Topic: Question about the ships with refiting

[shadpwriath]

Why do a couple of the ships have areas with so much mass point space that you have no hope offilling with everything possiable the race can even put in it with it's avaliable hardpoints for that area?

Wouldn't it be more prodent to either reduce those mass point space or add hardpoints to help fill it more.

[Alexander1701]

   Could you be more specific? I never have any problems filling my ships. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Alexander  

[ChamadaIV]

Quote:
Why do a couple of the ships have areas with so much mass point space that you have no hope offilling with everything possiable the race can even put in it with it's avaliable hardpoints for that area?

Wouldn't it be more prodent to either reduce those mass point space or add hardpoints to help fill it more.  

I'm very certain Taldren had a couple of things to look at when they came up with the hardpoints and the various mass points for each ship in the game.

1) Game Balance: First and foremost when dealing with such things. Blizzard Entertainment taught the game industry this important design lesson with its strategy games like  Starcraft  and  Warcraft . If you played those games or games like  MechWarrior  and such, you'll know exactly how crucial this aspect can be.

2) One word (and you see it A LOT on these forums): Canon. Because Taldren went with the Star Trek TNG license, they had to follow Trek canon closely (or as best they could) to stay true to said license (at least to the satisfaction of Activision and possibly even Paramount).

Sorry if I'm sounding a tad preachy here   , but this is how it usually is with many games under these circumstances.

I may, however, have to disagree with your saying there be too many mass points and not enough hardpoints. Take the Sovereign class for instance. The sucker's got all the standard weapon hardpoints spot on according to canon specs on a ship of its class. The four phaser hardpoints to front on the saucer which include the two forward and two side fire points and two rear ones as well, the 360 degree arc located ventral side of the ship, and the two rear fire hardpoints on the stardrive section. This adds up to more than enough space for weapons when you also include SIX (three forward, three rear) heavy weapons points.

Here's the thing though: Not enough mass for a set of phaser XII 's (fast recharge that is) on the forward end o' the ship, that is if you still want to have decent heavy weapons on your ship (I go with two forward quantums and one photon both forward and rear). Not even the Enterprise-E in the single player campaign has phaser XII 's, not a one, which goes against canon somewhat (Her collimated phaser array on the primary hull/saucer should have all phaser XII 's but it doesn't, and it too uses my same preferred heavy weapons setup).

So if you ask me, there should be more mass, and less hardpoints. But that's just me I suppose...    

[shadpwriath]

Now all the standerd ships and smaller are fine...could use more or less mass points.   But then you got the two big beast of the line up....the Borg Cube and the new guy Romulin Scimitar, both of which have nearly 2-3 times more mass points then one could fill with the biggest and fatest items.

Then there is like one or two ships that have hardpoints for items they can't even get.

There's also the one ship that is a death to larger hauls and an equal when set up right to smaller hauls.....the Defeint.

On General Romulins have enough hard points and mass points how ever they lack in weapon cycle time wich FORCES a deal of cloak time in the feild with any set up.

Borg are as they should be...a little tougher then the rest.   And the only ships needing to be able to rotate more then twice their impluse rate as they have more fire power on avg but an equal amount on all faceing's.

Fed ships when faceing enemy units that can easily stay on their tail makes any configs not geared for "spathi tactics" greatly hindered.  Which forces the use of mines and HET until they are too low for HET or out of mines and which point they are litraly at the mercy of the tail gater.  (You can warp at distence, but leaves you open for attack, warping doesn't happen like cloaking)

Klingon for the lack of heavy weapon pounch they make up for in primery pounch and hardpoint hitting.

------------------

Now seeing the weakness in most units and nearly any design type....tractor beam warfare makes the enemy on the mercy of the dude that has him tractored.  How ever if the target has more firepower or shields tractor warfare just makes it easy FOR THEM.  

[ChamadaIV]

Quote:
There's also the one ship that is a death to larger hauls and an equal when set up right to smaller hauls.....the Defeint.

You betcha. That's what Captain Sisko (DS9) meant for the Defiant when he designed it. A tough little bastard that can take on the big guys.

