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Re: Missiles in the games

#136
Still agree with Cornflakes here. I feel that hardpoints being specific sizes is necessary for ship variety. I'm against multiple smaller guns in large hardpoints. Rather I think all these decisions should be make when building (Or retrofitting?) your ships. Want to build an anti-fighter battleship? Build it with 15 C1 hardpoints. Want to make a battleship that punches it's own weight? Build it with 5 C3 hardpoints instead. Of course, the amounts can be mixed. You can of course have 3 C3 hardpoints and 6 C1s.

I don't think this should be the be all and end all though, hardpoints should definitely be able to be changed with sufficient facilities and materials.

Either that or a hardpoint can contain only one weapon of its size or below.
<Detritus> I went up to my mom and said "hey... do you feel like giving five dollars to black lives matter?" and she laughed and said no :v <Black--Snow> my life does matter though ~~ added by Hema on Jun 11 2020 (2770)
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Re: Missiles in the games

#137
Black--Snow wrote:Either that or a hardpoint can contain only one weapon of its size or below.
^ this.
Why? Because Freighters have no need for C10 weapons when they have C10 slots, their biggest threat are small fighters that pirates fly,
So instead they fit C3 turrets and have a crapton of ammo available for them, because the C10 slot is massive (thus the ammo store is also massive)
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Re: Missiles in the games

#138
The requirement of guns filling integer multiples of the smallest gun size also forces linear scaling onto them, with more disconnected size classes we can have more spread in terms of capability between sizes.

with linear scaling we'd end up with capitals that need dozends of turrets to fit an approbiate amount of DPS in the largest size class or we'd get absolutely ridicolous differences in the turret volume numbers.

Turrets with 1000 volume available to them and similar nonsense, as a capital with 200 times the size in all axes, a size spread of 1:8000000 doesnt work well in linear scales
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Re: Missiles in the games

#139
Cornflakes_91 wrote:The requirement of guns filling integer multiples of the smallest gun size also forces linear scaling onto them, with more disconnected size classes we can have more spread in terms of capability between sizes.

with linear scaling we'd end up with capitals that need dozends of turrets to fit an approbiate amount of DPS in the largest size class or we'd get absolutely ridicolous differences in the turret volume numbers.

Turrets with 1000 volume available to them and similar nonsense, as a capital with 200 times the size in all axes, a size spread of 1:8000000 doesnt work well in linear scales
I understood like 1% of what you said. :S
<Detritus> I went up to my mom and said "hey... do you feel like giving five dollars to black lives matter?" and she laughed and said no :v <Black--Snow> my life does matter though ~~ added by Hema on Jun 11 2020 (2770)
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Re: Missiles in the games

#140
josh has said that ships will have a size spread of about 200 for the biggest ship.
So the lenght of a supercap is 200 times the lenght of the smallest fighter.
This factor is about the lenght of external dimensions, not about volume, the volume rises with lenght to the power of three, so l^3.
For a small ship this is 1, for the supercap that is 8million.

And if hardpoints are directly defined by volume, the capital would also have 8million times the hardpoint space.
So you could mount 8million times the small ships equipment in the capital.

so, to prevent capital ships from being an impossible chore to fill, their equipment would have to scale similarily, then you get cannons being eight million times the size of small ship cannons, that would also enable you to mount 8 million small ship cannons on that ship without any repercussions
Instant computer death if that thing decides to do something.

Ludicrous numbers are ludicrous.
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Re: Missiles in the games

#141
Cornflakes_91 wrote:josh has said that ships will have a size spread of about 200 for the biggest ship.
So the lenght of a supercap is 200 times the lenght of the smallest fighter.
This factor is about the lenght of external dimensions, not about volume, the volume rises with lenght to the power of three, so l^3.
For a small ship this is 1, for the supercap that is 8million.

And if hardpoints are directly defined by volume, the capital would also have 8million times the hardpoint space.
So you could mount 8million times the small ships equipment in the capital.

so, to prevent capital ships from being an impossible chore to fill, their equipment would have to scale similarily, then you get cannons being eight million times the size of small ship cannons, that would also enable you to mount 8 million small ship cannons on that ship without any repercussions
Instant computer death if that thing decides to do something.

