Capital Ships

[wizard58]

Just my 2 ¢ :
Currently SY is almost useless versus a decent sup team , Sy needs to be perked or disruptor nerved vs cap hulls if it gets to unbalanced at a Anti cap missile (torpedo) to sup.
And yes I support Madpeople's cap core idea, but it needs to be refined .
And last i wold like to see some new weaponry added to sy
Again just my 2 ¢

[juckto]

Although no one has brought it up yet I thought I'd preempt the

"we should balance capships so that an equal number of figs/ints have a decent chance vs them. ie 3 figs/ints should be able to take down a capship that has two gunners cause a 3v3 is fair" argument.


That's bull@#(!, like saying a scout should be balanced to take down a hvy int because a 1v1 is fair.

[Broodwich]

well i thought the problem was because of the way its scaled. you have a sup team of larger than 15 people or so can take out longtom bs pretty easy in an aleph camp. of course the idea is to use an ass ship instead (der) but those can be stopped from entering a sector that is turtled or if alephs are properly camped. Any way you scale sy its still going to be unbalanced outside of a relatively small envelope of people per team (considering the fluctuations of team sizes throughout the day and even during a single game itself).

+1 for giga sy

Also aleph res doesnt really help for caps against sup considering dumbfires firing range is pretty damn far and boosting figs can close the 3k max distance of clearance that res will give a cap

Currently the thing sy is best at is defence because that is where its weapon and large scan range come into play most, as well as having to take a large amount of force to take one down that diverts from other tasks like defending your con/bomber/htt/ship that makes things go boom from other small craft

I dont really have any solutions to it, i just thought that stating the facts clearly would give us a good springboard for the rest of the ideas

[HSharp]

QUOTE (Broodwich @ Apr 22 2009, 11:17 PM) well i thought the problem was because of the way its scaled. you have a sup team of larger than 15 people.

Sup doesn't get some magic benefit if more people play it! The 'problem' is that hitpoints are not scaled so in a 50 vs 50 game a team can galv a base in a second while in a 1 vs 1 it will take a minute or 2 to galv down an op.

[Xeretov]

Funny that this came up. I've been thinking about SY a bit since I noticed Madp's capcore. I do like his idea of a SY thats a bit easier cheaper to access. I agreed with his idea to break the SY up into a few different trees for the different types of tech, making the different kinds of ships more convenient to get. I'm not sure if I'd change the price of building a SY - the cons would be more easily spammable at that point. I'd say techbase price at a minimum if it does get reduced.

Warning: Long post. I've tried to summarize everything at the bottom for those tl;dr type people.


Tech Trees

Madp's idea (link) was to split the tech into different trees to make tech more accessible to 'support' different techpaths. Carriers for sup/tac teams, corvs for defense, etc. Ideally you'd only research or work your way up to the tech you need and spend less than you do now. I think overall the new SY shouldn't be any more expensive than the current one. Where exactly the costs fall for each tech I'm not completely sure.

Madp had four trees - Light, Med, Hvy and Support. I'd rather see these as Defense, Support and Attack. The defense tree would go something like Corvette -> Destroyer -> Devastator. Support tree would go Carrier -> Enh. Carrier -> Ass. Ship. And attack would go Frigate -> Cruiser -> Battleship. I also thought that the base killing tech (Attack tree) should be as much or close to the current prices for Med/Hvy/Super Hvy class research is now, so that teams can't rush their way to battleships. However to keep the costs down, researching each tier in attack should also provide the same tier research in the other trees. Example: Buying Cruisers automatically gives you Destroyers & Enh. Carriers as well. Researching the third tier in Attack would be just like researching Super Heavy class is right now as far as costs & tech available is concerned. These numbers could of course be tweaked depending on testing results.

Researching the first tier of tech should require a basic techbase, and researching the second tier should require an adv. techbase. Alternatively it could be for the 2nd and 3rd tiers of SY.

Currently we use Drydock for Sky3/Longtom research. Under the new system we could make it so that Sky2 requires any 1st tier researched (such as Corvettes), Sky3 would require mid tier (Enh. Carriers), and Longtoms the third tier. Alternatively we could move Skycap into the Defense tree and make a heavier turret weapon as some people have suggested. These would be researched in and mounted on the ships from the Attack tree. I'm not entirely sure SY needs a heavier turret weapon so I won't comment more on that. Its just an option of how to sort the trees if we decide it does.

