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I have been looking at adding some new player ships to the vesselData file and have come up with 2 new Light Cruiser varients.
The intention with these is not to design a whole new class of ship, but tweak an existing class to give a different feel. I have gone with varying the standard Artemis Class Light Cruiser. The ships are built on the same hull, with the same number of beam arrays and torpedo tubes (so no new models are needed) but have some variation in their key stats.
I know that playing the same kind of ship for a long period of time can become a bit stale, and that there have been requests in the past to try different ships. The problems we seem to have though is that we have been quite limited. We have designed ships with specialist roles, but then found it is difficult to find a use for them. This is why I have taken the route of varying a single design. The different classes are changed to favour one style of combat over another: the Valkyrie favours long range, whereas the Apollo favours short range. However, they are all kept fairly similar so that they can all fulfil the same role in a battlegroup without much difficulty.
Anyway, take a look and tell me what you think!
I want to go on to design another set of ships, using the minelayer model (as requested by Jemel) but have them fit into a similar class to the ships we have e.g. light cruiser, battle cruiser, scout or interceptor. I am focusing on these mainly as we are a Light Division – using heavier class ships is more difficult to explain in terms of storylines.
I love those, especially the Apollo. But the problem I perceive is the P-shock to homings rate. Homings have so many more uses that having them on equal footing with a specialist ordnance on a ship that will consume more energy than the usual CL (direct result of the shorter cycle time) could end up being a limitation.
Also, the DPS of the Apollo is equal to the Artemis despite the 17% cut on the cycles? Did we already run sume tests? I’d like to be in a sim with those at some point, if possible.
The biggest difference is the beam arcs: there is a greater overlap as they are focused more towards the fore on the Apollo. This means you will have both beams firing at targets in front of you over a wider area, rather than the narrower overlap we currently have on the Artemis class cruiser. Instead of having a 90′ forward angle where both beams fire, you now have a wider angle of about 120′. You can therefore engage more targets with both primary beams more quickly as you will have to manoeuvre less to bring them both to bear. I think this will make quite a big difference to the damage the ship causes.
In terms of the cycle time; over a longer engagement with beams, you should be able to fire a greater number of primary beam volleys due to the cycle time. Something like, for every 5 shots the Artemis fires, the Apollo fires 6.
Sorry, I might have redacted that question less clearly than intended.
An Artemis class cruiser and an Apollo engage stationary targets with identical shields and at the same settings. The target sits at the densest region of the beam arcs, thus ensuring that both beams get fired as they cycle.
As the Apollo cycles faster, indeed she fires 6 shots for every 5 Artemis fires. Therefore Apollo’s target will be dealt around 83% faster. The implication is, if your table indicates that Damage for Artemis is 12/s, wouldn’t the same point be slighly above 14/s for Apollo?
And, as energy and cycle time are calculated the moment you fire, won’t the faster Apollo consume more energy over time?
Ah, an oversight on my part. It should be 12 damage per shot, not per second!
In combat, Apollo will consume more energy when firing beams. Hopefully this should be offset slightly by an increased rate of fire so that it is in combat for a shorter period of time in comparison (ships will be destroyed more quickly). How it works out in practise, I am not sure. We will have to see. More often than not, homing torpedoes are used as ordnance rather than batteries due to the changes we’ve made to the efficiencies too, so even though it will consume more energy, the Apollo should still be efficient enough to cope.
It would be interesting to try out the new variants. Are we going to be allowed to take them out for a spin, or are we being too careless with the ships we aleady have?
I’m sure it’d be helpful, but there wouldn’t be a change that big. The main idea behind the Apollo was that, if beam doctrine calls for using the densest region of the beam arcs, the densest region should be as big as possible. If you look carefully, you’ll see each individual arc is about as wide as the ones you’ll find on the Artemis, just that the overlapping area is much bigger. As a result, you can compromise a bit more with your angle.
Now we have had a chance to try them out, what do people think about the new ship types?
Feedback that I have had so far is that the couple of tweaks to the valkyrie clasa made noticable difference to the style of play with that ship.
In terms of fleet command, I felt I could make use of the light cruisers more easily as I knew they were capable in combating the threats posed. It was suggestes that Phoenix and Valkyrie are paired up and Raven and Apollo were paired up to balance the battle groups in terms of the range of beams; Valkyrie and Raven having longer range. The way I organised it though was based on command experience,with Verok being a capable battle group commander leading one battle group.
I have had a chance to update the descriptions and match up all the stats now, so we need a quick update to the vesselData file next shift.
At some point, I’ll look at more varients as they seem to have been successful so far.
So, feedback on the ships appreciated!
As Apollo’s weapons officer, the beams were dealing a nice amount of damage. Both auto and manual targeting proved to deal a great amount of damage to enemy ships.
It seemed like Quinn, our helmsman, didn’t have much trouble flying it, and even a cadet proved to be a capable chief engineer, so we had plenty of energy and power to the systems we required at the time.
The shields are a fragile thing, and the lack of ordnance will always bug me, but I guess it’s apropriate.
The ship seems capable of dealing with plenty of threats, yet not overpowered so that it can destroy fleets by itself.
The shields of the Apollo are actually improved towards the front. A standard (Artemis) class light cruiser has 80 shields, whilst the Apollo’s shields are 100 at the front. Valkyrie has a slightly lower shield, dropping down to 70 but then it is designed to favour long range engagements.
Looking at the vesselData file, the beam alignment was a little out compared to what I had originally designed. I have altered it in the new vesselData file, so they might be a little narrower (though the arc width is the same). I noticed the Valkyrie arc alignment was incorrect too (they were too narrow) so I have widened them. They weren’t hugely different, so I doubt the change will be noticeable next shift.
I guess our perception of Apollo’s shields is biased after flying a dreadnought and a carrier, and a missile cruiser that isn’t supposed to get to beam range regularily.
Personally, I think both the Apollo and the Valkyrie are excellent ships but each requires a different mindset for the captain. Valkyrie is a nice transition from a missile cruiser, and it allows to play it safe a lot. The only point we took damage while I was in command happened because of a connection failure on my end just before closing to combat range, causing helm not to receive the proper orders and weapons (which I was in charge of at the moment) to be unable to raise shields. She doesn’t suit my aggressive style, but that doesn’t mean there’s an issue.
Apollo is excellent if you’re willing to take some risks, and I am. The beams are a welcome change from my experience in light cruisers being more of a filler for a battlegroup. Energy consumption was hardly noticeable.
So I just noticed here that Dreadnoughts are Apollo class, which causes conflict with the new Apollo class Light Cruisers. One of them probably needs changed. Also, I guess that page needs updated to add the new Apollo and Valkyrie classes anyways.
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