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Author Topic: Super-mobilty on capital ships is annoying  (Read 4321 times)

ElPresidente

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Super-mobilty on capital ships is annoying
« on: May 30, 2021, 11:51:01 PM »

Especially [REDACTED].

Why? Because the  main advantage of smaller ships - speed - is rendered null and void.
A capital ship has greater weapon range, damage output and durability. Now give it the "teleports behind you, nothing personel kid!" ability and it deletes your frigates and destroyers and cruisers because they CANNOT ESCAPE.
They cannot leave the weapons range fast enough, and if they do, the enemy in question teleports after it, completely skipping your other screening ships.

Aside from capital spam, the only real counter is using the same cheese - phasing/teleporting ships.

And using a swarm of such frigates is not helped by AI that keeps bumping into each other and blocking each others lines of fire. I lost count of the times such a frigate teleports/moves between my battleship (that is in range and shooting) and the enemy.

Thoughts?
« Last Edit: June 01, 2021, 11:18:18 AM by Thaago »
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BreenBB

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Re: Super-mobilty on capital ships is cancer
« Reply #1 on: May 31, 2021, 12:05:50 AM »

I never had problem with high mobility teleporting ships, REDACTED are intended to be powerful, if you can't beat them just make better fleet, get Paragon with Auroras and such, especially SO Auroras. Cruisers can have SO, while capitals are not, and I personally don't like nerfing stuff at all, capitals already nerfed, with these frigate skills and zero flux bonus which AI can't properly use. And its just strange when small frigate murders capital ships like nothing, I think they should be just starting ships, I don't know why all here wants that.
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ElPresidente

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Re: Super-mobilty on capital ships is cancer
« Reply #2 on: May 31, 2021, 01:33:24 AM »

I don't.
I just personally think that phasing/teleporting is cancer even on frigates, let alone capitals.
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Arcagnello

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Re: Super-mobilty on capital ships is cancer
« Reply #3 on: May 31, 2021, 01:50:06 AM »

The main "tumor" on the Radiant is that's it's just 40 Deployment points and yet it has 2 large energy hardpoints, one large energy turret, 2 large synergy turrets, 4 medium synergy turrets and 4 small energy turrets all pointing forward.

If someone that never played Starsector before looked at my current Remnant Ship roster and I told him/her there's one mod ship that's broken among them after giving a brief description of each, the Radiant would be singled out every single time.

Litteral Phase versions of the Brilliant with Alpha Core Officers are more balanced DP wise than the Radiant right now. No, it's not a joke:
Spoiler
[close]

I could see a lot less istances of Remnants becoming absolutely disgusting in the wrong ways if
1)Radiant got bumped to 55-65 Deployment Points
2)Autofit stopped butchering more than half the Remnant ships all the time, like putting 3 medium energy weapons on the 3 Large Energy mounts of a Radiant just to name one
3)Some more Remnant drones were added to not make the one (or two in the case of the Scintilla) fighter bay on most remnants a wste of Ordinance Points most of the time, especially considering the faction as a whole is completely lacking a strike bomber and a support craft
4)Some Remnant ships had better autofit options. As an example the Overridden Brilliant, Fulgent and GLimmer are some of the strongest setups aside from the Radiant but Vanilla does not seem to use any of them
5)Vanilla stopped giving Alpha/Beta cores on every Ludd-forsaken ship abomination the Remnants fielded. The only two vanilla Remnants that should have an Alpha Core are the Radiant and the Brilliant (if there is no radiant). Destroyers should get Betas and Frigades should stick to Gammas.
6)I would honestly prefer Vanilla to stop adding officers above 60 Officer levels (which is the maximum the player can field without Automated Ships) and started adding integrated hullmods to the most expensive ships instead for every 8 officer levels that would've been added instead.

As an example, that relatively small phase fleet with the Brilliant-X Drone Phaseship only has 16 ships as you can see:
Spoiler
[close]
But it has 9 Alpha Cores (including one on a Lumen, heh), 2 Beta Cores and 2 Gamma Cores, which considering they add 10, 8 and 4 skills respecively amounts to 114 skill points, which is 54 Skill Points higher than what a player fleet with both level 4 Leadership skills can achieve.

The change I suggest would translate into the same fleet having:
1)1 Alpha Core on the Brilliant
2)6 Beta Cores on the most DP expensive ships after the brilliant
3)1 gamma core on the most DP expensive ship that does not have a core yet, bringing the total "officer points" to 62
4)114-62= 52 additional commander skill points, which divided by 8 equals to 7 (rounded up) Integrated hullmods in the Remnant Force
5)Meaning the Radiant gets 2 Integrated Hullmods, The Brilliant X gets another 2, the Horseshoe Remnant which I forgot the name of gets 2 and whatever is after that gets 1.


