Thoughts on Capital Ship Warfare-AWACs and Bomber Threats

[Wolfy]

So I am sure everyone saw the new Eclipse video and the devastating firepower of its weapon system. My question is how vulnerable will large capital ships be to this ship? While Close in Weapons Systems (CIWS) can defend against some of these, swarm tactics are probably going to be one of the most effective offensive tactics.

In the real would they are already proven against large ships, with Millennium Challenge 2002 proving the theoretical effectiveness of mobile weapons systems, suicide skiffs, and ambush tactics against a carrier fleet resulting in 19 ships and 20000 sailors lost.

This is obviously just theory-crafting, but it appears to me in Star Citizen that the exploration breed of ships, specifically the military variations such as the Carrack and Terrapin will be key for both early warning and tracking enemy fleet movements. It will be key to intercept these stealth bombers before they can stage or get close enough to capital fleets to inflict either mobility kills, critical damage, or destruction of the capital ships.

In other words, the vast amount of fighting will be done by screening ships while the capital ships are saved for hard punches utilizing capital weapons. The Hammerhead would be a must in these kinds of warfare with it's array of turrets to be used as a picket ship against small fighters and it's hopefully effective CIWS ability to intercept enemy torpedo's. The Polaris is going to be extremely useful as a first on stand ship with it's ability to launch a fighter to preform scouting, identify enemy hard targets, and strike with the ability to GTFO before being immobilized.

This leaves the other two capital ships we have as Command and Control with direct fire weapons saved for mission critical strikes to break the back of enemy fleets and capital ships.

If things work out like this it will be rather fun as it supports a wide variety of play. And of course this is theory-crafting while I daydrink so it's 100% factually accurate and well researched. Definitely didn't pull this out of my ass.

 

[Bambooza]

I would agree mostly with you. Prior to the introduction of the Hammerhead fleet makeup was far more versatile with a need of fighters like the Hornet and Sabre, even ships like the Freelancer and Constellation had a place with in the rock paper scissors combat. Now the Hammerhead creates a combat floor that effectively counters bombers and fighters. Two possible caveats, effectiveness of the Hammerhead turrets for taking out torpedoes and cost of operations. While I do not believe the cost of capital ships will be high it will still be balanced with its ability to generate cash and with game play being important I do not believe it will ever be prohibitively expensive to use one in fleet engagements against other players. Now if they make the Hammerhead not very effective against torpedoes were two or three eclipses can easily take out a hammerhead then it dramatically changes game play back to fleets prior to its introduction.

One thing when comparing real world fleet tactics to games like Star Citizen is that while the real world economics plays a far bigger impact in what ships are available games the limiting factor is typically the number of available players and not what ships they have as the wealth players have is typically unlimited. So this typically leads to a flooding of the best ships. IE why fly an eclipse when you can fly a Polaris.

Fleet 1 with Hammerheads being simi to mostly effective against torpedoes. (can handle 3 or more torpedoes at a time) This fleet is boring as the winner will most often just be who ever has more Polaris and members available and the gear each ship is sporting. Its just a slug match.

2 Terrapins for advance scouting / early detection.
The rest of the fleet is made up of the ratio of 3 Polaris to 1 Hammerhead. (Adjust to more Hammerheads if the enemy is foolishly not capital heavy)
Possibility of 1 Javelin if there is some sort of fortification but I have a feeling that its maneuverability will be a great liability in a ship on ship engagement. The Idris with its STS taking down its shields and its benefit of having a hanger not needed unless the goal is to capture the enemies capital ships.

Fleet 2with Hammerheads not being effective against torpedoes (can handle at most 2 at a time). This fleet is exciting as it really depends on the fleet make up of the enemy as to what ships. Bombers have a bigger role with the eclipse and Idris having a star role along with Hornets and Sabres. The goal is more protect your Idris and Bombers while destroying the enemies bombers and Idris's. Each Idris would have two fighters and 1 bomber. Ships like the Freelancer, Constellation, Redeemer while not particularly successful in targeting the Idris would be beneficial in engaging multiple fighters and bombers and thus playing a more supporting role on the front line while the hammerhead and defender would be more a defensive element picking off enemy pilots that flanked or breached the front lines. A couple Terrapins once again used for advance scouting would be carried by a 3 to 5 Polaris which would be used to either push the center or flank the sides. A Javelin can be used as the center with C&C duties depending on the fleet size and estimated battle time length. Other options would be to use the Terrapins launched from the Polaris strike wing as marine boarding parties to take over the hostile Idris. Just remember a marine boarding party might be player heavy were they could be better utilized as ship captains.

 

[Black Sunder]

If you have the numbers you can destroy anything.

 

[Bambooza]

If you have the numbers you can destroy anything.

True but there will still be hard limits to how many players you can get into a given area due to server limitations.

 

[maynard]

the biggest thing affecting strategies will be the max number of players and ships per side in an instance

will the limiting factor be ships or people?

if fully crewing your capital ship limits your support fleet, capitals could be at a severe disadvantage

 

[Printimus]

Why are we not just throwing auroras at everything?

 

[Montoya]

So I am sure everyone saw the new Eclipse video and the devastating firepower of its weapon system.

Saw what now? WHERE?

 

[DarthMunkee]

The way I see it, it won't be that tricky to get past an enemy fleets pickets. You can fly a combat group of Sabres and Eclipses in by simply accelerating towards the targets from out of detection range and cutting the engines to coast past them and reduce your chances of detection, you could go so far as to cut all power in the attacking ships to make it even harder to pick them up, then just power up when you get close enough for a lock, unleash hell and GTFO in a real big hurry.

