Can we be honest about the combat please?

[Mirador]

At this point i think everyone has to admit that the combat in this game is a barely functioning joke. The UI is obnoxious at best, malicious and intentionally bad at worst. The fact that THIS is the control scheme they released as playable, really doesn't give me much hope for it ever getting any better, as it shows their fundamental way of thinking of the combat is wrong.

I know the fanboys, devs and other smooth brains will say its realism over fun, but you're wrong. Its not in the least bit realistic and here's why.

Ship design - Why are all the ships long and thin? Once we are making ships in space they can literally be any shape. Rockets are long and thin to cut through the air and limit atmospheric resistance. Once you're in space this no longer matters and allows for more interesting shapes. This shows either a lack of understanding by the devs or a lack of imagination.

Thrust Vectoring - Why dont we have any? IF we were in a war like this, the first thing any person with an IQ larger than a goldfish would do, is put thrust vents on ALL sides of the ship. Front and back absolute minimum. If i need to slow down i DONT want to turn my armour / guns away from the enemy. The fact we are limited to only having one source of directional thrust and then sticking main weapons on a linear track is dumb.

Forward firing locked weapons. WHY? Just Why? In reality that would be the first thing to get junked. I would rather have engines on the front so i can adjust my speed without adjusting my heading. In space / naval combat, the turret is king.

These are all really obvious things, so i can't understand why the devs didn't fix this before release. Either they don't care, have a distinct lack of intelligence or imagination, or lack the talent / skill to make anything better. But judging by the rest of the game, this shouldn't be the case. the rest of the game is solid and really engaging and addictive. But the combat sucks. Like really really SUCKS. The only reason i can logically think of is that if they gave us a usable control scheme and UI in the combat, with functional ship configurations and movement, then it would just emphasise how awful their attempt at combat AI is.

[Badger BrownCoat]

Escrito originalmente por onyhow:

It does happen, but it depends on circumstance, I suppose. Even Perun does that burn then turn to face other direction too.

i dunno if i'd use him as the paragon of space combat; thought he'd auto's most of his.. maybe not? i only watched some - and in background while playing; so i dunno-
( i was able to guess what lazerpig was/ had done right off- if Perun's ever said, I missed it. I can't quite read him )
but specifically the AI doing it -timing-wise- at the ONLY point my guns could hit them, is - how i got early game wins, and the ONLY way. It's... "terran-assisted suicide" - i suspect some more AI tweaks will make it seem a bit more "aware" but right now - fromwhat i see it's often happy to 'tank' railguns all day- yet i've also seen it dodge like a swan.

This...I dunno. Maybe mount the engines on the side that have 180 degree range gimbal? Not sure how practical that is.

Also no problem on that. I was very curious on how the armor works too. That Reddit guide just drops at the right time.

me either- whole thing out of ken, why i asked.
I've seen the "reverse" drives in something? but, but - i don't know if that's "hand-wavium" to use a term i'm enjoying.

the reddit drop- and your drop to me- WAS at the perfect timing - the+/- dmg variable ALONE would ( HAD! ) invalidate any test - you can't have that much variance in a data set and call it valid. ( i knew something was fishy! - LOL )but j/k aside- it was beyond frustrating, huge relief.

[corisai]

Escrito originalmente por Mistfox:

And the sphere would have an increased surface area exposed to the enemy that you need to armor at greater weight cost. Sphere gives very good usable surface area at an insanely high exposure cost. A better option is a dagger like shape where you have an armored leading edge. Narrow profile to reduce exposure to enemy fire, more usable weapons area along the armored leading edge, inferior armoring cost compared to needles but much much better than sphere.

Sphere allow max possible armor with minimal volume taken by armor if our main space weapon is nukes&missiles so side hits are constant :)

Against "beamy" weapons yean - dagger, or current TI shape is better.

[Barleyman]

Escrito originalmente por Badger BrownCoat:

the reddit drop- and your drop to me- WAS at the perfect timing - the+/- dmg variable ALONE would ( HAD! ) invalidate any test - you can't have that much variance in a data set and call it valid. ( i knew something was fishy! - LOL )but j/k aside- it was beyond frustrating, huge relief.

What guide are you talking about?

[MrFailSauce]

Escrito originalmente por corisai:

Escrito originalmente por Mistfox:

And the sphere would have an increased surface area exposed to the enemy that you need to armor at greater weight cost. Sphere gives very good usable surface area at an insanely high exposure cost. A better option is a dagger like shape where you have an armored leading edge. Narrow profile to reduce exposure to enemy fire, more usable weapons area along the armored leading edge, inferior armoring cost compared to needles but much much better than sphere.

Sphere allow max possible armor with minimal volume taken by armor if our main space weapon is nukes&missiles so side hits are constant :)

Against "beamy" weapons yean - dagger, or current TI shape is better.