Addendum: I am sorry my reply is getting too long for most people to be happy when reading it already, but the best stategy when dealing with high mobility, high durability enemies is rather straightforward. You need to deploy a force that is both able to distract and isolate the enemy force (which usually stranslates in some durable frigates-destroyers goign around and contesting buoys) and then a mobile or durable strike force to focus the major enemy threats down. I am aware Remnants don't usually spawn in hyperspace but the standard Remnant Ordos spam Alpha Cores in a similar way, if not worse.

Here's a small screenshot compilation  of that fight:

Spoiler
[close]
If you have a keen eye you'll also notice I've got mods introducing more Overridden setups of the Brilliant (I think Vanilla has just one and it rarely spawns?). I love hurting myself, that's why.
Spoiler
[close]
Spoiler
[close]
Another side effect of this Alpha Core Spam is that there's a lot of cores to be farmed:
Spoiler
[close]
Spoiler
[close]

Edit: corrected math
« Last Edit: May 31, 2021, 05:53:35 PM by Arcagnello »
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Warnoise

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Re: Super-mobilty on capital ships is cancer
« Reply #4 on: May 31, 2021, 01:54:46 AM »

I agree. I dont mind it being 40dp, i dont mind it being tanky as hell, i dont mind it being able to delete an onslaught in 5 seconds with autopulse, but making it teleport multiple times in a row is too much.
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FatherAnderson

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Re: Super-mobilty on capital ships is cancer
« Reply #5 on: May 31, 2021, 05:14:24 AM »

They are supposed to be among the hardest enemies in the game, just fight something else for a while and come back with a swole fleet and crush them when you are ready.
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Megas

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Re: Super-mobilty on capital ships is cancer
« Reply #6 on: May 31, 2021, 05:26:59 AM »

Only problem with Remnants is ships other than Radiant are not overpowered enough.  Brilliant and the smaller ships are simply alternative (mostly high-end) human ships whose only abnormal stat is high PPT.

Automated Ships is good because player can use overpowered SNK boss ships (namely Radiant).  That is the point of NPC boss units - they are overpowered and unfair.
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KDR_11k

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Re: Super-mobilty on capital ships is cancer
« Reply #7 on: May 31, 2021, 05:32:53 AM »

Litteral Phase versions of the Brilliant with Alpha Core Officers are more balanced DP wise than the Radiant right now. No, it's not a joke:

I wonder if making the Radiant a phase ship would really buff it much or even nerf it, one big problem with it is that super efficient shield system combined with its ability to back off but as a phase ship it would be more vulnerable while attacking. Though OTOH there's also the randomness of officer skills, I drive the P9 Eyfel in my current campaign (a phase capital with the same teleport ability) and it's seriously underwhelming without skills, only good for kiting with slightly longer ranged guns but pretty useless when facing something it can't outrange since it'll attrition and the phase and teleport won't make up for the relatively low base speed of a capital. With skills however, wow. Teleporting twice as often? Double the speed in phase? Suddenly the ship has a lot more control over where it moves and can easily outpace other ships' ability to maneuver, even chase down fleeing frigates.

I'd claim that a skill-less phase Radiant would be much easier to kill than a regular Radiant.
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Fanful

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Re: Super-mobilty on capital ships is cancer
« Reply #8 on: May 31, 2021, 05:35:00 AM »

Personally I don't mind how strong and teleporting they are, but the fact they also get numerical advantage (low deployement cost + always advantage in deployment points) is getting on my nerves a lot. And even that would be fine if not the fact we are limited to 30 ships, so they also win the war of attrition.

I just got out of the fight in coronal tap (or what was the name) with the 2 weird ships and it was really really fun, because they were 2 and I had 30 ships (and I did have to use several civilian ships by the end of the battle to tank some shots). But then I went and got bounty contract for remnant fleet with another weird ship and heh... it's just impossible with my setup and I'm not even sure what I'm doing wrong, except I would probably need to optimize all my fleet composition, including the weapons, for this specific battle. With shields that take less than half the damage and high mobility it's really hard to finish of any enemy ship. When you add huge numerical advantage to that, it's just impossible for me.
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DownTheDrain

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Re: Super-mobilty on capital ships is cancer
« Reply #9 on: May 31, 2021, 05:44:06 AM »

And using a swarm of such frigates is not helped by AI that keeps bumping into each other and blocking each others lines of fire. I lost count of the times such a frigate teleports/moves between my battleship (that is in range and shooting) and the enemy.

