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Muahahah! Yet another iffy post goes off without a flame! Go me!
Yeah, in modern terms a single bomb might destroy <Insert large craft here>, but when's the last time you saw a carrier with shields? Or even real armor, for that matter...at least armor that can compete with the weapons launched at them.
But in retrospect, respectable science fiction novels, such as Star Wars, Star Trek and the like all protray battles (usually) won either by swarming fighters, or massive capital ships.
The Star Wars plugins seems to a decent job of this, but I personally dislike the storylines.
------------------ Battler of the unjust Forklift. And still blowing up them Strands, 'cause the Aggies haven't given him the new shield generator yet.
The problem with making massively powerful ships is that if they get too big and bad, you can't destroy them with any ship. What huge capital ships need is a weak spot, but unfortunately, EVO doesn't allow for things like that. Also, a nuclear bomb could destroy an entire fleet and could be carried by a fighter, it just really depends on a race's technology.
------------------ You would have to be ignorant, derranged, demented, or dead to turn down the oppurtunity to fly an Azdara.
Quote
The problem with making massively powerful ships is that if they get too big and bad, you can't destroy them with any ship. What huge capital ships need is a weak spot, but unfortunately, EVO doesn't allow for things like that.
The secret to preventing "megadreadnought syndrome" is to unbalance the weapons those ships carry. For example, in my plug the Tushima Class Frigate has a whopping 4 Light Torpedo Launchers, but is counterbalanced with a pathetic 2 Light Fusion Turrets, whereas the Hastings Class Destroyer (an slightly more expensive ship) has 4 Heavy Fusion Turrets and a single Heavy Torpedo Launcher. Thusly the Tushima class is very vulnerable to close-in fire, and the Hastings class slightly less vulnerable to longer ranged weapons.
------------------ (No Shuttlecraft were harmed in the making of this post)
For a change, it would be fun to see really big, scary ships. Nova will probably support that better, as having a fighter bay with 50 fighters will be possible.
Hmm.... When Nova comes, I might start getting a little more involved with plug-in development...
/me imagines a ship that would almost take up the entire screen, with 50 heavy fighters in it's bay, 20 turrets...
/me then imagines being the captain of it.
/me drools.
------------------ That's all very nice, but where are the guns? - SilverDragon
Hmmm... a mad name for a ship would be the "Stalingrad" or the "Som".
I don't think it's too much of a problem to have near-invincible ships, as long as the opposing side has something close too it to balance it with...
~A~
------------------ "How can I make it go faster?" -Me-
I have those And it's spelled "Somme".
These kind of topics baffle me. You may care to read Jules Verne's 'From Earth to Moon' on the question of armour and weapons outperforming each other as the generations go by.
The point that I feel should be made (and has already been made) is that the notion of 'realism' when talking about how weapons and ships in the far future will work is vacuous. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that 'realism' and 'science fiction' aren't really the same kind of thing.
During the Falklands war, a plane carrying a single Exocet was able to destroy a troop ship, although it could have itself been shot down by machine gun fire. As someone else pointed out, go back a hundred years and the situation was very different. Go back a thousand years, and the only way a vessel could sink another was by ramming, and boarding was a much more common practice in naval warfare.
Who can say what the far future will hold? Maybe capital ships are capital ships because they can continue in service for years without undergoing major repairs, whereas a small fighter might require an almost complete refit after each sortie - rather like a Formula 1 car after a major race. This wouldn't interest the EV/O player much, but would be very important for governments commissioning ships for protracted campaigns.
On the other hand, maybe what makes a capital ship is the fact that it has so many crew, so that it can effectively capture other ships once it has disabled them.
Or, again, maybe a warship has got a lot anti-personnel armour and weapons, so when it lands on a planet it can subdue a civilian population or military base.
Or, as another option, maybe the problem is training enough pilots - as in the Battle of Britain. If the same pilot could fly a battle cruiser or a fighter, but has a life expectancy of three missions in a fighter and a hundred in a battle cruiser, it may (for a government) only make sense to build capital ships. For a mercenary who doesn't want to split his profits and always believes his luck will hold (and can't afford a big ship) a small fighter might seem the right option..
Or, how about if the way technology develops means that flying and blowing things up is fairly simple, but transmitting a message through deep space requires a massive installation. A capital ship would have to be big enough to carry this equipment, and well armoured enough to give it enough time to get its message through no matter what the attack. In some kinds of historical wars, intelligence has been vastly more important than any other kind of military action.
Or, again, maybe in your SF universe sending a ship through hyperspace creates some kind of distortion field, no matter how big the ship is. Sure, sending a big ship through takes longer (maybe three days) but there's a maximum on the number of separate Hyperspace events. So, obviously, if your choice is say, a maximum of 36 ships (I wonder where such a figure could come from), you would want to send 36 capital ships which might themselves carry non-hyper capable smaller ships. For defence, on the other hand, you might want to be able to keep sending up smaller ships.
