The Warships of Starfall Enterprises
Posted: Thu Sep 13, 2007 5:36 pm
I'm rather new at ship design in general, so... bear with me, heh.
Normal View: From left to right - Alien Drone Scouts, The Karsus Destroyer, Disciple Battleship, Terran Drone Scouts

Firing Arcs:

~
Drone Swarms - Ships, one for each faction, designed to be support/"Caster" type ships, both are Patrol Craft. The selling point is the various modules attached, offensive minded for the raging Aliens, and defensively minded for the cautious Terrans. They're designed to be small unmanned ship sets, somewhat like "Smart Demeters". Wuthout PD or Deflectors, they get wrecked very quickly, and due to the nature of the craft, destruction of the "Master" ship indelibly results in AI spazzing and self destruction of the smaller ships in order to prevent rogue AI drones from wreaking havoc.
Similarities:
Core HP (both main and "slave" ships): 150
Speed: 4
Turning: 2.5
Differences - Alien Swarm:
3 Alien Scout Blasters* - 5 damage, 10 round clip, 3 shots/second, 5 second reload, 550 range, 5 degree deviation. Middling at best. Not designed for raw combat.
1 Frosch Gun
1 Gosling Launcher
1 Lancet Blaster
Terran Swarm:
3 Terran Scout Blasters*: 5 damage, 10 round clip, 3 shots/second, 5 second reload, 550 range, 5 degree deviation. Again, not designed for real combat.
1 Flux Shield Capacitor
1 Nanomatrix (or a Platform Deployer/Demeter Pod Launcher. Nanomatrix may be a wee bit unbalanced)
1 Gravibeam
~~~
Karsus Destroyer - The Karsus Destroyer can be looked at as an experiment in evolution. It is human nature to want to make things that shoot only once... shoot lots of times. This time it's the Weasel Gun. Armed with a pair of guns dubbed "Rabid Weasels" in testing, this is a close range brawler designed to wreak havoc, specifically on ships that rely on heavy deflector technology. Coupled with a sole beamer as a back up weapon, and a pair of rear mounted deflectors designed to augment to barrier-like front of the ship, along with a pair of particle guns, the Karsus can assuredly hold its own in a brawl.
HP: 250
Speed: 2.5
Turning: 1
2 Deflectors
2 Particle Guns
3 Rabid Weasels* - 10 damage, 5 shot clip, 2 shots/second, 2 second reload, 400 range. (Don't mind the firing arc pic. All Rabid Weasels have a firing arc of 90 degrees. Also, I ran into a bug. Changing th damage of the Weasel Gun nullifies all damage, and prevents the split. Currently that means the weasels fire at full power, making it way too strong.)
EDIT: With th15's imput, the bugs in the experimental Weasel Guns have been ironed out. Damage increased to a flat 10 for a single split bullet, and the Beamer has been replaced by a 3rd weasel gun. Range increased slightly, reload time decresed now that the gun's damage works properly. Gun placement altered:

