Genius idea for making small ships useful

[Timotheus]

Here's a genius idea.


The game already has a solution, a VERY COOL solution on how to implement the ship size differences in game and make small ships effective.

Acceleration (and Direction Thrusters).

Small ships should accelerate like a bat out of hell, in later techs instantaneously, while a large capital ship will take its sweet time to accelerate to its full speed. At lower tech a capital ship/cruiser size should be VERY ponderous. Also, thrusters should be MUCH more efficient for smaller ships than for capitals, it should take a looooong time for a cruiser to turn.

This would allow more sophisticated tactics, such as hit and run attacks by smaller ships on larger ones, launch missiles/torpedoes and bugger off... rinse, repeat.

This is EXTREMELY COOL, changes the game for the better, and is EXTREMELY EASY to implement for the dev(s) - simply choose accelerations for various ship sizes.


I would also like to have a separate research branch that will unlock the next size class of ships, and that classes of ships have size limits which are rigid. So in the beginning you have to build escort class ships, as the tech for frigates and beyond is yet to be unlocked.

To continue this idea, there should be MINIATURIZATION for weapons and other ship components, which would be a choice for player/AI to pursue or not. It would distract player from the usual higher tech research, but would be cool to have small ships with some powerful, miniaturized to fit components and weapons. And of course once higher class of ship is unlocked, you could fit quite a bit more of those miniaturized components in there...


Those are two cool, not that hard to implement ideas (OK, the 2nd one would require AI adjustments, but is worth it IMO).

Will they happen?

Of course not - am just pissing on the wind, the devs don't read this, and I will have to make a mod to REALLY enjoy this game.

It has potential, and the engine is already built - what I want to happen are small tweaks which would IMMENSELY improve the game experience.

[Shogouki]

Another thing would be to add in increased chance to miss a ship with weapons fire as their size decreases and possibly as their speed and/or maneuverability increases.

And I do agree, there are some things that I would just LOVE to see modded into this game other than total conversions. Maybe just more weapons, techs, and some fleet behaviors could really make the experience even better than it already is. However I'm in no way skilled enough to mod a game without tools, so this next expansion has me very excited!

[Canute0]

Small ships should accelerate like a bat out of hell, in later techs instantaneously, while a large capital ship will take its sweet time to accelerate to its full speed. At lower tech a capital ship/cruiser size should be VERY ponderous. Also, thrusters should be MUCH more efficient for smaller ships than for capitals, it should take a looooong time for a cruiser to turn.

But what is the logic behind this ? Just because our military history show that battleship was big and clumsy ?
How fast and agile are ships are , are just a question about the Size(mass)/engine ratio. Maybe the hull takes part of it too.
But there is no real need that Battleship/Capitals NEED to be slow and clumpsy.
At DW you have the control over your designs, not like other games where you have fixed shiphulls.
Noone prevent you to give your Capital the same amount of % to the engines like you gave them to the frigate.

The only thing would be the shipsize itself. Ships with a smaller size are a smaller target and harder to hit.
But does this realy matter ?
Our modern weapons systems, guns and misieles can hit there target within a accuracy of a few meter on their max. combat distance. It doesn't matter if the target are 100 or 1000m long.

Basicly i am against this, that Shipclass shouldn't give special advances or disadvances, since DW got a free design system.
They should overwork more the ECM/EECM targeting system more. It can't be that just 1 targeting module give the same boost for just 1 weapon like for 100. Or does 1 ECM protect a 300 size ship like a 1500 size one.

[Timotheus]

"But what is the logic behind this ?"

The logic is that heavier ships take longer to turn/accelerate. Once they reach max speed, however, they are just as fast as small ships.


"How fast and agile are ships are , are just a question about the Size(mass)/engine ratio."

Right - and different classes ships should have turn/acceleration penalties. The design paradigm will be tweaked a bit - you could make a cruiser turn as fast as a fighter, but the cost of how many turn thrusters you will need will make it not worth your while.


"Basicly i am against this, that Shipclass shouldn't give special advances or disadvances, since DW got a free design system. "

Right, that is why players go with one ship name of whatever class and then just pile on/change the components as they research better construction techs.

