Re: How do you beat the Talisman?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Help!!!! It's the Atheists Union!!!! Next, we'll have the Religious Races Guild. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: How do you beat the Talisman?
 

"external missiles might be cheaper or smaller because they dont have the same ammo magazines attached to them, but they should not MASS less because they are attached to the outside."

If they're just bolted on the outside, they can indeed be much lighter. Missile + hookup to ship, that's IT, where the standard thing would be missle +internal space + hookups +launcher + magazine/reloads + reload mechanism.

Phoenix-D

Re: How do you beat the Talisman?
 

You are correct Puke. But as far as I know all the mods that have "external mount" missiles do fire one shot per combat round and the absence of any magazine or reload mechanism is the justication of the reduced size. Not the fact that they are externally mounted. I could be wrong, but I don't believe anyone was making the case that external mounting itself means the comp would take up less displacment.

Geoschmo

EDIT: Oops. I guess Phoenix is making that case. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ August 06, 2002, 23:03: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: How do you beat the Talisman?
 

"EDIT: Oops. I guess Phoenix is making that case."

Uh-uh. Look at my comparison a little closer. (I've never seen a non one-shot external missile in SE4, either)

Phoenix-D

Re: How do you beat the Talisman?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Expect it from me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I've already drafted preliminary plans to do something similar; not sure it'll be external, but it'll be single-shot regardless.

Might be a fighter weapon, so technically it WOULD be external (mounted under a wing or the like).

Might actually be an external SHIP missile.

Might be no lighter, but do compatratively trememndous damage (picture taking the mass of a CSMV, with magazine, reload mechanism, launch system, tc ... packing it ALL into a single, half-as-big-as-an-escort missile ... LOL ...). Sort of the reverse of flooding the target's PDC; one gigantic easy-to-hit heavily-armored godawfully-huge-warhead missile. Think of it being, oh, say ... ~250kT, having perhaps 20x the damage resistance and damage potential of a CSM of comparable technology, slow as molasses, ultra-long-range, and firing once per combat. Great against bases and planets,or bigger,slower ships, but smallfry could run circles around it (like, speed 2 to 3 ... range 20 to 30 ... 3000 to 5000 damage ... damage resistance of ~1000 or so ... heh http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ).

Re: How do you beat the Talisman?
 

hmm. while a one shot launcher can save mass by leaving out specific components, one shot and external do not always go together. indeed, the only thing external should mean is that its not protected by armor.

by taking a significant part of the ships displacement and bolting it outside of the armor, you should be able to get better coverage with your existing armor for the rest of the ship. i dont think there is any way to modle this though, so external missiles really mean nothing in this game.

if you are using 'external' to be synomous with 'one shot,' then the component designs make some sense, but it could be a bit clearer, i think.

i guess im just nit-picking.

Re: How do you beat the Talisman?
 

If it would be possible to assign "armor" ability to externally mount missiles, it will work exactly as you want - it will be destroyed before internals and even absorb some damage in the process (assigned armor ability should be small of course).

Re: How do you beat the Talisman?
 

By all means CW if you have a one shot weapon that will fit on a small ship and take out an enemy with that one shot regardless of size, armor, or shields, then small is definetly a good way to go with that. But beyond the subverter there is no such weapon I am aware of, so for non Psychics larger is better when facing Tailsmans. And I wouldn't get too attached to that strategy. It's likely to get patched out in the future. It's a pretty cheese tactic. You shouldn't be able to capture a ship with a subverter because you destroyed the master computer. The ship doesn't spontaneously grow a crew when the computer is destroyed after all. The problem is that ships are immune to the subverter if they have a master computer. This is wrong, they should be immune to the subverter if they don't have a bridge/crew quarters/life support.

Puke, I think you are too married to the ship tonnage is displacment thing. If you simply view the ship sizes not as tonnage or mass, but as a measure of the size of components that they can contain, then external mounting using less of that space makes sense. In that case you would still take up some internal space as you need to have mounting equipment, hard points, etc. But they might not take up any more internal space than armor.

These ships function in a vacuum afterall. How do you displace vacuum? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geoschmo

Re: How do you beat the Talisman?
 

"By the way, fully filling up a hull is NOT a design requirement! You can always use the swarm tactic AND large/heavy mounts together. The base cost for a dreadnought is only 850 minerals more than an escort."

Don't forget the extra crew quarters/life support.

Phoenix-D

Re: How do you beat the Talisman?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Unless ofc you'd use the Master Computer anyway, ofc.