SomeGuy wrote:
Oh, heaven, please no. If it came down to merely building the unlocking the biggest gun and building the biggest ship, I think I would cry.

......well, okay. I wouldn't actually cry, but it would sorely disappointing

In Moo3 (yes, 3, damned be its name...) it was an extremely effective tactic to build the biggest rocket with the most advanced warhead in the smallest shipsize in masses. Basically build oneshot torpedo ships.

You jump into a system, fire one torpedo per ship in your fleet, escape, cause a hellish inferno and repeat that the next round.



I think that is a very good example of a hard to defend against-tactic that basically burst big space stations or ships apart with minimal risk and losses on the attackers side.

That's just because there was no cost for ammunition, but that's fine with me. XD

It's a question of balancing. Bigger ships will always be more powerful but they can be balanced with price, maintenance costs, build times, speed, etc. to a point where it would be a suicide to build fleets comprised only of the largest ships. Though we know too little about ship-building, the ship capabilities and even the combat itself to understand the big picture.

maceman wrote:
If that is the final combat model we should always just build the biggest ship we can afford with the most gun/shield variety we can every time. not much incentive for a mixed fleet or lots and lots of pesky little guys?

Oh, heaven, please no. If it came down to merely building the unlocking the biggest gun and building the biggest ship, I think I would cry.

......well, okay. I wouldn't actually cry, but it would sorely disappointing

Bigger is better, correct?



In many games, I've noticed that, for the most part, bigger is better. You start out building small ships, then as technology increases, those smaller ships become obsolete and eclipsed by the larger, bulkier ships. You've got corvettes, cruisers, battleships and dreadnoughts. If you have access to dreadnoughts, the others are obsolete and not worth building, since the bigger ship can carry bigger guns...and more of them at that, too.



What do you think? Is there a way to keep smaller ships relevant throughout the course of the game? What might it look like? As far as I know, Endless Space will have different sized ships and will utilize different modules to create for different ships with different functions.

But what if I cover my dreadnought in the tiniest weapon I have?



After all, even if the weapon does very little damage, it wont matter, because I can have thousands of them on one ship, and fire them simultaneously. I dodge cool down, but still have enormous damage. A instant win ship.



Maneuverability still does not work as a solution either. You guys are right, a frigate would be move maneuverable then a battlecruiser. But a missile is even more maneuverable. What's to stop me from simply covering my ship in missile launchers? It would not matter if the enemy had his entire fleet made out of fighter craft at that point.



I think the solution is a simple one. Build costs and build times. If ultradreadnought 57 is expensive and will take a long time to build, there is little way that you can expect to replace your fleet of frigate 92s completely.



And that, should give us a outcome similar to real life. The majority of a fleet will be smaller ships, like destroyers, with a few support ships and a battleship or carrier.

Nosferatiel wrote:
Alternatively you can take fire rates into account. Death Star with super beam weapon? Shoots only once every 10 minutes. Little fighter? Shoots every second or even faster. We should also think of that kind of weapon-balancing.

Once every 10 minutes!!!? That's going to be a long space battle! In all seriousness though time delays for larger weappons are a definite requirement to retiain a balanced fleet.

Nosferatiel - You are totally right. Not to mention Damage-reduction/armor and hitpoints as separate entities.

Alderbranch wrote:
Reyna -I sincerely hope they wont use hitchances but rather see accuracy as a bonus to damage done. Chances to hit screws up most systems and makes them really really hard to balance.

Alternatively you can take fire rates into account. Death Star with super beam weapon? Shoots only once every 10 minutes. Little fighter? Shoots every second or even faster. We should also think of that kind of weapon-balancing.

VieuxChat wrote:
You want a summon dev spell ? Remember what happenned last time !

Well atleast it cant come off any worse.

VieuxChat wrote:


I'd also like to know what would be the tacticals/strategicals differences between large/small ships. It reminds me the huge discussions that occured on the Supreme Commander forums about how tier 1 units got useless after unlocking tier 2 and 3.

What would be nice is some kind of system that let small ships have some usefullness when bigger ones are discovered.

Yeah and that would be to have bonuses on the bigger ships. The bigger they are the bigger the bonuses.





Reyna -I sincerely hope they wont use hitchances but rather see accuracy as a bonus to damage done. Chances to hit screws up most systems and makes them really really hard to balance.

The fact of the mater is that any progress in this area, would ideally be based on all the things we discussed earlier, such as mass, thrust, ROF, etc, etc But since ES space battle is merely a show really, an easy way would be to simply alter weapon to hit chances(or maybe alter their damage instead) based on the target ships hull. There are also other factors, such as the original to hit chance of the weapons; but that is merely just another multiplication. In any case this is an easy and physics free way of achieving the same thing, in fact my gut tells me the devs implemented a similar system on ES; that's what I'd have done anyway.

I'd like to see smaller ships having advantages over the larger ships in terms of maneuverability. Perhaps the late game fighters can be used to target specific sections on capital ships (based perhaps on your current military espionage levels)?

I hope that small ships are part of a fleet in the lategame. The smaller a ships is so more agile it will be. And it think it is more difficult to hit a small ship.

But it is correct. In the most games small ships are useless. Maybe in ES it will be different. :-)

Alderbranch wrote:
Well this doesnt mean we cant discuss stuff even though we know nothing of the system yet. Still Id like to see advantages to cover weaknesses just as you say and we are basically arguing it so that the devs will come to the rescue and say "our system is based on this and that and works like this" Or well not exactly that as that would merely be annoying but you get the point.

You want a summon dev spell ? Remember what happenned last time !



I'd also like to know what would be the tacticals/strategicals differences between large/small ships. It reminds me the huge discussions that occured on the Supreme Commander forums about how tier 1 units got useless after unlocking tier 2 and 3.

What would be nice is some kind of system that let small ships have some usefullness when bigger ones are discovered.

so ist that 4 x or 3 x?