Thats my plan once we get most of the ships in the game along with most of the sub systems, weapons and NPC's. Until then asses and spit balling on assumptions is really all we have.
Thoughts on Capital Ship Warfare-AWACs and Bomber Threats
- Thread starter Wolfy
- Start date
Shadow Reaper
Space Marshal
The Eclipse, like all carrier based strike forces; is intended to be used in groups. Since it can't fire more than a single torp at a time, it needs to make three engagements to empty its ordinance, so you will need a wing of six or more to take out an Idris. Remember the Eclipse is short range only. the Tally is long range, so doesn't need a fleet to launch it.
IMHO, only capital ships and fighters belong in fleet engagements. Even the Polaris is too fragile a target for such combat. Certainly the Hammerhead and all the civilian ships people pretend belong in battle do not belong in battle. They are just targets that will fall in seconds, and a waste of the personnel to fly them.
Rather, if you can start with a Bengel, and surround it with Javelins and Idris, you have a survivable fleet. The key is to see how many players you can field to man those ships and how good the players really are. The Cap ships have active damage control, and that is a crucial part of combat that will require players. Ideally, the most powerful fleets would probably not even use Idris. We'll have to wait for the specs, but in general if you look at firepower plus armor, and divide by crew, you can get a basic metric for the combat effectiveness for any given ship. In general, military ships have much higher stats than their civilian counterparts, and the bigger the ship, the greater the power per crew member. The Polaris has twice the power per crew of the Vanguard, and costs half as much. The trouble is the bigger the ship, the more leadership required by a player to man it. Leaders get people to follow. Without them you can't man a Bengal.
This is BTW, my ONLY criticism of TEST--it measures leadership ability through participation on Discord rather than on a player's ability to inspire others to follow. I think when the time comes that needs to be reevaluated.
The only exceptions to the general rule about combat being only for combat ships, are if you have a special circumstance like a stealth incursion, a draw play type trap, or something like a special recovery mission with a Reclaimer. Even then, if you can fly combat ships, fly them. IMHO, the Carrack does not belong in battles, nor does the Polaris. They were not designed for that. Just because the Carrack can take a few hits from some pirates does not mean it can take a hit from a spinal mount. You can be sure nothing short of an Idris can do that and survive. Roberts is trying to emulate real navy combat as best he can, so you should plan to use real navy tactics, and the navies of the world know better than to send merchantmen and corvettes into battle, for about what. . .400 years?
There have been seasoned arguments to include corvettes in battles, especially under dire circumstances when a fleet is hopelessly outgunned and want to bolster their numbers. Those who want to win a war don't send corvettes into battles, and those who just want to win a battle, want to send them in. IMHO, if you can keep a Polaris at the edge of a conflict and run at the first sight of pursuit, then MAYBE you can justify those players there instead of on a Javelin, but that is a very thin maybe. Note the chief advantage of the Corvette--it's speed--gets no use in a real fleet battle, and battles do not require exploration ships. The Carrack was not designed for battle. It was designed for combat against difficult circumstance in exploration.
IMHO.
*One exceptional case. . .if it turns out the Polaris can maneuver fast enough to avoid spinal mounts and the Idris and Javelin cannot, you could have a special circumstance to include Polaris in battle. If it turns out Vanduul cap ships don't have long range torps, and rely upon guns that can't hit a dodging Polaris, use a Polaris or twelve! But note this is an exception to the general principle, based upon a very specific advantage--the ability to dodge big caps ship weapons and launch torps with impunity. You would not want to do this if the Vanduul could just launch torps back.
Last edited:
You forget that an Idris that uses its spinal mount gun looses its shield.
The Polaris would never want to stand toe to toe with an Idris or Javelin but thats not to say it can't be used for flanking attacks on engaged Idris and Javelins or take out Hammerheads to free up the bomber wings. And there is nothing wrong with using a Terrapin or Carrack for scanning and keeping situational awareness of what the enemy fleet is doing. After all those eclipses are sneaky bastards that left uncheck can easily do some serious damage.
