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Post by bluuetechnic on Nov 4, 2016 2:05:56 GMT
ITT, aka re:Cap Ship vs Cap Ship not really a thing?, I want to start by asking the simple question, are capital ships viable, and are designs centered around direct contact with enemy fleets reasonable to use, rather than ships designed around long range combat like drone carriers or missile ships? Originally, this was a smaller part of a much, MUCH larger thread that went into depth on this subject, and many others, including most notably a large exploration on the meaning, impact, and relationships of metagame, balance, and this game's basis in real life. But on top of being lazy as hell, a slow worker, and pretty busy these days, I also wanted to write a thread that was actually reasonable to read, not a multi-page unreadable report. Maybe I'll get back to that someday, but for now, I want to move to my next idea. This next one is sort of related to both things I've mentioned so far. I first want to point out that I personally believe that even "cqc" battleship style ships could be used, but it's fine if you disagree with me, and I actually think it will be more interesting that way. Basically, what I'm getting to is that many of us have differing opinions on how to build ships, and have certain modules and other areas we personally like working on. So I think it would be really cool to kind of split up into Eve Online style factions, each with our own distinct styles, traits, and characteristics in our ships, working together with more likeminded people. I personally like working with kinetic weapons, particularly railguns, and to a lesser extent traditional guns and coilguns, as well as some specialized types of ammo like explosive and/or NEFP rounds, and finally, giant, heavily armored hulls, with a secondary emphasis on the use of unconventional armor layouts, shapes, and designs to maximize protection. So TL;DR, let's work together on our favorite designs on teams! Please feel free to comment what areas you like, or think are the best; the more people that do, the more fun this could be! (inb4 no one does and I look like a massive idiot)
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Post by coaxjack on Nov 4, 2016 2:21:16 GMT
I know there is usually a rapid and vast arms race that occurs because of questions like this, but if there is a ship made to dodge long range missile fire, get within ~50 km and engage, I think it is likely superior in that arena. Granted I spend a lot of time working on armor piercing coilgun ammo, but there you go. It's hard to dissuade an incoming ship that is actively outmaneuvering and blasting out countermeasures specifically designed to defeat incoming missiles.
Sure a 14.5mm jacketed APIT round won't reach the enemy instantly, and can even be dodged. What about 2,000 of them?
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Post by teeth on Nov 4, 2016 2:27:46 GMT
I've seen some ships with multiple 1 gigawatt lasers for a fairly reasonable price, they could probably destroy missiles and drones and reach the enemy cap ships, but that's only because the game would crash if you sent enough to defeat them. Not counting limitations of computers, I can't think of any setup that could withstand a barrage from a swarm of drones totalling 1/16th or so of the ships price. Drones seem to have it locked down as far as efficiency goes.
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Post by jonen on Nov 4, 2016 2:36:37 GMT
There's also the issue of cost effectiveness to consider. Both in an out of combat, though in game terms it'll obviously be mostly in combat.
How long you can keep them in service, how much it'll cost to crew and supply them, how much they cost to send on patrol (and patrols will dictate how many of them you'll need to pay for to cover all your bases).
Ultimately, I'd say whether or not they are viable, capships are a necessity - as a means of projecting the kind of force needed to take control of enemy orbitals. The question would more accurately be: Are capital ships viable as combatants? Or only as command ships from which to stage the massive swarms of drones and missiles with which you take control of the orbitals?
And the follow up questions then become whether they are most viable as missile combatants, laser combatants, kinetic combatants, or as mixed multi-role platforms, or as small specialist hulls in a combined arms armada?
I'd hazard a yes to their viability, but that isn't to say that all types of capships are equally viable.
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Post by jageriv on Nov 4, 2016 2:59:10 GMT
Um, are you asking if cap ships (even if they are mostly missile and drone carriers) make sense, or if a fleet specialized in close combat engagements makes sense?
I'm not really sure what your asking. Your post seems a bit garbled.
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Post by Durandal on Nov 4, 2016 4:02:25 GMT
No ship type exists in a vacuum.
But seriously, on the small scale it would depend on context. While it's hard to state just how effective things can be based on our sandbox battles, I can relate to my experience with a other simulation type game, Star Ruler.
