In the newly imagined hit-series Battlestar Galactica, the capital ship had a very sophisticated Flak defense array capable of projecting a dense Flak shield around the battlestar. Now, I have to ask the Ironclad developers, have they ever seen the Anti-SC capabilities of a capital ship in that series? Well it looks like this:
That is a lot of Flak. Also in the series, we've seen on television how effective these Flak shields can be taking down several cylon raiders on several occasions on television. Battlestars were equipped with hundreds... of point-defense turrents that created the lightshow you see in the above picture.
In Star Wars Episode III, we saw dense capital ship Anti-Aircraft fire from the first minute.
In any canon Star Wars hand-book of ships, it lists major capital ships such as Star Destroyer as carrying several AA-missile batteries and AA-Ion cannons in addition to its TIE squadrons for a secondary line of Anti-SC defense.
In real life, the battleship - the epitome of what is considered a "capital ship" - is literally a moving Flak platform on wheels. The largest battleship ever created The Yamato had over 150 Type 96 25mm cannons, and over 25 type 93 13mm triple AA machine guns, other ships indeed almost any ship worth anything in battle carried Flak guns. Naval battles in the pacific tended to be massive Flak vs. Strike Craft contests with a lot of puff puff clouds covering the sky for miles.
The question is why then can't Capital Ships get Flak in this game? Yes, there are several caps (1-2 for each each) that has an anti-SC ability such the Kol Flak Burst, or the Dunov's Magnetize but does that really make up for Capital Ships not even having a small built in Flak defense system? No, not really.
Yes, there are a specialized type of frigate: the Flak Frigate that is meant to be the primarily Flak defense for ships in SINs but does that mean unless you always bring along Flak Frigates your capital ships will always be completely defenseless against SC? Yes, it does (not counting the starting 1-2 strike craft your non-carrier capital ships get)
What I propose is: give all capital-ships a general weak Flak capability equal to 2-3 Flak Frigates.
Why we should give Capital Ships Flak. (And Starbases)
Capital Ships loved to be focused fired on by strike craft from all types of players. They see the biggest thing on the battlefield and want to take it out. This means, Capital Ships are always in near-constant danger of strike craft every game that goes onto the mid-game. You cannot count on your Anti-matter abilities because you may not have any, and your starting SC will not be able to really protect you unless you've spammed them in the form of light carriers. This extra protection however slight is needed.
The philosophical question really is: Why shouldn't huge capital ships (and even larger Starbases) that are very expensive and valuable not be able to protect themselves against SC without relying on abilities or your own SC - even slightly? They may not even good at it, they may not be effective at it, but they should be able to fire back. In WW2, Flak was nessecarily the best option for taking down planes, and options such as interceptors were better, but that is no reason to completely strip capital ships from having it.
Why Capital Ship Flak is balanced.
The weak to moderate strenght Flak equipped on Capital Ships would only be a second to third line of defense for the capital ships against enemy-SC. Mass Flak Frigates would still be much more effective than relying solely on a Cap's light Flak defense, and your own fighter SC would also be much more effective. Essentially the balance will be unchanged from what it is right now, it'll only be just that now Capital Ships can shoot back and lightly dmg enemy SC swarming around them. Flak Frigates will NOT be obsolete (agent of Karma), Fighter SC will still be more effective, and enemy SC focus-firing on capitals will still be just as effective. Like I've mentioned, this is a humble change.
"We can live without Flak for capital ships, but do we really want to? Also on very principle we shouldn't. We owe it to the Science Fiction Genre. "
Why Starbase Flak is needed.
Everything that applied to capital ships applies here, except that Starbases in addition to being huge, expensive, and valuable, they are immobile. Strike Craft could simply avoid them, and they will be a zero threat. Now, for players attempting to assault these structures, they could send SC but its perfectly flesible and realistic they will take losses. Carrier Strike Craft, should not be able to jump in on the other side of the grav well released their strike craft, wait for a few minutes while the strike craft do their dirty work (without taking any losses, due to the lack of flak guns) then jump out once the Starbase dies. Yes, Starbases can have up to several SC of their own, but that is only available after multiple upgrades you need to buy. Starbases should already start out with built-in Flak or at least make it a cheap upgrade.
Babylon 5 station's defense grid. Interceptor Station Point Defense Guns.
Specifics: Give the Akkan, Progenitor, and the Jarrasul a moderate Flak capability.