The Polaris would never want to stand toe to toe with an Idris or Javelin but thats not to say it can't be used for flanking attacks on engaged Idris and Javelins or take out Hammerheads to free up the bomber wings. And there is nothing wrong with using a Terrapin or Carrack for scanning and keeping situational awareness of what the enemy fleet is doing. After all those eclipses are sneaky bastards that left uncheck can easily do some serious damage.
Shadow Reaper
Space Marshal
I had not heard the Idris with the big gun loses its shields. Do you recall the source of that intel? Sounds hard to believe.
The Carrack is not going to scan any better than a Javelin, and maybe not better than an Idris, and including anything other than the best ships for any given number of men, means you didn't build your best force.
We need to wait and see on the Hammerhead, but it was designed to be a typical gunboat, so it won't take much pounding. I'll bet a single S10 torp will kill it, and it would be the first target in a conflict to get locked for that kind of strike. I bet a Polaris can kill 4 Hammerheads with a single salvo. You would not want to be aboard such a target in a big battle.
Just saying, could easily turn out that Bengal and Javelin are the only biog ships needed. Selecting fighters and bombers is a different subject.
But hey, lets do an exercise. You have a combat mission that will allow 6 big ships and whatever fighters they can carry--ONLY. What ships would you choose?
I would go with 2 Bengals and 4 Javelins. What build would beat that?
Now if you put a player limit, how does that affect the choices? The lower the limit, the fewer Bengals, and the more reasons to add Idris.
I'm guessing these are the kinds of questions we'll see kin big missions.
The Carrack is not going to scan any better than a Javelin, and maybe not better than an Idris, and including anything other than the best ships for any given number of men, means you didn't build your best force.
We need to wait and see on the Hammerhead, but it was designed to be a typical gunboat, so it won't take much pounding. I'll bet a single S10 torp will kill it, and it would be the first target in a conflict to get locked for that kind of strike. I bet a Polaris can kill 4 Hammerheads with a single salvo. You would not want to be aboard such a target in a big battle.
Just saying, could easily turn out that Bengal and Javelin are the only biog ships needed. Selecting fighters and bombers is a different subject.
But hey, lets do an exercise. You have a combat mission that will allow 6 big ships and whatever fighters they can carry--ONLY. What ships would you choose?
I would go with 2 Bengals and 4 Javelins. What build would beat that?
Now if you put a player limit, how does that affect the choices? The lower the limit, the fewer Bengals, and the more reasons to add Idris.
I'm guessing these are the kinds of questions we'll see kin big missions.
Attempting to find the spectrum link now. It was talked about this fact during last years Gamescom 2017 after the Idris battle that the energy required to fire the gun drains the shields.
This will be something we will need to wait until scanning is mostly implemented and these ships are in game. It could be that the Carrack and Terrapin bring nothing the Capital ships can't do in a battle engagement and thus would not be needed. (still think the Terrapin would be great for scouting forward of the fleet and since it is already being used might as well continue to put it to work during the engagement)
I have a feeling we will be lucky to see a single Bengal outside of UEC control let alone a battle with two of them on a side. The Javelin is no doubt a powerful ship but I have to wonder how effective it will be given its size and slow speed. While it can launch size 12 Torpedo's it can only launch two at a time leaving its primary weapon the 2x size 8 turret to dish out most of the pain. This leaves huge blind spots coupled with the slow speed makes it very vulnerable to fast moving craft that it can't chase down or even turn fast enough to face. It will be interesting to see how effective the eclipse Torpedo's are against such a large target as they might just not do enough damage to be an effective counter. The other possibility is the Polaris with its possible speed could out flank and be free to attack the underbelly with impunity.
The reason why I continue to put the Hammerhead in is not for front line attacking but for defensive protection of the capital ships from bombers freeing up the fighters to focus on protecting the bomber wing on their strike missions. Especially given their numbers will be limited to how many Idris's one brings to the engagement. This might all be a mute point if the Hammerhead is effective against torpedo's as then its only weakness would be over whelm it with torpedo's as its going to be faster then the Javelin, Idris and Polaris staying out of their gun range and destructive to those who can catch up to it.
