Fleet strategy question

[A Fat, Angry Serval]

I recently read a post on Sufficient Velocity talking about how in Stargate the BC-304 was originally designed as primarily a carrier, but then the SGC and IOA had a crash course in how space combat actually works in the setting and had to scramble to switch gears to a more pre-WWII style of combat doctrine, where big ships with big guns were king. (Luckily, the Asgard tech they recently acquired helped with that)

Here's a link if you're curious[forums.sufficientvelocity.com]

Anyway, what's the current effective fleet doctrine in group PVP in Space Engineers? Is there a big gun bias or are fighters king here? Or is it something else entirely, like swarms of small-ish, cheap, large ships or maybe even the Tarkin doctrine of "a REALLY big gun with cheap fighters to keep away enemy bombers"?

[Nightwing]

How the hell are you doing large-scale pvp? I thought SE wasn't able to handle that many ships...?

[Buzzard]

First, he's talking about a TV show referenced in a game forum... elsewhere.

There's as many doctrines as there are groups. Really big guns/torpedoes are great against big stuff, while gatlings will eat pretty much anything...eventually. Enough guns will eat anything thrown at them if they can target it. Enough crap thrown at guns will overwhelm them. Not all things can be auto-targeted.

There's always a way past anyone's defenses, if only one is creative enough to engineer a solution. Physics rules.

[A Fat, Angry Serval]

Originally posted by Nightwing:

How the hell are you doing large-scale pvp? I thought SE wasn't able to handle that many ships...?

I've seen some small-scale skirmish stuff on YouTube. Nothing like the big space battles you see in Star Wars or Star Trek, but the game seems to handle a few decent-sized ships per side surprisingly well.

Originally posted by Buzzard:

First, he's talking about a TV show referenced in a game forum... elsewhere.

There's as many doctrines as there are groups. Really big guns/torpedoes are great against big stuff, while gatlings will eat pretty much anything...eventually. Enough guns will eat anything thrown at them if they can target it. Enough crap thrown at guns will overwhelm them. Not all things can be auto-targeted.

There's always a way past anyone's defenses, if only one is creative enough to engineer a solution. Physics rules.

I'm more wondering about what people have found to be most efficient and effective. I know everything can be made to work with enough effort and creativity, but in survival mode that might not be the best option to go with. As an example a really big ship with really big guns and a full heavy-armored hull might be able to deal out punishment and tank a lot of damage, but it might not be sustainable in the long run due to the amount of resources needed to keep such a ship flying.

[Pembroke]

Well, the first rule is that mods change everything. Probably any balance outcome can be achieved with appropriate mods.

In vanilla, at least pre official release, the "gatling-spam" was the king. Provided the server was up for it and didn't crash the side that got more bullets flying and faster than the opposite side, simply won. Don't know if the new version changed things.

[A Fat, Angry Serval]

Originally posted by Pembroke:

Well, the first rule is that mods change everything. Probably any balance outcome can be achieved with appropriate mods.

In vanilla, at least pre official release, the "gatling-spam" was the king. Provided the server was up for it and didn't crash the side that got more bullets flying and faster than the opposite side, simply won. Don't know if the new version changed things.

I'm more asking about fleet composition. Still, that does lead me to believe that fighters and carriers are not the way to go.

[Tiberius Lacedaemon]

You're asking about combat as if this game has anything extensive. This game is as empty as combat. There's no variety, so there's not much you can do differently.

Vanilla-wise. When it comes to medium to large ships, they win every time, assuming the player knows enough about this crap to design his ship perfectly.

The reason I say that is simple.

Decoys. Turrets will automatically fire at decoys, and if large grid ships have that covered the way they should, there's little you can do before your ship is rendered useless.

Two large grids against each other with the same type of design will depend on who has guarded their decoys better.

A large grid with only heavy blocks will survive much longer than anything else, especially with decoys. A small grid has zero chance against large grid heavy blocks as they take way too long to be damaged, and long before you actually get through, you are nothing but pieces.

A large grid versus a small grid is not even considered a contest. Small grids are obliterated before they can dish out any serious damage.

A large grid ship with decent firepower can overpower any fighter, no matter how they're designed. It is what it is. Since the speed is capped at 100m/s, there's little you can do to avoid turret fire, no matter how hard you try.

With that being said, a swarm is not ideal in any scenario against a decently designed medium to large ship. Small grids are ridiculously weak, and with turrets being so "accurate", there's little you can do before the ships are all disabled. Of course, not everyone can design good ships, especially when it comes to combat, so this doesn't apply every time.

But with all this being said, that's where strategy and tactics come in. There's always a flaw, or an opening somewhere, and like I said, not everyone can design good ships, especially for combat. But when it comes down to combat in this game, this is how it is.


Mod-wise. No point in even saying anything about this. I don't know what drives people to create such ridiculously overpowered weapons like the GSF Energy Weapons in a game that has no complex systems related to combat. With weapons like that, there's no point in combat, as whoever has the biggest gun and can fire once wins.

There are some good, balanced weapon mods out there that can be used very nicely with the vanilla blocks, such as OKI.

[Nightwing]

I apologize for the following wall of text ahead of time.