Sphere has the worst surface area to volume ratio which means it radiates heat the least efficiently of any shape. (Which matters a great deal in space)

[Badger BrownCoat]

Escrito originalmente por 76561198036341216:

Escrito originalmente por Badger :

the "turn over" in range of my guns remains my most...smh

Yes, I got my 2nd alien kill in the game when an idiot corvette decided to moon my hab's defence module and ate a 6 inch shell in the engine lol. Killed the engine and committed the stupid xenos into a death charge at my hab with all the weapons pointing away lol.

That! and thats even vs an umoving base! -
" terran assisted suicide" XD
I really do hope/belive that a few tweaks to the AI will change that - as i said elsewhere, I've also seen the ALien dodge missiles and after i got my jaw off the floor i had to re-think a whole bunch of strats.
1/2 the threads we see like this are about the AI not using it's tools - andit has some nice tools.. ( puppy-kicking, this AI - not just combat)
- but complex systems, hard to Ai for- fair?
whether over-pen and raking fire is modelled- should answer alot of " is so simple" as current wisdom makes it. "conventional wisdom" was ignorant of the 75% armor skip that particle C's have, as an example. gotta rethink how "useless"

Escrito originalmente por onyhow:

This...I dunno. Maybe mount the engines on the side that have 180 degree range gimbal? Not sure how practical that is.

Won't work. The engines are huge things about 1/4 the size of the ship for the smaller frigates and the like. You can even cluster multiples of them, making the engine block huge in comparison to the ship. You can see this in the ship graphic when you add engines, the engine cluster expands in size.

yeah, someone suggested gimbals and tht wa smy take, i dunno- maybe if they built some katty-womple mid-ships or oblique, - i just, i can't.
- and the " uses a field to toss X YZ for thrust" while fascinating, - and seemslikeyou could toss the other way, still just
What do I know, I'm just some dumb thug, innit?

on vaguely related; If i may
I'm a BIG fan of Paul Harrel-
and one point of his I subscribe to: (not just on space game/ scifi forus where I gotta be rescued by a FAO gal )-
generally the people who speak with the most certitude about complex issues;
are the fake experts.
I hadn't applied it- butI see it all the time, none of the genuinely scary folk i know need to show off all that much. I don't scare easy, but I ain't effin' blind either if you know.
" every buttwiper who thinks they understand kentucky windage thinks he's a sniper and none of ya'll are so stfu and listen"
to barely misquote an old instructor. ( and no, not SuperSpicy school, but man am I jelly)
...anyway : it was just a thought; but if it amuses ya to argue with those, hey man you do you - it pretty much always cracks me up

[Mistfox]

Escrito originalmente por corisai:

Sphere allow max possible armor with minimal volume taken by armor if our main space weapon is nukes&missiles so side hits are constant :)

Wait, wot? I have to ask you how you can see that huge exposed surface area of a sphere and say that you can armor that efficiently. Hell, even the narrow needle shape has an expensive side armoring cost just by length alone. Now add height to that. Your armoring needs will go up by the power of 2 (increasing diameter is pi x diameter, increasing sphere surface area is 4 x pi x r^2).

[Badger BrownCoat]

Escrito originalmente por Ohramies:

What guide are you talking about?

sorry good sir- between my knuckley slow typing, and all this that; didn'tsee your question.
onyhow came to the rescue of many sanities; with this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TerraInvicta/comments/y7ueun/armor_mechanics_101/
his timing :muah:

[Badger BrownCoat]

Escrito originalmente por Mistfox:

Wait, wot? I have to ask you how you can see that huge exposed surface area of a sphere and say that you can armor that efficiently. Hell, even the narrow needle shape has an expensive side armoring cost just by length alone. Now add height to that. Your armoring needs will go up by the power of 2 (increasing diameter is pi x diameter, increasing sphere surface area is 4 x pi x r^2).

I'd have to be willing to calculate ( mass ) --> "bulk" translate that to shapes, and
punch myself in the face- b/cas I don't care that much-
but i can imagine very well someone has already in x y z old game threads- and likely this game too.
the needle is "great" frontally if you're not considering raking fire & over-pen
and thus: so far as we can tell bow-tanking here is without consequence-
but generally you think of that in sci-fi as not for combat but for reducing off-center G / vectors right? what is this "torque" you speak of?

I think was you saying earlier you could totally buy daggers/ wedges .
if you've any volumetric to what-not tables handy I could throw it at one of the other teams and see if it sticks.

Escrito originalmente por scuttlebutt:

several of the "ships" modders from stellaris & other games are already thinking about new model sets, andnot all of them are "hand-wavey"

ps: IF you're not already on a team, want some intro's?
I'm trying to stay distant until Imake up my mind on goin'/stayin'; but the way you think, and what you're on about- not sure why you're not
maybe hookin good to good; will be the good i do this time...

[corisai]

Escrito originalmente por MrFailSauce:

Sphere has the worst surface area to volume ratio which means it radiates heat the least efficiently of any shape. (Which matters a great deal in space)

Radiators are by definition - vulnerable and should be outside of the ship. So they're retractable. Nothing changes here for sphere.

