I agree that there is some logical problem in VO. What i mean is that here interceptor type of ship (vulture ie.) is getting outrunned (due to permaturbo and similar top speeds) by loaded atlas/centaur ship class and if he got energy weapons then you can simply forget about killing it.
And i can't seem to follow logic on that one, interceptors are craft made especialy to intercept, and transports were made for moving stuff. They should be slow as hell, and easy catchabe by interceptors for the sake of logic.
I don't say easy killable, they still can put good fight with those flares or ie. swarms, altho they should rely more on someone guarding them than on it's own ability to fight (but that's a long shot since we don't have enought players for that atm).

I would argue that the Vulture is a short-range fighter, not a long-range interceptor. A Warthog MkII or a Hornet MkII make decent interceptors sacrificing maneuverability and acceleration for high turbo speed and infiniturbo and both have the ports to support enough non-energy-based weaponry to still shoot things down.

Vulture was only example while i'm trying to pass general idea that interceptors should be actualy able to intercept something. Also for whatever reason my thog can't go for infiturbo ;p

When firing at a 'runner', you have a window of opportunity; land enough damage in this window, and you are successful. Do not land enough damage, and you are unsuccessful. Methods that would make stopping runners more succesful:

1. Lengthen the window of opportunity. Incarnate said "I dislike adding a stutter to turbo startup, as initial turbo is so critically important to a lot of combat situations that aren't running. Like the "oh, crap, rockets!" use-case, among others." A solution might be to introduce acceleration curves. Decreasing the acceleration in the middle, while keeping the total displacement over time more or less the same would achieve an effect where speeds when traveling are not affected, and speeds when doing short sprints are not affected. The only difference would be that when beginning a long journey, for example, the required 3000m's to jump sectors, your ship would be startling vulnerable as it reached it's middle velocity, or "switched gears" so to speak.

2. Introduce weapons that are yet more effective in dealing large amounts of damage in a short amount of time. The Charge Cannon and Rail Gun are such weapons, the latter being noted for it's infamous use in sniping Deneb Runners.

3. Introduce a weapon, or tool which indirectly causes 1, or 2 to happen, for example a tractor beam.

Rail guns are good when you can sit still and your target has to come to you, but for chasing situations neither the charge cannon nor the rail gun work because they take too much energy.

And I like your acceleration-curve idea. There's SO MANY great ideas out here, we just need some feedback from inc on if any are coming soon, and if not why :)

Rail guns are spam bait. Charged cannons are great, if you precharge them, and then only for one shot. But charge enough of them, and one shot might be all it takes...

As far as smittens being forced to make expensive repairs, good! smittens should learn to fly cheaper ships.

i don't see why turbo absolutely has to be a combat tactic. light ships can fly circles around swarms and flares, without using turbo. if you drop out of turbo inside a fighter's operating radius, you should absolutely be fighter bait. combat speed should trump turbo in the short haul.

The runners that are the biggest problem, are the runners that don't have to keep running. the trader than runs, keeps running, and doesn't stop running, should get away. the swarmer that turns around for another pass should get boomed. make turbo a strategy, not a tactic. this should have a minimal impact on traders, while making close quarters combat a situation of dog fighting, not dog running.

Tractor beams would be interesting because you could pull yourself towards the fleeing ship, which could require less energy than the engines, leaving more for firing weapons. Of course, the window for using the tractor beam would be rather small.

Wouldn't tractor beams use energy to do their tractoring?

I'd support Smittens learning to fly any ship.

Daare, I did write that tractor beams should require less energy than the engines, not none at all :)

Ah, turn on tractor beam, turn off engine. Gotcha. That's gotta be one helluva tractor beam though.

Simply cut all Itani ship's speed in half...problem solved :)

Inc: I dislike adding a stutter to turbo startup, as initial turbo is so critically important to a lot of combat situations that aren't running. Like the "oh, crap, rockets!" use-case, among others.

Roda: i don't see why turbo absolutely has to be a combat tactic. light ships can fly circles around swarms and flares, without using turbo. if you drop out of turbo inside a fighter's operating radius, you should absolutely be fighter bait. combat speed should trump turbo in the short haul.

