gopher65 wrote:
as long as smaller ships can carry heavy enough weapons to penetrate the armour of a Battleship, they'll still win

That is the crux of the issue and the validity of this statement varies over time. 'Big Gun' battleships were the pinnacle of a ship building arms race, and combined massive armour with massive guns. It certainly wasn't Destroyers which led to their downfall in WW2 - WW2 destroyers couldn't hope to threaten a Battleship and would get annihilated in return before ever reaching torpedo range. It was aircraft that could bypass the defenses of the Battleships and bomb the weakly protected decks that did the damage.



Post WW2 the lethality of weapons took a giant leap forward with guided missles etc. which basically turned Battleships into giant targets - but that is really more to do with the fact that the most effective method of defense is currently to not be detected - so a smaller size is a distinct advantage. There was also a major scaling back of military budgets and without major wars to fight large Battleships simply weren't needed to fulfil the peacekeeping roles that smaller, less expensive vessels can do.





What it would be like in the future of Endless Space is hard to say. My gut says that future space combat would be all about electronic warfare, target aquisition etc. and that offensive capabilities would far outstrip defensive capabilities. BUT there may well be some revolutionary type of defensive mechanism - whether energy shielding or materials technology breakthrough that enable larger, heavily 'armoured' vessels to withstand the attacks of smaller vessels - like the WW1 'Dreadnoughts', or early ironclads like HMS Warrior.



So I don't think there is a right or wrong answer here - the devs really have complete freedom to impose any system they want. But I think all of us would like to see a system where each ship class is reasonably balanced. With a mixture of roles and abilities that make mixed fleets the most appealing option from a gameplay perspective.

liq3 wrote:


Also "space fighters" are extremely unrealistic. A single man fighter would be so small you might as well just take the man out, put more explosives in it and call it a missile.

I would agree, however I would think fighters would be a great asset in planetary invasions. Perhaps an optional fighter module to increase invasion capabilities?

Thomas.Trainor wrote:
In the Takeshi Kovacs Trilogy by Richard K. Morgan missiles are useless / outdated in space combat because they are to slow compared to rail guns and lasers and broadcast their position due to heat and light firing from their jets. To much time to shoot them down and to easy to track them.

The thing is missiles can course correct, rail guns can't. This makes missiles 10,000x more accurate at long range. And shooting down missiles is NOT EASY AT ALL. We can barley even shoot down nukes. Imagine space missiles traveling thru 0 atmosphere. They'd be nearly impossible to drop (and you wouldn't just fire one, you'd fire 5, or 10, or 20. Suddenly you have 20 deadly missiles headed at you. Goodluck shooting down every single one with just lasers).



As for small vs large ships... The combat is far too simple to really elaborate the complexities of size. We have almost 0 control over fights remember, so we can't be doing fancy stuff that size complexity would allow.



Also "space fighters" are extremely unrealistic. A single man fighter would be so small you might as well just take the man out, put more explosives in it and call it a missile.

Well, perhaps I am a bit late but still I'd like to join the discussion.



To the starting point: Yes: It is possible for small ships to swarm big ships. This is one possibility to strike big targets. But, the example from the first page misses very cruicial facts!



1. It is a mathematical construct with sole can't be applied to "actual" space-warfare.

2. It compares old-school warfare with futuristic warfare.

3. It doesn't take battletactics and movement into account.



I didn't start playing the game yet, but I allready read, that there will be no Carriers and Fighters?! That's really sad, since this would give many more possibilitys to Ingame-warfare. Another interesting Idea would be several small Marine-Transports, able to enter Capital Ships and take them over. But ok, perhaps something for a MOD?



Back to topic:



As others have already mentioned, Big Ships NEVER fight alone. They are merely meant as Flaggships or high range support in Space-Battle. Besides that, we should not forgett, that there are other small and big ships, too. Long-Range-Missle-Launcher can be effective as well, if you combine swarm-missles with heavy missiles, or Fighter and Bombersquads, as well as Flak-Ships (Anti-Fighter) or small range missiles.

Movement and Hit-and-Run attacks are imkportant as well. When we take the example of the first post and modifiy it by just moving the big ships (away from the Dreadnaughts, while still shooting, using the advantage of long-range), the Dreadnaughts would catch up eventually, but loose at least 2 more ships. Combining that with a retreat tactic (Big ships shooting while retreating - since an Admiral can't be THAT stupid!) The Dreadnaughts would win the battle with heavy loss, while the Destroyer would loose nothing except their "ground".



Weapons and number of weapons and range should also be taken into account.



In a "hard-sci-fi" setting, Energy-shields are not possible. Beamweapons (just short to midrange) are used as defense only modules, shooting at incoming kinetic prejectiles or missiles. Destroyerships fight just within long-range and try to stay out of "dogfights", while Fighters/Bombers are send to deliver missiles, and Dreadnaughts engage in mid-range to small-range fights.



I don't mean to offense anyone, and i agree in some points with the first post. But it is still comparing apples with lemons.





