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[Linnis]

on a side note.

It seems like there are much more damage increase capabilities then endurance capabilities no?
Will we have longer battles between cruisers and battle cruisers?

[Aereto]

on a side note.

It seems like there are much more damage increase capabilities then endurance capabilities no?
Will we have longer battles between cruisers and battle cruisers?

Damage increase capabilities... that could range from current flux reserves to skills that directly increases damage yield of weaponry.

Endurance capabilities... that could range from hull mods that increase survivability to flux management.

I have to admit that I am at a loss here... As far as I see, offense and defense are interchangeable to one another. A good offense is a good defense and vice-versa... same with offense-offense and defense-defense thoughts. I don't see a discrepancy in the offense-defense balance at the moment.

A ship designed with armoring every part of the ship would have enough armor to have significant changes in the time taken for high-explosive weapons to punch through, while PD weapons deal with missiles and torpedoes... or enough hull to give the precious seconds to deliver its salvo before it goes out with a bang.

Then there is a ship designed to deliver the most damage to a ship in a short amount of time, using kinetic non-beam weapons to force shield drops, then pump out high-explosive and energy weapons to crack the armor and hull before the shields are raised or overload ends.

Then there's a ship that has the best of both worlds, making compromises and take what features would be most helpful in a wide spectrum of situations.

[Linnis]

+20%  Damage, Ordnance expert
vs
-10%  Hull and Armor, Damage control

+100% damage to armor
+25% damage to shields,  target anyalsis
vs
+100% armor strength, Evasive action

+25% rate of fire, Gunnery Optics
vs
+20% armor, construction
+10% hull, Mechanical Enginnering

Missile damage skill
vs
more damage on pd guns

so over all, damage skills always have an edge small or large over defensive.

Ex, to make it even with Ordance Expert and Damage Control,
+20% damage
vs
+40% armor and hull

[Aereto]

Spoiler

+20%  Damage, Ordnance expert
vs
-10%  Hull and Armor, Damage control

+100% damage to armor
+25% damage to shields,  target anyalsis
vs
+100% armor strength, Evasive action

+25% rate of fire, Gunnery Optics
vs
+20% armor, construction
+10% hull, Mechanical Enginnering

Missile damage skill
vs
more damage on pd guns

so over all, damage skills always have an edge small or large over defensive.

Ex, to make it even with Ordance Expert and Damage Control,
+20% damage
vs
+40% armor and hull

[close]

Appreciate it for putting that to perspective.

[Megas]

Then, there is more ship speed, which may let a ship dodge shots or catch/kite ships slower than it, and more shot range.

[Linnis]

Ship speed to the current AI is more detrimental, it is hard to explain but you can try this out your self.

have a massive battle, and watch a tempest with speed hullmod vs a tempest without.

The only way computers can take advantage of ship speed is to  get in to fights and chase down slower ships - all aggressive options.

Only the player can utilise speed as a defensive mechanics, the AI tends to turn suicidal.  (Eagles and Falcons anyone?)

[Megas]

Only the player can utilise speed as a defensive mechanics, the AI tends to turn suicidal.  (Eagles and Falcons anyone?)

This, plus hull regeneration (from Damage Control 10), make a single flagship so powerful.  It allows any sufficiently fast ship to strafe and dance around enemies like Doomguy vs. cyberdemon; and if it takes a hit or two, the ship can run off to a corner, regenerate, and come back for more.  It allows me to use a fleet of one Medusa (to kill any fleet in the game) and the rest Atlas and Oxen (to loot 7000 or so supplies from one battle without sending LR to 0%).

For a Combat/Technology character, the flagship is the workhorse of the fleet, built to avoid reliance on incompetent wingmen.  Other ships are included only to speed up battles or deny the enemy objectives (if deployed as wingmen), or as 1UPs (if fighting as one flagship at a time).

EDIT - More speed to AI ships is beneficial because the hullmods that increase combat speed ALSO increase burn speed, and player wants high burn speed.

[nohintofsarcasm]

I for one don't think the line between defensive and offensive is that clear. Do you consider flux bonuses to be defensive or offensive? What about speed? Things like extra range might seem intuitively offensive but you could use it to keep more distance and dodge incoming fire easier.
In fact I think the current skills we have are not so much geared towards making your ship more dangerous as it is making it more customizeable.
If you start a new game with a Hound you have fairly limited options to improve it. Limited OP, not great flux, very few hullmods. But with skills you can add a shield, fit weapons that otherwise would be too flux hungry and play around with a bunch of hullmods. You can't really say that adding skills inherently makes the Hound more offensive/less defensive.

More importantly I think its a mistake to compare maxed out skills. Realistically you will have to pick and choose which skills you really want the most because without cheating getting a completely maxed out character is quite a chore (and as more skills will be added this will be even more true). And here is the thing: it doesn't really matter if only 4 out of 10 (or whatever number) skills are defensive because you are only going to be able to max a fraction of the total available skills. In short: if you want to specialize your character in defensive combat it is very much an option.

