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[Iscariot]

I'm... not sure I follow that logic. The game is single player focused, there is no multiplayer on the field to speak of. Beams, as have been discussed, are dead accurate and basically awesome at killing fighters which just solidifies the TT's early game advantage, gleaned with wasps, tachyon lances, and Tempests.

After that, you're looking at whatever unsupported cruisers, carriers, and capital ships are left slowly inching their way at you, and you can take your time retreating your softer ships and fielding Auroras, Medusas, Odysseys, and Paragons, or just wings upon wings of Daggers.

[Kahabut]

I agree with Iscariot that zone control goes to the hi-tech ships.  Utterly.  However, while I recognize how that works in the current version, I don't think it will mean as much later down the road. 

You see, zoning out your enemy is fine, and should force a retreat for obvious reasons, but you haven't defeated anything.  All you've done is fight them to a stand still.  If the AI acted in a more rational manner (it's getting better for sure), when you zone out a large fleet, they should retreat, and then attempt to fight you again, but with more caution put toward protecting at least one capture point. 

Really, this may be a bit of wishful thinking, but I'd like to see the larger game NOT focus on zone control more than is absolutely required.  Mainly because it's a really easy exploit for the player to take advantage of, as it has been in every game that included such things.  (thinking of SW empires at war here)  In any case, my point is that zone control is not an end in itself, defeating the enemy is the END, zone control is just one of many ways to get there.  Currently, a slightly unbalanced one at that.  (obviously, it's an Alpha and allowances are made, just speaking as to the current state of affairs)

[Flare]

I'm... not sure I follow that logic. The game is single player focused, there is no multiplayer on the field to speak of. Beams, as have been discussed, are dead accurate and basically awesome at killing fighters which just solidifies the TT's early game advantage, gleaned with wasps, tachyon lances, and Tempests.

After that, you're looking at whatever unsupported cruisers, carriers, and capital ships are left slowly inching their way at you, and you can take your time retreating your softer ships and fielding Auroras, Medusas, Odysseys, and Paragons, or just wings upon wings of Daggers.

Anything in the hands of the player will easily dominate large quantities of the enemy given equal resources, this also takes place when the enemy has an advantage in number and quality. The quality of the ships themselves will be distorted by the skill of the player.

It's like M&B, everything the player uses, if the player uses them well will win the day even against huge odds. You as the player exert a tremendous and all encompassing force on battles, and the same is with Starfarer. The way around this is to observe how the ships fight by themselves using the AI, or to imagine how players will fight against other players.

You can name advantages like beams being deadly accurate, flak decimating fighters, mobility, or lack of mobility but if you're not going to test it on an even playing field, you don't know to what extent these advantages or disadvantages play out, that is to what amount these advantages and disadvantages help the ships involved. Perhaps certain combinations of advantages with disadvantages will prove victorious, or that one listed advantage or disadvantage takes the days or loses it due to how big of an effect it has.

[Iscariot]

The skill of the computer is a static variable. I've played as both low tech and high tech fleets, and given that my opponent in both cases was essentially equivalent, I can tell you with some certainty that if you choose not to abuse Broadswords as a low tech fleet, you are much less likely to zone out the opponent than if you did so in a high tech fleet.

The Hegemony's sole advantage, as far as I'm concerned, is the sheer number of ships they can field.

[Temstar]

That said, I pretty much disagree with the assertion that low tech destroyers and cruisers punch above their weight. 'S just not true. The Medusa will destroy an Enforcer, and it's much faster and much more versatile.

I disagree, Enforcer with 3 railguns mounted on its forward turrets is exact same shield killing power as an Eagle as far as ballistics go, never mind the Falcon. Except Enforcer is faster and much more maneuverable compared to the Eagle and its guns are all turret mounted, giving a huge cone in front where all 3 railguns can train on the same target. This means Enforcer can easily stay out of Eagle's front arm and punch through its shield with railgun. Once the shield is down it then has 4 small missile bay worth of strike weapons to sink the ship, again more than Eagle. Only thing Eagle has are the three medium energy turrets which can't hold any weapon with the flux efficiency comparable to railguns.