Quote:
On General Romulins have enough hard points and mass points how ever they lack in weapon cycle time wich FORCES a deal of cloak time in the feild with any set up.

Fast disruptors should make up for this, at the expense of other systems....

Quote:
Fed ships when faceing enemy units that can easily stay on their tail makes any configs not geared for "spathi tactics" greatly hindered.  Which forces the use of mines and HET until they are too low for HET or out of mines and which point they are litraly at the mercy of the tail gater.  (You can warp at distence, but leaves you open for attack, warping doesn't happen like cloaking)

I've noticed the Klinks are more at danger when it comes to back attacks. The Feds are more than ready for such instances with their numerous rear facing hardpoints. As for mines and antimatter mines (the latter I never bother using), they're merely a distraction to be used against your enemy (for those of you who do run into mines, I suggest going back to the tutorials for more helm practice, sorry   ).

Haven't you noticed how odd it is when you go to warp and get shot at? I almost never take much damage for some reason, even on those rare occasions when a heavy weapon hits me at that speed. Is this unique to me, or is this happening to others as well?

Quote:
Now seeing the weakness in most units and nearly any design type....tractor beam warfare makes the enemy on the mercy of the dude that has him tractored.  How ever if the target has more firepower or shields tractor warfare just makes it easy FOR THEM.  

Not so says I. If only you knew about the "warp speed tarctor" exploit/bug in the game....      

[Aenigma]

 

Quote:
 Haven't you noticed how odd it is when you go to warp and get shot at? I almost never take much damage for some reason, even on those rare occasions when a heavy weapon hits me at that speed. Is this unique to me, or is this happening to others as well?

This is mostly caused by the weapon power drain. When you fire a weapon over long distance its energy dissipates, leaving very little damagepotential (and they are more likely to miss)

To stay on topic: I don't think it would a good idea if ships get more weaponmass. Your warpcore just can't provide the energy for that, and because of this your ship is weaker than a more clever design which doesn't use up all hardpoints.

Arrain Aenigma  

[shadpwriath]

Why do a couple of the ships have areas with so much mass point space that you have no hope offilling with everything possiable the race can even put in it with it's avaliable hardpoints for that area?

Wouldn't it be more prodent to either reduce those mass point space or add hardpoints to help fill it more.

[Alexander1701]

   Could you be more specific? I never have any problems filling my ships. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Alexander  

[ChamadaIV]

Quote:
Why do a couple of the ships have areas with so much mass point space that you have no hope offilling with everything possiable the race can even put in it with it's avaliable hardpoints for that area?

Wouldn't it be more prodent to either reduce those mass point space or add hardpoints to help fill it more.  

I'm very certain Taldren had a couple of things to look at when they came up with the hardpoints and the various mass points for each ship in the game.

1) Game Balance: First and foremost when dealing with such things. Blizzard Entertainment taught the game industry this important design lesson with its strategy games like  Starcraft  and  Warcraft . If you played those games or games like  MechWarrior  and such, you'll know exactly how crucial this aspect can be.

2) One word (and you see it A LOT on these forums): Canon. Because Taldren went with the Star Trek TNG license, they had to follow Trek canon closely (or as best they could) to stay true to said license (at least to the satisfaction of Activision and possibly even Paramount).

Sorry if I'm sounding a tad preachy here   , but this is how it usually is with many games under these circumstances.

I may, however, have to disagree with your saying there be too many mass points and not enough hardpoints. Take the Sovereign class for instance. The sucker's got all the standard weapon hardpoints spot on according to canon specs on a ship of its class. The four phaser hardpoints to front on the saucer which include the two forward and two side fire points and two rear ones as well, the 360 degree arc located ventral side of the ship, and the two rear fire hardpoints on the stardrive section. This adds up to more than enough space for weapons when you also include SIX (three forward, three rear) heavy weapons points.

