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Author Topic: Starfarer 0.5a Preview (Released) - Live Patch Notes  (Read 301759 times)

Psycho Society

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Re: Starfarer 0.5a Preview (Released) - Live Patch Notes
« Reply #555 on: February 26, 2012, 01:33:15 PM »



There are useful midline and low tech ships, but I do agree that there are a few EXTREMELY good Tri-Tachyon ships, with not really any midline or low tech ships that approach those highs.

It makes sense that higher tech ships would be better, however I think it's odd that tri tachyon has a complete monopoly on all of those. Instead of dumping all early epoch ships into one faction and all late epoch ships into another, it might be more prudent give each a greater degree of flexibility with their fleets. While hegemony would use large numbers of low tech ship for the bulk of their forces, they might still field mid line and better ships when they get their hands on them. And the tri tachyon, though having a disposition to use lower numbers of high tech ships, might occasionally use lesser ships to fill a gap in their ranks.
« Last Edit: February 26, 2012, 01:35:18 PM by Psycho Society »
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Iscariot

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Re: Starfarer 0.5a Preview (Released) - Live Patch Notes
« Reply #556 on: February 26, 2012, 01:50:58 PM »

Alex has stated that 'high tech' is not really 'high tech' so much as it is a selection of the best ships from a relatively late epoch of the Domain.

Personally, I think the idea of an old-ass ship, based on old-ass naval concepts that everyone has forgotten about and therefore has forgotten how to counter, would be really cool. And there is some evidence that that kind of exists.

Let me explain: Kinetics are really good against shields, and high tech ships depend highly upon shields for protection. Midline ships are armed with a combination of energy, missiles, and kinetics, so high tech ships, which have fantastic shields, nullify about a third of their firepower. Low tech ships, on the other hand, have crap for shields but have miles of armor to protect themselves, and are armed exclusively with kinetics and missiles, which means that none of their offensive armament is properly countered by high tech ships, and their protection is well suited to defending against energy attacks.

The problem is that the ship frames themselves are too slow in the low tech arena for that to really be the case in anything other than the Onslaught and maybe the Dominator.

I just think low tech ships are cool, and I'd like to see more cool low tech ships that are also not the Hound.
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The idea is that the various tech levels represent different - not "better" - ways to do things.

Thana

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Re: Starfarer 0.5a Preview (Released) - Live Patch Notes
« Reply #557 on: February 26, 2012, 11:50:03 PM »

Low tech ships, on the other hand, have crap for shields but have miles of armor to protect themselves, and are armed exclusively with kinetics and missiles, which means that none of their offensive armament is properly countered by high tech ships, and their protection is well suited to defending against energy attacks.

That's not how it works. Shields work best against high explosive (which almost all missiles are) damage, energy damage is the jack-of-all-trades damage type. Thus, high-tech ships (whose damage prevention capabilities tend to be heavily shield-based) are optimised to block fully half - counted the way you do - of the low-tech ships' weaponry, and the long-ranged half at that.
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Flare

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Re: Starfarer 0.5a Preview (Released) - Live Patch Notes
« Reply #558 on: February 27, 2012, 02:09:13 AM »

I don't think he mentioned missiles to be used against shields rather, it is the kinetics that are meant to damage shields. The missiles are for damaging the hull once the shields are downed by the kinetics.
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Quote from: Thana
Quote from: Alex

The battle station is not completely operational, shall we say.

"Now witness the firepower of this thoroughly buggy and unoperational batt... Oh, hell, you know what? Just ignore the battle station, okay?"

Thana

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Re: Starfarer 0.5a Preview (Released) - Live Patch Notes
« Reply #559 on: February 27, 2012, 02:24:41 AM »

I don't think he mentioned missiles to be used against shields rather, it is the kinetics that are meant to damage shields. The missiles are for damaging the hull once the shields are downed by the kinetics.

Maybe so, but "none of their offensive armament is properly countered by high tech ships" seems to imply that missiles are somehow uniquely effective against high-tech ships, when in practice the truth is the opposite.

P.S. Have I ever told you how much I like seeing your sig?  ;D
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Iscariot

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Re: Starfarer 0.5a Preview (Released) - Live Patch Notes
« Reply #560 on: February 27, 2012, 02:43:09 AM »

I meant to say that it COULD work that way. Also that guns, be they energy or kinetics, tend to be the primary armament of Starfarer's warships. But yeah, fair enough.

