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Capital ship combat

AetherVagrant

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It's like the german Truck Driver sims except in space,
"Arbeit macht frei" even in the future.
 

Galdred

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
You could also play Avorion I think. It is focused on fleets and "empire building" too, but you can also ignore it, and just focus on getting the best possible mothership.
You could also try Avrox Imperium, whose pitch is basically Eve offline.
I tried neither of these because I spent all my space gaming time on Starsector lately. I can only third the recommendation.
 

Raghar

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Warhammer Battlefleet Gothic had big capital ships. Implementation of combat in II was kinda meh.
 

darkpatriot

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Something asymmetric like a homeworld scenario would work for creating a narrative justification for just having a single big capital ship.

Something going on has pushed humanity to the brink and forced them to travel around in giant militarized city ships to protect the remnants of humanity. You would need some additional narrative justification if you also wanted to make it so you were only fighting other big giant ships one at a time, but I would prefer more variety in the types of enemies encountered anyway.
 

Galdred

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Something asymmetric like a homeworld scenario would work for creating a narrative justification for just having a single big capital ship.

Something going on has pushed humanity to the brink and forced them to travel around in giant militarized city ships to protect the remnants of humanity. You would need some additional narrative justification if you also wanted to make it so you were only fighting other big giant ships one at a time, but I would prefer more variety in the types of enemies encountered anyway.
I think it is also the case in Star wolves, but the game is more about the fighters than the carrier iirc.
 

Norfleet

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From what I recall of playing that game, the carrier is mostly a vulnerable, easily-destroyed thing you want to keep away from combat as much as possible, which has very little in the way of playable options other than upgrading its turrets, and the meat of the game is entirely in the fighters. Not really much of a capital ship game.
 

Infinitum

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FTL: Faster than Light? Definetly not large ships, but it is 1v1 ship combat and does evoke that star trek feeling of people manually controlling systems.
 

Galdred

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FTL: Faster than Light? Definetly not large ships, but it is 1v1 ship combat and does evoke that star trek feeling of people manually controlling systems.
I would love to have a 3D(ie, non abstracted ship vs ship combat) FTL with a capital ship; but I don't think it will ever exist.
 

Commissar Draco

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Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Divinity: Original Sin 2
Something asymmetric like a homeworld scenario would work for creating a narrative justification for just having a single big capital ship.

Something going on has pushed humanity to the brink and forced them to travel around in giant militarized city ships to protect the remnants of humanity. You would need some additional narrative justification if you also wanted to make it so you were only fighting other big giant ships one at a time, but I would prefer more variety in the types of enemies encountered anyway.
I think it is also the case in Star wolves, but the game is more about the fighters than the carrier iirc.

In third Star Wolves III you can get Capital Class well armed and armored Cruiser ship IRC if you pick new or old Empire factions, in SWI and SWII the carriers are so squishy and light armed you kept them at back and fought with your fighters only.
 

ValeVelKal

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Well, there are games like that :

m2MCMQB.png
 

Magitex

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Is there any installment of the X series in whcih captaining capital ships doesn't suck?
Negative on that one, the X series just don't understand what makes capital ship combat tick (or the purpose of capital ships). They typically just have bigger hitpoints, shields and guns than everything else while being miserably slow and expensive to repair. Although to be fair, this also extends to every other combat craft in the X series, with some very boring combat mechanics applied everywhere, the scale of which goes well beyond problems with the capital ships.
 

Norfleet

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The essence of capital ship combat: That sense of invulnerability, power, and stately dignity. That troubling burning sensation as your ship repeatedly catches fire. That sinking feeling as you get shat on by planes.
 

anvi

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Starpoint Gemini Warlords was almost good capital ship combat. It was just a bit basic, and then they threw it all away in the sequel :/
 

Norfleet

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Tell that to HMS Hood.
I said the SENSE of it, not the actuality of it. The Hood is a classic example of this. If they had not gone into the business with that sense of invulnerability, they wouldn't have suddenly exploded.
 

