Anyone else think fixed weapons on large ships should point slightly inward?

[Darth Ender]

We were never intended to have access to even smaller capital ships, and none of the vessels we can fly are dramatically larger than the bigger fighter-class vessels.

There is a bigger difference in size between an F-15 and P-51 than an Anaconda and a Vulture, or a Corvette and an FDL.

That may be true if your definition of not being dramatically larger is 10+ times as large. i'm sure you've seen this. This gives you an idea on 2d size differences from overhead. You then have to consider the height differences, or you could just look at mass too.

http://imgur.com/iX2Q7Ko

The ships i'm talking about not being able to keep up with for fixed weapons to matter is anything smaller than a python ...which is about half the footprint of the conda. I'm not saying it needs to be as slow as a cap ship or so slow that it can't even be used to fight against other ships of the same size. It should just be slow enough so that fixed weapons aren't an option you can just rely on being usable against basically all ships in the game. More than half of my weapons are fixed and the others are gimballed. i have no problem killing ships from sidewinders through vultures. I shouldn't be able to. They're tiny and I should have no hope of lumbering my ship that's many many times their size to get my fixed weapon on their tail. But i can. And i do. And they all die. And i feel no different flying that ship than i do a vulture or FDL (i haven't flown anything else in a couple years except my ship fighters).

It just needs a little push towards being slower to maneuver. Just enough to make turrets matter and then they can address the other things that go along with that and a new type of flying behavior is born and all the strategy and options that brings to the game.

 

[Cmnd Fulsom]

Additionally, an anaconda is much, much, larger than a vulture and an FDL, look at the size charts.



Stay Frosty



Cmnd Fulsom

 

[b101uk]

There's no failing to grasp anything going on. The game isn't a realistic simulation. There are thrusts in the game even that aren't even self-consistent simply for the sake of gameplay.

There is still the suspense of disbelief that has to justified by gameplay. I posit that ships the size of an anaconda able to go toe to toe dogfighting against ships a tenth of it's size or smaller, that this suspense of belief is impossible and it hurts gameplay.

It's the hurting gameplay that is the real issue. Arguing to fix hardpoints so that fixed weapons work better on these larger ships is the wrong way to approach the problem. The problem is that you're thinking about putting fixed weapons on these ships at all. My argument is that the Gameplay is better served by making the ships slower and focussing large ship combat around turrets (and improving how turrets are balanced and introducing the escort mechanic to the game).

That means as a player with access to all these ships, i now have better, more intuitive choices to make on which ships i choose for certain activities and which loadouts i choose on them. Diversity improves gameplay. The current setup is homogeneous, all ships are just fighters with slightly varying degrees of maneuverability (with the exception of a couple that have such horrible hardpoint options that they're not used in combat unless you're trying to joke around).

The bonus to all the gameplay improvements that would bring is that it makes better sense for it to behave that way. Less suspension of disbelief is always better for the game. But the suggestion is by no means anchored on this idea of making the game more realistic.

in a situation you have more than enough thrust, then the limit then becomes the pilot, whatever size ship he or she is in, mass of the ship becomes less relevant up to the point of overall thrust limitation, just the pilots position relative to any axis of spin, i.e. power and the structure of lifting wings is no longer the limiting factor, its the meat-bags inside.

the limitations of early flight, was lightweight engines, and materials to make a sturdy airframe, as aviation advanced more powerful lighter engines became available, material science moved along to enable to make stronger airframe that were heavier, but no so heavy that it outstripped engine power, and aircraft got bigger as the understanding of aerodynamics advanced along with more refined engines, then the jet age came about, even more powerful engines that were still lightweight, etc etc etc, and all that in less than 120 years, yet you in your infinite wisdom think that over the next 1286 years that the development and refinement of technology is going to stop and that we will somehow be stuck with the thrust levels and efficiencies of today.

 

[Darth Ender]

in a situation you have more than enough thrust, then the limit then becomes the pilot, whatever size ship he or she is in, mass of the ship becomes less relevant up to the point of overall thrust limitation, just the pilots position relative to any axis of spin, i.e. power and the structure of lifting wings is no longer the limiting factor, its the meat-bags inside.

the limitations of early flight, was lightweight engines, and materials to make a sturdy airframe, as aviation advanced more powerful lighter engines became available, material science moved along to enable to make stronger airframe that were heavier, but no so heavy that it outstripped engine power, and aircraft got bigger as the understanding of aerodynamics advanced along with more refined engines, then the jet age came about, even more powerful engines that were still lightweight, etc etc etc, and all that in less than 120 years, yet you in your infinite wisdom think that over the next 1286 years that the development and refinement of technology is going to stop and that we will somehow be stuck with the thrust levels and efficiencies of today.