This results in complete lack of variety of warship types on player's part - perhaps you only need three: a planetary bombardment vessel, a troop transport and the most powerful warship you can design, of whatever maximum size you can. Perhaps a carrier if you are so inclined.

Meanwhile the silly AI is stuck using the Legends legacy of designing silly escorts and frigates by the droves, resulting in your uber warship curb stomping everything the AI throws at you.

To go with your "XXI Century modern navy" example - the US Navy does not have one class of warship. It has anti-sub, AEGIS anti-air, escorts, frigates, spec ops ships, missile boats, patrol boats, torpedo boats, destroyers (all rounders), cruisers...

I am leaving the DW "free design" idea - it is a good one. I AM making ship classes rigid, with size min-max limitations per class, and to unlock a bigger class a new tech research is needed, and bigger ships DO have a turn/acceleration penalty/disadvantage. The big ships advantage is big though (ahhhh, pun) - they can mount many more components/weapons on them.

Late tech thrust/engines will have so much thrust/power that they WILL be able to turn/accelerate a capital ship as fast as a fighter, taking turn/accelerate penalties away - resulting in what we have now in DW, one class warship for the player with no need for variety and different roles... and no need for thinking... and ESPECIALLY no need for tactics.

[Deathball]

And your system does not take variety away? There are maybe four real ship roles in Distant Worlds, patrol boat, ship destroyer, troop transport and carrier. The latter two are self explanatory, for the former there are two very specific mission statements. The patrol boat must be as numerous (meaning cheap) as possible to cover large areas while being strong enough to contend with the most common threats (pirates). This is the escort. The ship destroyer must be able to destroy enemy ships without getting destroyed itself, meaning as many guns and shields as possible. This is the capital ship. Neither acceleration nor maneuverability are necessary for any of these roles. If you impose arbitrary limits the most you'll achieve is the patrol boat shifts from escort to frigate if the escort isn't large enough anymore. Hit and run makes no sense because there are regenerating shields and taking a heavy capital out completely takes too long and while you plink away at my shields I invade your colonies. Neither arbitrary limits nor arbitrary bonuses for acceleration and maneuverability make sense because neither stats are very useful.

You use the US Navy as an example but if you look at them they all have very specific roles that are already apparent from the name alone. They don't have 5 different classes that are all designed to combat enemy surface vessels just because one is slightly more maneuverable. They have one missile cruiser design for that because the missile cruiser fills that role the best. Every other role is filled by another ship optimized for a role and speedy ships are only speedy if their mission requires them to be. So if you look to diversify DW ship design you need to introduce new roles for ships, new mission types beyond just "escort stuff" and "kill stuff." You need to introduce missions where high speed/cheapness are an advantage more so than more guns and shields so the optimal ship for that role will be as small as possible. Your arbitrary limits would do nothing except introduce arbitrary limits for the sake of being arbitrary.

[Darkspire]

This results in complete lack of variety of warship types on player's part

Not really. I use them all and they are incredibly useful, I think it has been mentioned but not to any degree near useful that each class also has an AI routine specific to that role, Escorts and Frigates escort ships, Cruisers and Destroyers patrol stations etc. Not saying it is perfect, it isn't, but it works and works fairly well.
I was and still am amazed at how Elliot has managed to get things running in DW as they do. I dabble in code and know that for anything to happen in DW it requires a routine, so your on a 15x15 1400 and have over 2000 freighters and a large amount of warships etc, every one of those must access a core code to work, adding complicated routines to the ships would be absolutely spot on, on paper. In reality, even with current tech, it is not really feasible due to the added load on accessing those routines.
Right or wrong I design the ships the way I felt was intended,

Escorts are fighters.
Frigates are heavy fighters.
Destroyers are first level war ships.
Cruisers are second level war ships.
Capitals are the top end warship.
Carriers are a floating fortress with added mobile short range attack drones.

All my designs are scaled from the escort up, for example, weapons (that are upgraded per tech) W=weapon. T=torpedo. S=shield.

