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2.5) Combat wasps & "Bay" slot for large slow vessels
My referring to Hamilton wasn't to say he is the authority on space combat, in the same way that I wouldn't claim all ships in Vendetta should be made of Bitek ;)
His work just presents a nice example in this case, also it's not my intention to equal drones to combat in the game, make it the focus as you say, just a few drones here and there could liven things up.
So, we just need bigger ships, I picked the biggest ones available at this time (however inadequate they are if you give it some thought) to give the idea some perspective in the current state of affairs in the Vendetta Test. I'm surely looking forward to a growing number of ships all the way up to 740+ m.
In the meantime, I'll be checking out Banks.
His work just presents a nice example in this case, also it's not my intention to equal drones to combat in the game, make it the focus as you say, just a few drones here and there could liven things up.
So, we just need bigger ships, I picked the biggest ones available at this time (however inadequate they are if you give it some thought) to give the idea some perspective in the current state of affairs in the Vendetta Test. I'm surely looking forward to a growing number of ships all the way up to 740+ m.
In the meantime, I'll be checking out Banks.
Great idea. I'd also have 2 sizes of drones, so that people who want drones can afford a smaller version. Call them Gnats and only give them attack capabilities, no picking up cargo, they're too small. And then have wasps for everything else. The Gnats could be made by small nanofactories within the bay itself and can be replenished. Wasps however, being able to do more than just defense, are too complicated and have to be restocked at a station.
2.5) Combat wasps & "Bay" slot for large slow vessels
Anybody read Peter F. Hamilton's "Night's Dawn" trilogy (obligatory for anyone who likes space-combat)? Reading the threads about big slow ships and rampant pirates I thought of the following:
General) How about an adaptation of the 'combat wasp', in Vendetta terms it would be like a big torpedo-like sigar, heavy engine, high agility, boost-capable with a big one-time battery *without generator function*. This battery has enough juice to do some real chasing before it runs out and the wasp drifts, maybe it's even collectible as cargo.
Now a combat wasp is obviously very good at chasing it's target, but it's not just a large load of TNT that rams itself into the enemy (or maybe it could be :) ).
The idea is that it gets into firing range, then deploys its submunitions which can be things like homers, swarms, generally firing away with whatever it is equipped with.
a) Ofcourse it would be a very large weapon (a "bay" device, see points f & g) with very expensive munitions (having a respectable engine, battery and weaponry drives the price up quite a lot). A max of 3 munitions per intstalled launch tube would seem about right, as they are big.
b) They would come expensive, relatively slow (though a lot faster than all existing missiles/rockets), little armor and small battery, with 3 of them per installed launch tube. Or they come very expensive, fast, tough, huge battery and armed to the teeth, with just 1 per launch tube. (The armament market would also spawn a lot of variants in between to suit everybody's liking).
c) Combat wasps are very dangerous, being like a handy automated escort in times of trouble. It is possible to lock onto a combat wasp as you would do with an enemy fighter and then engage it, or hopefully stay out of harms way and let your own wasp engage the incoming wasp.
d) A combat wasp is never a replacement for a real escort pilot, having a built in space-combat AI, which may be dumb or smart depending on the price, this AI will in most cases be bright enough to try to dodge missiles, but the difference in AI becomes more noticable when the wasp engages it's target at close range, but even an expensive wasp is still a robot. Any reasonably skilled pilot with a decent ship will be able to shoot down even a good wasp with not too much effort and without taking damage, but as the main goal is temporary distraction of the attacker it will have succeeded anyway.
e) Another difference with a real escort is the weapons load capacity of a wasp, which ofcourse is smaller than that of any real ship.
f) In order to prevent any pirate in a fighter from thinking of combat wasps as an excellent idea to steal more cargo it should be put in a third type of slot which I'll call "bay" for the moment. Only lumbering big ships will have this "bay" slot, as the thing is quite heavy and takes up a lot of space (so now just the heavy bomber, heavy transport and the Prometheus, it would be reasonable to have these 3 craft sacrifice some other slots to accomodate the bay or maybe in the store you could choose between hulls with or without the bay slot).
g) The very interesting thing here is the prospect of not only loading wasps for death and destruction, but all kinds of automated probes, scouts, beacons etc. could be launched from the bay slot. Or something in between like a slower moving but armed probe, which automatically mines a target area or tries to retrieve cargo from potentially dangerous areas. Think of the bay slot as the little brother of a real launch bay on a big carrier, one that can just fit in the bigger 'regular' ships and is designed exclusively to launch small robotic craft.