We're not talking about realism here. The game isn't realistic in many areas on multiple levels, least of which is thrust.

We're talking about relative believibility and gameplay. All the ships are speed limited to a degree, mostly from technical limitations of the game. So you go by the smallest that can zip around at dangerously high acceleration with the fighter and then get much slower with the next larger ships, sidewinder and eagle, then a bit slower as you get larger but this progression begins to make less and less sense as you get larger because Fdev needed to keep the larger ships in the dogfighting game because they had no ship launched fighters and (still dont) dont have a means of escorting ships so that players can utilize them in the game. There was just 1 player ship vs other ships dogfighting available. Now we have wings, we have ship launched fighters and we _SHOULD_ have npc escorts that can allow them to correct the larger ships to have the proper progression of turning speed and maneuverability since they wont have to rely on dogfighting solo to survive any combat situation.

Keeping the status quo just gives us more of what we already have. A selection of ships where it hardly matters what my ship selection is.

How about this, Why should you be able to use an anaconda for combat against _ALL_ ships in the game? What's the gameplay reason for being able to just rock one ship for literally everything? Exploration? conda. Trading? Conda. Combat? Conda. That's bad ship balance at the least, at worst it's bad game mechanics that allows it.

I'm not suggesting nerfing the ship so it's impotent, I'm suggesting it would be very nearly trivial to create what's lacking in the game but should finally be able to exist in it, a large ship role. A role that doesn't make large ships "I Win Ships" and doesn't make them end game content. They'd just be different, serving a purpose that they should have been serving from the beginning but couldn't because the game lacked the necessary features to allow it. And it would finally give players a real in-game reason to fly anything else other than when you need to dock at stations without a large pad.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Convergence of ALL hardpoints should be manually adjustable. It should only be allowed in stations with an outfitting option.

 

[Spacecat]

That's what gimbals are for.

 

[Devari]

Large ships are fine, what some people seem to be confused about is the difference between a military ship and a transport ship. A Federal Corvette or FAS both have amazing maneuverability for their size and mass but this is because they're heavily geared towards the military role where speed and maneuverability are important. A large part of their design and mass is taken up by oversized main drives and maneuvering thrusters. They pay for this with significantly shorter jump ranges, substantially higher cost and limited flexibility/suitability for other roles. When you get to an Anaconda or Cutter, these are primarily transport ships that are fitted for combat and they have more of the typical disadvantages of larger ships. The Anaconda has noticeable drift when maneuvering and can't compete with the Corvette's maneuverability and shield strength while the Cutter is very fast and well-protected but has very limited maneuverabily and massive drift issues. The problem here is that players look at ships like the Corvette and FAS and forget that they're top-end specialized military ships that do one particular job very well and that is why they have such good speed and handling for their size.

The other issues is that the largest ships we can fly are still only corvette-class ships which are the smallest actual warships in use. Corvettes are meant to be fast, maneuverable and adaptable and can maneuver much faster than larger warships. We don't see Farragut battlecruisers turning on a dime because they're actual "executive control" ships that the FD devs were referring to. If we had more examples of frigates, destroyers and cruisers in the game for comparison then the difference between the player-operated ships and larger warships would be much more apparent.

 

[Gunnet]

All hardpoints should have configurable convergence in outfitting.

When you get to an Anaconda or Cutter, these are primarily transport ships that are fitted for combat and they have more of the typical disadvantages of larger ships.

The Cutter is explicitly an Imperial warship comparable to the Corvette. A combat Cutter isn't a transport ship fitted for combat; a cargo Cutter is a combat ship fitted for hauling cargo.

 

[Devari]

All hardpoints should have configurable convergence in outfitting.



The Cutter is explicitly an Imperial warship comparable to the Corvette. A combat Cutter isn't a transport ship fitted for combat; a cargo Cutter is a combat ship fitted for hauling cargo.

The Cutter is not designed for a pure combat role, it's really designed for a combat support role compared to the Federal Corvette. The description even mentions that it doesn't quite match the Corvette in firepower and it's clearly not optimized for maneuvering the way the Corvette is. The fact that the vast majority of players use the Cutter for transport purposes also tells you that FD designed it to fill a different niche. It's equivalent to the Corvette in terms of being the only comparable Imperial warship but in practice it is basically a militarized transport used in the corvette role as opposed to a ship designed for a pure military combat role. Its sort of like an amphibious assault ship in the sense that it is designed more to support combat operations via. armed transport roles than it is to engage in direct combat with other warships.

