More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

As probably everyone gonna jump on the "this-is-not-supposed-to-be-realistic" bandwagon - I am aware of that. Yet the whole numbers don't add up to something even remotely resembling potential realism.

As an example - my population atm - around 1.600.000.
Number of ships 200k ish - 70k of those Cr.
I know that the population number is bollocks - but to have any civilized planet in the future with a fleet of 2.000.000 ships (late round) is plain stupid.
100.000 Battleships alone would require complement of 100.000.000 people. Which in itself exceeds armies on earth altogether (we can agree that earth is densely populated and very militarized).
Even if we assume automated ships - how could a civilization possibly get enough resources to build that many ships? For a battleship I imagine a massive thing - at least 250m long - a single one would weigh at least 50.000t. Producing 20.000 of those - frankly impossible.

Another point would be relative pricing (Xan example)
Figher - 120
Battleship - 810
So we pay about 7 times a price for a massive assault ship that we pay for a single pilot fighter. There's a reason US Forces only have 11 aircraft carriers - but 14k planes and helis.

If I visualize a space battle I usually think of movies like Star Wars or Serenity - where even in huge battles rarely more than 500 ships been involved - of the biggest classes maybe a dozen.

So my sugggestion is a reality check on stats - reduce the amount of ships severely and fix relative pricing.
There is no way any planet could or should have more than 100000 fighters or 500 battleships. Why not pay 500.000 each for a BS (which in return would be a bitch to kill ofc).
When I was a kid watching Star Wars I flinched when seeing a single Star Destroyer - gimme that feeling for PA Ships :(

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

i like this :p and its so easy to change.

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

There's a problem with superships, namely that it takes a buttload to kill them (think about this before posting a bollocks reply, please). That said, your suggestion wouldn't be such a bad one... in moderation. One might think of undoing the price reduction that was introduced ~5 rounds ago. Anything more than that I'm against.

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

I tried to do this sort of thing with my stats, but I'm told PA players these days only care about big numbers. Because big numbers are fun!

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

i prefer small numbers

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

The problem you mention is undeniable - yet the question remains how extreme that effect would really be. I had a pricing of around 5xlower hull group, 2xsmaller class in hull group in mind (BS 2 times more expensive than CR, 10 times DE, 20 times Fr, 100 times Co, 200 times Fi).
If we have DE targetting BS, 10 De would have same result as 19 De, 9 would have no effect. Yet this difference remains static while fleets grow. And ofc you have to keep in mind that losing a single supership will hurt big time.
On a sidenote - wasn't big ships supposed to be harder to kill in return for worse ETA? Atm some are stronger than the smaller ones but pretty inconsistant through the races.

The small informal 4 peeps I asked agreed that current ship numbers are stupid.
If you want to have big numbers increase Mining x 1000 instead of ships :p

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

Yeah I loved the day when 1 BS cost 96,000.

I actually thought the stats were multiplied by 100, until i signed up for R28 and saw the production screen.

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

Without unrealistic energy shields and inertial dampeners then any ship should be easy to knock out. It couldn't dodge fast without killing its crew, and its armour should still be pretty easy to puncture with railgun rounds and the like. Unless you made it metres thick, in whch case it would have a massive mass & moment of inertia and you'd probably cook the crew if you had a big enough engine output to move it quickly... realism sucks!



I like big numbers of ships but tbh I don't care. Bigger ships has an advantage because you get a higher 'resolution' A/C and D/C.

Eg the current phantom is 28 of each resource. Its A/C is 357 - putting armour up by one point would make it 476. A jump of 119. If it cost 100 of each resource, changing its armour by 1 point would change its A/C by about 33. A stats designer can more easily get what they want.

You can play with resource cost to fiddle if you need to, but it's easier & you can use rounder numbers if ships are 'bigger'. Also, I think I would like to see a bigger cost difference between big & little ships.

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

would b ace if those times came again :P

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

Well i dont think thats totally true.

1000 ships with 1 armor is the same as having 1 ship with 1000 armor. You still have to do the same damage to the single ship, then as the swarm of ships.

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

What happens when an opponent does 500 damage?

To repeat myself:

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

One possibility would be some form of repair system - at a cost (probably less than the initial production cost - but not necessarily).

Another would be to have partially damaged ships remaining in players' fleets.

A problem with both of these would be that the database would have to store damage information for each ship and I'm sure that similar suggestions have been classed as unworkable in the past.

