|
Post by deltav on Jan 15, 2017 0:29:18 GMT
I'm all with you, the Missile Schooner is a very good and cost effective craft. You can get almost 8 for the cost of every Gunship. The only thing is that a Gunship can beat up to 10 Siloships, so even seven massed Missile Schnooers would lose for sure if the skill of their commanders was equal. The problem is that anything more than about 30 or so missiles pre-detonate each other instead of hitting the target, right? Also the Missiles Schooner only carries Strikers which the Gunships 4 100MW lasers can destroy with ease before they get close. So when it comes to missile ships vs the Gunship due to it's flak and lasers, they are at a huge disadvantage, right? Against any other craft minus larger missile ships or Carriers (or Ranger or Corvette), Missile Schooner is close to top dog. How is a Gunship beating 10 Siloships? The Gunship can only fire one 100MW laser at a time (120MW powerplant, modules require full power to operate) and strikers and flaks can get through that with a 25-50% loss rate, to say nothing of devastators. The thing lasers quickly kill is drones, so it might beat 10 Fleet Carriers. I just ran a few tests based on equal mass (equal cost would mean more Schooners), giving 5 Schooners and 1 Gunship: - Both balanced AI - Gunship's flak missiles took out all Schooner delta-v but once those were spent it just got bombarded with a torrent of nukes (flaks couldn't penetrate the armour) until it lost power generation. - Assuming more ideal strategies on both ends (aggressive Gunship and ranged Schooners) results in the Gunship intercepting and killing the Schooners without them firing anything back, which seems to reveal a shortcoming of the AI more than anything else. The rock-paper-scissors of both stock and player design balance appears to be missiles > lasers > drones (this isn't quite cyclic, drones > missiles only if they can justify their increased cost through a high enough kill/loss ratio, otherwise you're stuck with missiles = missiles, broadly speaking). Guns can augment laser PD versus missiles though, meaning between equal fleets there's this big attritional shitfest followed by them engaging like battleships anyway, or retreating. Missiles' danger to themselves varies by design. In my experience the range of the damage of strikers is limited enough that you might get one or two pairs collide and detonate as they enter the terminal stage without affecting the rest of the wave. You're right. When I reran the simulations with the Siloship launching all missiles at once (340), 1 Siloship beats a Gunship, but just barely and only if the Gunship doesn't use flak to intercept most of the missile fleet.
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Jan 13, 2017 22:21:40 GMT
Accounting for mass & cost, I think the most effective stock ship is the Missile Schooner; you can have three for every gunship, stock laser ships of equivalent mass & cost can't kill whole waves and the nukes still do sufficient standoff damage if flares are used. This number of Schooners can also afford to spend a fraction of their missiles on intercepting enemy munitions. A recent missile advancement (by jasonvance ) uses a thick frontal armor plate ("radiation shield") to delay lasers trying to burn through. Bulkheads were being made pretty much from the get-go, probably even during beta, and I've seen mention of filling nosecones with progressively smaller blocks of aerogel in November as well as a suggestion to be able to fill empty spaces with armour. Still, what material did jasonvance use? Does it make flat-fronted missiles viable (imo they just look better but it would mean more efficient stacking in ammo bays)? I'm all with you, the Missile Schooner is a very good and cost effective craft. You can get almost 8 for the cost of every Gunship. The only thing is that a Gunship can beat up to 10 Siloships, so even seven massed Missile Schnooers would lose for sure if the skill of their commanders was equal. The problem is that anything more than about 30 or so missiles pre-detonate each other instead of hitting the target, right? Also the Missiles Schooner only carries Strikers which the Gunships 4 100MW lasers can destroy with ease before they get close. So when it comes to missile ships vs the Gunship due to it's flak and lasers, they are at a huge disadvantage, right? Against any other craft minus larger missile ships or Carriers (or Ranger or Corvette), Missile Schooner is close to top dog.