Another quick point: Besides a lower price, the tech in the Defense & Support trees could take less research time, or alternatively the Attack tree could take longer than it currently does.


Gunships & Freighters

Gunships could be moved to SY as well and would be available for research from the start, although this is a bit of a nerf to Bios since they would have to build the SY before they could start getting GS up. If thats the case then I would leave GS in starbase just for Bios, although that would require another pre/def fiddly bit in ICE. Another alternative is to make GS come with all freshly built SYs, and/or leave Bios as the only faction that has to research them, but they can do so in starbase. Maybe a discussion for another thread.

I figured since Freighters aren't *that* awesome of a tech that they should be available without any research from SY once its built. Again, the alternative is to make it available from any 1st tier tech research.


Weaponry & Unused Tech

A couple points I want to make here. First off, I don't think I've ever seen battlecruisers used in a game since teams would rather save up another 2K for a battleship. I also don't see Devastators used much, although that may be due to their price / location in the SY tree. They'd be a little more convenient to grab under the above system, and might be an option for an Exp team that needs to defend vs. caps but doesn't have a sup rock available, or already has a SY. That said, I didn't include BCs in the above proposal for this reason.

The other point I wanted to make are some of the weapons that rarely get used / never get researched. LRM killer swarm, XRM torpedo, MRM seismic and XRM Cruise all fall under this category. Of the four, XRM Cruise is probably used the most but its never upgraded. I'm going to leave that one to discussion. The other three I've never seen used, or maybe no more than once for some very specific purpose. Just more tech that could be removed or changed without too many problems. I would remove MRM seismic at the least since SRM seismic is available under starbase nowadays.


Lg. Shields and Hvy. Counters

Both of these techs are available from the start at 1st level (l. shield1, h.count1). They could be made available for research with any 1st tier (Frigates could get Lg. shield2 and h. counter 2 then) and then the third tier shields & counters could be made available at the second tier (meaning Cruisers could get lg. shield3) which isn't much different from when they're available now, with the exception of letting corvettes mount shield3 much sooner cost wise than they do now since the defense & support trees are cheaper. Again, the shield tech could be moved into just the attack tree (or just lg. shield3) if it turns out to be a balance issue. I'd also be leaving the cost for weapons, shields & counters where it is now (Base $5000 for each). The savings are in the actual tree research.


Giga SY

Just to throw my 2 cents in here about Giga. I would agree with letting Giga get the higher level tech along with the rest of the factions, although if time/cost is an issue (I'm guessing this is why they need adv. tech to buy a SY) then you could leave SY available from the start but require the adv. techbase to research any 1st tier tech, or just the 1st tier of attack and the 2nd tier in the other trees.


Drydock

Drydock would come with Cruiser research as it does now, although what actually comes with a drydock would be much different than it is now under the above system. Alternatively it could be made available with the 1st tier of Attack (Frigates) although about the only item that would become available from it at 1st tier would be the Speed 2 GA. This also has the effect of alerting the other team(s) that you have attack SY tech, since the other techpaths wouldn't produce a drydock.

I mentioned above that researching attack tiers would provide the other ship tech at the same tier. I also had the thought that researching the third tier in either Defense or Support would automatically give the first tier in Attack (and of course the other tree's first tier as well). Again, this depends on the tech prices & balance.


Pre/Def Limits

I am aware that adding a few more tiers & trees to SY would need more pre/def slots in ICE. This is partly why I suggested removing some of the unused tech like Seismics. Another alternative is to remove the research for stuff like torpedo & seismics and make them available with the appropriate ship/tier tech research instead. Torpedos are mounted on Destroyers IIRC, so torpedo 1 could be made automatically available with the 2nd tier of Defense, and torpedo 2 with the third tier. Another potential pre/def slot is Gunships if they're made available with SY. Regarding XRM Cruise, the first level could be tied Cruiser research and the second one to Tac Nuke 2 research.


