Turret faction

Development areas for Allegiance core (IGC) design.
Compellor
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Post by Compellor »

When I read the original description of Omicron Hive, I never really thought it would work. You can't give an interceptor a slightly-buffed minigun for a turret and expect anyone will choose the turret over a second interceptor. Some time later, I was thinking about a science fiction story I had read in which humans had thought it impossible to create effective one-man fighters until they encountered aliens who had perfected the technology. The human space fleet did however have carriers that deployed small ships with crews of 5 to 10. In imagining how I could recreate the story in Allegiance, I developed several ideas for a gunship faction, but eventually discarded the idea as impossible to balance. Recently, I've been thinking about how I could apply the gunship faction concept to OH. I thought about just making a core with the alterations, but people wouldn't play it without at least reading about it first, so I figured I'd better write this stuff down before I think about opening ICE.

Two pilots in one ship necessarily cover less space than two ships. You might mitigate that fact by giving the turret fighter more damage or more resilience than two fighters, but excessive firepower would make defending miners and constructors almost impossible. Excessive resilience just encourages the turret faction to fly in separate ships rather than man a turret. Weapon range, then, is the only way to mitigate the loss of covered space. Mini-AC seems to me to be an upper limit of how much a turret can improve the combat effectiveness of a ship (in this case the Hvy Scout) without making one ship unquestionably better than two. I don't care to dig through the forum, but I'm sure we've had whole threads arguing whether it's better to fly two Hvy Scouts to kill miners or to have one with a competent gunner.

There is also much to be learned from the example of gunships. Their forward mini-AC is relatively harmless against nimble opponents due to the ship's low turn rate (37.5 deg/s) while a turreted mini-AC can be quite deadly at 75 deg/s. Depending on how many of your hits are direct, SC1 does somewhere between 51 and 102 damage per second against medium hull tending toward perhaps 76 dmg/s at point blank, while a pair of Mini2s do 96 but will probably only hit a small ship with 80% of its bullets under ideal circumstances (77 dmg/s). SC1 is not powerful enough to make gunships considered Adv tech, so it's a decent comparison, but gunships carrying SC1 are worth $250 so perhaps a full AC is a better comparison: 100 dmg/s vs med from AC1 and 127 from AC2. From this we can see that we actually want turrets to do similar or somewhat more damage than the combined forward guns of a one-man fighter, in spite of their advantages of range and turn rate. Also, the lower the turn rate of the turret fighter, the greater the incentive to man the turret.

We can also learn from a gunship's hitpoints: 760 medium hull (assuming .95 modifier for hull) and 300 shield, which is effectively the same as 1613 light hull against mini and gat. Compare that to the 945 light hull and 450 shield of three light fighters: effectively 1845 hitpoints! Even though three figs are harder to hit than a gunship, and can attack from multiple directions, the gunship has the advantage because its attackers have to do a good job of working together, which is especially difficult in a PUG. From this we can see that a turret fighter shouldn't have quite as many hitpoints as two fighters, but must have more than a single one-man fighter, or it'll be too easy to pod two players at once.
Last edited by Compellor on Sun Jun 27, 2010 5:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Any job worth doing with a laser is worth doing with many, many lasers. -Khrima
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Compellor
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Post by Compellor »

Global faction concept: no small shields, ships either get belters hull buff or medium shields. Why this change? Because all the two-man craft are going to need extra hitpoints anyway, doing it through factions GAs would be overpowered, and you'd have to add so many hitpoints to fighters that they'd practically have Belters hulls anyway. In addition, an extra chaff or two are probably needed for balance.

It seems appropriate to have two-man ships be 10% or as much as 20% larger than one-man fighter would be.

When I was coming up with the gunship faction, I felt referring to a medium-sized, three-man ship as a fighter or interceptor wasn't entirely appropriate, so I came up with some alternate names that I note below for your entertainment. Two-man turret fighters can keep their own name for the same reasons the Rixian Ballista was renamed a Bomber.

Scouts
Perks:Thick hulls
Nerfs:No shields
If you give scouts medium sheilds, then you'd have to nerf the hell out of them in other ways or else end up with a stronger early-game bombing faction than Belters. As such, scouts will have to do without shields, and have between 400 and 500 hull (compared to 400 for belters scouts and 600 for fignans) depending on how powerful you want their bombing to be.

Nan turrets! HA HA, no.

