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

I've noticed the same thing and in my games have stopped producing dreads, even if the AI insists on doing so.



I'm all for dread- or BB-only modules for massive fleet support functions. Or maybe a huge bonus to repair/damage mods/cards, and/or allow more than one card played per turn, and/or some other advantage that make them worth the production to bring at least one to a fight with smaller ship escorts (a force multiplier). Have only one of the "capital ships" give the bonus, makes putting more than one in a fleet counter-productive.



EDIT: Or increase the command point cap for the fleet by +1 or +2 if there is at least one BB or DN

This topic should not be about why destroyer swarms are realistic.



It should be about why they are boring and that seing big ships slug it out usually is more entertaining to watch.









What did you like more? Star furys vs other fighters or big honking earthforce destroyers wailing at each other with huge guns (babylon 5)?



Galactica and pegasus nom-nom-nom-ing basestars or vipers getting shredded en masse?







The fact is: bigger ships make for more impressive combat scenes.





Thats why people like em, and why people get miffed if it is not as efficient as swarm tactics.



We just need to achieve somewhat ofa parity, preferably by enabling ships to target mutiple targets.



I wil lsay we blatantly go steal from SOASE here and introduce weapo nbanks. While the banks cannot focus on the same target they will engage differen target at the same time.





cp 1 ships have 1 bank. will engage one target

cp 2 ships have 2 banks. will engage 2 different target

cp 4 ships get 3 banks. will engage 3 different targets





each bank mirros the weapon setup of the ship (you do not set up separate banks and fire power does not get divided).







Ther njack up the hp and build cost of bigger ships a bit and we have a form of parity.

Carriers killed battleships. While yes, 20 DDs might be able to take a pair of BBs (not at all a given), the 20 DDs require far more crew and more high level officers than a BB or 2. Carriers have higher crew requirements and are much more expensive but can kill BBs with relative ease and from a safe distance, therefore Carriers replace BBs.



One of the major hurdles to naval expansion is recruitment and training of good officers and crews, particularly if you are taking heavy losses. In your example, many of the DDs would be crippled and/or lost in the exchange with high casualties. Honestly with the secondary armament of the BBs still out ranging the DDs and having MUCH thicker armor (~10-20 inches thick compared to the .5-1.5 inches found on destroyers), it is entirely possible that all 20 DDs would be destroyed, whereas if 2 BBs fought 2 BBs, the engagement will likley end with the retreat of one of the BBs after the lose of the other. This results in far fewer casualties and less time spent rebuilding the same level of firepower. Note: Iowa class BBs had a crew complement of 2700 men, and the Allan M Sumner class DDs had a crew of 336 to 350 and they all required a captain and executive officer of similar rank to the battleships to command.

With the proportionally larger crews, DDs had to have lower endurance just to keep their crews in food. Feeding the crews of that many DDs is far more expensive than feeding the BB crews. DDs also have a proportionally higher maintenance cost for similar reasons.



Of course in WW2 destroyers typically mounted torpedo tubes (The Allen M Sumner mounted 10 21 inch tubes and 6 5 inch guns) along the sides of the ships and those torpedoes could cripple a BB if they hit. At the same time, getting close enough to have a reasonable chance of hitting the BB is going to mean closing and getting shredded by the BBs guns. Yes the DDs would kill the BBs, but they would take such losses as to make it a worthless victory. The DDs would also be out of torpedoes. The next fight they were in they would have to engage without their most powerful weapons. DDs are escort and patrol ships for a reason. An unsupported BB will kill too many DDs to make the exchange worth it, but it can only be in one place at any given time and is too expensive to produce on the scale needed for escort and patrol duties in peace time.

Well, another reason Dreadnoughts aren't as effective, is because they're the only ship not to have a tonnage benefit and I personally feel they need one. They will almost always lose to big fleets of smaller ships as has previously been stated. The only time they're viable, is if you're exceedingly far ahead in technology and you can shield them and mount powerful weapons on them that will be too much for the other races. In this case, then they work very well, but its the only time I every see the need to use them.