Star Ruler is a 4X game using newtonian physics that allows you to construct any ship type you want from a number of modules on a variety of different scales. In broadstrokes it could be thought of as a "strategic" outlook whereas CODE is a 'tactical" outlook.
My experience is that a single type of ship will have a weakpoint that can be exploited by the enemy. Rely too much on missiles and the enemy will develop and deploy effective PD or countermeasures. Rely too much on expendable drones to get around the PD or CM, and the enemy will develop interceptors. Rely too much on frigates to kill the interceptors, and the enemy will field cruisers, ect, ect.
You need a Flak boat to keep the missiles and fighters away. You need a gunboat to kill the flak boat. You need a missile boat to kill the gun boat. And you need fighters to slip in between the cracks of them all.
Up to a point
With a sufficently large and capable warship this stops mattering. We've seen 1km long ships already, and at larger scales effectivness goes up. That 1km dreadnought with 300 500MW lasers that carries 4000 NEFPs, 500 drones, enough KE to create a solid wall of fire, and enough DV to get from Luna to Pluto and back is going to outrun and out gun any fleet of 15mc destroyers you try to field. It is basically a fleet-in-one. Its size allows for redudancy, its mass allows for it to tank fire, and it's volume allows it to carry more standoff ordinance.
It's massive size allows room for crew quarters, staffing, provisions, recreation; it would basically be a flying fortress city. NO need to worry about patrol times when you can just rotate between three different crew shifts.
They're expensive, but since we don't have to deal with resource aquisition, real cost, holding territory, construction time, or labor I don't see a superdreadnought not being the end-all be all.
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Post by bluuetechnic on Nov 4, 2016 5:25:47 GMT
Um, are you asking if cap ships (even if they are mostly missile and drone carriers) make sense, or if a fleet specialized in close combat engagements makes sense? I'm not really sure what your asking. Your post seems a bit garbled. Yeah, sorry about that. I've spent the better part of a week making practically no progress, got frustrated, and after a grand total of more than 6 hours taking exams today I just decided to throw this portion out here without properly consolidating my thoughts on this particular subject, or making sure my post was (at least somewhat) well written and made sense. And to make matters worse I threw in a mostly unrelated idea that I just really wanted to talk about. Before it's too late, I'll try to clarify some here. Basically, when I first said cap ship, I meant as in battleships, or any other classes designed for direct combat. But after getting my thoughts a bit jumbled up from a couple of things, I started including carriers and other types of indirect cap ships, as opposed to direct combat one. If I could go back and change the poll (without deleting all of the results), it would say something along the lines of 'Are direct combat cap ships viable', or something else like that. But ultimately, some people feel like no capital ships are viable, and all crafts should be designed under a certain size, with the mentality of large numbers of ships, all of them being replaceable. Sorry about that - my b
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Post by Pttg on Nov 4, 2016 6:55:28 GMT
No ship type exists in a vacuum. But seriously, on the small scale it would depend on context. While it's hard to state just how effective things can be based on our sandbox battles, I can relate to my experience with a other simulation type game, Star Ruler. Star Ruler is a 4X game using newtonian physics that allows you to construct any ship type you want from a number of modules on a variety of different scales. In broadstrokes it could be thought of as a "strategic" outlook whereas CODE is a 'tactical" outlook. My experience is that a single type of ship will have a weakpoint that can be exploited by the enemy. Rely too much on missiles and the enemy will develop and deploy effective PD or countermeasures. Rely too much on expendable drones to get around the PD or CM, and the enemy will develop interceptors. Rely too much on frigates to kill the interceptors, and the enemy will field cruisers, ect, ect. You need a Flak boat to keep the missiles and fighters away. You need a gunboat to kill the flak boat. You need a missile boat to kill the gun boat. And you need fighters to slip in between the cracks of them all. Up to a point With a sufficently large and capable warship this stops mattering. We've seen 1km long ships already, and at larger scales effectivness goes up. That 1km dreadnought with 300 500MW lasers that carries 4000 NEFPs, 500 drones, enough KE to create a solid wall of fire, and enough DV to get from Luna to Pluto and back is going to outrun and out gun any fleet of 15mc destroyers you try to field. It is basically a fleet-in-one. Its size allows for redudancy, its mass allows for it to tank fire, and it's volume allows it to carry more standoff ordinance. It's massive size allows room for crew quarters, staffing, provisions, recreation; it would basically be a flying fortress city. NO need to worry about patrol times when you can just rotate between three different crew shifts. They're expensive, but since we don't have to deal with resource aquisition, real cost, holding territory, construction time, or labor I don't see a superdreadnought not being the end-all be all. I see your point, but I maintain that the rock-paper-scisors game continues even unto that scale. It is inevitably a single point of failure, and one infiltrator can have outsized impact on a superdreadnaught than otherwise. Or it may be that a kind of MAD (Mutually Assured Dreadnaught) comes into play. "I won't spend 40% of my GDP on a superdreadnaught if you don't spend 30% of yours." Or, perhaps, a fleet of ultra-high-speed, ultra-long-range KKV missiles are all that is required. Acceleration is never going to be a strong suit of a war-space-city.
