I had not considered making this post at first, until the need for input regarding Cruiser Hardpointing was raised.
So, after evaluating the combat-worthiness of the Kagatushi, here are my issues:
1) Main Forward Gun:
The relative percentages of the main gun stats are not equal. If the Dragon gun causes X% less damage than the energy consumption would also be X% less. This is not the case.
As you can see, the Dragon Forward gun does 72% less hull and shield damage than the Liberty Gun, but requires 86% of the power, that is an efficiency difference of 14%, or 24,500 units of energy per second.
In this respect, I would ask for either the damage output to be increased to 86% of the Liberty gun, or for the energy to be lowered to 72% of the Liberty gun.
That is, either:
Higher Damage - 154800 / 77400 / 600000
Lower Energy - 130000 / 65000 / 126000
if I were to ask for an 'easter egg' with regards to this gun, it would be for the projectile to be changed to the Phoenix fireball projectile, if such a thing is deemed a fitting look for a Dragon vessel.
2) I am told that the Dragon Cruiser is much slower than the Liberty Cruiser.
http://discoverygc.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t45455.html doesnt seem right. Markam, the way he was calculating these numbers, puts the Dragon Cruiser with higher numbers than the Liberty Cruiser - UNLESS lower number = better, not higher as Markam was suggesting.
These are my calculations, according to the method described by Markam.
So how do I crunch the numbers correctly to compare turn rates? Are my calculations correct, and I am simply interpreting them wrong?
Assuming I am being told the correct information, in order to make effective use of the Forward gun, requires the ability to maneuver into position to use said gun. From the stats below, one can argue that powerplant is matched by a weaker hull, and fair enough.
Liberty Cruiser/Dragon Cruiser/Percentage Variation (Dragon relative to Liberty)
What then balances low maneuverability? I would ask "a thing for a thing" - power for hull, as shown above.
I would petition for either comparable turning to the Liberty Cruiser - to enable it to make more effective use of its forward gun against other cruisers, or for more guns covering other arcs of fire - to allow it to make more effective use of turret mode.
It must be noted at this time, that the infocard states that the Dragon Cruiser is an old Kusari ship design - updated with Order technology from the time of their alliance. Of course, this does not mean fitting out the ship with Order Turrets and other such nonsense - but it does imply a ship that is not purely a relic of the past - like the SRP Togo Battleship.
So, how often does one see the Dragon Cruiser in combat? Not a great deal. It would be nice to commit this ship in support of our forces against the, seemingly intractable, KNF Destroyers that are thrown at us.
However, I do not endorse Dragon capital ships being sent into a farcical battle, with no hope of victory. For months now, our Cruisers have been effectively grounded - and only used as RP vehicles (or when field commanders are foolish enough to send them into a fight). It is why one does not see our Togo being thrown into fights, and why the Cruisers shall remain for the most part, in dry dock for the forseeable future.
comparing those two cannons is a little worthless in respect of rp. - both ships are never meant to meet on the battlefield. furthermore, one is a pirate creation that can be quite happy to actually even have a cruiser sized vessel at all - the other is a military warship made by not only some house, but the most advanced vanilla house there is.
instead of comparing these - you might look at
how does the dragon cruiser do in a strike team vs. a kusari battleship ( which its meant to be used against ) - or in pure RP - vs. immobile structures ( stations ) and convoys ( RP, since not allowed by the rules )
do not compared it with the kusari destroyer, cause they are two completely different "classes" of ships considering their roles.
' Wrote:how does the dragon cruiser do in a strike team vs. a kusari battleship ( which its meant to be used against ) - or in pure RP - vs. immobile structures ( stations ) and convoys ( RP, since not allowed by the rules )
Pretty poorly actually, the cannon definately needs a better animation, it's impossible to aim that which you cannot see.
As for the stats, the assistance from the Order is a major bonus, as the Dragons aren't pirates. They have invested alot into these ninja cruisers as they barely ever get used.
By all means, restrict the ID so it's the same as the Rogues, Mollys, Hackers etc, just give us something with some kind of combat advantage over another ship, because right now, it's not very useful in combat.
Come on... You can't compare Real-Life guns with a Space-Ship game.
Let's take the old Tizona Del Cid as an example, it had an advantage that people couldn't see the projectiles but at the same time the player himself/herself had trouble aiming with a gun that dosen't show its projectile. It goes both-ways.
I was planning on bringing this up once, but I think after testing it in combat a number of times I found it was actually quite a bit better than I thought that it was. Here are a few facts about the Kagutsuchi...
Yes, although the projectile for the forward gun is small and almost invisible (especially in nebulae), in comparison to the size of the Kusari Battleship, a side-on shot is quite easy to achieve even with the small projectile of the Dragon Forward cannon. In comparison to the difficulty that the Liberty Cruiser has on hitting its counterparts,(Osirises, which are quite a bit smaller than a Kusari Battleship, and a Rheinland - which might be big, but once again, no side of the Rheinland Battleship equals in size of the Kusari's largest side-on view) the Kagutsuchi forward cannon against the Kusari Battleship isn't all that hard to miss (though I'm still asking for a model replace - it doesn't fit the Kagutsuchi at all). In terms of what to replace the model of the Dragon Forward Gun, after much experimentation (and even more failures), Council guns seem to work really well with the Dragon Forward Gun - especially the projectiles used with the Council Battleship Primary turrets and Council gunboat forward guns. I was going to ask something like this to be implemented - but it appears I didn't have enough time.
