Naval Battle Club

[Spartwo]

always wanted to get in on this, any way you guys could include me? (Is there a signup process or something, because 'm wondering if this is gonna be super-complex...)

Just send a 100 euro entrance fee to Price Agabajo of Nigeria.

Tried making a big tank...

...made a very big tank.

[CrypticCross345]

I agree with you Three1415, carriers should be made that way.

Dont listen to Spartwo, it's actually 1000 euro.

[sdj64]

Welcome, there is no signup process. If you don't already no here we share spacecrafts with weapons and fight each other.

Sdj64 I'll fight you. Could we please keep it small.

How small is small? I downloaded your destroyer a few pages back, and it's 148 tons. Do you want to have a limit of 2 or 3 ships?

How many shots did it take? what range are you firing at?

I was trying to run my own tests too but it keeps crashing. I only managed to severely damage one of your smaller ship with one shot then my game crashed.

I want to see how well your ships could hold.

We can set up again but I guess we could use one ship each. one on one do you have a ship that's about 125 tons?

Sure, my Orrim 2 is 126. I fired from about 650m and my missile was going between 250 and 300 m/s when it hit. It took only one shot. I reloaded from a quicksave a few times to make sure it was repeatable. If I didn't hit that weak spot the missiles did little damage. Should we use the two missiles per turn rule if it's a one on one? Could stop it from ending first turn.

I would like to propose some possible amendments to the current rules regarding weapon usage and carriers.

*snip*

I definitely like the 10 tons or 2 missiles rule, however I worry that carriers would be overpowered. They would have the advantages of:

striking first

more missiles

higher effective delta-V (since the main ship doesn't have to rendezvous with the target)

ability to attack two or more enemy ships (or would all fighters have to attack the same enemy?)

My current carrier fighters are about the same size and weight as a missile, so it wouldn't be any more vulnerable than my ships currently are if I just replaced one missile with it. I wouldn't say that a carrier has to sacrifice its own armament either, both of mine can easily fire missiles directly.

Possible changes:

Fighter weapons are limited to half of what larger ships can fire in one turn (5 tons or one missile of higher mass) so that you would have to use many fighters to get an advantage in attack power.

Carriers themselves no longer attack last, but in order of tonnage (since any ship can be a carrier now). In case of multiple carriers in one battle, their fighters attack in order of the tonnage of the carrier (but still before stand-alone ships)

All fighters that belong to a carrier are considered dead when the carrier is dead, but fighters can be rescued by another ship on the same team.

Carrier fighters all must attack the same enemy, because without that a single carrier could possibly kill 2 or more enemy ships in one turn.

Also, a good unrelated change in rules would be to increase the range limit for guided missiles to 5km, to avoid lag with large ships.

[Zamovinar]

How small is small? I downloaded your destroyer a few pages back, and it's 148 tons. Do you want to have a limit of 2 or 3 ships?

Sure, my Orrim 2 is 126. I fired from about 650m and my missile was going between 250 and 300 m/s when it hit. It took only one shot. I reloaded from a quicksave a few times to make sure it was repeatable. If I didn't hit that weak spot the missiles did little damage. Should we use the two missiles per turn rule if it's a one on one? Could stop it from ending first turn.

I definitely like the 10 tons or 2 missiles rule, however I worry that carriers would be overpowered. They would have the advantages of:

striking first

more missiles

higher effective delta-V (since the main ship doesn't have to rendezvous with the target)

ability to attack two or more enemy ships (or would all fighters have to attack the same enemy?)

My current carrier fighters are about the same size and weight as a missile, so it wouldn't be any more vulnerable than my ships currently are if I just replaced one missile with it. I wouldn't say that a carrier has to sacrifice its own armament either, both of mine can easily fire missiles directly.

Possible changes:

Fighter weapons are limited to half of what larger ships can fire in one turn (5 tons or one missile of higher mass) so that you would have to use many fighters to get an advantage in attack power.