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Post by jageriv on Nov 4, 2016 7:05:03 GMT
Um, are you asking if cap ships (even if they are mostly missile and drone carriers) make sense, or if a fleet specialized in close combat engagements makes sense? I'm not really sure what your asking. Your post seems a bit garbled. Yeah, sorry about that. I've spent the better part of a week making practically no progress, got frustrated, and after a grand total of more than 6 hours taking exams today I just decided to throw this portion out here without properly consolidating my thoughts on this particular subject, or making sure my post was (at least somewhat) well written and made sense. And to make matters worse I threw in a mostly unrelated idea that I just really wanted to talk about. Before it's too late, I'll try to clarify some here. Basically, when I first said cap ship, I meant as in battleships, or any other classes designed for direct combat. But after getting my thoughts a bit jumbled up from a couple of things, I started including carriers and other types of indirect cap ships, as opposed to direct combat one. If I could go back and change the poll (without deleting all of the results), it would say something along the lines of 'Are direct combat cap ships viable', or something else like that. But ultimately, some people feel like no capital ships are viable, and all crafts should be designed under a certain size, with the mentality of large numbers of ships, all of them being replaceable. Sorry about that - my b No problem. Just wanted to make sure I understood what you were asking before I responded. Like you said, you were sorta hitting, three? maybe? Topics at once. As to the poll question, I think it makes sense to have several small ships who primarily engage at range given the current system. Most weapons attached directly to ships seem to have the purpose of dealing with the enemy's long range weaponry, such as drones and missiles that get too close, rather than engaging other enemy ships directly. At least as things are set up, you generally can't seem to get enough of a range advantage on a big ship vs a smaller ship, nor does armor seem to be particularly strong enough to have the ability to be immune at combat ranges. And if you can't armor to the point where you can withstand multiple hits or gain immunity to large catagories of weapons, there's no point. My mind turns to tanks. Right now, something like an Abrams tank can weigh 60 or 70 tonnes. That is twice or more the weight of several decent WWII tanks. Why the doubling of the weight, with all the penalties that brings? Because it allows it to carry enough armor to grant practical immunity to a lot of weapons on the battlefield: of all the available weapons, only a very small fraction can pose a legitimate threat to the Abrams. That is also why it holds a 120 mm gun, which fires rounds nearly 4x as heavy overall: because you need a gun that big to meaningfully threaten a tank. At least from my experimentation, you can't get a level of protection like that, nor force a bigger weapon and thus weapon platform. Any missile can hold just as much, if not more, firepower than any gun of any serious size.
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Post by n2maniac on Nov 4, 2016 7:27:02 GMT
I would really like to empirically test this somehow, because I barely even trust my own judgement on this, let alone others!
IMO, I look at the trade between:
Ship 2x as big vs 2x ships 1/2 as big Cap ship vs remote controlled drone
And always find myself more impressed with the capability of the swarm of small things. Maybe it is bugged coilguns, aerogel's magic laser immunity, my misunderstanding of correct armor, not having a great anti-swarm flak, or simply overwhelming the opponent with guided drones/missiles fired out of a machine gun (that typically brings my computer to a crawl).