As for your 4 Javelins I would possibly attack them with Retaliators as they would be effective with a player pilot and 4 NPC turret gunners to handle the few fighters that could be in play. The Size 12 Torpedo's and the smallish size of the Retaliator would make it not an easy target while the Retaliator is capable of firing 2 size 9's at a time with a total count of 9 Torpedo's. It would just need to stay behind and under to stay out of the main turrets firing arc and far enough away for the other turrets for them to be useless.
InfinityCircuit
Admiral
So, let me first thank you for referencing a US Naval exercise to start your theorycrafting. Tying this very realistic game to a real exercise will keep us grounded, long as we don't stray too far from the real in our theories.
As far as I can see, the Bengal and other capital ships will be vulnerable to two things: 1) boarding actions, and 2) snubs. The frigates and other larger "small" ships, such as Reclaimers, Hammerheads, etc will be large enough to target with the capital ship main weapon systems, whatever form those take. I expect these big guns to be railgun turrets, torpedoes, and maybe a large keel-mounted beam weapon or something.
1) Boarding Action. Small transports will be too small for capitals to effectively target with slow, small-arc weapons such as main guns or torpedoes. CIWS on-board those transports will do for missile and snub defense as well, though they will need support to fight through a picket. I will reserve judgement on how a boarding action will be implemented, but getting a squad or three on-board a capital ship will be enough to render it useless, by killing subsystems, spacing decks, and killing crew. This kills the cap.
2) Snubs. Again, the capital ships have large, slow weapons designed for massive single hits on slow-moving targets. Snubs of any kind will be able to dodge and swarm over a capital ship, and with torpedoes, mines, bombs, and just damage over time, break through shields, destroy thrusters, and eventually scuttle the larger ship. THe only limitation I see a squadron of snubs running into is ammunition. They will have enough for a few salvoes of heavy torps/mines/whatever, and then they will be Winchester on ammo, limited to repeaters and lasers.
Both of these threats necessitate the need for pickets, like you said. Massing frigates with CIWS and anti-snub missiles in a bubble around the capital ships will negate both threats. Capital ship crews, therefore, will have to keep in mind two main phases of any fleet engagement.
Phase 1: Recon & Disruption. This phase will begin with deployment and end with the pickets of one or both fleets neutralized. Essential to success in this phase will be identifying the enemy fleet's ship composition and disposition, and effective targeting of supporting craft such as anti-snub frigates. The highest priority targets (HPTL, for those military nerds out there) will be 1) Hammerheads and other turret-heavy frigates, 2) bombers and interceptors, and 3) recon/stealth ships. Stripping these out will leave the capital ships vulnerable to heavy capital ship weapons, bombing runs, and boarding actions. During this phase, DO NOT commit any boarding parties before space superiority is achieved. Risking the lives of marines and vulnerable transports without the proper CAP escorts in place is unnecessary.
Phase 2: Exploitation and Destruction/Capture. This phase will begin once space superiority is achieved in the disruption zone between the fleets. This does not mean 100% of the enemy picket and recon forces are destroyed; superiority is achieved when the remaining enemy are unable to effectively disrupt bombing or boarding actions against the enemy capital ships. In my opinion, two of three options must be simultaneously deployed during this phase to effectively defeat the capital ship threat. 1) Capital weapon bombardment, 2) boarding actions, and/or 3) bomber attacks. Reason for this is that each of these require different threat responses. #1 requires the enemy capital ships to maneuver, spread out, and roll in order to present undamaged shields and hull throughout the bombardment. #2 requires enemy pickets to focus fire on multiple transports and their escorts. #3 requires CIWS and interceptor deployment. If the enemy must manage multiple threat responses, this will cause confusion and allow at least one tactic, if not all, to succeed. This phase ends when the enemy capital ships are either destroyed or captured, and the threat to friendly forces neutralized.
I agree that server-side limitations could play into this. I will not be discussing those, since firstly, we don't know exactly how that will play out, and secondly, we should set up battle drills that fight the enemy, not the server. Metagaming and exploitation of game restrictions is usually punished or patched, so we should look elsewhere for our theorycrafting. InfinityCircuit out.
Radegast74
Space Marshal
Holy cow, so much has been discussed since you posted this...