Since I guess the ES Warefare will be more futuristic than the hard-sci-fi setting and will have energy-shielding, new ways of fighting will be possible, but still not making kinetics (attacking) and beamweapons (defending) obsolete. Beamweapons as primary weapons look very cool, but still need very much energy - as well as the energy-shields. But in a Sci-Fi setting, this could be taken care of.



Finaly, since I don't knwo where to post this ideas (perhaps you guys can help me) I write some of the spacewafare-ideas here:



1. Fighters and Bombers combined with Carriers are an absolutly MUST HAVE! - This makes Anti-Fighter-Fighter/Friggate important as well.

2. The possibility to enter ships via Marine-Transports or similar Troopships.

3. The possibility to hack enemy ships within a short distance and shut down shields or weapons would be cool - but still hard to make realistic.

4. Long-Range-Missile-Ships with miexed missiles and the the ability for the player to coordinate the shots properly.



Hope you didn't mind my arguments. If you find any weak points, please let me know!

ArrowLance wrote:
This is an excessively different issue both in space and in a game.

This. The naval example is very far fetched.



1. There are no 2 vs. 20 battles in this game. The maximum standard CP is 22ish (cba to look it up now ) so that's 5 vs. 22 respectively with BB's having rougly 8 times the tonnage of destroyers.

Thus, it becomes 40 vs. 22

2. It is doubtful wether Destroyers CAN hurt BB's at all, seeing as their massive tonnage allows them to pack quite a bit of armor. Now we could argue that one would have to predict the weapon type used, but I think that's possible.

Let's take a look at the weapon types:

- Kinetic is low dmg, low accuracy, fast rate of fire. Most Destroyers will be gone before they can do serious damage with this type. No need to pack armor, just outgun them.

- Lasers are med, med, med respectively. They are a good weapon, but still suffer from the same problems as kinetic, albeit to a lesser degree; many destroyers won't be able to deliver their load.

- Rockets are high dmg, high, accuracy, low rate of fire. But their biggest advantage is, that they are self sufficient once fired. No matter if the destroyer goes down, the rocket is locked on target. It is the logical choice to deliver as much dmg as possible



So if Battleships pack enough Antimissiles, add the +15% deflect module and stuff the rest of their hull with Lasers, Destroyer Fleets should pose little to no threat. Either they are destroyed before they can do damage at all, or their damage is mitigated. Especially if you "play your cards right" - they are mostly %-based, which offers much larger boni for much larger base stats (with BB's having the best by far)

This is space, not ww2. In space, size carries less restrictions due to the lack of friction, etc.



The major downside of size is obviously the fact that you're an easier target - and when you do go down more is lost, but that's about it.



Space Empires series did this pretty well - smaller ship hulls gained evasion/defense bonuses.

personaly i dont think compareing wet navey to space navey works well =X the battle dinamics are compleatly different =X battle ships on water were droped cos of planes (tho that could have been balanced by haveing destroyers and cruisers run as cover for them flac/anti missle etc tho this to wouldnt be cost effective :3).. and the fact that they were too damn big too damn expensive and carred well over a 1000 personel it wasnt really cos they were in effective .... infact they scared to crap out of anyone that had to fight one =3



i would like fighter carriers in the game tho =X



in space they are huge mobile gun platforms they might be big targets but they arnt targets you wanna get close to unless your of similar dimensions .... sure lots of small destroyers and cruisers might take one down but they are gonna be hurting in equil nunbers theyd lose every time most likely... your kinda forgetting that they can fight in a fully 3 dimnesional plane ... wet navey doesnt its mmore like 2d + lol



i mean just think how mnay guns turrets and missle tubes you can put on something thats arround 1km long and such :P... they do after all make wet navey battle ships look like minnows =3



oh and finaly... battle ships were ment to take on other battle ships or heavy cruisers... and land targets they never were ment to fight light cruiser or destroyers or torpedo boats:P they were seriously heavy armour the small fry were ment to be left for the other little ships =3 hell useualy a battle ship shell would go compleatly out the other side of a destryer with out exploadeing since the armour was way too thin triger it =,=

That's why in the future we will just fire miniature cosmic anomalys at the enemy, sure you can see it, but you can't do much about it!

In the Takeshi Kovacs Trilogy by Richard K. Morgan missiles are useless / outdated in space combat because they are to slow compared to rail guns and lasers and broadcast their position due to heat and light firing from their jets. To much time to shoot them down and to easy to track them.

Actually battleships and "turrets" in general, make quite good sense in space?

I mean there is no particular gravity to make them deviate from their given course, and no air to make them slow down either. So there might not be any particular advantage compared to a missile (might even be inverse).

And presumably a big ship, can carry a bigger gun...that shoots bigger stuff at the enemy - which they will find harder to defend against.



I mean if guns had the same range as fighters, would we be using aircraft carriers? i think not.

Also, top technology missiles will probably have small deflectors against anti missiles shooters. Add this to a lot of missiles launched at the same time and try to not enter in panic

Missiles are my favorite weapon in all games, and they are, really great, indeed.



This game would be more fun if we had a Very Long Range Phase, I will see what I can do with modding.

