Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Fury on October 08, 2002, 04:31:39 am
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Please let me start with a bit of background information you're all familiar with.
Maxin barely damages shields, but does pretty good job on armor.
Circe works well against shields but won't scratch armor.
Of course the two weapons above uses different methods to prove their effect, but they are examples in this case.
Now, what if SCP team could remove 10% limitation on bigger capital ships that prevents fighters from destroying them? Instead we could use tables to define such things.
For example:
Fighters are still pretty effective against cruisers, but weapons are doing less damage against thicker armor plating.
Corvettes are using even better amour, heavier materials and more armor plating and so on. It is very noticeable here that fighter weapons are making significantly less damage.
Destroyer, well they are big ships with very good armour. You need to pummel for ages to do any significant damage.
Juggernaughts, oh boy... you need bombers to even scratch the plating here.
Of course, with help from SCP team you could define subsystems that are more vulnerable than main armor plating. Making fighters still effective at disarming and disabling.
Or you can equip fighters with missiles that are designed to destroy subsystems. Bombers can go after the ship itself.
The 10% restriction/limitation/whatever is so artificial.
I can't put it better, but I think you know what I mean.
And sorry if this matter has been brought up before... :nervous:
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Originally posted by Mr. Fury
Fighters are still pretty effective against cruisers, but weapons are doing less damage against thicker armor plating.
Corvettes are using even better amour, heavier materials and more armor plating and so on. It is very noticeable here that fighter weapons are making significantly less damage.
Destroyer, well they are big ships with very good armour. You need to pummel for ages to do any significant damage.
Juggernaughts, oh boy... you need bombers to even scratch the plating here.
It's already implemented--by way of hitpoints. You need to pummel a corvette longer than a cruiser to blow it up, right?
Of course, with help from SCP team you could define subsystems that are more vulnerable than main armor plating. Making fighters still effective at disarming and disabling.
Subsystem strength is already defined in the table as a percentage of the main hull strength. Thus turrets are relatively easy to destroy; engines and weapons have more armor than, say, Nav or Comm because they are prime targets.
Or you can equip fighters with missiles that are designed to destroy subsystems. Bombers can go after the ship itself.
That's why there are (were?) light bombers like the Zeus and Athena that can carry Stilettos and Synaptic bombs, but nothing really heavy. They're designed to strike quickly and soften up the target before heavy bombers like the Ursa are sent in to destroy it.
The 10% restriction/limitation/whatever is so artificial.
I can't put it better, but I think you know what I mean.
I know what you mean. :nod:
Perhaps the best way to do this is an exponential damage system--say a weapon does 16 damage per shot. Once the destroyer's hull is at 20% (critical) the weapon only does 8 damage per shot. If it's at 10% the weapon does 4 damage, at 5% 2 damage, and the last 1% the weapon only does 1 damage per shot. (The Huge flag in the weapons table would override this, of course.)
This would be a better, more realistic way to decrease fighter effectiveness. And what's more, it wouldn't be hard to implement, since it is already implementedd, in a way--has everyone noticed it takes longer to destroy the last 1% of the hull than to reduce it 1% any other time?
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Yes, there are hitpoints which are like how much armor plating there is. But still, bigger ship classes does have better armour that reduces fighter weapon damage.
For example, fighters and bombers takes full damage from fighter weapons. For cruisers, this could be decreased 20%, for corvettes 40%, for destroyers 60% and so on. And it would be much better if you could define subsystem strenghts in tables (overriding default value).
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If you ask me all the Capital ships that can be damaged by Cannons are pretty useless.
Even the Aeolus (Spelling?) or the Mentu mean nothing when there are fighters around carrying the Maxim cannon because of it's long range.
All they can do is sit there and take the beating and hope they got some fighter cover to go after the Maxim shooters.
This was the standard tactic during my Squadwar days, pound the light Capital ships with several Maxim cannons while the rest of the team protected the shooters from incomming fighters.
And the Deimos is pretty strong but even this ship can be taken down in seconds in a combined attack with Myrmidon's (Spelling?) carrying 2 Helios Torpedoes each.
Only 3 have to make it to the Deimos and launch close to point blank their Torpedoes and bye bye Deimos.
Actually if you take a good look at the weapons the fighters and bombers can carry all Capital ships are just waiting to be blown to bits.