Yurixy wrote:
Depends on the big ship modules. There are huge ships made to take care of hundreds of smaller at same time, and there are ones with modules fitted to take down some medium ships or kill another huge one. What I mean is that larger ships should be better than the small ones. You even need to research them! LOL

Yeah, very true.

DeathSarge wrote:
Also in Eve Online the smaller ships can easily out maneuver anything bigger than them with the right mods. The thing about space ships is they are not usually stuck on a flat battlefield. They can take advantage of 350 degree fighting. Unfortunately thats not in this game... yet?

Depends on the big ship modules. There are huge ships made to take care of hundreds of smaller at same time, and there are ones with modules fitted to take down some medium ships or kill another huge one. What I mean is that larger ships should be better than the small ones. You even need to research them! LOL

Yurixy wrote:
This can be compared with EVE Online. I played EVE some months and I can say that in EVE it makes more sense. Bigger ships are supposed to be a lot better than small ones.

Solution: Make 2Cp Ships with 4x the Tonnage of 1Cp Ship, and 4Cp Ship with 4x the Tonnage of the 2Cp Ship. This would be more balanced for me, in my opinion.

The 4x multiplier is the minimum I see as reasonable. Could use 6x or 8x also.

Also in Eve Online the smaller ships can easily out maneuver anything bigger than them with the right mods. The thing about space ships is they are not usually stuck on a flat battlefield. They can take advantage of 350 degree fighting. Unfortunately thats not in this game... yet?

Flaviusx wrote:
Um, neither is an efficient "naval killer" when being used in a support role. The reason we ditched BB in favor of cruisers for support is that BB aren't cost effective platforms for AA duty. Same applies for ASW, although there the supporting role shifts to destroyers and frigates rather than cruisers.



The actual "naval killers" are carriers...and subs.



Gunnery as a weapon system for naval destruction has been displaced by missiles, torpedoes, and bombs, and left the big gun battleship without a role.

*nodds* yeah, that's the other part of the reason for the disappearance of battleships. I'm familiar with naval history, I just was trying to simply things. I find that the more information I present in a post, the greater the chance that a forum troll will ignore my main argument completely (no matter how iron clad and obvious it is), take 1/4 of a single sentence of context, and then start a 10 page flame/spam war based on that single out of context sentence fragment. I tried (unsuccessfully, it's seeming) to avoid that my keeping my opening post simple and to the point.



If you note in my original post I said "air power was another reason" as a side comment, but that didn't have anything to do with the argument I was making, so I discussed it as little as possible. Since ES doesn't have carriers, "air power" (in this case space fighters) wasn't important to discuss, while the implications of the power law on naval battles was.



EDIT: I edited the OP to try and head off a discussion about the historical value of air power in naval combat. If there isn't another thread about how awesome carriers would be in ES we can start one (but I think there is at least one already).

LordReynolds wrote:




We just need to achieve somewhat ofa parity, preferably by enabling ships to target mutiple targets.



I wil lsay we blatantly go steal from SOASE here and introduce weapo nbanks. While the banks cannot focus on the same target they will engage differen target at the same time.





cp 1 ships have 1 bank. will engage one target

cp 2 ships have 2 banks. will engage 2 different target

cp 4 ships get 3 banks. will engage 3 different targets





each bank mirros the weapon setup of the ship (you do not set up separate banks and fire power does not get divided).







Ther njack up the hp and build cost of bigger ships a bit and we have a form of parity.

Good idea is good, though I still think bigger ships should: have more health, have access to more advanced modules (command and control stuff, not weapons per say), have more tonnage.

200 galleons against 2 battleships would not be an equal fight as the cannons would just scratch the hull, however 20 destroyers with their thinner hulls might still lose.

This can be compared with EVE Online. I played EVE some months and I can say that in EVE it makes more sense. Bigger ships are supposed to be a lot better than small ones.