Summary

*Leave the price of building a SY con the same
*Split SY into three trees - Attack, Defense, and Support
*Keep the cost of getting battleships the same
*Make getting lesser ships more convenient - price and research wise
*Tie the non ship tech (weapons, shields, etc.) to different tiers rather than drydock
*Possibly make gunships available from SY once built (no research)
*Make freighters available from SY once built, or with any 1st tier research
*Remove/change unused tech to free up slots
*Open up the options for Giga SY
*Tie the Drydock upgrade to the attack tree

[zombywoof]

As it stands now, Caps are mostly only good vs expansion. Sup eats it apart with dis3 + galvs, tac you won't ever get the money, and if you do they'll have killer 2 to ram down your throat, so expansion's really all you can use it against. Even then, it's only good if you can afford skycap 3 + medium class, and an organized team still has a good shot of bringing you down.

@Xeretov, why would a team want to get defensive class to defend against the attack class? I'm not criticizing your idea, I'm just thinking aloud. If both teams went, say, expansion, and there was a gridlock and both sides had money for sy, and one of them went attack, why wouldn't the other? What advantage would they have by going defensive versus offensive?

[Kltplzyxm]

If GS moves to SY, will there be any changes needed to Corvettes? They're almost the same thing.

Perhaps one way to do it is only allow AC on gs and Skycaps on Corvs? I dunno, just a thought.

[Xeretov]

I thought about that. We actually do have a number of options with GS whatever happens to it. I don't think they need a perk at least.

Gunships compared to corvettes have the same long range firepower (except GS carry half the missiles) but nowhere near the same price or survivability. Gunships have the advantage in that they are cheaper and can launch from small bases, but carry less ammo, only mount med shield and don't drop prox. A corvette does have large shields, can drop prox, has heavy armor, lots of missiles and can still rip, although it can't launch from bases and is expensive.

If you wanted to nerf gunships you could further increase their cost (say to 500), or put in a mini-skycap thats tied to the regular skycap like mini-AC is to full AC right now. You could also change the missile options and not let gunships carry LRMs. I personally find that GS are a pain in the arse early game but pretty much cannon fodder once decent tech is up, or if you have a team that can actually aim and work together. Arguments about point and click turrets aside, I think GS work fine for their intended role right now.

Alternatively you could lower the cost on Corvettes a little bit. Right now they're 3K a piece, that could be dropped to 2.5 or 2K. This along with a rise in GS price would probably work best, especially if GS are made to come free with shipyard. The cost at that point would be in the ship rather than the research.


Edit: To phoenix: The defense class is there if thats what you wanted the SY for. I grabbed the first example that came to mind and ran with it. I said exp team vs. attack class because thats what the Dev is supposedly designed for - tearing apart other cap ships (you'll notice skyrip does this quite well). Since the defense tree would be cheaper than the attack tree they'd more likely have the money for it, or the research would be faster, etc. That said, its probably not the best example. But the option is there without having to pay all the way up to cruisers just to bring a dev out if you're scrambling for defense.

Probably a better example is a sup team getting a SY and some attack carriers for cheap. Ideally it would be a bit more affordable than it is now, be that due to changes in the research or ship costs. Not saying all sup teams would find that useful, but they have the option of it. Carriers work well on larger maps & larger teams, which is also what SY is intended for.

[finki]

QUOTE (finki @ Apr 22 2009, 12:49 PM) Send Gunships into shipyard. Auto-researched or at least cheap when it's up, same costs per piece, still launchable everywhere.
If you give gunships a little cost for research (lets say 5k) make the shipyard as expensive as techbases.

And let Giga get skycap3, large shield3, ...

And I forgot: Remove the nan-nerf on hvy armor.

This way SY would get a strong "bombing" and defending tech.

Still keep the prerequisite of techbases to get it, so it's only available if the enemy team is still too stupid to kill your econ and let you expand after 30mins and you are actually able to kill those expansion turtlers more effective.

The more SY will be used to end games, the more the anti-cap-ships will also be used. I have a vision of "regular" alleg for the first 30-45mins and after that finally weapons and tools to end the silly long games (if one of the teams did everything right in defending miners and cons to get the money in) - like a late game tac replacement (sbs)

[Adept]

QUOTE (Mr. Kltplzyxm @ Apr 23 2009, 05:06 AM) If GS moves to SY, will there be any changes needed to Corvettes? They're almost the same thing.

Perhaps one way to do it is only allow AC on gs and Skycaps on Corvs? I dunno, just a thought.

I've been saying this for maybe a year now... so yes.

If GS has to have SC, make it so it has only one, or those miniskycaps that keep getting suggested. Also maybe bomber & GS shouldn't be allowed to mount hunters, or alternatively vette could have hunter killers.