joker wrote:
I took your use of occasionally recharge time as a statement that gates in general will usually have enough mass to send fleets through. If a fleet can just pop through because it happens to be charged, where is the mass limitation?
If its charged you dont have to wait for it to recharge, thats all im saying.
Not that connections are
ever strong enough to send through a fleet at once.
joker wrote:
They can but anti-fighter guns will have a lot shorter range. If you are invested in more anti-fighter guns that is less mass that could be spent on more big damage.
if you define capitals as 10000 fighters worth rolled into one ship, im pretty sure that the PD weaponry of a hundred fighters wouldnt make that much of a dent in a capitals power/mass/cost budget
joker wrote:
You avoided my question. It doesn't matter if fighters are lost fast if the engine is stopped before anybody gets to fire a shot. Capitals allow a battle to take place in the first place. Capitals won't be the better choice all the time. If i go for really big guns i get bombered. If I go for decent big guns and anti-fighter aka all around capital then i have less damage then the enemy capital so I will die eventually and the enemy will not take fighter losses because they just let their capital do the daamge. Wait so 2 capitals beats one capitals, that means blobbing? Wrong. More capitals won't be better because anti-capital missiles are now used by the enmy because they know you are the capital blobber. Quoting Gazz, "Fighters could be important for detecting and intercepting capital ship missiles. Without early detection, point defense would have much less time to engage them." Fighters save the day.
I would hope be able to get their money's worth by investing in a capital by recouping that damage.
Yeah, small, fast, not being able to perform day ruining tasks, thats what fighters are.
They
defend your main combat force from long range threats or short range, carrier bound, supply dependent bombers. but they themself shouldnt be able to be a threat on their own.
I agree with you that both should be necessary, fighters for defensive, short range or strike purposes.
capitals for offensive, long range, siege purpose.
Im just opposing your notion that you could do anything with a blob purely consisting out of fighters.
Also, you are the only one that claimed a pure-bred fighter blob would be the optimal choice..
joker wrote:
Well considering that your system has a lot more ships in battles, yours is the bigger blob.
I call bullshit.
My system is built for preventing blobs (to be as mobile as small forces) by making spreading out the faster form of travel.
With your system it doesnt make a difference if a blob or small force moves through a connection.
And as blobs provide advantages for all attack purposes, attacks will be blobs.
And as attack runs will involve blobbing, the defender has to counter the attacker as good as possible with his own blob.
So it ends in blob vs blob.
But since you will still categorize my system as pro-blob I'll continue... You avoided that I said blobs are illogical to even happen in the first place you just used said that blobs will happen no matter what even after I explained why they won't. This isn't a game of StarCraft where it is smart to suicide all yours units so you can kill the command center first so the game ends. A faction wants to live. To live they can't die. If someone threatens their safety they will kill them if they have an opportunity to that won't result in them being killed. Sending a blob focres the defender to either fight with a blob, or send their blob to kill the attacker base instead. The attackers will know this and won't blob because they don't want to die. If the player wants to lose their entire empire by blobbing, go for it mate.
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thing is, stationary defenses are still in place, and dont go with the blob, so the blobber isnt defenseless when he goes on a raid.
blobs are also the strategic equivalent of focusfire, and if you can learn one thing from eve, it is that focusfire is more effective in games than spread out fire.
You take less damage and due to minimised losses you do more damage.
the blobber takes less damage for the damage he does and isnt defenseless against spread out forces.
The only way to effectively counter a blob is to use a blob yourself.
And through that wars become all or nothing affairs with blob vs blob fights, as spread out forces put the other at a disadvantage to the blobber.
joker wrote:
So we are just assuming that the blob is suited to fight enemy units of all kinds? So we are saying these blobs are so large they are gonna be able to wipe out heavy defenses and defending fleets without taking loses. If this isn't the case then the defender can just attack after with no opposing force and steam roll them.
Again, steamrolling
is blobbing, blob for braking through the most heavily defended areas, spread out for mopping up defenseless stuff.
joker wrote:
my system provides more gameplay overall.
And i disagree
joker wrote:
Setting up an ambush on the other side when he comes out if hes worth it. Of course that is if you have anything to ambush on the other side or can get forces there in time. Enter in deal making for people in that system who you make a deal with to ambush the guy for you when he comes out. If he is going into enemy territory that is your loss. If he is going into a system that is also yours, then you should have units in your system for defense. Gameplay.
