Romeo wrote:
Besides, ESII has shown that we have a set amount of turrets to use. So either I can take seventeen shots at something the size of a car, or seventeen shots at something the size of a mall. The latter would likely survive being shot, but also be very easy to hit. The former would be much harder to hit, but if I did, would likely be destroyed.

I feel like that size comparison is slightly off. Even the smallest ships in ES are able to carry: a crew, enough supplies for years of space travel, a seed mod, with enough population and supplies to start a new, autonomous colony. So you're looking at something that's at least the size of a large mall for the smallest ships. A dreadnought on the other hand only has 4x as much tonnage, which means it's roughly 1.5 times larger in diameter, and 2 times as long. That's not big enough a difference to make accuracy versus different ship types a thing.

I believe that it was meant to give a bit of reliability to weapons, but in the end it just did not feel right. In so many battles, you would hardly ever see anybody miss.

That hits wre rolled on a per salvo basis was just as bad. You could watch the strings of kinetic projectiles curve away from the enemy on a miss.

Is it really too much just to ask for a "simple" accuracy system? What is the accuracy of this weapon? 70%? Other ship has 10% Evasion rating? 63% chance to hit.



Boom. Simple. lol

Romeo wrote:
Is it really too much just to ask for a "simple" accuracy system? What is the accuracy of this weapon? 70%? Other ship has 10% Evasion rating? 63% chance to hit.



Boom. Simple. lol

That's as simple as having it be 60% than with 70% acc -10% evade = 60%.

Don't forget, 10% off of 70 is 63, not 60. Otherwise you could hypothetically run in to weird instances where you could have negative accuracy ratings, which are impossible. A 60% Evasion on a 50% Accuracy would be 30%, not -10%! =)

Romeo wrote:
Don't forget, 10% off of 70 is 63, not 60. Otherwise you could hypothetically run in to weird instances where you could have negative accuracy ratings, which are impossible. A 60% Evasion on a 50% Accuracy would be 30%, not -10%! =)

Not if you see 10% as 10 of the unit %, rather than math it out. I think you could actually say both versions are really straightforward for different persons.

Both versions are very straightforward.

The multiplicative that is 0.7 * 0.9 = 0.63 accuracy makes it pretty easy to judge average damage output across a wide range of targets and balance hp levels to the desired toughness of a ship class, but makes it more difficult to create weapons against specific targets.

The additive percentage point version that calculates as 0.7 - 0.1 = 0.6 accuracy is just the other way round.



What isn't straightforward is adding half a dozen other, partially hidden modifiers on top of it. Which is, unfortunately, what we got.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:
Both versions are very straightforward.

The multiplicative that is 0.7 * 0.9 = 0.63 accuracy makes it pretty easy to judge average damage output across a wide range of targets and balance hp levels to the desired toughness of a ship class, but makes it more difficult to create weapons against specific targets.

The additive percentage point version that calculates as 0.7 - 0.1 = 0.6 accuracy is just the other way round.



What isn't straightforward is adding half a dozen other, partially hidden modifiers on top of it. Which is, unfortunately, what we got.

Hopefully this won't be an issue with ES2. *Fingers crossed*

Imho it depends on how ES2 is evolving in terms of overall combat approach.

For ES1 the combat in space was extremely deviant of what "actual" combat in space would look like given what kind of speeds and physical laws we have up there.

ES1 portrayed a combat that suited the 17th - 19thth century of earth with its huge ships of the line that come rather close to each other, pass the opposing line, and exchange fire.

For ES2 it might get a bit more complicated yet ultimately it still looks that way with minor adjustments to fleet movement. Yet stuff like crossing the T etc. were also quite common in the time period I described.



Given this overall approach to combat there is not much a frigate with ~30 cannons could have hoped to achieve against a ~120 cannons ships of the line without major advantages. This is the kind universe we are in and this is the kind of combat it emulates.

Granted it is spiced up with stuff like fighters etc. but ultimately it boils down to direct fleet encounters and passing that even make the 20th century dreadnoughts, with their long range artillery attacks, look advanced. There is a certain charm in that yet it ultimately devalues the worth of combined arms and mixed fleets. If two sides simply accelerate towards each other it is rather obvious what kind of ship you want in that scenario.

Yet we might still see the gunboat approach that was - depending on patch - quite successful in ES1 where you simply spammed small crafts as weapon carriers, just don't expect those to survive.



Also small ships should not inherently be that hard to hit. Yet, a big ship is a big target. But on the other side a big ships has quite some cannons and it can widen its field of fire to cover "space" larger than the actual target. Only a few of these "all big" guns have actually to hit the target.