I'm an Eve player and I'm still scratching my head as to why people use it as an example, and even become emotional about it. *boggle* It's apples and oranges and FWIW, doesn't apply here. Take it somewhere else please

Igncom1 wrote:
Fair enough i suppose, i'am no admiral after-all!

Somewhat unrelated, but I feel the need thank you for being humble. If only more internet users had your good attitude when proven wrong.

StirkoHek wrote:
Bolded the incorrect part for you. Bigger ships in EVE are larger targets (signature size) and have guns that are less effective against smaller ships (tracking speed on turrets, explosion radius on missiles) as the smaller ships have faster movement and a smaller sig size. You can say SOMETIMES bigger ships will work better, but it's entirely situational.



But then, EVE is EVE and this is Endless Space. Very different games with very different combat mechanics.

ES should take some examples from EVE. EVE is far more realistic than this game. I'm not saying this to compare games, just that ES can learn something from EVE.

EVE exists like 10 years ago. Not sure how old it is.



Let me give you an example: Kinetics and Lasers. They are really strange in ES. They look like small pulse lasers, and even for pulse lasers is a bit strange. Kinetics are like micro pulse lasers. But I think they will work on this and the final product will look a lot better. If not, there is always the modding option!

Thomas.Trainor wrote:
Not everyone likes paying to have a second job. Thus they are not familiar with EVE.

Yes I know I stopped playing because it's too expensive for me. I just played some months, and I find it very realistic in terms of space mechanics and combat mechanics.

Jacrench wrote:
I suggest you do some research yourself sir. Here is the Gerald R. Ford class super carrier, a new US Navy carrier due for 2015.



The Royal Navy UK is building their own due for 2016 called the Queen Elizabeth class, which is considered their first true super carrier.



The French Navy have plans for a new one looming as well.



Super carriers are far from dead concepts.



Also, I do believe the invention and subsequent use of missiles have had a part in the end to battleship use. Given the firepower of such weapons for their relative size, a bigger ship is no longer required.

Fair enough i suppose, i'am no admiral after-all!



Also wouldn't the advent of proper carrier warfare (Where as their planes are able to to more accurately place their ordinance, and are also able to constantly provide support to a target location) be another cause?

Igncom1 wrote:
And the reason the y have stopped building super carriers, is because smaller carriers are more efficient......look it up?

I suggest you do some research yourself sir. Here is the Gerald R. Ford class super carrier, a new US Navy carrier due for 2015.



The Royal Navy UK is building their own due for 2016 called the Queen Elizabeth class, which is considered their first true super carrier.



The French Navy have plans for a new one looming as well.



Super carriers are far from dead concepts.



Also, I do believe the invention and subsequent use of missiles have had a part in the end to battleship use. Given the firepower of such weapons for their relative size, a bigger ship is no longer required.

It's always easier to create something that breaks rather than makes.

sdmodeller wrote:
I agree in priciple, but definitely disagree in facts. The ability of aircraft to finally be able to carry weaponry with enough damage potential killed the BB. and DN. Ask anyone in WW2. A fightersuch as the Hellcat was capable of carrying a 2000lb torpedo, 6HVAR rockets (which is roughly equivalent to a DD broadside) and 6x .50 cal. Many battleships were sunk even in 1941 by airpower, and I am not even going to count Pearl Harbor. Fleets by the end of the war were designed to protect the carrier. And the lesson learned was to keep aircraft, not massive gun ships out as far as possible. The Yamato and Musahi were sunk without ever having a fleet ship in the area. I'm not even sure they ever even got to fire at another ship, maybe at the jeep carriers of Taffy 3.Bismark wassunk by big guns, but the real woulnd was done by aircraft.

That's because in our history Weapons technology has advanced faster than Armour technology. Who is to say in a sci-fi future the inverse isn't possible? What if the smaller craft was unable to carry a loud powerful enough to breach the large ships hull because the armour was much stronger?

I agree in priciple, but definitely disagree in facts. The ability of aircraft to finally be able to carry weaponry with enough damage potential killed the BB. and DN. Ask anyone in WW2. A fightersuch as the Hellcat was capable of carrying a 2000lb torpedo, 6HVAR rockets (which is roughly equivalent to a DD broadside) and 6x .50 cal. Many battleships were sunk even in 1941 by airpower, and I am not even going to count Pearl Harbor. Fleets by the end of the war were designed to protect the carrier. And the lesson learned was to keep aircraft, not massive gun ships out as far as possible. The Yamato and Musahi were sunk without ever having a fleet ship in the area. I'm not even sure they ever even got to fire at another ship, maybe at the jeep carriers of Taffy 3. Bismark was sunk by big guns, but the real wound was done by aircraft.

That being said the big ships...ships of the line should definitely have abilities the small ships do not and not just more guns, more shields, more of anything. Maybe a keel gun or special defenses. As it stands I have won out with destroyers and huge fleets for multiple races. Cravers get obscene with the way it is structured now.

Yurixy wrote:
People comparing "real life actual" ships with ES ships instead of using EVE ships makes me laugh.

Not everyone likes paying to have a second job. Thus they are not familiar with EVE.