Longer Battles?

You'll have to either reduce weapon damage or significantly boost component structure and shields. As far as I can tell, this is about the only way to lengthen a battle, other than making ships miss a lot more.

You mentioned fighters swarming a ship and that ship having no chance of survival. This may be fixed in the next patch, since one of the fixes involved better PD spread.

Otherwise, best of luck to you. I've wanted longer battles for some time, but haven't had the time to mod things to this effect. If you finish this mod, I'll certainly play it

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have a look at the IRM Mod by fallen haven http://interrelatedmod.wikispaces.com though the page is in its early stages you might want to look at the scripts and what they do you might be interested in borrowing some of them or using them for ideas.

From playing the Mod since its first release I have seen battles regularly run out of time and ships especially large ones end up on multi turn battles at times as individual ships are much tougher and so survive longer indeed damaged ships often escape to fight another day. Fighters are still over powered but there is plenty of anti fighter weapons in the mod which if the PD upgrade works out as well as its supposed to will change the advantage markedly. Even now fighters are not invincible and tend to get mauled if not present in over whelming numbers. I have also had a ground combat last three game turns before it came to a concussion which was an experience.

The battles only last a maximum of five muinites at 1x speed but they feel much more like real battles. The latest version is 0.8e downloadable via a link on this forum as I have not put it up on the Wiki page yet.

if you get an error message go into the game types folder when you have unzipped the file and copy the content of the folder called Interrelated Conversion up into the folder called IRM8e and it will run fine. Be aware that as 0.8e was meant as a patch for 0.8d it will appear as 0.8d in the mod selection window.

Hope that helps

Another way to make battles longer is make it to where shields have a bleed through effect, and raise hitpoints on ships. Or dont even mess with the shields or weapons, just increase the Damage each ship can take by a couple of hundred. I dont know though, i'm still new at this stuff and i'm only 14, so if my advice sucks, please excuse me.

battles would be longer if the AI built larger fleets and confronted you.

In this type of game where there are so many hexes and places ships can be that is hard to do. Its not like Master of Orion 2 where if a ship is in a system and you HAVE to go through it obviously large battles will happen since there is only one place for them.

Well could anyone try my idea?

I disagree with the first sentence quoted above: I can see no reason why a BB should have difficulty targeting a frigate of a destroyer. The smaller ship should have a defense bonus, certainly, but they're not fighters.

Perhaps I missed something, but if taken to the extreme for the sake of this post, are you saying that without "special" weapons, a ship should not be able to destroy an enemy vessel of significantly different size? It either can't hit it if the enemy is too small, or can't punch through the thicker skin if the enemy is too big? Not sure how far I'd take that one. A few destroyers should find it in their best interest to run from a BB or larger. I might be able to get behind smaller ships being unable to effectively pound on a huge opponent, though.

There is always room for improvement, and there are still SE5 code bugs to iron out, but personally, I'm enjoying the Balance Mod. It seems to allow for flexible effective roles of ships. Larger ships can carry more armor and take more punishment and so last longer, yet they can be swarmed by enough smaller ships. Fighters can swarm and take ships under, but sufficient point defense can make a difference (and yes, you can program strategies that let your pd be distributed as it stands now). There are still issues of over targetting of non-pd weapons, though, and I'd really like to see task force formations fixed.

Just my $.02.

You could simply increase the tonnage structure by *10 of everything. But keep the weapons at the regular damage.

That in theory would make the ships last *10 longer in battle.

Then you will need to address fighters. Do you make their componants 10* as well, or trade off at *5. It's juggling act and leave you to have a play with the numbers.

But I hope to see you release that one. It would make battles epic!

Your lord and master (below Foamy) LordHavoc

Then you would need to increase battlefield and time for battle (it would suck if two BBs engaded DD and after geting half of its shields combat would ended without doing permanent damage.

And it would suck, if DD could not destroy colony ship that is significantly slower than him.

If you wanted to make ships able to take damage to some parts but not be destroyed by smaller ships, because of armor... could you make outer hull take damage before armor? So all damage hits the outer hull first, then armor, only after armor into inner hull.