Escort 2xW 2xT 2xS
Frigate 4xW 2xT 2xS
Destroyer 6xW 2xT 2xS
Cruiser 8xW 4xT 4xS
Capital 10xW 4xT 8xS

No lack of variety there and those are just the real 'attack' classes and designs. I think the way it has been done is spot on, you want something more realistic? go find a 4x that only has a solar system to play in, not a galaxy.
DW feels 'alive' with all the ship activity etc, it is far from perfect but still kicks the butt of every 4x out there, I feel I have sufficient experience on the matter as I have been playing them all for over 20+ years.

Darkspire

[Canute0]

"How fast and agile are ships are , are just a question about the Size(mass)/engine ratio."

Right - and different classes ships should have turn/acceleration penalties. The design paradigm will be tweaked a bit - you could make a cruiser turn as fast as a fighter, but the cost of how many turn thrusters you will need will make it not worth your while.

You say Yes and no for the same thing. You can't say right that it is a question of the ratio, and say no they should have penalties.
These " design paradigm " comes automatical and isn't fixed when you design your kind of ships.
My " design paradigm " say Battleships need to be fast and agile like fighters, sure they carry lesser weapons/shield but thats my paradigm, and this shouldn't be foreced by the game who just allow me to set up a special amount of engines by a class.

Let the player decide what kind of ship class he want not the Devs/game.
Maybe DW should got a new Research Tree, Ship hulls. Like at Star Ruler you can have then light (less mass, higher accerlation,all modules got lesser HP), standard, heavy (higher mass, modules got more HP) hulls.

[Plant]

Small ships are useful, just not as pure combat ships. As it should be. Otherwise I would design my combat ships as small as possile and everyone would complain about why small ships are the most useful.

In real life people don't make small ships becuase they think it is cool. They design the ships to fit a purpose and that purpose ends up with a smaller ship design compared to that other ship purpose which ends up with a larger ship design.

You want to put size limitations on ship classes. Ok, what this means is that I simply keep making the largest ship possible for combat ships. Nothing has changed for me, except the naming.

Why do you see the need to force ship design into your own personal roleplaying devices at the penalty of everybody else roleplaying devices? A person who wants to build and design the most efficient ships would do just that anyways, it is your fellow roleplayers who you are most hurting by suggesting this.

You talk about miniaturization as a distraction from higher tech research, but that is what it effectively is, another form of higher tech research. In real life smaller ships can go faster because of changes in hullform that becomes possible, with spaceships in space, this sort of related game mechanic isn't desirable.

You use the example of a modern navy, but ship classes for the most part follow outdated names kept for reasons of tradition as opposed to their original roles. Cruisers are no longer designed for a cruising role. Destroyers are no longer designed to destroy missile boats to protect nonexistant battleships. Cruisers and destroyers in different navies have totally different roles. So as it is in real life, so it is in Distant Worlds. Well, not quite becuase of differing AI automaton on different ship roles, but for manual control, this holds true.

BTW, the sole programmer does read these threads as does his advisor. Sometimes.

[Spidey]

ORIGINAL: Canute

But what is the logic behind this ? Just because our military history show that battleship was big and clumsy ?
How fast and agile are ships are , are just a question about the Size(mass)/engine ratio. Maybe the hull takes part of it too.

I agree. What isn't clear, however, is that size and mass have to be linearly scaled. If the mass was doubled by a size 100 increase then a size 400 would would have twice the mass of a size 300 and four times the mass of a size 200. In this case, simply maintaining the thrust to size ratio would still result in greatly decreased performance. As it is, the game has mass as a linear function of size.

Would there be a point to this change? It would somewhat increase realism and it certainly would change "efficient design" to be a role-determined balance between thrust, weapons, and defense, but given the level of abstraction with respect to combat tactics, I'm not sure if it would be in line with the design choices of the game. In fact I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't be, because if that's what they wanted then I'm sure they would have simply done it to begin with.

[Buio]

There is no problem having big ships be generally better. You can still balance it with things like cost or need for special resources. Problem is that the game seems to get runaway economics at some point when you just start to amass wealth. But I guess you gonna win then anyway.

