Ships: The Basics

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

So here's what I've been thinking.  As far as gameplay goes, the dynamics of 'how we fight' should be based on a number of things.  How we create ship profiles and each class should determine the best style of fighting.  I see things breaking down into catagories.

0: Freighters

Since freighters are not combat craft, they do not have a real 'style' of play.  Seeing as freighters would do nothing more than run some support missions, and run from EVERYONE else... there's not much to say.

1: Strike craft.

Drone
Fighter
Bomber

The catagory is for light, FAST craft.  The playing style that dominates here should be on player speed and reflexes dodging just about everything.  The ability to win against bigger, more powerful opponents should depend on the player being smart enough not to challenge larger ships in head to head battles, but instead employing fast, nasty attacks.  Missiles are VERY important to fighters.


2: Escorts

Frigate
Destroyer

These are the smallest of the actual capital ships.  They don't have the coveted manueverability of fighters, or the ability to hit hard like the bigger ships.  This catagory should really be tuned so that the ship classes work best when they're providing some kind of support action or escorting action.  Their small size and ability to use point defenses should make them hard to hit outside of dedicated firefights, and their ability to choose engagements and harass should be very important to the consideration of their speed, mass, armor, and onboard default weapons.

3: Light combatants


Cruiser
Heavy Cruiser

The 'Jack of all Trades' catagory of vessel.  They have the most balanced average of speed and firepower that the dynamics of loadouts on these can quickly change their performance across a wide spectrum of roles. 

4: Heavy Combatants

Battle-cruiser
Dreadnaut
Battleship

the largest ships, with the heaviest gun loadouts and thickest armor.  The heavy combatants catagory should emphasize less on manuevering, and more on smart weapons selection, employment, and accuracy, as well as wise decision making processes.  They lack speed and manueverability, but the ability to lay down a wall of death should make players think twice.

5:  Starbase

A starbase is more or less a defensive and command/control structure.  It really shouldn't be armed to the teeth with bombardment weapons, but it should be well armed.  In a way, it should be the KING of point defense.  With six of it's ten slots dedicated to point defense weapons systems allowing it to stop nearly all the incoming fire it's faced with.  It's armor and shields should also be tough as nails to allow it to soak up massive damage, even in battles with battleships, and still be able to, out of sheer tenacity, drive off the attack ship.  It's lack of any kind of manueverability, and lack of heavy weapons should make it a poor choice for planetary assault, simply because it was never designed to go suppressing planets.


6: Colonies

While not playable, colonies must be considered in combat dynamics.  When one stops to think about it, a planet can be considered nothing more than a REALLY BIG ship... and as such, colonies are going to have REALLY BIG GUNS.  While they lack manueverability, and the measures to defend a population that's spread wide across a planet, they should pack the largest weapons allowed in the game to throw attacks back at orbiting starships.  This would make planetary assault a little more of an exercise in preparing an attack than simply rushing to the next planet.

7: Carriers

Carrier
Battlecarrier
Supercarrier

The last, and newest concept addition to be considered, should be the dynamics of the carriers.  Since the carrier gives the player the choice to act from a distance like they were playing an RTS game rather than an arcade game, some measure should be taken to ensure they balance well with the other ships. 

Standard carriers fit roughly in the cruiser size area, contain two squadrons of drone fighters (4 fighters each), and should be about as tough.
SUPERcarriers, would be in a rank position above battleships, becoming available only as players approach the level of ability to allow them access to a full four squadrons of attack drones totalling sixteen fighters.

A battlecarrier would be a twisted battlecruiser hybrid for the player who can't stand to sit around while the AI does all his work.  It would have only one squadron, and a slightly nerfed battlecruiser layout, allowing them to effectively fight as a slightly understength battlecruiser and a group of fighter drones.


Ships assigned in order of size and rank to unlock for play.  Rank is not relative to actual ranking system, just what level each vessel should be unlocked reletive to others.  Vessels that should more or less become available almost the same time will be equally numbered.  Non combat ships, IE: Frieghters, are not on this chart.

Drone (unplayable)
Fighter 1
Bomber 1
Frigate 1
Destroyer 2
Cruiser 3
Carrier 3
Heavy Cruiser 3
Battlecruiser 4
Battlecarrier 4
Dreadnaut 5
Battleship 6
Supercarrier 7
Starbase 8
Colony (Unplayable)


Anyone else have any ideas to help flesh out the ship concepts?