I am really intrigued with people's experimentation on KE penetrators (a cap ship killer!), nuclear formed penetrators (the modern anti-armor method on nuclear supervillian steroids), and multiple meter thick armor (though doubtful on its ability to provide immunity).
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reviire
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Post by reviire on Nov 4, 2016 8:55:46 GMT
I'd say capital ships are kinda viable. But design limitations (i.e, your ship is stuck to one shape, you can't have weapons mounted on the sides, facing forwards.) prevent them from being as good as they could be. If we could do custom designs for the ships hull shape, and place modules in any place or orientation we wanted, I'd imagine capital ships would get a whole lot better. Designs that are far more specialized could start appearing.
Otherwise, they're kinda meh. A cylinder is a terrible shape for your armor, even if it has consistent defense stats from far more directions than say, more traditional > shaped stuff.
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Post by jonen on Nov 4, 2016 9:14:47 GMT
They're expensive, but since we don't have to deal with resource aquisition, real cost, holding territory, construction time, or labor I don't see a superdreadnought not being the end-all be all. Yeah... I'm pretty sure an equivalent cost (or hell, equiv mass) of smaller cheaper platforms can do a number on you from extreme range. Big means easy to hit with kinetics. Aside from that is - as you do note - that equiv cost/mass of smaller platforms can be in more places at once, so in the strategic context big ugly means you're usually going to fail by allowing the enemy to destroy everything but the one thing you choose to defend (and if they come at that from two or more directions simultaneously, you're probably not going to be able to mount an effective defense). Mind you - with a sufficiently super dreadnought, the smaller cheaper platforms may be capships on their own - thus no central vulnerable command ship to take out to neutralize the threat of them all in one go.
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Post by redparadize on Nov 4, 2016 17:37:30 GMT
I did some test regarding this (you download my custom ship in the 100mc challenge thread)
If you really want battleship style capability, you can get pocket battleship drones that have the same firepower, armor and Dv at a much cheaper price and mass than crewed cap ship.
If you look at my design, I made ship and drone with similar capability. (look at the Rosinante ship vs Tashi drone family) Result was about more or less 1/4 of cost and mass if I recall correctly, if not better. Thats mean if I send these drone against equivalent cap ship design, I will have 4 times the firepower, a lower profile and redundancy. Not to mention that a pocket battleship drone can survive much more damage, crew can't get killed.
Bottom line is that crew hab, in rocket science term, is dead weight. Crew module, plus the extra volume that need to be armored, plus radiation shielding, can easily raise the mass by more than 200t. Thats a major hit in performance even for massive ship...
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Post by magusunion on Nov 4, 2016 17:52:32 GMT
The question would more accurately be: Are capital ships viable as combatants? Or only as command ships from which to stage the massive swarms of drones and missiles with which you take control of the orbitals? And the follow up questions then become whether they are most viable as missile combatants, laser combatants, kinetic combatants, or as mixed multi-role platforms, or as small specialist hulls in a combined arms armada? I'd hazard a yes to their viability, but that isn't to say that all types of capships are equally viable. It's funny that you mention this, because when it comes to Capital ships and their role in space combat, the question evolves into this: Should one use Hard Power or Force Projection?The thing that I think is missing most from the conversation is engagement range, intercept windows, and fire-for-effect capability. Sure, a swarm of nukes do look threatening, but not from 200km as you preform a hard move order to kill their delta-v (or intercept from more disposable craft). Sure, drones can wreck your face regardless of armor set-up up, so long as they can actually get within your intercept window to engage your ship. So yes, I do believe Capital Ships can be viable. It's a question of how you are using that Capital Ship that makes the difference in a space battle.
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Post by redparadize on Nov 4, 2016 18:04:16 GMT
Sadly I don't have recent image to show the difference in size and cost. I still have a image of my early test trough: (Obviously these two are not equal) If I recall correctly, I did a one for one equivalent of the Rosinante V. And the mass of the drone was more or less 170t. Obviously the biggest cost on both platform was the railgun and nuclear missile, so cost did not scale down as much... Still It give you a idea of how much better drone are suited for combat. I will post picture of that tonight.
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