Or it could be the other way round, where an attack would primarily be smaller ships, because of the effects of mass on Hyperspace travel, while for defence you would put up enormous ships which could stay in space indefinitely, rather than those small, weedy ships which have to be refueled every few hours...
When you are making your own reality, then realism is something you define yourself...
------------------ M A R T I N • T U R N E R
Time for a Star Wars spin on this; In the novels, an Imperial Star Destroyer, Mark II (that's one of the big, triangle ships for anyone who doesn't know) carries 72 starfighters and well over 100 weapons. A Super Star Destroyer carries 144 fighters and 750 laser weapons, as well as 250 missile tubes. However, these weapons are quite impotant against an X-Wing or a Crescent Fighter, which are too fast to target. The problem here is that in EVO, turrents are very accurate. If weapons were scaled to correct numbers and power, you'd get vaped in a second by any capital warship. Maybe in some future version on EV (since from the little I've heard, EVNova won't do this) weapons with have accuracy ratings differing on how fast your ship goes. So if you fly a fighter, while odds are low that you'd manage to blow a capital ship up, if you're good enough and bored enough, you could. As for fighters, just have them launch in waves like in every other game I've ever seen (even EVO when you demand tribute) to prevent a ridiculously large battle that would probably crash the game.
------------------ Playtime's OVER!- Gene Starwind Is that all you've got?-Vegeta
Speaking of Star Wars, the old plugin for EV (there's one for EVO too, but I haven't played it) did a masterful job of separating the capital ships from the others. The turbolasers did immense damage, had great range, and the capital ships had many. They were very inaccurate, such that in large numbers (which only capital ships could hold) they were effective because they covered such a wide field, but if you got one or two they were effectively useless. A (very) good fighter pilot could maneuver between the blasts and do some damage, but that was the only way. The capital ships were effectively immune to all but other capital ships, or very well upgraded midrange ships.
------------------ If at first you don't succeed, use more duct tape.
Listen if you want to make a more realistic evo, the first thing that that you need to do is remove all the sound. Because sound waves require a medium to travel through and thus, cannot travel through empty space. and this is one of the reasons why I beleive that Its more fun unrealisstic
------------------ Don't give me that "there's no 'I' in team" crap. There's no 'U' in team either.
Originally posted by Voinian Earth: Listen if you want to make a more realistic evo, the first thing that that you need to do is remove all the sound. Because sound waves require a medium to travel through and thus, cannot travel through empty space. and this is one of the reasons why I beleive that Its more fun unrealisstic
My view has always been that the sounds you hear are generated by your ship's computer, as a way of quickly and easily giving you more information about what is happening around you.
------------------ David Arthur (url="http://"http://members.aol.com/darthur1/talon-ev/")Talon Plugin for the original Escape Velocity(/url)
No, I really think that your ship falling apart around you would be the first sign of whats happening to you. And their are windows on the side of the ship also, Clearly seen on the destroyer.And through these windows you cansee bright flashes of light. Another thing, close your eyes during a battle, sounds dont help much, do they?How does your computer know when the enemy is firing a rocket, or a fighter?Does it Look out a window?
Please do not turn this into a big deal, I did not want to criticize you or anything.
(This message has been edited by Voinian Earth (edited 10-17-2001).)
Originally posted by Voinian Earth: Another thing, close your eyes during a battle, sounds dont help much, do they?
The idea isn't to allow you to close your eyes during battle, it's to give you an extra sensory input, since we are accustomed to being able to hear what's going on around us in addition to seeing it.
Originally posted by Voinian Earth: How does your computer know when the enemy is firing a rocket, or a fighter?
Sensors.
(This message has been edited by David Arthur (edited 10-17-2001).)
/me is pretty sure he could beat the Voinian Dreadnought with his eyes closed...
Esponer
------------------ Word.
Originally posted by SilverDragon: ** /me is pretty sure he could beat the Voinian Dreadnought with his eyes closed... Esponer **
/me doubts seriously that anybody could beat the Dreadnought with their eyes closed... Even if it were just you on the Dreadnought with no interference, you'd probably get slaughtered...
(edit)quote problem(/edit) ------------------ Naughty Notice: Do not click (url="http://"http://www.funpages.com/haha.htm")here(/url). Remember, I warned you! The middle ages Freeport bar: just head yourself to (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum8/HTML/003139.html#")http://www.ambrosias...ML/003139.html#(/url)
(This message has been edited by draco_2488 (edited 10-17-2001).)
You know, maybe you should actually try listening to a battle. The only thing you can hear is the sound of weapon fire and explosions. Somehow I doubt that that particular audio stimulus wouldn't help you much.
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