Two Ships

from StarControl Forums

Earthling – The weapon thread made me think of a good way of representing this ship in SCO. The “point defense missile” submunition is an anti-fighter weapon that can do light damage to ships. The Earth ship already has point defense, and is supposed to be a lower point ship among the stock lineup of ships. This combination of weapons makes it very obviously a “carrier escort variant”... as if it was specifically designed to defend the mothership! The is an SCO version of the US Navy's Ticonderoga-class AEGIS cruiser. The long range missile is too powerful for this low point ship, and the submunition missiles of the MW missile can easily be balanced to be as powerful, or as weak, as you want them to be in a lot of different ways in addition to just changing the damage that they do. You can also make the “swarm” of missiles more or less accurate/effective in a lot of different ways. So this ship would never be a problem again, and be a thematically perfect match with the Earth mothership... as if it were designed to escort it and defend it from missiles, mines, & fighters.

 

Scyrve – Then you could give the Scyrve the “long range missile”, but turn it into whatever “alien lore technology” you want that makes it a “seeking energy weapon” that does not weaken with range. In other words, functionally identical to the long range missile with different FX and lore. Some type of “Orb of Energy”, a slow moving “wave of energy”, it can be anything you imagine that fits it's function.

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Reply #1 from StarControl Forums Top

So the MW missile would be the Earthling cruiser's primary.  What would be the secondary?  It can't be the point defense laser, because the MW missile does the same thing.

 

I think the Earthling Cruiser is just fine because the point defense laser does what your MW missile would do and the nuke is like launching a cruise missile to kill enemies far away to protect the mothership even better.

Reply #2 from StarControl Forums Top

The whole point is that it is a dedicated carrier escort, like a real-world AEGIS cruiser.  The PD lasers shoot down missiles and sweep mines, the MW missile is an anti-fighter weapon.  Both cause light damage to ships, the fact that they are both PD weapons is really just lore that works well with the situation.  The MW missile has a myopic zone that could be matched to the range of the PD lasers, so that it uses one weapon or the other depending on the range it is at.

You might also say that this ship used to be a pure warship variant that was converted to an escort when the carrier/mothership was built.  Then you might have two "Earth Cruisers", this escort variant that is the "main earth ship" you see in the game, but you might wind up with one of the "old" ones at some point during the game and it could have an anti-ship missile like the original SC2 ship.

 

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Reply #3 from StarControl Forums Top

That makes sense.

 

The Drenkend Carrier boarding parties are so slow the Earthling Cruiser doesn't need the MW missile.  But the Earthling Cruiser does need the MW missile with the Plinthi Contagion because those are an actual threat.  I'm not sure if the Tywom turrets are a threat.

 

Maybe there could be two kinds of Earthling Cruiser?  I like the standard one with the Nuke for 1 on 1 ship fights, but if there is a module you can put on the Mothership that calls in free reinforcements like the Menkmack do then you could select various reinforcements, one of which could be the Earthling Cruiser escort variant with the MW missile.

Reply #4 from StarControl Forums Top

There aren't really fighters in SCO, this MW missile design is actually meant to attack ships.  It's really just just a lore thing that it is an "anti-fighter" weapon.  It is this escort ship using the only weapon it has when it finds itself in a fight.  The earth ship is supposed to be a lower point ship, and this can be used to give it a capable but not powerful primary weapon.

I mentioned that you might think of it as a conversion to an escort from the original "old" standard combat variant as an idea for a one-time quest related thing you might do.  If you used the MW missile version in SCO, saying it was converted to an escort variant from the original standard warship, then you can have the original SC2 version appear once in the game in relation to a quest/story just to have the original version still make an appearance the game.  This is what real-world navies do with older ships that are still modern enough to be useful, they "convert" them into support variants like escorts, electronic warfare support, etc.  

Reply #5 from StarControl Forums Top

A quest like that sounds cool.

 

Are you sure there aren't fighters in SCO?  The Plinthi Contagion is like a slow bomber craft.  Since the Plinthi Contagion does not cost crew it has to be weaker than Kzer-Za fighters.

Reply #6 from StarControl Forums Top

There are things like fighters.  There are not squadrons of fighters launching waves of missiles, which a dedicated escort ship is actually designed to deal with.  The MW missile would always be shooting at another ship, not incoming fighters or missiles because SCO doesn't work that way. 

These aging and desperately needing to be replaced real world AEGIS cruisers are where this concept ultimately comes from.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticonderoga-class_cruiser

 

Something to understand about the Earth ship...

The “point defense lasers” on this ship are an extremely powerful thing. It has what feel like, in SFB terms, “4 Phaser-3's”. Or, one Phaser-G (Gatling Phaser). I am firmly in the camp that says that the PH-G is the best and most powerful weapon in the entire SFU. It is “just a point defense weapon”, but at point blank range it is better than a Photon Torpedo in every way. This what the Earth ship's secondary ability is... better than a Photon Torpedo at point blank range. Don't think of the Earth ship's “point defense weapon” as weak, or meant to shoot down missiles. These can't miss, auto-aiming shots are an extremely powerful thing.

 

 

Reply #7 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting Kavik_Kang, reply 6

The MW missile would always be shooting at another ship, not incoming fighters or missiles because SCO doesn't work that way. 

 

I'm pretty sure the Earthling Cruiser nuke actually does target Contagion, turrets, and boarding parties as of the previous update.

Reply #8 from StarControl Forums Top

That is kind of strange.  Why would you nuke a boarding pod?  That should be purely an anti-ship/planet weapon.  This MW warhead missile is just an "anti-figher weapon that can cause light damage to ships" by lore, and is actually designed to attack ships.  There are no "squadrons" of fighters in SCO to shoot a MW missile at.  I had the submunitions "spiraling" toward the target to randomize how many missiles hit in a "real" way, based on how many actually wind up hitting.  A "real" MW missile would independently target each subminition on a different target and the submunitions would have some form of guidance "warp seeker" or "sensor guided".

 

Reply #9 from StarControl Forums Top

Yeah I just confirmed with the most recent build that nukes target boarding parties, turrets, contagion, nearest Menkmack, and even Jeff.  Nukes target whatever is closest.  And the point defense laser targets them too, but does not kill them.  The point defense laser only kills nukes and other projectiles like the Tywom blaster.