Just wanted to get something off my chest regarding Battleship Balance in Discovery, sort of a veteran player; though I have been gone for long periods of time (last played +1 year ago), this is something that always bothered me.
I'm a bit of a history buff, and one era that captures my imagination is the ship combat in the age of sail, ships of the line, highly positional, slow firing, but a single volley something of awe.
Looking at discovery Battleship combat, I see something more frantic, something rushed, a constant machine gun flow of coloured balls, all over in the flash of a pan.
I think to myself, Is there no way to slow this down, make it more tactical, more engaging? There is also the issue of big battleship vs small battleship, in most circumstances, due to the pace of the combat, lets the big battleship bum rush the small ship before any tactics are in play, lets not forget that most people who play discovery are not PvP experts, capable of mastering small battleship combat.
But enough of the fluff, my desire is to make the combat slower, plain and simple.
How? There are many ideas, they needn't be looked at as a set, but multiple options to pick and choose.
1) Increase health substantially
+Simple, blunt solution
-Significantly effects other balance, anti cap weaponry would need to be adjusted heavily
2) Decrease refire rates on Battleship weaponry; i.e Primaries Fire once every 20 seconds, like a volley; be nice if there would be a countdown too
+Even with current battleship stats, fights would be significantly slower
+Cements battleships role as anti-battleship, as their guns are ineffective against anything else
-Larger battleships are going to find it harder to hit anything at range, so something else must be changed to offset this disadvantage
3) Restrict firing arcs on guns/slow turret speed
+Less firepower can be used simultaneously, lowering dps, making fights slower
-+Makes combat more complex, with certain angles being favoured, more blind spots
3.1) Fix in place some arcs completely; i.e make some slots work the same as forward guns, only sideways, backwards, upward, etc.
>This is a direct inspiration to ship of the line combat, where you can only fire most of your weapons sideways, a game called "Rebel Galaxy" LINK did this, although that game essentially made it so that up-down did not exist as it does in Freelancer
4) Decrease Battleship impulse speed/turning speed
+Being less able to maneuver/close in on opponents slows down combat, depending on the changes, a battleship will joust another battleship, and then have to spend time turning around to line up again
-Being so slow essentially makes battleships sitting ducks against most else, so increasing health may be a ideal trade off
5) Removal of special weapons
Pulses, mortars, missiles etc, reducing battleships to mostly primaries/secondaries, removing the forward gun from the valor (say its inrp only anti-base gun)
+Goes without saying that combat is slower without pulses and mortars
-Arguably less variety, less interesting to some, and it is of course a little disrespectful for all the work done in relation to these weapons
6) Lower gun damage significantly
+Same as health increase, a very simple way to slow combat down, though it doesn't change the way combat works as is
-Again, would change other balance and require more complex changes
Finally, though most of what I mentioned refers to Battleships, in many ways destroyer/cruiser/battle-cruiser combat is also somewhat fast, and may benefit from a similar style of thinking.
I would be happy if any of my ideas inspired some changes, but i'm not under any disillusions.
If anything needs to be overhauled with cap combat, it's a near doubling or maybe tripling of cap weapon ranges, alongside an equivalent increase in projectile speed.
Caps engaging at anywhere near >2 kilometers makes absolutely 0 sense.
[ sci·am·ach ]
/sīˈamək/
A simple, angry man casually working his way through life on a personal quest to acquire copious amounts of street cred.
1) increasing health? a valor with cau8 has around 10mill survivability.
2) primary refire is 2.0, hellbore/monsmeg is 0.67. battleship guns are already one of the slowest refire weapons in the game
3) Many ships have restricted firing arcs already
4) battleships don't have thrusters and move around at the slowest speed of any ship
5) removing mortars, pulses and missles will make the combat boring and tiresome
6) battleships turn the slowest
i've seen a pattern in your ideas. 'Make combat slower"
a battleship 1v1 fight takes well over 20min.
a fleet fight takes significantly lower time because of muiltiple dmage sources.
gimping battleship damage will only make cruisers, battlecruisers and bombers that much more powerful.
To the two who replied with "No.", I think its fair to say your posts are less than productive at best, at worst spam, and disrespectful of others viewpoints.
