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Author Topic: What sort of ship would have engines like this? (David's Twitter)  (Read 26134 times)

AxleMC131

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Re: What sort of ship would have engines like this? (David's Twitter)
« Reply #15 on: March 13, 2017, 12:41:09 AM »

The point of the Conquest is supposed to be firepower and mobility (i.e. the point of all battlecruisers). On paper its firepower looks excellent: if it was per broadside. Since it's not its actual firepower is almost halved.

It almost looks as though the Conquest is meant to wade into the thick of things so it can get both broadsides roaring into the enemy fleet: except it also has the narrowest and least efficient shield possible and thin armour, which relegates it to a fire-support role where one broadside basically won't ever see any use.

So yes, it's a silly broadside design. Not all broadside designs are silly, but the Conquest without a doubt is.

I suppose that's true. I think the game has tried to help that somewhat with the default loadouts for the Counquest having assymetrical weaponry on the left and right sides. Especially the Elite variant: All the main guns to port, with the starboard side dedicated to point defence. Having said that, it does remind me of a point the wonderful Nemo mentioned in one of his videos, which is that we need a "Lock Shield" key/function for omni shields, to fix the shield in a given direction and allow you to control guns and the ship itself separately. Otherwise you're always trying to balance three dynamic directions at once, and that can be hectic.
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Cik

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Re: What sort of ship would have engines like this? (David's Twitter)
« Reply #16 on: March 13, 2017, 01:17:36 AM »

the weapons are pretty good, just needs more armor and more shield strength.

also SS+ gives it another burn, because it is supposed to be a battlecruiser. i can't remember if that made it into vanilla yet, but i remember alex said he was going to change it. or maybe that was someone else. it was a while ago.
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TaLaR

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Re: What sort of ship would have engines like this? (David's Twitter)
« Reply #17 on: March 13, 2017, 01:34:04 AM »

While all weapon mounts cost same OP for same weapon, they definitely have different degrees of usefulness.
Going from 360 turrets to broadsides/fixed hardpoints on lower end of spectrum.

If you pack both sides of Conquest for proper combat - you used your OP inefficiently. But asymmetric design is so awkward to pilot.
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AxleMC131

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Re: What sort of ship would have engines like this? (David's Twitter)
« Reply #18 on: March 13, 2017, 01:48:13 AM »

If you pack both sides of Conquest for proper combat - you used your OP inefficiently. But asymmetric design is so awkward to pilot.

Agreed. Broadside combat takes practise and a very disciplined playstyle. You can't just rush in - you have to be positioned correctly.

Pretty sure this explains it pretty well (CAUTION: actually contains spoilers):

Spoiler

Broadside combat is something that the Hegemony, and many factions in the sector for that matter, were unfamiliar with before the discovery of [REDACTED]. A certain cruiser pilot under the Hegemony military, after being handed the conn aboard a [REDACTED] destroyer, is recorded to have said, "It draws on your stategical mind far more than most other vessels in the military. Your largest combination of firepower does not line up with your engine's primary thrust vector, forcing you to - quite literally - think at ninety degrees to how you normally would to keep the maximum number of guns on target as you move. Not only that, you have to carefully plan what side of your vessel a target is going to approach on, or you end up with the enemy on one flank and all your guns facing the other way." Sources say that upon returning to Jangala, the pilot headed straight for the zero-gravity lounge and spent a day meditating while standing on the wall.

[close]
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Embolism

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Re: What sort of ship would have engines like this? (David's Twitter)
« Reply #19 on: March 13, 2017, 05:41:00 AM »

To my mind, the problem with the Conquest is it's trying to do two mutually exclusive things at once. Its weapon mounts and flux stats support a "brawler" style, engaging in CQC in the middle of the enemy fleet. Its (lack of) defences and speed on the other hand supports a "kiter" style, keeping enemies at bay and maneuvering to avoid being surrounded.

The first style is out of the window as the Conquest simply can't survive in CQC in any kind of fleet engagement, leaving the kiter style as the only real choice. This in turn means almost half its weapon mounts are wasted, but at least it won't implode in combat.

There's two ways to fix this if the broadside theme has to be kept: either make the Conquest a battleship (buff up its defences so it can really charge in with both broadsides blazing), or make it an asymmetrical battlecruiser (neuter one side for point-defence/missiles and buff up the other side).

The latter seems to be where things are going with asymmetrical default loadouts (which, mind you, weren't always asymmetrical), so may as well make it official by shrinking the right side and expanding the left (or vice versa).

