"Dogfight" Flight Model?

[Mohrgan]

If your point was "There are ways of dealing with the reverski", it might have been more helpful to explain how. Your original post just says get a bigger ship or run away.

Get a ship fast enough to invalidate the reverseski. If your ship can go faster than the big ship, you'll negate the reverseski. A larger ship will/should have more firepower than a Viper, making it harder to accept the face tanking required when in reverse. Break off your pursuit, and let the big ship pilot come to you. Use Heat Sinks, chaff and/or Silent Running to break the big ships targeting. Use weapons, like a Rail Gun, with good long range power and accuracy. In reality, it's a combination of all of the above.

It shouldn't be easy for a lone viper to take down a Commander flown large ship. I would suggest that a Viper couldn't even match up to a medium sized ship flown with a similar amount of ability. Using the proper tools, i.e. a larger ship is a valid bit of advice.

 

[damon8r351]

Rebel Galaxy is another game utilizing the broadside mechanic in space combat. It's also a 2D space game though.

 

[Tobasco da Gama]

If your response to game balance issues is "get a bigger ship", you're missing the point. Just having a big ship should not be an "iWin" button. Should it be easier to win? Sure; but the response should never be "go big or go home".

If every ship has an equal chance to defeat every other ship in 1v1 regardless of size or cost, what's even the point of having more than one kind of ship?

The purpose of having an open universe like E has is that not every fight needs to be to the death. And even then, I'm sure there are specialised fits that can allow a Viper to take out a Corvette. But the specialised fit will have to sacrifice flexibility to punch above its weight like that. The torpedo plane that sunk the Bismarck would have been hopeless outmatched against an Me-209, after all.

 

[Morbad]

It was a Vickers gun from infantry (sgt Cedric popkin from the AIF)

I was about to say!

Look at a ship size comparison and tell me my Viper couldn't almost land on and take off from the deck of a Corvette.

A Viper III is closer to the size of a Federal Corvette than WWI fighters (about 1-2 tons full load) are to the size of modern air-superiority fighters like the F-15, F-22, or Su-57 (30-35 tons full load).

I haven't ever seen a Farragut class ship in game. Has anyone?

They aren't rare and have been in the game for four years.

A Viper III is also closer in size to a Federal Corvette than a Federal Corvette is to a Farragut.

I know there are but, after 500 hours I have yet to see one. You said people have seen them. Have you personally?

I've routed many dozens, if not hundreds of them.

Many prominent Federation and Empire systems have at least one on station, a significant portion of CZs feature them, and for the last 18 months or so every single class 4 distress call in Federation space has had a stolen pirate Farragut attacking a disabled Federation Farragut.

Am I the only advocate for actual dogfighting?

Probably not, but dogfighting in space seems pretty silly. Not quite as silly as being suckered into a 'reverski face tank' contest, but definitely more silly than actually using those 6DOF you've got.

So it needs to be easy for people with no flight combat skill to be able to do combat or they will get frustrated and quit?

If you have no flight combat skill, you aren't going to dominate combat, no matter what ship you have.

Sure, but look at a Viper next to a Vette. Same difference.

Cube-square law.

If your point was "There are ways of dealing with the reverski", it might have been more helpful to explain how. Your original post just says get a bigger ship or run away.

If you have superior long range firepower and/or staying power let them reverski...it will hurt them and help you.

If they have superior long range firepower and notice that you aren't closing distance quickly, reverski yourself, until you are out of range, or they start moving toward you, then move back toward them.

If they can accelerate better than you, have better long range firepower than you, and are more durable than you,...then it's probably time to leave.

The idea is to make sure they are moving at you before you try to close distance, otherwise you spend too much time closing distance.

 

[znôrt]

i approve this thread.

big ships should be
- very slow (100m/s?) and with no boost (maybe a sort of minijump type boost for long distances in normal space)
- very low turnrate
- really working turrets, lots of them, and possibly drones (no need for broadsides, that's an age of sail concept)

medium ships should be
- a bit faster (200-300m/s?)
- small missile/mining/artillery/support platforms

small ships should be
- they are ok

this would create 3 very distinct roles. people would choose these roles for tactical reasons or just because of preference. instead of that, bigger ships are just bigger versions of small ships. so most folks just want it big, with no compromise.