The runners that are the biggest problem, are the runners that don't have to keep running. the trader than runs, keeps running, and doesn't stop running, should get away. the swarmer that turns around for another pass should get boomed. make turbo a strategy, not a tactic. this should have a minimal impact on traders, while making close quarters combat a situation of dog fighting, not dog running.

I really, really hate to say this, but: Roda is 100% right, and Inc. needs to listen.

That's very true for light fighters, but in anything other than a hornet that means 95% of swarms are going to hit, every time. Turbo is the only way to avoid them in a heavier ship. Not that the "stutter turbo" idea should be thrown out, it is a good suggestion and may be just the best way to handle this problem, but that is something to consider.

Clearly the key is to reduce survivability above missile velocity, and below 'turboing' velocity, whatever that may be. Perhaps from approximately 1/2 the ship's maximum velocity until 2/3, acceleration would be almost 0. This would leave a nice fat opportunity for enemies to land parting shots. As a ship begin turboing in an effort to escape, enemies would have that time to prepare a coup de grâce before the runner entered the vulnerable, reduced acceleration stage. Elaborate turbo tapping would not help a runner escape any quicker. Either turbo tapping, or a single burst would negotiate missiles and rockets equally effective as now, although the latter tactic would naturally be more vulnerable to dumb fire weapons, which is the point of this paragraph. I don't believe there exists any other method to make runners more vulnerable to all but "oh, crap rockets!" situation weapons, besides introducing new weapons, and it is the same technique that currently discourages sector jumping, a window of vulnerability before escaping pursuit.

Beelining should be fatal. Instead, it's just about the safest thing you can do, right up there with docking.

The general consensus seems to be that ships ought to be more vulnerable while running. The simplest way to do this, is to literally make them take more damage while traveling quickly. It makes a sort of logical sense in this contrived universe, as rapidly creating miniature black holes, or whatever, might produce undue stress on your ship's frame, or whatever.

My specific suggestion is that a ship's velocity in m/s is added to the damage of every weapon shot that hits it. This has peculiar results; rapid fire weapons, like the Flechette, and Gatling cannon won't suck, and will indeed become the standard hunting type weapons. Conversely, heavy hitting weapons such as rockets, the Megapositron, and rail guns, which incidentally are already standard weapons for hunting fleeing targets, are only slightly enhanced. Using addition as a fix tips the scale of balance in favor of under powered, or at least unpopular weapons.

Just a point I should raise, in case it hasn't been.

One old suggestion I remember discussing with people was Solid-fuel rockets.

Essentially a giant Estes model-rocket engine, they would burn for a fixed period of time, adding a fixed amount of thrust to a ship, but would consume a weapons port. (A larger booster could be fixed to L-ports, and smaller boosters to smaller ports).

Even using grav. drives (denting space), the solid matter rockets would increase your speed into the dent, and force you through the added resistance, still resulting in increased speed (but that could not be maintained without the assistance of boosters).

One other idea that came up as a spawn of this idea was the ability to eject the still burning rockets as a sort of missile weapon. The result of an impact (non-proximity detonation) would create a nice bang as all the fuel detonated at once. This would allow a ship to close very quickly on the hostile, then eject the booster and create a weapon.

Obviously it would be difficult to aim, and the separation of the rocket could cause a negative control effect on the launching ship for a moment (say, pushing it off course due to the sudden change in thrust). It would make the weapon useful for pursuit, and allow an instantaneous cancellation when needed (since you cannot "turn off" a solid fuel rocket once ignited).

I like Mynt's suggestion, just because it seems easier to implement.

Also it leave the possibility for a light, *LOW* energy, fast firing, but very weak (on it's own) gun. Like, does .001 damage, so a standard hit does only 40-60 damage and would not be an effective griefing tool, but it would be excellent for chasing a runner. You could also factor in a modifier based on mass, so this wouldn't cripple the trade industry.

Not to pimp an EVE idea, but some sort of way to tackle ships would be cool. Rather than having our only method of slowing be explodin', we could tackle the ship and take them down before they went pssssshew away into the night.

idk some sort of energy-draining gun or something. We need non-lethal weapons in this game.