Of course it could always be kept as it is and make asymmetry limited to loadouts only (with the advantage of, I dunno, having two mirror Conquests to do what the Black Pearl and the Dutchman did to the Endeavour?), but then it becomes bit of a newbie trap and, honestly... feels "wrong". Like a ship with two large mounts and 30 maximum OP.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2017, 05:46:52 AM by Embolism »
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Cik

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Re: What sort of ship would have engines like this? (David's Twitter)
« Reply #20 on: March 13, 2017, 08:11:33 AM »

nah. it just needs heavier armor and stronger shields. give it a special system and improve it's base maneuverability, increase burn to +1 of onslaught/paragon and it'd be a good ship. making it into another ship isn't desirable because it's probably the most interesting ship in vanilla IMO.
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Grievous69

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Re: What sort of ship would have engines like this? (David's Twitter)
« Reply #21 on: March 13, 2017, 08:20:00 AM »

increase burn to +1 of onslaught/paragon

From the patch notes: ''Odyssey, Conquest: increased burn level by 1''
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Embolism

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Re: What sort of ship would have engines like this? (David's Twitter)
« Reply #22 on: March 13, 2017, 08:31:19 AM »

nah. it just needs heavier armor and stronger shields. give it a special system and improve it's base maneuverability, increase burn to +1 of onslaught/paragon and it'd be a good ship. making it into another ship isn't desirable because it's probably the most interesting ship in vanilla IMO.

Unless it has enough defences to get equal use out of both broadsides the current design doesn't make sense, and asymmetric loadouts will continue to reign supreme (begging the question why it's not designed better to support this). Yet if it does get enough defences then it becomes a battleship, not a battlecruiser.

So either way the Conquest loses part of its identity.
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Cik

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Re: What sort of ship would have engines like this? (David's Twitter)
« Reply #23 on: March 13, 2017, 08:49:29 AM »

you can use both broadsides, just don't try to use both broadsides in the presence of a battleship. a slight defensive buff won't impinge on the true battleship role; the extra burn, withering firepower etc. more than grant it the title battlecruiser. besides, something called a battlecruiser still isn't a slouch in the defense department. it will have at least enough to actually bring it's weapons to bear.

an asymmetrical loadout is just boring and ugly. we already have that with the odyssey, give conquest a slight buff and leave the layout alone.
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Embolism

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Re: What sort of ship would have engines like this? (David's Twitter)
« Reply #24 on: March 13, 2017, 09:15:29 AM »

you can use both broadsides, just don't try to use both broadsides in the presence of a battleship. a slight defensive buff won't impinge on the true battleship role; the extra burn, withering firepower etc. more than grant it the title battlecruiser. besides, something called a battlecruiser still isn't a slouch in the defense department. it will have at least enough to actually bring it's weapons to bear.

an asymmetrical loadout is just boring and ugly. we already have that with the odyssey, give conquest a slight buff and leave the layout alone.

My main gripe with the Conquest is that it's completely suppressed by enemy battleships and even cruisers. Its battleship-tier firepower only comes into play if no other large ships are on the field: if there's a nearby battleship or a few cruisers it's forced to leverage range and halve its firepower (unless the enemy fleet is very spread out), becoming essentially a slightly larger (and longer-ranged) cruiser.

Unless an individual broadside packs battleship-competitive firepower, the Conquest can't fulfill the role of a battlecruiser in its current form. Buffing its defences to the point where it can, say, wedge itself between two cruisers and duel with both at once, would make it a battleship.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2017, 09:33:05 AM by Embolism »
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Alex

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Re: What sort of ship would have engines like this? (David's Twitter)
« Reply #25 on: March 13, 2017, 09:50:20 AM »

There are certainly legitimate criticisms of the Conquest - dev-wise, it was an experimental design, from before a lot of things about combat became clear - so it struggles a bit with that heritage.

and halve its firepower ... becoming essentially a slightly larger (and longer-ranged) cruiser.

But, I just have to chime in here :) For non-missile weapons, firepower is most often going to be determined by flux. A single broadside can generate more than even the Conquest can dissipate. Looking at just the weapons involved is misleading - compare what a Conquest can do with 2x Mjolnir and 2x Heavy Mauler vs what the Dominator can.