Carriers themselves no longer attack last, but in order of tonnage (since any ship can be a carrier now). In case of multiple carriers in one battle, their fighters attack in order of the tonnage of the carrier (but still before stand-alone ships)

All fighters that belong to a carrier are considered dead when the carrier is dead, but fighters can be rescued by another ship on the same team.

Carrier fighters all must attack the same enemy, because without that a single carrier could possibly kill 2 or more enemy ships in one turn.

Also, a good unrelated change in rules would be to increase the range limit for guided missiles to 5km, to avoid lag with large ships.

See this is our current problem, one hit shots during the first turn we cannot "battle" properly if this is the case. If this is not resolved then I'm afraid this club will have to be stopped, we are running on a bottleneck for ship design. I suggest we only limit out ships to using a standard I-beam missile with only two sepatrons each no more no less, missiles and above should be banned. Now it will all come down to proper hull construction and fuel efficiency development and agility of the ship to maneuver itself close to the enemy as an added bonus we get to actually move two ships together again giving the feeling of actual engagement. What do you think?. Even a one on one battle can no longer be over soon if this is applied. As I have read from the earliest post, the days were better when small I-beams were used. Ship and armament design have gone a long way, change was inevitable but we could rewrite the rules. I could have built swarms of one missile ship each and fight basing solely on large numbers if I wanted to.

[astecarmyman]

Although I am nowhere near ready for a battle, I would like to propose some possible amendments to the current rules regarding weapon usage and carriers.

As to utilization of armament, it is evident that, with the weapon capacities that most capital ships possess, any engagement with another vessel will almost certainly result in that craft's destruction; our warships simply carry so many and so massive warheads that it is effectively impossible to armor one's vessels to defeat a full salvo. This means that increasing the durability of a ship has little bearing on the result of an engagement: While it might force one's opponent to use more ammunition than he or she would otherwise have wished (which is comparatively insignificant for the same reason: High warhead capacities), the defender will not survive the encounter. I do not like this; I feel it defeats much of the enjoyment of battling, as one is more or less playing a game of elimination, removing vessels one by one until a player runs out of ships.

As such, I propose to limit the quantity of ammunition that any ship can discharge in one turn. I feel an optimal restriction is ten tons' or two missiles' worth of munitions; i.e, one can fire an unlimited number of rounds as long as their combined mass is less than ten tons or two missiles of any (though perhaps cut further to one if someone brings a twenty-ton missile to an engagement) combined mass. Thus, it becomes possible for a durable ship to survive an engagement to unload the armament it was not able to fire its first turn, while a less durable ship might only be able to fire a salvo's worth (a salvo being a number of rounds obeying the above restriction); this would make effective armor truly matter in a strategic sense. Additionally, it would reduce the advantage given to the player that moves first, as without the basic guarantee of a kill the first turn becomes less decisive, as well as, in my opinion at least, make battles more interesting to watch and participate in: The final engagement might come down to the actions of two tattered, battle-scarred warships in a final struggle for dominance, rather than an undamaged ship simply firing at another and destroying it. Finally, fighters and bombers would see their value increased: With such salvo-size limitations, a fighter or especially a bomber could unleash almost as much destructive power in one turn as could a capital ship, sacrificing "staying power" (these ships would likely exhaust all of their armament on their first turn, or, if they did not, would be easily destroyed by opposing warships) for first-strike capabilities. I feel that such considerations are currently lacking in battles, what with the massive power advantage possessed by capital ships.

These changes would, as they would make fighters and bombers more effective, increase the attractiveness of carrier designs. However, carriers are basically never used in the Naval Battle Club for a number of reasons: They are massive with high part counts and consume valuable tonnage; they are vulnerable due to imposed restrictions on their armor, making them soft targets for enemy warships; and most importantly, they introduce what I and no doubt most others feel is an unnecessary intermediate step between engagement and actually firing rounds. Why have fighters carry small ammunition loads from a large carrier when one can simply have a capital ship carry much more by itself?