With an option to have dedicated support crafts though even smaller hulls might become more relevant for they stay back in battle and only launch fighters to support or are repair vessels that catch up with the fleet later on.

Also smaller crafts should be much more cheaper and faster and hence be the perfect option to patrol space and delay surprise attacks until a battle fleet has been assembled or to catch up with constant pirate incursions/pillage attacks of other empires with their own small crafts.



As for battle I cant see these hulls being viable. Yet that is not important for we can create out-of-battle scenarios where they are. "Frigates" may attack other planets and destroy their infrastructure (buildings/fids/population) and even steal some FIDS from the overal pool of the opposing player. Pirates might become a constant factor maybe being part of the population mechanic or some privateer policies of other empires and hence force your enemy to keep a mixed fleet for the dreadnoughts can't catch small ships that easily. Yet for the big, decisive battles I'd like to keep the theme of all big.

I think the point about small targets being inherently easier to hit than large ones is two-fold:



One, yes, it is a smaller target to shoot at. It's harder to hit bulls-eye than it is to hit the target.



Two, even with perfect accuracy, given the time the shots take to get to their target, a small ship only has to move a little to get out of the way, a large ship may need to move several hundred meters.

In the small vs. big situation the big ship though might have enough guns to cover a huge area that on it self is bigger than the ship it is actually targeting. If a battle ship can cover an area as big as it self with its guns (in 3 dimensional space with self exploding rounds just like some FLAK rounds) the small ship might not evade at all. Given that a bigger ship might also have more firepower it is not even necessary to hit with all shots to cause major damage.

This is basically how it happens in WH40k, a Universe that utilizes the very same space combat appraoch of "Ships of the Line". They don't target enemy ships. They target the space the enemy ship is in and fill that with volume of fire or nuke the entire space with ordonance like Nova cannons.

Yet with the actual distance between those ships given in ES1 no targeting computer of a space faring race should have any trouble to hit a target to begin with.

FieserMoep wrote:
In the small vs. big situation the big ship though might have enough guns to cover a huge area that on it self is bigger than the ship it is actually targeting. If a battle ship can cover an area as big as it self with its guns (in 3 dimensional space with self exploding rounds just like some FLAK rounds) the small ship might not evade at all. Given that a bigger ship might also have more firepower it is not even necessary to hit with all shots to cause major damage.

This is basically how it happens in WH40k, a Universe that utilizes the very same space combat appraoch of "Ships of the Line". They don't target enemy ships. They target the space the enemy ship is in and fill that with volume of fire or nuke the entire space with ordonance like Nova cannons.

Yet with the actual distance between those ships given in ES1 no targeting computer of a space faring race should have any trouble to hit a target to begin with.

That is true, though don't forget, W40K is based upon being outrageous to the point of senselessness. In order to fill a span the length of a ship with fire would consume such an obscene amount of ammo the ship would have to be basically a drum mag with an engine. =P



Besides, ESII has shown that we have a set amount of turrets to use. So either I can take seventeen shots at something the size of a car, or seventeen shots at something the size of a mall. The latter would likely survive being shot, but also be very easy to hit. The former would be much harder to hit, but if I did, would likely be destroyed.

Ah, that explains why Kinetic and Beam weapons always plowed through everything when used en masse. Kind of a silly mechanic, isn't it? Hopefully it isn't in the next iteration, that alone would make smaller craft more useful.

Himmelslicht wrote:
I feel like that size comparison is slightly off. Even the smallest ships in ES are able to carry: a crew, enough supplies for years of space travel, a seed mod, with enough population and supplies to start a new, autonomous colony. So you're looking at something that's at least the size of a large mall for the smallest ships. A dreadnought on the other hand only has 4x as much tonnage, which means it's roughly 1.5 times larger in diameter, and 2 times as long. That's not big enough a difference to make accuracy versus different ship types a thing.

Well, 1.5 as much available tonnage. We can assume a vessel that size requires a larger crew, power supply, armor and substrate in order to even function, massively increasing its own weight cost as well. For comparison, look at a Smart Car compared to a full-size car. Yes, the full-size is twice as big, easily, but also weighs two to three times more on its own, while only carrying a little bit more.



I feel like we're splitting hairs on a somewhat ridiculous concept anyways (As space warfare at the moment has no frame of reference). I was just saying from a gameplay perspective, ship size basically renders the ones below irrelevant, as the larger ship types can take so more of a beating than the smaller craft. The only way I could imagine making the smaller craft relevant is to make them more of a gamble.

I think that for smaller ships to have a larger role, the fleet sizes should scale larger, like CP cost: 1-3-7-10, with maximum 40 CP or 50 for certain unique traits/tech.



That allows large battalions of smaller ships or a handful of capital ships.



