Can we have Super-Vessels Please....

So basically you're asking for a starbase that can phase jump.  There are already mods which implement this.  Personally I will always believe that "super units" will either by disappointingly easy to counter to unfairly powerful with no in between.  If they can't be beaten by a swarm of weaker units, the game becomes a race to get to the super units.  If they can be... well, that kind of defeats the whole point of a super unit, now doesn't it?

well, I'll comment on the campaign 1st- NO. It won't happen. It just won't. Why? Well, Sins is kind of a sandbox-style game. 4X games have a tradition of not having campaigns. Why? Well, because very time you play, you make a story of your own.

As for the super-vessels, good ideas, but overdone for the times. IMO, they would be a massive war beast costing 800-1000 fleet supply points (in other words have your max fleet supply is gone right there (GRT)). FTL speed would require a passive ability to make them slow. IMO, they should have the same FTL speed as everything else, just sublight is slower (come on, they can put a big&powerful drive to move it the same speed as a small Cobalt).

Also, there isn't going to be a 3rd XPack (or at least that's what the word around is). Instead, something, else.

The Iron Engine (which is used by Sins), to my knowledge isn't capable of supporting destructible modules. It either all goes or none of it.

Also, why would a 'super-vessel' need LIGHT cannons. This is SPACE combat. I vote for using anti-strikecraft missiles. Longer range, greater destructive potential, greater accuracy, anti-SC missiles have all those advantages, while anti-SC guns have few of them, if any.

EDIT: I see Darvin got here before me. I have to agree with that assesment, to a point. A super-unit that can be defeated by a bunch of HCs or, God forbid, support cruisers, or even worse, SCOUTS (I wonder what Amish would say about that?) is useless. However, I think a super-unit that can be defeated by 5-6 lvl5+ capital ships would be acceptable. So long as 2-3 of those capitals was destroyed in the process. Maybe four.

Yet another topic for an 'I win button'

well, I think having very large, very expensive, and very supply-intensive ships that are very powerful would add a new dimension, SO LONG AS IT IS COUNTERABLE. That is the key phrase/word. COUNTERABLE.

If nothing has a counter, then it degenerates into rush teching to get the uncounterable units. Or spam. Like the Illums+Guardian w/ Repulse.

The problem with "countering" such big units is that either the counters work too well and make the units worthless, or they don't work well enough and leave the units unstoppable.  Due to the advantage of decisiveness, the counter to these huge units has to be much more effective than the counter to smaller units.  If I am countering long range frigates with fighters, even if I don't have enough fighters I will still kill some LRF.  On the other hand, if I am trying to counter a single super-unit, if I don't have enough units all I do is damage it and then it's repaired.  As a result, the bigger a unit gets, the harder its counter must be.  Bottom line: if you've got a 1000 fleet command unit, it's counter is going to have to be so insanely effective as to drive this unit into worthlessness.  This is why huge super-units almost always get scrapped in early design phases.  Either overpowered or so easy to counter as to be worthless, with no middle-ground.

I don't think this is a good idea. Sins is and should stay about fleet rather than one enormous big ship imo.

Grtz,
Flipkik

Keep dreaming

I fully agree with darvin's assessment and that's part of the reason why I never really wanted superships in the game.

it would work, of course, if there were a different damage model where ships lose effectiveness with dmg, like some guns failing, lesser speed/ turning rates, etc. then, even if it still had 50% health, it would not be 100% as dangerous from a dmg or ability standpoint. such a change is not going to happen in sins, maybe in a sequel, though I doubt it (and it may even be out of place for the scope and purpose of the game), but there have been games to do it.

BEHOLD! THE FUTURE OF THE RT4X GAME! THE [engine name here] ENGINE! ABLE TO DO REALISTIC PHYSICS, DAMAGE, AND COMBAT SIMULATIONS!

What if these super units required a constant resource cost?  there would have to be a lot of people on these ships, and they have to feed them somehow... A steady flow of credits, perhaps 100-500 per second would leave an ECONOMIC counter- you'd still have a super ship, but a good opponent could counter you by attacking your economic structures and planets, leaving you're empire as a whole a bit more vulnerable.

I'm not so sure that it is a technical issue. true, sins engine was probably not built for it and true, moving turrets and other things were in fact scrapped, (also) because they would cause performance problems considering the large fleets we are dealing with in sins. however, a complete, detailed dmg model would also be cumbersome for the player to oversee with larger fleets. if every assault frigate and support cruiser had targetable sub systems and all this stuff, it would just be too much information, too many decisions, too much micromanagement to wage a battle efficiently. not when you have other things that also require attention. it might be a good design decision to have the larger vessels have this and make them thus a tad tougher in return, because there are not so many of these that you'd lose track. homeworld 2 did it and it worked ok imo, gave some extra options and those battlecruisers were pretty mighty beasts.

There's another way this could work though.  If the "super unit" did not have passive regeneration of its hull.  It could slowly be worn down.

The only way to repair it would be to send it back to the structure that constructed it.  Repairing would cost resources as well.  This structure would take a large amount of both logistic and tactical slots.  That could make it dangerous to construct on a front line world.

Hate mods.

Well duh, no one should rely on the super-vessel soley.

Sending it alone would be suicide but attacking it with a few units would also be.  It would be the center of the fleet, not the fleet.

And if this super-vessel causes so much discrepency, then an option for mulitplayer...no starbases, no super vessels, no super weapons...or one option that does all 3 (etc. with other options in multiplayer).