Escrito originalmente por Mistfox:

Wait, wot? I have to ask you how you can see that huge exposed surface area of a sphere and say that you can armor that efficiently. Hell, even the narrow needle shape has an expensive side armoring cost just by length alone. Now add height to that. Your armoring needs will go up by the power of 2 (increasing diameter is pi x diameter, increasing sphere surface area is 4 x pi x r^2).

LOL. Maybe because sphere has lowest possible surface area for same volume? :)

[ArcticISAF]

Escrito originalmente por Ohramies:

If only. AI tends to point ship butt at enemies, which would be fine if we had torch drive with a million kilometer exhaust in this game but we don't. AI also exposes your sides to the enemy.

You can do better by just using the padlock command to keep nose pointed at the enemy and not changing direction until the xenos pass your battle line. At that point you can use ram-command to easily order pursuit.

Now minor course corrections may avoid kinetic weapons, but aliens are mostly about missiles and beams anyways.

So I took your suggestion to heart and thus I tried... no AI. That's right, I just hit play, sped up to speed 5 and watch them slowly roll towards the enemy. I had just reloaded this battle from an AI-set battle because a single corvette fled, leaving without any resources given to me. This time, everything got annihilated as they came into range. Amazingly the best strategy so far lol.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2879041133
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2879041179
Edit: Ok I included the second picture as I like the backdrop of the moon.

[MrFailSauce]

Escrito originalmente por corisai:

Escrito originalmente por MrFailSauce:

Sphere has the worst surface area to volume ratio which means it radiates heat the least efficiently of any shape. (Which matters a great deal in space)

Radiators are by definition - vulnerable and should be outside of the ship. So they're retractable. Nothing changes here for sphere.

(1) In practice heat radiates from all surfaces of a spaceship not just the radiators. A ship with a low surface area to volume ratio will be less efficient
(2) The principle includes radiators. A long thin ship will be able to mount a higher surface area of radiators for a given mass because it has more surface area on which to mount radiators.

[Mistfox]

Escrito originalmente por corisai:

Escrito originalmente por Mistfox:

Wait, wot? I have to ask you how you can see that huge exposed surface area of a sphere and say that you can armor that efficiently. Hell, even the narrow needle shape has an expensive side armoring cost just by length alone. Now add height to that. Your armoring needs will go up by the power of 2 (increasing diameter is pi x diameter, increasing sphere surface area is 4 x pi x r^2).

LOL. Maybe because sphere has lowest possible surface area for same volume? :)

Ah I see, so you were maximizing internal volume. Still going to give you a huge ass amount of surface area to plate over. The needles might give less volume per unit length but you can stretch it as far back as you need without needing to increase the area covered by the nose. Torque not withstanding. Look at the Capital ships, huge long assed ships but the nose area still covers all their volume from the front.

[corisai]

Escrito originalmente por MrFailSauce:

(1) In practice heat radiates from all surfaces of a spaceship not just the radiators. A ship with a low surface area to volume ratio will be less efficient

Passive emissions especially from non-dedicated materials are very small. That's why cooling in space is such big problem.

Escrito originalmente por MrFailSauce:

(2) The principle includes radiators. A long thin ship will be able to mount a higher surface area of radiators for a given mass because it has more surface area on which to mount radiators.

Yes, but in same time - bigger radiators mean that long thin ships are more vulnerable to side attacks even with retracted radiators :)

As stealth in space simply impossible we have two different way to armor:
a) Long thin ships with a massive nose - max frontal armor, but very vulnerable sides.

b) Sphere-like ships with minimal surface area for maximum efficiency of armor. Will have less armor overall but will be less vulnerable to flank attacks too.

I hope one day we will find which path is better IRL :P

[Mistfox]

Escrito originalmente por corisai:

I hope one day we will find which path is better IRL :P

You don't need to. Just looking at the increased area of a sphere that is needed to be armored will already tell you that armoring that huge amount of surface area is impractical. It's your side armour to the power of 2. Which if I recall correctly would be around 10,000 tons per armor point.

[ArcticISAF]

Escrito originalmente por corisai:

Yes, but in same time - bigger radiators mean that long thin ships are more vulnerable to side attacks even with retracted radiators :)

As stealth in space simply impossible we have two different way to armor:
a) Long thin ships with a massive nose - max frontal armor, but very vulnerable sides.

b) Sphere-like ships with minimal surface area for maximum efficiency of armor. Will have less armor overall but will be less vulnerable to flank attacks too.

I hope one day we will find which path is better IRL :P

Just do weird mushroom-shaped ships like the Teladi in X4, a big round cap for the front, and some weird architecture in the back. (I honestly have no clue what is the optimal design. I am all for the sleek straight ships)
(skip a few seconds ahead in the video)
https://youtu.be/CcjzCOgFtDQ?t=16