I like games where you can have just a few of a ultimate unit due to limitations, but they can be really powerful. Like for example the Titan class in Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion.

[Plant]

With regard to balance, bigger ships are sort off balanced already with respect to cost and need for special resources in that half the size is half the cost and resources. Fixed limitations never really makes sense in any game from a freeform perspective, like Distant Worlds. Besides, in SOASE, the Titan's primary role is support and can only fight cost effectively because they rather ironically take up little supply points for their cost.

[aaatoysandmore]

ORIGINAL: Timotheus

Here's a genius idea.


The game already has a solution, a VERY COOL solution on how to implement the ship size differences in game and make small ships effective.

Acceleration (and Direction Thrusters).

Small ships should accelerate like a bat out of hell, in later techs instantaneously, while a large capital ship will take its sweet time to accelerate to its full speed. At lower tech a capital ship/cruiser size should be VERY ponderous. Also, thrusters should be MUCH more efficient for smaller ships than for capitals, it should take a looooong time for a cruiser to turn.

This would allow more sophisticated tactics, such as hit and run attacks by smaller ships on larger ones, launch missiles/torpedoes and bugger off... rinse, repeat.

This is EXTREMELY COOL, changes the game for the better, and is EXTREMELY EASY to implement for the dev(s) - simply choose accelerations for various ship sizes.


I would also like to have a separate research branch that will unlock the next size class of ships, and that classes of ships have size limits which are rigid. So in the beginning you have to build escort class ships, as the tech for frigates and beyond is yet to be unlocked.

To continue this idea, there should be MINIATURIZATION for weapons and other ship components, which would be a choice for player/AI to pursue or not. It would distract player from the usual higher tech research, but would be cool to have small ships with some powerful, miniaturized to fit components and weapons. And of course once higher class of ship is unlocked, you could fit quite a bit more of those miniaturized components in there...


Those are two cool, not that hard to implement ideas (OK, the 2nd one would require AI adjustments, but is worth it IMO).

Will they happen?

Of course not - am just pissing on the wind, the devs don't read this, and I will have to make a mod to REALLY enjoy this game.

It has potential, and the engine is already built - what I want to happen are small tweaks which would IMMENSELY improve the game experience.

Nah don't need anymore for the ai to think and use it's already a simpleton. Plus you have no idea what one change in coding leads to. It's not so simple like you think. Sometimes it creates a chain of events and checks and balances. So nothing is simple to just change a line of code. Think your thought through next time. You'll see what I mean. If you are smart like a programmer that is. lol

[ASHBERY76]

It comes down to the economy.If Dagestan could afford 10 super carriers they would build them instead of fishing boats with ak47's.The economy in DW is just poorly scaled with bloat mid game onwards so small ships are pointless.

[Buio]

ORIGINAL: Plant
Fixed limitations never really makes sense in any game from a freeform perspective, like Distant Worlds. Besides, in SOASE, the Titan's primary role is support and can only fight cost effectively because they rather ironically take up little supply points for their cost.

I didn't say I wanted exactly SOASE-ships in Distant Worlds. I just said I liked the idea of huge ships you'd never get to buy a lot of.

I'd take another larger ship class in Distant Worlds within the same rules for end game purposes. Which would not be possible to get a lot of due to economics and resources requirements, scaled up. In my last game I could build capital ships relatively early in the game compared to when the game ended. In the later parts I just didn't build any smaller ships any more.

And in the end; game play fun and balance is still better than to strictly follow same game design just because of coherency and logic even if the latter would be preferable if possible with the first one intact.

[Gizuria]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

It comes down to the economy. If Dagestan could afford 10 super carriers they would build them instead of fishing boats with ak47's.The economy in DW is just poorly scaled with bloat mid game onwards so small ships are pointless.

This is what I think too. IMO, Construction and maintainance costs are too low for these monsters.

[Brainsucker]

IF DW has implement radar system, I think small ship has an advantage to be harder to detect by radar. Small frame means stealthier. While bigger hull mean that the enemy can see you from a far-far away.

So for DW to improve, they can add "a more radar system", so small ship can be useful to do some surgical attack, like attacking some radar station and blind the enemy's capability to see your ships movement.

