Main batteries feel obsolete

[mortis7]

After playing almost 200h in X4 (and hundreds more in previous titles) I have a stronger and stronger feeling that main batteries for largest ships are missed design.

At first I was like "wow, those are big guns!", but then I saw them in action a couple of times and I must say that their design forces many complications on the battlefield. First of all, ship needs to be facing straight forward an opponent in order to fire those big boys.
In larger battles it just looks like destroyers are now lining up to face enemy ships and just stand there weirdly, trying to have their target in front of them.

Now imagine (like in X3) that instead of main batteries, those ships have more L turrets. They would gently fly towards their targets, not really bothering that much about their positioning and many problems that were and still are present in the game. Also the fireworks would be in my opinion much more spectacular, as close contacts would occur more often.

Right now the destroyers fight looks static. Xenon ships have no batteries and I find their fight-style trully the greatest to watch.

Please consider having some large ships to have more turrets instead of batteries (or just allow them to have some XL turrets to compensate the range)

[Alith-Ahnar]

Agree fixed Gun play style is a boring and misses the point of Capital Ship Combat.
Lots more Turrets and specific mechanics that enhance Capital Combat instead of adding just weaknesses (surface modules).

The current design expects the Player to only be happy if they can pull the trigger pew pew for them self i consider this a bit patronizing.

Capitals should feel like Capitals should look like Capitals should provide a spectacle like capitals and not just be up-sized Fighters.

But hey we are in this downward loop since X³:TC with a short glimpse of what could be the biggest most epic Eye Candy in any X game with X:R Capital Combat Visuals.

TLDR the Current Capital Design is for them to be Targets for the Player,
not Toys to play with.

[nephilimnexus]

Main guns are for destroying enemy space stations from beyond the max range of said station's turret defenses. They serve no other real purpose.

[Daddy Shark]

I like that there's main batteries on capital ships. I would like to see it mixed up a little - a destroyer or two that has the main guns mounted broadside instead of pointing forwards. That would actually make a lot more sense as it gives you mobility during an encounter you wouldn't normally have with forward-facing weapons.

[Alith-Ahnar]

Originally posted by nephilimnexus:

Main guns are for destroying enemy space stations from beyond the max range of said station's turret defenses. They serve no other real purpose.

Are they?
Take a look at the stats of Main Guns and this statement maybe true for other games falls apart for X4.

The Only Capital in X4 that is outright a Siege Weapon would be the Asgard and it's Super-Beam.

Just the Paranid, Teladi and Argnu Mainguns do indeed outrange all turret based defense measures the Terran are just ever so slightly in range of Paranid Plasma and Split have a hard time outranging anything other then Xenon.

Take Bullet Speed, Damage and Rate of Fire into consideration and you pretty fast realise those weapons are supposed to be used in Ship to Ship Combat not only for Station destruction.

Fixed Rifles should be limited to special Siege Ships and yes they should be in almost all cases only be useful fighting Big stationary Targets but that's not what X4 does or wants.

Originally posted by Star Trucker:

I like that there's main batteries on capital ships. I would like to see it mixed up a little - a destroyer or two that has the main guns mounted broadside instead of pointing forwards. That would actually make a lot more sense as it gives you mobility during an encounter you wouldn't normally have with forward-facing weapons.

Like having Ships only with Turrets that are good for broadsiding?
Take a look at the XEN K and I those Ships are the closest thing to proper Capitals,
a near unstoppable force of Nature until the player finds out how to cheese the encounter plenty of cheese to be had fighting those.

[Daddy Shark]

That's neat and all, but I like the feeling of lining up the main guns and firing off salvos. It feels like a powerful battleship. There's room for all kinds of ships. If turrets are what gets your jollies off then you'll love the Raptor.

I would also like to see a "drone carrier" vessel that can puke out 200-300 drones in 10 seconds to just flood an area with automated little battle drones.

[Kajar]

The main guns are so powerful though and give the player something to do in a fight. With turrets only, i would find myself just sitting there, waiting. With the destroyer main guns i can take part in the fight. And blapping smaller stuff in 1-2 shots is pretty fun as well.
The guns are also not fixed, they are gimballed like most other guns. The only fixed guns i think are the Boson Lance, Mass Driver, Meson Stream and Asgard Beam.
No cheese needed for the K though. Just a Burst Ray and/or some Heavy Cluster missiles.
In the end, Guns shoot, Guns do damage. Works for me.

I also would like larger drone capacity for big ships.

[blackphoenixx]

I wouldn't mind a second set of destroyers that replace the main guns with more L turrets - it shouldn't be that hard to implement and that way players can choose what they like better instead of being forced into one or the other.