Galdred

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In the Steam Star Fleet 2: Krellan command forum, Brian Rubin (Space Junkie) recommended:
- Universal Combat (On sale here on Steam)
- Klingon Academy (Not available digitally)
- Rules of Engagement (An updated version is on Itch, https://halkun.itch.io/rules-of-engagement, originals not availably digitally)

There's really nothing else that comes close to this level of complexity.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 

Norfleet

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I would love to have a 3D(ie, non abstracted ship vs ship combat) FTL with a capital ship; but I don't think it will ever exist.
What do you mean by "non-abstracted" combat, anyway? I mean, FTL's combat isn't really terribly abstract: You very specifically fire pewcannons into very specific parts of the enemy ship. How non-abstract do you want it, and how does whether or not it is 3D fit into this? Does it need to simultaneously capture the immensity of space at the same time rather than being ships that move at speeds slower than cars and fight at ranges shorter than triremes?
 

Galdred

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I would love to have a 3D(ie, non abstracted ship vs ship combat) FTL with a capital ship; but I don't think it will ever exist.
What do you mean by "non-abstracted" combat, anyway? I mean, FTL's combat isn't really terribly abstract: You very specifically fire pewcannons into very specific parts of the enemy ship. How non-abstract do you want it, and how does whether or not it is 3D fit into this? Does it need to simultaneously capture the immensity of space at the same time rather than being ships that move at speeds slower than cars and fight at ranges shorter than triremes?
It is actually, because there is no range or positionning whatsoever. Your own ship is pretty detailed, but I consider the simulation itself abstracted. But as you pointed out, it would be hard to do it well indeed. I think using orbital mechanisms, and have the battles be more about chosing when to engage, when to save fuel and ammunition (ie, more about resource conservation) could both capture the scale without making space like sea.
 

Norfleet

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It is actually, because there is no range or positionning whatsoever.
Well, range and positioning play relative little role, probably because the relative movement capabilties of ships are almost wholly irrelevant compared to the potential range of weapons. When your acceleration is measured in maybe ones of gravities at the high end and your ranges are in in the tens to hundreds of kilometers, how much are you able to change your range in the timespan of the shootout? The only way you're leaving (or entering) the fight is through your magic warp drive.

I think using orbital mechanisms, and have the battles be more about chosing when to engage
That's the CoaDE style approach to it.

when to save fuel and ammunition (ie, more about resource conservation) could both capture the scale without making space like sea.
The resource management angle is similarly very FTL. Although if you push it into a logistics game, it starts to move away from the capital ship aspect.

So the question is: Do you want a more hyper-realism angle, which tends to lead to the conclusion that Space Combat Sucks, or a more classic SF feel?
 

youhomofo

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Jul 13, 2005
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I want a good capital ship game so bad. It could be amazing if done right. One game I rarely see mentioned is Starshatter - The Gathering Storm. Unfortunately you have to start as a fighter pilot and work your way up to capital ships. I never played enough to get that far.
 

Magitex

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I want a good capital ship game so bad. It could be amazing if done right. One game I rarely see mentioned is Starshatter - The Gathering Storm. Unfortunately you have to start as a fighter pilot and work your way up to capital ships. I never played enough to get that far.
I did, Starshatter is very good at capital & fleet warfare. It's an ever moving battle between X-ray laser batteries, shields, torpedo and point-defense system. Positioning and rotation are also important because capitals can go down fairly quickly without functioning point defense/shields, so you always bring the most important aspect to bear depending on the hostile you're facing and you never want to get hit by a torpedo. If you lose something critical, it can take days of repair, burn through all your supplies, or can be outright impossible to restore during the campaign.

It's not bad as a fighter pilot career (a little dry), but you have to play realistically or you will die instantly (release payload, turn and burn). Sometimes the campaign (being fully dynamic) can railroad you into somewhat impossible situations, although that is part of the charm and one of the more realistic aspects. You really need to excel no matter what role you're in because every win/loss in the battle is permanent for the campaign. Either way you eventually get promoted, but it's a hilariously realistic grind to get to the good stuff.

You have to dig around for some mods that bring Starshatter out of the stone age, like the open source version at minimum, but I had a blast playing as a destroyer and also using the carriers. The electronic warfare aspects are a bit lacking, as is the ship variety, but it's still a solid game underneath. There are few games with a proper dynamic campaign like this one, and even fewer games that can make something of capital warfare that isn't utterly mindless. I'm hoping something like NEBULOUS: Fleet Command will feature a proper campaign like Starshatter some day, but of course, it is PVP focused.
 

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