SE V: Unique Abilities And Ideas

[President_Elect_Shang]

I wouldn’t call it iron fist; that seems rather harsh. I see it as a way to provide guidelines, not as a matter of micromanagement. The player would have the freedom to design an interceptor with the components for an interceptor. When you have one vehicle size which can use any set of weapons you tend to get a “middle-of-the-road” vehicle. To put another way in RL I can’t build a Harrier, strap twenty 1,000lb blockbusters on it, use vertical take off, and fly as fast as an F-15.

[Atrocities]

I see what your saying SJ and that is a good way of doing it. But as PES suggested, using mounts to scale some components for use with only one sized hull is an excellent idea as well.

[President_Elect_Shang]

And how about unique “run ways”? Bombers need this type, interceptors need that one? Maybe by using an AI Tag but without any real problem solving I couldn’t say if it would be possible or not.

[President_Elect_Shang]

Besides SJ isn’t that how everyone is modding fighters now? “Here is your hull selection pick one. Here is your engine selection pick one. Here is your component selection pick one. Now what do you want to call it?” With AT’s idea the player would need to make a series of choices based on what they wanted and those choices would in turn regulate the selections offered for the next choice. For example I want to make a fighter:

1) I have to pick the type of fighter so I choose Interceptor.

2) Next I load the base equipment which has been designed to give the Interceptor limited endurance but bonuses in other areas.

3) I pick the engines I want next. All Interceptor engines are fast but some are faster than others. Still even the slowest provide more movement than the best engines in the next class, the Duel Role Fighter. Point is Interceptors should be the fastest in my opinion.

4) Now I pick the weapons and any other extra components I want such as chaff shells, ECM, etc. Because I picked Interceptor I only have X number of slots. Less than had I picked Dule Role and far fewer than if I had picked Bomber. However, none of my weapons can target ships, bases, or planets; only fighters, mines, and satellites. Or maybe a few of them can target ships and so forth but they are weak compared to the choices for Duel Role which are still weaker than those for the bomber.

I think this has potential.

[Spectarofdeath]

I would love to see this kind of idea in game, both the different fighter designs and the in combat cloak. I know the argument against this is "everyone will just build cloaked ships and destroy everything" but what if the cloakable ships were limited to a certain size range? Lets just say 100 KT to 300 KT (I'm not sure the actual sizes in the game so this is just hypothetical). Now, the size of sub goes up as you get higher techs. Also, since the sub can "fire while cloaked" lets even this out by making it so the "Sub" can only carry a certain type of weapon (not sure if this is possible) that once it fires, it takes forever to reload. Lets say it's a missle that does 5 dmg, and it takes 3 seconds to reload, higher tech, 15 dmg, 20 seconds reload (again, not sure it can be done, really haven't looked into modding it yet). You could also limit the sub's speed so it's not allowed to run away from combat (unless it's against something like a dreadnaught). So in combat this now happens, Sub needs to get into range, anything without detection ability is going to end up running away (not knowing if it's just 1 sub or 500) the subs got limited speed so if it's against something like a CL it MAY get 1 shot at best before the combat ends. Against a DN it may be able to just follow it firing into the rear of the DN, but if your stupid enough to let a DN go away from a fleet with det then you need your brain checked esp. if you know the enemy CAN have the subs. Also love the more "personalized" fighters. Special components for special sizes of hulls. I was thinking of modding in bombers, as a vehicle, then I found out you can use the "can warp" feature, so now it would be a unit. So now you can have a war and not even have to use ships. Build some bombers, (along with some escort fighters for defense against fighers, and some torpedo bombers in case the enemy has some ships) send them through the warp point, move to the enemy planet and start to conduct bombardment. And not sure if this is possible, but it would be cool but what it a unit can transport another unit? Paratrooping special forces anyone? Or even if it's not, still, a transport being escorted by fighters, bombers and things like that, while your main fleet is busy somewhere else....man, the possibilities are endless.

[Kana]

Yeah the 'sub' is the only way I could see that not being abused in any game. Yet for SFB, the Romulans very much use a cloak in tactical combat. It is an important portion of their strategy, yet they are not allowed to use any weapons while they are under cloak. There defintely has to be some downside to using the ability of a cloak to offset the advantages...

[Atrocities]

Yes cloakable ships would be limited to a specific size limitiation. Think of them like submarines. You have your boomers, and your sub hunters/killers.

Boomers would be the largest, with each race having its own unique size limitations if the modder so desired to set it up that way.

