Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

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jlehtone
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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by jlehtone » Wed, 28. Apr 21, 23:22

Agreed, a point of big ships is that they can be disabled. It could be awesome to disable thrusters and still leave engine intact, but this current combo is ok too. (I mainly shoot Xenon engines to stop them from turning.)
Alkeena wrote:
Wed, 28. Apr 21, 23:09
They're the only ones with even remotely sensible ship designs but everyone hates them for it because they're not min-maxed to the extremes.
Phoenix is awesome. Granted, it could take longer for it to chew something thicker, but it can keep chewing long after the Split have already run for a "bigger gun". :teladi:
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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by Imperial Good » Thu, 29. Apr 21, 01:23

AI already focuses ship engines. This is why losing them is quite common if you get overrun by a S/M swarm.

Most ships have quite protected engines because they are located behind the ship. In L/XL combat you should not be showing your engines to the enemy, like XR ships did. S/Ms can remove them, but in that case you need either more L/XL ships or your own S/M to keep them busy.

Phoenix engines are not that protected. Due to how small the dome is, they are vulnerable to splash damage from missiles targeting other surface elements or even the front of the ship. Out of all the ships the Xenon Branch 9 Destroyer I probably has the toughest engines since not only are the engines well shielded and inherently very durable, but they have a small area upon which you can fire at them and even have a targeting offset that makes auto aiming them difficult (manually shooting batteries often hits them more reliably).

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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by Tarsis » Thu, 29. Apr 21, 12:36

Alkeena wrote:
Wed, 28. Apr 21, 23:09
...
Also since thrusters aren't a targetable subsystem (and making it targetable would be way too greebly imho) I feel it's a quite reasonable simplification to just tie them to the engine subsystem.
I'm OK with that concept. But if that's a game design decision, at least explain that within the game so new players like me don't think there is something wrong with the game. There are a lot things that don't make sense to a new player, for example, how is it that a missile with a 17km effective range can only be deployed/fired at around 5km of the target :?
If that's a turret limitation, at least show the turret's range on the Encyclopaedia... but it says nothing. Which leads me to believe the range is based on the missile (but that's not how the game works).

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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by chip56 » Thu, 29. Apr 21, 12:57

Alkeena wrote:
Wed, 28. Apr 21, 23:09
They're the only ones with even remotely sensible ship designs but everyone hates them for it because they're not min-maxed to the extremes.
Actually i think that the Teladi have the only destroyer thats even remotly designed to handle fighters while the others are more vs stations/ other L/XL ships.
I think the teladi destroyers would really benefit from implementing S size turrets (faster tracking anti fighter only turrets with less range than M turrets) and giving them a couple of those. That would really highlight that its designed for a slightly different role than the other destroyers and make them an interesting choice. Such turrets i think would also fit reasonably well on (non Split) carriers.

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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by GCU Grey Area » Thu, 29. Apr 21, 13:07

Imperial Good wrote:
Thu, 29. Apr 21, 01:23
Phoenix engines are not that protected. Due to how small the dome is, they are vulnerable to splash damage from missiles targeting other surface elements or even the front of the ship.
That is true - missile strikes to turrets on the dome section can damage the nearest engine. However a single missile is extremely unlikely to get all 3 (I've certainly never managed that when hunting SCA Phoenixes - always needed 3). That's the big contrast with the other destroyers. May occasionally lose a single engine on a Phoenix, but the enemy has to work much harder to completely immobilise it. Compared to being able to nuke the engine cluster on most other destroyers with a single torp, or even just sustained gunfire. Did not have even a single case of losing all 3 engines on my Phoenix during my Teladi game, whereas this was not a particularly uncommon occurrence in my subsequent Argon & Split games: https://www.dropbox.com/s/epky5sg7flkvq ... 1.jpg?dl=0

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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by grapedog » Thu, 29. Apr 21, 15:41

This is why I use the Stork as my aux ships always. Much less likely to get immobilized, and their turret placements offer decent 360 protection compsred to other ships which are mostly top mounted. From my experience, they handle swarms much better.

Plus, i actually like the mushroom design ship, id use the phoenix a LOT more often if it wasn't so underpowered overall.

Those big TEL ships seem more like militarized freighters than actual warships.

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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by jlehtone » Thu, 29. Apr 21, 17:04

Tarsis wrote:
Thu, 29. Apr 21, 12:36
for example, how is it that a missile with a 17km effective range can only be deployed/fired at around 5km of the target :?
Which missile are you talking about?