Again, we can theory craft all we want, we aren't going to have any Polaris, Javelin, Idris, etc. in game anytime soon.
I would suggest what we should be doing, as ship systems get nailed down, weapons get nailed down, etc., is taking some of the available and seeing if ideas of tactics work. Like, does it work having heavy fighters (Vanguard Wardens, Hurricanes) try to punch holes in enemy battle orders, followed by more nimble fighters (Sabres, Hornets?, etc.), or are we wasting our time? Or does it work well, but you have to train the heavy fighters not to engage the smaller fighters, just hit & run...etc.
We may find there are good ships out there that not many people have pledged for, that we need to have the Org get in-game. A quick example, after flying a Gladiator around in 2.6.3, I was impressed at how its size 5 torpedoes could wreak havoc on some larger ships, like the Retaliator. Missiles and torpedoes are still completely nerfed, and it could all change when it gets rebalanced.
BTW, found this on reddit yesterday...I'm hoping that space combat in SC is *nothing* like dogfighting in WWII...with Newtonian physics and missiles, it shouldn't be... as a history buff, though, I've always thought the Douglas Dauntless was a cool plane, as a dive bomber, but this hero took out 3 Japanese Zero's with one...good example of knowing your plane and tactics to use strengths/counter weaknesses:
Radegast74
Space Marshal
I should also mention @marcsand2 and @IcaroSP ran some combat training classes earlier, in which they went over fighter tactics.
See:
https://testsquadron.com/threads/you-all-suck-at-combat-get-your-ass-into-cft-combat-flight-training.11498/
See:
https://testsquadron.com/threads/you-all-suck-at-combat-get-your-ass-into-cft-combat-flight-training.11498/
That's the rub beyond the fighters and Gladiator the large ships in game are very incomplete and thus mostly pointless to test with. Take for example the Constellation should be theoretically capable of taking on two or three hornets and limp away but with no sub systems and broken turrets its not even able to survive one hornet.
The Carrack are there as much for their 1000 SCU of cargo (better than any other non-hull I believe) as much as anything. You don't know what you might need to bring along. The Caterpillars are the next best thing to bring if you want cargo as they have tractor beams to move cargo around.
Hammerheads are there to be anti-torpedo platforms as well as anti-fighter protection. They can also be used as independent ships that can detach from the main force, plus if you decide to form a second squadron, you have enough ships to form effective fleets with both.
A force needs to be strong, but it also needs to be flexible because you don't know what kind of opforce you might be facing and once you get the intel you need, you form your plans around that.
For instance, a pirate base guarded by a strong force. Split off a few hammerheads and 2 Polarises and you send them in first. Strong enough that the mobile forces need to respond, but weak enough that they feel overconfident.. Let the smaller force make a feint and run to draw down the strength around the base, then quantum you main fleet in and pound the base and remaining forces to rubble, then finish off the other ships.
If I was concentrating on big ships, I would just leave behind any fighters that could not be carried by the capital ships, and focus exclusively on multiple javelin and Idris combinations, but that might leave them vulnerable to bombers like the Polaris, Retaliator, and Eclipse if you don't possess enough fighters/anti-fighter/anti-torpedo ships.
Until we game these out though in the PU or PU simulator, we won't know. Honestly, we won't know until we actually can get 600 people together in a fight to see what would really happen. That's going to be a long time from now.
Digging the discussion. Lets ignore server side limitations and what is only available ingame because this was a post about capital ships in the endgame product ignoring any server kajiggery (that might not be a word....)
Also, just throwing this out there, a drone warfare ship would be cool #droneswarmsarethefuture
Also, just throwing this out there, a drone warfare ship would be cool #droneswarmsarethefuture
Shadow Reaper
Space Marshal
You would think! but truly, turrets on bombers don't work very well. They're cool and all, and I suspect CIG will make it playable, but think about the big turreted bombers from WWII (B-17, 24, 29), and you'll quickly see why the turrets were abandoned not long after (B-47,51,52). Fact is, it is just too hard to stop a fighter with anything other than a fighter, or a missile. The Tally and Gladiator are interesting because they carry turrets, but they could be effective because they carry smaller missiles for self defense, IMHO.