However, carriers could see renewed viability if the previously described salvo limitation were to be accepted. I propose this be done in a number of ways: First, by removing the "heavy armor" restriction from them, as they are vulnerable enough having to provide a hollow internal space for structurally weak fighters without having to use far less durable armor across a majority of their surfaces; second, by removing fighter tonnage restrictions and capping total fighter mass to a certain percentage of carrier mass; third, allowing every fighter on the carrier to perform a sortie (rendezvous with target, discharge armament, return to carrier) in a single turn; and fourth, applying salvo restrictions on a per fighter basis, meaning that each fighter, and not the whole carrier, is bound by the ten-tons-or-two-missiles rule.

These changes would combine to make carriers less of soft targets (though they would still be more massive and vulnerable than their non-smallcraft-carrying counterparts) and make exotic, intriguing combinations, such a battleship that can deploy a single fighter for striking long-range targets and softening up ships before its own turn, more viable. Additionally, carriers could support a large bomber and several small fighters, rather than a few fairly homogenous fighters of similar sizes and tonnages, while still being restricted as to their maximum sortie size so that they do not become too effective, as the fourth change would give carriers first-strike capabilities comparable to those of a capital ship with the current rules. I feel that this is balanced, however, by (again) the intrinsic vulnerability of carriers, their large sizes and tonnages, and the fact that they themselves shall likely forgo their own armaments in favor of additional fuel and missiles for their carried smallcraft; this introduces additional design considerations that I think are missing in the current "metagame," if it can be called such. Similarly, carriers are so ubiquitous in the realm of science fiction and space-based warfare games that I think it would be unfortunate if we were not to make allowances for them here.

Keep in mind that the numbers I gave and even some of the smaller changes are highly flexible and could be easily adjusted--for example, one might wish to cap salvo tonnage limit at fifteen tons rather than ten, or make maximum carrier sortie size also proportional to its mass; I am simply looking for feedback on these ideas, rather than suggesting they be implemented immediately.

My apologies for the wall(s) of text, but I would much rather construct a long argument than an insufficiently supported or fallacious one due to attempting to compress my ideas.

Hmm, this might not be a bad idea. What does everyone else think? (These rules will probably not effect land battles)

[CrypticCross345]

How small is small? I downloaded your destroyer a few pages back, and it's 148 tons. Do you want to have a limit of 2 or 3 ships?

How about 3 ships with max weight of 450t.

[ScriptKitt3h]

I'm still open for battles, as I have a fleet waiting to see action...

[Tynton]

Also, Starwhip, when will we begin the battle?

I have 2 Zephyr edits (and a new one coming soon-Gen 2.5) and a Grey Lightning (Low Gravity Combat VTOL) waiting for your mark.

[sdj64]

How about 3 ships with max weight of 450t.

Sure, I'll set up.

[Three1415]

-snip-

We seem to have come up with almost exactly the same changes to my original proposal, so I must say that I agree with all of these.

Fighter weapons are limited to half of what larger ships can fire in one turn (5 tons or one missile of higher mass) so that you would have to use many fighters to get an advantage in attack power.

The half-salvo would do much to reduce carrier tonnage efficiency down to more reasonable levels, as the number and thus the combined mass of the fighters would have to double to get the same amount of weapon tonnage as in the original proposal, and, as I plan to restrict maximum fighter capacity based on carrier mass, carriers would thus need to be much larger to reach devastating levels of offensive power.

Carriers themselves no longer attack last, but in order of tonnage (since any ship can be a carrier now). In case of multiple carriers in one battle, their fighters attack in order of the tonnage of the carrier (but still before stand-alone ships)

I am fairly certain that we agree here; if, say, one player were to have three ships, a destroyer with a mass of sixty tons, a small carrier with a mass of one hundred and twenty tons, and a large carrier with a mass of one hundred and eighty tons, my turn-ordering method would have the ships' turns as follows:

Small Carrier fighters-->Large Carrier fighters-->Destroyer-->Small Carrier itself-->Large Carrier itself.

I think this is identical to what you said, but I am uncertain.