I would hope that such weapons as Drones could be used as both a cruise missile weapon, and or a tactical or strategic interstellar weapon of mass destruction simular to our ICBM's.

Tactical is when something is used against a military asset, strategic is when it is used against a civilian target such as a major city or "planet."

Torpedo's would also be as the mainstay of this class of ship with them being semi powerful, fast, and as technology improves, semi to deadly accurate. Of course counter measure components can be researched and put on ships like Destoryers and or other vessels. (Destroyers having the best defense against Torps, while Carriers and Dreadnoughts have the worst.)

Would it be possible to make only missile weapons be able to destory ISBW (Inter Stellar Balistic Weapons) and cruise missiles?

The US and Russan Navy's love to use cruise missiles because they are so hard to kill.

[Kana]

Atrocities said:
Would it be possible to make only missile weapons be able to destory ISBW (Inter Stellar Balistic Weapons) and cruise missiles?

Yep easy, its just a matter of limiting the target types either by name (ISBW) or by unit type which will be either drone or ISBW if you changed it. This is just like it is in SE4...except we can actually add new unit types and add them to the target/nontarget list.

[Spectarofdeath]

Like I said, a downside to the cloak is a slow speed, and slow reload rate, so you get your primary shot from cloak, and depending on the target, lets say a DD with anti cloak technology, if you dont do enough dmg you could end up dead, you would need to run untill you have another shot loaded. Against say a DN (assuming it has no "anti sub" weapons and detection)it becomes a race, the DN tries to retreat and you need to follow it trying to get in as many shots as possible. I'm not sure if it's possible to use a component in combat, like say, a emergency movement pod, but you could have that to help give you a chance to either get away, or try to get in one extra shot. Not to mention the fact that you could always make a anti cloak detector for fighters and make a specific fighter to be used for ASW warfare, suddenly those big, fat, easy target carriers aren't so easy to kill. anymore. I don't know about using the drones, I hate that you can't control them yourself. Also, if you made them as unit type, you can use WP's, so sit on a WP into a enemy system, send some ICBM's through along with maybe some additional 'regular' missiles (to be used against defending ships), clear a path to your target and move in the fleet....but wait, oh oh, here comes a small fleet of enemy subs that was cloaked moving in on your transports, will your escort fighters be enough? Are the anti cloak sensors you have installed on your ASW bombers going to be powerful enough to get the subs? Is it time to bring in your Torpedo boats? (Large units, with AA capabilities as well as torpedos and fast) One other question I wonder about though, is can you make it so that in combat, sensors have a "range"? So lets say your sensors have a 10 ls range, and the enemy sub is 12 ls away, your sensors won't pick up something? Man, it would just add so much more value to the smaller ships.

[Suicide Junkie]

My point is that you DON'T get middle of the road fighters if you do it right.
You can build such multirole fighters in CBmod, but they simply are not as good in battle as efficient specialized designs.

Don't avoid generic hulls because you worry they will lead to a single generic uberdesign.
Balanced components will prevent that without you having to add restrictions.

"Fighter" in SE is IMO very equivalent to "Aircraft" in naval battles.
A bomber is the same basic thing as a dogfighter, just with less speed/engine (QNP is critical), less armor and big, slow bombardment weapons.

In a similar manner, a missile ship, a point defense ship, and an assault gunship are all the same; ships. Battleship size hulls, for a typical example. What you put on them determines what they are.
You can put missiles on an assault ship, but because all that close-quarters armor is a drain and missiles work best from max range, it just dosen't work as well. Mixing the guns is bad too, since you won't be able to use all of them effectively at the same time.
Instead, you have dedicated missile ships and dedicated assault ships and dedicated PD ships. They are individually more efficient, and each design complements the others by covering their weak points.

Because of this, those three designs emerge naturally in any game. A single wanna-be uberdesign fails because a mixed force of more efficient designs can win more battles given the same resources.

---

Allowing flexibility and generality does not result in one omnifighter design, provided that you have appropriately balanced components.
It does work in practice. I see it every day in PBW games of CBmod. Dogfighters, interceptors, bombers and eventually decoy fighters are very very distinctive, even though there are no restrictions on what you install, and the hulls are generalized.

In stock, everything is about making the one uberdesign, plus some logistics.
Proper balance allows or even requires multiple designs to coexist in a highly competitive environment with extremely generic and unrestricted hulls.

/end rant of the day