Ludicrous numbers are ludicrous.
Well, I can't fault you on that. However, it would be absolutely amazing to see a clusterfuck (Imagine: Tumor?) of guns on a spaceship.
<Detritus> I went up to my mom and said "hey... do you feel like giving five dollars to black lives matter?" and she laughed and said no :v <Black--Snow> my life does matter though ~~ added by Hema on Jun 11 2020 (2770)
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Re: Missiles in the games

#142
Cornflakes_91 wrote:BFett: Theres a question: how should that slot system work with hardpoints that are distributed over the hull?
Hardpoints would have to be defined by type and restricted in number. A ship could have up to 4 energy hardpoints. The player could choose where these hardpoints are placed during construction. The slot system would then be used as a defined limit as to what amount of space weapons and equipment can take up in a given section of the ship.
Cornflakes_91 wrote: You cant just unify two random turret mounts from opposite points of the hull and say thats your new size two turret.

Where does that turret get placed?
If I understand you, you're correct assuming that if both mounts are size one then neither can mount a size two turret.
Cornflakes_91 wrote: With all the mech games its either fully text or 100% hardcoded placement of equipment, you dont have to account for the placement of the hardpoints, as every device has a pretty fixed point and orientation.

But in LT theres an infinite amount of devices, and those wont be fixed in location and orientation.
Equipment isn't hard-coded in the mechwarrior games. For instance Mech Warrior Online allows you to place a heat-sink where ever you would like to. You are correct that hardpoint placement is predetermined in mech games.
Cornflakes_91 wrote: The only thing that could work would be that hardpoints have a size rating, and you can fill up that size with multiple devices if you desire.
So a class 3 hardpoint could hold a single C3 weapon, or C2+C1 or 3 C1.
Those hardpoints would have independent point pools and fixed locations, so if you have 10 C1 turrets over your hull you cant just swap them out for a single C10 gun.
This is exactly how the slot system works. A C3 weapon would take up 3 slots in my system, C2 being 2 slots and C1 being 1 slot. There are a limited number of slots which are divided up into sections which represent each section of the ship (Left most, left-center, center, right-center, right most).
Cornflakes_91 wrote: But the whole ship just being a pool of points after its constructed creates many more questions than it answers and also waters down the differences between ships.
"I built a ship with three C10 turrets and it totally,sucks against the enemies fighter focus, lets rip them all out and replace them with c3 turrets"
No commitment in designs, no reason to think about the hardpoint layout of your ship if everything is just an empty hull.
[/quote]
I imagine that the hardpoint placement would be determined by the player. The 'launchers' are placed by the player onto the ship. Consider that the player could have 5 massive guns on the front of the ship. This would leave blind spots near the rear of the ship. No matter what weapons the player decides to put on the ship the blind spots will always remain. If the player then decides to spread the hardpoints out evenly in a new ship then this new ship won't be able to get all of the guns to hit the target in front of it.

This system allows for ships to be designed for particular roles.


Note that I would also have engines, heat sinks, ammo and sensors take up slots on the ship. (This may not be all the equipment that needs slots, this is just a brief example of some of the other items I would include.)
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Re: Missiles in the games

#143
BFett wrote: Hardpoints would have to be defined by type and restricted in number. A ship could have up to 4 energy hardpoints.
Urgh, arbitary hard limits are arbitary.

If my fighter can mount 4 turrets, why can my thousands of times more voluminous capital only mount the same number of them?
BFett wrote: If I understand you, you're correct assuming that if both mounts are size one then neither can mount a size two turret.
No you dont :P

But your other points already somewhat remedied what i was thinking of.

Your statements made it sound like "take all the hardpoints that are on the ship and unify them to a single size x hardpoint"
Cornflakes_91 wrote: With all the mech games its either fully text or 100% hardcoded placement of equipment, you dont have to account for the placement of the hardpoints, as every device has a pretty fixed point and orientation.

But in LT theres an infinite amount of devices, and those wont be fixed in location and orientation.

