Capital Ship Point Defense

[Reverend Del]

Just to point out Cam, those weapons are not anti-small ships, they are small ship detterents. Now if they aren't deterring folks form shooting up your ships, then yes, they aren't doing their job. But they aren't meant for wiping out bombers and fighters. Unfortunately for you these ships are balanced for team work now, as they always should have been. They aren't solo pwnships of doom as they were in 4.82 nor are they pointless bauables as they were in 4.84. The balance may not be quite right yet, but it's getting better. Your capital class vessel is now better at shooting up other capital class vesels.

I'm going to use a Warhammer 40k reference here as it can be used as a metaphor.

I have an Imperial Guard army which is monstrously good at shooting, ignoring the troops of course as they are useless in all situations, if I want to take out a Tyranid army, which is awesome at close combat, I need to do one of two things, either gear up my special units with close combat weaponry and take close support heavy options, or I need to maximise my ordnance to do as much damage as is inhumanely possible before they arrive to mince me. Either way I lose some functionality and if it all goes tits up I die. And trust me it doesn't take much for it all to go tits up with a Guard army.

Capships are like this now, if you want to counter bombers and fighters you have to specialise a lot, but that makes your ship relatively useless against larger caps. If you want to rip apart the big stuff you lose the ability to shred small ships. One or the other but not both. Now if the option to specialise in blowing up smaller craft isn't there, then you have a problem. But if you're intentionally losing it to be able to make bigger ships cry then nothing is worng.

---

Saint Del is considered a holy healer of diseases of children, but also as a protector of cattle.

[Tenacity]

Now if they aren't deterring folks form shooting up your ships, then yes, they aren't doing their job.

And here's the problem. On larger ships (the carrier as a cruiser example, or the RBS/juggernaut as a battleship example), solaris turrets dont even reach the other end of the ship, much less the target you're shooting at.

Bombers/fighters realize this, they know that against large ships, the best bet is to get in close. The same deal goes for flak guns - on the larger battleships, flak simply does not work. Solaris/Flak are awesome on the smaller battleships and cruisers, because the range is fine when you're not aiming from a platform the size of a small moon, and because your turrets can fire the length of your ship twice over and hit a target in front of or behind you.

On larger ships, the range is the issue. If I go for a fairly balanced setup on my carrier, I have generally 8 turret slots to choose between primary cruiser turrets, or solaris turrets. Those 8 hardpoints are spread out along my ship, most of them are on the underside of the ship because I need the heavy hardpoints for capship weaponry.

This leaves me with around 2 solaris at the rear, 2 at the front, and 4 in the middle. 2 of the turrets in the middle only fire up, 2 only fire down, neither can fire to the opposite side of the ship. This means that at any one point in time, regardless of where the enemy bomber is, the most i'll be able to hit him with is 4 turrets, and in most situations only 3.

3 solaris turrets will do around 700 damage each to the target with a 4.0 refire. That's 200-300 damage less than most fighter guns are capable of, taking same speed weaponry into account. Now, in a fighter vs fighter battle, tell me, how long does it take you to actually shoot down an enemy using 3-4 4.0 speed guns? A long freakin time, which is also why most fighters are STILL relying on explosive tracking weaponry to kill the enemy.

A bomber can sit there and take constant fire from 3-4 solaris turrets for almost a minute before bats/bots are out, and then probably 15-20 seconds afterwards, and that's if he's not dodging. At 1500m/s speed, cruiser solaris still arent all that difficult to dodge at ranges over 500m, and at that range a bomber will NEVER miss with a supernova shot. If he moves another 200-300m out, he's going to be out of range of the solaris turrets, and will be impossible to hit with any other cruiser weaponry.

Now, if solaris turrets did a few hundred more damage, and had an extended range out to 1500m for cruiser variants, THEN I might be able to deter a bomber from getting up close, and keep him at a range where I might stand a chance at avoiding supernovas, but right now that aint happening. I still dont expect to win against more than one bomber at a time (at least, regarding PLAYER bombers, npcs shouldnt even have bombers as far as i'm concerned), but at least I'd be able to hold enemy bombers off until I could get someone to arrive and help me out, or until I could get to friendly territory.