The Syn is already more than halfway there after all - most of the time its L turrets kill things before the captain even gets the main guns aligned properly unless it's targeting a station.

Originally posted by Star Trucker:

That's neat and all, but I like the feeling of lining up the main guns and firing off salvos. It feels like a powerful battleship. There's room for all kinds of ships. If turrets are what gets your jollies off then you'll love the Raptor.

I would also like to see a "drone carrier" vessel that can puke out 200-300 drones in 10 seconds to just flood an area with automated little battle drones.

300 drones might be a little overkill. A supply ship already makes short work of most fighter groups if you stick it full of defense drones set to attack all enemies.
And i shudder to imagine the performance impact, especially if you have more than one.

Even frigates already make for pretty decent drone carriers, if you get them launched before combat starts.
Really all that'd be needed to make them truly viable is increasing the launch/docking speed so you can deploy them quicker and don't have to wait ages after combat for them to redock.

[Azrael]

Looking at RL Battleships and other heavy gun ships, imho the Destroyers we have in X4 feel like a step backward due to these main guns.

Take a look at the ARG Behemoth, it only has two L turrets (and a number of M Turrets that aren't helpful in Capital vs. Capital Combat).

That seems to be rather few of these for Capital vs. Capital Combat and with their main guns having a large range, they indeed seem to be more siege ships than actual Capital vs. Capital Ships.

If there would be ARG Destroyers and Capitals having more turrets, relying less on main guns, that would be fine, problem is, in Vanilla X4 they don't have these. And the same is true for most other Destroyers of the Vanilla Races, only Split and Terrans shake that up a bit with having more L Turrets on them (that imho shows, that Egosoft themselves realized in the timeframe up to the Split DLC, that this is a bit of a misdesign).

I just hope either, that they add some viable "ship of the line" combat ships of the L and XL class to the vanilla races as basically an answer to what Split and Terrans have, giving them an edge, because I'm somewhat tired to basically do a quantity over quality approach with Argons, Paranids and Teladi, if I want to counter Split and Terrans in Capital vs. Capital Combat.

[mortis7]

Originally posted by Azrael:

Looking at RL Battleships and other heavy gun ships, imho the Destroyers we have in X4 feel like a step backward due to these main guns.

[...]only Split and Terrans shake that up a bit with having more L Turrets on them (that imho shows, that Egosoft themselves realized in the timeframe up to the Split DLC, that this is a bit of a misdesign).

That is exactly what I though after spending some time in newest DLCs. Terrans and Splits have their destroyers packed with turrets and while main batteries are still there, at least ships like Syn can pack some punch even if something attacks it from the rear. While Behemoth with only two L turrets can scratch the attacker on the nose.

Originally posted by Azrael:

That seems to be rather few of these for Capital vs. Capital Combat and with their main guns having a large range, they indeed seem to be more siege ships than actual Capital vs. Capital Ships.

And so it seems. For all the "base game" destroyers, the main firepower is the main battery, which is stupidly slow and hard to maneuver with. I would mind having some destroyers packed with turrets, that can be more mobile in their approach and use the Behemoths for sieging.

But there are two problems with this approach:

1) The whole idea of a "siege" is a bit lame to me. There are defensive modules for stations, that can be heavily packed with L turrets. Those are designed for taking down L and XL ships and if the idea is to bypass all this just by utylizing the range of main batteries, why would we want to build those defensive modules in the first place? To hope that AI won't use this range advantege? To me, shooting at something from safe distance is just unbalanced. If you want to attack a station, battle it. Stations take a very long time to build and are expensive, we shouldn't just be able to destroy every single one we see, because of main battery range advantage. That seems cheesy. But hey, in that case at least those main battery destroyers would have their dedicated purpose.

2) For destroyer vs destroyer combat, I would imagine that the ship with main battery vs turret-packed one, the main battery destroyer would win. Why? Because it can shoot first. And destroyers are slow, so dogding isnt really an option. Sure, if the turret-packed destroyer would attack from behind, then it's a different story. But let's be honest, AI doesn't operate that way in this game.

[Alith-Ahnar]

Originally posted by Star Trucker:

That's neat and all, but I like the feeling of lining up the main guns and firing off salvos. It feels like a powerful battleship. There's room for all kinds of ships. If turrets are what gets your jollies off then you'll love the Raptor.

No it does not.
Fixed guns is like playing a over sized slow lumbering Fighter right now with most Capitals.
There is no difference in game play at all and the new added challenge is to overcome the boredom that is part of it.

