Just Another ship

[jwa8402]

That many deflectors is fine, as long as you have alot of sections making up the outline of your hull. Aegis would be a different story.

The Memento Mori has 16 deflectors and despite its size it's difficult to outflank the deflected sections (though that's partly because of its insane speed and turning).

Speak for yourself. Unless your using stock weapons, theres a multitude of ways to get through deflectors without being overpowered. Even with stock balanced weapons. Besides, if you fight the Mori with a ship that is both slower, AND unable to punch through shields...

[Swamp Fox]

He should have AT MOST 4 deflectors if he's only going to outfit it with default weaponry because as it is it's like outfitting a WWII cruiser with 12-inch armor and 6-inch cannons.

WW2 cruisers did indeed have 6-ish inch cannons. In fact, if I remember correctly, 6 inches was small, especially when you take into account that "cruiser" encompasses a wide range of ship types.

Also, answer me this: Why should he use your balancing? Why can't he just decide for himself what he wants his ship to be able to do?

[Anna]

Caesius, it's funny, but I seem to recall having this argument before. Here, read this thread: http://www.wyrdysm.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1806

If he wants 10 deflectors on his ship, that's his business. Balancing is up to the individual and there aren't really any hard and fast rules, especially on "how many deflectors should it have". Hell, 10 on the ship looks fine to me. More than I'd use, but it's his business. Personally, I feel the aesthetic problems with the ship are far greater and more concerning than the balancing ones.

[Caesius]

WW2 cruisers did indeed have 6-ish inch cannons. In fact, if I remember correctly, 6 inches was small, especially when you take into account that "cruiser" encompasses a wide range of ship types.

That's the point I was getting at. 12-inch armor is what the Iowa-class battleships used, while the deck guns were 5-inch and the main guns 16-inch.

Anyway, for the sake of the argument, I opened up his ship and here are the stats: 2000 HP, gatling blasters do 50 damage, blasters do 30. Defaults are 17 on each. I also loaded it up in the sandbox and found out something interesting: Even with broadside AI, the ships tended to still want to face each other because the deflectors had a tendency to protect the front. Which basically meant that although the one that was broadsiding (technically "crossing the T") couldn't hurt the other one, the other one also couldn't fire on the broadsider because of the weapons setup. In any case, I think that even without any deflectors it would still take a while for either ship to die due to the high HP.

Facing off his ship against Iberia was a different story, because my swarms of Demeters ripped it apart since it doesn't have any point defense. I guess I was wrong about the deflectors being overpowered, but if that's the case then the weapons now seem to be severely underpowered despite not being stock.

Also, answer me this: Why should he use your balancing? Why can't he just decide for himself what he wants his ship to be able to do?

Because if his ship can't kill itself in a reasonable amount of time (i.e. if you have two of the ships duke it out) then against most anything else the most it can do is act as a distraction.

If he wants 10 deflectors on his ship, that's his business. Balancing is up to the individual and there aren't really any hard and fast rules, especially on "how many deflectors should it have". Hell, 10 on the ship looks fine to me. More than I'd use, but it's his business.

In that case I'll now drop the issue (assuming we won't go into more detail about the accuracy of my WWII cruiser comparison), but he should know how his ship balances and since he didn't state his intentions for his ship I assumed the overpowering effect from having that many deflectors was unintentional.

[Deltaflyer]

Caisus, this is HIS ship, he can balance it as he wishes. Stop making references to WWII ships when *newsflash* this game is set in the future when there is space travel and combat. If a faction wanted to make a ship unkillable or hard to kill, would they say "oh no we won't, it will make our enemies take longer to kill us?" No they wouldnt.

[Caesius]

Caisus, this is HIS ship, he can balance it as he wishes. Stop making references to WWII ships when *newsflash* this game is set in the future when there is space travel and combat. If a faction wanted to make a ship unkillable or hard to kill, would they say "oh no we won't, it will make our enemies take longer to kill us?" No they wouldnt.

If this game took place in 3D space then my references to naval combat (not necessarily WWII) would be irrelevant. I don't want to hijack this thread further so I'll leave it up to you to take it to PM if you want to discuss it.

[jwa8402]

With those stats in mind, the only other thing I'd say about the weapons is to add some variety. Plus unless you modified the fire rates, a gat blaster fires more shots more often than a regular blaster so why would it have more damage? And if it did, why would you bother with the blasters? I guess I should try this ship out in case you modified it in some way.

Another way to balance the deflectors, on a large broadside ship anyway, is to space them lengthwise along the hull and limit their range. If done correctly, only two-four deflectors or so overlap a given area...

Caesius, your point is actually a good one. While balancing is up to him, one would assume the defense and offense would be proportional to eachother. Very unlikely that shielding would be made which their own weapons couldn't pierce in case the enemy got ahold of it.

[Caesius]

With those stats in mind, the only other thing I'd say about the weapons is to add some variety. Plus unless you modified the fire rates, a gat blaster fires more shots more often than a regular blaster so why would it have more damage? And if it did, why would you bother with the blasters? I guess I should try this ship out in case you modified it in some way.

I already tested it. All stats are default except for damage and range (500).