Manick2005

Join Date 09/2008

How would you make Capital Ships more feasible for fleet intigration?

Looking to create a mini-mod for Capital ships.

About a year ago I said I would make a mod that would completely change the role of Capital Ships in the game, and give them a more central focused role in combat. My general opinion of the matter about what role Capital Ships should have in the game, is that they should comprise of the primary source of strength in any fleet. They should be extremely durable, have incredibly long range, and should influence the outcome of any battle far more significantly than they currently are able to. Currently, in terms of cost efficiency, they are not worth building beyond the first (free) Capital ship in any real game, over a handful of smaller ships. I think they should represent the same amount of core strength of a fleet as they did in real historic naval battles, where a single battleship could easily defend a carrier with its AA armament and take out the majority of air threats while taking minimal damage, and at the same time be able to easily take out a small group of lightly armored and armed ships before they could even get in range. Similarly, I think that the Capital Ship Carriers should be able to hold much more fighters/bombers and provide the fleet with far more strategic advantage than they currently do, since heavy carriers in historic battles also held the 1st most important role in World War II.

So what do you all think? Has anyone ever given such a mod for Capital Ships a thought already, and already have any ideas? Obviously, I believe that balance still has to be taken into consideration, but as it currently stands I do not think that the cost of 50 fleet capacity, the cost of researching a crew, and 3000 credits (and however many crystal/metal) does not justify its strength in a fight.

modding

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

GoaFan77

Join Date 10/2008

+629

There are a couple of capital ship enhancement mods out their, but I think they are pretty much out of date at this point. I don't know what they did to correct the problem, but I'm currently experimenting with a mod that attempts to make Sins battles go faster by increasing the damage percent by type modifiers across the board, except for capital ships. This should allow them to do a lot more damage and (realitive to frigates) take less damage. Should I tell you how it works out?

Also on a side note, unless you are running regular Sins I think you are underestimating how valueable capital ships are. In straight forward combat they will lose to an equivelent value of frigates, but it is there abilities that can make them worth while. In the last few versions of the game online, carrier capitalship rushes have been one of the dominating strategies, and once you level up these ships they can actually carrier more strikecraft than the equivelent fleet supply of carriers. Also, except for the Yamato class and WWII era American battleships, historically battleships have not done that well against air attacks, though they certainly should have some kind of antistrikecraft attack.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Sure, let me know how your mod works, im curious. And yeah, I'm still playing vinella Sins and thought of getting the Expansion, but I wasn't sure what to expect from it.

And yeah, US battleships during the Pacific War had fantastic anti-air capabilities, especially with their dual purpose 5" turrets armed with proximity fused shells that exploded whenever they came close to aircraft. For example, the USS South Dakota was responsible for 26 out of the 90ish total Japanese planes destroyed in the Battle of Santa Cruz when it was escorting the USS Enterprise, and took very little damage from the fight. Even other smaller USS Ships that were outfitted with the same 5" turrets also had these proximity fuse munitions, so that just a standard carrier battlegroup could do a lot of damage to incoming squadrons before they could release their full payload. But the era of the battleship pretty much came to an end shortly after it demonstrated its value in the war for its anti-air capabilities.

Successfully updated karma reason!

GoaFan77

Join Date 10/2008

+629

Alright, my initial results are promising. Frigates die a lot faster now which makes capitalships seem a lot stronger. For what you want to do though I would just half the damage modifiers against Capital type armor (save maybe capital type weapons). If you wanted capital ships to do increased damage as well you could increase the damage done by capital type weapons, but this will also effect starbases if you have entrenchment/diplomacy.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Putting the "Capital" back in "Capital Ships" then? I do agree they really ought to be a force to be reckoned with as opposed to "Oh, there's a cap ship I'll just get some of my LRM frigates on it." I think they are currently underwhelming although useful in their own right.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting GoaFan77,

reply 3

For what you want to do though I would just half the damage modifiers against Capital type armor (save maybe capital type weapons).

How would I do this? Which files do I edit and which parameters? I thought the armor used by capital ships was the same as all ships and just another number but only higher than normal ships.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Ships all have different armor types, and different damage types that go along with them. For example, long range frigates have LIGHT for an armor type and ANTI-MEDIUM(though it is more like anti-everything in practice) as a damage type. This is why fighters, which have VERY LIGHT for an armor type and ANTI-LIGHT for a damage type do so much damage against long range frigates. Capital ships have CAPITAL as an armor type, which functions(unless its been updated recently) similarly to VERY HEAVY except anything other than the ANTI-CAPITAL damage type does less than full damage against them. For example, light assault frigates deal 50% of their listed damage against capital ships, while Long Range Frigates deal 75% of their listed damage. That doesn't begin to account for shield mitigation or armor values though. Shield mitigation is always on, even when the shields are busted, while armor affects damage done to the hull. That means the TEC have cheap hull and armor upgrades for a reason; their shields are relatively bad.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Would still like to hear what value I can change to change the damage mitigation for the capital ships, but this is what I've done so far for upgrading capital ships (haven't tested or fully implimented for all ships yet):

   Planet bombing changes:

baseDamage 67.500000              (+150%)
basePopulationKilled 2.625000     (+150%)
baseRange 4000.000000     (133%)

    Cost/Build time changes:

credits 2000.000000                 (-1000)
metal 300.000000               (-100)
crystal 150.000000                    (-150)
BuildTime 60.000000           (-15)

     Stat changes:

