Any reason to buy a big ship? Also discussing differences in same size ships.

[GretelMK2]

Just finished a Hard run with the Zatar Fang. The defensive bonus of being small and nimble means I would basically never get hit. Just made sure all Officers had +tactics/command and spammed Nav modules. Used two Med and one Small Torpedo at distance 5 to destroy everything while spamming defensive maneuvers until the opponent could no longer hit.

After reading extensively on the subject, it appears that larger ships would have a very tough time coming even close to the defensive capabilities of a small ship due to the % extra defense for speed differences.

https://i.imgur.com/GYleg2Y.jpg

I have about 3 mil now but I can't see the point of a new ship that costs more to operate, levels slower, moves slower and dodges worse.


On that note, I don't see too much difference in the ships of the same mass. The big ones are compartments and Crew/Officer max and where the bridge is. It also appears that base mass/hull/shielding differ, but the rest of the stats (If you stripped the ship down to nothing) remain the same. It's really more an observation than a criticism but it would be cool if ships had more...uniqueness...to them. Either a special ability or something that made me choose A over B.

One final semi-related thing that I know has been said before: I hate Mass-Reducer modules. I feel like I understand why they exist, but in the end they just force me to do a lot of math to see what I'm allowed to put in my ship. I'd prefer that either they didn't exist (And mass was not considered) or that no ship came with one installed but you could if you wanted many heavy items. As it is now, most ships have to have 1 or more no matter what loadout they pick, which feels bad.

[zgrssd]

The big ships are supposed to offset lower agility/speed engine with higher pools.
Their durability also scales, the more crew and components they have. Simply having more stuff to distributed crew- and component damage means less likely you loose anything important.

Your choice of tactic for the Fang is odd. It is the quintessential Boarder ship. Chaser Engine + T4 Weapons Locker + Boarding Module.
What you did sounds more like standoff fighting. For wich ships like the Palace Interceptor are better suited.

[zgrssd]

Originally posted by GretelMK2:

One final semi-related thing that I know has been said before: I hate Mass-Reducer modules. I feel like I understand why they exist, but in the end they just force me to do a lot of math to see what I'm allowed to put in my ship. I'd prefer that either they didn't exist (And mass was not considered) or that no ship came with one installed but you could if you wanted many heavy items. As it is now, most ships have to have 1 or more no matter what loadout they pick, which feels bad.

I noticed that Carriers have 1 more maximum Craft Slot then other ships of their class. They also come pre-equipped with a lot of Hangar Bays, wich means you do not spend ages and millions retrofitting them.

[Blinkicide]

It actually doesn't take much to make the big ships nearly invulnerable. I avoided commmenting on this, as I gather the devs are trying to change the meta with carriers, as you can't evade bombers the same way you can missiles. It's a needed change, as invulnerability ruins the idea of an endgame -- hope it gets there.

As for pure defensive capabilities, you can compare my far from min max Sword battle Cruiser (screen shot while i'm contemplating changing to carrier, so I got extra officer cabins, etc). I think the zartar feng at best gets a 35% bonus, so I think the big ships come out clearly ahead with gear and crew, plus slots to carry more cargo, passengers, prisoners, etc.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1736166587

Zartar Feng Defense = ((30+43) * 0.4 + (12 + 62) * 0.2) * 1.35 (Faster Ship Bonus) = 59.4

SBC = ((80+9) * 0.4 + (33+157) * 0.2) * 1.10 (Defense Patterns) = 80.96

The SBC above as I said is unoptomized; has a lot more room to add more defensive modules,, hire more commanders (and fire some of the extra navigators). I'm not sure whether the small ship bonus is additive with defensive buffs or not, but if its additive (instead of multiplicative) that would also favor the large ships, as they would have bigger numbers for the buffs to operate on.

[darion-neclador]

Very astute @Blinkicide .

I do however disagree on your statement that you shouldn't be able to outsmart the AI. Getting to a BC like that is about a 10-12hrs commitment, i actually like the idea that you can get to a point where you can't easily lose your progress to a set of bad rolls.

What the Carriers are concerned, we'll see how it pens out with the AI, although i suspect that it'll mostly be a mandatory double Autocannon to clear that obstacle (yay, less room for interesting stuff!). In their current state however, Fighters are extremely unappealing to me due to their immense Slot Investment and other associated cost (you're basically getting the damage of the average missile launcher for the low low price of a large slot). But since the AI notoriously doesn't care about utility or travel checks or even fuel usage (go and take a prize and check the builds, i've had one lately that used 80% of it's fuel to jump :D ) i'd guess that it'll be fun times ahead ;) .

[GretelMK2]

Originally posted by zgrssd:

The big ships are supposed to offset lower agility/speed engine with higher pools.
Their durability also scales, the more crew and components they have. Simply having more stuff to distributed crew- and component damage means less likely you loose anything important.

Your choice of tactic for the Fang is odd. It is the quintessential Boarder ship. Chaser Engine + T4 Weapons Locker + Boarding Module.
What you did sounds more like standoff fighting. For which ships like the Palace Interceptor are better suited.

I know you can't see the exact items, but mine's running the Travelers engine. When you buy the thing, it totally looks ready for some boarding action but to my second point in the post...each ship is kinda exactly like each other ship in it's weight class when stripped down. So I ripped out everything and stocked for long range because I wanted to be able to escape if the fight didn't go my way.

And with it's crazy speed, I really don't get hit at all.

To others points about bigger ships being more robust, that's true. But every time a hit connects it's quite expensive. I'd rather just not have a repair bill after the fight and take a few more turns to bring down the enemy.

It does sound like that fully upgraded and crewed the bigger ships can be even more invincible, which is pretty nuts. I wish there were more...end game type challenges that exist the whole game but really were not smart to try till later on.