When you say fleet composition, I assume you're referring to ships in a single battle and their various support craft. I like using the term Battle Group for something like that, while my definition of fleet involves counting multiple Battle Groups, since I define a fleet as all the ships available to a faction. I'll also be using some of my own definitions on what the ship classes are called, but I will give my definitions to give you guys an idea of what I'm talking about.
My ship definitions are as follows:
Freighters are minimally armed or even unarmed craft which are specifically designed to haul cargo. Their length can vary, with large freighters being a maximum of 50-100 blocks long. For small ship scale, the length you're looking at should not exceed 30-40 blocks, with most examples being in the 20 block range.
Fighters are small, nimble ships that primarily focus on bringing gatling guns onto the battlefield, with maybe one or two missile pods for secondary fire. Look at my Elear design on the workshop for an example.
Bombers are slower, larger ships that are more heavily weighted for firing missiles.
Carriers are 100-150 block length craft with a large internal hangar that can deploy and support more than 5 each of fighters and bombers. They're also fairly minimal in their armaments, since they should never be directly deployed in combat, instead relying on their fighters and bombers for force projection.
Cruisers are large ships perhaps 50-100 blocks in maximum length with more armaments than a freighter, but that still aren't entirely combat craft. I suggest using them as scouts and exploration in relatively friendly space.
Battlecruisers are cruiser-sized ships that are slightly more optimized for a combat role, but are meant to be integrated as part of a larger fleet. They can also be used to scout more hostile or unknown locations.
Battleships are the primary ship-to-ship combat ships in my definition. They tend to be larger ships on the scale of 200-300 blocks long, with a small hangar with enough room for one or two support craft, in addition to being heavily armed with as many turrets as can be dotted on the surface.
Dreadnoughts are massive ships that tend to be used as capital flagships with a length of around 500 blocks. They're meant to be utilized as command and control centers. They're armed with a minimum of 4 big rotor driven turrets that are controlled from within the command center, in addition to all the automatic missile and gatling turrets on the ship. They are also the only frequently-used ship class capable of producing what I call KIP's or Kinetic Impact Projectiles. A small internal hangar should provide enough room for 3-4 small shuttles to let crew on board.
While I do have a superdreadnought class in my definitions, they aren't really practical in everyday use, with lengths exceeding 1k blocks, and having internal hangars of their own, much like carriers, in addition to more than doubling the armaments of a dreadnought, on top of having multiple KIP launchers.

For a single Battle Group, my suggested fleet size is as follows, with suggested minimum crew per ship:
1 Dreadnought; Group Commander, ship 2IC, minimum 4 gunners, one for every rotor turret, 2-4 minor support staff

2-4 Battleships; Group 2IC, ship 2IC, 1-3 support staff, 2-4 support pilots

2-3 Battlecruisers; Captain, 1-2 support staff

3-4 Cruisers; Captain, 1-2 support staff

1-2 Carriers with their accompanying fighters and bombers, totaling a minimum of 5-10 of each; Captain, 2IC 1-2 support staff, 5-10 maintenance crew, 1 pilot for every fighter and bomber (Minimum 10)

2-3 Large Block Freighters; Captain/Pilot solo

5-10 Small Block Freighters Captain/Pilot solo

Grand total, my minimum suggest Battle Group size is 26 ships of varying sizes, and a suggested minimum Group crew of 53.
My suggested minimum fleet size is 2-4 Battle Groups, totaling a single-faction fleet strength with a minimum of 78 ships, and 159 crew members.

I fully realize that is almost certainly not possible, but keep in mind that I was doing my math as if performance was not an issue, and the game could handle infinite players.

Lemme know what you guys think!

[A Fat, Angry Serval]

Originally posted by Tiberius Lacedaemon:

You're asking about combat as if this game has anything extensive. This game is as empty as combat. There's no variety, so there's not much you can do differently.

Vanilla-wise. When it comes to medium to large ships, they win every time, assuming the player knows enough about this crap to design his ship perfectly.

The reason I say that is simple.

Decoys. Turrets will automatically fire at decoys, and if large grid ships have that covered the way they should, there's little you can do before your ship is rendered useless.

Two large grids against each other with the same type of design will depend on who has guarded their decoys better.

A large grid with only heavy blocks will survive much longer than anything else, especially with decoys. A small grid has zero chance against large grid heavy blocks as they take way too long to be damaged, and long before you actually get through, you are nothing but pieces.

A large grid versus a small grid is not even considered a contest. Small grids are obliterated before they can dish out any serious damage.

A large grid ship with decent firepower can overpower any fighter, no matter how they're designed. It is what it is. Since the speed is capped at 100m/s, there's little you can do to avoid turret fire, no matter how hard you try.

With that being said, a swarm is not ideal in any scenario against a decently designed medium to large ship. Small grids are ridiculously weak, and with turrets being so "accurate", there's little you can do before the ships are all disabled. Of course, not everyone can design good ships, especially when it comes to combat, so this doesn't apply every time.

But with all this being said, that's where strategy and tactics come in. There's always a flaw, or an opening somewhere, and like I said, not everyone can design good ships, especially for combat. But when it comes down to combat in this game, this is how it is.


Mod-wise. No point in even saying anything about this. I don't know what drives people to create such ridiculously overpowered weapons like the GSF Energy Weapons in a game that has no complex systems related to combat. With weapons like that, there's no point in combat, as whoever has the biggest gun and can fire once wins.

There are some good, balanced weapon mods out there that can be used very nicely with the vanilla blocks, such as OKI.

So, with decoys, battleships are king. That being said, with decoys you can actually confuse enemy turrets into not even firing by cycling them on and off so that enemy turrets basically keep having to re-aim (or at least you could back in 2015. I don't know if they fixed that or not). Just out of curiosity, would decoys being excluded change anything (since some servers may have rules about them) or would it just the same but with somewhat less tanky ships?

[NYVS]

On the the note of strategem; think less than Star Wars or Star Trek when it cones to fleet battles in space. Space is absolutely expansive and filled with nothing. Proper applications of asteroids and view points could make the difference in an uphill battle. How far away are you from combat? The bigger the ship, the easier it is to see at far distances.
etc., etc.

[Tiberius Lacedaemon]

Without decoys, everything still remains the same, except now the positive outcome depends on how much firepower you have.

It's really just another "DPS Race" to see who disables who first.