I know that turrets of Osaka do launch missiles from near 20 km distance. (I was in the receiving end, in Phoenix. They must have been EMP; very fast, no shield damage, both Boost and Travel were disabled. For a while I thought that they did disable turrets too, but that had been me setting them to missile defense. :oops: )
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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by Imperial Good » Thu, 29. Apr 21, 17:48

GCU Grey Area wrote:
Thu, 29. Apr 21, 13:07
That is true - missile strikes to turrets on the dome section can damage the nearest engine. However a single missile is extremely unlikely to get all 3 (I've certainly never managed that when hunting SCA Phoenixes - always needed 3). That's the big contrast with the other destroyers. May occasionally lose a single engine on a Phoenix, but the enemy has to work much harder to completely immobilise it. Compared to being able to nuke the engine cluster on most other destroyers with a single torp, or even just sustained gunfire. Did not have even a single case of losing all 3 engines on my Phoenix during my Teladi game, whereas this was not a particularly uncommon occurrence in my subsequent Argon & Split games: https://www.dropbox.com/s/epky5sg7flkvq ... 1.jpg?dl=0
Both Split and Paranid destroyers are immune to heavy missiles and torpedoes when upgraded with ship mods. This is because their flight speed exceeds that of heavy missiles and torpedoes so they can infinitely kite them. Similar to trying to hit the Katana with heavy missiles, it can just keep going straight and never be hit. Light missiles still hit them but the engine shielding is enough to take a fair number of those.

On the other hand the Phoenix is so slow it will always be hit by heavy missiles and torpedoes. So its engines being more resistant to them does not really matter.

I have seen many phoenix lose all their engines. Especially when under fire from a Xenon S/M swarm as they prioritise targeting engines.

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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by GCU Grey Area » Thu, 29. Apr 21, 18:02

grapedog wrote:
Thu, 29. Apr 21, 15:41
This is why I use the Stork as my aux ships always. Much less likely to get immobilized, and their turret placements offer decent 360 protection compsred to other ships which are mostly top mounted. From my experience, they handle swarms much better.

Plus, i actually like the mushroom design ship, id use the phoenix a LOT more often if it wasn't so underpowered overall.

Those big TEL ships seem more like militarized freighters than actual warships.
Matches my experience with turret coverage of the Condor (auxiliaries didn't exist when I was doing my Teladi game), particularly if you fill it's M docks with Osprey class auxiliary turret batteries. Very few angles from which enemy fighters can approach that isn't covered by decent amount of firepower. Agree on the aesthetics too - very fond of Teladi capitals. Think it's the radial symmetry. Also found the dome section of of their capitals very handy as a literal shield (i.e. the medieval kind) when flying an S or M ship. Very useful thing to take cover behind while waiting for shields to regen. Have fond memories of flying a Peregrine into battle alongside a Condor, just peeping over the edge of that shield as we approached the enemy forces.

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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by GCU Grey Area » Thu, 29. Apr 21, 18:30

Imperial Good wrote:
Thu, 29. Apr 21, 17:48
Both Split and Paranid destroyers are immune to heavy missiles and torpedoes when upgraded with ship mods. This is because their flight speed exceeds that of heavy missiles and torpedoes so they can infinitely kite them. Similar to trying to hit the Katana with heavy missiles, it can just keep going straight and never be hit. Light missiles still hit them but the engine shielding is enough to take a fair number of those.

On the other hand the Phoenix is so slow it will always be hit by heavy missiles and torpedoes. So its engines being more resistant to them does not really matter.

I have seen many phoenix lose all their engines. Especially when under fire from a Xenon S/M swarm as they prioritise targeting engines.
Can't comment on Odysseus, don't think I've ever flown one. However did fly Rattlesnakes in both of my Split games, always heavily upgraded, e.g.:
ship mods: https://www.dropbox.com/s/aedw0zia7lyc3 ... 1.jpg?dl=0
workbench stats: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sgwp1lskf83cq ... 1.jpg?dl=0
As you can see, by no means a slow ship. Didn't help. Cerberus frigates armed with Swarm missiles were the bane of my existence in my last game. All that speed only helps if all you want to do is run away. The moment you want to fight you need to slow down a bit, manoeuvre to get the enemy in the crosshairs, etc & that's when one of those damn Cerberuses sneaks up behind & nukes the engines. Happened over & over again, sometimes more than once in the same battle (incidentally that's how I got the screenshot in my earlier post - was limping away to get repairs & wanted to have a look at the damage from the outside, only to see my engines were once more in the process of exploding). The crappy shielding on a Rattlesnake really doesn't help either - just a single M shield protecting the engines (whereas Phoenix has 3).

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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by al_dude » Thu, 29. Apr 21, 19:28

The Teladi destroyer may have not powerful L guns, but that ship is made for escorts.