I am considering 4 ship sizes.



Each ship size could be best to fight against its own size. Fighting against a larger os smaller size would carry large damage penalties when engaging a larger ship, or large accuracy penalties when engaging a smaller ship.

There should be specific weaponry for a ship to be able to deal meaningful damage to a +1 or -1 ship size. Engaging a +2 or -2 would act as engaging a +1/-1 ship in this case.



With the accuracy penalty, a limited number of volleys per combat turn, and a fleet size 10x that of capital ships, even with low damage, the small ships should be able to do a large attrition damage to an enemy capital ship while taking few losses.

It should be possible to equip a capital ship to counter this with -2 weapon systems though, to make it an 'ant-eater' - which would then make it easy prey for a capital ship equipped to mow down other capital ships. So there would never be a design to win vs. everyone.



Which bring in fleet composition strategy.



Ship cost would have to be rebalanced, making the smaller ship sizes much cheaper.



Finally, for all this to be worthy, all fleets and planets should have an innate 'salvage' mechanic, enabling the recovery of a % of the destroyed ships in the next turn. Capital ships should have an optional 'shipyard' module (or several, and advanced versions in the tech tree) to have a better salvage operation for ships smaller than capital size. That would make it easier for smaller ships to always have a meaningful number and better economy, even if they are destroyed more often. the larger the ship, the smaller the chance of having it salvaged. The smaller the ship, the higher the initial HP of the salvaged ship, since they are easier to build/fix.

My biggest issue here is that people try to balance hull sizes against each other just for the sake of making them different. I see that for a strategy game you want to have different options but imho you should not enforce these differences on the actual lore of the game.

And the lore of the game mimics and portrays a combat scenario we very well know what kind of ships performs there best.



We do not argue here about Space Combat we don't know anything from. We argue here on 17th-20th Century Naval warfare that just happens to have a Space Skybox behind. Do you actually believe ships encounter each other in space, on a 2d plane with just a few hundred meters between them? No, they would not. This is no foreign scenario we discuss but an actually existing one.



Smaller crafts to have a role and that is being a gunboat. They are cheap and can be mass produced - gunboats were build for that role. They can be utilized as defenses close to your boarders and cause a first major hit on enemy fleets that wont win much against a full invasion but maybe make a stop to their onslaught at first. Also they may be way faster in terms of strategic movement and hence fill several roles. Cruisers for example might be a bit faster than dreads yet not as combat strong but maybe just have the edge, with the rigth technology, to evade a dread fleet for as long as possible and cause major damage in an enemies home system while being able to fight of smaller fleets on their own etc.



But once a MAJOR battle between dreadnoughs/battleships has been initiated these are the ultimate weapons. Fighters and or gunboats might still be of value but they are not equal in any role for that battle. They might add their damage into the mix, draw some fire but that is it.



And the example with the two cars is kinda bullocks for the contrary is true. Making a single car bigger to some degree is WAY more efficient than having two cars with the same load. Ever saw a truck on the road? One driver cell, less wheels, less friction and overall way better fuel consumption depending on cargo as it would be the case with a ton of minis that try to pack the same cargo. Not to mention that you simply cant transport some kind of cargo with them at all.



In our modern world small warships are just so "good" because we do have a scenario where weapons technology is way ahead of defensive technology. There are missiles out there that can destroy a US carrier in one it. This is a vastly different scenario than WW2 dreadnoughs or napoleonic warships that were made to SOAK damage and dish it out. And it kinda worked. Also I doubt that our spaceships are as vulnerable as WW2 dreads that can their rudder get damaged by a lucky hit of a small craft like it happened with the bismarck.

Mechanics-wise, I will highlight the last proposition in my previous post:



There should be an innate 'salvage' mechanic on both fleets and planets, where the smallest the ship, the higher the chance of 'ressurrecting' it in the next turn.



Initially it would be very low, since the small ships are all that would be available. But as the game progresses and more hulls are unlocked, this salvage ration should go up.



The return-of-investment on a large ship is much better, because it's harder to go down and can be repaired many times over.



If you break the same resource cost of a large ship into 10x small ships, the small ships are at a disadvantage because each individual small ship is much more frail and can easily be destroyed.



The need for a salvage mechanic is to make investing in smaller ship hulls more desirable even when there are larger models available.

FieserMoep wrote:
My biggest issue here is that people try to balance hull sizes against each other just for the sake of making them different. I see that for a strategy game you want to have different options but imho you should not enforce these differences on the actual lore of the game.

And the lore of the game mimics and portrays a combat scenario we very well know what kind of ships performs there best.