Opinion) So back to a big slow ship under attack: lock target, pump a combat wasp out of it's tube and your assailant is going to be quite busy for a while. In case of multiple baddies, change lock and give 'em all something to play with while stock lasts, then make your escape. Or imagine the bigger battles! (Reading Hamilton's books is in this case a good alternative for your imagination...) Large volleys of combat wasps initially speeding both directions to wreak havoc on either side or stop each other should look like hell on the radar. The high prices and ship restrictions are intended to keep people from using them too lightly. They can be used for emergency defense or in a staged attack where the launching vessels would have to be assisted by a real escort.
Anybody read Peter F. Hamilton's "Night's Dawn" trilogy (obligatory for anyone who likes space-combat)? Reading the threads about big slow ships and rampant pirates I thought of the following:
General) How about an adaptation of the 'combat wasp', in Vendetta terms it would be like a big torpedo-like sigar, heavy engine, high agility, boost-capable with a big one-time battery *without generator function*. This battery has enough juice to do some real chasing before it runs out and the wasp drifts, maybe it's even collectible as cargo.
Now a combat wasp is obviously very good at chasing it's target, but it's not just a large load of TNT that rams itself into the enemy (or maybe it could be :) ).
The idea is that it gets into firing range, then deploys its submunitions which can be things like homers, swarms, generally firing away with whatever it is equipped with.
a) Ofcourse it would be a very large weapon (a "bay" device, see points f & g) with very expensive munitions (having a respectable engine, battery and weaponry drives the price up quite a lot). A max of 3 munitions per intstalled launch tube would seem about right, as they are big.
b) They would come expensive, relatively slow (though a lot faster than all existing missiles/rockets), little armor and small battery, with 3 of them per installed launch tube. Or they come very expensive, fast, tough, huge battery and armed to the teeth, with just 1 per launch tube. (The armament market would also spawn a lot of variants in between to suit everybody's liking).
c) Combat wasps are very dangerous, being like a handy automated escort in times of trouble. It is possible to lock onto a combat wasp as you would do with an enemy fighter and then engage it, or hopefully stay out of harms way and let your own wasp engage the incoming wasp.
d) A combat wasp is never a replacement for a real escort pilot, having a built in space-combat AI, which may be dumb or smart depending on the price, this AI will in most cases be bright enough to try to dodge missiles, but the difference in AI becomes more noticable when the wasp engages it's target at close range, but even an expensive wasp is still a robot. Any reasonably skilled pilot with a decent ship will be able to shoot down even a good wasp with not too much effort and without taking damage, but as the main goal is temporary distraction of the attacker it will have succeeded anyway.
e) Another difference with a real escort is the weapons load capacity of a wasp, which ofcourse is smaller than that of any real ship.
f) In order to prevent any pirate in a fighter from thinking of combat wasps as an excellent idea to steal more cargo it should be put in a third type of slot which I'll call "bay" for the moment. Only lumbering big ships will have this "bay" slot, as the thing is quite heavy and takes up a lot of space (so now just the heavy bomber, heavy transport and the Prometheus, it would be reasonable to have these 3 craft sacrifice some other slots to accomodate the bay or maybe in the store you could choose between hulls with or without the bay slot).
g) The very interesting thing here is the prospect of not only loading wasps for death and destruction, but all kinds of automated probes, scouts, beacons etc. could be launched from the bay slot. Or something in between like a slower moving but armed probe, which automatically mines a target area or tries to retrieve cargo from potentially dangerous areas. Think of the bay slot as the little brother of a real launch bay on a big carrier, one that can just fit in the bigger 'regular' ships and is designed exclusively to launch small robotic craft.
Opinion) So back to a big slow ship under attack: lock target, pump a combat wasp out of it's tube and your assailant is going to be quite busy for a while. In case of multiple baddies, change lock and give 'em all something to play with while stock lasts, then make your escape. Or imagine the bigger battles! (Reading Hamilton's books is in this case a good alternative for your imagination...) Large volleys of combat wasps initially speeding both directions to wreak havoc on either side or stop each other should look like hell on the radar. The high prices and ship restrictions are intended to keep people from using them too lightly. They can be used for emergency defense or in a staged attack where the launching vessels would have to be assisted by a real escort.