All fighters that belong to a carrier are considered dead when the carrier is dead, but fighters can be rescued by another ship on the same team.

Again, this was also my thought on the matter: Carrier fighters are bound to a "mothership"; if the mothership is destroyed, the fighters are also considered dead unless rescued by another ship with hangar space the next turn (in other words, the fighters must obey the restriction of being docked at a carrier by the end of their turn even if they lose their original base; if they do not or cannot, they are removed from combat and considered dead).

Carrier fighters all must attack the same enemy, because without that a single carrier could possibly kill 2 or more enemy ships in one turn.

I had originally intended this, but re-reading my original post, I realize that I never actually stated it expressly. But you are certainly correct: Being able to fire on and potentially disable or destroy multiple ships in one turn would be rather overpowered.

Also, a good unrelated change in rules would be to increase the range limit for guided missiles to 5km, to avoid lag with large ships.

I had also previously proposed this change when in discussion with zekes, as there does not seem to be a justifiable reason for this rule to exist--firing from beyond 2.5 km does not make one's missiles any more powerful; all this rule does is condemn one to lag.

However, there still may be problems with these rules, as it might be advantageous for every ship to carry a "fighter" or fighters to take advantage of the reduced salvo restrictions; mostly it comes down to what can actually be considered one, as one could just strap a docking port, probe core, and ion engine to some xenon and call the resultant 1-ton vessel a fighter. Conversely, the distinction between a fighter and a large, advanced missile begins to blur; at what point does one consider a detachable probe a fighter, and at what point a missile? I think that this will have to be discussed more thoroughly before a conclusion can be reached.

These rules will probably not effect land battles

Definitely not; surface battles are another matter entirely, and I do not think very many rules could be effectively shared between terrestrial and space combat.

On the other hand, I wonder how multi-theatre combat, say with both surface- and spacecraft, would play out...It would certainly be a lot more complex: One would have to consider not only each by themselves but also surface-to-orbit and orbit-to-surface weapons, as well as things such as dropships, surface-launched orbital fighters, space-launched surface fighters, and suborbital fighters (the space analogue of aircraft). It would certainly be interesting...

See this is our current problem, one hit shots during the first turn we cannot "battle" properly if this is the case. If this is not resolved then I'm afraid this club will have to be stopped, we are running on a bottleneck for ship design. I suggest we only limit out ships to using a standard I-beam missile with only two sepatrons each no more no less, missiles and above should be banned. Now it will all come down to proper hull construction and fuel efficiency development and agility of the ship to maneuver itself close to the enemy as an added bonus we get to actually move two ships together again giving the feeling of actual engagement. What do you think?. Even a one on one battle can no longer be over soon if this is applied. As I have read from the earliest post, the days were better when small I-beams were used. Ship and armament design have gone a long way, change was inevitable but we could rewrite the rules. I could have built swarms of one missile ship each and fight basing solely on large numbers if I wanted to.

I disagree with this suggestion because it restricts too many aspects of gameplay--changing weapon-firing rules is one thing, but banning weapons technology altogether is another. Besides, it is easy to create armor that completely defeats I-Beam missiles--something that was still being figured out in the "good ol' days" of the Battle Club--and if you force players to create ships with armor that can be penetrated by them there is little point in building combat vessels anyway.

Edited January 15, 2015 by Three1415

[daemonCaptrix]

See this is our current problem, one hit shots during the first turn we cannot "battle" properly if this is the case. If this is not resolved then I'm afraid this club will have to be stopped, we are running on a bottleneck for ship design. I suggest we only limit out ships to using a standard I-beam missile with only two sepatrons each no more no less, missiles and above should be banned. Now it will all come down to proper hull construction and fuel efficiency development and agility of the ship to maneuver itself close to the enemy as an added bonus we get to actually move two ships together again giving the feeling of actual engagement. What do you think?. Even a one on one battle can no longer be over soon if this is applied. As I have read from the earliest post, the days were better when small I-beams were used. Ship and armament design have gone a long way, change was inevitable but we could rewrite the rules. I could have built swarms of one missile ship each and fight basing solely on large numbers if I wanted to.