 

[Darth Ender]

the current game has buffed the way larger ships handle and gimped weapons since the game was released without any way for large ships to defend themselves against smaller ships. Hardpoints are positioned as if the only concern for all ships is to fire forward and turrets are super lame in the game. So larger ships were made to be able to dogfight and weapons were balanced so that smaller ships had a chance at the larger ships now that the larger ships could dogfight with them.

Overall, this failure to implement larger ships properly at the beginning of the game's release has skewed gameplay significantly.

Now that we have ship launched fighters though, we should re-balance all large ships to behave like large ships and be incapable of dogfighting. Large ships should be mostly loaded out with turrets and rely on the ship launched fighters for all dogfighting. Small ships should need to wing up to hope to take down a large ship unless the large ship was defenseless. Then we may finally start seeing more variety and purpose-based selection of ships that players use rather than just varying the loadout of the anaconda for absolutely every role you can think of in the game except landing on outposts.

 

[Mohrgan]

i approve this thread.

big ships should be
- very slow (100m/s?) and with no boost (maybe a sort of minijump type boost for long distances in normal space)
- very low turnrate
- really working turrets, lots of them, and possibly drones (no need for broadsides, that's an age of sail concept)

medium ships should be
- a bit faster (200-300m/s?)
- small missile/mining/artillery/support platforms

small ships should be
- they are ok

this would create 3 very distinct roles. people would choose these roles for tactical reasons or just because of preference. instead of that, bigger ships are just bigger versions of small ships. so most folks just want it big, with no compromise.

No one wants to get pigeon-holed like that. All of the ships we have available to us are right for the flight model. People just get the idea that because one ship is the largest available to us individuals, that it is the largest ship in the Galaxy. The diversity we have, in ships, is a good thing. The way I see it, we only have access to ships that can dogfight. Each in their own way. The 'Reverseski' does not negate the flight model, it's just a portion of it. Just as you'd need experience and experimentation to learn how defeat a small nimble ship. i.e. Learn to dogfight. You need experience and experimentation to learn how to defeat a large ship. It's up to the Commander how she/he reponds.

 

[znôrt]

No one wants to get pigeon-holed like that. All of the ships we have available to us are right for the flight model. People just get the idea that because one ship is the largest available to us individuals, that it is the largest ship in the Galaxy. The diversity we have, in ships, is a good thing. The way I see it, we only have access to ships that can dogfight. Each in their own way. The 'Reverseski' does not negate the flight model, it's just a portion of it. Just as you'd need experience and experimentation to learn how defeat a small nimble ship. i.e. Learn to dogfight. You need experience and experimentation to learn how to defeat a large ship. It's up to the Commander how she/he reponds.

i know how to dogfight. the biggest thing i fly is a fdl. i can dogfight with a conda but it's just not fun. i probably would fly the conda more if it actually behaved like the carrier it's supposed to be. hell, i would even bother to get a corvette ...

No one wants to get pigeon-holed like that.

let's fix that a bit. for caution, lets assert that "you don't want to get pigeon-holed like that" for now, until we actually know what everybody wants. in the meantime, let's clarify why having actually different classes is pigeon-holing considering that all classes are available to everyone at any moment?

 

[jasonbirder]

The issue isn't "The Reverski" (Though obviously you can question a combat model which favours use of Mouse and "long range sniping" with fixed weapons as one of the most effective tactics) its the proliferation of Hull/Armour reinforcements AND Shilds/Shield Cell Banks...which makes Combat SO attritional...with strong regenerating shields...the multiple effective passes small ships need to make to be effective become more and more difficult because they need to be repeated again and again and again (unless you're fortunate with feedback cascades and module damage)...whereas if single "alpha strikes" could do crippling damage to a target a more maneuver based combat system would become more prevalent...
Its ironic...the early backers OVERWHELMINGLY opted for a pseudo WW2 dogfighting type model (hence the crippled Yaw rotation rates) yet here we are in a situation where shrugging off shield damage whilst either trying to pile up special effect MC hits...or snipe modules with Focused/Long range G5 mods is the norm...EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of a WW2 dogfight model...
But obviously beloved of the MMO crowd that seems to dominate combat options...because it scales with SHIP STATS not with PILOT SKILL

 

[Funny]

I think basically everyone here misses pre-engineer balance
I also wish they would change the “max manoeuvrability” zone to only limit manoeuvrability in the lower end, so managing the rotational radius becomes more important to combat.