And yes there is a middle ground.

Say, two players of equal skill level duke it out.  One person goes for the supervessel while having a slightly smaller fleet and some starbases doing his defensive duties.  Well the other person who goes for huge fleets  can counter his super-vessel and smaller fleet with his huge fleet but it'd be close....only tactics would decide it....not 1000 missile frigates or 1 single super-vessel.

Also....there would have to be totally symmetric maps to allow for these to work....an equal chance to have the same amount of resources/planets/chokepoints.  Many a time, when I'm playing single player (when I did play) I had a crappy starting set up and it made it impossible.  It needs to be equal.  Same amount and type of planets/bonuses/relics.

 But then you have starbases clogging everything up as well...leading to as someone mentioned...a sandbox...

And, as everyone knows this game has a huge single player community (paradox!) and the average single-player player would love a huge ship to admire and use.

Not really a dream, considering I haven't played the game in about a year but more of a 'why not'?

And Darvin3, since you seem so opposed to this, idk if you play mp or sp but you can't deny that you wouldnt like to have the option to build such a vessel if you're playing against 1 easy ai or 9 hard ai's or just fooling around with a friend(no homo).  Or better yet....destroy one of them and see it explode....

-Phal

 You have your 'big' ships. They are called Caps. What you want and Im sure there are many like you, is a 'I win unit'. Its like Expermental Units in Supreme Commander. Those units are no fun. Even in SP, when I can beat the campaign using just a few Expermental Units.

I see this and think of the experimentals in the original supcom... the original Galactic Colossus was slow, and had no AA defense, but it had to be undefended to be destroyed.

A super-ship is a cool idea in concept, but i think the game's current units should be balanced before anymore are added, especially one that has the potential to (completely) break the game.

Edit: Looks like UE stole my idea...

IMO, a 'super-vessel', should be better than a cap, but weaker than a starbase. Give it something like a TOTAL DPS of 200, and some anti-everything abilities, (EXCEPT for anti-SC). Give it no flak, make it fairly expensive (so that it can come out around mid-game). It should be slow as hell, turn like a rock moving at 0.99c (99% light speed, in other words LIKE CRAP!), and be EXTREMELY vulnerable to bombers.

Why? Well, something very vulnerable to bombers will make you use fighters (preferably launched from the only halfway-defenseless cap carriers), and lots of flaks. I.E., it has an attendant fleet, and is therefore the fleet CENTERPIECE, and not the FLEET itself.

LOL, again. Caps fit that role. Caps are the Centerpieces. They are weak to promote the use of attending fleet. Granted they are bit to weak IMHO in the unmodded game.

Seriously, Distant Stars has your super ships. Lvl 10 Battleships.

also, about my game engine comment- a game engine that could do a realistic damage simulation on large ships/structures (Caps, SBs, maybe planets/artificial worlds) would be cool, and then have the Sins-style damage system for smaller ships&structures.

it wont happen not cuz players object ,but cuz devs will do nothing more then that last diplo micro expansion.I am pretty sure most already abandoned sins development for other projects -.-

I wouldn't mind super-vessels, so long as there were considerable drawbacks to using them.

It's big. Make it take three to four times the time to charge up to jump.

It's slow. Make it have limited cones of fire around the major weapons ports.

It's a huge target. Increase Chance-to-Hit (only applies to fighters/bombers, and flaks) to 100%

Yeah, it can have devastating firepower in the forward cone or from a broadside, but against a large fleet of smaller, maneuvering craft, it's at a disadvantage. I think the purpose of a supership would be not so much to kill fleets of small things, but to use abilities and buffs to allow a second fleet to better deal with the first. Or perhaps it could just be really good at killing large, slower targets, and have a chance to miss on everything smaller than a HC.

"But that sounds just like the capships we have now!" why yes, it does! Except caps are more maneuverable, cheaper, (heck, you could even make the thing cost four cap crews), and require much less time and effort to build.

"But then why would we get it at all?" Because its abilities are on the same scale as it is- They're big, mean, and can buff your fleet to victory or de-buff your opponents into the dirt. Not to mention the non-moving starbases can't get out of your most powerful firing arc, and even 80% chance to hit can really screw up an enemy who blunders into your broadside.

It concentrates your power and resources in one location, and can be beaten by a fleet that costs about the same without the assistance of another supership. In a 4X game, that kind of concentration can hurt you if your opponent knows how to take advantage of it. You take care of it, and it can make more of a difference than a couple caps would.

Plus, on the side of me that daydreams about batman fighting bear cavalry, two of them duking it out would BE AWESOME.

i think this will be a pretty good idea. setting these kinds of vessels which also have limitations and disadvantages. makes the game more exciting i guess.

I think these units are more than possible to balance. It takes a lot of consideration, but it can be done.

Still, I don't think they'd fit in Sins at all as it is currently.

Yup, Distant Stars mod is the way to go. Cap Ships are GOOD.

More caps is better, modding provides that. What would be an idea is costly research to upgrade your ships to level 10. The facility is there in the gamplay constants file, it's just not used (upgrade price for next level).

At the moment I'm in an epic battle with three unfair AI's on a 120 planet map. The AI hit me with 8 caps, 40 HCs, 92 carriers + 2-300 other ships - woo hoo! I slapped them with 28 caps, including 20 level 7 Marzas.