Solution: Make 2Cp Ships with 4x the Tonnage of 1Cp Ship, and 4Cp Ship with 4x the Tonnage of the 2Cp Ship. This would be more balanced for me, in my opinion.

The 4x multiplier is the minimum I see as reasonable. Could use 6x or 8x also.

I don't have a problem with dreadnoughts being uncompetitive against swarms with equal firepower. I am against dreadnoughts being uncompetitive against swarms of ships with 200 year old technology.

xiebelvoule wrote:
The real reason they stopped building battleships was aircraft carriers, not destroyers, look it up.

That's part of the reason, yes. But if it was *just* about aircraft carriers, they wouldn't have been building AEGIS cruisers either. And if battleships were more efficient naval killers than cruisers, then we would have antiaircraft battleships today, instead of antiaircraft cruisers. Logic, it wins arguments every time.



That whole thing about "carriers killed the battleship" is an urban myth. The realization that small, inexpensive ships could outgun large ships is what killed the battleship.

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

The real reason they stopped building battleships was aircraft carriers, not destroyers, look it up.

Licho wrote:
Nah its ok, benefit of bigger tonnage is more hp in one place - you wont lose it and you can repair it, while you always lose some destroyers. I tihnk that its ok atm.

Not currently it wont.

Nah its ok, benefit of bigger tonnage is more hp in one place - you wont lose it and you can repair it, while you always lose some destroyers. I tihnk that its ok atm.

in real modern warfare small ships of = strength trump big ships. so lets not balance ES based on modern naval truths.



look at the age of sail for your parrallel of what kind of warfare is interesting.



battleships/ships of the line ruled naval warfare throughout the Napoleonic era. Why?

answer: big ships could beat many things at once.



a giant triple decker with a few hundred 40 pound cannons could out range, and anihalate smaller ships. the thicker hulls (required to support the heaver guns) were easily able to withstand the smaller guns of smaller ships. smaller ships couldn't survive a 1/4 of the firepower battleships had. big ships of the line could survive rougher weather and stay at sea longer they were better at combat then anything else floating.



big ships were used for: blockading ports, besieging towns/cities, moving troops, eliminating the enemy's big ships (which were moveing troops), acting as command posts in foreign lands, colony building.



so you ask yourself. why weren't all war ships in the age of sail big triple decker battleships?



answer:

1. speed (big ships were slower and less manuverable and just couldn't catch small ships, that is why big ships attacked things that couldn't run like fleets and cities)

2. cost (nations could, and did, go bankrupt building ships of the line, they cost alot to build and crew and maintain and repair)

3. no stealth (try sliping a four story floating city through a blockade)



how to beat the destroyer swarm? (through game design)

answer:

1: increase the cruser's strength at planetary invasion significantly and weaken all other ships in invasion (make having a few in an attacking fleet nessisary to achieve success in a reasonable amount of time, perhaps nessisary for colony invasion but not outpost)



2: increase battleship hp considerably 5000 or more, decrease speed (like half of all other ships), drasticly increase price/time to build. a battle ship should be a considerable investment and dedicated battleship fleets should be very rare until late game.



3: dreadnaughts should (through mods) be able to repair fleets in enymy space, increase speed of fleet, increase speed of invasion, give broad combat buffs, hero ex or ability buffs all depending on research and tonnage. dreds should have most hp by a healthy margin (not much more than battleship), and should cost stupid amounts of money



what would these changes do?

answer: destroyers would in general rule combat through out the game but would need crusers to effectively attack anything other than outposts. diffusing destroyer spam in aggressive players.



battleships would counter destroyers in fleet actions but would be slow in attack (move speed) and costly enough that they would likely be used in fleets with cheaper destroyers and then principly in defence/important seiges



dreadnoughts would not be as strong in combat as battleships, but would buff fleets. they would cost alot and so you would be encouraged to place them with your best fleets (highest xp ships) or in key battles that could decide the war.



that is my fix

I believe that the issue has been discussed under a different topic, namely give bigger ships the ability to multi target / shoot different targets during one round.