But the key to taking on any heavily defended fleet is going to be to think outside of the box. Sure you send in an attack group comprised of whatever you think you need to deal with the threat, some Gladiators for the pickets, some fighters for a screen and some bombers to punch through and take out the big ones but you have to give them a surprise too. Something like a secondary attack force coming in perpendicular to the ecliptic of the battle to catch them from an unexpected angle they might not be watching as closely. Maybe use Capital ships to route them towards an asteroid field where you have your reserve force waiting to ambush them.

The point is, we can only apply so much real-world thinking to engagements in the Verse, I mean we have a whole other dimension to work with, not to mention all the other tricks we can probably come up with given some beer+thought. Of course, ultimately Test will just overwhelm any challenger with staggering numbers of Auroras crashing through the bridge windows to say hi.

 

[marcsand2]

True but there will still be hard limits to how many players you can get into a given area due to server limitations.

Thus, if you take care that you max out the players in an area, nobody can attack you....

 

[BUTUZ]

Good theory crafting.

So are we abandoning my favoured idea of having 100 auroras each with 4 guns and a size 4 missile instead of a obvious and predictable capital ship?

 

[Bambooza]

Good theory crafting.

So are we abandoning my favoured idea of having 100 auroras each with 4 guns and a size 4 missile instead of a obvious and predictable capital ship?

100 auroras in a given location and will just be crashing into each other with no enemy forces able to spawn in.

 

[BUTUZ]

100 auroras in a given location and will just be crashing into each other with no enemy forces able to spawn in.

Yes we call that "locked down"

 

[DarthMunkee]

100 auroras in a given location and will just be crashing into each other with no enemy forces able to spawn in.

Yes we call that "locked down"

Or Space Superiority

 

[Wolfy]

Saw what now? WHERE?

 

[Radegast74]

I think we could sit on our asses and "theory craft" all we want, but at the end of the day nothing would be as useful as a group of us going into the PU or Arena Commander and testing out ships and tactics.

This ties in with the thread a lot of people commented on back with the "Space Pirates Taking Over Cry-Astro" or whatever. I would think that, launching an attack, you would want to have a certain order of ships go in, and then use command and control ships to coordinate the action, i.e., who are the fighters going after? Who are the bombers going after? Who are the larger capital ships going after?

100 Aurora's with a Size 4 "strap-on" might be a valid attack vector against a capital ship...or, it might not. Even 100 Size 4 missiles, hitting a capital ship simultaneously, may **not** bring it down. In which case, you are just left with your puny size 1 pew pew's, and the enemy capital ship can do whatever it wants (like bomb your Org's hangers or outposts into oblivion).

 

[Vavrik]

I think we could sit on our asses and "theory craft" all we want, but at the end of the day nothing would be as useful as a group of us going into the PU or Arena Commander and testing out ships and tactics.

And THAT is exactly what we should be doing. Some of our competitors have had a few years of practice.

100 Aurora's with a Size 4 "strap-on" might be a valid attack vector against a capital ship...or, it might not. Even 100 Size 4 missiles, hitting a capital ship simultaneously, may **not** bring it down. In which case, you are just left with your puny size 1 pew pew's, and the enemy capital ship can do whatever it wants (like bomb your Org's hangers or outposts into oblivion).

And, you'd have to be able to guarantee that 100 people are online, and in the general vicinity of the attack. Chances are they get wiped out if they arrive after the enemy has achieved their objectives, and in 1's and two's. I know it's tongue in cheek, but planning to win by numbers alone is not really a good plan.

BTW I really like that some of you guys are thinking about this.

 

[Wolfy]

And, you'd have to be able to guarantee that 100 people are online, and in the general vicinity of the attack. Chances are they get wiped out if they arrive after the enemy has achieved their objectives, and in 1's and two's. I know it's tongue in cheek, but planning to win by numbers alone is not really a good plan.

As in EVE, a big issue with large groups is not everyone executed jumps at the same time, so the vanguard gets slaughtered while the guys behind them run in lacking numbers and support.

 

[Thalstan]

Numbers alone are not a winning strategy. Fleet make up and formation will make a huge difference. A well designed fleet is one that layers defenses, provides for mutual support, and can maneuver as needed.

Now, let's say that in the future, SC will actually be able to handle the number of players needed to make up a modest fleet. We will use fully crewed ships with no NPCs to determine the ships of the fleet, and we will keep things under 300 players to allow for an opposing force of 300 other players.

1 Javelins - 80 people (the Orion in the display)
2 Idris - 28 people x2 56 people (136) (the two Hull C in the display)
4 Polaris - 14 each x4 = 56 (192)
8 Hammerheads - 9 each x4 = 72 (264) (retaliators in the display)
2 Carrack (long range scan and storage 6x2 = 12 (276)
5x5 fighter wings - 25 people (301)

Support
2 Star G - 6 people x2 = 12 (313)
1 Crucible - 8 (321)

Thoughts on order of battle

http://u-tec.yefec.com/#/simulator?id=-LHf3HzKFArOrquCLls4
This would give good protection to everything while still allowing flexibility and overlapping zones of defense. See above for the key to some of the ships as the Jav, Idris, and Hammerhead, are not in the system.

 

[sovapid]

So I am sure everyone saw the new Eclipse video and the devastating firepower of its weapon system. My question is how vulnerable will large capital ships be to this ship?

It looks good in the ads, but in reality a single eclipse can't take out a reclaimer :)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1bDsGPPIiY

 

[Wolfy]

It looks good in the ads, but in reality a single eclipse can't take out a reclaimer :slight_smile:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1bDsGPPIiY

Yeah but that doesn't need to be accurate, the kind of attack runs I am talking about will involve multiple fighters. No one is going to be using single bombers for large scale combat, waste of assets.