~~~
Disciple Broadside Battleship - The Disciple Broadside Battleship is a rather dated design in the Terran Fleet. "Old Ironsides", the nickname given it because of the many overlayering plates of armor. Despite its age, it sports a large number of standard issue Blaster Cannons, and has been retrofitted with a pair of rearmounted Railguns. The Mining Lasers, mounted on a claw shaped prow were originally designed to cut through asteroid fields, or shunt the rocks aside with the hull, in the early days of space exploration. These days, they're little more than old relics on the aging design. Unique to Old Ironsides is the Tri-Drone Launcher, a Demeter launcher designed to fire 3 drones simultaneously, within the same time period as a standard issue Launcher. A pair of Deflectors, added posthumously on the design with secondary "wing" struts often deemed ugly by the crews, and a pair of forward mounted Flak Cannons defend the design from onslaught. An old design, it still manages to bull its own on the battlefield, shining in situations where both broadsides can be brought to bear.
HP: 500 (Claw shaped protrusion bits in front also bear 500 HP each. Used to ram asteroids if the Lasers couldn't stop it.)
Speed: 1
Turning: .25
12 Blasters
2 Railguns
2 Mining Lasers
2 Deflectors
2 Flak Guns
1 Tri-Drone Launcher* - 3 round clip, 3 shots/second. Standard parameters otherwise.
~~~
Those are the ships. Criticism, etc is appreciated. I'm rather new to balance as well as design, so I'm not quite sure how they'd stack up. I know the Karsus is too strong, due to the Weasel Gun bug. I'm not sure how it would function if properly statted. The Disciple seems a standard battleship, a rather aged one, so not quite as strong, but you're hardpressed not to get something through in the array of bolts it fires. The Drone Swarms were mostly on a lark, I just liked the idea of "multiple ship" ships at the moment.
EDIT: after the Karsus rebalancing of the Weasel Guns, I think it sits just right for a short ranged destroyer. It's a rather unique ship, much like a short ranged version of the Tmolus. I'm rather fond of it.
Normal View: From left to right - Alien Drone Scouts, The Karsus Destroyer, Disciple Battleship, Terran Drone Scouts

Firing Arcs:

~
Drone Swarms - Ships, one for each faction, designed to be support/"Caster" type ships, both are Patrol Craft. The selling point is the various modules attached, offensive minded for the raging Aliens, and defensively minded for the cautious Terrans. They're designed to be small unmanned ship sets, somewhat like "Smart Demeters". Wuthout PD or Deflectors, they get wrecked very quickly, and due to the nature of the craft, destruction of the "Master" ship indelibly results in AI spazzing and self destruction of the smaller ships in order to prevent rogue AI drones from wreaking havoc.
Similarities:
Core HP (both main and "slave" ships): 150
Speed: 4
Turning: 2.5
Differences - Alien Swarm:
3 Alien Scout Blasters* - 5 damage, 10 round clip, 3 shots/second, 5 second reload, 550 range, 5 degree deviation. Middling at best. Not designed for raw combat.
1 Frosch Gun
1 Gosling Launcher
1 Lancet Blaster
Terran Swarm:
3 Terran Scout Blasters*: 5 damage, 10 round clip, 3 shots/second, 5 second reload, 550 range, 5 degree deviation. Again, not designed for real combat.
1 Flux Shield Capacitor
1 Nanomatrix (or a Platform Deployer/Demeter Pod Launcher. Nanomatrix may be a wee bit unbalanced)
1 Gravibeam
~~~
Karsus Destroyer - The Karsus Destroyer can be looked at as an experiment in evolution. It is human nature to want to make things that shoot only once... shoot lots of times. This time it's the Weasel Gun. Armed with a pair of guns dubbed "Rabid Weasels" in testing, this is a close range brawler designed to wreak havoc, specifically on ships that rely on heavy deflector technology. Coupled with a sole beamer as a back up weapon, and a pair of rear mounted deflectors designed to augment to barrier-like front of the ship, along with a pair of particle guns, the Karsus can assuredly hold its own in a brawl.
HP: 250
Speed: 2.5
Turning: 1
2 Deflectors
2 Particle Guns
3 Rabid Weasels* - 10 damage, 5 shot clip, 2 shots/second, 2 second reload, 400 range. (Don't mind the firing arc pic. All Rabid Weasels have a firing arc of 90 degrees. Also, I ran into a bug. Changing th damage of the Weasel Gun nullifies all damage, and prevents the split. Currently that means the weasels fire at full power, making it way too strong.)
EDIT: With th15's imput, the bugs in the experimental Weasel Guns have been ironed out. Damage increased to a flat 10 for a single split bullet, and the Beamer has been replaced by a 3rd weasel gun. Range increased slightly, reload time decresed now that the gun's damage works properly. Gun placement altered:

~~~
Disciple Broadside Battleship - The Disciple Broadside Battleship is a rather dated design in the Terran Fleet. "Old Ironsides", the nickname given it because of the many overlayering plates of armor. Despite its age, it sports a large number of standard issue Blaster Cannons, and has been retrofitted with a pair of rearmounted Railguns. The Mining Lasers, mounted on a claw shaped prow were originally designed to cut through asteroid fields, or shunt the rocks aside with the hull, in the early days of space exploration. These days, they're little more than old relics on the aging design. Unique to Old Ironsides is the Tri-Drone Launcher, a Demeter launcher designed to fire 3 drones simultaneously, within the same time period as a standard issue Launcher. A pair of Deflectors, added posthumously on the design with secondary "wing" struts often deemed ugly by the crews, and a pair of forward mounted Flak Cannons defend the design from onslaught. An old design, it still manages to bull its own on the battlefield, shining in situations where both broadsides can be brought to bear.
HP: 500 (Claw shaped protrusion bits in front also bear 500 HP each. Used to ram asteroids if the Lasers couldn't stop it.)
Speed: 1
Turning: .25
12 Blasters
2 Railguns
2 Mining Lasers
2 Deflectors
2 Flak Guns
1 Tri-Drone Launcher* - 3 round clip, 3 shots/second. Standard parameters otherwise.
~~~
Those are the ships. Criticism, etc is appreciated. I'm rather new to balance as well as design, so I'm not quite sure how they'd stack up. I know the Karsus is too strong, due to the Weasel Gun bug. I'm not sure how it would function if properly statted. The Disciple seems a standard battleship, a rather aged one, so not quite as strong, but you're hardpressed not to get something through in the array of bolts it fires. The Drone Swarms were mostly on a lark, I just liked the idea of "multiple ship" ships at the moment.
EDIT: after the Karsus rebalancing of the Weasel Guns, I think it sits just right for a short ranged destroyer. It's a rather unique ship, much like a short ranged version of the Tmolus. I'm rather fond of it.