MaxHullPoints
    StartValue 3975.000000                     (+150%)
    ValueIncreasePerLevel 230.000000    (+150%)
MaxShieldPoints
    StartValue 2138.000000               (+150%)
    ValueIncreasePerLevel 248.000000    (+150%)
HullPointRestoreRate
    StartValue 2.250000                        (+150%)
    ValueIncreasePerLevel 0.200000          (+100%)
ShieldPointRestoreRate
    StartValue 4.500000                   (+150%)
    ValueIncreasePerLevel 0.400000         (+200%)
ArmorPointsFromExperience
    StartValue 7.500000                    (+150%)
    ValueIncreasePerLevel 0.800000         (+200%)
MaxAntiMatter
    StartValue 281.000000                           (+125%)
    ValueIncreasePerLevel 30.000000    (+150%)
AntiMatterRestoreRate
    StartValue 1.000000                               (+133%)
    ValueIncreasePerLevel 0.240000          (+300%)

     Primary Weapon (Frontal):

         DamagePerBank: FRONT 81.199996              (+200%)
         Range 11000.000000                                       (+200%)

     Secondary Weapons (Frontal):

         DamagePerBank: FRONT 99.000000              (+150%)
         Range 6250.000000                                   (+125%)

     Secondary Weapons (Frontal/Broadside):

         DamagePerBank: FRONT 60.000000              (+150%)
         DamagePerBank: LEFT 80.625                    (+150%)
         DamagePerBank: RIGHT 80.625                     (+150%)
         Range 6250.000000                                 (+125%)

These are the standards that I think would be a good starting point for changing all capital ships by these percentiles.
All capital ships primary/frontal weapons will be changed significantly to give them long range bombardment capabilities to allow them to stay behind the fleet and gain the advantage of range, or give them the initiative on opening fire against normal ships.
Their secondary frontal and broadside weapons also will pack more punch when ships do manage to get close, and will have slightly more range and firepower.
Their stats have been significantly increased, to make them far more durable in battles and award them with more increase in stats than before by gaining levels.
Cost has been reduced significantly, especially in the crystal department, since we already have to spend a huge amount of resources on just researching the additional crews.
And lastly, planetary bombartment will make them more valuable in enemy planetary system raids.

Let me know what you all think of the changes so far, and tell me if you think anything should be reduced/increased, or if any other stat changes should be included. It might be, or probably is a little overpowered, but I won't know yet till I change all of the capital ships using these percentile incriments and actually test it ingame.
This text file that I edited was from the "CAPITALSHIP_PHASEBATTLESHIP.entity" file, that I will use as a template for changes to all capital ships (for now, at least).

Successfully updated karma reason!

GoaFan77

Join Date 10/2008

+629

Quoting Manick2005,

reply 7

Personally I think you are making capitalships a little too powerful now, especially with the substancial price decrease. Of course if that's the point it looks good, but if you are concerned with balance I think you are overbuffing them.

The file I was editting was the gameplay.constants file in the gameinfo folder. It has a section that defines the balance between weapons and ship types, and for all practical purposes defines Sins counter systems.

Also, no matter what I would recommend leaving antimatter alone. Some ships would just be to powerful with that improvement, as they could use multiple high level abilities without having to worry about antimatter too much (like the Vasari Carrier).

Otherwise it looks interesting, tell us how it works when you get the chance.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I found the file you were talking about. Are these what i'm looking for that I need to edit for Capital Ship armor mitigation?

        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALSHIP:CapitalShip 1.0
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALSHIP:VeryLight 0.25
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALSHIP:Light 0.75
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALSHIP:Medium 1.0
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALSHIP:Heavy 1.0
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALSHIP:VeryHeavy 1.0
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALABILITY:CapitalShip 0.75
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALABILITY:VeryLight 1.0
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALABILITY:Light 1.0
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALABILITY:Medium 1.0
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALABILITY:Heavy 1.0
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALABILITY:VeryHeavy 1.0

Also, yeah its probably slightly too powerful for the cost reduction, but as it stands by default, my general opinion on Capital Ships is that the cost does not justify the gains, especially due to crew research. It takes so much time and resources to research both the additional crews, then build the actual ship, that it leaves you extremely vulnerable due to the fact that almost all other production and research needs to be halted just to save up for them. And as one above poster said, they are just ultimately underwhelming, especially mid to late game when you could just quickly throw a ton of LRMs at them and then move on. And since I am trying to emulate the role of Capital Ships in the 2nd World War, I'd want them to at least reflect some of the same potential and effectiveness in the game as well.

If I went too realistic though with it, a Capital ship could take out a moderately sized fleet of frigates with ease before they even got in range to fire if they did not have the assistance of a Capital Ship themselves.

Successfully updated karma reason!

GoaFan77

Join Date 10/2008

+629

Quoting Manick2005,

reply 9

I found the file you were talking about. Are these what i'm looking for that I need to edit for Capital Ship armor mitigation?

        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALSHIP:CapitalShip 1.0
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALSHIP:VeryLight 0.25
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALSHIP:Light 0.75
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALSHIP:Medium 1.0
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALSHIP:Heavy 1.0
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALSHIP:VeryHeavy 1.0
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALABILITY:CapitalShip 0.75
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALABILITY:VeryLight 1.0
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALABILITY:Light 1.0
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALABILITY:Medium 1.0
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALABILITY:Heavy 1.0
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALABILITY:VeryHeavy 1.0

Yes, that is the right section of that file, though those aren't quite the lines that do that. The first parameter after DamagePercentBonus: is the weapon type of the weapon firing, the second is the armor type of the hit vessel, and the third is the damage bonus percent. For example on the third line, it basically tells the game that CAPITALSHIP type weapons will do 75% of there damage to ships with Light type armor (LRMs, siege frigates etc.) So if you increase the values of all numbers that have capitalship first, you'll increase the damage done by all capitalships (and starbases if you have Entrenchment). If you reduce the value of all numbers after Capital as the second perameter, you'll increase the survivalability of all capital ships (because of how its set up they are spread out throughout the lines).

Successfully updated karma reason!