We do not argue here about Space Combat we don't know anything from. We argue here on 17th-20th Century Naval warfare that just happens to have a Space Skybox behind. Do you actually believe ships encounter each other in space, on a 2d plane with just a few hundred meters between them? No, they would not. This is no foreign scenario we discuss but an actually existing one.



Smaller crafts to have a role and that is being a gunboat. They are cheap and can be mass produced - gunboats were build for that role. They can be utilized as defenses close to your boarders and cause a first major hit on enemy fleets that wont win much against a full invasion but maybe make a stop to their onslaught at first. Also they may be way faster in terms of strategic movement and hence fill several roles. Cruisers for example might be a bit faster than dreads yet not as combat strong but maybe just have the edge, with the rigth technology, to evade a dread fleet for as long as possible and cause major damage in an enemies home system while being able to fight of smaller fleets on their own etc.



But once a MAJOR battle between dreadnoughs/battleships has been initiated these are the ultimate weapons. Fighters and or gunboats might still be of value but they are not equal in any role for that battle. They might add their damage into the mix, draw some fire but that is it.



And the example with the two cars is kinda bullocks for the contrary is true. Making a single car bigger to some degree is WAY more efficient than having two cars with the same load. Ever saw a truck on the road? One driver cell, less wheels, less friction and overall way better fuel consumption depending on cargo as it would be the case with a ton of minis that try to pack the same cargo. Not to mention that you simply cant transport some kind of cargo with them at all.



In our modern world small warships are just so "good" because we do have a scenario where weapons technology is way ahead of defensive technology. There are missiles out there that can destroy a US carrier in one it. This is a vastly different scenario than WW2 dreadnoughs or napoleonic warships that were made to SOAK damage and dish it out. And it kinda worked. Also I doubt that our spaceships are as vulnerable as WW2 dreads that can their rudder get damaged by a lucky hit of a small craft like it happened with the bismarck.

I understand that many people consider naval warfare to be the analogue, but that's not really true, is it? Space is a 3D plane, not a 2D. A closer analogue would be aerial combat. Unfortunately that also doesn't have a 1:1, because most planes can only be built "so big" and have to make aerodynamic considerations, unlike spacecraft. Yes, it's fun to use naval terms in space games, but realistically, there would be no downside to building nothing but Dreadnaughts if one had the supplies for it - there's no resistance to movement. In real life, a large vessel like that has to fight an absolutely insane amount of drag, rendering it slow and dopey. So again, no, we have no frame of reference for space combat.



As for the vehicular comparison, it was specific to weight available to weight used (As in, making something able to hold a bit more often comes with a severe weight penalty as well) for an example, not as a statement of "THIS IS WHAT SPACE COMBAT IS LIKE". That said, sure, my pickup can hold quite a bit, but it's also big and oafish, and I can ASSURE you that it weighs more than two Smart Cars (It's actually closer to four). And while yes, I can also hold as much as four Smart Cars (In fact, I could put one in the bed), if I had to do four different tasks, the smaller vehicles would again have their use, being far more effecient and nimble at MANY tasks.



Again, given that at no point in our history have we had space combat, I think the primary focus should go to gameplay, even if that means we have to dance around a silly concept of "realism". If that gameplay says that it's more fun to have options instead of Dreadnaught > Cruiser > Frigate, otherwise the game devolves in to "who can build more Dreadnaughts than the other".

Romeo wrote:
I understand that many people consider naval warfare to be the analogue, but that's not really true, is it? Space is a 3D plane, not a 2D. A closer analogue would be aerial combat. Unfortunately that also doesn't have a 1:1, because most planes can only be built "so big" and have to make aerodynamic considerations, unlike spacecraft. Yes, it's fun to use naval terms in space games, but realistically, there would be no downside to building nothing but Dreadnaughts if one had the supplies for it - there's no resistance to movement. In real life, a large vessel like that has to fight an absolutely insane amount of drag, rendering it slow and dopey. So again, no, we have no frame of reference for space combat.

Dreadnoughts would still maneuver badly though, so they would effectively have the same absolutely insane amount of drag from velocity, so smaller ships could outmaneuver them, attack blind spots and vulnearable systems, get away from the main guns, though that I think does apply more to fighters/bombers than smaller ships.

Sinnaj63 wrote:
Dreadnoughts would still maneuver badly though, so they would effectively have the same absolutely insane amount of drag from velocity, so smaller ships could outmaneuver them, attack blind spots and vulnearable systems, get away from the main guns, though that I think does apply more to fighters/bombers than smaller ships.

They're in space... There is no drag. You could design your spaceship to look like a parachute and it wouldn't matter. =P



As for the smaller craft being more maneuverable/difficult to hit, well obviously I agree with that wholeheartedly.