You're missing the point. The reason this battle thread is fun is not the battles themselves, but the technology race we run trying to win those battles.

[CrypticCross345]

You're missing the point. The reason this battle thread is fun is not the battles themselves, but the technology race we run trying to win those battles.

I completely agree with you daemon, 1v1 are for ships that are way over done.

[Starwhip]

You're missing the point. The reason this battle thread is fun is not the battles themselves, but the technology race we run trying to win those battles.

At the moment, yes.

It wasn't always like that, however. Did you read the massive wall of text on the last page, describing potential changes? I like them. Currently, any newcomers stand no chance whatsoever against veterans (Zekes, you're too OP. ) and even moderately experienced fighters. Armor and weapon technology needs to be restricted somehow to make the game more fair, else it is less of a game and more of a challenge, and, as such, deserves to be moved to the Challenge subforum.

Not that I wish it to be, just making a point.

[zekes]

You're missing the point. The reason this battle thread is fun is not the battles themselves, but the technology race we run trying to win those battles.

that be true. and that race has almost no rules

[sdj64]

*lots of stuff*

However, there still may be problems with these rules, as it might be advantageous for every ship to carry a "fighter" or fighters to take advantage of the reduced salvo restrictions; mostly it comes down to what can actually be considered one, as one could just strap a docking port, probe core, and ion engine to some xenon and call the resultant 1-ton vessel a fighter. Conversely, the distinction between a fighter and a large, advanced missile begins to blur; at what point does one consider a detachable probe a fighter, and at what point a missile? I think that this will have to be discussed more thoroughly before a conclusion can be reached.

You are absolutely correct, most of what I was saying was clarifications of things that sounded unclear or weren't said.

This point (that I didn't snip) is particularly important but I think that fighters should be subject to the same rules as ships - be able to move, sustain power, and maintain control (have a probe core) without relying on weapons. With ions, it's not hard to make a fighter smaller and lighter than the missile it carries and still have over 1000 m/s of dV. Size restrictions on fighters are similar to size restrictions on weapons: both limit creative and engineering choice. So I think there should not be a minimum mass for fighters.

Perhaps as a variant rule (not for all battles but something that the players could agree on beforehand), all ships including fighters have to be manned and destroying/breaking off the cockpit or bridge means the ship is dead.

[ejudedude13]

Hmm, this might not be a bad idea. What does everyone else think? (These rules will probably not effect land battles)

As this is a club, I would suggest that we pass it as a motion. All in favour, type "Aye" after the next thing you post. Aye

EDIT I think its about time I came up with more than I-Beams to arm my ships considering the implications of this new motion and the fact that he mentioned "warheads", which I have none of.......

Edited January 15, 2015 by ejudedude13

[Zamovinar]

You're missing the point. The reason this battle thread is fun is not the battles themselves, but the technology race we run trying to win those battles.

But it has gotten to the point that we are having a technological wall. Very much like a nuke in a sense. Ships now have overpowered weapons.

At the moment, yes.

It wasn't always like that, however. Did you read the massive wall of text on the last page, describing potential changes? I like them. Currently, any newcomers stand no chance whatsoever against veterans (Zekes, you're too OP. ) and even moderately experienced fighters. Armor and weapon technology needs to be restricted somehow to make the game more fair, else it is less of a game and more of a challenge, and, as such, deserves to be moved to the Challenge subforum.

Not that I wish it to be, just making a point.

I agree with the new 10 ton armament rule, this solves the above problem elegantly but maybe in the future, this rule will be obsolete too.

- - - Updated - - -

You are absolutely correct, most of what I was saying was clarifications of things that sounded unclear or weren't said.