[Sandtrooper]

How bout some more definitions from other sci-fi stuff (should this help?):

Name (rank), (my desc.)
-------------------------
Gunboat (2) (super heavy fighter, slower than most fighters, but can hold up to a light cruiser)

Corvette (2)

Escort Carrier (6) (I think your "BattleCarrier" covers this)

Light Cruiser (3) (Cruiser but lighter, like a souped-up destroyer)

Strike Cruiser (4) (I'm not sure what a strike cruiser can do in SF)

Orbital Weapons Platform (unplayable) (Equal strength as a Starbase but no point defense, weaker shields and no tractors, and restricted to orbiting the planet that built/spawned it. A Battle-Cruiser can most likely wipe this out)

Mining Freighter (What else can freighters do beside haul colonies?)

Battle Tug (fast low-level repair ship that can tow disabled ships back to a starbase)

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Trouble with a lot of the 'cruiser' ideas is I don't want a bunch of 'cruisers' ... it looks odd when the light combatants catagory consists entirely of various forms of 'cruiser'.

I mean WTF?  If you can find some medium ship names to put in there to 'fill it out' we can go with that.
But as far as the prefix to cruiser, that kind of thing is more determined by a particular loadout.  It was hard enough for me to clench my jaw and put in heavy-cruiser.


I'll google up for a bit... need some research:

NOTES:
1: Monitor

EDIT:

Okay, I did some thinking. This is essentially how I see it.
The ship classes only really determine size, weight, armor, power, and manueverability, along with different sets of weapon mounts.

Actual uses of each ship depend entirely upon how the player ends up loading equipment.  But each class should 'point' in a particular direction of use.  Obviously a massive battleship isn't going to be very effective zipping around like a fighter...

In keeping things general, we don't want anything with a distinct role implied.  So here's a revised class list, broken up by catagory.

Freighter 1

Drone  (Unplayable)
Fighter 1 (Can be equipped as a bomber, so 'bomber' is dropped as a 'class')
Corvette 1

Frigate 2
Destroyer 2

Monitor 3
Cruiser 3
Carrier 4
Battlecruiser 4

Dreadnaught 5
Battlecarrier 5
Battleship 6
Supercarrier 7

Battleplatform (Unplayable)
Starbase 8

Colony (Unplayable)


Here's some dynamics I remembered while thinking.  Asside from missions, people discussed wanting to 'build things'.

So asside from some freight missions I logiced up in the credits thread when I was discussing how the game's internal 'economy' was broken, freighters can be used to construct battle platforms around planets and mining stations on asteroids.  (Instead of colonies, asteroids would be mining centers.)  And battleplatforms built by players would count any kills they make towards the player that built them.

I better dedicate a thread just to freighters. 

[Sandtrooper]

Do I bother trying to help/suggest anymore? I feel like a well hated person here.

I won't disturb you again, sir.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Oh no, you're helpful.  If you hadn't said anything, you wouldn't have triggered that train of thought that lead to the followup.  See, I absolutely ADORE space combat games and I love to make things.  (I'm a regular fan of sim city, I write music, I'm doing my own story, and I've created an entire universe for an X2 and X3 mod.)  So I put a LOT of deep thought into this kind of thing.

Of the things I recognize about game play, I know that people love to have something that feels open ended.  So that's what I'm going for with a wide class range...

But then people hate redundancies.  Who wants thirty ways to do the same thing?  That's interesting, for about the five minutes you spend exploring the redundancies... until you realize they all do the same thing.  Then it gets boring.

In terms of having the classes, we want a wide range of usefull classes, but we don't want a bunch of the same ships flying around with little more than cosmetic changes.  So some serious thought goes into creating classes to be a wide role.  And then allowing the player to determine exactly what it is he's flying.

As an example.  You mentioned gunboats.

A gunboat is a corvette.  Equip it with guns.
Or, make it into a missile boat, equip it to missile spam.
Or perhaps you like to escort a bigger ship... you're nothing but a bristling point defense vehicle.   It depends on your final loadout.  One class, three distinct 'ships'.

See how that allows variety without redundancy and keeps it open ended for the player?  Don't think you're some hated, unwanted waste of network space just because you present an idea and I steamroll it...  The way I tend to think, I will forget to address an issue unless it's brought up.   So until you brought up corvette for example, I completely forgot about them.  Think of it more as you acted as a lightning rod to my brainstorm.