Here's the thing though: Not enough mass for a set of phaser XII 's (fast recharge that is) on the forward end o' the ship, that is if you still want to have decent heavy weapons on your ship (I go with two forward quantums and one photon both forward and rear). Not even the Enterprise-E in the single player campaign has phaser XII 's, not a one, which goes against canon somewhat (Her collimated phaser array on the primary hull/saucer should have all phaser XII 's but it doesn't, and it too uses my same preferred heavy weapons setup).

So if you ask me, there should be more mass, and less hardpoints. But that's just me I suppose...    

[shadpwriath]

Now all the standerd ships and smaller are fine...could use more or less mass points.   But then you got the two big beast of the line up....the Borg Cube and the new guy Romulin Scimitar, both of which have nearly 2-3 times more mass points then one could fill with the biggest and fatest items.

Then there is like one or two ships that have hardpoints for items they can't even get.

There's also the one ship that is a death to larger hauls and an equal when set up right to smaller hauls.....the Defeint.

On General Romulins have enough hard points and mass points how ever they lack in weapon cycle time wich FORCES a deal of cloak time in the feild with any set up.

Borg are as they should be...a little tougher then the rest.   And the only ships needing to be able to rotate more then twice their impluse rate as they have more fire power on avg but an equal amount on all faceing's.

Fed ships when faceing enemy units that can easily stay on their tail makes any configs not geared for "spathi tactics" greatly hindered.  Which forces the use of mines and HET until they are too low for HET or out of mines and which point they are litraly at the mercy of the tail gater.  (You can warp at distence, but leaves you open for attack, warping doesn't happen like cloaking)

Klingon for the lack of heavy weapon pounch they make up for in primery pounch and hardpoint hitting.

------------------

Now seeing the weakness in most units and nearly any design type....tractor beam warfare makes the enemy on the mercy of the dude that has him tractored.  How ever if the target has more firepower or shields tractor warfare just makes it easy FOR THEM.  

[ChamadaIV]

Quote:
There's also the one ship that is a death to larger hauls and an equal when set up right to smaller hauls.....the Defeint.

You betcha. That's what Captain Sisko (DS9) meant for the Defiant when he designed it. A tough little bastard that can take on the big guys.

Quote:
On General Romulins have enough hard points and mass points how ever they lack in weapon cycle time wich FORCES a deal of cloak time in the feild with any set up.

Fast disruptors should make up for this, at the expense of other systems....

Quote:
Fed ships when faceing enemy units that can easily stay on their tail makes any configs not geared for "spathi tactics" greatly hindered.  Which forces the use of mines and HET until they are too low for HET or out of mines and which point they are litraly at the mercy of the tail gater.  (You can warp at distence, but leaves you open for attack, warping doesn't happen like cloaking)

I've noticed the Klinks are more at danger when it comes to back attacks. The Feds are more than ready for such instances with their numerous rear facing hardpoints. As for mines and antimatter mines (the latter I never bother using), they're merely a distraction to be used against your enemy (for those of you who do run into mines, I suggest going back to the tutorials for more helm practice, sorry   ).

Haven't you noticed how odd it is when you go to warp and get shot at? I almost never take much damage for some reason, even on those rare occasions when a heavy weapon hits me at that speed. Is this unique to me, or is this happening to others as well?

Quote:
Now seeing the weakness in most units and nearly any design type....tractor beam warfare makes the enemy on the mercy of the dude that has him tractored.  How ever if the target has more firepower or shields tractor warfare just makes it easy FOR THEM.  

Not so says I. If only you knew about the "warp speed tarctor" exploit/bug in the game....      

[Aenigma]

 

Quote:
 Haven't you noticed how odd it is when you go to warp and get shot at? I almost never take much damage for some reason, even on those rare occasions when a heavy weapon hits me at that speed. Is this unique to me, or is this happening to others as well?

This is mostly caused by the weapon power drain. When you fire a weapon over long distance its energy dissipates, leaving very little damagepotential (and they are more likely to miss)

To stay on topic: I don't think it would a good idea if ships get more weaponmass. Your warpcore just can't provide the energy for that, and because of this your ship is weaker than a more clever design which doesn't use up all hardpoints.

Arrain Aenigma