This point (that I didn't snip) is particularly important but I think that fighters should be subject to the same rules as ships - be able to move, sustain power, and maintain control (have a probe core) without relying on weapons. With ions, it's not hard to make a fighter smaller and lighter than the missile it carries and still have over 1000 m/s of dV. Size restrictions on fighters are similar to size restrictions on weapons: both limit creative and engineering choice. So I think there should not be a minimum mass for fighters.

Perhaps as a variant rule (not for all battles but something that the players could agree on beforehand), all ships including fighters have to be manned and destroying/breaking off the cockpit or bridge means the ship is dead.

We may still have a problem with this, as Three1415 said:

However, there still may be problems with these rules, as it might be advantageous for every ship to carry a "fighter" or fighters to take advantage of the reduced salvo restrictions; mostly it comes down to what can actually be considered one, as one could just strap a docking port, probe core, and ion engine to some xenon and call the resultant 1-ton vessel a fighter. Conversely, the distinction between a fighter and a large, advanced missile begins to blur; at what point does one consider a detachable probe a fighter, and at what point a missile? I think that this will have to be discussed more thoroughly before a conclusion can be reached.

- - - Updated - - -

Perhaps as a variant rule (not for all battles but something that the players could agree on beforehand), all ships including fighters have to be manned and destroying/breaking off the cockpit or bridge means the ship is dead.

This suggestion is rather great as we could hardly separate the designation between a fighter from a very advanced missile. It has to be Manned.

Edited January 15, 2015 by Zamovinar

[Three1415]

Currently, any newcomers stand no chance whatsoever against veterans (Zekes, you're too OP. ) and even moderately experienced fighters. Armor and weapon technology needs to be restricted somehow to make the game more fair, else it is less of a game and more of a challenge, and, as such, deserves to be moved to the Challenge subforum.

I disagree that technology must be restricted; even veterans' ships are glass cannons, and if they are matched against each other, the defender will still have no chance of surviving, which is why I proposed the changes that I did: Not to necessarily level the playing field (veterans should have an advantage; they usually have better ships, and if a player has better ships than another, then, well, they deserve to win) but to make combat in general more interesting.

With ions, it's not hard to make a fighter smaller and lighter than the missile it carries and still have over 1000 m/s of dV. Size restrictions on fighters are similar to size restrictions on weapons: both limit creative and engineering choice. So I think there should not be a minimum mass for fighters.

But this is exactly the problem: It is incredibly easy to create something that counts as a "fighter" and use it to bypass salvo size restrictions, which defeats the purpose of this proposal. But I also hate restrictions on design and technology, so I would rather not bound fighter sizes and limit their variety; however, I see no good way to reconcile the previous statement with the proposed changes without doing so--it is either one or the other, and I see no easy way out of this mutual exclusion...

I agree with the new 10 ton armament rule, this solves the above problem elegantly but maybe in the future, this rule will be obsolete too.

If it becomes obsolete, then we can change it again; the rules are hardly set in stone. However, missiles and armor are fairly evenly matched as of now; ships can simply fire more missiles than they can effectively armor against. This is true in reality as well: Could a fighter survive its own missiles being shot at it? Could a battleship survive its own bombardment? Probably not. But this is less relevant in actual warfare because the defending side can take active countermeasures to prevent or reduce damage, whereas we cannot due to the turn-based architecture of the battles. Real military actions would have exactly the same problems if placed in our situation; it is just that real life is not turn-based. This means that, if we simulate real-time engagements as best we can, no matter how advanced our weapons and armor become, they will remain in approximate balance; restricting salvo sizes is a good way, at least in my opinion, to do this, and so can endure for a long period of advancing technology because improvements in offense and defense will to a large extent negate one another. This negation will keep the situation static to a sufficient extent that rules that do not depend on technology but rather on how the game is played will not have to be changed unless something very fundamental about the game is altered (like moving to true multiplayer); technological advances do not alter gameplay sufficiently to do this. Thus, I do not think this proposal is in any danger of being phased out in the near future.

As this is a club, I would suggest that we pass it as a motion. All in favour, type "Aye" after the next thing you post. Aye

Thanks for the support, frequenters of this thread, but I myself do not think that this idea will be in a viable state until the carrier/fighter issue is resolved; I must think on this further, and try to determine a good solution to this problem...