[ChillFactor]

Question about SuperCarrier:

Let's first set the scene, I'm a squad commander on my fleet (FOA in such case) and my entire squad (6 people) are flying with me...
 Would I be able (with the proper rank) to get a supercarrier and haul my squadron to battle? In this case I can be the command ship, providing artillery fire for cover and they can get down doin' the dirty work... or not?

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Carriers will have 'extra slots' for hauling players.  I was discussing that with NiteHawk on AIM about two weeks ago.

Carriers will contain four empty places for hauling people around.  (Essentially, a squadron space) that can hold up to corvette size craft.

So you'll get to carry SOME of your 'squad' around.  But not all of it.  You'll probably want the extra two players to be carrier escorts anyway, like destroyers or frigates.  As when a carrier finds itself without fighters, it's disturbingly naked. 

Combined with your drones, you're looking at something along the lines of twenty craft combined in your 'assault force'.

Essentially, a carrier has the pros of being a force multiplier, but all the ships YOU specificly use are AI controlled drones tied to your carrier.  So it's not like suddenly having a team of twenty at your disposal.

As it stands.

A Battlecarrier has one drone squadron, and the open spaces.

A Carrier, has two drone squadrons and the open spaces.

A Supercarrier has four drone squadrons and the open spaces.


A bonus to player fighters using carriers, carriers will re-arm, and repair fighters and corvettes when they dock, encouraging the use of a carriers as mobile combat platforms.  When used correctly, a carrier with both player and drone fighters are a match even for a Battleship.

[NiteHawk]

Anyways, quick input on this.

A. There should only be one instance of each type of ship, but they can be customized to there liking, that is what SF has always been and will be about.. In a sense. There will always be changes here and there, however.

I think we should just keep standard names. Corvette, Frigate, Destroyer, BattleCruiser, blahblah. You get the point.

Drones are simply what generic capital ships have. I agree with this too.

Fighters and corvettes should be small type ships then what they are currently. But why the name fighter and corvettes, whats the big difference between them? Isn't a fighter similar to a drone? Drones will be very small, and pack a moderate punch in groups. You should beable to state to attack, defend, the drones..

But fighters and corvettes? Why not just leave drones as fighters, (Drone Fighters, Drone Bombers, blahblah). And start at corvettes. Corvettes being a good amount smaller then what they currently are, which is a pretty good size of a capital starting ship.

In general we're going to shape up what ships we have first, then add such things, like fighters, and give freighters a better purpose. Like ATC said, I'd like them to be part of resources and such. I'm not so sure about giving them vast roles, and I think they should be more based on AI using them. But they can play a part of transporting resources needed from planet to planet and other things like that, though you can transport stuff yourself.

As for the building, I was thinking more of a engineer ship no? More based on repairing ships and building things. If it's such a huge deal for freighters to have a better role, then freighters having one engineer drone perhaps to build or repair.

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Update to the heigherarchy:

Number denotes 'level' of playable ship.

UTILITY CLASS
Freighter 1
Colony Transport Vessel 1

STRIKE CLASS
Drone  (Unplayable)
Fighter 1 (Can be equipped as a bomber, so 'bomber' is dropped as a 'class')
Corvette 1

PATROL (Sub-Capital) CLASS
Frigate 2
Destroyer 2

LINE COMBATANT (CAPITAL) CLASS
Monitor 3
Cruiser 3
Carrier 4
Battlecruiser 4

SUPERCAPITAL CLASS
Dreadnaught 5
Battlecarrier 5
Battleship 6
Supercarrier 7

STATIONS
Starbase 8

Battlestation (Unplayable, as well as all listed below)
Orbital Shipyard
Repair Dock
Resupply Dock
Hydrogen Harvesting station.
Gun Platforms
Jump Gates
Space Colony

SURFACE FACILITIES
Asteroid Mine
Colony


PIRATE SHIPS

Skiff  1
Raider 3
Maurader 4
Corsair 5

SURFACE FACILITIES
Pirate Base

[ChillFactor]

I like this lineup, but what kind of ship is the monitor?

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

I was researching ships to fill out the the mid range so I didn't have to reuse a name with a prefix, and a monitor was a ship that was around cruiser-ish size that was used to 'monitor' shipping areas and coastal areas way back in the early days of powered shipping.  Kind of an overkill security patrol ship.

[ChillFactor]

Scouts with tons of steroids...?

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

More like a cruiser modified to do a Frigate's job.

[ChillFactor]

so a cruiser with a lot of hauling space...

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Better description:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monitor_(warship)