Big gun emplacements on big ships like the Javelin certainly have a place, but they're defensive. Ships like that don't need to get in range of S6 guns when they have spinal mounts and huge Torps. Turrets may seem necessary for defense and we do use them still on big ships, but what turns out to be more necessary is very advanced damage control. That is CIGs plan for the big UEE ships. They'll be more like the Iowa class American battleships from the end of WWII, rather than the bigger gunned Japanese ships, which could not take the same pounding, because they did not have the advanced damage control facilities.
There is very cool work going to be available to engineering staff who specialize in whatever mini-game CIG comes up with for damage control. You can look for that. Roberts knows his history.
About scanning with the Terrapin and Carrack. . .think first about the size designations for most components: S, M, L, C. The Carrack is a L ship with a C sensor suit. You send a Carrack where you don't have the threat you need a Cap ship for--like exploration. It scans the same as an Idris but costs 1/10 as much so you can have 10 for the same cost. That's the purpose behind that ship. It is not a combat ship.
The Terrapin is a S ship with a M sensor suit, that is so small it can hide where other ships cannot. To make it useful to a fleet, you need to place it outside the fleet's scan range and thereby extend that range. If your fleets Torps have a range far greater than the fleet's scan, then that Terrapin can illuminate targets for destruction and the fleet launching the Torps won't even appear on their target's scanners. You can do this with any big Torp carrying ship, with or without a fleet. The Terrapin is going to be a huge hit for those who don't ever want to fight fair, and rather just want their enemies to die. Count me in.
With the current turret adjustments they are actually usable and I expect more balancing to be done for turret specific ships like the Hammerhead, which will likely be the main screening ship for CIWS and AA support. And the response on the Terrapin is spot on, they are perfect for expanding the sensor range of the fleet far beyond the eyes of the main body.
I am also interested in what happens if mines are put ingame. I don't know whether they have said they will have them and I somewhat doubt they will, but if they do imagine being able to mine the space around jump points or important landmarks in a system. The best example of this is probably found in The Lost Fleet series of books where they encounter these tactics several times.
Shadow Reaper
Space Marshal
Roberts has said, they will have them. In fact there was an excellent CIG vid for the game 3-4 years ago I think, that demonstrated a sleeping torp come alive and smack a stealthily creeping Cutty in an asteroid belt, spiked it and ooops. . .here come the pirates. Was a cool vid.
Turrets aren't very usable in release 3.2.1f in PTU, lots of comments almost immediately after release. Hope we don't get that kind of behavior in PU, it's bad. Pic.
I agree I have this feeling the Javelin will be primarily utilized for holding ground and taking down a hardened base. While most ships are going to be able to outmaneuver it its still going to be effective in creating a rally point. It also has the most potential to be far easier to try and conquer it by boarding instead of blowing it up.
As a Polaris captain the terrapin has this allure to it especially when you read the marketing text about it being modified to be a successful S&R as well as a small strike boarding craft. And then CIG said it wasn't modular and the worthless spinning chair was staying in the center of that room.
This is turning into a really interesting thread!!
Personally I think until they actually fix turrets (if they ever can) then we can barely test any of our theories. I mean we could try out "mini big ship" tactics with existing ships (Retaliator, Gladius, Connie, Strarfarer, etc) but as states all of those ships are dead in the water to just one good fighter because the turrets are useless. So we can't really practice any tactics yet.
I can't wait until we can. Working player turrets, and blade AI turrets will immediatly totally change the game and thee usefulness of all large ships (and some small ships!)
Personally I think until they actually fix turrets (if they ever can) then we can barely test any of our theories. I mean we could try out "mini big ship" tactics with existing ships (Retaliator, Gladius, Connie, Strarfarer, etc) but as states all of those ships are dead in the water to just one good fighter because the turrets are useless. So we can't really practice any tactics yet.
I can't wait until we can. Working player turrets, and blade AI turrets will immediatly totally change the game and thee usefulness of all large ships (and some small ships!)
Yeh they showed the freelancer having rotating engines and turrets that could fire in a 180 degree arc able to destroy a ship on each side of the freelancer at once. We didn't get anmy of that, either! :p