EDIT: And I do not think that forcing fighters to be manned will really help; that is a significant restriction in of itself, and there is always the External Command Seat that can be added for basically no cost.

[Three1415]

I have finally found a solution that I am happy with; it is "soft," meaning that it does not actually place restrictions on anything but merely discourages unwanted behavior, but it may be too complex for some people. It is in three parts:

1: Which carrier fighters move first is determined not by the tonnage of the carriers but by the Thrust-to-Mass ratios of their fighters with attached payloads. This means that ion-probe fighters will still move before standalone ships, but will be one of the last fighter groups to take their turns, giving up some of their first strike capabilities but retaining some initiative in exchange for their efficiency and smaller mass as compared to fighters propelled by other types of propulsion. This change makes sense from a logical perspective because, if we were battling in real-time, the slowest fighters would hit their targets last. If a sortie includes several types of fighters, the average of their TMR is taken and used for turn ordering.

2: Fighters within carrier ships will move before any independent vessels, but the carriers themselves will not move until after all standalone ships have moved regardless of their tonnage. If one faction has multiple carriers, their turn order will still be in order of mass, just deferred until singular ships have made their move. This passively encourages larger carriers, as the penalty for an increase in size is less given that they need already wait, and a more heavily armored and thus heavier carrier will be more likely to survive to its own turn and its fighters' next turn. This also means that hybrid ships with powerful armaments, like the example of a battleship with a deployable fighter that I gave earlier, can preemptively launch a weaker attack (5 tons or one missile) against a standalone ship, but will have to wait until that ship moves before it can bring its full armament (10 tons or two missiles) to bear upon it, which I think is both more interesting and more balanced--such ships will no longer have the opportunity to take two turns before their opponent takes one, giving the opposing ship time to retreat or retaliate.

3: This is the most complex of the changes in this amendment to my proposal. I first remove the cap on the maximum tonnage of fighters that a carrier can have, and replace it with a maximal sortie size, measured as the mass of deployed fighters with their payloads. As I could not find even a set of rules that would give the effect that I wanted, I turned to the creation of an algorithm to compute it based on a number of factors. The algorithm is

where S_max is max sortie size in tons, m_carrier is the mass of the carrier, m_fighters is the total mass of the carrier's fighters, T_fighter/m_fighter+payload is the average TMR of launched fighters and their payloads, and n_fighters is the number of launched fighters. a, b, and c are constants whose variables affect how the algorithm behaves; I am still determining what they should be. However, as of now, the algorithm gives a reduced penalty for larger fighters (they still take up sortie mass, but maximum sortie size increases slightly to compensate), penalizes fighters with low TMR, and gives a small penalty if to a large number of fighters. This value is then multiplied by the mass of the carrier (larger carriers can field more fighters) to give the maximum sortie mass. These parameters were chosen because they all affect the amount of real time that would be needed to conduct the sortie; the longer the time, the less the sortie can carry (the best compensation one can achieve in a turn-based realm). The values of the constants are not yet set and can be changed to increase or decrease the effects of various fighter parameters on sortie sizes.

Overall, I am pleased with the flexibility that this approach gives; it maintains carrier viability while weakening abuse of salvo mechanics in manner that can be easily adjusted to suit combatants' desires or the will of the entire club. However, I worry that some may think it unnecessarily complex or too involved; I hope, however, that as basically everyone who plays KSP is or is an aspiring engineer or physicist, the inclusion of mathematics will sit as well with you as with me.

EDIT: The natural log being multiplied by b should have a +1 in its argument, but I am too lazy to fix that right now...

[CrypticCross345]

I still agree with Three1415. These new rules will improve the battles.

Can everybody stop with the long posts. It's giving me a headache, plus it makes the thread huge.

[Spartwo]

You are aware that it has always been knock one off.

