Prancer
Junior Member
Jousting in space. We're all Knights of the Stars.
Posts: 57
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Post by Prancer on Mar 27, 2017 5:15:10 GMT
Hey I'm Prancer, new to these forums.
I do not play the game but I have been watching gameplay and reading the forums. Considering that hard sf has always interested me, I'm currently waiting for a nice lull in my busy life to purchase and enjoy CoaDE.
In the meantime I must satisfy myself with cursory gameplay videos and reading. I've recently been watching ReadySetRudy's videos on YouTube, and it struck me that the mega laser boats seemed to be exceedingly effective designs.
Is there a "meta" as far as CoaDE is concerned? If so, what is it?
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Post by bigbombr on Mar 27, 2017 5:31:30 GMT
Hey I'm Prancer, new to these forums. I do not play the game but I have been watching gameplay and reading the forums. Considering that hard sf has always interested me, I'm currently waiting for a nice lull in my busy life to purchase and enjoy CoaDE. In the meantime I must satisfy myself with cursory gameplay videos and reading. I've recently been watching ReadySetRudy's videos on YouTube, and it struck me that the mega laser boats seemed to be exceedingly effective designs. Is there a "meta" as far as CoaDE is concerned? If so, what is it? Missiles, followed by lasers, followed by drones. Lasers lag the least though, hence their popularity. But few things are as satisfying as ripping enemies in twain by thousands of hypervelocity rounds, our vaporise their radiators by nukes launched from a conventional cannon. Thing is, every update the meta shifts, which is always interesting.
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Post by samchiu2000 on Mar 27, 2017 8:04:44 GMT
Hey I'm Prancer, new to these forums. I do not play the game but I have been watching gameplay and reading the forums. Considering that hard sf has always interested me, I'm currently waiting for a nice lull in my busy life to purchase and enjoy CoaDE. In the meantime I must satisfy myself with cursory gameplay videos and reading. I've recently been watching ReadySetRudy's videos on YouTube, and it struck me that the mega laser boats seemed to be exceedingly effective designs. Is there a "meta" as far as CoaDE is concerned? If so, what is it? Missiles, followed by lasers, followed by drones. Lasers lag the least though, hence their popularity. But few things are as satisfying as ripping enemies in twain by thousands of hypervelocity rounds, our vaporise their radiators by nukes launched from a conventional cannon. Thing is, every update the meta shifts, which is always interesting. But I think that COADE is running out of new meta as we already optimized most if not all of the weapons and modules...
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Post by The Astronomer on Mar 27, 2017 8:47:21 GMT
wat is meta
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Post by samchiu2000 on Mar 27, 2017 8:51:30 GMT
You can replace it with the word "Stuff"
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Post by The Astronomer on Mar 27, 2017 9:07:48 GMT
You can replace it with the word "Stuff" Still confused. Can you explain it?
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Post by samchiu2000 on Mar 27, 2017 9:08:52 GMT
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Post by thorneel on Mar 27, 2017 10:28:54 GMT
Hypervelocity missiles are probably the most effective right now, particularly the 2-stage design with a drone bus with efficient drive carrying many small missiles and launching them once an adequate trajectory has been attained. The bus and/or the missiles may also carry external tanks for extra efficiency. The main problem is that any PC will melt trying to render that many missiles, so it won't be used as optimally as it could. In addition, if combat starts orbiting a small body, the combatants may lack room to accelerate the missiles or bus in some cases. The most efficient warhead is the so-called NEFP (Nuclear Explosively Formed Penetrator), a name given to a nuke-flak combination: with the right setup, the just-formed flack fragments are accelerated by the nuke detonation (probably through radiation pressure and/or ablation) to ludicrous velocities, punching through pretty much any conceivable armour. It is, however, hard to make right, so flak, nuke and small kinetic kill vehicles are still popular.
Giant superlasers were pretty much the previous meta kings, but now those enormous mirrors are extremely vulnerable to even the lightest, smallest counterlasers at extreme range while firing. I had a previous superlaserstar be broken by a 10-cm, 100-kw laser at max range, with an intensity of 10W/m². It seems that laser mirror fragility goes up with the surface, so small lasers are less vulnerable and you can still have pretty strong lasers, if not nearly as strong as before. As such, the laser meta is still evolving, but giant superlasers are falling out of use and it is recommended to bring light counterlasers just in case. Those may or may not be strong enough for short-range attack.
Most of the physics abuse of the previous versions with railguns and coilguns is now gone, so projectile has been weakened. The needlegun exploit (using a long, thin projectile, possibly with a spacer to lengthen it even more, which cause barrel stiffness to only be calculated on the remaining length of the gun) still allows for ludicrously high-velocity guns, but not everyone use it. On the other hand, the targeting AI now extrapolate the current acceleration when aiming, making it much better at hitting moving targets. As such, conventional cannons are somewhat more relevant again, due to their low cost and very low energy consumption for high rate of fire. You can still get better velocity with railguns and coilguns, though. Both can be extremely precise and be useful beyond their stated range, though, particularly now as some AI will sometimes ignore range. They are also helped by extruded turrets which have more than 90° angle, so side turrets can actually fire forward, for example. Though less than with missiles, enough projectiles will bring computers to their knees, particularly if they use payloads instead of solid projectile slugs
Drone are especially useful as crew is always a weak point for ships. A relatively popular tactic is to build "capital drones" or "sub-capital drones" which full-fledged warship drones and send those to fight instead of capital ships, often with crewed ships being little better than a drone-launching station. Incidentally, drones can continue to fight by themselves even if there is now crewed ship alive left...