After that you could make different sized armor (for different ship classes) that are like emissive armor, so really much smaller ships simply will not penetrate it, or doing so is simply not practical. Combine this with a general damage reduction or HP increase to lengthen battles.

scifier i love your concept. im an avid reader of most things navel and especialy in love with the pre-carrier navys. the says when first rates and ships of the line were king. i KNOW that despite what most people would have you believe that a dreadnought is less than a battle ship if you were to rank them by size. not many people know that. those old WWI relics you refer too were actualy dreadnoughts and compaired to 'modern' battle ships were relics.

anyhow the trouble is that carriers and missles DO come into play. the reason most navel battles pre-carriers took so long was first being able to find the enemy fleet. and second most shots missed. battleships became dinosours overnight because of the very thing you complane about when you say small swarms of fighters destroy ships. to this day no surface ship will get within gun range of any carrier.

the way to fix this is remove missles and fighters totaly. mod the guns to be strong but miss alot on the order of a 1-2% hit rate. and have very strong but very short range torpedos. as well as limit the size of guns on smaller ships and increase the range hugely in larger ships. so you could only have a say level 20 DUC max in a frigate. were battle ships could go up to size 75 or so and dreads could have the full 100. (since most weapons increase range with levels you may not have to do anything but limit the level of the weapon to the hull size)

i dont even know if it would be possable to limit a hull size to a certian weapons tech cap. since all old tech is scraped the second a new version is researched id guess no. but i like your ideas alot and wish you luck working them out. but as long as there are missles and fighters involved then you will have a hard time setting it up to reflect the old ship to ship combat.

i still havent figured out why Star destroyers needed TIE fighers. if the fighters are powerful enough to destroy a capitol ship then you dont build battleships you build carriers. if they arent then you dont build fighters at all.

I was reading this topic and then a few ideas came to mind about how to make this work. Assuming the emissive armour is fixed (the more you chew up, the weaker it gets), then there is a great way to do this. Heavy ships could have a natural emissive armor amount to them, one that doesn't degrade in addition to regular armour. Let's check the math for a moment

I have a BB that has 50,000 armour and it gets ganged up by a team of lightly armed destroyers and frigates. Assuming they do about 600 damage at one time (say a high level anti-proton), it would take a group of 10 of them about 17 seconds to cut through the ship and end it, assuming no misses and casualties. Now lets give the BB a natural emissive armor amount of 200. The 10 ships suddenly take 25 seconds to pound the ship into space dust. In that time the BB will have probably destroyed about half of the incoming ships, making it even better.

Lets take the math out a little further still. Lets make it have a natural emissive of 400. Now the 10 ships take a whopping 50 seconds to pound the ship into dust. 50 seconds would be more than enough time for the BB to pound the little ships because of it's gigantic weapon mounts. Balance is achieved? Or is it?

Two BBs decide to go at it, both with 50,000 armour. Assuming they have a wide range of weapons ranging from mesons to anti-protons, we could estimate the total damage in one volley of about 15-20k late game. So now they go at it. The two ships will defeat each other in a matter of seconds, despite having the natural emissive.

So how are we going to fix that? And what about fighters that can only do 150 damage? That's easy enough. Make a dedicated bomber. The bomber would be loaded with a weapon that is not only heavy (like a real bomb), but is also a single shot operation. Suddenly you enter the territory of fighter tactics. Do you send in a wave of SEAD craft that distract the enemy point defense first and then send in slower bombers? What happens when the other player develops interceptors for your bombers? Now fighter combat becomes more than who has the highest tech research.

So how much should that bomb do? Assuming a late level fighter with tonnage of 75, I'd say that the bomb itself could be 20-25 of the 75. A heavy bomber would literally be engines, a cockpit and a few bombs. A tactical fighter might be faster, and better equipped, but with less payload. Our bomb does 600 lets say, making it extremely powerful for a fighter? Or is it?

Your dedicated bomber has enough for two rounds. So 1200 damage. Our BB is the most pricey target so the bomber goes for that. Assuming it hits for both (and is no destroyed), the 1200 damage is reduced twice by the emissive to a whopping 400 damage total. It takes a lot of bomber to destroy that BB. Against a regular destroyer, even late game a dedicated bomber squadron would still be able to sink it easily.

There is only one more thing I'd like to talk about, range. The biggest difference besides caliber and damage from a 6in and an 18in is effective range. An 18in gun is good for engagements at range you can't see the people on the side of the ship with a pair of binoculars. Some 6in guns require a pretty good look at what your shooting at for a good hit, and consquently they could be used almost rapid fire.

Is SEV, the BB would get the massive mounts, which would come with a range bonus like stations. The Massive Meson Blaster would have at least double that of the the regular one. (a 6in naval gun was good to about 14km, an 18in effective to about 36 km) So a destroyer would have our regular or large meson blaster good to about 10 units, and our BB would have a massive one, good to about 18 units. Combined with emissve armor, and you have some nasty tactical battles.