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Jan 13, 2017 22:15:51 GMT
If you follow the development of those player megacorps, you will find that gigawatt lasers will dominate the future warfare pretty quickly. Heck, even my 30 MW laser can kill drones from 250 km away, and 20 missiles will be gone when they are 100 km away. ...and that's not even near the gigawatt lasers. If you are, by any chance, prefer realistic fire rate, you will quickly found that coilguns are one of the hardest weapon to keep in the realm of reality. They accelerate their huge projectiles up to absurd speed, and thus consuming a lot of energy. Thus, my preference is railguns. They are much easier to maintain their fire rate. The goofy thing about GiggaWatt+ lasers as a be-all is nothing prevents launching an unmanned laser drone or laser drones of equivalent power (and maybe more laser turret armor) to counter laser turrets with lasers. Then the whole framerate killing laser resistant missile swarm. Combine the two and you have 100km laser versus laser with player optimized missiles crossing the gap very quickly. Don't forget that drones can be capital ship sized and do benefit from the lack of crew. For an experiment duplicate your favorite ship, remove the crew compartment and add a few remote controls. Then put its launcher on an unarmored station. The only thing about Capital sized drones is that they give up the main advantage of drones which is their small size. Only their small size allows them to outgun much larger and more heavily armed craft.
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Jan 13, 2017 21:36:06 GMT
If you follow the development of those player megacorps, you will find that gigawatt lasers will dominate the future warfare pretty quickly. Heck, even my 30 MW laser can kill drones from 250 km away, and 20 missiles will be gone when they are 100 km away. ...and that's not even near the gigawatt lasers. If you are, by any chance, prefer realistic fire rate, you will quickly found that coilguns are one of the hardest weapon to keep in the realm of reality. They accelerate their huge projectiles up to absurd speed, and thus consuming a lot of energy. Thus, my preference is railguns. They are much easier to maintain their fire rate. The goofy thing about GiggaWatt+ lasers as a be-all is nothing prevents launching an unmanned laser drone or laser drones of equivalent power (and maybe more laser turret armor) to counter laser turrets with lasers. Then the whole framerate killing laser resistant missile swarm. Combine the two and you have 100km laser versus laser with player optimized missiles crossing the gap very quickly. Don't forget that drones can be capital ship sized and do benefit from the lack of crew. For an experiment duplicate your favorite ship, remove the crew compartment and add a few remote controls. Then put its launcher on an unarmored station. I like that "super drone" idea. In real life most space stations would probably be protected by Capital ships crewed by Computers. Then they can protect and patrol the Hill sphere around the space station 24/7 for months without having to worry about food, water or shore leave. They only would need to dock with tankers to refuel every once in awhile. About the lasers, I'm not at all convinced that lasers are some type of superweapon. For one big lasers means big reactors and also big radiators. All this means a big target for missiles and drones. The 1GW space station laser really sealed it for me. I don't get how anyone could make lasers really superior over the same amount of resources spent on railguns/ coilguns/ cannon, drones, or missiles. Credit for credit and power unit for power unit, laser seem best for one primary function, intercepting Drones/ Missiles at long range.
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Jan 13, 2017 21:26:52 GMT
Wow can you show me where I can find info on that? I haven't unlocked ship design yet, but so far, lasers are so much more expensive than every other weapons system overall. I know the money isn't real, but I think it gives an idea of how much real resources would have to be devoted/ efficiency. What I am looking for is what weapon types/ ship types are most powerful, as I image modding would only increase the power of the most powerful, and in the end the best is still the best. When I first started playing around with the sandbox, the first thing I did was set up those laser space stations, and found myself very disappointed with what 1 GW laser could do compared to Railgun or other weapons ingame. there is no one best weapon, lasers can do any one task, coilguns lob big shells (10 or more kg) railguns are IMO the worst weapon that still is useable unless you use needleguns At least stock, the 8mm Turrented Railgun is the most powerful single non missile or drone weapon in game. It has a range of something like 55 km vs Capital ships. Although lasers also have a long range, at that long range it is only powerful enough to endanger striker drones and striker missiles. Even Devastators or Hellfires give the lasers a hard time. Not sure why Railguns are supposed to be so poor...
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Jan 13, 2017 4:46:05 GMT
Stock ships aren't a great guide, due to how enormously underpowered stock designs are. As a (slightly outdated) example for lasers, you can feed 9 GW of power into 1Mm range lasers on a ship costing 12.5 Mc that gets 20 km/s dV. Wow can you show me where I can find info on that? I haven't unlocked ship design yet, but so far, lasers are so much more expensive than every other weapons system overall. I know the money isn't real, but I think it gives an idea of how much real resources would have to be devoted/ efficiency. What I am looking for is what weapon types/ ship types are most powerful, as I image modding would only increase the power of the most powerful, and in the end the best is still the best. When I first started playing around with the sandbox, the first thing I did was set up those laser space stations, and found myself very disappointed with what 1 GW laser could do compared to Railgun or other weapons ingame.