[drmario89]

ORIGINAL: Brainsucker

IF DW has implement radar system, I think small ship has an advantage to be harder to detect by radar. Small frame means stealthier. While bigger hull mean that the enemy can see you from a far-far away.

I think the stealth cloak component works like this. However, I don't know if the AI will rally a defense if they see an incoming attack fleet, so stealth may be a not-so-useful component kinda like the scanner jamming component. Again, I don't know if the AI takes any of that stuff into consideration. These components are probably intended to be used by the AI against the player rather than the player against the AI, so designing small ships so that they'll be stealthier may not be useful for the player. Again, I don't really know how the AI thinks regarding those components on the player's ships. I'm not entirely confident in the correctness of what I just said, so if anyone can elaborate on this, please do.

[Canute0]

Yep, the stealth system works at this way. But since Radar are only lightspeed it use the hyper-emission detection the a Warp-engine allways emitte. The stealth can reduce these emission this means that ship i later show on Long-range scanner.
And since ANY ship carry just 1 Warp engine, a small ship don't give any advance, and a stealth system to absorbe the hyper-emission is very big/heavy.

But this don't influence any combat, a stealth cloak like at Star Trek, when a ship stay invisible until it fires, don't exist at DW.

[DWA86]

Wouldn't it make sense as time goes on what's "small" changes. At some point a 500 ship is small if all your others are 1500. Like how the size of a destroyer from ww2 and now has changed. Really the role/class what ever its called is the cool part.

The reason small craft had some sort of value relatively recently was the advent of torpedoes which aren't effective on small craft. This gave smaller ships the ability to punch above their weight and be dangerous to larger ships prior to that aside from a few niche roles smaller ships didn't participate in major battles as a major combatant they were off escorting and commerce raiding. There is no such asymmetrical weapon in DW. Later they functioned as air defense screens for aircraft carrying well often times torpedoes. Then missiles came about and same deal sit in front to screen the more valuable ships. Problem is your comparing naval war science and trying to put it in space. No curvature of the earth and all ships no aerodynamic advantage. But If you really wanted to notice the US navy is getting pretty close to an all 200m plus fleet for major combatants with smaller ships do niche non major combat roles. Its a dynamic I don't think is broken, if anything id like to be able to design my own classification of ships and determine its character to include what types of fleets it would join.

A class of ship isn't a size parameter it a mission set, what you do the mission with is up to you. That would be saying why don't bombers have 4 props and a tail gunner. Sometimes now what you bomb with has one prop and a pilot in Nevada.
Things you could do is have hard limits for hull size class but maybe I designed my destroyers to outclass theirs like the US did with the Fletchers in WW2, they were the size of light cruisers and called destroyers must have made the Japanese furious.

Id like some blank classes I can define the behavior on. Maybe I want some battle cruisers, heavy and light cruisers moniters, corvettes and so on.

I would debate the merit of stealth in space with current tech we can see incredibly small things all the way out to pluto.

Really what your asking for is the equivalent of a torpedo you want a weapon effective on large ships but not on small, that would necessitate the need for a screen of smaller ships and the ability of smaller ships to win an asymmetrical engagement.

Another thought. All ships mount essentially the same armament. Use titan beams for example if you pack twenty of them on a ship for 600ish damage that may be more effective against multiple smaller ships than 5 (insert new big gun here) that total say 800 or more damage. That change might require a mid weight ship optimized to kill small ships to screen out your smaller ships further adding to diversity. Maybe some battleship grade cannons are what's needed and some kind of torpedo analogue.

[Canute0]

Good posting DWA86 !!!!!
Like i said, people need to create their own class and class-abilitys.

US did with the Fletchers in WW2, they were the size of light cruisers and called destroyers must have made the Japanese furious.

The player will create new designs with EMP weapons, no shields and extra armor/engines and call it Mistbuster once they encounter Silvermist.

Maybe some battleship grade cannons are what's needed and some kind of torpedo analogue.

Maybe like at MOO2, you have serveral mount posibles. Heavy with extra range,damage,size but min. fire range.