Weapons to Ship sizes

This is probably more of a rant then anything- But it irks me when I go to build a Huge hulled ship and find I have to give up 40% more space for the weapons then I would on a tiny ship... Or 27ish% more then my bread and butter ships the small hull ones... This is probably a pointless gripe on my part, and I should just learn to get over it, but an automated Vulcan gun is going to take as much space if its on a Naval Frigate or a Aircraft carrier. Not to mention it seriously cuts down on my fire power I can produce with one of those babys. I can understand more space for the defensive systems... More area to cover and all... (a defensive unit takes up 75% more space on a huge hulled ship compared to a tiny) Or the engines- after all, logicaly the more mass and weight you have the more thrust your going to need to move it. (a engine for a huge ship is understandably 160% bigger then that of a tiny ship) thou, I don't see why you can't hang the Engine on the outside of the ship ala 'Star Trek', slap some armor on'm and call it good. (Probably NOT going to happen)
I just don't understand why they've assigned different sizes to the weapons for the dif. classes. I don't belive the "well, its the cabling is taking up the extra space..." thought. Since if I had the choice I'd simply weld a compartment to that weapon, call it 'fire control' and I'll stick some poor S.O.B. in there to fire it manualy... lol. Thanks for reading my rant

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

It's not a matter of reality, but one of game balance. The purpose of larger ships in GC2 is not to fit ridiculously higher amounts of firepower so much as better HP/defenses.

FYI, the latest beta version of 1.3 brings with it an adjustment to the way component sizes work, which will give you considerably more room on all your designs when you have resarched some miniturization. Parts are still mostly larger on larger hulls, but they no longer "grow" as you gain miniturization; they stay the same size from start to finish.

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the latest beta version of 1.3 brings with it an adjustment to the way component sizes work, which will give you considerably more room on all your designs when you have resarched some miniturization. Parts are still mostly larger on larger hulls, but they no longer "grow" as you gain miniturization; they stay the same size from start to finish

Thats good info to know thanks. As far as game balance goes, I find that until you can actualy acquire more then one target at a time with a ship (An option that should be avaliable for ships bigger then the large hulls, to allow for proper Starbase Defense's, imho)
I'm just griping because after I outfit my large and huge ships to handle those small pesky 'gnats' my opponents throw at me, I find its more economical and powerful to simply go and mass produce Small hull ships. Ahhh- Atleast I have something to gripe about- all in all thou it is a great game.

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I find its more economical and powerful to simply go and mass produce Small hull ships.

That's rather the point. Stardock didn't want the bigger hulls to necessarily equal 'better'. In general, a fleet of Huge ships should beat a fleet of tiny ships with the same logistics limit, technology and so on, but it shouldn't be a forgone conclusion.

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I'm really looking forward to the elimination of "growing component size" as you resereach miniturization. Aside from the bug it created, it's just bizarre and doesn't make sense.

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I know this game is set in space and not on the ocean, but wet-navy ships could be a useful paradigm here. Tonnage and size limitations mean that ships get weapons appropriate for their size: you could maybe take a 16" gun from a 35,000 ton battleship and put it on a 2000 ton destroyer but you could not usefully aim and fire it. 3" to 5" weapons are more appropriate for small ships. Likewise you'd never plaster a battleship with 5" mounts because an enemy BB's armor would shrug off the shells.

Also, vessels are designed for a purpose. Destroyers have torpedos (short range, low accuracy, high damage) but have to get in close to use them, therefore destroyers have high speed and are relatively cheap and expendable. Battleships are intended to take heavy damage and deal out massive firepower at medium to long range. Used properly either can be a good weapon, but the key is they complement each other. Destroyers keep enemy destroyers (and their torpedos) away while battleships keep enemy battleships and cruisers from killing the friendly destroyers.

This specialization - this sense of mission - is what is missing from GalCiv. So long as any weapon can go on any hull and the only variable is how many units you can pack in a single hull, victory goes to the player who can stack the largest number of biggest ships in one square. Defenses are so unreliable that which weapon you choose ultimately matters very little.

Eliminating the growth of component size by hull size is a good step forward. A mod that keeps more powerful (higher tech) weapons from going on smaller ships would be better yet.

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A mod that keeps more powerful (higher tech) weapons from going on smaller ships would be better yet.

That is something i would like to see too

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A mod that keeps more powerful (higher tech) weapons from going on smaller ships would be better yet.

wouldn't it also make sence that the higher tech you get you'd adapt it for smaller and larger variants? well saying that i realize that a larger variant would have more firepower, more punch than a smaller one. so maybe on a larger ship the same component design has more damage based on the size ratios of the hull sizes. but, after having said that, the balance of the game would change. it would take much more small ships to take out a bigger one. that is already the case in the game but it would be more pronounced after this. this would take some balancing with logistics, damage, defence, hull size, component size, etc. i'd like to see what people come up with in dealing with this thread.

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One of the problems with differentiating like this is that the tactical battles don't support it. As it is, all weapons are infinite range in tactical combat, and hit instantly. All ships are the same speed, too.

To take the battleship/destroyer example from above, the destroyers would need to have a couple of small "guns" (beam/MD) that are useful against faster lighter units, and a short range but very powerful "torpedo" (missile) that took time to reach a target and could be avoided.

And since we are comparing ship classes, we should look beyond the "1890-1945" era. Ships in the age of sail were MUCH more comparable. A larger ship could hold more cannons (and yes, larger cannons too), but were not significantly faster or slower than smaller ships. And in the missile age, a larger ship has more space but isn't significantly faster. And on a Knox frigate or a Tico cruiser or a Pegasus patrol boat, a Harpoon is a Harpoon is a Harpoon. Which is what the OP noted to begin with.

As it is, let's just add this to the list of unrealistic things that we can overlook to play this incredible game (like Mars often being farther from Earth than another star system, or 3 BILLION taxpayers climbing aboard a single invasion transport and fighting as space marines).

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