Right now the best way to steer is probably to make sure you always face your target head on in fa off while using your strenghtened rear thrusters to maintain a smaller orbit around your target. More flight based tactica would be nice. 2G lateral thrusters on very nimble ships default is kinda weak too... Though with engineers I guess that’s 3G? Still fairly low I guess.

 

[Darkslayer]

the current game has buffed the way larger ships handle and gimped weapons since the game was released without any way for large ships to defend themselves against smaller ships. Hardpoints are positioned as if the only concern for all ships is to fire forward and turrets are super lame in the game. So larger ships were made to be able to dogfight and weapons were balanced so that smaller ships had a chance at the larger ships now that the larger ships could dogfight with them.

Overall, this failure to implement larger ships properly at the beginning of the game's release has skewed gameplay significantly.

Now that we have ship launched fighters though, we should re-balance all large ships to behave like large ships and be incapable of dogfighting. Large ships should be mostly loaded out with turrets and rely on the ship launched fighters for all dogfighting. Small ships should need to wing up to hope to take down a large ship unless the large ship was defenseless. Then we may finally start seeing more variety and purpose-based selection of ships that players use rather than just varying the loadout of the anaconda for absolutely every role you can think of in the game except landing on outposts.

Thank You!

 

[Darkslayer]

I by no way think I should be able to beat a Vette with a Viper. But a wing of 4 should give one pause if they didn't have turrets. There are alot of amazing ideas here. Thank you guys who see what I am trying to say.

 

[Frenotx]

One of the big failings of the flight model is FDev's addition of more and more ships with very high turn rates, but low acceleration. What this leads to is ships that can reliably face each other, but can't possibly get and or stay in the enemy's blind spot. FDev seemed eager to avoid "turrets in space", but then added a bunch of floaty ships with super high turn rates

 

[jasonbirder]

I by no way think I should be able to beat a Vette with a Viper

Why? Because a Spitfire shouldn't beat an He111 or a Su27 beat a B52?

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

Why? Because a Spitfire shouldn't beat an He111 or a Su27 beat a B52?

Depends what you mean by "beat". Yes spitfires would attack bombers and defeat them, in numbers.

There used to be logic and balance with all this but since engineers, it is all nonsense.

Edit - Ah, see that is your point.

 

[Darkslayer]

Someone answer me this. Could 4 Elite CMDRS in Viper 3's beat an Elite CMDR in a Vette? Is that even close to an even fight?

 

[CMDR_Vyse]

I know there are but, after 500 hours I have yet to see one. You said people have seen them. Have you personally?

go to Sol. There are two, one around Earth and another around Mars.

 

[Darty]

One of the big failings of the flight model is FDev's addition of more and more ships with very high turn rates, but low acceleration. What this leads to is ships that can reliably face each other, but can't possibly get and or stay in the enemy's blind spot. FDev seemed eager to avoid "turrets in space", but then added a bunch of floaty ships with super high turn rates

You make a really good point. The ships in this game are SLOW in terms of max speed and acceleration relative to their turn rates. It's next to impossible to blindspot anything due to this. FA-off and elite's weird "we aren't going to apply friction because it's space except for when we are" rules with max speed and drifting make the problem even worse. The cutter, which is one of the slowest turning ships in the game, has similar turning speeds as modern fighter craft, while even the most extreme speed builds in the game don't come close to the speeds of modern fighters.

 

[Surprised Brony]

Someone answer me this. Could 4 Elite CMDRS in Viper 3's beat an Elite CMDR in a Vette? Is that even close to an even fight?

No. The Corvette wouldn't stand a chance.

 

[Kaocraft]

I don't think it has anything to do with flight model changes or power creep. People just got better at piloting. FAOFF was always there. Thrusters were always there. The flight model actually has changed very little since the alpha. If anything, they nerfed reverski, just a little though, now it requires FAOFF to reverse at full speed when once it didn't.

NO.

Engineers changed everything. Power management. Boost strategy. Relative turning ability. All gone now. Get real.