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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Developing the Mora-class Carrier  (Read 37541 times)

Troll

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Re: Developing the Mora-class Carrier
« Reply #30 on: May 18, 2016, 06:09:10 AM »

I truly love this design.
I'm not a carrier kind of guy but this one will make me take a better look at a fighter fleet.

Also about this statement
Quote
Those two medium slots are composite-type, so they can go ballistic or missile. (Later, Alex mentions that we’re kinda overusing these lately because they’re the new fun thing, so these’ll be pulled back out.)

I'd say composite for fits well for a recommissioned scrap of pile working as a battle carrier.
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Megas

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Re: Developing the Mora-class Carrier
« Reply #31 on: May 18, 2016, 06:23:46 AM »

No standard ship uses Composites.  There are ships with Hybrid and Synergy (and Universal), but no Composite.
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gruberscomplete

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Re: Developing the Mora-class Carrier
« Reply #32 on: May 18, 2016, 07:03:47 AM »

Hello, I've been gone for several months now.

It would be cool if this ship would function as an Overmind for fighters, like it would coordinate fighters from the whole fleet to attack one target at once, and change the AI of fighters temporarily.

Fighters are a weapon ----> Fighters do very little damage on their own, and bombers are afraid to attack anything without frigates helping push towards enemy targets. So this wouldn't really work since you need like 10 fighter wings to attack anything, so this ship would need to have 10 fighter slots to be deadly.

Also, it would be even cooler to get streams of fighters launching from the launch bay, like a constant flow of fighters emerging to fight.
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HELMUT

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Re: Developing the Mora-class Carrier
« Reply #33 on: May 18, 2016, 12:24:18 PM »

Personally, i'm really not sure about making the two medium turrets as missiles, the Mora is already really strong with just its three launch bays. But a missile boat too? Now i'm a bit worried. That thing will be able to fire so many harpoons/pilums/salamanders at mid/long range, with a lot of fighters on top of that. It will flat out beat the Venture and Heron as a support ship in most scenarios.

I personally liked the earlier iteration : a tough, if clunky, close range fire-support carrier armed with a strange mix of cheap weapons to back up the swarm of fighters it will carry. Some kind of buffalo MK.II that can actually survive and support the fleet. Not the flashiest ship, but still an original (and useful) addition for a "strike heavy" fleet.

In its current state, i would use it as a Salamander boat for mid-game, then transform it in a LRM platform hidden in the fog of war for more dangerous late game battles. And it's a shame, because that's something every other carriers are doing already, and they won't even be competitive at it any more. That's why i prefer the ballistic version, it will do something new, and it'll even be pretty good at it.

And most importantly, i'm really not looking forward chasing a heavy carrier/missile boat with damper field across the whole map. Even phase ships wouldn't be as infuriating as that.
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Alex

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Re: Developing the Mora-class Carrier
« Reply #34 on: May 18, 2016, 12:37:55 PM »

I wouldn't expect it to keep 3 launch bays; imo that's a bit much.

The current thinking is also to up the amount of ballistic firepower, but only through small slots. So you can choose to go for decent close-to-mid range power, or missile support - but probably not both, due to the OP being low compared to the number of slots.

And most importantly, i'm really not looking forward chasing a heavy carrier/missile boat with damper field across the whole map.

It's quite slow, so I wouldn't worry about that too much. I mean, it'll still absorb a fair amount of damage, but trying to chase it down shouldn't pose any problems - once you're in range of it, it doesn't have the tools to disengage.

Plus it's classed as a combat ship, so it's not going to keep running all the time.
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Dri

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Re: Developing the Mora-class Carrier
« Reply #35 on: May 19, 2016, 12:02:54 PM »

OP-starved ships, to put it simply, just arn't fun - my opinion of course but it is a big turn-off to me. I get that you are trying to make creating a loadout a more compelling choice but to me it ends up creating an unsatisfying choice instead. If it is combat flagged then it should have a decent amount of OP relative to its weapon slots.



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Megas

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Re: Developing the Mora-class Carrier
« Reply #36 on: May 19, 2016, 12:16:58 PM »

I would be tempted to put Vulcans in small mounts and Pilums in medium mounts.  Venture does this better by mounting more missiles (and has Fast Missile Racks), two dual flak, and either a pulse laser or heavy blaster.  Sometimes, I get annoyed with Venture and want to not use missiles and focus solely on non-missile stuff.  Of course, this was before Venture became too slow (with burn 7) and hopelessly outclassed by alternatives.