One idea I had for scouts was to give basic scouts mini-AC turrets and have them be the faction's starting ship. However, even if you give them 500 hull they'd have fewer hitpoints than even a giga scout, so that's not much of a starting ship. You could still try giving them mini-AC turrets and have a lt int as the starting combat ship, but personally I wouldn't risk faction balance on something so small.

Fighters / Missile Boats
Perks:
Thick hullsMedium shieldsAC turretMore missiles and ammoTwo minepacks per rackQL missiles?Better sensors
Nerfs:
Low turn rateLower boosting top speedGalvs restricted to turrets
Even with medium shields, a hull buff from 350 to 500 for Enh figs would probably not be too tough.

QL Missiles on a three-man ship definitely wasn't overpowered. On a two-man ship I'm not so sure. Of course, if this is OH, then they've already got missile nerfs, so that would be one way to make missiles relevant on the fighter. Either way, 50% more missiles per rack seems appropriate. You'll also need extra ammo for the turret, but that goes for all three combat ships.

A full AC turret grants sufficient firepower to make manning the turret worthwhile. For basic figs, which I think would be the best starting ship for this faction, you'd want to use mini-AC to match the difference in firepower between basic and enh figs. Gunship turn rate might be appropriate for this ship; scout turn rate would be the absolute maximum. You don't need to nerf their cruise speed at all, but a thrust perk would appear to compensate for the mass of larger missile racks while actually nerfing the boosting top speed to levels where you don't have to worry so much about them pouncing on miners with said missiles.

Galv blasters on a ship with massively more hitpoints than a typical adv fig would unquestionably be overpowered. On the other hand, if you restrict galvs to turrets, then a six-man galv run (fearsome in small games) carries only three Galvs which in a lesser ship is barely enough to kill an undefended outpost. Hopefully the resilience and forward firepower of the turret figs will let them live long enough to balance their reduced base-killing ability. If not, a custom weapon would be needed.

How to balance these things against capships or light bases is something I haven't put enough thought into.

A moderate increase in ripcord energy cost might be needed, but I'd like to see how well they work with carriers before I make that change.

Conclusion: if you try to fly this thing without a turret you might do alright at killing miners and cons, but the enemy team will see you coming due to Med shield, and have more time to respond because you're a bit slower. Try to dogfight and you're dead.

Interceptors / Interdictors
Perks
Thick hullsBetter scan rangeFlak turretMore fuel and ammoMissiles or rockets?
Nerfs
Low accelerationLow turn rate
Increased hull is obvious enough, let's say from 700 to 1150. Interceptor cruise speed is slow enough as is, and if you want them to be able to catch scouts, quickly reach an aleph to camp it, or rush two sectors to kill a miner before it can escape, then you can't reduce their boost speed much either. What you can do is make their turn rate just as slow as the above fighter's, and increase their mass to Belters levels, with Belters fuel buff to compensate. You now have an interceptor that can't dogfight, and therefore needs a turret.

My proposed weapon I call the PW Flak, a sort of half-range SkyCap that uses the Minigun damage type. AoE means you still do some damage at max range, but you'll need direct hits to be just as deadly as a Vet with miniguns. Tweaking the particle speed and AoE radius will take some trial and error.

The pilot will have his hands full maneuvering himself into position, so he may find himself with only rare, fleeting changes to shoot anything. Giving the ship some missiles might alleviate that a bit. Should one wish to add a custom missile or rocket to the faction, this is a good opportunity.

Conclusion: Not a joy to fly, but a challenge. Your biggest enemies will be rocks and prox. Can still do everything interceptors do, in strategic terms anyway.

Coming soon: Stealth Fighters / Steath Gunboats
Last edited by Compellor on Mon Jun 28, 2010 3:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
Any job worth doing with a laser is worth doing with many, many lasers. -Khrima
Beyond a shadow of a doubt if you don't watch them like a hawk they will stack their collective balls off - MrChaos on Alleg players
Xeretov
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Post by Xeretov »

Compellor wrote:QUOTE (Compellor @ Jun 27 2010, 03:02 AM) science fiction story I had read in which humans had thought it impossible to create effective one-man fighters until they encountered aliens who had perfected the technology.
In Death Ground / The Shiva Option?
Andon
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Post by Andon »

Xeretov wrote:QUOTE (Xeretov @ Jun 27 2010, 04:04 PM) In Death Ground / The Shiva Option?
I don't think that was the series, since that situation hasn't actually been written about.