BFett wrote:Equipment isn't hard-coded in the mechwarrior games. For instance Mech Warrior Online allows you to place a heat-sink where ever you would like to. You are correct that hardpoint placement is predetermined in mech games.
and does it matter where you place the heatsink beyond torso/leg/ etc?
Does it even get visualised?

Point is, the things for which placement matters are hardcoded in placement.
BFett wrote: There are a limited number of slots which are divided up into sections which represent each section of the ship (Left most, left-center, center, right-center, right most).
arbitary limit is arbitary.
Why shouldnt i be able to mount a big spinal gun though the lenght of the ship?
Or a big hangar across the width of the ship?
Your system implicitly forbids that.
BFett wrote: This system allows for ships to be designed for particular roles.
"Particular roles" only and only in terms of weapon placement.
What prevents me from insta-refitting a transporter into an impromptu battleship?
What prevents me from doing the reverse?

Why shouldnt i do it?
I dont have extra costs or much efficiency loss from doing so.

an arbitary point system after construction of the ship removes most of the specialisation from ship design.
You always want an as big as possible cavern which doesnt differentiate ship classes beyond their external hardpoint placement.

only combat ships have any semblance of specialisation at all, the rest are just variations of caverns filled with whatever is needed at the moment.
building your system on the absence of specialisation prevents specialisation very effectively.


Also: you didnt address how the whole thing should be manageable with size spreads being in the thousands.
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Re: Missiles in the games

#144
Random thought:
Could we limit the amount of missile spam by limiting the amount of missiles each ship can have in space at the same time?
By limiting the amount per launcher or for the whole ship (fire control computer blah).

It would limit missile spam and generate a possibility for variations and tradeoffs between launchers.

Launchers for long range usage would have a lot of missile support capability, as their missiles would have a lot of travel time. (They would also profit from faster missiles, as they'd use up less number * time than slower missiles).

Whereas launchers for close range would focus on fire rate over suppprt capacity as their missiles wont travel long anyway.


Just an idea, i can see why people wouldnt like it, but oh well.
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Re: Missiles in the games

#145
Arbitrary limit is arbitrary.

I need my missile spam. Give me carriers that launch missile launcher ships that launch missiles that shoot MIRV-like missiles!

For the relatively very short span of time of such a battle, I'd imagine LOD AI could be disabled to free up those processor cycles.

Two such ships going at each other like this could be pretty epic.
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Re: Missiles in the games

#146
Flatfingers wrote:Arbitrary limit is arbitrary.

I need my missile spam. Give me carriers that launch missile launcher ships that launch missiles that shoot MIRV-like missiles!

For the relatively very short span of time of such a battle, I'd imagine LOD AI could be disabled to free up those processor cycles.

Two such ships going at each other like this could be pretty epic.
I agree, no need for arbitrary limits.
Instead make them practical limits, they won't be excessive to render or calculate, most CPU will go into AI and galaxy simulation at a guess.

So instead, make them require special materials that are uncommon. They can then do more base damage to balance it out.
People might make swarms of small ones, or individual large ones. The meta will shift as Point Defense, flares, and battlefield dynamics change.

A fleet of small lightly armored fighters for instance, I would use a ton of swarm missiles.

A small group of large capitals? Freaking Torpedoes!


Make the system flexible enough to do both with the exact same code, and just tweak costs, and effectiveness.
We aren't looking for balance in the base game, hell I wouldn't be looking for balance in a multiplayer version either.
So long as all things get used by someone for some task, then you have succeeded in making a game with options worth pursuing.
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Re: Missiles in the games

#147
Flatfingers wrote:Arbitrary limit is arbitrary.
Silverware wrote: I agree, no need for arbitrary limits.
of coure there shouldnt be any unneeded arbitary limits
but if this
Silverware wrote: they won't be excessive to render or calculate
isnt true (which i suppose, because a lot of times my gaming experience showed me that missile spam leads to lag)
we need a mechanism to limit the total amount of missiles in the world.
else eveytime a battle starts the game grinds to a halt because dozends of ships fire dozends, if not hundreds, of missiles each.

and i like my games to be playable at all, tyvm.