As it is right now, any decent bomber pilot could fairly easily kill that carrier solo. It's a huge target with minimal point defense, despite it's staggering number of turrets.

---

[Jinx]

this appears to be a universal problem, not a necrosis alone related problem...

i have yet to hear more comments from bomber pilots / fighterpilots attacking capital ships. - i have heard a lot about the inability of capital ships to defend themselves... . but very very little from bomberpilots.

increasing the range of solaris and / or the damage output ( maybe make them shieldbuster [small scale] so that they lower the bombers shield only - while the flak take care of the hulls ) might bring the expected balance - or it turns into a ship that can waste bombers.

furthermore, - why is the "get escorts" argument a "knock-out" argument? - cause.... once again.... the community ASKED for it. we spent a lot of time figuring out how to buff big ships AND encouraging them to fly escorts.... it is easy to buff them allround.

about the necrosis in particular. - yes, you re flying along, you re bound to fly along by your concept of RP. - but frankly... so is 80% of the rest of the server, not cause thats their concept, but simply, cause escorts are ... to be realistic.... a thing of planned events more than casual RP.



so, lets look at the problems of point defense balance.

- point defense wants to be a defense. - so we want weapons that are effective when being attacked, but ineffective when attacking ( imagine the flames, when we get more big ships chasing after smaller ships )
- point defense is meant to be MUCH easier to use compared to primary weaponry
- point defense must be balanced so it cannot be abused...

why is point defense the way it is right now....

- the solaris has such a short range, so its almost impossible to "move to your target to use it" but possible to "use against a target that moves to you"
- flaks are that way ONLY to punish players that make mistakes. - a bomber that is relying on flying close and possibly ram into the capital ship ( unintentionally - accidents happen... ) will be punished for doing so by the damage the flaks do.
- secondary turrets creats a spray that is dangerous for smaller craft - at a decent speed, but also a reduced range
- razors can be used, but rather inaccurate - what you need for that is a hardpoint that is "as close as possible to the ships CENTER" - cause all the autoaim is measured from the center of the ship - and for a weapon as inefficient as a razor, hitting is crucial.

* if solaris had more range - we might get ships that mount solaris only - and hunt smaller craft. personally, i can life with that.... but it was a community call to avoid that ( missile gunboats much? )
* if the flaks did more damage, had more range, less energy - they could become no skill weapons ( missiles much? ) and also be put into the solaris category.... from a defense weapon to punish enemy mistakes, to an offensive weapon...


what could reasonably be done?

- make solaris shieldbuster with like twice the range ( weapons that are not designed to kill )
- make flak cannons do only around 70% damage of now, decrease the projectile speed to 150 - while at the same time quad the lifetime ( that acts like half the speed, double the range ), decrease the energycost to 25-40%

what is the result of that? - an effective defense WILL need solaris AND flaks. - but both combined is effective ( even as an offensive weapon ) - solaris will hit bombers - even at their optimal SN range ( very dangerous for bombers ) - but wouldn t kill them. they would - however.... kill the shield AND their energy production.

flak guns would still "only" punish those that came close(er) - they would slowly chew up the hull / equipment of a bomber.


ships could equip 4 flak guns and 6 solaris and hunt smaller ships. - how to defend against that? - yes, with a ship of the same size - but with anti-cap loadout! ... ( again... missile gunship much? )

what can be done for the necrosis again? - not their own guns.... but maybe more agility and more armour ( that is passive defense and increases the survivability - you still die.... but it takes longer, meaning you can get lucky more often )

copy pasted from the necrosis thread. from my own post.

think of the suggested changes AND think of the dangers involved.

question is - do we WANT capital ships that can practicly go after everything without escorts?

are escorts a luxory that we WISH to have - but that we ... in reality simply do not have?

what can be done about making pure antibomber ships? - and ... is that even a problem?

---

Shipdesigns made for DiscoveryGC

[Tenacity]

think of the suggested changes AND think of the dangers involved.

question is - do we WANT capital ships that can practicly go after everything without escorts?