Series is awesome, though.
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Compellor
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Post by Compellor »

Sounds like yet more books I need to get around to. In the middle of Bram Stoker's Dracula at the moment. No, it was an original piece posted by Bladed_Crescent on Stardestroyer.net's fanfic forum. I can't find it so I think it must have been moved into the private writer's forum or something. He's in the middle of a big sci-fi/horror story at the moment. He also writes the occasional short horror piece.

The aliens with the fighters turned out to be genetically modified humans bred from an ancient South American civilization some actual aliens stole right off the face of the earth for use as slaves, but then the slavers were killed off by a bioweapon from the story's real villains, a race of genocidal xenophobes who control a third of the galaxy opposite our sun.
Any job worth doing with a laser is worth doing with many, many lasers. -Khrima
Beyond a shadow of a doubt if you don't watch them like a hawk they will stack their collective balls off - MrChaos on Alleg players
LANS
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Post by LANS »

The idea of a turret faction sounds cool on paper, but I'm not a fan of it. Its just more fun to fly your own ship, and I'll take a mini3 heavy int over long toms any day. Not for destructive power, but because its more fun to fly. Being a good turret gunner is simple, its just picking targets and lining up the crosshairs to the reticle. I'm not against writing up or even implementing an everything-is-a-turret faction in the game, but I fear that many players will agree with me and not want to fly it even if it was balanced and evenly competitive with the other factions.

Omicron's alright because it doesn't require turreted ships to win more than any other faction (Bombers, SY).
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Compellor
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Post by Compellor »

LANS wrote:QUOTE (LANS @ Jun 27 2010, 09:02 PM) The idea of a turret faction sounds cool on paper, but I'm not a fan of it. Its just more fun to fly your own ship, and I'll take a mini3 heavy int over long toms any day. Not for destructive power, but because its more fun to fly. Being a good turret gunner is simple, its just picking targets and lining up the crosshairs to the reticle. I'm not against writing up or even implementing an everything-is-a-turret faction in the game, but I fear that many players will agree with me and not want to fly it even if it was balanced and evenly competitive with the other factions.

Omicron's alright because it doesn't require turreted ships to win more than any other faction (Bombers, SY).
Yeah, I hear that approximately as often as I hear people complaining that OH wasn't a turret faction. I figure the pilots that want to fly can fly, and those that want to turret can turret, and the scout whores will still have their scouts. It might not be perfect, but those who hate turrets won't often find themselves forced into one, not in PuGs anyway. What they will lack are nimble interceptors, which I think is the actual complaint, and I doubt it'll generate any more hatred than the other factions, like Belters, that lack fun and effective ints.
Any job worth doing with a laser is worth doing with many, many lasers. -Khrima
Beyond a shadow of a doubt if you don't watch them like a hawk they will stack their collective balls off - MrChaos on Alleg players
Hellsyng
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Post by Hellsyng »

Compellor wrote:QUOTE (Compellor @ Jun 27 2010, 08:20 PM) Yeah, I hear that approximately as often as I hear people complaining that OH wasn't a turret faction. I figure the pilots that want to fly can fly, and those that want to turret can turret, and the scout whores will still have their scouts. It might not be perfect, but those who hate turrets won't often find themselves forced into one, not in PuGs anyway. What they will lack are nimble interceptors, which I think is the actual complaint, and I doubt it'll generate any more hatred than the other factions, like Belters, that lack fun and effective ints.
I agree!
FIX BELTS! :lol:
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Adept
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Post by Adept »

IMHO the problem with turret heavy action is the lead indicators all turret weapons have, especially when combined with AoE weapons like SCs. If I was making a turret faction I'd beef up their turrets by maybe 1/3, and do away with the leads. Much more fun on both sides, I suspect. You'd have to rely on actually watching your fire much more (and those who already do that wouldn't be distracted by a big green blob blocking your field of view).
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HSharp
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Post by HSharp »

The problem with turret factions is that ships with turrets tend to be a bit slower, thus the team with the longer ranged more powerful turret wins which is why Rix Heavy Scouts can take on heavy ints but even the best vet will still die to a newbie on a skycap 1 turret.

I would say a good way to balance a turret faction is to make turrets have a high mass so when you do have one mounted you lose a lot of agility and acceleration but if you don't have a turret gunner then you can drop the turret and be much quicker so you can choose between quick ships with low firepower or slow ships with a lot more firepower.
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