In terms of damage, the Kagutsuchi, unlike the Liberty Cruiser (as far as I'm aware, feel free to prove me wrong), can fire both the Forward gun and the Light Motar in one go - therefore pretty much dealing extra damage with one shot (although there's still a speed difference between shots, it usually still turns out well). However, this being said, in comparison to the Liberty Seige cruiser, the Kagutsuchi has 1 less forward-firing gun, making front-on combat even less effective.
However, obviously the Kagutsuchi is unable (on its own) to defeat a Kusari Battleship - with the new cruise-in-combat in place, the Kagutsuchi can't stay out of range and spam missiles/motars/etc whilst remaining out of range like I used to do before that was implemented. Through experience, it might even be possible to kill a Kusari Battleship with a Kagutsuchi and Tanto, so long as the Tanto can spam Cruise Disruptors to keep the Battleship at bay whilst the Kagutsuchi hammers the battleship with long-ranged power. However with that being said, it's also probable that in that circumstance, the Tanto would run out of TCDs faster than the Kagutsuchi can destroy the Battleship. 1 bomber and a Dragon Cruiser should be able to destroy a Kusari Battleship - yet why send in a Cruiser when within RP, it's much easier to send in 2 bombers, which would probably do the same job? Two dragon cruisers on a battleship is probably not so good either - seeing as with the cruise-rule being abolished, the Battleship can simply cruise up to the cruiser and manage to hit the cruiser a few good times before the cruiser has a chance to fully charge their own cruise engines and get away. Such fights would pretty much be cruise-cruise-cruise, and not very interesting at all. In the end, the only thing within RP and combat-wise the Kagutsuchi would be used for would be in the destruction of the Imperial Yacht (whatever it's called now), which isn't going to happen (it's such a nice ship anyway, I wouldn't want it to be destroyed). It's effectiveness on convoys is minimal compared to what a bomber can do - and the Kagutsuchi's cargo hold isn't all that great right now.
All this summed up, the Kagutsuchi isn't the worst cruiser, and it can fulfill it's role in combat as a long-range support pretty well, though for the Dragons within RP - it's probably easier to deploy their bombers to hunt down the battleships, which would be far more effective. The only way I can see this uselessness surrounding the Kagutsuchi to be dissolved and the dragons inability to effectively destroy Kusari Destroyers) would be to lighten the Dragon Bomber such that it becomes more effective against Kusari Destroyers and less effective against Kusari Battleships (though preferably not to 4.84 level agility) - and then therefore the Kagutsuchi would take the majority of the bombers role in assaults on Kusari Battleships.
Oh, and it does DESPERATELY need a change of projectile.
The forward gun on the Dragon cruiser is "worse" than then one on Liberty cruiser because visually it doesn't take the whole ship, like the Liberty one does. That should explain the lower damage, but efficiency could go a bit up yes.
However it won't ever be really useful against cruisers and 1vs1 against Kusari Destroyer it will always loose
as long as both have current models.
The frontal profile is about the same as Kusari Destroyer has (= tiny), while it has the forward gun and bigger powerplant. But these advantages can truly be exploited only against bigger enemy ships, not against smaller ones.
As mentioned it is meant for fighting the Kusari BS and it the future it should do well vs the Kusari BC (probably loose 1vs1 though).
Here I find reavengitair's post rather strange.
Without the cruise drain in place any BS could start the fight (before shots are fired) by cruising next to the Cruiser and killing it before it can do anything. Now if it cruises to it at any point during the fight the cruiser can actually fire quite a few shots and first then cruise off (or thrust off in opposite direction instead). In the mentioned fight with 2 cruisers, it should be pretty easy for the 2nd cruiser to keep pounding the bs while it tries to cruise up to other one over and over.
Agility
You actually picked the wrong numbers for Liberty Cruiser, instead of the player one you used the NPC one.
Bigger is better for all numbers. The 3rd number (roll axis) basically tells how much a ship can dodge (change from turning left to right), because all freelancer ships first roll and then turn.
Liberty Cruiser is slightly faster, again because of the bigger front/back profile. That said Dragon cruiser could be slightly faster than now.
Forward gun effect
It currently uses Kusari Gunboat forward gun effect, I'll try some of the mentioned effects for looks.
Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.
' Wrote:comparing those two cannons is a little worthless in respect of rp. - both ships are never meant to meet on the battlefield. furthermore, one is a pirate creation that can be quite happy to actually even have a cruiser sized vessel at all - the other is a military warship made by not only some house, but the most advanced vanilla house there is.
Umm... no, the Blood Dragons teamed with the Order - likely the most, or definitely at least one of the most, technologically advanced groups in Sirius - to create the forward gun for the Kagutsuchi. The Order uses the most advanced technology that was stolen from Liberty, and then improved by the brilliant minds of the Order - so it's obvious that they are at least on the level of Liberty, if not higher.
So, "pirate group" is a very poor and unfounded way to explain away the inefficiency of the Kagutsuchi forward gun, as it's not made by a pirate group. It's made, in part, by the Order. And yes, it IS a collaboration between Blood Dragons and Order - but that would mean that the Dragons furnished the supplies, and the Order the technology and knowledge. It wouldn't be the other way around, given the abilities of each faction and their relations. If the Order was teaming up with their allies to make a weapon, they also wouldn't give them subpar technology.
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