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Author Topic: External armor plates on low-tech ships, like low-tech Star Fortresses have?  (Read 601 times)

Supereor

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Hi!  I just read this post on the forums (https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=23745.0) and this post on Alex's development blog (https://fractalsoftworks.com/2021/05/28/a-tale-of-two-tech-levels/), and I see that someone has a problem with the Vanguard and how it performs as a result of having no shields.  I know that there is a reason this suggestion won't work, but I don't actually know what it is: can low-tech ships have external destructible armor plates like low-tech Star Fortresses do, or like that one frigate in the Diable Avionics mod?  I feel like having to chew through a layer external armor first would help with weapons like the Tachyon Lance that currently eat shieldless ships for breakfast, and it doesn't break the appeal of a shieldless, heavily armored super frigate.

To be totally honest--and this has nothing to do with my question, this is more just my personal observation--I think the whole "Low Tech" classification of ships in general has sort of a problem.  I am completely and utterly terrible at this game so I am not going to say they are objectively worse than High Tech, but I will say that I feel like there's a reason more people make jokes about low-tech ships and talk about them as if they're worse and more expendable, alongside low-tech ships being the popular choice of ship type for crappy, "budget" factions like the Pirates and the Luddic Path(I know the pirates use versions of some high-tech ships like the Shade and the Wolf, but their capital is low-tech garbage).  When I read on Alex's blog that high-tech ships aren't necessarily supposed to be better than low-tech, I was somewhat surprised because it seems like there's an almost universal understanding that they just sort of... are.  Maybe it's just because I'm biased as someone that enjoys high-tech ships more, but the biggest low-tech capitals don't take up as much DP to field as the biggest high-tech capital, the most overpowered ships in the game are arguably even more "high-tech" than other high-tech ships, and from the little that I've seen people talk about in terms of what frigates work in the late game, I've only seen people bring up high-tech ships like the Hyperion, the Omen, and the Tempest.  In my opinion, even what Alex said on that forum post about making the Vanguard cost less to repair after it gets destroyed speaks volumes about how low-tech ships are designed and used...

All that being said, of course, there's nothing wrong with just enjoying using low-tech ships more, that's just my 2 cents.  But yeah, I know there's a reason armor plates wouldn't work for the Vanguard or other ships like it, but I would like someone to tell me what it actually is.
« Last Edit: December 02, 2022, 11:14:01 PM by Supereor »
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smithney

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Lo-tech ships seem inferior if you look at it from the point of an advanced player with "limitless" resources. But when it comes to fleet economics and per-DP efficiency, it's hi-tech that gets outclassed. Fielding hi-tech ships means having to carry around a premium of supplies, losing them means crippling them with D-mods which they don't handle as well as lo-tech ships do. Additionally, AI doesn't manage piloting hi-tech as it does piloting lo-tech.

But on the topic of lo-tech having armor modules, it's something that would be hella cool and flavorful :D
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Wyvern

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Lo-tech ships seem inferior if you look at it from the point of an advanced player with "limitless" resources. But when it comes to fleet economics and per-DP efficiency, it's hi-tech that gets outclassed. Fielding hi-tech ships means having to carry around a premium of supplies, losing them means crippling them with D-mods which they don't handle as well as lo-tech ships do. Additionally, AI doesn't manage piloting hi-tech as it does piloting lo-tech.
At least for my playstyle, this is wrong: the high-tech ships tend to be better with the AI, and overall cheaper to run - in part due to their tendency to have lower crew requirements, and in part due to my variant design favoring strong shields & high mobility, so I generally don't lose ships or have to pay extra supplies for repairs past what you get for free with CR recovery.

As always with such things, your mileage may (and from your comment clearly does) vary. Though I will note that not all high tech (or low tech) is created equal; if you're judging the efficacy of high-tech ships by a fleet filled with Wolves and Apogees... yeah, that's not likely to perform very well. Even the Tempest varies a lot in efficacy by exactly how you outfit it; I recommend extended shields, at least 8 capacitors, and putting an LRPD, small burst pd, or other mod-added decent small PD weapon in the right turret, with the left turret going to a pulse laser, heavy blaster, or if you've got a mod weapon that's somewhere between those two, that's probably the best option.

But on the topic of lo-tech having armor modules, it's something that would be hella cool and flavorful :D
This, on the other hand, is dead on accurate.
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Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.

smithney

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At least for my playstyle, this is wrong: the high-tech ships tend to be better with the AI, and overall cheaper to run - in part due to their tendency to have lower crew requirements, and in part due to my variant design favoring strong shields & high mobility, so I generally don't lose ships or have to pay extra supplies for repairs past what you get for free with CR recovery.

As always with such things, your mileage may (and from your comment clearly does) vary.
That's what I meant by "from the point of an advanced player'. In my experience, lo-tech hulls tend to handle newbie builds better than hi-tech. Curiously enough, I had most success with midline builds as a noob. Might have something ro do with them being streamlined for specific roles.

To stay on topic, any idea why hulls with modular armor haven't been implemented in vanilla yet?
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SCC

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To stay on topic, any idea why hulls with modular armor haven't been implemented in vanilla yet?
Because there's no reason to.

Amoebka

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AI isn't very bright and understanding how to deal with ablative armor plates is too much to ask of it. Fighting stations is an utter clownfest every time, only tolerable because you don't fight station often.
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Harmful Mechanic

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They also add a fair bit of overhead; you don't really want a lot of them flying around, certainly not as line combatants. And module armor is more interesting on larger ships that already have a lot of ability to absorb damage.

A couple one-off ships might be in the cards; a unique low-tech cruiser with module armor would be a cool reward for a Luddic mission set. I'd certainly like it if vanilla were using the SHIP_WITH_MODULES code; makes me less nervous about it being weird buggy mod-only stuff.
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Pratapon51

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Only "common" vanilla ship I could see benefitting from it is the upcoming Invictus, and instead of armor modules, that one got special armor mechanics.

(I do admit I am not opposed to Starsector being a little more like Battleships Forever.  ;D)
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SafariJohn

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A ship with one armor module is like 3-4x as much work as a regular ship. Speaking from experience.
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