[zgrssd]

Originally posted by GretelMK2:

It does sound like that fully upgraded and crewed the bigger ships can be even more invincible, which is pretty nuts. I wish there were more...end game type challenges that exist the whole game but really were not smart to try till later on.

Bigger ships do not evade nearly as much. A large part of Evasion is low enemy pools and high relative speed/agility.

I guess with "the fight turning against you", you mean being hit at all. Evasion builds later on are very "hit or miss" (pun somewhat intended). It works wonderfull when you are missed. But one hit can wreck your entire plan quickly.
Big ships are more consistent. As they rely on actually tanking the hits, no single hit is anywhere near the same danger.

[zgrssd]

Originally posted by Blinkicide:

It actually doesn't take much to make the big ships nearly invulnerable. I avoided commmenting on this, as I gather the devs are trying to change the meta with carriers, as you can't evade bombers the same way you can missiles. It's a needed change, as invulnerability ruins the idea of an endgame -- hope it gets there.

I think the idea was to be able to shoot Craft down with a number of weapons. Talents to deal with that are already in place. The AI that makes it a thing to be worried about, is not.

[Blinkicide]

Originally posted by zgrssd:

Bigger ships do not evade nearly as much. A large part of Evasion is low enemy pools and high relative speed/agility.

I'm a bit confused zgrssd, are you saying there's a zarteng feng build that would give it a higher defense roll than the SBC I posted? The smaller ship's defense advantages comes from high speed engines (30 speed) and against larger ship a bonus up to 35%. That doesn't appear to be enough to make up for more the extra slots the SBC can devote to defensive modules, and more crew to have considerably higher command. I put the math in my post comparing the two ships dice rolls, let me know if you disagree.

[tadasga]

I think theoretical maximums are irrelevant and a better way to think about it - what's the minimum roll needed to be able to dodge xeno ship attacks 100%. And it's not that high. You are not going to be fighting other people ships. I agree that higher mass ships can become a lot more powerful than small ones and I think meta might shift (depending on implementation) with enemy craft.

[tadasga]

And I will preface it first as I have limited ship fighting experience, all I do is put enough pilot assist 3 modules that after buffs I can not be hit and board their ship, but it seems to me that at least on impossible ship combat is very binary - you either dodge all attacks or it's not even worth fighting, because of high amount of crew deaths. I am conflicted. I really like the idea of crew dying during ship battles and at the same time it prevents me to exchange blows with other ships and limits me to super high evade playstyle.

[Blinkicide]

Originally posted by tadasga:

but it seems to me that at least on impossible ship combat is very binary - you either dodge all attacks or it's not even worth fighting, because of high amount of crew deaths. I am conflicted.

I would like to see radiation / void resist on more items, so its easier to build around damage mitigation strategy. A ship with max shields / armor is in theory only taking 1/16 normal weapon damage. Thus, its probably the radiation damage that's resulting in high internal damage, as a max shield ship still takes 1/2 damage internally from radiation (rad dmg * .25 * 2 internal multiplier = 1/2 rad dmg).

I've also seen very low hits from self-inflicted 10 dmg per turn result in fairly high cascade damage. E.g. 4 dmg to component 1, causes 28 damage to component 2. Ensuring that small hits don't result in much larger cascade hits I think would help.

I agree that mitigation strategy is to be avoided. Its almost never right to use mitigation talents if another talent can substantially help you avoid getting hit. If you're getting hit, after using a mitigation talent, you're likely to fall behind even more, as enemy can apply multiple debuffs from weapons. Last time I went for this strategy was over 100 battles ago, before I had all my defense mods, against a 29 speed craft with base accuracy rolling above 90. I realized I wouldn't pull ahead of his accuracy.

[tadasga]

Or it might be as simple as making shields cap higher than it currently is. Like 90% instead of 75%. It would be 2.5 times damage reduction to crew.

[tadasga]

Now that I think about it probably not, not getting getting hit is just too good. You would probably need to introduce some caps on evasion, etc etc. Well huge overhaul for ship combat. Idk. Thank god I don't need to balance this game.

[zgrssd]

Originally posted by Blinkicide:

Originally posted by zgrssd:

Bigger ships do not evade nearly as much. A large part of Evasion is low enemy pools and high relative speed/agility.

I'm a bit confused zgrssd, are you saying there's a zarteng feng build that would give it a higher defense roll than the SBC I posted?

IIRC, the absolute Speed/Agility is added to the defense pool.
And the Speed/Agility difference is added as a percentile modifier to said rolls again. At least that is what this here says:
https://startraders.gamepedia.com/Ship_Combat#Ship_Combat_Dice_Pools

Now a small ship has to rely on the speed/agility difference more. Both in providing strong dice to attack/defense/range change. And having a percentile modifier to those, by being superior to anything larger.
Bigger ships have engines with way worse Speed and Agility. A difference of 10 is not uncommon. They can offset that by having more components to allow higehr Gunnery/Pilot/Nav Dicepools. And secondary stuff like Command and Tactics.

[tarquelne]

Originally posted by tadasga:

Now that I think about it probably not, not getting getting hit is just too good. You would probably need to introduce some caps on evasion, etc etc. Well huge overhaul for ship combat. Idk. Thank god I don't need to balance this game.

I agree, though perhaps the way forward is bringing dodging and damage mitigation closer together: Give mitigation a gentler curve to a higher cap, and give dodging a diminishing returns mechanic, so it has a gentle curve to an effective cap.

Though small craft might make the second defensive axis small craft defense rather than mitigation, and mitigation will remain a tertiary concern.

It’d be cool if the balance shifted as the date advanced.