Making small ships more valuable |
I would like to get some feedback and input on a rather simple idea to make smaller ships useful until the end of the game. The idea is to
a) modify the torpedo weapons (anti-matter, quantum) in the game as well as
b) the attack and defense characteristics of smaller ship types compared to the big ones
to correspond to the "real-life" situation in naval warfare in the beginning of the 20th century.
Around 1900, the big capital ships became increasingly threatened by small, agile and relatively cheap torpedo boats. While a hit from a capital ship could blow a torpedo boat out of the water, the small ships were very difficult to hit by the large, unmanouverable behemoths. If the torpedo boats succeeded in approaching the capital ship sufficiently to be in their (short) torpedo range, they could fire their load. Compared to their size, torpedos deal an awful lot of damage (also because they hit beneath the surface), so the damage potential/kt relation of a torpedo boat is relatively high. The relative cheapness of torpedo boats added to this: for the price of one battleship, dozens of torpedo boats could be built. Smaller, more agile ships could dodge the rather slow torpedos, but for a capital ship, this was difficult. Therefore, the torpedo boats had to be intercepted before they got in range. Firstly, capital ships had to also carry additional smaller, more dynamic weaponry. More importantly, they had to be protected by screening vehicles which were themselves small, agile and more expendable. This was the birth of the destroyer.
In the game this situation could be mirrored by
a)strongly increasing the damage and decreasing the range of torpedos. In addition, one might give them a minus on attack so that they are only fully effective against large ships (which themselves should have a larger minus on defense values)
b) giving smaller ships a considerable defense bonus (and/or larger ships an attack minus)
This way, small ships would remain useful until the end of the game. It would also not make large ships obsolete. The bigger guns and heavy armor would still dominate the smaller ships with standard weapons. In turn, the smaller ships with standard weapons (i.e. without an attack minus) would dominate the torpedo boats because of theri higher range and the attack minus of the torpedos. It would be a kind of "rock-paper-scissors" situation - as it was in real life.
All the above can be relatively easily modded in the data files. However, I am not sure what kind of modification would be necessary for the AI to use torpedo boats and anti-torpedo screens. Will it do so automatically? Do I have to introduce a special ship class "torpedo boat" and tell the AI to build it (is this done in a text file or in the AI scripts?) ? If it builds torpedo boats, can I tell it to use them in an effective way, i.e. in "hit-and-run" attacks on capital ships, not against smaller units? Any other thoughts?
Re: Making small ships more valuable
I've not played the game but twice but what you describe sounds interesting and makes sense
Re: Making small ships more valuable
in the modern era smaller ships serve the functions of anti submarine platforms as well as in some cases a supliment to anti Air warfair. if more effort was made to get the AI to use carriers early and often as well as cloaking then the smaller ships would be able to slide into that roll with ease.
you could mod the tacyon sensors to only work on dessy or frigat hulls (chalk it up to larger ships drives interfering with how they work) and perhaps give an inate boost to the damage done from PD weapons to make em the natural choice for escourt ships as they should be.
the real problem is as the stock game stands now though i seldom build ships larger than destroyers. when a single destroyer can level a huge planet anything larger is just over kill. i happen too think that ALL weapons in the game are overpowered. even DUCs are powerful enough as somewhat low levels to let a destroyer clear off an entire planet. give the ships involved any training at all and its crazy.
if you want serious planet glassing power you should have to build battle ships and dreads and be forced to stuff them to the gills with weapons. a single ship shouldnt be able to kill a planet untill your weapons of choice are atleast level 50 and you have 10 or so of them on a ship.
even playing with the AI having advantages i often find myself researching destroyers to levle 10 my weapons to level 10, toss in armor and shileds to level 10 and station 2 at each warp point in my empire and the AI never gets through. by the time they build ships strong enough to break my lil pickets, my research is in the millions and i can research DUC's from level 10 to level 100 in 4 turns. my attack "fleets" are general a flight of 5 destroyers with 1 bomb and 2 guns or missles depending on my whim early game and i can just fly though what ever system i want and glass everything.
so on the whole i agree with your ideas. but given my experiance with the stock game and the fact that i dont ever build any larger hulled ships i would think that finding a use for small ships isnt really the trouble, its finding a use for larger ones that are.
Re: Making small ships more valuable
I've been thinking this myself. Small ships should move faster and be more difficult to hit.
acting as a step between large fighters and larger ships.
SEV, more than a feeling.