The Aurora's so fast and has so much flux that just by that virtue alone it can wear a Dominator down pretty easily.

Dominator is a bit of a special case, namely all three variants are worthless due to lack of auxiliary thrusters. Gauss cannon + auxiliary thrusters coupled with 3 Harpoon launchers are deadly to even capital ships. It's scary how much of a difference custom variant makes for this ship.

[Iscariot]

I'm not comparing low tech ships to midline ones. It's a well known fact that aside from its fighters, the midline ships are all kind of gimp. The Hammerhead is mediocre, the Conquest, despite being awesome, has to make sacrifices to achieve parity with other capital ships of its class. I don't even know anyone that uses the Falcon.

No, I'm comparing low tech ships to their high tech equivalents, and there really is no comparison. Except for the Broadsword. Always except for the Broadsword.

[DeltaV_11.2]

One problem I see with saying that any of the tech levels are better than the other is that not all ships are equal. Some ships, particularly the Aurora, Medusa, Dominator, and Onslaught are disproportionately powerful for their class. Yeah, an Aurora will take out a Dominator in stock variants, but that same Aurora stands a competitive chance against some capital ships.

Also consider that the ships we see now don't fully represent how they will appear in the game. Descriptions hint that acquiring high-tech ships and maintaining them is extremely costly and demands extensive resources.

Again, high tech ships suffer some pretty crippling weaknesses, particularly with their weapons and extremely low survivability without shields.

[Iscariot]

Also consider that the ships we see now don't fully represent how they will appear in the game. Descriptions hint that acquiring high-tech ships and maintaining them is extremely costly and demands extensive resources.

I'm pretty sure it's the other way around, considering how much low tech ships rely on their armor, and the fact that all of their weapons have ammunition. They'd need a constant supply to stay repaired and armed.

[Thaago]

While I agree that the high tech ships are often very powerful for their class and weight, I think a lot of this comes down to the default variants rather than the merits of the ships. For example, an Enforcer equipped for anti-high tech duty will rip through the shields of a Medusa incredibly fast - Medusas can't even approach without a lot of pain, especially if there's a few support ships around to help finish it off. The problem is that the default variants are NOT equipped to fight high tech - when we as a player are flying around high tech we are never fighting a properly equipped opponent.

I would love to see the AI re-equip their fleets when they saw you flying towards them in high tech ships. Of course if they were that smart then they would just scatter when they saw your Aurora... yeesh thats an overpowered ship, even for 17 points. Maybe 3000 less flux capacity or 25 less speed.

[Iscariot]

Hmmm, that's fair. I guess calling low tech ships 'underpowered' is a little unfair.

....We all know it's midline ships that get the shaft. More Conquest love! Go!

[Flare]

The skill of the computer is a static variable. I've played as both low tech and high tech fleets, and given that my opponent in both cases was essentially equivalent, I can tell you with some certainty that if you choose not to abuse Broadswords as a low tech fleet, you are much less likely to zone out the opponent than if you did so in a high tech fleet.

Your play style isn't unbiased though. How much this advantage is going to affect the battle is debatable. Again going back to the point that yes you can identify these advantages and disadvantages, but we just don't know to what extent these realize themselves. One thing may count for nothing, while a combination of small things might count for a lot.

Certain people prefer different play styles, I really don't care all that much about capturing all the objectives on the field since I could easily just take them back most of the time. The hegemony ships are fully capable of doing this. The AI is also fully capable of doing this in my experience. There are also maps where this doesn't really play out all that much. Maps like the large one with the X configuration of objectives often have the objectives changing hands many times over over the course of the battle. There's also the squished one with 4 of them that often comes about when both fleets decide to attack. It's quite easy for the hegemony to capture their own lot before the TTs get to them.

The other consideration I find that has an impact is the one Thaago and others raised. The variants matter very much. Human equipped fleets will be far more capable than the default ones. Unless you're flying around with the default variants, this is all the more reason to take player experiences with a pinch of salt. What matters in battles like these will be overshadowed by the huge advantage the player's fleet will have.

[Iscariot]

Ehhhh, I've already conceded that low tech ships aren't quite as gimp as midline ones.... but what the hell.