All the other capital ships and starbases will have a weak Flak equal to 2-3 Flak Frigates, however the Mothership type capital ship I adovcate for a moderate Flak ability equal to about 3-4 Flak Frigates.
The Akkan should receive moderate Flak abilities.
Again not much of a leg up, but still important. This makes these ships even better and helps protect your fleet in the immediate radius. The reasoning for this is, Flak is a support/defense ability these ships could have in contrast to the battleship capitals with their high hp + dmg and the command caps with their great abilities. This gives player an addition reason to go with these ships as their first capital ship knowing it will be very useful even in late-game battles vs. just slightly useful in combat.
PLEASE NOTE: This thread is not here to discuss Flak balance vs. Strike Craft Carrier balance. That is for another thread, and there are plently of them out there. Please do not post something like: "Great idea, but it's all unless without a carrier fix and a general buff to flak" [I actually agree with this, but keep it in another thread]
This is Silfarion's three criteria for adding in a change to the game. That I agree with.
1. It's balanced.
2. It fits the theme of the game and what the developers had in mind.
3. It works with minimal fuss or change.
---------------------
1. - Topic for debate. I say Yes.
2. - Yes, and double Yes. I have to ask, do the developers even watch BattleStar Galactica?
3. - Yes, and triple yes. It is easily implemented and won't create much of a fuss, (except for diehards out there such as Hack87, who won't like this idea no matter how humble)
I make sure to make all my trends very specific, full of examples, and with a Rebuttal section to combat the diehards out there, who hate new ideas no matter what they are. It is my hope that most people will see the merits of this humble proposal despite the over-the-topic critics that will surely seek to destroy this thread with everything they can muster.
Objections & Rebuttal COLUMN (read this first for all you diehards out there)
— "This isn't really needed"
Having cherry on a Ice-Cream Sunday isn't needed, but it's good and moreover it's "right". If we were to simply not do a change because it wasn't crucially needed and we only did things when it was absolutely nessecary in today's society then we would not have video games, ice cream, ... toilets. This change really implements the spirt of the genre and a humble change that will not cause any problems for balance.
— "Capital Ships already have 2 things to deal with squadrons ... It's a bad idea then, its a bad idea now."
Some Capital Ships have two thing to try to deal with SC, but with 1 they fail completely, the other is very micro/anti-matter dependent. I'm talking about of course their own SC, and their own capitial ship abilities that some ships have. The flaw in the first one is that the number of squadrons a cap carries (1-3 max) will almost never be enough to really protect it against enemy swarms. Second, the abilities are anti-matter dependent and highly situational. None of these 2 give a good reason why capitals shouldn't have a reliable built in Flak both in game-terms and philosophically.
— "Capital Ships aren't supposed to be a one-ship fleet, they support, and need support... they need Flak Frigates ad fighters already with them. Capital Ships are limited by hardcoding to three weapons systems..."
They're not. Capital ships will still very much need support to be effective. Giving capital ships a weak Flak will not by any means make them one-ship conquer all wonders. Flak Frigate support will still be very much desired, Fighter support will still be very viable. As for hardcoding, there are mods out there that already has this as a feature, so we know its all very much possible.
That would heavily reduce DPS for all weapons involved. The only way for this not to impact current balance is a fourth slot.
double post, whoops
Like I said, it would be a way to do it, it would require lots of testing, and it would only be the weakest weapons on a Cap ship. If you look at that example I pulled from the Kol, it fires roughly every 5 secs (4.5 plus i think it takes time for targeting / other cooldowns, not sure). A fighter has what around 100 hp, so even in its current state it could kill a fighter from a squad every 10 sec. Which isnt that much of a game changer.