Your supposed benefits getting old real fast and do not out weight any actual fresh new game play that could be had with turret platforms ships that make use of additional game mechanics, like with active crew actions target designation for subordinates that go beyond a this and only that right now.

Originally posted by Star Trucker:

I would also like to see a "drone carrier" vessel that can puke out 200-300 drones in 10 seconds to just flood an area with automated little battle drones.

Capital Gameplay in general is barebones at best starts with launch and recover times for Fighter or Drones Raptor is the biggest offender.
No real wing management in fleets like sub tasks or options to tweak behavior.
Drones in general are a Joke on anything other then a Station as they only work in Numbers Only a AUX or Build Ship could bring to a fight because of their low cruise speed and launch situation.

Don't get me wrong You can make almost everything work somehow with enough most systems by now are extremely robust still it does not take much to notice focus is only on the Fighter pilot personal trigger finger pew pew player and that's it.
Everyone else is shoved in a small corner of the sandbox and told be happy with what you have.

[SpaceToast]

Capital ships in general feel really lame compared to previous games in the series.

[Oddible]

I have to change the way I play to make things interesting. I always hop in the driver's seat when I'm attacking key targets. In doing this I always shoot the engines first then pick apart surface modules with my main guns. Same with stations, I fly in at range, poke out all the turrets then let the fleet finish it off. This has been awesome for accomplishing my goals but it is getting boring.

So lately I've been staying out of it. Initially I parked my destroyers at range and let their longer range guns destroy stations. This is a terrible mechanic and the fact that I can do this in the game is just an exploit. So I stopped. Again, got the job done, but felt cheaty, was too easy, no challenge, just a grind.

My last attempt at "fun" was filling up carriers with fighters and seeing if I could engage enemy fleets and stations with those. WAY MORE FUN, hands off, more realistic, lost a LOT of fighters. Again VERY realistic. I suspect everyone on the forums here would complain OMG I LOST A FIGHTER ENGAGING A XENON SHIPYARD GAME IS BROKEN, but for once it didn't feel like an exploit and felt like I was losing an appropriate number of assets for a capital engagement.

If you watch these engagements, they don't look right. If you step back and look at them on a spreadsheet, they ARE REALISTIC, kind of, the player has a HUGE advantage still.

So let's be clear about what we're asking for. Are we asking for Main Batteries to be exploity fun guns? Or are we asking for combat to be more realistic? Which means losses.

[mortis7]

^ This

Like the way it is now, the great way to make money is to do a mission when you need to destroy some turrets in enemy territory. So you park your destroyer in the safe range and get it done. No loses, millions of credits yours, easy peasy.

That doesn't feel like a risky mission, it feels like an exploit. Being in enemy space isn't that much of a challenge, in my experience they are usually pretty safe to fly in, especially in a destroyer (I've done several missions in Xenon space near Yaki base).

On the other hand, when I wanted to do this mission "properly", getting closer and using my turrets, station defences shreded my Syn to pieces in seconds.
That suggest that the proper way to do this mission is indeed to cheese it with main batteries from afar or go for a sneaky fighter.

It would definitely be more fun have this kind of mission be assigned on a station that is not fully equiped with turrets, so that frontal attack might not be suicidal. Some losses here and there, but generally a profit. Still, main batteries outranging a station feels indeed boring.

[Azrael]

Originally posted by mortis7:

^ This

Like the way it is now, the great way to make money is to do a mission when you need to destroy some turrets in enemy territory. So you park your destroyer in the safe range and get it done. No loses, millions of credits yours, easy peasy.

That doesn't feel like a risky mission, it feels like an exploit. Being in enemy space isn't that much of a challenge, in my experience they are usually pretty safe to fly in, especially in a destroyer (I've done several missions in Xenon space near Yaki base).

On the other hand, when I wanted to do this mission "properly", getting closer and using my turrets, station defences shreded my Syn to pieces in seconds.
That suggest that the proper way to do this mission is indeed to cheese it with main batteries from afar or go for a sneaky fighter.

It would definitely be more fun have this kind of mission be assigned on a station that is not fully equiped with turrets, so that frontal attack might not be suicidal. Some losses here and there, but generally a profit. Still, main batteries outranging a station feels indeed boring.

Or if you were allowed to just outright destroy that station with torpedo bombers, but then the missions "fails", because you did not only destroy the turrets...

[Daddy Shark]

Well usually the briefing says the idea is to blow up the turrets so some scientists can get in there and study the station while it's disarmed.

The other ones that say "take out the turrets so we can attack this station" don't make any sense, though. They should be thanking you for killing the station.