You can simply use the Trebuchette's (Spelling?) to take out the beam/flak/missile/laser turrets while gunning down the crucial sub systems with the Maxim cannon and soon it will be a sitting duck.
This is how we used to cripple the Hecate since all 4 of the engines were located in the rear and are so large that you can still hit them from 2500/3000 meters out easy.
The only use the large Capital ships have is that they serve as a base for the fighter and the bomber squadrons.
Other then that they just make pretty explosions in space.
So yes, the fighter and their weapons are very effective. (Maybe a bit too effective ;))
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I like how it was done in Starlancer - you could only blast things like Kurgens, but anything bigger and you couldn't - you needed torpedoes. Sure, you could blast off engines, comms arrays and turrets, but the ship stayed very much in one piece.
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another big problem is that given the surface area of the juggernauts, they should have about 1,000,000 times the armor of a fighter, and the destroyers about 10,000. but then for that to be playable you need to up the damage of bombs ect.
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Originally posted by Carl
another big problem is that given the surface area of the juggernauts, they should have about 1,000,000 times the armor of a fighter, and the destroyers about 10,000. but then for that to be playable you need to up the damage of bombs ect.
Well, why not? Add an extra zero at the end of the hit point values for the capital ships, and an extra one to the damage values of the bombs and beams. If after doing that we make turrets and subsystems one tenth of their current relative values, they'll be right back where they are now, so disarming a capital ship will still be as possible as ever, but actually destroying it will be much more difficult.
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OK, theres no point in doing this for the sake of it. It will unbalance all V's missions and all MOD missions in progress.
If a particular mod wants this then that makes sence and perhaps we can do something but if these are just random suggestions then they're worth is debatable.
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Originally posted by GalacticEmperor
It's already implemented--by way of hitpoints. You need to pummel a corvette longer than a cruiser to blow it up, right?
what? no...
anything over a cruiser has the flag "Big Damage", which prevents it from falling below 10% hull integrity by weapons that do not have the flag "huge". Only "Huge" weapons can destroy "Big damage" vessels. Huge weapons includes beams, flak, blobs, bombs, and some missiles (fusion mortar, treb, etc). Personally I think this system is fine how it is. Fighters should not be able to take anything out thats bigger then a cruiser.
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I just tried some missions (no names) and was frustrated cause in each I was able to disarm/disable numerous ships but couldn't get then below 10% damage and they just sat there while me and my wingmates pummeled them forever... I mean that's ridiculous! I would rather redo the Hit points to take into account the differences from a fighter to frigate - corvette - cruiser - destroyer - capship - super cap - dreadnaught - planet killer...
I mean even a fighter has a chance against a planet killer (like.00001%) but hey if I shoot it, it's still taking damage, just might take me a few hours - though the planet probably will be dead by then!!!!!!
So I will suggest that hitpoints be re-examined and any weapons needing to do more damage be upgraded also but leave the standard fighter weapons alone... No big deal (oh yeah take out that big damage flag)
nuff said... (I will begin an analysis later on like next weekend or something)...
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I get your point but I think its a mission flaw, a wing of ships should come out and kill you or the ship should depart if its the only thing left.
Otherwise we end up in a ST Hades type situation where you find somewhere safe to hide and tie a rubber band round your joystick, put it up to x4 and go away for tea. I dont think thats really any better.
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Yeah heavy health points on big ships sounds good... I don't think I actually 'though' of this yet... more just like I want the ships to be hard against fighters but not THAT hard....
10% Humm... never had that before... or Have I.....???
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Yes I did that too (but never read the manual about time compression) :mad:
Besides all those nice hiding places in the Hades was a design flaw. What ship can you name besides installations that the hades maneuver works on? Not many... So that argument is flimsy IMHO...
:wink:
Yeah it was beta testing BUT the occurance never was thought of... Given the weapons you had and the forces opposing you those kind of events weren't suppose to happen. So yes you could say mission was flawed, BUT I rather think that in war ANYTHING can happen. Besides, superior tactics can compensate for lack of raw brute force....
BTW shout out to all modders who have released demos, dumps and files inthe last few months... Kudos! Some really great stuff guys, we love ya for it! :yes:
But like George Carlin says: "We need MORE stuff!"
I still have 1.3 gig left on my 70 gig drive, and 2 gig left on the 40 gig external!!! ;7
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When I played ST I was doing OK against the Hades until my support ship was disabled and got stuck inside the hull of the Hades which left me with no other choice.