"Light travels faster than sound, that's why people seem bright until you hear them."

i like the bomber idea. i totaly agree with all the statments that speak about fighters being over powered.

in this vein id like too see 2 things. one is the bomber. give it a ......... well, bomb type of weapon. large with limited shots. say 4 shots/bombs max (possable to make it 'break' like all the steller manipulation items do after use?) only usable against planets, ships and bases. the second thing is if at all possable give regular old fighters anti-PD weapons. i know that there are bombs that target specific things like ship yards and such would it be possable to creat something on that order for fighters to use against PD weapons? sort of like "wild weasle" missions in space, the fighers clear out enemy PD and fighters, then send in the bombers for a strike.

that would put things into a much better ballance instead of just building swarms of over powered fighers and just wrecking everything in your path. as it stands now Moses couldnt summon a swarm that could do more damage than one light carrier and just 10 fighters.

WILL ANYONE NOT LISTEN TO MY IDEA?! Why not just increase the ammount of damage a ship can take?!

sorry double post

because that doesnt cut to the heart of the basic problems. there is a number of ways to skin a cat. all will work, but only a few leave you with a nice hide to play with aftwords.

the object of the thread is to be able to recreate old navel battles, simply increasing the ability to sop up damage doesnt allow this, it mearly prolongs the fight a bit but doesnt change the basic tactics used. you could just as eaisly change the damage done by weapons and adjust it down to get the same effect, but swarms of fighters will still rule. and a destroyer will still be more valuable than a battleship.

the way in wich ships fight needs to be changed , not just the basic damage ratio.

Star destroyers in the lucasfilm starwars setting carried other types of small vessels as well. Anyone who has played the space simulator games knows that there are tie-interceptors, tie-bombers (with many torps) and tie-advanced (heavy fighters with shields and a few torps if I recall well). In those games bombers can take out capital ships and tie-fighters can't.

However in the interest of Hollywood filmaking, they had capital ships closing extremely close on each other for dramatic effect, instead of showing a bomber squadron taking out a capital ship as it happened in those games. Add that along to the "sound in space" conspiracy in film and game making.

Here is my two cents:
I have to agree with Wyatt's reasoning, weapon and armor size/class is directly related to the ship/fighter that can carry it, the bigger the ship/fighter the better armor and weapon. I think you can class the weapons to be only mounted on certain sizes/classes (can't remember if it was this forum or another) and restrict their effectiveness on anything outside thier class. This would lead credence to why torpedo bombers where slow and always (well, maybe not 'always battle of midway' but they took heavy losses) had fighter coverage. The fighters were pretty much ineffective against a well armed battleship (flak and main batteries made pretty short work of them) but several torpedo bombers could do the job if they got their specific weapon on target.
Same with stacking a destroyer against a battleship, the battleship carried heavy/bigger guns and armor related to its size and would make short work of anything below its class.
It boils down to the weapon/ship is built/designed to the job at hand, if you bring the wrong tool to a fight your in trouble.

heh i read a star wars book once (cant recall what it was) about this sound in space and the reasons for it. the idea was that the cockpit actualy generated the sound as a sourt of audio tracking que. made sence to me especialy since i used to play ever quest by tracking the sounds of approaching enemys back in the days when you couldnt seen anything in your screen but your spell book.

ive allways kinda applyed that reasoning to any games with sound in space when i think about it at all that is.

the point stands though from a locigal point of view if you could build a small ship (i call em fighters as a blanket term) that can take out a capitol ship then you dont build battleships you build carriers.

and furthermore, if your smart about it you dont build a few huge carriers you build small frigate class ships with say 5 or 6 'fighters' on board and have them combine into wings after they launch. that way the loss of one small frigate wouldnt be noticed unlike the loss of a giant carrier.

still i wouldnt seriously change the Star Wars movies. it is fantacy after all and the sight of a SD closing with a mon cal star cruiser is very exciting. tossing in swarms of fighters just adds to the excitment. i can overlook the fact that the fighters serve no real point in space combat for the sake of a rousing battle.

I heard that reasoning as well. It goes along the lines that pilots would need simulated sounds for environmental feedback and for psychological support in long trips.

However with surround sound capabilities and a camera that rotates around a ship or ships to create a cocky sound experience, I tend to believe the conspiracy! If you spend time questioning casually your friends in the next "space" movie, some will even tell you that sound does travel in space!

Not that I don't like it in movies, mind you, I'm just being aware of it.

Imagine how different these games will become once we become a space faring race, in say a 100 years.

O ok.

No need to shout.

The easiest way to do this is double the structure points for ALL armors and double the Shield pts for ALL shield generators. Leave everything else the same. Result = longer battles.

Works in my mod. Kinda nice to see who's trying to creep out of a warp point before he gets blowed up by my torps!