In regards to my skill: I played Starfarer back in 0.35a, as I'm sure a lot of us here did, and I did it pretty extensively. Some of those missions are pretty difficult, and they all run with default variants. I'm pretty sure I've played the game enough since then to understand what tactics inherent ship values tend to empower, and which they tend to discourage, and even if I did have a tactical bias, judging balance based on PvP is not only impossible but just means removing a constant in lieu of a new set of variable tactical biases.

Is it theoretically possible for a Hegemony fleet to maintain zone parity with a TT fleet? Yes. Is it as easy to do? I don't see how you could argue otherwise (except Broadswords).

[Flare]

You don't necessarily have to do it against another player, just that it's done against another AI. It's kinda like the testing done on total war, DF, and M&B where player interaction is entirely taken out and you let the troops or units in question duke it out, and see which factors weigh heaviest. M&B for example had an issue of whether or not a certain type of cavalryman was overpowered or did better than the rest. It was more or less settled when someone did a test and pitched varying numbers of these troops against each other. The same with total war and DF.

The point you're talking about is a bit more complicated since it's not any particular ship against another per se, it's not even a mix of them, or their individual stats, but how they function in battle. Humans meddle a lot in terms of how the fight takes place. Simply being on the map and moving across it has real implications to how the battle will turn out, never mind if you're actively taking on a role in the fighting itself.

I guess my argument comes in two parts. First, results that come from a player's experience of a battle, especially if it wasn't played systematically or systematically reproduced said moves in the opposite case isn't worth all that much. It's anecdotal. Secondly, if the question is about the fleet, and what aspects that contributes the most to them being better or worse than the other type of fleet, you can only know so far as these fleets are allowed to fight amongst themselves without human interference or with equal and systematic human interference. Me playing against myself for instance.

There just seems to be a lot of separating what is easy to use for the player with certain tactics, and whether the fleets are over powered or better than one another. These two claims are entirely different, the first one, need not necessarily imply the latter.

[Chittebengo]

Except for the broadswords, there is a bit of realism with low-tech ships being a bit outdated, isn't there?  Think of the context behind Starfarer - isolated groups of humans following rapid expansion dealing with the levels of technology they were sent out with.  Fleetwise, perhaps most factions start with low-tech and gradually progress into more high-tech ranges.  They'll be stuck with their antiquated vessels until something better comes along.

I like the disparity, but realize there are some balancing issues that obviously need to be addressed.  The Hyperion being able to (gradually) take out cruise ships is a ton of fun, but is it a desired balance?

I think we need to see more progression and faction development before we start making the case for low vs high, as this is just a bare bones set up that allows us to toy around with mechanics.  Once open-ended progression is introduced in whatever form Alex sees fit we might have better reasons for mixing tech levels or being restricted in how quickly we can acquire them.

[Nanostrike]

I like the disparity, but realize there are some balancing issues that obviously need to be addressed.  The Hyperion being able to (gradually) take out cruise ships is a ton of fun, but is it a desired balance?

It's not too bad of a balance, because, really, the only thing stopping any Frigate from potentially being able to do that is that the Ballistic ones have limited ammo.  The Hyperion has an edge in that category because it's DESIGNED as a Strike Frigate.  Taking down bigger ships is what it does.  Sure, you can outfit it otherwise, but it's main purpose is strike.  One-on-One, it's a pretty devastating craft.  But in a fleet-wide engagement, it tends to play a lesser role.  Mostly because it's rare and you seldom see more than one.  But also because it's not "Uber Fast", it's hull and armor have the strength of tissue paper, and it's bubble-shield makes it take a lot of hits and need to vent often.

Now Tempests and Medusas, on the other hand, aren't as rare.  And I consistently see in packs of 3-4, going around in fleet-wide battles, utterly destroying everything in their path from Fighters to Capital Ships with constant Pulse Laser barrages.

Dominator is a bit of a special case, namely all three variants are worthless due to lack of auxiliary thrusters.

Do Auxillary Thrusters help with Strafing, Turning, or both?  I've never used them enough to really be sure.  If they improve turning, then I don't see how some of the larger ships could be without them...