I know this isn't the main point of your post but it's driving me nuts.
The amount of times one of my own ships teleports/flickers/whatever straight into my line of fire and blocks me off completely is just comical. Of course they do that regardless of mobility systems, but non-teleporting allies are easier to box out when they try to constantly strafe in front of you for absolutely no reason.
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Arcagnello

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Re: Super-mobilty on capital ships is cancer
« Reply #10 on: May 31, 2021, 06:00:37 AM »

Litteral Phase versions of the Brilliant with Alpha Core Officers are more balanced DP wise than the Radiant right now. No, it's not a joke:

I wonder if making the Radiant a phase ship would really buff it much or even nerf it, one big problem with it is that super efficient shield system combined with its ability to back off but as a phase ship it would be more vulnerable while attacking. Though OTOH there's also the randomness of officer skills, I drive the P9 Eyfel in my current campaign (a phase capital with the same teleport ability) and it's seriously underwhelming without skills, only good for kiting with slightly longer ranged guns but pretty useless when facing something it can't outrange since it'll attrition and the phase and teleport won't make up for the relatively low base speed of a capital. With skills however, wow. Teleporting twice as often? Double the speed in phase? Suddenly the ship has a lot more control over where it moves and can easily outpace other ships' ability to maneuver, even chase down fleeing frigates.

I'd claim that a skill-less phase Radiant would be much easier to kill than a regular Radiant.

Yes and no, it would definetly perform better against smaller ships than bigger ones due to the inherent extra agility and less issues moving out of an encirclement due to being a phase ship. Being a phase ship would also eliminate some of the Autofit Horrors Vanilla does on the standard Radiant, as most builds:
-don't have front shield conversion, accellerated shields or stabilized shields as far as my knowledge goes
-don't have expanded missile racks if they use limited ammo missiles, the 5 Autopulse variant does not even seem to have Expanded Mags
-don't have Hardened shields (I'm not 100% sure about this one) or Solar Shielding
-have a set of 5 large weapons that don't synergize well at all with the 4 synergy hardpoints in the back

A theoretical Phase Radiant would not only have an Alpha Core with Elite Phase Mastery which would litterally quadruple the speed the capital ship goes at while in phase, but a decent setup on it would also have things like Unstable Injector, Auxiliary Thrusters, Heavy armor, Automated Repair Unit, Solar Shielding, Resistant Flux Conduits and the like, basically making it as tanky as the shield variant (especially if the Alpha Core at the helm also had Elite Impact Mitigation and Elite Damage Control), with the very, very important difference than a ship with no shield can not be prevented from firing by saturating it with kinetic fire, like pretty much all other Vanilla Remnants. Phase ships also usually have higher base armor than comparable ships of the same class, so it could be even worse than I Imagine it.

It would honestly be nastier than the standard version of the Radiant if they both got boosted up to 60DP. You don't usually bring beam weapons against Remnants since you're dealing with a lot of very good shields, a Phase capital would be a very smart (and incredibly sadistic) way to exploit that.


Then again, the current Radiant is not balanced by its Deployment Cost but by the fact two thirds of the Autofits for it are complete ass, so I would expect the same of the "Radiant-X Phase Droneship".

It's one of those "fail at it twice to make it right" kind of deals, really  ;D

Edit
Oh, I also forgot one thing about this theoretical "Brilliant-X Phase Droneship". The ship system it would supposedly have.

I could perfectly imagine it using Damper Field to make it more durable rather than an abominable delete machine using High Energy Focus, Fast Missile Racks or something even nastier that borrows System Distruption from the Harbinger or the Entropy something something go die now from the Afflictor.

If you're wondering where I got the Damper Field idea from, it's from the Phasegon (yes, it exists) from Caymon's Ship Pack: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19712.0

It's got something called "Advanced Damper Field" that I'm not too sure about how it differentiates from the normal one, aside from having a much shorter duration(?), so make sure to properly thank Caymon Joestar for when we're (hopefully) getting this brand new Phase Radiant added to Vanilla  ;)
« Last Edit: May 31, 2021, 10:54:52 AM by Arcagnello »
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KDR_11k

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Re: Super-mobilty on capital ships is cancer
« Reply #11 on: May 31, 2021, 02:42:08 PM »

A big question with a Phase Radiant would be the flux stats on the cloaking. The Radiant has a speed of 40 which isn't very fast without its mobility system. 160 effective speed is relatively fast but not THAT fast. Depends on how long you let it stay phased, with timing comparable to a regular phase ship it would likely have to surface before getting very far and could end up stuck in range of many weapons. The phase skimmer really is the bigger issue with how much it gets boosted by Systems Expertise and of course its cooldown is accelerated while in phase. Oh and a phase skimmer doesn't generate flux so after burning through all its flux capacity in phase it would then do a series of teleports.

