| Author |
Destroyer & Frigate Balance |
Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
|  Posted: 2008-10-16 02:08
I'm beginning to think that ships of these sizes are not very well balanced compared to Cruisers, Dreads and Stations.
A few days ago I had a Frigate duel with Bobamelius. ICC Assault Frigate vs UGTO Interceptor Frigate. Both were stock, except I'd switched all my missiles slots to AR Missiles.
Neither of our missiles hit except out of sheer luck, but we were able to engage fairly effectively with our guns. The biggest determination seemed to be that whoever got on the other's tail and stayed there won, since Frigates have virtually no rear-firing weapons. It seemed like a pretty balanced fight.
Last night, I had another duel. This time I was in an ICC Combat Destroyer with Railguns, SABOTs and Pulse Beams, but otherwise stock, against a stock Interceptor Frigate.
It was a stalemate. Again, his missiles didn't hit me except out of sheer luck, but now my guns couldn't hit him due to his vastly superior maneuverability and speed, and when they did hit they didn't seem to do much damage. My SABOT Rockets were useless except when he was flying straight at me. At the same time, my shields were effortlessly shrugging off his return fire.
Throughout the entire battle I didn't get him below 89-88% armor or so, and I don't think he got me below 80% shields. After I'd run out of Railgun ammo and we were just sitting there, I hit him with a point-blank SABOT strike. Did a grand total of 1% damage to his armor.
Just a little bit ago, I was in yet a third duel. My ICC Combat Dessie, same layout as before, vs Jbud in a Mandible (I'm assuming stock, but he could've modded--I'm unfamiliar with current K'luth layouts).
It was another stalemate. My dinky little Railguns and SABOT Rockets couldn't do more than scratch his armor and he regenerated too fast for it to last. I tried to keep my distance, moving in to hit him with SABOTs whenever I could, but I never seemed able to really damage him effectively.
On the other hand, he had an astonishingly hard time damaging me, too. Cruising at 18 or so gu/sec, I was able to easily dodge his Psi Cannons and torpedoes. The only really viable weapons he had were his Disruptors, which he close-jumped me repeatedly to use. Personally, I would've expected this to hurt a lot, but most of the time I was able to get clear after one or two salvos, and I was able to recover from those before he got into beam range again. At a couple points, I charged directly at him and he fired what I figured was a full alpha-strike, and I barely felt it. I don't think I took hull damage through the entire engagement.
Oh, and several times over the last few days I and other ICC Dreads have gotten charged by UGTO or K'luth Frigates, which can't really hurt us and which we can pop with ease if they're foolish enough to get within beam range or don't dodge our cannon fire well enough.
To sum up:
Frigate vs Frigate: Good
Frigate vs Destroyer: Bad; Stalemate
Frigate vs Cruiser: Dunno, haven't seen one of these yet
Frigate vs Dread: Good; Frigate gets swatted like it should 
Destroyer vs Cruiser: Dunno, haven't seen one of these yet
Destroyer vs Dread: Bad; Stalemate
I'm not really certain what changes need to be made. I'm also not certain how my personal skill level has affected these results, given my considerable experience flying Destroyers. If other players could try out some fights like these and keep track of how hard/easy they are, it would help immensely in figuring this out.
And yes, I know I sound crazy for saying that my beloved Combat Dessie is too hard to kill, given that I used to make taunting the entire UGTO fleet with it a hobby of mine, but even I have to admit that it's screwed up right now. Heck, the fragility of the ship in 1.480 was part of what made it fun to fly, knowing that it wasn't your shields and armor so much as your speed and your skill that was keeping you alive... while EADs try futilely to catch you. 
[ This Message was edited by: Jim Starluck on 2008-10-16 02:10 ]
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2008-10-16 02:44
Now THAT'S feedback. Thanks Jim, and good work!
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Reeves-81
Grand Admiral
Pitch Black
Joined: January 24, 2006
Posts: 141
From: Canada
| Posted: 2008-10-16 03:40
Quote:
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On 2008-10-16 02:44, BackSlash *Jack* wrote:
Now THAT'S feedback. Thanks Jim, and good work!
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yup, I was the frigate for one of those, though I am a good dodger
We still concluded that its armor was overpowered.