Ships are either using needle or broadside configurations: needleships face the enemy, using a pointed nose to deflect attacks quite effectively, while broadside ships put all their weapons on the sides (sometimes only one side) and have much higher firepower. Sometimes, flying saucer (a very short ship with extreme diameter) is used instead, giving broadside a wedge to deflect projectiles, but those are more cumbersome to build and weapons tend to end up under the armour (they work, but it ends up being an exploit), so this design is rarely used.
(I'll let others talk about armour meta)
Things where the meta may evolve with future patchs, though: - Electric motor turrets may allow for low-consumption, small, light turrets instead of the monsters we currently need for big guns - Ludicrously efficient nuclear generators running at 1K of meltdown, disregarding changing material properties or security margin - Nuclear reactors and rockets turning on and off instantly - Coilguns with multiple stages have identical capacitors for each stage, making them quite suboptimal - Compulsators and other alternatives to capacitors for railguns and coilguns - Laser mirror fragility to "handheld flashlights" may or may not be unrealistic - Future optimisations may allow for more projectiles in the air vacuum before turning into a .1 FPS slideshow - Better targeting AI may make point defence more efficient, or longer range against ships with saturation fire - Magnetoplasmadynamic drives may not be that easy to build at extremely high power, or use any chemical as propellant - New armour shapes, for example allowing wedge shapes for broadside ships without using the "flying saucer" technique - Smarter thrust AI allowing for better ship movement control - Better UI allowing for better designs that are left unexplored as now (hard to say the results for this one) - Capacitors - Heat-sinks
Less probable, but we may also see those one day, which would change things - Changes in how drones and crewmen are managed - Smarter missile AI that is not confused by any bright object, but this would probably require a more advanced counter-measure system - "Strategic" combat directly from the map for the longest-range weapons - Internal plumbing, wiring and ammunition moving - New weapons like neutral particle beams, Casaba Howitzer directional nukes or nuclear-pumped laser warheads - New propulsion like pebble-bed nuclear rockets, arcjet electric drives or continuous-wave detonation engines
And probably many others I am forgetting right now
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Post by mrsandman on Mar 27, 2017 12:12:09 GMT
Hey I'm Prancer, new to these forums. I do not play the game but I have been watching gameplay and reading the forums. Considering that hard sf has always interested me, I'm currently waiting for a nice lull in my busy life to purchase and enjoy CoaDE. In the meantime I must satisfy myself with cursory gameplay videos and reading. I've recently been watching ReadySetRudy's videos on YouTube, and it struck me that the mega laser boats seemed to be exceedingly effective designs. Is there a "meta" as far as CoaDE is concerned? If so, what is it? Right now, as others have said, it's high velocity micromissiles launched from missile drone buses, along with gigawatt-class lasers. We used to have needleguns as a kinetic weapon that was very viable, but they got nerfed in the latest patch. Sandblaster coilguns used to exist as well, but these were also broke in the update.
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Post by Enderminion on Mar 27, 2017 12:14:14 GMT
Sandblasters still exsit mrsandman, but they have lower velocity now (>10km/s) the stock 60 and 100Mw coilguns are sandblasters
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Post by mrsandman on Mar 27, 2017 14:42:24 GMT
Sandblasters still exsit mrsandman, but they have lower velocity now (>10km/s) the stock 60 and 100Mw coilguns are sandblasters Oh yeah, they exist, but are shadows of their former glory. (RIP all of my old fleet, lived and died by sandblasters.)
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Prancer
Junior Member
Jousting in space. We're all Knights of the Stars.
Posts: 57
|
Post by Prancer on Mar 27, 2017 20:18:26 GMT
Awesome replies thanks guys. Gives me a good snapshot.
I wonder if Electronic Warfare and/or Cyberspace will become introduced?
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Post by Durandal on Mar 27, 2017 21:13:42 GMT
Awesome replies thanks guys. Gives me a good snapshot. I wonder if Electronic Warfare and/or Cyberspace will become introduced? Hopefully never in my opinion. Those are beyond the scope of the games simulation and would be games unto themselves.
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Prancer
Junior Member
Jousting in space. We're all Knights of the Stars.
Posts: 57
|
Post by Prancer on Mar 27, 2017 21:16:58 GMT
Awesome replies thanks guys. Gives me a good snapshot. I wonder if Electronic Warfare and/or Cyberspace will become introduced? Hopefully never in my opinion. Those are beyond the scope of the games simulation and would be games unto themselves. Honestly I agree. Especially Cyberspace. But I do think that ECM and ECCM in the tactical sense for missiles and the like should be implemented.
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Post by deltav on Mar 27, 2017 21:57:12 GMT
Hey I'm Prancer, new to these forums. I do not play the game but I have been watching gameplay and reading the forums. Considering that hard sf has always interested me, I'm currently waiting for a nice lull in my busy life to purchase and enjoy CoaDE. In the meantime I must satisfy myself with cursory gameplay videos and reading. I've recently been watching ReadySetRudy's videos on YouTube, and it struck me that the mega laser boats seemed to be exceedingly effective designs. Is there a "meta" as far as CoaDE is concerned? If so, what is it? Please check these out and message w/ feedback on how to make them better/ more interesting. childrenofadeadearth.boards.net/post/17471/threadWelcome and glad to have you.
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