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Jan 13, 2017 4:41:00 GMT
It depends, really. I really like the gunship, but speaking of combat ability, drone/missile launchers probably won, depending on situation. Stock lasers aren't OP enough. Yeah I love the Gunship too, it is very much like a old school WW2 Battleship, which has a big cool factor to me. What makes the Gunship come to a draw against 2 Fleet Carriers (strongest stock Carrier) or 10 Siloships (strongest Missile Ship) is the flak and the lasers. The Lasers can basically destroy any Striker drone fleet before it even gets close, The Lasers also are very good against Flak and Striker, and Sniper Missiles. Devastators and Hellfires with their heavier armor get a lot closer the the Gunship though and if enough waves get through, eventually the Gunship is taken out if it can't close with the Missile Ship or Carrier in time.
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Jan 13, 2017 4:35:25 GMT
I'm suprised to see the Cutter so low on the ranking, from my experiance it performs better if not the same as a laser frigate as more lasers > single powerful laser. I was surprised too. Cutter vs Laser Frigate... The problem with the Cutter it's range is half that of the longest range weapons of the Laser Frigate. Armaments Cutter 1xL Decoy, 8X13 MW Laser (20 km vs Laser Frigate), 4X60 MM Cannon (14.8 km vs Laser Frigate) Laser Frigate 4X100 MW Laser (35 km vs Cutter), 8X11 MM Railgun (34.9 km range vs Cutter) I am still trying to understand how size comes into play. Small size helps, that is why the Ranger is so effective. I would love to see if something about the way things were set up in the AI vs AI battles here skewed the results, even if the Cutter should/ could win.
|
|
|
Post by deltav on Jan 13, 2017 3:32:48 GMT
AI vs AI Stock Ships Battle Ranking! Edit: Ever since the update (1.10) the matchups are completely different. The new head to head is here... childrenofadeadearth.boards.net/post/15894/threadI just recently bought COADE and wanted to get a baseline for what works in space battle and what doesn't as far as armament as the game creator envisioned it. I wanted it to be as equal as possible, so I used AI vs. AI mode in Sandbox in the Orbital Fallout mission present to do this is the fastest way possible. In some cases I adjusted certain actions to get maximum offensive capacity (like launching all missiles with the Siloship). Doesn't make sense to let a Missile/Flak/Drone armed ship be destroyed without using all its payload. That way it's an apples to apples comparison, and skill doesn't enter into it. Conclusions? Mainly that Stock Drones (OR Decoys+Point Defense) beats Stock Missiles, Stock Missiles beats Stock Lasers, and Stock Lasers beat Stock Drones. It's paper, rock, scissors. From this chart the 35Mc Ranger is a Stock Missile Ship killer. Only the Siloship of the Missile Ships by firing all its 340 missiles at once can kill it. The 120 Mc Laser Frigate is a Drone Carrier killer. Only the Fleet Carrier can kill it, and only because the FC has almost as many guns as a Gunship. Any thoughts about stock ships and how they stack up as a guide on COADE and space combat? LC=Laser armed craft | |
| Decoys(CM) | Beam(B) | Railguns(RG) | Cannon(CN) | FM=Flak Missile armed |
|
| Flak Missiles(FM) | Devastator(D) | Turreted (T) | Coilgun(CG) | FG=Flak Gun armed |
|
|
| Drones(UAV) |
| Flak(F) | MS=Missile Ship |
|
|
| Hellfire(HF) |
