Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Point defenses are destroyers.

Cost would also scale exponentially rather than merely geometrically, and the most advanced systems would always be deployed as soon as fully tested on the largest platforms, always and forever.

This is the funny part...

it already IS this way.

People just seem to have a unconscious problem with that because the common assumption is; the bigger and more powerful I am, the more I am unassailable to smaller targets.
And this is true... but up to a point.

A single battleship that is fit in a more "standard" way (i.e. with webs, scrams and drones) can wipe out a few frigates by itself.
A battleship against a swarm dies miserably.


It already is.

A "standard" frigate costs, at most, 5 to 10 million ISK. A batteship costs around 200+ million ISK.

Plus, this is a game.

While cost does initially limit who can field what kind of ship... it eventually comes to a head where cost ceases to be a factor.
Case and point; RR-carrier/Supercarrier formations. The number of Titans in the game as a whole. How fast as easily alliances can replace whole battleship fleets. etc.

So instead of noobs playing well being a credible threat to vets playing badly, the players who plex their accounts and buy chars just steam roll through gangs of players unless they have enough bodies to literally plug the Gun nozzles on the bs?

The former sounds more fun.

I think I may not have explained my proposal with enough detail then. That's pretty much exactly what I'm proposing. Though it seems more efficient to just add points for small turrets in addition to or in replacement of a large turret slot rather than creating a new type of turret that would basically fill the same role. Maybe just give the option to fit multiple turret sizes in a single slot depending on the hardpoint's size. i.e, a large slot could hold two medium turrets or 4 small turrets. This could be adjusted for balance issues, but it could potentially also open up larger ships to being dedicated for dealing with smaller craft, at the expense of being unable to engage other vessels of their own size.

For the add hardpoints for smaller turrets:
Sweet
Except that now we need space to fit these turrets, a UI redesign to give us a visual slot, an art re-work for hardpoints for them..

For the multiple guns to one slot.
Need new art for the legions of guns some ships may end up sporting, and to recode the 1:1 ratios that currently exist between slots and modules.
Also, the 4:1 ratio of small turrets gets hillarious when you run 32 Small Focused pulse laser II on an abadon, for 1200DPS with 2 heat sinks, hitting to 11km (before tracking mods) and applying like it is from a frigate, while being able to make this monstrosity cap stable, and triple plate it. Hillarious mockup here

I think you didnt think it through really.

So how do you make a ship dedicated to hurting small ships less useful against ships of their own size and larger when multiple small turrets do more dps than large turrets and adding on extra turrets to BS's can only add even more dps? (see threads below)

Drones already have the function in a way, allowing larger ships to target frigs somewhat effectively, but with the added dynamic that they can be destroyed by the frig. If you remove drones and add extra turrets to replace them, there is no way that a good frig pilot can mitigate the threat of the smaller turrets and is doomed to lose. He cant even hold point for very long whilst a friendly gang arrives.

Why make good piloting less useful against isk and SP?

Here are some other threads on the same subject.
Medium and large 'small' turrets
Will turrets ever see the same love that (rapid fire) missiles got?

I think the only form of point defense I could get behind is one that made as little change as possible to models and the like to avoid putting more work than is warranted into what would actually be a limited use feature/modules/mode/etc

EX:
Battleship hull ONLY
HIgh slot "Point defense" loaded with cap booster charges
T1 can hold 16 m3 while T2 can hold 32 m3 hold (I'm sure you can guess why)
Does not require hard point
~15/10s cycle time before skills, 1 minute reload
~20km range
Will fire at every LOCKED target within it's range
Damage is a multiplier of cap charge consumed split between struck targets
--Single locked interceptor with a cap booster 800 loaded would alpha it (1 dead interceptor a minute, not exactly staggering)
--Smaller charges do less damage but allow for more consistent "small arms" fire at the hostiles



Notice, the range is crap so does nothing to defend against a long point or organized groups. This is POINT DEFENSE after all.
Being charge dependent with a long reload means it's actual unfocused damage output would be significantly limited even on a fleet scale with the hostiles were staying within blaster range.
This is not hurr durr smartbomb I hit everything around me with the push of a button, this is susceptible to ECM and range.

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Now that I put that forward, I'm not actually for a point defense system. I'd rather see a tweaking of larger weapon systems/EHP pools or a complete attack on the speed creep that has taken hold within our game. Or better yet, let's start rolling out more varieties of T2 BS, such as logistics or BS hulls that specialize in smaller/medium weapon systems. Take large reps away from cruiser logistics and put them on the BS hulls, etc.

Think about that for a moment...

- If two meds make a large and two small make a med, where do i reduce the turrets? Sure i can make 2 small a large, but what about multi-turrets for cruisers? or anti-cruiser weapons for battleships? how do you make 1.5 mediums a large?

- whats web and scram range again?? so everything with point defense cant be tackled by anything smaller (i.e. the MAIN job of a frigate) and free to mwd to the moon and back?

And did you even read the other threads?? i ask because much of this thread is repetition. You've come here with a concept that isnt new and arent sure how you want to pursue that concept, where as the threads ive linked have the same concept, only with the same ideas as here and more on how to pursue it.

if we want to bring some realism in the game we should first put that speedcap aside. a car has a speedcap, a spaceship has only a cap on velocityincrease not velosity itself.

i get your idea, i realy like the books covering that parts (Michael McCollum anyone?) but i think realistic space battle is of the table.