That's really the killer feature of the Eyfel in P9, its phase cloak is garbage, at best enough to avoid a torpedo volley but the synergy with the skimmer makes it absurdly mobile.
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Arcagnello

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Re: Super-mobilty on capital ships is cancer
« Reply #12 on: May 31, 2021, 03:11:11 PM »

A big question with a Phase Radiant would be the flux stats on the cloaking. The Radiant has a speed of 40 which isn't very fast without its mobility system. 160 effective speed is relatively fast but not THAT fast. Depends on how long you let it stay phased, with timing comparable to a regular phase ship it would likely have to surface before getting very far and could end up stuck in range of many weapons. The phase skimmer really is the bigger issue with how much it gets boosted by Systems Expertise and of course its cooldown is accelerated while in phase. Oh and a phase skimmer doesn't generate flux so after burning through all its flux capacity in phase it would then do a series of teleports.

That's really the killer feature of the Eyfel in P9, its phase cloak is garbage, at best enough to avoid a torpedo volley but the synergy with the skimmer makes it absurdly mobile.

I would make the Phase Cloak activation/upkeep of the "Radiant-X" comparatively low for the ship's size, to compensate for the low speed of the ship, if said mobility stays the same.
Then again, it's a ship that could have a lot of weapons. the "Phasegon" up in my reply above has two Large Energy Turrets cut from it (plus other minor weaponry) and the two large energy hardpoints switched for Hybrid ones to give it more flexibility.

Assuming the new "Phase Radiant" gets conceptualized and given a better name like Crepuscular or Caliginous, I would apply modifications to the original design along these lines:

-Armor increased from 1500 to 1900
-Peak performance time decreased from 720 (I think? Could be significantly higher actually) to 540-420
-Large synergy turrets removed, Front Large Energy Hardpoints changed to Synergy and central Energy Turret changed from Energy to Hybrid
-Medium synergy turrets on the sides reduced from 4 to 2, added one more medium synergy turret in the spinal section of the ship
-back facing small energy turret reduced from 6 to 4 to account for additional engine sections
-speed increased from 40 to 50
-handling slightly increased
-(this is questionable) added the same integrated hullmod as Ludd's Angry Broccoli

5 Large weapons on a phase ship would be absurd, but I could honestly see 4 provided only two or even just one can fit large missile weapons. Only 3 for a barely mobile 60DP phase ship may not be good enough to be worth as much as the normal Radiant by the time it inevitably gets its DP bumped up to a sane amount.

I would not change the OP or the flux stats for the moment. The ship is going to be a rather slow yet supremely tanky "frontline phaseship" that subverts the usual counters to Remnant Ordos and uses the specialization of the enemy to its advantage. If Phase Skimmer was considered too taxing to ever possibly fit on a capital sized ship due to the risk of the entire vessel breaking apart, I do not see why the same ship able to do that despite (and I quote) being theoretically impossible could also not be modified to be a Phase Ship instead to counter anti-remnant efforts from the disgusting organics.

I'm starting to think we're going to pollute this thread with our sado-masochistic tendencies amateurish shipcrafting. I'm probably going to write an entire suggestion thread about the "Crepuscular" in the coming days.

Now, would it better fit Suggestions or Modding?  :P
« Last Edit: May 31, 2021, 03:47:38 PM by Arcagnello »
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ElPresidente

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Re: Super-mobilty on capital ships is cancer
« Reply #13 on: June 01, 2021, 12:07:48 AM »

They are supposed to be among the hardest enemies in the game, just fight something else for a while and come back with a swole fleet and crush them when you are ready.

You misunderstand - it's not that I'm loosing, it's the nature of the fight that bugs me.
You need big, tanky capitals and/or phase/teleport frigates/destroyers.

Smaller ships are worse than cannon fodder and the only way they can survive is if they also have the cheese. Which makes low tech and midline ships generally useless for these fights.

Any one of the factors by itself (high aplha strike, phasing/teleporting, high durability) is not a problem, but when combined, that's the problem.
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KDR_11k

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Re: Super-mobilty on capital ships is cancer
« Reply #14 on: June 01, 2021, 12:26:41 AM »

I'd cut its hull stat though, 20k is a LOT. I had a (pre-fix) aux support assault package Prometheus Mk2 with that much hull and armor, it got overloaded in the middle of the enemy fleet and still managed to burn drive away with a third of its hull intact. For comparison, the Doom has 7k hull.

You misunderstand - it's not that I'm loosing, it's the nature of the fight that bugs me.
You need big, tanky capitals and/or phase/teleport frigates/destroyers.

Smaller ships are worse than cannon fodder and the only way they can survive is if they also have the cheese. Which makes low tech and midline ships generally useless for these fights.

Any one of the factors by itself (high aplha strike, phasing/teleporting, high durability) is not a problem, but when combined, that's the problem.

Radiants are extremely strong if they have space to back off into and vent since their shields can tank such stupid amounts of damage. The most important part is to get it surrounded so it can't zip away and vent. I think even relatively weak ships will work as a barricade behind it. But yeah, since they got these crazy officer skills they're really hard to kill unless they're isolated.
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