If I wanted no missiles, I would probably put nothing or 0 OP Harpoon/Sabots, and focus on ballistics.  Hmmm... then again, I would probably be better off using Gemini with Mauler and HVD or maybe beam and Mauler (or HVD) Heron.  Of course, fighters need to be useful again.  In my last game, I totally ignored carriers due to fighters being obsolete in the endgame.

Yes, low OP ships are no fun.  This is one reason why I like skills and put so much scorn on the baseline.  Almost every ship has too few OP without skills.  With even max OP from skills, some ships still do not quite have enough.  This is the Hammerhead's biggest weakness.  It would not be so bad if Hammerhead had decent flux stats, but they are almost as bad as an Enforcer, and it needs some capacitors to support its ship system.  This means after getting the obligatory hullmods and max vents, it has to go cheap with weapons to barely have enough, even with max OP.
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Trylobot

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Re: Developing the Mora-class Carrier
« Reply #37 on: May 19, 2016, 12:45:11 PM »

This is looking great David, fits very well in a much-needed role.
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Sy

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Re: Developing the Mora-class Carrier
« Reply #38 on: May 19, 2016, 04:24:44 PM »

i agree on low OP ships in general. creating and testing new loadouts is the best part of the game for me, and i find it more fun when i have a greater variety of possible builds, which is usually when there's room to spend on weapons and/or hullmods that you wouldn't put on every ship.
of course, if there's too much room, it becomes boring again by being able to just mount everything remotely useful. ^^
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Dri

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Re: Developing the Mora-class Carrier
« Reply #39 on: May 19, 2016, 06:49:13 PM »

The Heron has 80 OP and 1 medium and 6 small. Its also hella fast which is a great stat for a carrier to have!

The Mora has 80 OP and it's looking like 2 mediums and 11 (!!!) smalls.

Nearly double the small mounts and yet the same OP - c'mon, that is a bit nutso! The friggin Venture has 100 OP and is basically this ship minus one flight deck and trading small mounts for more mediums! Give the Mora more OP than the Heron at least! Go for the middle - 90 OP!
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nomadic_leader

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Re: Developing the Mora-class Carrier
« Reply #40 on: May 19, 2016, 07:19:48 PM »

Good design; I prefer less greebly stuff but the wedge shape saves it; really liked the long tails in the prototype too- they balanced it out somehow.

I do think however that you need to get rid of that hardpoint in the triangle's 'gap'  between the landing strip and the bridge/crew half. That gap gives the ship so much personality and the sprite looks really cool in the blog post, but  when you load a weapon into that slot it really loses something of its jaggedy toughness. Maybe recess the weapon slot way back if you must keep it.

how about a ship named the Brasidas?

Quote
The observable world will provide countless counter-examples to these platonic forms of shape and colour

Year 5 and the team starts talking about platonic forms. It's going to be a lengthy development process folks.
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Gothars

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Re: Developing the Mora-class Carrier
« Reply #41 on: May 20, 2016, 01:59:55 AM »

I do think however that you need to get rid of that hardpoint in the triangle's 'gap'  between the landing strip and the bridge/crew half. That gap gives the ship so much personality and the sprite looks really cool in the blog post, but  when you load a weapon into that slot it really loses something of its jaggedy toughness. Maybe recess the weapon slot way back if you must keep it.

Oh, I agree. Looks much better when that gap is not filled by a weapon.
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Orikson

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Re: Developing the Mora-class Carrier
« Reply #42 on: May 20, 2016, 03:54:04 AM »

I must say, this new ship design is quite nice, not to mention the detailed insight to its creation. Thank you the creators for a fantastic game, and the mods for their enthusiasm and creativity in creating unique factions and tools.
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ValkyriaL

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Re: Developing the Mora-class Carrier
« Reply #43 on: May 20, 2016, 06:00:13 AM »

Good to see the Hegemony finaly getting a purpose-built carrier added to their arsenal. :)
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Cik

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Re: Developing the Mora-class Carrier
« Reply #44 on: May 21, 2016, 07:31:34 PM »

NOW IF ONLY FIGHTERS WERE GOOD NUDGE NUDGE NUDGE NUDGE ELBOW
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