| Nuke(N) | DC=Drone Carrier |
|
|
| Lancer(LN) |
| Turreted(T) | Mc=1,000,000 Credits? |
|
|
| Laser(L) |
|
| t=tons? |
|
|
| Nuke Missile(BM) |
|
|
|
|
|
| Shooting Star(SS) |
|
|
|
|
|
| Sniper(SN) |
|
|
|
|
|
| Striker(S) |
|
|
| Cost | Tonnage
|
|
|
|
| 29. LC-Beamcraft | 15 Mc | 913t |
| 1x1MW-L-R(1MW) |
| 4x60MM-TCN | 28. FG-Marauder | 124 Mc | 7260t |
|
|
| 3x60MM-TCN/1MW-F-CG(500) | 27. LC-Laser Skiff | 25 Mc | 1700t | 1x100MW-CM(50) | 4x13MW-L-G(52MW) |
| 8x60MM-TCN | 26. FM-Orbital Defense Craft | 14 Mc | 871t | 2xFM(30) |
|
| 4x60MM-TCN/8x33MM-CN | 25. LC-Cutter | 49 Mc | 3780t | 1x300MW-CM(25) | 8x13MW-L-G(104MW) |
| 4x60MM-TCN | 24. Tumbler | 19 Mc | 1790t |
|
| 1x3mm-RG |
| 23. Gunskiff | 8 Mc | 785t |
|
| 3x3mm-RG | 4x60MM-TCN | 22. LC-Solar Lance | 173 Mc | 7070t |
| 1x300MW-L-I(300MW) |
|
| 21. Sentinel | 34 Mc | 3770t |
|
| 4x11mm-T-RG |
| 20. FG-Corsair | 38 Mc | 3850t |
|
| 4x11mm-T-RG | 1x13MW-F-TCG(1000) | 19. Raider | 25 Mc | 1610t |
|
| 5x3mm-RG | 3x60MM-TCN | 18. FM-Orbital Attack Craft | 11 Mc | 914t | 2xFM(30) |
| 4x3mm-RG | 4x60MM-TCN | 17. Patrol Ship | 39 Mc | 1310t |
|
| 3x11mm-T-RG | 3x60MM-TCN | 16. LC-Laser Station | 6290 Mc | 599,000t |
| 1x1GW-L-U(1000MW) |
|
| 15. MS-Privateer | 14 Mc | 1040t |
| 2xSN-BM(50) |
| 4x60MM-TCN | 14./03. LC-Laser Frigate | 120 Mc | 7580t |
| 4x100MW-L-V(400MW) | 8x11mm-T-RG |
| 13. MS-Skirmisher | 21 Mc | 1110t |
| 2xS-BM(100) |
| 4x60MM-TCN | 12. FMS-Missile Schooner | 35 Mc | 1980t | 2xFM(100) | 2xS-BM(100) |
| | 11. Corvette | 139 Mc | 3480t | 3x100MW-CM(150) |
| 6x11mm-T-RG | 4x286MM-TCG | 10. Ranger | 35 Mc | 2390t | 1x300MW-CM(25) |
| 4x8mm-T-RG | 4x60MM-TCN | 09/01. LC/FM-Gunship (#9 | vs.Siloship | With 340
| Missiles Launched
| at Once, Still #1 vs. Every Other Stock
| Ship) |
| 08. MS-Siloship | 134 Mc | 5540t | 4x100MW-CM(200) | 6xS-BM(300)/4xD-BM(40) | 8x11mm-T-RG |
| 07. DC-Phalanx | 54 Mc | 944t | 3xSS-USV(40) | 3xSS-USV(40) |
| 2x60MM-TCN | 06. DC-Escort Carrier | 73 Mc | 3780t | 3x100MW-CM(150) | 2xS-USV(25) | 6x11mm-T-RG |
| 05. DC-Hiveship | 187 Mc | 9130t | 3x100MW-CM(150) | 2xLN-USV(25) | 6x11mm-T-RG | 4xN-TCN(100) | 04. DC-Support Carrier | 216 Mc | 4910t | 4x100MW-CM(200) | 2xS-USV(25)/2xB-USV(10) | 6x11mm-T-RG | 6x60MM-TCN | 03./14.LC-Laser Frigate (#3 | vs.Drone | Carriers, | Still #14 vs Other | Stock Ships) |
|
| 02. DC-Fleet Carrier | 335 Mc | 14,800t | 3x200MW-CM(75) | 2xS-USV(50)/2xH-USV(20) | 8x11/4x8mm-T-RG | 4x286MM-TCG | 01. LC/FM-Gunship | 260 Mc | 9920t | 2xFM(100) | 2x100MW-L-V(200MW) | 8x11/4x8mm-T-RG | 4x286MM-TCG |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Gunship and Fleet Carrier are about equal in head to head. Depending on the circumstances, one may win out over the other but they are very well matched. Interesting thing about the Missile Ships, it turns out bigger is better, it would come down to who could pump out the most Missiles, and point defense is super important, it can't rely on Missiles alone. Carriers at this time seem to be the strongest stock ships in game except vs. the Laser Frigate or the Gunship (both armed with 100MW V laser). The Gunship seems to be the most powerful stock warship in the COADE, but not in all situations (vs the Siloship). The lasers and the flak are the deciding factor and it is close in certain situations. The Gunship is a very complete ship. If it had a small detachment drones, perhaps 10 stingers, it would be the overwhelming strongest stock ship in COADE.
|
|