[Zamovinar]

3: This is the most complex of the changes in this amendment to my proposal. I first remove the cap on the maximum tonnage of fighters that a carrier can have, and replace it with a maximal sortie size, measured as the mass of deployed fighters with their payloads. As I could not find even a set of rules that would give the effect that I wanted, I turned to the creation of an algorithm to compute it based on a number of factors. The algorithm is

http://i.imgur.com/gmwSTYm.png

where S_max is max sortie size in tons, m_carrier is the mass of the carrier, m_fighters is the total mass of the carrier's fighters, T_fighter/m_fighter+payload is the average TMR of launched fighters and their payloads, and n_fighters is the number of launched fighters. a, b, and c are constants whose variables affect how the algorithm behaves; I am still determining what they should be. However, as of now, the algorithm gives a reduced penalty for larger fighters (they still take up sortie mass, but maximum sortie size increases slightly to compensate), penalizes fighters with low TMR, and gives a small penalty if to a large number of fighters. This value is then multiplied by the mass of the carrier (larger carriers can field more fighters) to give the maximum sortie mass. These parameters were chosen because they all affect the amount of real time that would be needed to conduct the sortie; the longer the time, the less the sortie can carry (the best compensation one can achieve in a turn-based realm). The values of the constants are not yet set and can be changed to increase or decrease the effects of various fighter parameters on sortie sizes.

Overall, I am pleased with the flexibility that this approach gives; it maintains carrier viability while weakening abuse of salvo mechanics in manner that can be easily adjusted to suit combatants' desires or the will of the entire club. However, I worry that some may think it unnecessarily complex or too involved; I hope, however, that as basically everyone who plays KSP is or is an aspiring engineer or physicist, the inclusion of mathematics will sit as well with you as with me.

EDIT: The natural log being multiplied by b should have a +1 in its argument, but I am too lazy to fix that right now...

I love formulas to sort out battle problems but this is way too complex. I didn't know you liked making one, I was asking on earlier posts about making a standard ship efficiency formula (Includes the factors such as tonnage, part count, and fuel) for the whole club to use why didn't you reply, it turns out your good at it.

[Rune]

I'd say since every battle is an understanding between gentlemen and we don't have judges, all this discussion about changing "the rules" is a bit besides the point. We don't have rules, we have guidelines. Feel free to talk to your opponent and do any changes you like in the battles you play. f they end up being interesting, I will be very happy!

For example, if I ever make the time to try this thing again, I plan to use the "must be manned to be considered a ship" rule and change the "core part rule" with "make a crewed pod root and be done with it, that's your bridge". Plus, I have already played a battle with the transfer from and back to kerbin being part of the victory conditions (if the surviving ships can't make it back home, it's not a win, it's a draw).

Oh, and for those that complain that ships are easy to kill with one shot these days: they always were. Took me one try to build a 0.625m missile that could break Dreks, and only because I wanted to do it without big munitions as a kind of showoff. And that is realistic! If anything, KSP limits the destructive potential of space weaponry, what with having to guide the round manually and it phasing through targets if you hit too fast (yeah, I've had that happen, go through a whole battleship between timesteps). But you know, just talk with your opponent and you can try a battle with very limited weaponry (I'd limit mass and TWR of the rounds, BTW), that could be very interesting to see.

Rune. In short, nothing is set in stone so nothing to change really.

[War Eagle 1]

Hey yall.

I've been thinking about getting back into this. However before I do I am going to update my space fleet.

This is where yall come in.

I'm needing weapons. In particular small missles but I can take 1 meter anti ships too

For fighters I need small compact missles that can stack, and can kill lightly armored capital ships

All missles must be accurate

Please PM me with your missle as we as a discription of how to use them

I will give you credit when I add the ship to my thread

Thanks

[CrypticCross345]

Heres my fighter missile. http://www./download/uqoskib0wq1km4h/MRAF+Rocket.craft

All you have to do is action group the docking port and engine together. Then full throttle and fire.

It works better when you are further away from your target.

Edited January 17, 2015 by CrypticCross345