To explain with an analogy the possible dichotomy I think would be interesting, consider someone using a longsword against a man in a modern plate carrier-- the plate carrier has a heavy ceramic plate over the man's vitals, but it isn't made for that kind of combat, and would offer little protection. It  doesn't work perfectly, of course. The modern soldier would have a rifle, which would drastically even the odds at even ten meters' distance, but I am talking about high tech shields versus cannons here.
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The idea is that the various tech levels represent different - not "better" - ways to do things.

ShinySpoons

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Re: Starfarer 0.5a Preview (Released) - Live Patch Notes
« Reply #561 on: February 27, 2012, 03:47:00 PM »

Perhaps a more realistic rendition of Iscariots metaphor is the use of knives against modern body armour. Your average soldier isn't going to knife somebody but your special forces occasionally will. So there is a bit of a strange reversal. The highly trained soldier using low tech weapons to defeat high tech defenses. The concepts already in Starfarer, I'd like to see it more fleshed out possibly.
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Iscariot

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Re: Starfarer 0.5a Preview (Released) - Live Patch Notes
« Reply #562 on: February 27, 2012, 04:25:06 PM »

What's wrong with the longsword? Longswords are cool! And antiquated.
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The idea is that the various tech levels represent different - not "better" - ways to do things.

Dante80

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Re: Starfarer 0.5a Preview (Released) - Live Patch Notes
« Reply #563 on: February 27, 2012, 08:43:34 PM »

What's wrong with the longsword? Longswords are cool! And antiquated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KwMK78idpA

 ;D

I think a slightly better analogy would be a marine with a saiga shotgun shooting slugs against a trio of english yeomen with ash longbows and bodkin arrows.
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Iscariot

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Re: Starfarer 0.5a Preview (Released) - Live Patch Notes
« Reply #564 on: February 27, 2012, 08:48:23 PM »

No, because I was specifically talking about the interplay between defensive systems and offensive weapons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v4j3mvrDyQ

A plate carrier will not stop that kind of damage. It is designed for a different era of warfare, after all. That's what I'm trying to say, with high tech ships not necessarily being 'better'. High tech ships would be designed to deal with the weapons around at their inception, and may not necessarily be prepared to deal with a more 'barbaric' weapon system.
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The idea is that the various tech levels represent different - not "better" - ways to do things.

Ishman

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Re: Starfarer 0.5a Preview (Released) - Live Patch Notes
« Reply #565 on: February 28, 2012, 06:52:08 AM »

Ceramic plate inserts in body armor is actually a bad analogy here, the better one would be Kevlar easily stopping high velocity small caliber rounds, but a knife slips easily through the weave.

One of the purported features of ceramic body armor is that it is largely impervious to bladed weapons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceramic_plate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_vest#Stab_armor_and_combination_stab-ballistic_armor

And I've gotta agree with Iscariot, if you defend your ship from smart guided munitions by using ECM and Spoofing/Overloading the sensors of a missile, you'll be wholly unprepared to deal with  dumbfire artillery.
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Thana

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Re: Starfarer 0.5a Preview (Released) - Live Patch Notes
« Reply #566 on: February 28, 2012, 07:23:04 AM »

On the other hand, that sort of "I never thought someone would throw fast-moving ballistic projectiles at me!" thinking from high-tech ship designers doesn't really make sense in the Starfarer context for several reasons. Firstly, and more importantly, low-tech ships are all around so building ships that can't handle the most common sort of threat around but cost much more is kind of implausible. Secondly, the division between high-tech and low-tech ships isn't an inflexible one. Many high-tech ships use kinetic weapons themselves so they have something to efficiently take down enemy shields, whereas nothing's preventing the Hegemony from arming an Onslaught with the most advanced weapons they can get their hands on. The ships themselves are relatively limited to their original blueprints but even they can be customised through hull mods.
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Dante80

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Re: Starfarer 0.5a Preview (Released) - Live Patch Notes
« Reply #567 on: February 28, 2012, 09:49:32 AM »

No, because I was specifically talking about the interplay between defensive systems and offensive weapons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v4j3mvrDyQ

A plate carrier will not stop that kind of damage. It is designed for a different era of warfare, after all. That's what I'm trying to say, with high tech ships not necessarily being 'better'. High tech ships would be designed to deal with the weapons around at their inception, and may not necessarily be prepared to deal with a more 'barbaric' weapon system.