And where doesnt that work in my system?
In both systems you have to know in advance that he will pass through that gate.
In my system because the traversal time is 0, in your system because (if you dont already have the ambush forces in the target system when he starts) you have to move your ambush forces through another gate as or before the ambushed ship starts its jump for them to arrive early.
(Assuming identical jump times for simplicity) you have to have the exact same amount of time for advance information before you have to move your ships.
And the ambushed has the same amount of time available for counter intelligence in both systems.
If the info has to be available 1jump + 5 min or only 5 min before the ambushed jumps doesnt change the gameplay in any way.
If you dont have the ambush already sorted out by the time he jumps, its too late.
joker wrote:
Nah, cause your fleet just waltzed into my special system where I just turn off all the gates and you are now stuck.
Something thats much harder or impossible in your system.
Warp to 0, mash the jump button in your system.
joker wrote:
You said small ships won't have a problem getting through gates for the most part. So now I need an entire fleet to kill one lone fighter?
Wat?
im saying that a force that could jump back and forth continously wouldnt be able to survive any task force that could be blocked with such a tactic.
first, ships will only be able to block wormholes for ships ~1.5 times their tonnage or larger. Anything smaller can just fly through while the blocker ship waits for the charge to build up enough that they can jump right back without having to wait a longer time than they need for turning around.
and when you have 2 or more times your blocker ships tonnage waiting for you, its getting hard to stay alive for multiple cycles of discharge jumping.
Large ships will probably always have to wait for a double-jump as it takes exponentially longer for a wormhole to recharge to a suitable energy level to jump through.
In addition to that, ever smaller ships have an ever harder time to drain the wormhole at all, as the wormhole recharges exponentially faster the less charge it has.
Small ships have a hard time blocking a wormhole at all, big ships have problems to block wormholes for smaller ships, and all ships have problems blocking wormholes for ships of similar sizes.
All assuming instant turning around for re-jumping which takes a finite time.
joker wrote:
Add a cooldown after jumping, and I pointed out above that being able to catch someone with my system is gameplay. Yours is just back and forth nonsense if I'm in a smaller craft.
No, catching someone behaves exactly the same in your system as in mine, if he can jump back and forth at will, he can do it. The time the jump actually needs doesnt matter, as all other jump movement is slowed down by the same amount.
joker wrote:
Okay so he maneuvered first so now I can't maneuver at all?
He arrived at some point
in your own territory before you did, if he can do that at all, you made some big time misstake before he moved at all.
joker wrote:
No, doesn't matter if the defenses are the ultra powerful, I'm just gonna fly through with my 10000 fighters, lose a few, and just go into the next system killing the mass pools of the gates so you can't chase me.
And if you have to
chase an attacking force
into your own territory you placed your defensive forces badly.
If something bursts through your first line, it should run into the second line and be trapped between your forces, and not have free reign in your territory.
Also: you allow ridicolous offensive raid sizes but not ridicolous defensive blobs?
How does that make sense?
joker wrote:
No, because the gameplay the comes hand in hand with the time accelerataion and long distance travel offers move variety in possible situations then yours.
while you are blatantly ignoring the fact that my system also matters for long distance travel, but only on the strategic level and not for a player who just wants to fly around in his dinky fighter and wants to play without strategic-level system limitations.
In my variation small groups are fast and agile while large strategic masses are slow.
Whereas in your system everything is just slow.
And it doesnt have any advantage in terms of total travel time to use a small and agile ship.
As 99% of travel time are gate traversals.
Everything is slow and lumbering on the grand sheme of things, and no infrastructure can change that
Ship speed only really matters for tactical engagements, as it doesnt modify strategic speed in a meaningful way
Joker wrote:
Oh yeah its gonna take time to move the fleet, actually it will take indefinite amount of time because all the gates around me are flipped off and/or mass limit is too low for my fleet to leave.
[…]
Because there is nothing I can do for both cases, I just watch as I'm stuck in a system for who knows how long. If the system is easily breakable like in my scenario then it is not good.
Thing is: how do you prevent gate-off scenarios?
if gates can be built by the player (and they will) they have to be destructible as well and with destructible gates you can get that situation.
You can take away the gates from the player the second they are completed and declare them as universally neutral and indestructible.
but theres no non-gamey way to prevent turning off gates.