"Do not be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed." - DVader

(OT) where you never 14? I might be positively ancient but I have not forgotten quite what it was like, so be nderstanding.(/OT)

The IRM method of linking armour to structure works as it becomes more and more possible to damage a ship without destroying it. It would also work if you chanced the damage resistance of certain structures such as life support crew quarters and cargo bays but not weapons and more delicate systems so ships would degrade in combat but survive longer. You would end up with Star Fleet Battles type Through deck cruisers, i.e. holes in the hull which go straight through so you can see space on the other side and no operational systems but still a ship.

OT - It's never too late to learn manners, no matter how old you are. I have 3 kids aged 8 and younger - we insist they be polite.

Shields should be universal and armour leaky. In order to inflict damage on internal components, you have to first blow down the shields and then hit against armour which may or may not prevent all damage incoming.

"Do not be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed." - DVader

i still say that in order to reflect actual navel situations that you need to limit weapon sizes on smaller hulls. ive never once heard of a frigate with a 16" gun. in game frigates can mount the same size weapons as dreadnoughts (sans weapon mount techs) and thats in no way realistic.

as i said before just chaging the damage ratio isnt changin the ship to ship dynamic. ships may last longer but they still fight the same way. the only thing your actualy changin is the length of the battle, and wether my 10 fighters destroy a dread in 20 seconds or 30. the end result is the same.

I guess it depends on which naval situation you're trying to reflect. A WWII naval scenario would have destroyers armed with 5" guns - no damage to BB's. If you're talking about a modern destroyer, it would be armed with Harpoon missiles - very capable of damaging a BB which are, in fact, rarely deployed in a modern navy. Missile cruisers are more common nowadays - armed with nukes even.

This is Space Empires - not WWII, not "wet" navy. The comparisons are irrelevant - like apples to watermelons. A starship driven by space-warping drives powered by melding matter with anti-matter, but armed with projectile weapons is an oxymoron. It would be analogous to WWII destroyers being armed with catapults flinging burning oil with pointed rams on their bows and shearing blades on their sides.

It's irrelevant - like sound in space. But we enjoy it nonetheless. lol

"Do not be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed." - DVader

It seems like weapon mounts (at least in IRM) already reflect this difference well - the regular APB on your frigate is like a modern 5" gun. Now give that APB a massive mount and put it on a battleship, it's not the same weapon anymore - it does more damage and can punch through heavy armor more effectively, has more range but less accuracy, it takes up more space and uses more ordnance, it can only be used on larger ship hulls - for all practical purposes, it's now a 16" gun.

IRM's armor and weapon mount systems already make fights between direct-fire ships feel somewhwat like classic naval battles - the problem is these fights rarely occur, because your direct-fire capital ships are being chewed up by fighters and missiles. An extreme solution would be removing both fighters and missiles from the game entirely, which takes you back to the early 1900's with heavily armored battleships slugging it out with long range projectile weapons.

Alternately you can try to balance fighters so they're useful but don't make capital ships entirely obsolete, and likewise balance missiles so they're useful but don't make direct fire weapons obsolete. Currently you don't need much more than missile ships, carriers+fighters, and lots of point-defense.. there's just no use for slow ships with direct fire anti-ship weapons. R.I.P. DUCs.

i should have thought that would be clear by now given the original post and the follow ups.
your points are very valid just not relivent to the ideas in question in this thread.

recreating old pre-carrier fleet battles. or at the outside allowing the early stage (IE WWII) fleet actions with carrier support. the modern navy with missles is allready reflected in the game. and pretty accurate to boot. a frigate can destroy with ease a battleship in the moder navy thats why battleships are only fired up and run out for arty support along coastal areas. and one fighter/bomber armed with a nuke tiped AS missle will cause an entire fleet to glow should they get lucky enough to score a hit.

however with the stated goal of limiting ships to reflect the old Ship on Ship combat before this all debate about anything but ship and gun abilitys is moot.

im glad to hear that the IRM mod has made some attempt at changing this, but on the other hand the mods ive tryed so far have aspects i like and at the same time change things that i dont like. thats why im glad to see the OP talking about making a mod to change just the combat. that id use (if it was done well) and gladly without having to change planet colors, or learn a new tech tree and so on.

and i beg you please dont take my words as being critical. i know alot of time and effort goes into making the mods and that alot (dare i say most?) people choose to use one or another of them, and should i have started my SE V experiance using one im certian i would enjoy them myself but as it is i find that i know the system in the stock game now and havent found anything so amazing in the mods offered that it can counterballance the feeling of the game being wrong when i use them. that is certianly just my opinion and no reflection on the various mods in question.