easily destroy them by having someone in an Interdictor point jump, followed by combat ships, but how often do you see anyone thinking of that let alone doing it?
And, well, like I posted in the "smaller ships" topic on the main forum.....we already have PD Cruisers, AC/TC/Scale work just fine in that role as long as you don't switch the heavy beams into PD mode.
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Hence using frigates as the anti-small ship ship. In my proposal the real small ship threat to a dread/station fleet without small ship support would be destroyers, and they'd be able to do serious damage over time if not stopped.
Plus a coordinated fleet including stations and supply ships is not going to be defeated by scouts and frigates, not in this version or any version, unless there's a dozen or so of them. A few random dreads with no coordination between them can be beaten, but that's it.
(current missile frigates are a threat, but IMO too much of a threat. It's too easy for them to sit 1000gu+ away in ECM cover. Long range small ships are not the small ship answer to dreads)
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Enterprise
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Joined: May 19, 2002
Posts: 2576
From: Hawthorne, Nevada
| Posted: 2010-07-14 13:21
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On 2010-07-13 22:00, Talien {SOE} wrote:
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But what about destroyers and cruisers? They're just smaller, more maneuverable dreads, and in a large fleet vs fleet battle which includes protected supply ships and stations, you need FIREPOWER and lots of it, not maneuverability. You have to overwhelm them.
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Not so much. A few Scouts/Frigates is a threat to even a fleet of DN/Stations simply because they can't be hit unless they get careless and get too close or someone does a lucky point jump and lands in just the right spot to kill one before they can react. 3 Scouts can hull a DN in a surprisingly short amount of time as long as they're coordinated and keep focused on the same arc, I've participated in attacks like that and it's actually a lot of fun, especially when the other side starts crying about it and jumps back to hug a planet instead of some of them getting into smaller ships of their own.
Yes it's possible to easily destroy them by having someone in an Interdictor point jump, followed by combat ships, but how often do you see anyone thinking of that let alone doing it?
And, well, like I posted in the "smaller ships" topic on the main forum.....we already have PD Cruisers, AC/TC/Scale work just fine in that role as long as you don't switch the heavy beams into PD mode.
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This is accurate but misleading.
Scouts, frigates, and Destroyers can yes, pose a threat to a single dreadnaught, and a small ship fleet is enough to give a few dreadnaughts pause.
However, if those people in those small ships alternatively choose to fly dreadnaughts instead, they would beat the hell out of the enemy dreadnaught fleet faster, easier, and safer. I say safer, because although small ships are nimble, it takes only one or two hits from a dread to send a destroyer running, and thats not hard with a single point jump. You say get a interdictor? An interdictor without dread support wont last long against a fleet of dreads.
In other words, once you have a high rank, smaller ships are basically nothing. And its not hard to get Dreadnaughts, so not only are they the best, but they are the easiest to get. Firepower wins over manueverability every encounter.
MrSparkles proposal is essentially everything I have ever argued for in ship balance. In this version (which I like in its entirety), scouts and frigates are deadly against destroyers, which are deadly to dreadnaughts, which are deadly to everything, but cruisers, which become the best in overall usability.
Since everything is useful, but useful in its own situation, it works well.
The only people who would complain are dread users, because like it or not, flying a dreadnaught is the fastest way to gain prestige too, which is why people argue so hard for them to be the best of the best.
-Ent
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Talien
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From: Michigan
| Posted: 2010-07-14 16:05
Oh I wasn't saying this is a bad idea, far from it, I was just pointing out that smaller ships can already be a threat to larger ships if flown right.
I like the anti-capital Destroyer idea but torpedoes would need an overhaul to make it work, the way they are now they're pretty well at the bottom end of the weaponry "food chain" since they move slow, don't track, and do low damage.
And to be fair, if you go toe to toe DN vs. DN, the side that's outnumbered is most likely going to lose unless the opposing side has incompetent pilots. With a fleet of smaller ships you can still harass a force of larger ships that outnumber you to the point where they either retreat, or a couple of them do something dumb like try to point jump you, leaving themselves as an even easier target.
