So far, I have been really enjoying the beta, and I am very excited about what the final game has to offer. I have a few questions about where the game is headed which I hope Cliffski (or some other learned individual) can answer.
1.) Classes - What are the official roles that each class of ship is meant to play?
I’ll assume that the majority of modules and hull bonuses will support these relatively-speaking narrowly defined combat roles, while also leaving room for hybrid and outlier builds. It would greatly help the player to know what function each class of ship is expected to play in a typically structured fleet.
2.) Races - How different will each race play in the final game? Will the differences be largely cosmetic with a few different modules and hull bonuses, or will their be more substantial differences?
I can easily imagine different races having a stronger focus on different classes of ship to fill out their navies and with modules, bonuses, and cost incentives to support these archetypal fleets. For example, an eusocial species might favor hive-like cruisers or dreadnoughts with a wide variety of fighters and gunships delivering the thrust of their attack, and largely eschewing mid-sized vessels. If something like this isn’t going to be implemented in the game-proper, how difficult will it be to mod the racial balance to reflect a more systemic set of differences?
3.) Customization - How easy will the final game be to add new hulls, objects, lighting effects, modules, turrets, sounds, weapon effects, and entire races? Will it be possible to reassign turret mount points on existing hulls? Will it be possible to re-size existing hulls, or change the size of their bounding boxes so their is more room to attach various objects? Will it be possible to do all of these things within the game’s interface, or will it require a significant effort to hack?
4.) New Stuff - Are there any major systems which have been held back from the beta which we should factor into our expectations?
Are there going to be any entirely new classes of weaponry, defensive systems, or weirder stuff which will change the existing combat paradigm?
For example, I can imagine a module which can jump (i.e. teleport) a ship to another point on the map to cause chaos in the enemy ranks (or reposition it for a broadside barrage), but with a significant recharge time to balance it.
A defensive example would be a reflective \ deflective shield or armor which can redirect an enemy attack (e.g. a laser-reflective surface).
An offensive example would be a ram-prow \ melee-attack which could allow for a dreadnought to leave a wake of destruction, or squadrons of kamikaze fighters smashing into capital ships to deadly effect.
Destroyers were designed in real navies to protect larger vessels from small, fast ships such as torpedo boats and nowadays tend to have an anti-missile role.
In GSB2 they seem to be intended to be primarily a support class of ship, and the moniker of Destroyer doesn’t really seem to fit.
Are we married to the names for the various classes? Would a more broadly applicable name, like auxiliary ship, be better for ships which serve in a support role?
I am very well placed to answer this particular question for you. Onward:
Fighters –
Designed for rushing towards the enemy at the very beginning of the battle, stabbing target ships repeatedly at very short ranges, periodically returning to the home carrier for damage-control, returning to battle, and continuing this cycle until the fighters are destroyed. Once your warships enter weapons range of the target fleet, they can follow-up on whatever physical hurt was accomplished upon enemy armor and hull. Fighters can still be useful later in the battle, but after those crucial first few attacks the squadrons soon begin to lose their maximum strength and cohesion as fighter casualties are inflicted by opposing forces.
Gunships –
Same as fighters, but marginally more capable & marginally less expendable.
While having the enviable advantage of two weapon slots instead of fighters’ single weapon slot, in almost every other way gunships are (overly) similar to fighters. However, gunships can be useful in weakening enemy dreadnought shields.
Frigates –
Small attack ships; the smallest true starships in GSB2.
Intended to be potent anti-cruiser/dreadnought units, but not yet fully capable of this. At present, situationally useful for offense against bigger ships, and also enjoys more speed than bigger ships.
Best when used in large numbers. Multiple formations of frigates will tie down a lot of enemy weapons, helping to extend frigates’ lifespan (fewer hits per friendly frigate) as they concentrate on the offensive.
Destroyers –
Small defense ships. Can install many (but not all) of the same modules frigates have access to.
So far, their fame revolves almost exclusively around the oft-mentioned support beams, but that tells only one part of the tale. GSB2’s destroyers are intended to rip apart not only enemy missiles and fighters/gunships, but also to heavily damage enemy frigates trying to slip past them on their way towards your fleet’s bigger ships. The vast majority of the time, your fleet will be unacceptably vulnerable without a strong contingent of destroyer escorts.