Ultimately, the effective sustained firepower of a single broadside is not that much less than that of both broadsides. Guns blazing on both sides is fun and a lot more initial damage, but it's not going to sustain well vs any decently tough targets.
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Cik

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Re: What sort of ship would have engines like this? (David's Twitter)
« Reply #26 on: March 13, 2017, 10:00:44 AM »

well, that's the real problem with the conquest, besides burn. giving something deliberately enough flux to sink half of it's weapons is pretty dumb and totally unique across the entire sweep of ships.

you're right though. it being bad is just a holdover. it's not even that it's unusable, i use it every now and then because that thing is made of style. coolest ship in the game, ezpz
« Last Edit: March 13, 2017, 10:04:13 AM by Cik »
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Wyvern

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Re: What sort of ship would have engines like this? (David's Twitter)
« Reply #27 on: March 13, 2017, 10:06:55 AM »

On the Conquest: one thing I'd like to have is an option to have a fixed-cost weapon-mirroring effect.  Something like, oh, a unique-to-Conquest hull mod that costs, say, 60-ish ordnance points, shuts off manual editing of every weapon mount on the ship's left side (That's, let's see here, one large missile, two large ballistic, one medium missile, two medium ballistic, one medium energy, four small energy) and just mirrors whatever you installed on the right.  Maybe even leave out the large missile slot; I can see wanting to make asymmetric use of those.

Basically: I don't like asymmetric loadouts from an aesthetic point of view, but - as Alex points out - using both broadsides at once isn't a particularly useful thing, and from a practical standpoint, it's better to leave one side mostly empty of weapons and spend those ordnance points on other things.
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Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.

Mysterhay

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Re: What sort of ship would have engines like this? (David's Twitter)
« Reply #28 on: March 13, 2017, 10:24:26 AM »

On the Conquest: one thing I'd like to have is an option to have a fixed-cost weapon-mirroring effect.  Something like, oh, a unique-to-Conquest hull mod that costs, say, 60-ish ordnance points, shuts off manual editing of every weapon mount on the ship's left side (That's, let's see here, one large missile, two large ballistic, one medium missile, two medium ballistic, one medium energy, four small energy) and just mirrors whatever you installed on the right.  Maybe even leave out the large missile slot; I can see wanting to make asymmetric use of those.

Basically: I don't like asymmetric loadouts from an aesthetic point of view, but - as Alex points out - using both broadsides at once isn't a particularly useful thing, and from a practical standpoint, it's better to leave one side mostly empty of weapons and spend those ordnance points on other things.

That is a FANTASTIC idea.

ALEX PLZ!!!!   :P
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Alex

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Re: What sort of ship would have engines like this? (David's Twitter)
« Reply #29 on: March 13, 2017, 10:31:36 AM »

well, that's the real problem with the conquest, besides burn. giving something deliberately enough flux to sink half of it's weapons is pretty dumb and totally unique across the entire sweep of ships.

... dude. That's kind of rude, but perhaps more importantly, it's dead wrong :) Not having enough flux to always fire all your weapons if you just stick the highest-damage guns in - that's just the game, right? A good loadout works with that and makes compromises between sustained firepower, alpha strikes, shields, etc.

In terms of flux dissipation, the Conquest is just about average for midline. If you compare it to the Eagle, it's actually got a bit more dissipation per ordnance point. (Edit: at least, this is the case with the new OP values. It's close, in any case.)


On the Conquest: one thing I'd like to have is an option to have a fixed-cost weapon-mirroring effect.  Something like, oh, a unique-to-Conquest hull mod that costs, say, 60-ish ordnance points, shuts off manual editing of every weapon mount on the ship's left side (That's, let's see here, one large missile, two large ballistic, one medium missile, two medium ballistic, one medium energy, four small energy) and just mirrors whatever you installed on the right.  Maybe even leave out the large missile slot; I can see wanting to make asymmetric use of those.

Basically: I don't like asymmetric loadouts from an aesthetic point of view, but - as Alex points out - using both broadsides at once isn't a particularly useful thing, and from a practical standpoint, it's better to leave one side mostly empty of weapons and spend those ordnance points on other things.

Yeah, I've been thinking about that in a different context - some slots just have more value. For example, the side-facing turret on the Aurora, you're just not going to want to put a heavy blaster in it. Or anything medium, most of the time. Or anything at all, depending on what else you've got and how tight ordnance points are.

(For the Aurora, what I did is make that slot "synergy", so there's an option to put a medium missile in there.)

Honestly, though, what you're suggesting is ... well, let me put it this way - in terms of game design aesthetics, I like it less than you like asymmetric loadouts :) It's so much work and special rules for such a special case. I do get where you're coming from, though. It's an interesting design question, especially when expanded to consider less-useful slots in general.

Hmm. Obviously not for this patch, but I wonder - a hullmod that says "if you have at least X <specific weapon|weapon type>, installing more of those costs less OP/are free". Something like, "point defense package: 15 OP for cruisers, all small PD weapons are free". Or (for the Conquest) "ballistic package: 60 OP, large ballistic weapons are free". Eh, still a bit weird, wouldn't want that to dominate designs, and it probably would. Too much of a no-brainer to use in specific cases. Plus it gets weird UI-wise when you remove those...
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