[ This Message was edited by: Large Primate on 2008-10-16 03:43 ]
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Delando
Marshal
Joined: May 04, 2007
Posts: 260
| Posted: 2008-10-16 08:32
When u mentioned getting clear of Jbud's mandi after he close jumped u and alphaed, did u mean u jumped clear?
and ur were hit by his ruptor alphas? but no hull dmg? What type of shield where u using?
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2008-10-16 09:17
I jumped clear when able, but sometimes my drive wasn't charged and I had to do it at sublight. One time I flew straight at him, UNDER him and past him and still never took hull damage, even with him firing at me the whole time.
And I was using Reactive Shields.
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Russian Roulette with Muskets
Grand Admiral
Joined: September 04, 2002
Posts: 393
| Posted: 2008-10-16 09:33
Personaly, i feel that all smaller ships lack some decent firepower.
The UGTO's assault destroyer for example is a well done destryoer (always was), bringing decent firepower and a good mixture of weapons.
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Lark of Serenity
Grand Admiral
Raven Warriors
Joined: June 02, 2002
Posts: 2516
| Posted: 2008-10-16 16:20
I should expect a dreadnaught would be able to peel off the armour/shields of a destroyer in one alpha, no? definitely something to look into
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Coeus
Grand Admiral
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: March 22, 2006
Posts: 2815
From: Philly
| Posted: 2008-10-16 17:25
Anything below cruiser that gets within beam range of a dread should be paste. Thats the whole point of speedy maneuverable ships.
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2008-10-16 18:38
Did some more playing in a Dessie tonight, going up against UGTO.
Dessie vs Cruiser seems to be somewhat better, though it wasn't quite a 1v1 duel like the others. Though I did seem better able to damage him, and him better able to damage me, I was still surviving a punishing amount of firepower.
I experimented with using Gauss Guns instead of Railguns, as in theory they would be far more accurate against another Destroyer. They were, but they didn't do more than 1-2% damage for a full salvo from 4-5 guns (the maximum a Combat Dessie can bring to bear).
And finally, Dessie vs Station seems to be mostly alright, though I was still able to survive a point-blank beam alpha with 60-some% hull left, and that was after my shields were already down. A later beam alpha was able to cripple me, though.
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2008-10-21 13:55
Okay. Having observed and tested some more over the last few days, I've come to some conclusions.
Frigates and Destroyers, thanks to their durability, manueverability and small size, are almost impossible to kill. If they were as slow and maneuverable as a Dread or Cruiser, this would not be so much of an issue, but the three characteristics combine to make them nigh-invulnerable. They are virtually impossible to hit with missiles (of course, most ships are) and torpedoes, they are very, very difficult to hit with guns at any range outside a few hundred gu, and difficult to hit with beams because they can manage to stay out of their range without too much trouble.
The best ships for fighting them appear to be other Frigates and Destroyers, since they're fast enough to stay inside the range where guns are effective... but then they don't do enough damage to kill them. It's especially a problem for ICC Destroyers, what with their very limited ammo. This damage problem also means that Frigates and Destroyers are not very good at attacking Cruisers and Dreads. They're more an unkillable nuisance than anything else.
It is my opinion that Frigates and Destroyers should be much more of the "eggshells with sledgehammers" persuasion. Greater firepower, lower durability. They can't be hit easily, so every hit on them needs to count for more.
Also, every faction needs a Frigate or Destroyer which is geared to damage Cruisers and Dreads, probably with torpedoes. These Torpedo Frigates/Destroyers should have minimal armament with which to engage other Frigates/Destroyers, which will require fleets to have Frigates/Destroyers of their own to protect their bigger ships. However, they should also have to get close enough to Cruisers and Dreads for those ships to be able to inflict at least some damage against the enemy. If the enemy tries to attack a force of Dreads with a bunch of Frigates, they should get chopped up. But if they attack with Cruisers and Dreads with Frigates or Destroyers in support...
Ideally, we want to encourage a fleet to have a balanced composition. Destroyers to screen against enemy Frigates and Destroyers, Cruisers to engage Destroyers and Dreads to a limited extent but mostly other Cruisers, and Dreads to kill Cruisers and other Dreads.
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Leonide
Grand Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: October 01, 2005
Posts: 1553
From: Newport News, Virginia
| Posted: 2008-10-21 14:30
i agree with Jim here...we have dreadspace all over again, nothing but dreads and stations out there in the MV. we need something to persuade the people to use the lower ships.
