Big ship supremacy... Can little ships keep up?

[Parasite]

In older times, it was true that bigger ships were better. Frigates could fight other frigates, but when a cruiser or lesser ship of the line came around, they had to run (and hopefully had the speed to do it.) Bigger ships meant first more, then bigger and longer range guns to hit others before you could be hit. Big battles were for ships of the line to fight, frigates were just used to pass messages.

Later improvements in weapons like the torpedo allowed a small ship to destroy large ships, but could not be used on other smaller very maneuverable ships. This lead to the rock, paper, scissors game where a small ship could kill a big ship, a medium sized cruiser could kill small ships but not really hurt bigger ones and a big ship with large slow guns could kill a medium ships easily, but had a hard time with the small darting destroyers. Later still came fighters and carriers, but that is another thread.

Small ships could be made much more useful with the introduction or modification of a small powerful short range weapon restricted to small hull types or even better with mounts to make them hit better on smaller ships. A reload rate of 10-15 turns and damage in the 2-4000 range might be good. A to-hit adjustment of -90% for a base ships and slowly reducing to zero on smaller ships. Using the opposite adjustment as it takes for fire on the ship has symmetries to it.

A torpedo shot at a cruiser whould be wasted if battleships were around, yet a ship's guns would clear the area around it of smaller enemies if given half a chance. I suspect this would be hard for the AI and firing priorities to build and handle correctly, but it might be interesting to try.

[PvK]

See Heavy Torpedoes and Anti-Matter Torpedoes in Proportions 3.x. With some research they can be quite powerful, but the mount is based on _warhead_ technology rather than ship size, so larger ships tend to use longer-ranged weapons with size-based mounts, but a small inexpensive ship can mount these weapons. Very similar to what you were suggesting, and again, I think it works well.

PvK

[Urendi Maleldil]

I've added a new Small Ship Masters racial trait to the next version of the Masters Mod. It should yield a race that can effectively negate the "bigger is better" strategy. Right now, ship construction is researched like it is in the stock game, but research in other areas gives additional small hull sizes with certain bonuses.

I'd like to add a few more though, and I was wondering if you guys had any suggestionson what I could add. Here's what the Small Ship Masters have so far:

Hulls:
Ship Con 2 + Propulsion 3 = Fast Escort (+50% defense, +4 combat movement)
Ship Con 3 + Industry 1 = Cheap Frigate (0 hull cost)
Ship Con 3 + Mil Sci 1 = Stabilized Frigate (+30% offense)
Ship Con 4 + Armor 1 = Hardened Destroyer (30 emissive)
Ship Con 4 + Mil Sci 1 = Stabilized Destroyer (+30% offense)
Ship Con 5 + Shields 1 = Shielded Light Cruiser (50 shields)
Ship Con 5 + Armor 1 = Hardened Light Cruiser (30 emissive)
Ship Con 6 + Resupply 1 = Endurance Cruiser (10000 supply storage)
Ship Con 6 + Shields 1 = Shielded Cruiser (100 shields)

Mounts (for 100-500kT ships):
Ship Con 7 + Mil Sci 1 = Stabilized Ship Mount (+30% offense)
Ship Con 5 + Sensors 1 = Miniaturized Electronics Mount (50% size, 150% cost increase, only for electronics)
Ship Con 6 + Shields 1 = Small Geometry Shield Mount (150% shield strength)

[Suicide Junkie]

Say what?
50 shields?!? Unless that's leaky shield points, its not worth the space in the hull selection screen.

I suggest that instead of making new hulls for that, you create a Shield mount, which would provde +10% to shield generation. Better effects, and dosen't use a hull.

[Ed Kolis]

Isn't Resupply 1 a starting tech?

[Urendi Maleldil]

Oh, why so it is. Resupply 2 will work.
... and increased shields to 75 and 125.

There already is the shield mount, farther down the list.

[Suicide Junkie]

How many shields does a typical ship have? If it is anything like stock, then 75 points is still insignificant... one, maybe two hits.

Perhaps you should consider making it 50 points of shield regen? That would be somewhat useful, pretty unique, and make the ship hard to capture as a bonus.

[Urendi Maleldil]

75 extra shields for a Light Cruiser is like having an extra shield generator onboard. 0kT, for free. The hull costs exactly the same as the regular Light Cruiser hull, and the shields don't use up any kT.

Plus you get it at Shields 1, where Shield Generator I only generates 50 shields. You can combine the shielded hull with Small Geometry Shield-mounted generators later on down the line and end up with a tough little ship.

This is just preliminary, and I'll have to test it to make sure it's a good enough shield bonus. If it's too weak, I can always make it stronger.

[Suicide Junkie]

Compare it to shields 5+, though.
Nobody is going to sit around with shields level 1, and you can't obsolete hulls.

[StarShadow]

Also, unless you make the built-in shields phased, any ship made with that hull will have problems. Did you take a look at the example hulls and small mount I posted? I realised that with small ships (and small mount weapons), weapon overloaders will just gut your ships. Haven't figured a way around that yet...