Carrier Battles Mod

[ZeroAdunn]

So far I like it, definately like it. Can't wait to see the finished product.

[Suicide Junkie]

Fired up a live-combat exercise just now, with some anti-fighter cluster missiles.

Interesting stuff...
The two carriers were optimised for defense, and were loaded with lots of anti-missile and anti-fighter weaponry.
Fighter loadout included some bombers, heavy attack and armored interceptors. With Maxrange/CAP/Point Defense strategies.

1) The fighter-launched missiles only die one at a time, max. Odd, since they still hit as a stack for one big damage punch.
The interceptors were crucial to the defensive effort, since they fired multiple shots from the various stacks, and whittled down the incoming missile stack one missile at a time.
2) AI targetting of the Anti-missile missiles is good.
It fired about enough missiles for a 4x overkill on each target, then moved to the next with its remaining missiles. When it ran out of targets, it would save some shots for the next round of combat.
3) Since the combat was pretty balanced, it was down to the two carriers in the end. Without direct fire guns to worry about, and the other carrier's missiles to attract them, the two carriers ended up side by side with a thin haze of fighters dogfighting around them.
Both carriers were launching volley after volley of anti-missile missiles, shooting down the enemy anti-fighter missiles as fast as they could be launched .
4) Supplies were way out of whack.
Engine usage has been cut by 10x and ship's supply storage has been increased by 10x.
The 600kt carriers took about 2000 supplies to cross about 3 systems, and cooked off 7000 supplies worth of missile fire during the battle.
Considering that this happened with no extra supply storage components, I'll probably reduce the supply storage by half.
Fighting a battle like this will then require one or two supply bays or a supply tanker ship to restock from after battle. You'll definitely also need cargo ships with a fresh batch of fighters.
5) The final score was all but 5 fighters lost (half a wing of bombers successfully ran after firing), and a handful of components damaged on both carriers. Mostly armor, with 1-2 spare engines knocked out.
6) Maintaining the carriers from the homeworld was hard... some economic tweaking will probably be next.

I've updated the zip.
http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/...tles_alpha.zip

[ZeroAdunn]

Suggestion for drones:
Make them on par with fighter sizes, make it so components allow them to either be short range weapons delivery systems, or long range scouting vehicles (lrscanner component)

Or they could simply be similar to automated fighters.

[ZeroAdunn]

Sorry, just gotta give this thread a bump.

[Urendi Maleldil]

This mod looks cool. It will be nice to see some all-carrier battles.

[Suicide Junkie]

Just finished a busy week, but I'm back.

For race setup, I'm thinking that it could be interesting to have almost all of the variations built into the culture, and leave the characteristics for minor tweaks. Should make it easier to balance the traits I think...


Some example cultures I've been thinking of:
Berzerkers:
-25% to production, construction and repair, for 20% more combat prowess.

Preservationists:
-50% to production and construction, for maintenance free ships.

Disposable Society:
-5 to combat. Double maintenance. -100% to repair. Doubled SY rate.
(Handy for replacing those fighters, may be a bit too powerful in practice)

[douglas]

Suicide Junkie said:
maintenance free ships.

Can't be done with cultures or characteristics. There's a hardcoded minimum of 5% maintenance cost, and the only way to get around it is a racial tech like the Pirates&Nomads mod's Ultra Recycler Node.

[Suicide Junkie]

I'm using the 100% base maintenance rate, and dropping the maintenance further with hull abilities.

In practice, you'll be paying 95% less than everybody else, which is close enough to maintenance free

[ZeroAdunn]

In regards to disposable economy:

Would be good, except when you show up to a planet that is filled to the brim with fighters, launching thousands at you. I suppose to prevent this you could fiddle with planetary storage and cargo facility storage.

[Suicide Junkie]

A disposable economy race would have an advantage on defense due to the rapid replacement of units, yes, but they'd also be at a disadvantage on offence, since they can't field as many carriers. And we all know, fighting a strategic defense is bad news.

I would also expect everybody's planets to be chock-full of fighters and troops, regardless of their culture. Most of the time, at least... you could always attack early after colonization, or right after a large fleet has restocked and moved out.

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It'll all come out in playtesting, though, and I'm expecting to have to change the numbers at least a bit.