Spaceship Design Rules v3.16

Discussion for the Next Big Thing, which is purely theoretical.
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Arcalane
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Post by Arcalane »

Cores will probably get blown up rather quickly anyway, so there won't be much of an opportunity to actually get a good look at them.
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Elitay
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Post by Elitay »

I made small (size 75) ships with the maximum number of possible weapons to test them out.
Artillery wins nicely at very long distances as it should.
The missiles just punch right through anything, but I assume that will be balanced out by PD.
Autocannons are decent, but should really be better given their range. They tend to lose even at close ranges.
The vulcan lacks the punch of the other weapons, but the damage keeps going for longer. If the vulcan ship isn't destroyed instantly, it usually wins.
The beam is better than it should be, really. It's not great on small ships because of the huge beam deviation, but it puts out a seriously huge amount of damage. On large ships it works very nicely.
The drones are of course, utter crap. The drone ships can't even win 3 to 1 battles.

Also, the speed, acceleration and turning assists are seriously terrible. 1000 weight worth of speed assist will give 4166 speed and crap everything else. 900 weight of engine (a light engine) gives 9000 more speed and nice accel and turning. The accel and agility assists are similarly bad compared to the mass/power costs.
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Arcalane
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Post by Arcalane »

They're called assists for a reason. You don't use them as your main engines. :?
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Elitay
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Post by Elitay »

Mmhm, but as they are it's more efficient in every way possible to stick on ultra-light engines as assists. If I had a light engine and felt my turning was too low, I could:

A) Add two turning assists
cost: 600 mass, 200 power
benefit: 200 speed, 10 accel, 910 turning
B) Upgrade to a standard engine
cost: 500 mass, 160 power
benefit: 5060 speed, 70 accel, 1315 turning

IMO, assists are vastly underpowered.
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Post by Rugdumph »

The only thing is your figures are convincing, but in respect to actually being for the metagame, i.e. yes you could have a bigger/another engine, but would it fit on the ship? I may be wrong but the assists equate to the likes of extra manuevering thrusters or like a nitro boost, things that wouldn't take up as much space as an entire extra engine or bigger engine. Shoot me if i'm wrong.
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Elitay
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Post by Elitay »

No, that's right. That's exactly what they should be. The point is that with these stats, they'll never ever be used. IMO, a turning assist should give more turning per mass than an engine, but far less of anything else, or nothing of anything else.
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HorseMonster
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Post by HorseMonster »

This problem exists because I added ulta-light engines in a hurry because Arc needed them for something.

I'll fix it soon.
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Post by Rodgun »

Well, from the one ship I've already made, I can say this system works quite well when it comes to balancing a ship's weapons while at the same time allowing for a choice between defense or assault.

BTW, it was a cargo ship :wink:
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Post by Elitay »

Yeah, the weapon balance is pretty impressive. Though I still feel ships with more weapons and less armor do better than vice-versa.
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Post by Rodgun »

I think it depends on how you design the ship. I mean, the ships with lots of armor and few gns could stand a good chance if they place all their guns around the back or center areas and reinforce the front with high-HP sections. The ship with lots of guns would be worn down while losing weapons, while the armored ship would also be worn down but without any loss in firepower.
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HorseMonster
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Post by HorseMonster »

Assist engines should compete better now, adding two to a ship will cost slightly less in mass than an ultra-light engine, but will get you better performance in a specific area.

They might not be great, but they are now at least useful.
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Post by GATC »

Can we add armour to weapons?
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HorseMonster
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Post by HorseMonster »

No.
Silverware
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Post by Silverware »

I would assume you do that by placement of weapons behind sections, rather than at the tips of sections =P
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HorseMonster
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Post by HorseMonster »

I've done fairly extensive changes to power cores, engines and weapons today, also I've removed the ability to buy/sell weapon arc range, because it was easy to abuse it. Version number updated accordingly.
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