Cruisers –
Medium multi-role ships. These are able to fill several different fleet niches. They can convincingly undertake any one of them at a time, but do not excel at any single function. The main exception to that is continuous, ship-to-ship heavy combat versus dreadnoughts and other cruisers.
For a secondary role, cruisers can serve as carriers – in the sequel game, fighters and gunships can only be deployed from a carrier. However, to be effective as carriers you will not be able to put very much offensive firepower aboard the cruisers - you’ll need that room for all of the hangar bay modules.
Dreadnoughts –
Large attack ships; the biggest starships in GSB2.
Can install many (but not all) of the same modules cruisers have access to, plus a few dreadnought-only modules.
Dreadnoughts are true giants; massive, slow, extremely durable, and better-armed than any other size of hull.
These ships are impressive (though still not yet balanced) assassins, smashing enemy cruisers apart as well as dueling with enemy dreadnoughts. While they are selectively vulnerable to fighters and gunships, DN firepower still needs a significant buff versus other large ships. The hulls can tank enemy damage to a certain extent but are optimized for one thing only: pure, relentless attack against other slow, high-value enemy targets.
I’m glad that you made that post.
There is a persistent misunderstanding about destroyers’ implementation in GSB2, and it needs to be clarified for the public.
[size=135]I. )[/size]
The destroyers’ full purpose is being incorrectly understood due to repeated over-emphasis upon the support beams available to them. The support beams are a new feature in GSB2, and while they are indeed useful as well as cool they are only a single aspect of what destroyers are meant to be doing. Usage of those beams is not the destroyers’ only combat role, and not even their main combat role. These ships are escorts to defend friendly cruisers and dreadnoughts from fighter/gunship threats, to damage or even “mission-kill” attacking enemy frigates, and to shoot down enemy missiles of all kinds. Equippage and use of support beams is in addition to the above priorities; [size=115]not as replacement of them[/size].
[size=135]II. )[/size]
At present, it’s pretty hard for any single design of destroyer to fulfill the requirements of all four types of protection & support roles. Instead, you’ll very likely need to field multiple sub-types of destroyers simultaneously, in order to provide enough coverage against all threats.
A balanced fleet requires numerous destroyers to protect the big ships because the fleet’s “heavy hitters” are optimized much more for direct ship-to-ship offense rather than a blend of that plus active self-protection. I fully expect destroyers to mature even further into their specialty of overall fleet defense, plus situational support-beam use as needed.
[size=135]III. )[/size]
Consider how the present wet-navy designation of “destroyer” is merely a contraction of the original designation of “torpedo boat destroyer”.
Also, consider how these ships are continuously shooting-down enemy missiles in-game as well as being designed & equipped to do so upon Earth’s oceans.
Likewise how the game’s destroyers are meant to lay down some serious hurt upon enemy frigates as well as one-man strike craft.
Calling them anything but destroyers would neither be helpful nor desirable. There’s no pressing cause that’s worth metaphorically rocking that boat. A change for the destroyer hull-size designation to “auxiliary ship” would be the loss of an evocative, focused and accurate designation in favor of an overly broad, non-immersive and misleading one instead.
[size=135]IV. )[/size]
GSB2’s destroyers are not auxiliary ships of any kind; they are full-fledged naval warships.
In no way should they be mistaken for feeble auxiliaries or repurposed/militarized civilian shipping. The fact that destroyers spend a lot of their time blasting away at onrushing fighter squadrons, or swatting wave after wave of missiles, does not mean that they’re not real warships. Support and defense (or however one calls it) is no less valid as well as valuable than ships which trade offensive salvos in a ship-to-ship exchange of main-battery weaponry.
I find no compelling reason to brand any support/defense-oriented vessel as an auxiliary ship, because what ships like destroyers specifically do in this game is not auxiliary at all; those capabilities are central to your fleet’s continued health and long life.
Anyhow, this is more than I originally meant to post. It’s not my intention to spark a debate; simply to cast a light upon several important distinctions in GSB2 that players may very well have not known until now.
If I look at the frigate weapons, there is no weapon that can pierce the best cruiser/dreadnougth shields (22), except Missiles (I don’t like missiles, because the best strategy with missiles is to spam them, and I don’t like spamming).