Silverware wrote: We aren't looking for balance in the base game, hell I wouldn't be looking for balance in a multiplayer version either.
So long as all things get used by someone for some task, then you have succeeded in making a game with options worth pursuing.
theres also the question of balancing.
if "build a missile boat" is the "i win" option like it is in the X series with M7M ships and just spamclicking the "launch missile" button to clear whole sectors is cheap, fast and basically impossible to defend against
its not fun either (except for the first few times the player does it to unsuspecting NPC's).
(imagine a cruiser completely covered in VLS cells, coming throug the guarded wormhole and just exploding the whole guard around the wh when it releases ALL THE MISSILES :D :twisted: )

its not fun, not even the first time, when the AI has the glorious idea to do the same thing to the player.
and unless you want arbitary limitations for the AI the AI will do that to you.

so we need some method to balance the amount of spam that can be done to preserve the fun on all ends.

ignoring balance never leads to fun beyond the "try shit out" phase.
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Re: Missiles in the games

#148
Could we limit the amount of missile spam by limiting the amount of missiles each ship can have in space at the same time?
By limiting the amount per launcher or for the whole ship (fire control computer blah).
Having a separate guidance computer would be a good solution for limiting the number of Guided Missiles,
but it might be fun to also have the option to launch tons of unguided rockets for salvo firing.
They shouldn't take up much more CPU than standard projectiles.

Also it might be fun experimenting with different combos of Fire control computers and missiles.
Perhaps the ones that restrict you to less missiles lock on better while the ones that let you fire lots are barely guided.
"A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
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Re: Missiles in the games

#149
There could be a technology which makes it easier to shoot down locked missiles than unlocked ones. Also, I'd imagine that locking missiles would cost a multitude more than a basic rocket system. The launcher needs to be able to acquire the lock, and hold it as the missile is fired. Lock on time is usually around 3 seconds in most games but can obviously vary depending on the system and researched technology. So, if you want to spam missiles you'd have to have launchers (or targeting lasers) which can track the target, a likely expensive missile which has the guidance system to follow its target, and of course enough missile fuel to actually reach the target.

Also remember that these missiles are limited in number and will not last forever. Spamming missiles may kill things quickly but it may also leave your ship defenseless if another enemy vessel appears later on.
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Re: Missiles in the games

#150
Certainly there should be balance. Who here has suggested otherwise?

The question is, how would you like your balance served? Tactically? Or strategically?

Tactical balance means that there's usually a counter for any tactic in any local/immediate battle. In this case, maybe there's an "expanding shields" defense that, after absorbing missile spam, allows retaliation against a now-unprotected missile carrier; but that shield, in turn, is weak against [Offensive System X]. Tech and weapon counts being roughly equal, individual battles will tend to be won by the commander with the better tactics.

Strategic balance means that ships tend to be optimized for particular weapons systems. So it's possible to decisively lose individual battles, regardless of tactical prowess, because a commander brought a really good knife to a gun fight. But that's actually a strategic problem: the leader didn't anticipate that there'd be a gun fight there, and sent a knife ship instead of a gas-that's-exploded-by-gunfire ship (feel free to use a different metaphor). This means it's possible to lose battles and still win a war through superior production, better logistics, and more perceptive long-term planning -- i.e., better strategy.

Folks who want to play LT primarily in dogfighting and RTS modes will probably desire tactical balance. Which is fine; it just means the game will need to be designed such that the bigger the ship, the greater the diversity of offensive and defensive and support systems that can be stuffed into its hardpoints. That's what will deliver tactical flexibility.

Strategic mode can still benefit from that design, but it also needs the player's choice to optimize the design of a class of ships around one system (or two closely synergistic systems) to deliver tangible benefits in production costs and logistical efficiency. In addition to delivering strategic fun, notice that this actually makes multi-ship RTS fights more fun/interesting because it encourages specialization and diversity of ships in a fleet, rather than every drydock cranking out identical copies of one everything-but-the-kitchen-sink design.

So when I say "I like missile carriers and I cannot lie," that doesn't imply that I don't want lots of other interesting ship systems and ship class designs to be available to players as well.

It's just a question of what kind of "balance" you really want.

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