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

Had a quick think;

So long as the attackers and targets go up proportionally, then it's close to a non-issue. If you multiplied every stat of the phantom and the phoenix by 100 (armour, dmg, cost), then 1,000 phantom would still kill 307 phoenix. The value damage ratio isn't altered. It just has lower damage 'resolution' (eg you might be able to kill 20,40,60,80... value rather than 2,4,6,8...)

If we decide we want a bigger difference between the smallest and biggest ships (eg battleships get 10 times bigger but fighters don't), the battleships gain a slight advantage. But if battleships cost 10,000 of each, the absolute worst case is 300 less value destroyed in a battle.



If people want bigger ships, multiply CR/BS by 20, FR/DE by 10 and FI/CO by 0 and there shouldn't be much of a problem. Multiplying CR/BS by 100,000 and FI/CO by 0 would be where your point becomes a serious issue. :)

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

This is actually pretty much what I said in my first post in the thread.

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

proportionally changing stats isn't a problem with damage carried over. however, if a single gun can kill at most one enemy ship, overkill becomes a problem, as it was in older rounds (with guns/wpsp/agility).

btw sure you want to multiply fi/co stats by 1, not by 0...

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

They also give the illusion that theres more interaction happening in the game than there really is.
"ooh 1 million ships, i must have half the universe after me" etc

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

/signed1 titan = less then 6 phoenix.
i just came back,last round played was a year-ish ago, and that just boggles my mind.
big numbers are bad coz they make maths harder too. They do produce more exact results, but imo, still not worth it.

As far as "Big numbers are fun". That is such a relative statement in pseudo-universe or wow that evolves every round, that I am shocked that such a statement is even being used in this argument.

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

As maybe not entirely visible in my second post - I don't only want a proportional change.
So let's put some more numbers behind that idea:

Pricing scheme (all numbers are of each res)
Fighter: 1.000
Corvettes: 2.000
Frigates 10.000
Destroyers 20.000
Cruisers 100.000
Battleships 200.000

Average fleets (with 20M each invested in each class)
Fighters 20.000
Corvettes 10.000
Frigates 2000
Destroyers 1000
Cruisers 200
Battleships 100

Battle with expensive ships
100 BS in the attack fleet:

• vs. Battleships - 1 CR kill 1 BS - 100 needed for full cover
• vs. Cruiser - 2 CR kill 1 BS - 200 needed
• vs. Destroyers - 10 kill 1 - 1000 needed
• vs. Frigates - 20 kill 1 - 2000 needed

Right now we don't have any FI/CO attacking CR/BS so that can be left out.
I also know that the Battle engine is way more complicated - just very simple examples.

Worst case for each class is either 1 CR, 9 DE or 19 FR attacking without having an effect - between 100k each or 190k each res doing nothing - this number will remain static throughout round.

Problems occur as soon as we apply races and stats. That can lead to a single BS not able to kill another, yet I doubt it would be easy to construct any set where more than 250k each are inactive.

Other (possible) effects

• Battles easier to calc
• Scan pricing doesn't seem that obscene anymore
• More thinking needed when ordering
• Many I can't think of atm

On a sidenote - to implement big numbers again - multiply income and all prices by 1000. Woule sort of resemble money then - 3 million for a fighter - 600 million for a battleship etc etc.

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

Er.

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

If it hadnt been said:

This would extremely improve faking, or generally enable it, as you wouldnt have to waste loads of your small ships to get the numbers of your bigger class ones. In addition if you land your lets say 1k fake BS, you just loose 1k really cheap ships, and not 15k or even more, depending on the numbers.

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

I missed the 'in moderation'.

Eyes still not healed yet.

<3

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

I much more liked the smaller fleets than the big massing we have nowadays, but that's just personal preference.

Re: More "realistic" fleet sizes and prizes
 

Well since the large numbers (but not the ratios between different classes) is my fault I feel I should at least post here. The reason behind the large numbers was because when the round went from 10 weeks to 7 weeks I wanted to allow folks to still get to larger fleet sizes, and I generally feel that people liked having their egos stroked with the larger fleet sizes, so I multiplied the number of ships by 10 (other then SKs). Personally I don't really care about the number... other then fleet battles with larger numbers always feel more impressive. It would be simple enough to lower the numbers back down again, it would simply require the next stats designer to divide every cost by ten, and then adjust the relative powers of pods and structure killers.

As to the ratio issue I definitely agree with Marka, its never made much sense to me. Personally I think all ships in the same class should have roughly the same resource costs, and that users should be able to have far more FI then BS.