This wont happen, capships (cruisers+) are not the small, agile interceptors that gunboats were in 4.84.

are escorts a luxory that we WISH to have - but that we ... in reality simply do not have?

Yes, they are.

what can be done about making pure antibomber ships? - and ... is that even a problem?

It wont be a problem. Bombers can still hit large capships from 1600+ range with heavy weapons - as explained in your other post, gunboats in 4.84 could avoid bomber weaponry which is what made them overpowered when using anti-bomber/fighter loadouts. We're talking about cruisers and battleships here, neither of which have the agility or small size of a gunboat, the same issues arent going to arise.

---

[Camtheman Of Freelancer4Ever]

Antibomber ships are not a problem, for they can be wtfpwned by anti capital ship ships. lol... However, I WILL make a zoner juggernaut that can do both equally ok, instead of doing one excellently, I dont care how much equipement restricts it, I WILL do it. and no,
The question is, Do we want capships that can defend against everday NPC fighters and human bombers. And yes, We do. As I say, having an escort for every little dinky insignifficant NPC fighter wing you come across is as unrealistic as the theory of abstenece. you WILL not always have an escort, you just wont.

[globalplayer-svk]

camthem, what version of juggernaut you have when 2 razor drain all your energy? and battleships are maked in this mod as flyingf ortress. but flying fortress will fail against bombers, without escort.. and other way. you can still start cruise and escape ....
why you will ahve from bssomething, that can kill everything and everyone ?

//hm, something is with space key on my keyboard...

---

[Camtheman Of Freelancer4Ever]

two razors eat half energy, which is redonkulous for anti bomber duties.

[globalplayer-svk]

and can you imagine razor eating only 1/8 energy? (now they eat 1/4)
imagine salvo from 8 razorstogether... 140k hull dmg x8 ....
thats why they need so much energy. and as i typed. battleships are not maked as ships, taht can destroy everything. and aboutyour proposed stats forsolaris... only one question. how much sn you can dodge in juggernaut, fired from 1,6-2k ??? because juggernaut is simply too big to avoid them ....so no point to fly closer and no point for you to have 1,1k range on solaris guns...

---

[Tenacity]

My battlecruiser can fire two cruiser razors and only lose about 3 bars of energy (around 15% energy). A battleship firing two battleship razors takes almost 50% energy. A cruiser firing two cruiser razors takes around 20-30% energy.

Battleship razors, while more powerful, are completely out of whack in comparison with other razors. BS Razors should probably take about 50k-100k less energy to fire, and do slightly less damage.

All in all, the damage-to-energy ratio should be identical between gunboat, cruiser, and battleship weapons in regards to each class of ship.

If a weapon is meant to take up 10% of a battleship's energy (90k), the same weapon type for cruisers should take up 10% of cruiser energy (27k) and for gunboats the same percentage of gunboat energy (I think around 16k). Problem is, as you go up in ship class, weapons become less and less efficient.

---

[Grumblesaur]

Oh yes, mule, Razors instakill bombers? Isnt that impossible since the game engine says you have to kill the shield before the hull...

Cam, I'm a bit sick of your constant whining. You want to do all this wonderful stuff with a Battleship belonging to a neutral faction, and then whine when you can't. Stop jabbering about 4.82. This isn't 4.82 - it's the Beta for 4.85, and it's a work in progress.

As for the bomber thing, shoot it with Primaries/Secondaries until the shield is down, then snipe it with your razor. If you read any of that stuff they posted in the transition forum, you might be a bit less lost, and a bit smarter in your choice of ship and loadout.

In fact, I don't even know why you came to the bomber scenario. It'll take 3 or 4 to actually kill you anyway.

The balance, off or not, it still being tweaked. Just stop screaming at the devs like a spoiled child who didn't get the sprinkles on the ice cream they asked for.

By the way, capital ships like the Carrier and Juggernaut are RP platforms, if anything else. The Juggernaut is used for defense of Zoner bases and the Carrier is centered around fighters.

You don't like the lack of escorts, recruit people or join another faction.

---

A way a lone a last a loved a long the riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay,
brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.