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SpaceAdmiral
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Posts: 1005
| Posted: 2010-07-14 17:14
during a recent planet hug/planet defending, a destroyer went where a dread could not.
The planet def and icc stations core weps obliterated any dread that dared come.
But my lone destroyer survived and hulled a station.
so technically your example of people that can use dreads using dreads vs them using small ships can be wrong
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Enterprise
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Joined: May 19, 2002
Posts: 2576
From: Hawthorne, Nevada
| Posted: 2010-07-14 18:25
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On 2010-07-14 16:05, Talien {SOE} wrote:
Oh I wasn't saying this is a bad idea, far from it, I was just pointing out that smaller ships can already be a threat to larger ships if flown right.
I like the anti-capital Destroyer idea but torpedoes would need an overhaul to make it work, the way they are now they're pretty well at the bottom end of the weaponry "food chain" since they move slow, don't track, and do low damage.
And to be fair, if you go toe to toe DN vs. DN, the side that's outnumbered is most likely going to lose unless the opposing side has incompetent pilots. With a fleet of smaller ships you can still harass a force of larger ships that outnumber you to the point where they either retreat, or a couple of them do something dumb like try to point jump you, leaving themselves as an even easier target.
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All the Dreads need then is a dictor. Or barring that, a second Dread point jumping you and small ships vaporize pretty quickly.
If smaller ships were useful enough that it worked, people would use them don't you think? If they're good in small numbers then you would think they would be even better in bigger numbers, but they're not. The only way a fleet of Dreadnaughts loses to small ships is if they're incompetant pilots. And most people who are using smaller ships are new to the game, and don't have the skills and abilities to know how to use smaller ships faster JD, or to dodge properly. In all ways, smaller ships are not only harder to use but give a smaller return on prestige.
On top of that, they can't be used effectively in force like Dreadnaughts can. I've yet to see a Dreadnaught fleet that couldn't point jump smaller ships often enough and fast enough to obliterate them. The fact that all people use when they have the rank are Dreadnaughts is pretty convincing proof.
Also Space, I think its pretty hard to believe a planet hugging dread/station fleet just sat there while a destroyer - in a dictor field - just wailed away on a station long enough to not only burn through its shields - not an easy task even with defense mode off - but to get through its armor, and hull it, and not one dread point jumped it. I know some people can be retarded, but stupidity isn't a good way to point out that a destroyer can be good - hell any ship is awesome if you're playing against someone playing stupid.
-Ent
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SpaceAdmiral
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Posts: 1005
| Posted: 2010-07-14 20:53
no one really cares about a small destroyer
they go oh its a noob lets kill a bigger target
and i dont think a dread will waste its jd and its time to point jump a small destroyer either
this was a small scale fight of 5-5 or so, and it would have been quite even, but planet gave that boost to kill our dreads
PS- around .5 shield per salvo, and dessies fire quite fast
and ill tell you one thing:
the station wasnt a noob, trust me
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Talien
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From: Michigan
| Posted: 2010-07-14 21:21
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On 2010-07-14 18:25, Enterprise wrote:
All the Dreads need then is a dictor. Or barring that, a second Dread point jumping you and small ships vaporize pretty quickly.
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I've had people try point jumping me using DNs while I'm in a Scout and I'm almost always able to ejump before they can fire let alone kill me, even if I'm facing in a bad direction (toward a nearby planet/star) I can usually turn and ejump before dying unless it's a beam heavy ship that got lucky and landed within 150 GU.
Interdictors work, yes, it's why ICC had such high success with Missile Frigates while UGTO had little to no success with Harriers, we often used Interdictors to trap them while other ships killed them. But how often do you see anyone besides using Interdictors just to trap smaller ships?
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MrSparkle
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From: mrsparkle
| Posted: 2010-07-16 20:09
Thanks for the vote of confidence Ent  It's hard to come up with a proper RTS system for this game, "proper" being certain units etc. that counter other units.
