My take on the Big Ships Problem: Broadsides

[the100thmonkey]

By that extension to make broadsides viable you would have to either rework the weapon hierarchy completely or do a serious revision on the balancing of turrets at the higher classes.

Right now it breaks down as follows

Fixed > Gimballed >> Turrets.

Turrets don't offer nearly enough of an advantage in targeting to compensate for their 3rd class damage - all other things being equal (weapon type and class).

The limited FOV in some (not all) ships also would have to be re-worked or the UI would have to be to be to denote when you have a firing solution with what weapons - and if there were friendlies in the way.

"Broadside" type gameplay is best served with a side of 3rd person view. Think Homeworld or that new dreadnought game. But I don't know if you want to open that can of worms.

This came up in the pre-Horizons livestream. I think I heard the developer responsible for ship balance stating that FD were intending to get all the ships out and then do a balance pass on the whole lot of them at once. The rationale was that this was important in order to balance them properly.

 

[Valethar]

Reducing 3 dimensional 0g combat to 2d medieval naval warfare is not a solution, it's a "I don't know what do to so I'm gonna stick with what I know" bandaid.

That's the one thing that annoys me the most about the flight model in Star Trek Online. To add insult to injury, they tried to justify it by saying that too many people would be confused by full 3D flight, so they decided to make POTB in space instead.

We definitely don't need to dumb down the flight model here.

 

[kofeyh]

This came up in the pre-Horizons livestream. I think I heard the developer responsible for ship balance stating that FD were intending to get all the ships out and then do a balance pass on the whole lot of them at once. The rationale was that this was important in order to balance them properly.

And for once, that's probably the best approach; release the ships, take a stab at performance and behaviours and then sort out a more wholistic review so each ship actually offers some kind of advantage or purpose or reason for being. Here is hoping that's indeed what they mean.

 

[JeffRyan]

That's the one thing that annoys me the most about the flight model in Star Trek Online. To add insult to injury, they tried to justify it by saying that too many people would be confused by full 3D flight, so they decided to make POTB in space instead.

We definitely don't need to dumb down the flight model here.

I don't think we should dumb it down. But larger ships like T9s, Anacondas, Cutters and Corvettes shouldn't be dogfighting which is what this thread is really about. My fault for using 'broadsides' instead of turrets in the title, it was more a metaphor than an actual tactic, but I was pushed for time and had the cap ship video in my head and didn't explain things well enough in the op.

 

[Don_Von_Hulio]

Reducing 3 dimensional 0g combat to 2d medieval naval warfare is not a solution, it's a "I don't know what do to so I'm gonna stick with what I know" bandaid.

Broadsiding is an equally efficient method of sinking the ship you're firing from when you are outmaneuvered. This is why one of the most common naval tactics was to run until you got the positional advantage. Making the larger ships rely on broadsiding or turrets is just begging for them to be rendered completely useless against anything more maneuverable.

The problem is that ships like the Cutter and Corvette aren't meant to fly unsupported. You're not supposed to be dogfighting the enemy, your support is there to do that while you take your time and nail them harder than they can compensate for.

People just need to change what they think they know about playing the game.

At the end of the day the side that has more of the biggest weapons will win. Fighting in Elite pretty brainless tbh unless its in an Asteroid Field or in CQC, if not its simply a battle of attrition in the middle of nothing.

Running away and interdicting the person trying to nab you does nothing in the way of turning tides regardless if they submit or not.

To OP: Ships are the way they are. Compared to a Capital ship Vettes and Cutter arent that big... and Capital ships are the ones turreting and broadsiding.