There is only 1 additional weapon (Heavy Plasma) that can pierce the second best cruiser/dreadnougth shields (16).
Missiles and Heavy Plasma is also the only option to pierce the best frigate shields (16).
I propose to increase shield piering of some frigate weapons. Heavy Plasma should have 23 shield piercing, Standard Plasma 19, Pulse Laser 17.
Once the shields are down and the armor is partially scratched away, all weapons do damage to the armor/hull. Bringing down the shields and doing some initial damage to the armor is the hard part, ‘finishing’ a ship is easy.
This is why I also propose to decrease ‘Hull Damage Effectiveness’ of several weapons (not especially for frigates, but across all hull sizes).
Btw.: There is no frigate weapon that can pierce a heavily armored cruiser (~20), but this is less problematic, because it costs a lot more to achieve this armor resistance compared to putting a heavy shield.
I definitely think, longer term, that there is scope for additional weapons or modules that ‘fuzz’ the hard counter for shield resistance. I was wondering about the possibilities of either beams that do zero damage but just reduce enemy shield resistance (Shield tunneling beams), which would need to be co-ordinated with other weapons to take advantage of the now penetrable shields) or perhaps some sort of short shield-disruption pulse bomb (like a smart bomb) that lowered everyone’s shields for a second or so in its vicinity (making the firing ship as weak as the target ship…mwahahahaha).
Thought on such stuff are very welcome.
honestly, I feel the binary nature of shield resistance was one of the weakest part of GSB1 balance, unfortunately it continues to be the case here. Arguably it’s even worse here since fighters can’t be used to bypass shields.
my suggestion would be “fuzzing” the shield resistance mechanic itself rather than introducing new modules. A way of doing this would be allowing some damage through even if the shield penetration is lower than shield resistance.
I’m thinking perhaps for each point of shield resistance above shield penetration, the damage of that weapon hit is reduced by 1. this allows most weapons to punch above its weight class at severely reduced (but non-zero) effectiveness, keeps pulse weapons (which have high fire rate but low damage per shot) ineffective vs defenses, and coupled with a buff to shield resistance can indirectly nerf MWM’s (since 5 impacts means shield resistance’s damage mitigation applies 5 times instead of 1).
I feel like that’s a compelling mechanic, and will bring a bit more depth to the shield game
Resistance is a necessary mechanic in the GSB universe, though, as it’s possible to throw stupid amounts of small arms damage around. It’s quite indicative that most players considered the low-resist options near worthless. And of resistance options, shields are the most important since you can’t lucky hit them down.
I was quite happy when I found those high damage long range cruiser beams weren’t all that dangerous to frigates this time around, as there really isn’t much you can do to defend against them. I was dismayed when I found frigates could barely touch the cruisers in turn. Takes a lot of fiddling to get it right.
Right now, low resistance shields aren’t very attractive, especially without layering behind a high resist one first. There are also classes of weapons in a sort of purgatory where they can’t reliably be used due to resists - look no further than the midrange plasma options for some examples.
yeah, my damage mitigation idea kinda throws small arms out the window though
consider the following example where I pull numbers out of thin air
say your pulse cannon does 15 damage, has 10 shield pen, and my shield has 24 resistance.
each shot you do will deal 15 - (24 - 10) = 15-14 = 1 damage, essentially 6.67 percent of your original DPS. That seems pretty negated to me
low resistance shields are in a strange spot though, using them on their own is nearly worthless while putting them behind a high resistance shield completely negate their weakness.
to combat that, maybe a ship’s total shield resistance should be the average of all shield modules, not the highest?
Flat damage reductions can work, there’s just some oddities to them since we have multiple resist types. Beams will need to have negative shield penetration, for instance. Also, GSB gunners switch targets if fire is ineffective, so we’ll also need to refine what is considered ineffective.
The low resist options need a lot more capacity if they’re ever going to be a competitive alternative. Someone currently has to be out of their mind to take a lone 50 strength light frigate shield or a 150 strength shield capacitor. You are right though, we would want to change how layering works first.
The only other thing that would have me interested in them is if they could reset after being knocked out.
A change for the destroyer hull-size designation to “auxiliary ship” would be the loss of an evocative, focused and accurate designation in favor of an overly broad, non-immersive and misleading one instead.