Hey all,

I've been doing a bit of battling myself, and read up on the new changes to the battle damage calculations. The new system takes ship deck size into account in terms for damage, and the bigger the ship is, the more damage is inflicted on it. This doesn't seem logical.

Take 2 ships in this example...

Ship 1:

Battleship
200 attack
50 defense

Ship 2:

Heavy Frigate
200 attack
50 defense

The battleship is the bigger of the two, but under the new battle system, it will take more damage than the Heavy Frigate, and in a straight fight, Heavy Frigate will always win because of the damage cap based on hull size.

A bigger ship is easier to hit, yes, but can absorb far more damage and punishment than a smaller ship can. I understand the issue of one-shot kills and game balance, but on the other hand, smaller ships destrying much bigger ships in a straight up one-on-one fight doesn't make sense if tactics, crew experience, etc. aren't factored in. A battleship should be able to one-shot kill a destroyer or PT boat or a frigate in a one-on-one fight, whereas two battleships can slug it out for a while.

Perhaps a refinement of the combat system should be that the bigger ship gains an amount of defense or bonus hull points (to reflect its capability to absorb more damage than the smaller ship). Here's an example of what I'm thinking about...

Ship 1 has 500 decks, 100 defense, and 300 hull points.
Ship 2 has 250 decks, 100 defens, and 300 hull points.

The bonus defense or hull points should be calculated as follows: 500 / 250, or 2. So for this batle, Ship 1 has either 200 defense (100 x 2 bonus) or 600 hull points (300 x 2 bonus). The damage cap stays as is. Later, Ship 1 attacks another ship- Ship 3.

Ship 3 has 600 decks, 100 defense, and 300 hull points.

Now Ship 3 gains 600 / 500 (or 6 / 5) bonus aganist Ship 1, and gets its defense OR hull points modified accordingly.

Thoughts?

I think that the idea behind taking more damage as a large ship is sound. As a larger target, more of the enemies shots will hit. You can modify the amount of damage you take by adding defense (making it harder for them to hit you), and you can increase the amount of damage you can withstand (with hull modules/armor).

If the frigate and the battleship have the same amount of armor on them, but the battleship is twice as large, then the frigate WILL win, even in real life. The amount of armor the battleship has protecting it's enormous hull isn't up to the challenge. It's 'skin' is stretched so thin that the slightest amount of damage will cause hull breaches everywhere.

Do you know how hard it is to sink a Battleship in real life TK3? Battleships in(Ill use WWII Navy as an example again)real life can shoot from miles away, and they shoot 20 inch wide shells that explode and are armor peircing. They also have FEET thick armor. Whereas a frigate had 3 inch shells could shoot from half a mile maybe and have 3 inch armor. If the Battleship hits the frigate with one shot I dont care how accurate the frigate is, its sinking.

Your forgetting that hes talking about a situation in which they both the same armor, so in this case they would both either have 3 feet or 3 inches of armor.

Yes, but the frigate doesnt have enough displacment to put it on. If a frigate tried to put 3 feet of armor it would sink. And it would have no guns. Its an unrealistic scenario.

yes but now imagine that there in space and they're spaceships so you cant sink. And It does have guns.

Sorry, I was stuck on the WWII Navy example. Ok, you put three feet of armor on a frigate, now try moving it. You can move it because its in space but it would be hard to stop, and hard to turn. Which means, instead of deck space that changes damage, why not armor.

Because this is a sci-fi game, and so like the majority of sci-fi games whenever you cant explain why something that has to be implemented so that the game can be fair. The "fi" part comes in. You guys wanted crew to be worth something, now it is.

I didnt want crew to be worth something, Versitek didnt want crew to be worth something, and I bet at least a dozen other people on the forums dont want crew to be worth something.

No you and I didnt want decks to lose value, but we did want crew to be equal to decks (INSERT URL HERE)

Im not exactly happy that decks have lost a bit of their value but due to how it evens out the game for those who spent RP on crew, im sucking it up and adjusting to the changes.

Now I see I point to support what I said. Hull modules are supposed to be extra hull plating. That doesn't mean that a battleship without wipple plating is worse than a figate with wipple plating, that means that a battleship is still armored even without the extra thickness. In fact, the whole idea of using 5 hull modules is that equals 5 extra layers of armor over the ship. I may be a bigger target, but I can still take a hit!