Actually I think I am on the same page as you on this, just posted the video for giggles...^^

Regarding the analogy I gave, I was also thinking about the interplay between shields and kinetic projectiles from a different tech era. I used the bodkin arrow instead of a one-and-a-half sword for 2 reasons.

1. Its a projectile made to defeat mail armor.
2. Its far more efficient in its role than the sword ever was (swords were considered secondary weapons at the time, and were definitely not as suitable as other contemporary weapons at thrusting/piercing against mail, like lances/halberds or bodkin arrows. I could go on as I love the subject - and own a good Brescia Spadona replica that was put to the test against arrows to prove that point - but we are getting off topic). C:

To get back to the analogy. The three longbowmen represent a ship that has a good amount of armor (three bodies) and shoots slow projectiles that were made to defeat the armor of that time. The marine represents a ship with worse armor (one body), a better shield (bulletproof vest) and a fast weapon made for the modern battlefield.

The bodkin arrow was never produced to defeat bulletproof type IIIa ceramic plate armor. But a shot from one or two can definitely break the plate just by force, making the third arrow lethal. 

So..in retrospect. There is no reason why dumbfire artillery cannot be lethal to a top notch defense system.

To give another analogy. Take a Ticonderoga AEGIS cruiser and pit it against a WWI super-dreadnought like the Queen Elizabeth at a range of 20k yards.

I don't know about you, but I consider this a hard fight for the both of them...^^

ps: sorry for my bad english, and salutations from sunny Greece...C:
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weed33

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Re: Starfarer 0.5a Preview (Released) - Live Patch Notes
« Reply #568 on: February 28, 2012, 09:57:14 AM »

the better one would be Kevlar easily stopping high velocity small caliber rounds, but a knife slips easily through the weave.

Kevlar can stop knives too, it's just more effective against ballistics.

Iscariot

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Re: Starfarer 0.5a Preview (Released) - Live Patch Notes
« Reply #569 on: February 28, 2012, 10:35:53 AM »

Ceramic plate inserts in body armor is actually a bad analogy here, the better one would be Kevlar easily stopping high velocity small caliber rounds, but a knife slips easily through the weave.

One of the purported features of ceramic body armor is that it is largely impervious to bladed weapons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceramic_plate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_vest#Stab_armor_and_combination_stab-ballistic_armor

And I've gotta agree with Iscariot, if you defend your ship from smart guided munitions by using ECM and Spoofing/Overloading the sensors of a missile, you'll be wholly unprepared to deal with  dumbfire artillery.

Stopping the blow isn't the issue, coverage is.

Late Medieval plate harness is shaped in a certain way to deflect blows away from the body, away from the neck. A plate carrier is a last line of defense against gunfire, designed largely to catch shrapnel, and designed to stop rifle rounds from only the most vital blows. The plate carrier is designed with the idea that the soldier in question can be casevac'd. Plate harness is not.

Which is why I used it versus the bodkin analogy. Arrows can't really be aimed at specific parts of the body at the ranges they're generally employed in mass battle, but blades and spears can, which exploits modern ballistic armor's primary weakness.

No, because I was specifically talking about the interplay between defensive systems and offensive weapons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v4j3mvrDyQ

A plate carrier will not stop that kind of damage. It is designed for a different era of warfare, after all. That's what I'm trying to say, with high tech ships not necessarily being 'better'. High tech ships would be designed to deal with the weapons around at their inception, and may not necessarily be prepared to deal with a more 'barbaric' weapon system.


The bodkin arrow was never produced to defeat bulletproof type IIIa ceramic plate armor. But a shot from one or two can definitely break the plate just by force, making the third arrow lethal. 

Well, there's your problem. Level IIIa is made for pistol rounds. A proper level III on the other hand.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abd9bpvd6zY

That's gunna take a lot of bodkins :D
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The idea is that the various tech levels represent different - not "better" - ways to do things.
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