*edit
Of course I forgot that theres now banks of weapons, so it would be 3 fighters every 10 sec, and this is only from the 96 damage firing arc. So it would be a slight game changer and to make it more balanced doing it this way, one would have to change a few of the values of the weapons, and then rebalance the rest to maintian overall DPS
Awesome post Cloud, That's exactly what i wanted to hear. Thanks for showing the actual script which helps me actually visualize how you the code breaks down. I was thinking the same thing for the amount of flask protection, 1 or 1/2 the power of a flak frigate. But i see an issue with it's relative power as the ship levels. If the flak damage doesn't increase, and stays sfixed from the beginning, then it becomes negligible later games. If the damage only increases slightly, then by even lv 10 you're flak is only comprable to say...3 flak frigates. But if the damage increases at a steady pace, then all you need to get is to lv 3 or so (which if you have the money, you can upgrade to) which would already have the flak damage output of 2 or 2.5 Flak Frigates. The Thing is that i agree with you that it's a good idea to give it to cap ships, but i think it would work if more effectively if it was given only to some cap ships. I like to mention the carriers, partly because they only have 2 weapon slots, so it would be easy as pie to add flak to them (we'd finally start seeing Sova carriers being used with frequency again). I think part of the reasoning for not having flak is that the cap ships are focused for their combat role. A kol or Marza are both ships that want to take on large enemy ships, they are built to fight one on one with other large ships. no one is really trying to argue that a ship that size wouldn't have some effective defense against strike craft, but they're role is to fight other capital ships and large ships. Their role does not require for anti-fighter defense. Support cap ships, on the other hand, who are supposed to not take direct damage from an enemy fleet for long would be more likely to have a reasonable enough amount of anti-SC. I think that the armaments of each ship should reflect it's role to a certain extent.
Now for star bases, Flak is either going to make them over-powered (if it's too much) or the damage output will be negligible. Obviously a star base of the magnitude of those found in entrenchment, would be blistering with AA guns, but by making the player choose between getting better anti-ship damage vs having some sort of SC defense (you own SC)makes the variety of star bases you can create so much greater. I can't remember the name of the fellow that suggested it, but if there is nothing else to attack to attack in range, Star bases should be allowed to fire, (although not terribly accurately) at SC (so they would be the last priority target).
Just to reitterate, i think that the capital ships armaments should represent their role in the game. No one is really arguing that they won't have flak defense, but I'm contesting that IC wanted them to reflect their purpose in their armaments, and because these ships are limited to a mere 3 different types of weaponry, they had to be focus built. Although i do see really like the option of giving carrier caps flak, the way they are is fine.
Just want to say awesome post from before cloud, you sir are getting some karma
I agree, I was using the Kol as an example, but ships like the Kol and other ones with AA abilities already dont really need a flak gun installed, would it be nice, yes but required no. For those ships with only two weapons right now it would be a bonus to them, which might make them be played more.
The thing is you could enable the weakest guns on the ship to be able to target SC, does it mean they will, no, this is were the second part comes in, every ship has a behavior setting, the frontline battleships would most likely have the anti-fighter stuff on the bottom of the list. This is how come fighters will target fighters first in combat because of the behavior AI order of targeting. So even enabling the gun to fire at SC, the ship would still engage Cap ships and Defenses first.
Also you get for being civilized and not resorting to earlier tactics in this thread.
*editOf course I forgot that theres now banks of weapons, so it would be 3 fighters every 10 sec, and this is only from the 96 damage firing arc. So it would be a slight game changer and to make it more balanced doing it this way, one would have to change a few of the values of the weapons, and then rebalance the rest to maintian overall DPS
Right, but let's say you have autocannon, laser, and Weapon X. If Weapon X is an autocannon and it uses the same banks as your other autocannon, you're fine because you can crank one up and maintain the same DPS and damage type, as long as one's never firing on fighters. If it doesn't have the same banks, it's not the same, because it's not firing at the same time. If it has a different damage type, it's not the same, because while pure DPS might be the same, it's not doing the same amount of damage when shield mitigation and armor are taken into account.
Essentially, the only way to make sure is if you have two of the exact same weapon, making one fire at fighters and then increasing the other by (damage of fighter-shooting gun) / 2 or something.
Oh, and full disclosure against my OWN position: I wouldn't mind there being a fourth capital ship slot, haha.
e: also, I think an easier solution and one more beneficial for modders as well would be to hardcode a separate squad limit only for one kind of fighter, and allow support ships to have a higher cap on SC as long as those SC aren't bombers. that would allow for more damage to incoming SC, would be relatively trivial, and would be kind of nice for modders
Yes the weapon Bank thing does get confusing when you get down into it.
Did you mean fourth weapon slot or 6th capital slot, carbon?
Fourth weapon slot. Even up to six would be nice, but I'm not counting on it.
Lol, i realized something, the weapon data I pulled was from a mod, the autocannon damage for the Kol are:
DamagePerBank:FRONT 27.000000 DamagePerBank:BACK 49.500000 DamagePerBank:LEFT 49.500000 DamagePerBank:RIGHT 27.000000
Looking at these numbers, it actually makes it more reasonable to the point where you might not even have to modify them.
