As/If bigger ships are added, there must be balance. Here's a discussion for that :)

[Gamel0rd1]

There's a thread on the front page of the forums about destroyer and frigate class ships. Although this is closely linked to that thread, it revolves around the valancing aspect.

If larger ships are added gat utilise larger modules and weapons, smaller ships will get decimated. As we all know, larger and larger weapons in real life gain more range, more damage and more energy required to fire it. They also move slower.

So if C5 and T10 modules are added, there will need to be downsides.

For a larger ship to utilise a maximum of 2 C5 weapon mounts, it will most likely have an array of smaller weapons as well - like C4, 3, 2 and 1. Problem is, a C5 plasma bomb versus an armed sidewinder is going to be like using a flamethrower on an ant. The sidewinder would be decimated.

So, what I propose is that in the case of larger weapons, Class 5 weapons should not be able to lock gimbal on smaller ships. If this is still to overpowered, they should not do ANY damage to Small class ships. That's what the smaller weapons are for. The C5 weapons would be only effective on Medium hulls.

As for power distributer, that should scale accordingly with what we have now. Little power shortages but not endless firing.
Small note on class 5 weapons:
Multi cannon, gimballed
Cannon, fixed
Beam pulse and burst lasers, gimballed
PA, fixed
Other weapons: Fixed.
No turreted class 5 weapons! That'd be insanely hard to avoid!

And what about the cost?
Well. The cost of a huge ship bigger than the corvette would be creeping into the 300,400 or even 500 MILLION mark. Who can afford that? Well, a lot of people who may... Use those ships against poor defenceless new players. Which means something else must be done... Of course there will be those people who go for the little-uns, but getting destroyed in mere seconds by Mr. BlazingGuns28482048583 (fake name) would probably not appeal to them.

Perhaps, owning such a large ship in the starting systems with weapons is considered bad and, if you attempt to dock at stations in those ships, you are denied. Now this creates more implications, but this was not the idea of the thread
Moving back to the subject.

So, if we got larger ships, how would they dock? Well apparently capital ships can now dock at stations using an external rig. I don't see why larger ships can't do the same.

Anyway, this was just to start a discussion. Assuming FDEV add larger ships and larger weapons, how would you go about balancing it, and why?

Thanks!

 

[Bad_Wolf]

I disagree that there must be balance.

 

[=71st=RuSh]

The balance should be like was the original ED version, a small ship is faster and can outrun any bigger ship, big ships are slowers in everything, means that a squad of small ships can make a great damage to a big one. But this was destroyed with RNGineers, now a big ship can catch a small one with modded thrusters, all the balance ... gone!

 

[kilowolf]

I agree that I disagree about balance. If we are going to keep on this stupid immersion thing that has hit the forums lately things are rarely if ever balanced with each other in real life. As far as docking you should need to fly a cargo ship into the dock, take this time to request docking and go through all the same crap as normal, load up your cargo and then fly back to the large ship. Not really that fun... But immersion

 

[DragoonKnight]

Have you ever tried using a fixed weapon on a Corvette or Conda to hit a fighter? Thats what hitting a sidey with a C5 on a ship large than a corvette will feel like. If it hits its supposed to hurt, but the chances of hitting are 1 in a 1000

 

[RamirezKurita]

The balance should be like was the original ED version, a small ship is faster and can outrun any bigger ship, big ships are slowers in everything, means that a squad of small ships can make a great damage to a big one. But this was destroyed with RNGineers, now a big ship can catch a small one with modded thrusters, all the balance ... gone!

Except that all ships can be engineered, not only the big ones. A small ship can outrun a big ship, a modded big ship might outrun a small ship, but equally a modded small ship can outrun a modded big ship.

 

[goemon]

I disagree that there must be balance.

bit the same here.

and i mainly fly small ships.

if somebody enjoys piloting a frigate in executive style, let them.

only don't make them capable of dogfighting.

cutter is a good exampel. i would expect a frigate to turn worse than a t9 and have less speed.

you want to fly that? do it. i'll boost away in my courier with enhanced drives.

 

[=71st=RuSh]

Except that all ships can be engineered, not only the big ones. A small ship can outrun a big ship, a modded big ship might outrun a small ship, but equally a modded small ship can outrun a modded big ship.

But what if ... you dont like or dont want the RNGineers s**t? you want to play and dont waste your time looking for materials and another to mandatory mod your ship? Thats is the game change that brought the engineers, you HAVE to use them, if you want to stay alive vs PvP or PvE.

 

[Father Giliam]

But what if ... you dont like or dont want the RNGineers s**t? you want to play and dont waste your time looking for materials and another to mandatory mod your ship? Thats is the game change that brought the engineers, you HAVE to use them, if you want to stay alive vs PvP or PvE.

In no way, shape, or form do you need to use engineers to do PvE. It helps, but, it's no where close to needed.

 

[Gamel0rd1]

bit the same here.

and i mainly fly small ships.

if somebody enjoys piloting a frigate in executive style, let them.

only don't make them capable of dogfighting.

cutter is a good exampel. i would expect a frigate to turn worse than a t9 and have less speed.

you want to fly that? do it. i'll boost away in my courier with enhanced drives.

To be honest, I very much agree, though my thread was more aimed at what I think the community would prefer vs my preferences for balance. Not everyone has the same opinion, and I think that's why Frontier is getting a lot of good and bad comments about recent updates.

So yes, overall I agree with what you mean - there's bound to be people who don't, and this thread should hopefully encourage people to discuss this issue and what would happen if C5s were added.

Fly safe commander

 

[Darth Ender]

I'd love to see big ships balanced so that they rely on turrets and fighters to handle smaller more maneuverable foes. Also it should be much more rare for ships smaller than vulture from solo'ing those larger ships, instead it would be something wings would be required to accomplish.

I think the huge port could fixed along the lines of all the current weapons or a turret that is actually manned independently by you or the crew. Separate from any other turrets.

 

[Pokeitwithastic]

Perhaps instead of only being effective on medium hulls and above, the larger classes of weapon are on spinal mounts, no auto aim at all, but if you fly your sidey through the beam/projectile stream, poof, disappearing sidey....

 

[RamirezKurita]

Perhaps instead of only being effective on medium hulls and above, the larger classes of weapon are on spinal mounts, no auto aim at all, but if you fly your sidey through the beam/projectile stream, poof, disappearing sidey....

Alternatively, they could simply increase the way the armour penetration values scale with weapon size, reduce the overall DPS increase on larger weapons and increase the amount of armour on the bigger ships. Basically, keep the same effectiveness of C1 and C2 mounts against small ships and C3 and C4 mounts against large ships, but notably decrease the effectiveness that C3 and C4 weapons have against small targets and the effectiveness of C1 and C2 weapons against large targets. That would both make the big hardpoints on large ships ineffective at sniping small ships (encouraging the usage of the smaller weapons against small targets), while also making most of the small fighters (with the notable exception of the vulture due to it's twin C2 hardpoints) equally ineffective against big ships without bringing unusual loadouts to the table.

Obviously, this would all depend on weapon, as things like the smaller cannons would remain quite effective even against larger ships but their penetration is wasted on smaller ships, while larger multicannons would be amazing fighter shredders but would lack the penetration to threaten larger ships.