DS is classifed as a MMORTS, and I mostly agree with that. RTS's almost always have a unit/counter unit strategy to them. I'll use Age Of Empires II as my example since that's the RTS I've played the most:
In AOEII online, the most popular unit was the paladin by far. It's equivalent to DS's dreads minus speed. But it had effective counters, namely halberdiers and camels (and mamelukes, my favorite).
Those halberdiers and camels meanwhile were not that good vs other units. Archers in particular countered them very well, but champions did too.
So you couldn't use just paladins vs an experienced opponent (or vs me as Saracens which is why I used them the most). You needed a balanced army. If you wanted to use paladins you had to bring archers or something to counter the paladin counters your opponent would be using. Your opponent would probably anticipate those counters to his counters, and would need his own counters to them. You see the cycle? And it was a cycle; many games would see both sides constantly throwing different units into the fight in order to counter the units already on the field.
DS needs the same sort of unit balancing, but it has to be done in such a way that each ship has a role it's best at, and a role it's just no good at. One of the problems, as has been pointed out already, is that current torpedoes aren't good at all. Another problem is that in many RTS's the counter units get bonuses vs the units they counter, and a lot of times their combat stats are poor otherwise (like a halberdier has poor combat stats in general, but a good bonus vs cavalry making it clearly superior vs them. Enough of them can do damage, but they are really best at anti-cavalry fighting).
DS would also need certain weapons or even entire ship hull types to have bonuses vs other ship hull types, in order to make this system I proposed truly effective.
It's a pretty radical change compared to what DS has been the past 9 years, so I wouldn't be surprised at all if this weren't even read let alone considered by the powers-that-be.
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SpaceAdmiral
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Posts: 1005
| Posted: 2010-07-16 22:59
since you brought up unit counters like that,
usually a larger amount of cheaper, smaller anti units can kill big units
example:
starcraft: wraith vs battlecruiser scout vs carrier
that is good when you can control an army and have a resource economy with build times
1 vs 1 a wraith cant kill a battlecruiser, so you will have losses, but lose less than opponent
with a certain ammount of time, resources, and army like rts, you can get small units to counter big units
The problem here is we cant have the 40 vs 12 battles in the case of wraith vs battle cruiser
40 destroyers can take down 12 dreads, but if we get 40 dreads the winner is very clear, the problem here is you cant get 40 players vs 12 and be balanced, they can all hop into dreads, where in an rts we can get 40 vs 12 and be balanced
while this may be an rts, its very very hard to balance because you can only control 1 unit
in some situations a smaller ships evasive power is great, but on the whole we cant really balance this like an army style rts
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MrSparkle
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From: mrsparkle
| Posted: 2010-07-19 00:23
We have to though, the current balance is so out of whack it's pointless to use anything but fleets of dreads + stations with supply ship support. It's the current philosophy behind ship balance: Incentive to rank up due to ships that are increasinly more powerful as you gain rank, to a point where dreads rule the game and destroyers and below can be ignored.
(that's the same philosophy behind most MMORPGs like WoW or Everquest: The higher level you are the more powerful you are, to a point where in PvP you can safely ignore lower levels attacking you)
Seriously, when you see a destroyer in MV you can usually safely ignore it and go after the real threats. Cruisers can be more of a threat but easily taken care of with a dread's superior firepower.
In this game the only thing truly effective vs a dread is another dread, or possibly a station (the new frigates with sparrows are good too but I think they're too good from too far away, meaning no risk to them for their effectiveness). In this game every new, larger ship class is superior in combat than the previous one, so you have no reason to use them anymore except when you want to change things up.
With a system like I'm proposing there's always a reason to use smaller ships, because each new, larger ship class is not necessarily better than the last one, it's just different. It has a completely different role. Your new destroyers won't be more powerful than frigates if they're up against other smaller ships. You'll want to stay in your frigate for them most likely. But if enemy dreads start appearing, you might want to ditch the frigate and try your luck with your destroyer. If you're high enough rank you might just want your own dread.
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