Re: Ship size vs. weapons
 

What I am looking for is not only advancements in weapons but in quality of the ship itself. The F-22 of today is smaller than a B-17 but there is nno comparison in ability

Re: Ship size vs. weapons
 

The problem here is that, unlike real life in WWI & WWII, the different sizes don't have different tactical roles in SE4. So, you would need to add more than just a series of improved hulls, or at any given level bigger would still be better.

To work like WWI/WWII, you would need three general size classes: capital ships (BB+), cruisers (CL, CA, w/BC sort of a hybrid)& escorts (DD-). Capital ships pound other capital ships at a distance, but have a hard time hitting small & fast & maueverable escorts with their main weapons (they mount secondary weapons for that purpose). Escorts have "guns" so small that they can't hurt capital ships. This requires more than just big shields on capital ships & small damage on escort "guns". You would need something like resolving each weapon shot separately and any hit below a certain % of the target's current shield strength does no shield damage. What escorts would have is a big damage, very short range, long reload time weapon that bigger ships can't use effectively (torpedoes, historically). So, they have to get in close, surviving fire on the way, to hurt capital ships. Cruisers screen your capital ships to try & kill the escorts before they get in range of the capital ships (your own escorts act defensively in this way as well), and act as "capital ships" in secondary theaters.

You could probably do most of that with mods. You would have some beginning level of all three categories right from the start, and they would just kleep getting bigger & better but at any level the roles are the same. The problem is that the tactical AI would probably have to be reprogrammed to fight that way.

Re: Ship size vs. weapons
 

Cool Idea.
I'd implement it under the present system as follows:
Escorts, Frigattes and Destroyers are 1 Engine per move, but 2 less Max Engines than now (i.e. 4).
All Cruisers are 2 Engines per move, with Max Engines of 6.
Battleships and Dreadnoughts are 3 Engines per move, with Max Engines of 6.
Ship Construction stays as is, and allows for the building of level 1 ships. It is also a prerequisite for advanced hulls as follows: (Examples for each 3 Category light, medium and heavy)
Escort Ships(New tech area)
-requires Ship Construction level 1
- 3 levels
level 1: Allows Escort Ship II (Cost: 20000)
Max of 5 Engines
50% Defence Bonus
Bonus Movement of 1
155 kT Size
level 2: Allows Escort Ship III (Cost: 40000)
Max of 6 Engines
60% Defence Bonus
Bonus Movement of 2
160 kT Size
level 3: Allows Escort Ship IV (Cost: 80000)
Max of 7 Engines
70% Defence Bonus
10% Offence Bonus
Bonus Movement of 3
170 kT Size
...
Cruisers (New tech area)
-requires Ship Construction level 5
- 3 levels
Level 1: Allow Cruiser II (Cost: 30000)
Max of 8 Engines
510 kT Size
Level 2: Cruiser III (Cost: 60000)
Max of 10 Engines
520 kT Size
Bonus Movement of 1
5% Defensive Bonus
5% Offensive Bonus
Level 3: Cruiser IV (Cost: 120000)
Max of 6 Engines
1 Engine per Move
Bonus Movement of 2
10% Defensive Bonus
10% Offensive Bonus
530 kT Size
...
Dreadnought(New tech area)
- requires Ship Construction level 8
- 3 levels
Level 1: Allows Dreadnought II (Cost: 40000)
Max of 9 Engines
5% Easier to hit
1025 kT Size
Level 2: Dreadnought III (Cost: 80000)
Max of 12 Engines
Bonus Movement of 1
1050 kT Size
Level 3: Dreadnought IV (Cost: 160000)
Max of 10 Engines
2 Engines per Move
Bonus Movement of 1
5% Bonus to hit
1075 kT Size
I wouldn't allow Baseships to be upgraded, but that's just me.
Hmm, cool. I think once the next patch is out I'll mod the tech and vehicle size files and see how it plays.

-Aegis

Re: Ship size vs. weapons
 

Here is what I think we should do to make ship classes more useful. Based on the theories that the larger the weapon, the less useful it is on a smaller ship, I think we should have to-hit penalties based on ship sizes. These would be assigned to the different mount sizes. For example, large mount weapons would have no to-hit modifier for hulls 300KT or greater, but once you start shooting at the smaller vessels, you get a 50% negative to-hit modifier. Huge mounts would get a -50% modifier on ships less than 600KT. Massive mounts would get a -50% modifier on ships less than 1000KT. This way, you must use appropriately sized weapons to attack different ship classes. Of course the AI would need a major overhaul with this, so it definitely would not be easily done.
Now, something that would be possible with this modification is to extend range bonuses to the larger mounts, but still have the best bonuses on the bases. This way, a Dreadnought with huge PPBs would outrange an escort with normal PPBs, but it would have a very hard time hitting that ship with its big guns.

Re: Ship size vs. weapons
 

pardon my humbuggieness, but: Bah.

perhaps huge mount projectile weapons would be harder to aim at fast moving small targets. energy or beam weapons would be about the same wither its large or small. you dont have to move the whole weapon mechanism to aim it, you just have to rotate a magnetic field or mirror or something. theoretically a higher power beam does not even need to have a wider focus, it could just be more concentrated.

Re: Ship size vs. weapons
 

Well, I think that the big guns can't keep up with juking and jiving little escorts, frigate or DD's. That's what secondary weapons are for. Who's gonna post a mod on this?

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Elwood Bluze

Re: Ship size vs. weapons
 

Adding negative "to hit" modifiers to the larger mounts already pretty much does the job, especially if you also reduce the ability to compensate for them through combat sensors. CapShips will still carry large mounts because they are still extremely efficient against other large targets (other CapShips, bases and planmets) which have negative defense modifiers. If CapShips nevertheless carry normal mounts, these can be considered "secondary weapons".

Re: Ship size vs. weapons
 

Another thought along these lines would be to make the large mount guns fire slower. Maybe 2 turns for large, 3 turns for massive etc. This would give an incentive to build secondary guns.

Re: Ship size vs. weapons
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
Another thought along these lines would be to make the large mount guns fire slower. Maybe 2 turns for large, 3 turns for massive etc. This would give an incentive to build secondary guns.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

that would make alot more sense. you would have to up the damage numbers when you do that, but you would still want a smaller weapon since the larger one would waste its shot on a small ship when there might be bigger targets about. I do not think there is a way to make the use of such combinations work effectively in strategic combat without actually making extensive changes to the games code, but it would be a good mod for all the TAC players out there.

Re: Ship size vs. weapons
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
Another thought along these lines would be to make the large mount guns fire slower. Maybe 2 turns for large, 3 turns for massive etc. This would give an incentive to build secondary guns.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I made a similar request. One for a flag to alter reload times for weapon mounts. Basically, I wanted to make either rapid-fire or increase the reload times for some overloaded mounts...

...hey, you could always get some role-playing aspects and get stuck with a "lowest-bidder" mount. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif



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"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"