Yeah six slots would be nice!
[reserved]
Wouldn’t it be easier to mod these things in yourself rather than go to the trouble of making all these complicated threads and argue about the implementation?
Also what the hell is this?
You realize you could just post something when you have something to say.
Without flak, the suffrage of life is but an endless toil with no reward awaiting us after our work. without flak, we shed blood, sweat and tears all for naught. Without flak, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Without flak, we are nothing. Only in flak can true purpose be found.
No; the Kol's autocannon aren't capable of hitting fighters.
Think of it this way: a pistol and a .50 sniper rifle are both firearms that fire projectile weapons down metal shafts by burning a chemical compound to produce an overpressure area behind the projectile. So they're both 'guns'. I'd rather have the .50 if engaged in long distance combat, or mid-range against light materiel (e. g. a car, truck, jeep, something that has some 'armor' but not a lot). But if it's up-close, in your face, point-blank combat the pistol is going to be more useful because I can actually target it at someone without using a sniper scope that zooms in 'way to far' for that range.
Similarily, the auto-cannon on the Kol are geared towards hitting enemy ships, not fighters. They're too big to accurately target fighters.
Autocannons are listed as doing more damage, but it's split up on all four sides, mostly on the left and right, whereas the beam cannons only target the front.
Get a Desert Eagle....you can defend yourself from close up attackers, as well as cars and trucks.
i have to say, i think capital ships with ABILITIES against SC is just wasting an ability. i mean, the Kol is described as havign many direct combat abilities... okay, he can fire a gauss round at a ship, has the ability to launch flak rounds in a vicinity around the ship (which is only usefull against SC and even then if you time it well) and a shield that gives greatly added protection vs. phase missiles and lesser added protection against all other damage... oh yeah and the lvl 6 ability... guess the splash damage is good but still...
to me, thats a combat ability, a utility ability, a defensive ability, and the lvl 6 ability isnt bad.
The Marza has more direct combat abilities, it has the missile barrage, radiation bomb and incendiary ammo! thats 3 direct combat abilities vs the Kols 1.5
so, u may be asking what my point is and how it relates... i think that the anti-strikcraft abilities, while imaginative, are quite useless, compared to nearly constant firing of flak-type weapons in all directions... its also prettier but thats just me, and not a really valid arguing point, im just saying
still, id rather the Kol swap the flak burst ability for maybe a high yeild nuclear or plasma warhead, i dont know, but something that would count as a instantaneous or near-instantaneous effect direct combat weapon, and just have some small (perhaps 20-30mm rapid firing fragmentation shells for TEC, appropriate equivalent for others?) anti-SC weapons as part of its offensive repertoire...
someone said that the game engine only allows 3 weapon banks and to add another would mean a major change. someone else said that if anti-sc abilities were to be improved based on lvling up, then youd end up withe a massively powerful anti-SC cap ship.... so im thinking maybe add another style of weapons, a defensive grouping, that lvls up withthe rest of the ship, but at a small percentage of the whole, for instance, offensive weapons increase damage by 20% when lvling up, defensive weapons increase by 5-7% or whatever. the could/should, theoretically, bypass this problem with the engine... or at least give Stardock a way to get around that problem without adding a major change to the game...
basically, i think that an anti-SC shield (shield insofar as the near-constant firing of anti-SC weaponry provides protection against SC) for all capital ships is very necessary... why go half measures? i agree that abilities and weapons should be applied according to the cap in question... however i see the Kol (and equivalents) as a welcome-all-comers, absolute kick ass ship that gets right in the middle of the battle and takes on as many opponents at a time as possible, and i dont see why that should exclude strikcraft... Sova as well, its a carrier, providing SC support... i dont see why it shouldnt have the ability (ability as in weapons) to combat enemy strikecraft
so, now im looking at it from the other side... sorta... i still think flak weapons for all ships is a definite plus... however... idn, i had this idea that maybe brand spanking new caps shouldnt have anti-SC weapns until they level up to maybe lvl 4, 5 or even 6? that way caps dont get this extra weapon before its actually useful. also, if we do it that way, we could let it lvl up with the rest of the ships weapons, only because it started lvling up later than the rest, the max damage will be less
anyway, the more i think about it the more i like it, i reckon lvl 4 or 5 should see each capital ship upgraded with flak weapons, but i still think ALL should be upgraded, i dont have real evidence for, other than the fact that SC are so un-opposed that really whatever we do wont completely counter them effectively... and if we do manage that... then we wont have the weapons/ships to wipe out the carriers
thats my $0.02, i dont think it can be explained better without going in confusing circles
I agree, i've always found it a little ridiculous that such big items as the Cap Ships and Starbases can't defend themselves. Only way that I can see a starbase getting any flak defence is by surrounding it with Tec Hangars.