 

[Gunnet]

The Cutter is not designed for a pure combat role, it's really designed for a combat support role compared to the Federal Corvette. The description even mentions that it doesn't quite match the Corvette in firepower and it's clearly not optimized for maneuvering the way the Corvette is. The fact that the vast majority of players use the Cutter for transport purposes also tells you that FD designed it to fill a different niche. It's equivalent to the Corvette in terms of being the only comparable Imperial warship but in practice it is basically a militarized transport used in the corvette role as opposed to a ship designed for a pure military combat role. Its sort of like an amphibious assault ship in the sense that it is designed more to support combat operations via. armed transport roles than it is to engage in direct combat with other warships.

That's a fair enough opinion, but it doesn't match up with the only lore we have.

 

[Marklar_]

The Cutter is explicitly an Imperial warship comparable to the Corvette. A combat Cutter isn't a transport ship fitted for combat; a cargo Cutter is a combat ship fitted for hauling cargo.

My understanding is that the the Federation tends to work through hard power while the Empire prefers soft power. This is why Federal ships are militaristic, while Imperial ships are more about fast transport for diplomacy and trade. It's like the difference between Air Force One and a strategic bomber. Air Force One is fast and has strong defenses, while a bomber just wrecks things.

 

[Rexoplex]

They should be left as is. One of the ways of being able to survive an encounter with the Clipper is to get up close, between the weapons if you have a small ship. The Clipper is already faster than most ships, so having it able to train all of its weapons on a small ship would make it overpowered. If convergence is allowed, the speed should be nerfed to make up for this.

Perhaps cut the speed and agility in half to make this work.

They don't necessarily need to make weapons converge perfectly at all distances, but just increase it so that a clipper could actually hit a target with both wing mounts at distances beyond, like, 1.5km or something. Or, like some other people have said, let the pilot assign the convergence angles in outfitting so that they are forced to fight at certain ranges to avoid spacing issues, but it is at least possible to overcome them. The clipper would still have it's current weakness, it would just allow players to change when the weakness applies.

 

[Rexoplex]

That's what gimbals are for.

Gimbals are for shooting at angles other than directly in front of one's ship, as one of the built-in tutorials even mentions. They're a choice to sacrifice direct firepower for the ability to hit things without aiming straight at them, which larger ships already have trouble doing. Solving spacing issues inherent in the design of a ship by using mainly gimbals is in no way why they're in the game.

 

[Marklar_]

So is this really about large ships in general or Clippers specifically? The Clipper has always been the red-headed-stepchild of large ships and I wouldn't mind seeing it get some love. But I think that the big three are fine as they are.

 

[Devari]

That's a fair enough opinion, but it doesn't match up with the only lore we have.

It's a combination of the stated lore, the ship's design features and the ship's use in practice. Most military vehicles actually end up in their roles in a similar manner, i.e., they're designed to a certain set of specifications and then used in a manner that's found to be effective in the real world. Sort of how the Soviets used the ZSU-23-4 in mountain terrain in Afghanistan because the high elevation angle of the guns allowed it to suppress ambushes in the mountains when other fighting vehicles couldn't elevate their turret guns sufficiently. The ZSU-23-4 was still designed as an anti-aircraft vehicle, it isn't an IFV and isn't designed to fight infantry, but it was so successful in this role that they eventually developed converted "Afghanistan" variants with the air radar removed and with doubled ammunition capacity. The Cutter is in much the same situation, even if it might have been designed with a particular "intent" to serve as the Empire's equivalent to the Corvette it clearly has design features that support a transport-focused role that is more suited to its particular strengths. That doesn't mean it isn't a warship, it just means that in practice its role is geared far more towards the armed transport role than the pure combat role. You could make the opposite argument for the Anaconda, its lore would put it firmly in the transport category but the heavy weapons, strong hull, good maneuverability and decent speed have made it roughly equally-used in the combat and transport roles. The Anaconda's design is not really a warship, but its still commonly used in that role due to its effectiveness at combat.

 

[Rexoplex]

So is this really about large ships in general or Clippers specifically? The Clipper has always been the red-headed-stepchild of large ships and I wouldn't mind seeing it get some love. But I think that the big three are fine as they are.

I figure it's for the benefit of every ship with any spacing issues, although the clipper is certainly the most noteworthy of those. Full fixed builds on any of the big three, especially ones that use entirely kinetic weapons, are incredibly frustrating to use as it is because of how clunky and slow the ships are. The way I see it, those ships shouldn't also suffer from only being able to hit smaller ships with around 30% of their total firepower even when they manage to get a perfect angle on them despite their limited maneuverability and speed. If I want to torture myself by trying to grind combat bonds with an anaconda covered in 8 fixed multicannons, it should at least be POSSIBLE to do my full potential damage to a viper if I somehow manage to keep a near-perfect lead on it for a few seconds. That said, an all fixed loadout like that is admittedly sort of bland and ridiculous, but that sort of customization and player choice is part of the beauty of elite in my opinion, so I'd rather it at least be at least slightly viable, which weapon spacing currently prevents.