Mod it for normal speed and just stick close to a M mining ship you are meant to escort. The mushroom shape protects any shots from getting through, and the destroyer is meant to fight foes approaching from behind.

It's got a pretty good design philosophy.

Try doing that with other destroyers; you will lose your engines eventually.

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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by Raptor34 » Thu, 29. Apr 21, 19:33

al_dude wrote:
Thu, 29. Apr 21, 19:28
The Teladi destroyer may have not powerful L guns, but that ship is made for escorts.

Mod it for normal speed and just stick close to a M mining ship you are meant to escort. The mushroom shape protects any shots from getting through, and the destroyer is meant to fight foes approaching from behind.

It's got a pretty good design philosophy.
Wish the Teladi kept their slow but tanky philosophy though.
Why would the Condor have less shields than its counterparts. It should have more.
Same for the Phoenix.
Nowadays they seemed to have traded that with the Argon.

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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by Imperial Good » Thu, 29. Apr 21, 21:33

GCU Grey Area wrote:
Thu, 29. Apr 21, 18:30
The moment you want to fight you need to slow down a bit, manoeuvre to get the enemy in the crosshairs, etc & that's when one of those damn Cerberuses sneaks up behind & nukes the engines.
The Rattlesnake is a L destroyer. You do not slow for S or M ships because they are beneath you. You are not meant to shoot them with batteries either, even though the AI flies so badly you can at times.

If they have missiles you keep flying at full speed. They will eventually run out of missiles, in which case they become harmless.
al_dude wrote:
Thu, 29. Apr 21, 19:28
The Teladi destroyer may have not powerful L guns, but that ship is made for escorts.

Mod it for normal speed and just stick close to a M mining ship you are meant to escort. The mushroom shape protects any shots from getting through, and the destroyer is meant to fight foes approaching from behind.

It's got a pretty good design philosophy.

Try doing that with other destroyers; you will lose your engines eventually.
TER Osaka. Only slightly slower than the Phoenix but has orders of magnitude better turrets and main batteries. It is also Behemoth like so has excellent turret placement unlike the Phoenix which has the worst turret placement of all destroyers. The Phoenix L turrets cannot even shoot directly forwards due to the dome...

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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by jlehtone » Thu, 29. Apr 21, 21:50

Imperial Good wrote:
Thu, 29. Apr 21, 21:33
The Phoenix L turrets cannot even shoot directly forwards due to the dome...
However, you don't have to shoot only forward with your batteries either.


It could be interesting if EMP missiles could affect thrusters in addition to boost and travel. Comm links temporarily fizzled. Granted, benefiting mainly player.
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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by al_dude » Thu, 29. Apr 21, 22:06

Imperial Good wrote:
Thu, 29. Apr 21, 21:33
TER Osaka. Only slightly slower than the Phoenix but has orders of magnitude better turrets and main batteries. It is also Behemoth like so has excellent turret placement unlike the Phoenix which has the worst turret placement of all destroyers. The Phoenix L turrets cannot even shoot directly forwards due to the dome...
You did read what I wrote, right? The mushroom is the point. It protects whatever is in front. The phoenix is not meant to use its main guns. It's meant to fight backwards while safeguarding something in front of them.

P.S. Osaka and Behemoth are my two favorite destroyers. Osaka needs a bit shorter though. That thing is unnecessarily long. Behemoth has got 4 S landing pads. It's basically a cheap mini carrier.

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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by Tarsis » Thu, 29. Apr 21, 22:24

jlehtone wrote:
Thu, 29. Apr 21, 17:04
Tarsis wrote:
Thu, 29. Apr 21, 12:36
for example, how is it that a missile with 17km effective range can only be deployed/fired at around 5km of the target :?
Which missile are you talking about?

I know that turrets of Osaka do launch missiles from near 20 km distance. (I was in the receiving end, in Phoenix. They must have been EMP; very fast, no shield damage, both Boost and Travel were disabled. For a while I thought that they did disable turrets too, but that had been me setting them to missile defense. :oops: )
Check the Encyclopaedia, it says cluster missiles have a 17km and Dumbfire 24km effective range but when I used them on my Syn, I had to be at around 6km before it started firing. I'm not alone on this one, you can check Captain Collins on YouTube when he tested missiles https://youtu.be/pmTcjzVvfaA?t=6900.

Now if you're saying the NPCs are capable of hitting you from 20km away and it is "working as intended", that is the epitome of unbalanced and perhaps we should start a new thread about missiles.