Quote:1) increasing health? a valor iwth cau8 has around 10mill suitability.
2) primary refire is 2.0, hellbore/monsmeg is 0.67. battleship guns are already one of the slowest refire weapons in the game
3) Many ships have restricted firing arcs already
4) battleships don't have thrusters and move around at the slowest speed of any ship
5) removing mortars, pulses and missles will make the combat boring and tiresome
6) battleships turn the slowest
i've seen a pattern in your ideas. 'Make combat slower"
a battleship 1v1 fight takes well over 20min.
a fleet fight takes significantly lower time because of muiltiple dmage sources.
gimping battleship damage will only make cruisers, battlecruisers and bombers that much more powerful.
Thank you for writing more than 2 letters, although I don't agree with your counter-arguments. Just because they are "already" the slowest in obvious comparison to others, does not prove anything.
On your point of length in 1v1 vs fleet engagements, perhaps this is the root of the issue, are Battleships really supposed to fight 1v1? Is freelancer discovery all about Conn? Isn't INRP fleet combat the main draw? It's supposed to be epic, but it feels quite flat to me.
edit:
Quote:I don't really see how these changes would benefit Battleship combat.
To me this would drag out battles even longer and leave battleships defenseless against small and maneuverable ships.
Yeah, but think, 1) Should destroying a battleship be quick? 2) Are battleships really able to defend themselves that well now? Battleships were always the ship that smaller ships could simply swarm. 3) I feel that battleships should be purely anti-battleship, and fleet engagements, rather than 1v1 should be the basis for their balance.
If battleships are purely anti-battleship then they kind of lose all meaning as a role in the dynamics of fleet engagements. Their role needs to be versatile enough to matter, but they can't be so powerful that they decide the outcome all by themselves.
I think that battleship engagements would be a lot more interesting if we had more people flying cruisers and using them as screens against other battleships, but that would require a lot of players--more than we typically see online in fleet engagements. And, additionally, people tend to prioritize battleships first right now because they are very influential in the role of a battle. Which is kind of a good thing, but it does mean that they're going to get focused down quickly.
If battleships lose mobility, they'll just be weaker against all smaller ship types and they'll get focused down even faster.
If battleships gain more health, then they'll be disproportionately tanky and it'll be impossible to kill them without another battleship or a massive fleet, or else fights will just take 20 minutes and it'll be very tedious.
Restricting firing arcs would be very frustrating, and you'd probably have to rebalance capital ships because they would deal so much less DPS. And, again, this would make them even weaker to small vessels, which would mean that fights would go faster, not slower.
Refire rates, see above.
Fixed arcs, see above.
Removing special weapons would make fights very bland, and while it would probably make fights last longer, they'd be less fun, and that's really not a good solution.
Lowering gun damage, as you stated and I already mentioned, would require a lot of complex rebalancing, and so is probably infeasible.
So, in conclusion, if you want epic fights, I think what you really want is enough players to participate in fleet battles for them to have an organized meta, rather than just being whoever logged on at any given moment. And, unfortunately, that's not really feasible unless we get more players on Discovery, period, unless we have fleet battle events. And even then, there's no guarantee you'd get enough people.
Honestly it feels like one of those "i can't use it well, so let the whole thing changed to my preferences" post. Honestly, do that and the only thing that can kill a BS pilot in 1v1 is old age
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While I understand people have their versions of how combat should work, massive overhauls of a working system aren't necessary. Battleships are in a great spot right now, especially with all the new weapons and buffs they received in the last year or so. I don't like comparison to real life or other games because this isn't real life or other games. Discovery combat is unique in its own way, and I (as well as majority of people) enjoy it.
Speaking as person who does nothing else than battleship PvP, I can say Battleship PvP doesn't need an overhaul. There are a few things that aren't optimal, as for example the fact that sniping weapons are less efficient than spray&pray weapons, or the fact that battleships have no weapon type that is designed to counter battlecruisers, meaning all you can do about them is blindfiring at them, or the fact that the Sci-Data codenames for snubs are generally better while the Sci-Data codenames for battleships don't break the Pulse/Primary+Hellbore meta and only work well for non-duel combat, but those are rather minor issues that sort of are acceptable.
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