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Gejaheline
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 19, 2005
Posts: 1127
From: UGTO MUNIN HQ, Mars
| Posted: 2008-10-21 14:59
I think I mostly agree with Jim, here. Wandering around the MV in an assault scout quickly revealed that it was difficult to cause meaningful amounts of damage to practically anything, thanks to either an inability to hit or a lack of meaningful damage. Escort/picket destroyers are weirdly good at killing smaller ships, though, thanks to their beam weapon batteries.
Fighting an assault dread, an escort destroyer, and I think an assault frigate using an UGTO scout, I dealt essentially no damage to any of the enemies, and the escort dessie was the only thing to actually deal a meaningful amount of damage. Took about ten minutes to reduce me to 9% hull, the initial five of which the dessie pilot was using a combat dessie for.
It's depressing the number of times I see people whip out the biggest, most uber station/dreadnaught they've got whenever anything even vaguely ship-shaped appears. Twice in the same day I've seen stations and assault dreads appear to scatter scouts and frigates across the MV, even though the enemies in question were already outnumbered and losing to scouts/frigates/dessies. Even if small ships are balanced and working perfectly, it's essentially the DS equivalent of those level 70 people you find on World of Warcraft who get their kicks from invading Goldshire and killing all the guards, vendors, and anyone who sports a PvP flag, except in DS you ALWAYS have a PvP flag. It might be strategically viable, war might not be fair, but this is a game, and poor sportsmanship is against the RoC.
Sorry, I'm ranting on a tangent. Back on topic.
I'd agree with the idea of anti-capital-ship small ships. There was an option in Sword of the Stars to outfit your destroyers (the smallest ship class) with a "spinal mount" section, which essentially replaced the entire middle section of the ship with a mounting for a single huge gun, as opposed to several tiny turrets. While they still died in their hundreds, they actually stood a chance of hurting dreadnaughts which were otherwise almost utterly invulnerable to destroyer-sized weapons; a situation not dissimilar to DS at the moment.
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Axianda The Royal
Fleet Admiral
Terra Squadron
Joined: November 20, 2001
Posts: 4273
From: Axianda
| Posted: 2008-10-21 15:00
Quote:
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On 2008-10-21 13:55, Jim Starluck wrote:
Also, every faction needs a Frigate or Destroyer which is geared to damage Cruisers and Dreads, probably with torpedoes. These Torpedo Frigates/Destroyers should have minimal armament with which to engage other Frigates/Destroyers, which will require fleets to have Frigates/Destroyers of their own to protect their bigger ships. However, they should also have to get close enough to Cruisers and Dreads for those ships to be able to inflict at least some damage against the enemy. If the enemy tries to attack a force of Dreads with a bunch of Frigates, they should get chopped up. But if they attack with Cruisers and Dreads with Frigates or Destroyers in support...
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for some reason the old Full torpedo Missile cruiser/dread pops into mind.
mind you those were lethal only when you got in the firing arc.
as he said if you can have the means to intercept em your safe but boy will you be sorry if you can intercept them
i realy like the concept.
and kuddo's Jim for this thorough test report
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Panduh
Grand Admiral
Pitch Black
Joined: June 03, 2007
Posts: 250
| Posted: 2008-10-21 15:03
Prestige gain multipliers based on:
-Rank
-Player ship class (class of ship the player is using)
-Target ship class (class of ship the player is attacking)
It'd be interesting and could be manipulated to provide incentive for using smaller ships. Furthermore, this 'dreadspace' issue exists only because people who have played for a long time and have dread capability are playing atm. 90%+ anyways..
So, yeah.
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Gejaheline
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 19, 2005
Posts: 1127
From: UGTO MUNIN HQ, Mars
| Posted: 2008-10-21 15:09
Quote:
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On 2008-10-21 15:03, w00tness teh panduh wrote:
Prestige gain multipliers based on:
-Rank
-Player ship class (class of ship the player is using)
-Target ship class (class of ship the player is attacking)
It'd be interesting and could be manipulated to provide incentive for using smaller ships. Furthermore, this 'dreadspace' issue exists only because people who have played for a long time and have dread capability are playing atm. 90%+ anyways..
So, yeah.
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Problem is that it's scaring off all the new players, so it'll remain dreadspace forever.
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