Well actually Zophah you cant say that, none of us know exactly what it means to have hull equipped. All we know is that it increases our HP.
But as I said this is besides the point, this was a gameplay fix, it has nothing to do with what sci-fi logic says or even logic says. Please give it up with this crap before i go insane.

Let me put this from another angle.

A battleship is larger and has more "space" or mass to destroy than the frigate. The frigate wll need more shots to kill the battleship than the other way around. Again, yes, the battleship is easier to hit because of its size, but even so, it should be counter-balanced by the fact that the frigate needs to hit the battleship more to truly destroy it.

A 200 foot and 20,000 ton frigate compared to a 1,000 foot and 100,000 ton battleship. More surface area and volume for the frigate's guns to hit and penetrate, whereas the battleship only needs 1/5 of what the frigate needs., even if the frigate's harder to hit because of its smaller size.

Therefore, it should be a much more even match, like 50 / 50 for the matchup if both ships are different sizes but have equal weapons and armor. Not a guanatreed win for the frigate as the current battle system stands.

Actually, in my example, I was thinking that the frigate would have the regular amount of frigate armor. It's the battleship that has severely crippled itself, by taking the 3 inches of armor from a frigate, applying it to it's VERY large hull, and trying to run around killing people.

And I don't think that hull modules are supposed to be 'extra.' Unless you plan on avoiding every battle, hull modules, defense modules, and weapon modules are all very necessary. That's like saying "the weapons modules are extra, but how come I everyone I attack can kill me?"

hull modules are like putting on a suit of armor. more platings = more layers. This does not mean that the knight can't take a hit without his armor on.

I can respond AND drive Coth insane? I must be dreaming!

If I am understanding the discussion correctly, it sounds like in a battle between a small ship and a large ship where the combat stats are the same except the size catagory, the small ship will do more damage than the large ship.

I disagree with this way of thinking. In my opinion, they should do the same damage to each other, with no "winner."

if you was to make the larger ships resist damage more then why not make it so if your ship size class is smaller you get say a 3% evasion rate when fighting a larger ship class so if you have a scout fighting a heavy cruiser the scout would have a 18-21% evade rate or even more extream a scout fighting a Star Destroyer class ship the scout would be doing very little damage to such a large ship granted but it would have a evade rate of 63-66% much like a fighter engageing any big gun capital ship the larger ship would have a harder time targeting the smaller and faster craft

Same technology. Same everything. Battleship wins because it's bigger in size, no matter how you see it, the same weapons against a battleship will be less significant because chances of hitting a vital part of the ship is less likely versus a frigate, half the size can have their vital parts of the ship damaged easier.

Remember, Frigate will not be any faster than the Battleship. It would be the same Dampeners and Thrusters.

Weapons hitting a smaller size ship means engines, bridge, etc can be compromised easier.

Even in this scenario, it is also highly unlikely a bigger ship will have a same equipment as a Frigate anyway. Even with the Same Hull, Def, Attk, Shields. What is the player doing with the rest of the space? Cloak, Scanners, Energy modules do factor in as well in a non-gameplay explanation. Battleship will have more energy to attack, scanners to do more precision strike.

that may be but a bigger ship even if its useing the same thruster systems and even in the zero-g of space its speed turning and acceleration will still make it slower just because of its mass meaning the smaller ship if it was piloted well would be able to rederect a incomeing hit to a part of the ship where the shield/armor plateing would deflect it dont forget with armor even if it was 1 inch thick can deflect a hit if it is a glanceing one so like i said if the larger your ship got the more passave defence it got it would only make it fair to have smaller ships get something in return

seriously? what's wrong with all you guys?

the point of having a bigger ship is so that you can have MORE STUFF INSTALLED, if your ship is twice as big as someone else's yet your stats are identical something's wrong. 1, having more deck space is FAR more efficient than any crew you can add for at least the first 300 ranks, so a rank 150 with all his RP in decks will have a much better ship than a rank 150 with all his RP in crew. 2, there are TWO damage cap formulas, either half your total deck space, OR twice your rank, whichever is higher.

and most of you are right, but for the wrong reason, yes the bigger ship will win, but ONLY because it can house more of bigger things, can you imagine a battleship armed with only a single anti-aircraft gun and a 50. cal? no missiles, no turrets, NOTHING. just the 2 guns.
not to mention it still has the standard 3 in. armor it did before you added deck space to make it a battle ship in the first place. oh, and by the way, even though you're now 850 feet long you as the captain decide the ship's original 200HP engine will suffice. but you're going to win against all those puny boats out there because you're a battleship. right....