(06-02-2024, 10:22 PM)Schxer Wrote: [ -> ]Thing is, you are looking at this backwards. As the main heaviest weapon of the ship class, it should be front facing. And then the ship should be balanced accordingly, as needed imo.
I have to say I agree with Schxer here. Not necessarily in that the heaviest weapon should be front facing, but that a ship's heaviest weapon should always be considered its
main weapon, and thus be positioned and balanced accordingly
I haven't played Freelancer in ages, I'm freshly back into Discovery from all the way back in 2008-2011'ish, and I mostly played other mods back in the day. However, in the mods that I frequently played (one of which I helped develop), capital ships were handled very,
very differently and I think Discovery could use a general rework to how capital ships function and fly.
I doubt anything I have to say will change anyone's minds as I'm seeing a great deal of tribalism entrenchment within this community (as has always been the case) but I'll outline what I think the problem with Disco's approach is.
In a nutshell, I think Discovery suffers from treating its capital ships like oversized smallcraft. Primarily forward facing guns, some restricted arcs here and there, with slower fire rates and projectile speeds to balance out their loadouts against smallcraft, but ultimately just bulky smallcraft with restrictive turn rates. The problem with this is that it creates the aforementioned stale gameplay of "fly straight at enemy and hold right click". This is okay to have, to a degree, with smallcraft because the goal is to strike hard and fast and then quickly get away. Capital ships do not have this maneuverability nor should they have it. Discovery's attempts to change this do not actually change it, because you have positioned the weapon arcs all over the ship, making the gameplay loop the same - fly at enemy (to fire mortars, etc.), turn (maybe fire a few broadside shots), then kite and try to out-range as much as possible.
Previous mods I've played that handled capital ship combat very well - in my opinion - took heavy inspiration from real life naval warfare during the Age of Sail. Any capital ship above "gunboat" had heavy capital guns as their primary weapons, with sideways facing
restricted turret arcs. This meant some cannons solely fired starboard, some solely fired port. Capital ships did not have access to missiles and torpedos, forward guns were limited to either "chaser" guns that could decimate shields, weapon power, or even disable cruise or - such as with the Liberty cruiser with the forward fun - single heavy weapons with niche use and limited other weapon slots to compensate.
What this lead to were capital ship engagements that forced capital ships to get in range and commit to the engagement, either for a slow "drive by" or a full-on slug fest. Capital ships should not, in general, be chasing or kiting. That is the role of smaller ships. Capital ships are a display of power and spectacle and I suspect most people that
main them are looking to fulfil that feeling of power and spectacle. It's less about being overpowered and more a matter of
feeling powerful, which isn't the same thing (or, at least, doesn't have to be).
In these mods, capital weapon slots were primarily composed of heavy cannons (side facing) with low fire rates, exceptionally high damage, and built-in "bloom" or "dispersion". These cannons were for use against other capitals, the dispersion making little to no difference against such large targets unless at long ranges (further reinforcing the gameplay of getting in range and committing) but making it so that these massive cannons couldn't one-shot a fighter or bomber (at least not without significant sustained fire in order to land a lucky shot). There were typically less than a handful of secondary slots for things like point defense weapons which focused on shield damage with high bloom/dispersion, to be used to deter fighters and bombers without giving capitals their own kill potential against small targets unless the pilot were extremely poorly skilled, or the fights were protracted and the smallcraft's health was already low. Forward and aft weapons were relegated to either niche weapons for specific ship types or utility weapons such as power/shield/cruise draining/disrupting cannons.
The weapons and their layouts forced capitals to commit to an engagement to provide support against other heavies, provide spectacle for the battle, provide a mobile base for re-arming of smallcraft, and provide the players that fly caps with a sense of power, versus a sense of "ace pilot skill". What capital ship mains want is usually vastly different to what smallcraft mains want and I have a sneaking suspicion that the majority of the devs/playtesters are snub mains. The skill aspect for caps was balancing when to "full send" and slug it out, or seeing another capital focusing another target and coming in for an attack on their weak side, combined with subsystem targeting (the one mod I helped work on removed targetable equipment in favor of destructible ship sections, which both encouraged targeting specific areas of the ship to take out certain components, as well as provided a spectacle for the battle as the massive ships slowly wore away in a visceral, visual way).
Last but not least, the repair costs and buy-in costs for these ships were high. The buy-in cost is generally irrelevent as most people will build up enough credits in due time, but the high repair costs discouraged all ship types - especially capitals - from running from a fight. This is something I think is a big problem with Discovery because it leads to capital ship bloat amongst the player base that want to just take the biggest ship out against NPC's because the NPC's can't fight back against it and even if they sustain damage they just pop back at a starbase and repair their multi-million credit ship for a whopping 16k (this is literally the highest repair cost I've ever had).
TLDR: I think Discovery capitals need a complete rework, not just arc tweaks, slot tweaks, and number tweaks. Discovery's caps are designed like quirky, bulky smallcraft and this - more than anything - is what I believe to be the crux of the issue. But, I'm an old vet of different mods with my own feelings and biases. I urge everyone to remember that
all they have are biases and opinions too regardless of whether you're a player or staff.