Posted by: Vandermeer
« on: April 02, 2015, 09:21:35 PM »I completely left that out of my discussion and that is correct. Large ships benefit from two basic efficiency advantages that I can see. They gain an exponential benefit from shields and their engines are more fuel efficient (up to 50 hull spaces) than smaller engines. The engine advantage isn't very exclusive (I use a size 40 hs engine in my 6000 ton frigates), but the shield advantage is real and fairly substancial.Another two I can add is overall better total armor due to dimensional math, and reduced building time of total fleet mass.(..if the shipyard is already present)
Maybe also that it makes it easy to get your best sensors out, and well protected I might add.
Quote
My comparison is fair and very much to the point. My smaller frigates are able to use box launchers because they are small and hangar supportable. Their size gives them this advantage. In addition to this advantage, their smaller size makes them necessarily more stealthy. As for my comparison being not really fair, It's fair but it certainly isn't scientific. Their are so many components to fighting that no single setup could really do a good job of shedding light on which approach, ie large vs small, is the best. Their are inherent advantages in being large, and inherent advantages in being small. Taking advantage of those differences is what makes this game fun. Without people fighting other people, a real evaluation of which is best isn't really possible.Ah, ok, well I didn't see this at first, because a 24kt missile 'cruiser' is also still a somewhat hangar supportable craft to me. It is true that anyone's largest ships will never fit into mobile hangars, and therefore not be able to get the salvo density of box launchers.
But it is to no surprise that a number of smaller ships have higher offensive power than an equal large one, since that is the way everywhere.(after all there are the common and apparently effective anti-capital purpose frigates and in real life)
I currently participate in another game where they understood this mechanic very well too, and ships receive increasingly reduced gains from becoming bigger, so that the small ones are in theory better budget spending. Example:
Fighters have 2 Power, and cost 5 credits (best cost ratio in the game)
Destroyers 8 Power, costing 40 (1/2 the cost ratio of fighters)
Frigates are 12 Power for 80, but can carry 4 fighter squadrons through space, which altogether leads to the same cost ratio as Destroyers when filled.
Then cruisers with 24 Power for 200 (around 1/3rd as effective with the 4 squadrons they can carry)
Heavy cruisers with double the strength and hangar of a cruiser, but for 500.
etc. etc.
So normally the smallest unit would be the most effective, but there is of course another mechanic that rebalances, and kind of like in Aurora: It is shields. Large units get continuously better shielded, which at some point enables them to become nearly immune against certain smaller ones. For example the heavy cruiser finally has enough shielding to pretty much ignore any fighters coming at him, and can only be effectively taken out with anything between bomber and cruiser. Other example is the Dreadnought that overcomes everything up to frigates, but can be cost efficiently taken down by ships between cruiser and battleship.
This is quite interesting, as it beats the strange phenomenon of some sci-fi games who haven't understood the degrading cost effectiveness concept, where usually bigger units are stronger, and you end up seeing massive stacks of battleships or even death stars later on, with no other ships being used anymore.(really bothersome to me)
This mechanic here however makes it so that every type of unit stays viable and effective against certain other ones, so you continue to see every type of unit up until the endgame. Fighting is more about making efficient counters on time in comparison to just having the biggest guns.
I applaud them for figuring out something like this as a bare numerical mechanic too. Some games did it so that ships just receive arbitrary percentage bonuses against other classes to make mixture a thing, but here it is just pure shared stats. If your shields are stronger than the power of the small ship, you are effective, and if not, then the smaller ones will eventually take you down in masses.