"Anybody read Peter F. Hamilton's "Night's Dawn" trilogy?"
Yes.
"obligatory for anyone who likes space-combat"
Well, that's debatable. I more prefer Iain M. Banks' 'Culture' books, but I admit that whatever PFH's other problems as a writer might be, he has a fantastic imagination and its well worth looking it just for that.
"How about an adaptation of the 'combat wasp'..."
Drones of various sorts have been discussed - including mining drones, scout drones, ECM drones, courier drones, and a couple classes of combat drones. I'd be opposed to making drones the focus of combat (all though it is far more realistic, it doesn't make for as good of game IMO), but I wouldn't be opposed to the inclusion of combat drones.
As far as 'bays' go, I'm inclined to think that all the ships we have now are too small to bother. I mean, some people think of the 'Centaur' or the 'Prometheus' as a 'big' ship, but really they are both only about twice the size of the smallest ships (~25m as compared to ~12m). For perspective, a modern attack aircraft like the A-10 has a length of ~16m and a wingspread of ~17m. The F-111 2 seat bomber has a length of ~22m. Considering that we know of a 740m ship (the 'frigate' as its commonly called) in the game, one would expect that there would be a broad range of progressively larger ships between ~30m and ~740m. Also, keep in mind that if the centaur was an airplane, it wouldn't even be a 'large airplane'. None of the current ships whether bombers or transports is even as big as a C-130 (40m). The B-52 bomber is about ~50m long with a roughly 60m wingspread. The Boeing 747 passenger plane is ~70m long. Or if the Centaur was a sea going vessel, it would most certainly not be a 'large ship'. A 'Iowa' class BB is about 270m long. Some modern supertankers are over 330m long. All of the current ships are smaller than the Space Shuttle.
All of which leads me to suspect that it is a little short sighted to think of the 'Centaur' as a big ship. I think of it as a small inexpensive transport which is slightly underpowered for its size in order to save costs.
Yes.
"obligatory for anyone who likes space-combat"
Well, that's debatable. I more prefer Iain M. Banks' 'Culture' books, but I admit that whatever PFH's other problems as a writer might be, he has a fantastic imagination and its well worth looking it just for that.
"How about an adaptation of the 'combat wasp'..."
Drones of various sorts have been discussed - including mining drones, scout drones, ECM drones, courier drones, and a couple classes of combat drones. I'd be opposed to making drones the focus of combat (all though it is far more realistic, it doesn't make for as good of game IMO), but I wouldn't be opposed to the inclusion of combat drones.
As far as 'bays' go, I'm inclined to think that all the ships we have now are too small to bother. I mean, some people think of the 'Centaur' or the 'Prometheus' as a 'big' ship, but really they are both only about twice the size of the smallest ships (~25m as compared to ~12m). For perspective, a modern attack aircraft like the A-10 has a length of ~16m and a wingspread of ~17m. The F-111 2 seat bomber has a length of ~22m. Considering that we know of a 740m ship (the 'frigate' as its commonly called) in the game, one would expect that there would be a broad range of progressively larger ships between ~30m and ~740m. Also, keep in mind that if the centaur was an airplane, it wouldn't even be a 'large airplane'. None of the current ships whether bombers or transports is even as big as a C-130 (40m). The B-52 bomber is about ~50m long with a roughly 60m wingspread. The Boeing 747 passenger plane is ~70m long. Or if the Centaur was a sea going vessel, it would most certainly not be a 'large ship'. A 'Iowa' class BB is about 270m long. Some modern supertankers are over 330m long. All of the current ships are smaller than the Space Shuttle.
All of which leads me to suspect that it is a little short sighted to think of the 'Centaur' as a big ship. I think of it as a small inexpensive transport which is slightly underpowered for its size in order to save costs.
Hamiltons space combat is much more 'real' than Banks, but Banks is undoutably the better writer...
Gnypatul: Start with Excession (complex) or Consider Phebas (more like Hamiltons work)
PS: Ive notices an increase in the number of Banks inspired char names floating about recently.
Gnypatul: Start with Excession (complex) or Consider Phebas (more like Hamiltons work)
PS: Ive notices an increase in the number of Banks inspired char names floating about recently.