Analogies: FTW or FTL?
Stardock is the PUBLISHER; Ironclad is the developer (and the one who has to 'get around' the problem)
Ron, yes the current autocannons cant target fighters, however in my previous postings I have shown that in the weapon listing in the entity files for ships, there is a code line to enable them to target fighters. If this works, I dont know, Im currently working on a privite mod so I havent had time to do it, but I might incorporate it to test it out.
Here is an idea on my part that i came up with after reading this thread.
Note this idea was inspired elsewhere but is being articulated by me.
Rather than adding another weapon or retyping them, why not add a new defensive value.
Right now ships have
Armor and Shield Mitigation
So in the spirit of GalCiv II, i would suggesting granting capships (and star bases) another defense stat, called "Point Defense" or just PD.
the PD number would be the DPS done to fighters caught in the region of the PD, PD would have something like a 25% hit chance, a lowish one to keep it from being overpowered.
Now i came up with two damage range ideas but the over idea stays the same.
Cap ships would start with a low PD score and then it would level up as they did.
Battleships and Carriers - would have the highest PD at 2 per level (or 4 in a higher damage base if wanted), this reflects two ideas on my part Battleships like the Kol are expected to to in someway be a one ship force at times, the flag ship the main ship of the line, where carriers normally enguage other carriers well outside the range of their main guns, meaning that their crews need to learn to better handle fighter attacks from a distance as well. Note i can just imagine the Flak Barrage of the Kol just being an order to Focus Fire all guns at once.
Colony and Support Caps - would be next with a 1.5 per level (or 3) These classes are less used on the front lines by in their supporting role still encourge their crews to keep up good cover fire.
Dreadnought types - would be last with only 1 per level (or 2) since these ships are built to focus so much on raw firepower and it helps balance already strong ships like the Marza out.
Starbases would start with the low number and as they got defense upgrades they would go up to numbers likely higher than most caps.
Another idea that came to me while thinking about this was have the PD number also reduce the number of missile that may hit the target over a given time, lowering the over all damage taken by LRM types. (and maybe provide some sort of disruption affect on LR Beams)
Other ship types that might also earn very weak PD flags, are Flak ships proper, and maybe carriers, since PD has no affect on anything accept fighters it wouldn't hurt balance to much.
In addition to leveling i might suggest tieing upgrades of the PD affect to the weapon upgrade that matches the "flak" weapon of that race. (ex TEC autocannons.)
To Conclude
A static antifighter DPS affect
Lowish accuracy at all levels
Level based
Differing on ship types.
Tied to defense upgrades on Starbases
Maybe increased by 'flak' upgrades
Maybe helping deal with Missile fire.
Just a Few ideas
-Gabe
Hey guys glad to see this idea is still sparking conversation!
I agree with the general vein of this thread.
Flak would be good for three reasons:
1) It makes sense. It's a glaring hole in the defenses of capital ships that they can't defend themselves, even minimally, from the second-most spammed unit in the game.
2) It's a glaring hole in the defenses of your biggest investments.
3) Flak (or equivalent anti-strikecraft) looks REALLY awesome.
as an aside, it could also be used to trip minefields to an extent, once revealed, which would again give the capital ships minor competency against one of their biggest threats.
oops I think that I just resurrected a thread...
Waacka Waacka
Full disclosure - I haven't read all 7 pages of this thread. I am a SOASE+entrechnment noob.
However, the idea of Flak on all capital ships sounds like a good idea! I would like to see this in-game if it is not there already. I see that some of my capital ships have fighter squadrons. Does anyone know if modern naval carriers carry flak guns? I assume they do. So, I would like to see flak guns on capital ships. As others have stated - the number and type of flak guns could very depending on combat ship type (carrier, frigate, etc.).
great post, btw
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
