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[mangalore]

I was just pondering this and I realize this might have too drastic consequences particularly for the AI but it seems to me most ships in Starsector are very forward focussed instead of of broadside focussed.
The consequence of that is that the ususal standard tactic is to dash forward all guns blazing and then hit reverse and dash out to clear your flux outside (hopefully) too much enemy fire.

Things is, is that the best way? Given all ships have their engines on the back, shouldn't they be severly restricted in backing away giving their main engines will just push them forward?

In terms of gameplay I mainly wondered if it would be more interesting if big battleships had to slug it out at a distance instead of this frontal charge that allows all their weapons to blaze away while still having a save reverse button to back out of the mess. That if you are in that mess you have to actually push forward and take a long turn around to make a new pass at the enemy or stay and fight.

The idea came to me from the big steel ships of ww1 and ww2 where battleships could literally take an hour to make a complete turn to find a new attack vector. In space the reverse thrust should be even worse than at sea.

[Cosmitz]

Some ships have good enough turret mounts to play a strafing game, others have too many and it's unreasonable to be firing all at the same time for long periods, but doubling down on them provides tactical options. While i will say that ships such as the Medusa, Sunder or the Dominator force the player to play too front-mounted focused, i think the issue is that creating interesting turret arcs setup is something that's been relegated to second-plane. You can see this clearly in the mods. Some people just go all forward, others like to create interesting combat by providing chances and risks that reward skillful gameplay with turret arcs and slot layout.

The base matter in the vanilla game i think is that i'd wish for more options of ships layout.

Here's something from my scrapped Star Trek mod to illustrate: http://i.imgur.com/CjtGJDs.png

I wanted the Sovereign class to have powerful weapons that can't be put all to bear at the same time, but with skillful play, you could focus two of them, and if you want, you can always switch targets very quickly without moving your entire hull. This feels very 'capital ship' to me, more options availible at the same time, instead of dreadnought-type 'spinal mount' all-forwards capitals that just do a lot of damage.

[SafariJohn]

The main problem with broadside ships right now is that the vanilla AI doesn't support them very well. For example, the current pursuit AI always faces towards the ship it is chasing – it doesn't consider broadside ships. You can easily observe this with a Conquest.

[Adraius]

I think that broadside warfare simply isn't very well suited to the gameplay pace that Starsector has been built around. (or put another way, the gameplay pace isn't very conductive to broadsides) Right now, the speed of the combatants and limited engagement time dictated by flux (at least on most combatants, the Onslaught and others are exceptions) means that it would be hard to decisively engage ships of the same size class by presenting a broadside - you need some way to remain close to deliver a finishing blow.  Some broadside Harpoon pods might do the trick, but I think that goes against the spirit of what you want - large ships trading gun broadsides.  And frankly, I find the current 'skirmishing' gameplay to be extremely fun, even if it isn't the most realistic.

tl;dr I don't think broadsides are a good fit for Starsector up until the capital class, and broadside-type capitals already exist.  You could build a great broadside-focused game on Starsector's chassis, perhaps a total conversion mod, but it wouldn't be a good fit for the base game.

[Megas]

Another problem with broadsides, at least with vanilla-balanced ships, is how quickly the attacker builds-up flux if both broadsides are firing.  Given how fundamental flux management is, it is often better to focus-fire as much as possible to destroy one-target immediately than it is to spread your fire at multiple targets.

Conquest slugging it out against multiple opponents at both sides is fun, but difficult.

[Cosmitz]

The Conquest is for me the best late-game ship. I could play the boring and slow fortress Paragon, dragging the entire fleet to a halt, or even the lumbering Onslaught... but the Conquest is the ship i end up in since it's extremely fun to play because it's based on said broadsides. I know i can't sustain both sides firing at the same time for long, i play is more like a Naval game, weaving around the battlefield, letting loose side by side depending on where i am and what i need to do. The low shield angle allows me just enough protection as long as i'm careful about my placement and how fast i plan on getting into trouble. If i need to bust all out, i can engage both sides for a short burst of damage after which i will be forced to cooldown. A very pleasant gameplay-creating risk.

And that's how you scale down to the rest of the ships. If a Sunder had the Large mount on the sides, say 45 degree pointing forwards, and even two of them, that'd make it a lot more interesting to fight in than what it is currently.

[mangalore]

I'm not actually for broadsides per se, more against simply charging into the fray without a path out since you can usually back out again without problems. If you had actual momentum to deal with you actually could only get out of the fray going forward and turning away.

I just think it's a bit sad how frontal focussed everything seems to be. Even on a conquest half your broadside is wasted if you don't approach head on where you probably can use all your guns on several targets. It would also be nice to have a real reson for guns on the back as they maybe helpul as you turn away from a target.

I agree the ai is probably incapable to handle it, just think it might make maneuvering more deliberate.

[TaLaR]

Broadside focused ships are also generally harder to pilot effectively. This post is primarily about player-piloting, but AI struggles with them too.
Just too much to control:
- Ship linear movement
- Ship rotation
- Shield facing
- Weapon targeting

No way to effectively cover all of these separately. Conquest can be kind of ok with auto-firing weapons and less precision piloting requirements, but small fast broadside ships are pretty much unusable (and none are present in vanilla actually).

On the other hand forward focused ship can use single input (mouse) to control 3 of these (while occasionaly turning shield to cover engines from pesky emp missiles).

[Troll]

I played a rather broadside focused Onslaught on the last build and it was very fun. Activating burn drive in the melee and slugging it out with all ships present, not using shields and keeping from using Thermal canons...loads of fireworks and really nice battles. Of course I had maneuvering jets on the ship to make it doable in an enjoyable way.