+20%  Damage, Ordnance expert
vs
-10%  Hull and Armor, Damage control

Actually -20% Hull and Armor, Damage control
The other bonuses from Damage control are quite good too (Optimized Assembly from Ordinance Expertise is great but not strictly speaking an offensive bonus).

+100% damage to armor
+25% damage to shields,  target anyalsis
vs
+100% armor strength, Evasive action

Its not +100% damage to armor or 100% armor strength. This only affects how much armor helps to mitigate damage not how much armor you need to peel through (its a big difference). Not that it changes the balance here. It seems unfair that you compare 2 out of 3 bonuses from Target Analysis to 1 out of 3 bonuses from Evasive Action - its not a weak skill.

+25% rate of fire, Gunnery Optics
vs
+20% armor, construction
+10% hull, Mechanical Enginnering

Its a weird comparison. First of all Construction and Mechanical Engineering opens up many hullmods, most of which could be considered defensive. Secondly that 25% rate of fire increase only translates to a 25% damage increase if you have the flux to spare and it doesn't synergies with missiles. Actually I think the most interesting part about Gunnery Implants is the reduction to recoil which makes some weapons much more viable.

Missile damage skill
vs
more damage on pd guns

Actually I think a proper comparison would have been Helmsmanship. The main benefit I get from more speed and acceleration on an already fast ship is the ability to easily dodge and avoid missiles.

so over all, damage skills always have an edge small or large over defensive.

Ex, to make it even with Ordance Expert and Damage Control,
+20% damage
vs
+40% armor and hull

I don't agree with this. Skills seems pretty balanced right now imho.

[Flare]

ships will be harder to get later in the game, i'm sure alex said somewhere that in the full game, its next to impossible to get your hands on a capital ship because they are so rare due to the sector and its civilization falling apart.

Did he say anything about a universal ship counter? Because that would be pretty interesting just hunting the last whales out of extinction.

[Metroidude]

I don't like the idea of a finite amount of ships.
Because in the super long run, what if certain ships keep getting destroyed? You'll eventually run out.

[JDCollie]

I'm okay with some ships getting more rare (though not disappearing entirely) but that would require some balancing it seems. What about these ships is desireable enough to seek them or hoard them as they slowly become less common? Should the be legitemately more powerful than non-rare ships of the same class?

Or perhaps I'm understanding wrong, and what Alex meant is that classes of ships will become less common? (I.E., capitols will spawn more rarely as time goes on, both in stations and in fleets?)

[Flare]

I don't like the idea of a finite amount of ships.
Because in the super long run, what if certain ships keep getting destroyed? You'll eventually run out.

I think for almost all of the fighters, most of the frigates, some of the destroyers, the few cruisers, and the occassional capital ought to be replaced and numbers renewed.

And yes, given the lore and the suggestion, the mechanism is precisely going to make capitals more rare the more are blown up. I think it's just that most capitals are hardly matching up with what is expected of them.

[Linnis]

I for one don't think the line between defensive and offensive is that clear. Do you consider flux bonuses to be defensive or offensive? What about speed? Things like extra range might seem intuitively offensive but you could use it to keep more distance and dodge incoming fire easier...

Flux boosts can be both way, since its your shields and weapons, but a ships defense consists of armor, hull, and shield together. So flux boosts are more offensive then defensive, Hull mod can be defensive, but at a cost of ordinance points that be be used either way, so its a moot point.

Attack range is offensive, being able to hit a other ship while it cant hit you is pretty offensive oriented don't you think?
Speed is also offensive, since the AI can never utilize speed to doge, so its more used to circle to weak points (which the AI does do) and engage disengage at will.

How I compared the skills is considering if you went 10point in to defensive skill vs 10point in to offensive skill.




On finite amount of ships, wasn't everything built on auto factories with blueprints? Maybe we will have battle cruisers be limited only, considering their power, and cruisers be extremely rare, being able to only be produced at faction's most well guarded factories.

[JDCollie]

On finite amount of ships, wasn't everything built on auto factories with blueprints? Maybe we will have battle cruisers be limited only, considering their power, and cruisers be extremely rare, being able to only be produced at faction's most well guarded factories.

Perhaps the intent lore-wise is that some of the blueprints have been lost? Without the blueprints, it would be nearly impossible to figure out how to make those capital ships. Even a low tech ship like the Onslaught is an utterly massive heap of metal, computers, conduits, and armor that would be ludicrous to try and reverse engineer.

Actually, this is why I like the Pirate plus mod. It has a ton of kit-bashed ships that really do look like they were cobbled together from the remains of larger, more powerful, and now irreplaceable ships.

[Linnis]

yeah the ships from starsector+ (old and new versions) seem like pretty lore friendly. Maybe thoes are ships rebuilt from wrecks?

Futuresector