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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by GCU Grey Area » Thu, 29. Apr 21, 23:21

Imperial Good wrote:
Thu, 29. Apr 21, 21:33
GCU Grey Area wrote:
Thu, 29. Apr 21, 18:30
The moment you want to fight you need to slow down a bit, manoeuvre to get the enemy in the crosshairs, etc & that's when one of those damn Cerberuses sneaks up behind & nukes the engines.
The Rattlesnake is a L destroyer. You do not slow for S or M ships because they are beneath you. You are not meant to shoot them with batteries either, even though the AI flies so badly you can at times.

If they have missiles you keep flying at full speed. They will eventually run out of missiles, in which case they become harmless.
It's not a matter of slowing down specifically to engage fighters. Generally it's more that there are fighters present in the sector when I slow down to engage my primary target (e.g. enemy capital or station). As for passively waiting for fighters to run out of missiles, simply don't have that much patience - frigates can carry 100 of them. Anyway it's not the fighters I'm aware of that are usually the issue - those I can account for, even pause the game & have a close look at them for missile launchers if I'm feeling paranoid. It's generally the ones arriving in travel mode from elsewhere in the sector that can catch me out & sometimes I only become aware of those new arrivals when engines start exploding...
The Phoenix L turrets cannot even shoot directly forwards due to the dome...
Phoenix L turrets can shoot forwards if you need them to. Unlike the other Teladi capitals the Phoenix's 'dome' isn't a single piece, it's comprised of 6 distinct segments. There are gaps between them through which the L turrets can fire if you know how to aim them: https://www.dropbox.com/s/v2x5st70g8g81 ... 1.jpg?dl=0

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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by nOy » Tue, 11. May 21, 19:02

No matter how we look at things, the simple fact is once a capital ship's engines are taken out, it is essentially a sitting duck. If enemy forces at that time isn't enough to take it down, additional reinforcements will. I can understand the decision behind thrusters being connected to engines but taking out engines is way too easy. I am deviating a bit from the thruster discussions but here are some suggestions.

Have 2 modes of engine operation, normal/travel mode and combat mode.

In combat mode, I imagine engines "recessing" into the superstructure or armored cowlings coming out to cover and protect the engines giving them additional protection at the expense of reduced forward thrust performance. In addition, in combat mode, make the "afterburner" boost more effective like 150% to 200% of combat thrust at the expense of lost shield strength. At the moment, there is no benefit at all in engaging boost for the majority of capital ships. You just lose shield strength over nothing. Combat boost thrust should be tactically useful (with a corresponding tradeoff like losing shields). This change will make it more interesting to make tactical decisions/tradeoffs when piloting capital ships like destroyers. Having combat mode for engines means thrusters will also work longer.

In normal/travel mode, the engine is out of the superstructure (comes out if transitioning from combat mode) as it currently looks in vanilla, or the armored cowlings recess back to the superstructure. Then it essentially performs like vanilla. You can even tie in the travel delay to the time it takes for the engine to transition from combat to travel mode. That would look cool and would give another meaning to the wait/spool up time for travel mode to engage. You can even make it so that engines in non-combat normal mode would be 50% out of the superstructure, 100% out for full travel mode. Visual indicators would be nice. It adds tactical options like, ooh that destroyer is not in combat mode, we have xx seconds to ambush and get that engine before it goes into lockdown.

Lastly, in combat mode, the recessing into the superstructure of the engine or deployment of armored cowlings make it so that the only way to easily take out an engine is if we shoot it from directly behind. You can then introduce a mechanic wherein the thrust wake damages shields/hull if we stay on it for too long. Make it difficult, but not impossible. IT IS A CAPITAL SHIP for crying out loud.

At the moment, it is laughably easy. I can take down a Xenon I with just 2 ships, a fighter to take out engines (no thrusters too so dead in the water), and a big boy with guns outranging the I's L turrets. Again, once the engines are taken out, its just a matter of using guns with a longer reach and staying out of range while you pound it to entropic oblivion. It gets boring after some time. These proposed changes introduces a bit of uncertainty and choice: shall I take out the engines or brute force my way through it? At the moment it's always, take out the engines dude, duh?!

If something like this is implemented, then flying solo in a fighter trying to take down a capital ship's engines won't become a chore. Of course there is always the option to brute alpha strike your way to victory but winning in other ways should be challenging and rewarding. :mrgreen:
Last edited by nOy on Tue, 11. May 21, 19:19, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by jlehtone » Tue, 11. May 21, 19:09

You don't need two ships now. Just one.
nOy wrote:
Tue, 11. May 21, 19:02
You can then introduce a mechanic wherein the thrust wake damages shields/hull if we stay on it for too long.:
The 4.0 did add that already.
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Re: Capital ships should still be able to use thrusters when engines are dead.

Post by nOy » Tue, 11. May 21, 19:20

I get the warnings, but it doesn't seem to do any damage so I am not sure what it was for.
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