Post by tessfield on Nov 12, 2016 22:59:41 GMT
Hello! I want to say, this game is amazing and I love it with all my cold metal robotty heart!
I was playing around with the concept of area denial, and created a drone which had enough acceleration to get to the target while carrying sub-drones, with a Silica Aerogel and a Aramid Fiber radiation shields in front, hiding the fuel tanks, radiators and launchers. Stock ships being stock ships, my drone could get within range no problem, and shoot out the hundred or so immobile sub-drones. These would open fire just fine, but lag my computer and then just hang around for no reason after being expended. Also, the drone-launching-drone could be used as an ineffective KKV (too much surface area).
The ship that launched the drone-launching drones had a very nice armor:
It was rather cone shaped, with partial armor, and very long thin radiators at the end, purely for cosmetic purposes. The ship itself was inexpensive, the drones not so much. However, it could stand a Gunship's fire just fine, in fact, extremely fine, while the drones did their job.
Liking price optimization, I decided to get rid of the drones and just add some conventional weapons to the thing, given that the Gunship could not get through the armor. The range was too short though, and I was too voluminous (~5000m3), so they got lucky shots behind my armor before I could take them down.
So, I thought about the previously cancelled drone-launching-drones idea, and another came to mind. What if I removed all weapons on this ship... and used it to RAM into the enemy?
A few iterations, and someethically shady experiments, later, I came up with my dearest cone brick, dubbed Dodge Ram, not to reminisce the famous car, but rather, as an advice to thy enemies:
I ended up reducing the armor thickness and weight significantly, and using this armor (used on the ship on the screenshots) successfully:
So, I wanted to show off this possibly physics-and-or-bone-breaking-and-or-mushifier-ship, sharing the idea with the community. I'm sure some of you could come up with some evencrazier better designs!
Since it's a lot easier to armor against stock ships, and having good armor is essential for this kind of strategy, I don't expect it to be used very often or reliably against other people's optimized designs. However, it's lovely to see this kind of thing being usable at all! I would never have expected one of these could be designed to be cheaper than a Gunship even, making them somewhat economically feasible.
I can imagine a strategy of lightly armored ships as a backline shooting at the enemies while one or two of these just head straight to them (hopefully from a different angle as to avoid friendly fire), forcing the enemy to focus on attacking the highly armored targets as they'd present the more immediate threat or avoid them (doubtful given acceleration values), versus attacking the longer range weaponry that's more of a problem in the long term... (or is it?)
I once read about ramming other ships in order to get them to surrender or disable them without risking to kill the crew; small fighter ships with a lot of armor and shock absorbers for the pilot. Also read about a maneuver called a love tap. A ship lightly hitting another in order to get them outside of sensor range without having the latter ship engage its engines (which were traceable). (Not the hardest sci fi).
Fun things to see being done in real time!
Anyway, enough ranting, what do you guys think? Think you can do a better job (definitely given this is the first succesful unoptimized solution
)?
Is there any other Alternative Warfare tactics you've used? Effectively even if not efficiently? Economically feasible? I'm all ears! I love hearing about crazy and unique strategies!
I was playing around with the concept of area denial, and created a drone which had enough acceleration to get to the target while carrying sub-drones, with a Silica Aerogel and a Aramid Fiber radiation shields in front, hiding the fuel tanks, radiators and launchers. Stock ships being stock ships, my drone could get within range no problem, and shoot out the hundred or so immobile sub-drones. These would open fire just fine, but lag my computer and then just hang around for no reason after being expended. Also, the drone-launching-drone could be used as an ineffective KKV (too much surface area).
The ship that launched the drone-launching drones had a very nice armor:
| Outer | Boron | 6cm |
|---|---|---|
| ----- | Graphite Aerogel | 5m |
| ----- | Silica Aerogel | 10cm |
| ----- | Boron | 6cm |
| Inner | Aramid Fiber | 1cm |
It was rather cone shaped, with partial armor, and very long thin radiators at the end, purely for cosmetic purposes. The ship itself was inexpensive, the drones not so much. However, it could stand a Gunship's fire just fine, in fact, extremely fine, while the drones did their job.
Liking price optimization, I decided to get rid of the drones and just add some conventional weapons to the thing, given that the Gunship could not get through the armor. The range was too short though, and I was too voluminous (~5000m3), so they got lucky shots behind my armor before I could take them down.
So, I thought about the previously cancelled drone-launching-drones idea, and another came to mind. What if I removed all weapons on this ship... and used it to RAM into the enemy?
A few iterations, and some
Starting ramming run  | Your guns are worthless against the power of the ram  | Even your missiles are worthless against the power of the ram  | RAAAAAAM  |
Ram...?  | Boop?  | Victory!  | Just got the paint scratched  |
I ended up reducing the armor thickness and weight significantly, and using this armor (used on the ship on the screenshots) successfully:
| Outer | Boron | 1.5cm |
|---|---|---|
| ----- | Graphite Aerogel | 3m |
| ----- | Boron | 1.5cm |
| Inner | Aramid Fiber | 5mm |
So, I wanted to show off this possibly physics-and-or-bone-breaking-and-or-mushifier-ship, sharing the idea with the community. I'm sure some of you could come up with some even
Since it's a lot easier to armor against stock ships, and having good armor is essential for this kind of strategy, I don't expect it to be used very often or reliably against other people's optimized designs. However, it's lovely to see this kind of thing being usable at all! I would never have expected one of these could be designed to be cheaper than a Gunship even, making them somewhat economically feasible.
I can imagine a strategy of lightly armored ships as a backline shooting at the enemies while one or two of these just head straight to them (hopefully from a different angle as to avoid friendly fire), forcing the enemy to focus on attacking the highly armored targets as they'd present the more immediate threat or avoid them (doubtful given acceleration values), versus attacking the longer range weaponry that's more of a problem in the long term... (or is it?)
I once read about ramming other ships in order to get them to surrender or disable them without risking to kill the crew; small fighter ships with a lot of armor and shock absorbers for the pilot. Also read about a maneuver called a love tap. A ship lightly hitting another in order to get them outside of sensor range without having the latter ship engage its engines (which were traceable). (Not the hardest sci fi).
Fun things to see being done in real time!
Anyway, enough ranting, what do you guys think? Think you can do a better job (definitely given this is the first succesful unoptimized solution
)?Is there any other Alternative Warfare tactics you've used? Effectively even if not efficiently? Economically feasible? I'm all ears! I love hearing about crazy and unique strategies!
