What starship SciFi series\flicks can those who play starshatter recommend?

[Tophat1815]

ORIGINAL: Furyofaseraph

I'm suprised no one has suggested creating an Honorverse mod. Anyone read the books?

Yes it does seem that SS would be able to recreate those battles well.

[Furyofaseraph]

I really need to figure out how to get sensors to be as nuanced as they are in the honorverse.

[Tophat1815]

ORIGINAL: Furyofaseraph

I really need to figure out how to get sensors to be as nuanced as they are in the honorverse.

Well missle could also be takenout via pointdefence systems or ECM drones.

[Furyofaseraph]

Defense-Laser Clusters and Countermissiles are easy to do in Starshatter. Proximity softkills can be done through a damage type set to EMP. Bomb-pumped laser torpedos can be done through Submunitions - i think.
The ECM/ECCM system worries me, because as far as I can see, there is no such function in Starshatter. there are stealth modes, but thats not quite the same thing, at least as far as I understand it. Stealth modes try to minimize detection by cutting down emissions: whereas ECM/ECCM tries to disrupt a lock on by flooding sensors with noise.
Also, in the books, there is a type of decoy that can be deployed that will make the enemy sensors see another ship, could there be a way to do that?

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: Furyofaseraph

ECM/ECCM tries to disrupt a lock on by flooding sensors with noise.

I think you are describing jamming devices...

[edit]
Just realized that jammers are part of ECM. What comes to ECCM, its purpose is to counter ECM.

[Furyofaseraph]

Lol, right.
So my question is, is there a way to set up Jamming in Starshatter?

[Zanthras]

I dont believe there is...
 
BUT the good news is there is a way to lower your signature to prevent being seen by enemy sensors.
 
Despite contrary belief, lowering your EMCOM level does work...I use it successfully quite often.
 
with patience you can sneak up right under the stern of an enemy vessel to within laser/graser range.
 
Guiding your support ships can a nightmare, but it is possible to bring all guns at your command to bear right under the belly of a Broadsword class destroyer. They tend to go pop with that much firepower up the tailpipe...might be something to do with a reactor core breach, or something like that.
 
A future suggestion...
 
When you cannot do something one way in the game...think the opposite...it might be possible.
 
 

[Tophat1815]

 Hmmmn,
             Peep vs Mantie & Grayson forces.I like it! As long as Point-defence can hit incoming missles that is.

             A Basilisk station scenario between a light cruiser,short of missles,with Energy Torps? Against a Q-ship?

             Modding battlecruisers,battleships and Superdreadnoughts? I don't know..........comment more after i actually play through the builtin dynamic campaign.

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: Zanthras

Guiding your support ships can a nightmare, but it is possible to bring all guns at your command to bear right under the belly of a Broadsword class destroyer. They tend to go pop with that much firepower up the tailpipe...might be something to do with a reactor core breach, or something like that.

Reactor is between tailpipes. Even single Thunderbolt can set it off with additional bonus that Broadswords don't even try maneuver to bring their PDB to bear.

[Furyofaseraph]

Hmm... I was playing around with the honorverse idea. I see a few problems: for one - the wedge: without multiple shield systems there is no way to make a difference between sidewalls and the floor/roof wedge. I know the B5 Mod did Hyperspace, but I dont know how.
Also: IMHO, the ships are rather ugly: they look like *ahem* certain feminine products. :-\     

[Zanthras]

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen
Reactor is between tailpipes. Even single Thunderbolt can set it off with additional bonus that Broadswords don't even try maneuver to bring their PDB to bear.

this is true...the comment was rhetorical

[smaff]

I also rather like the Honor Harrington universe and I've tried to set (the original) starshatter so that it will recreate the ships.
 
There is however, one major issue. Fundamental to the Honorverse is the idea of the broadside - that is to say you don't really point your nose at the people you want to hit, you curve away from them, and try to keep them side on. Indeed the best way is to "Cross the T", shooting down the unprotected nose.
 
As for the shields - Well, I dunno if multiple shield systems can be done - presumably not, but you can limit the protection down by supplying a mesh to the sheild subsystem, which would at least generate the open ends. By having a relatively fast recharging capacitative shield with a damage co-efficient, so that under fire it allows some damage to go through you could simulate the feel of the shields...
 
But again in the final issue, the concept of the broadside brings along the "Ship of the Wall" idea, and while there are formations, they do seem to be based on the idea of bringing the largest numbers of noses to bear - rather fatal in the honorverse :>
 
Cluster munitions would do the "Bomb pumped laser torps", though I'm not sure how you'd get them to prefer the nose/tail of the ship rather than the usual "crash into", point defense shooting them down is kind of integral to Starshatter and by slowing *everything* down, massively shortening ranges etc, you can actually make the game a joy to watch too, rather than a collection of dots shooting at eachother.
 
However, the AI didn't seem to cut it in the last version. Anyone know if it'll naturally do broadsides now?
(not had time to check).
 
Can't say I blame Milo for not, either - I had a think about how to do this, and my nice simple state engine rapidly turned into something rather more complex, and I'm sure, CPU hungry (And possibly start refering to me as "Dave", and refusing to open the pod bay door :>).

[Tophat1815]

 I like Webers books as well,that being said i have a question:

 1) Why does a ship need to be broadside to launch on a target? The missles are selfguided,you launch and they course correct to target.Then they can be set for variable accelloration.

 2) I have no idea how you'd model the "Impellor Wedge",thats impervious missles.

I like the current game system,but we need a non-100% lethal anti-missle point-defence that gives some protection vs Anti-ship missles!

[smaff]

The torps arn't launched from broadsides per se - there's generally alot of launcher tubes, and the missiles largely move under their own power before going "ballisitic" (ie. moving purely under the influence of gravity). From my recollection you don't tend to use torps much when you're close up as your opponents point defense may splat them too close to your own ship, or even fire through the hole made in your sidewalls as you launch the munition.
 
As far as I can tell, the torps are their to soften up or cripple the target so you can manoever to cross their T when in primary battery range.
 
Broadsides are when you're in primary laser range, and are attempting to "smash down their sidewall", either to cripple the gun deck, trim their sails (damage the impellers), or indeed sink them entirely (damage the reactor so it explodes).
 
And you can introduce some randomness into the aiming of your PDB shots (I created a "pulse laser" based PDB once, which was rather ferocious until I discovered that bit), which would give a statistical nature to defending against incoming torps, as per the books. By making more advanced torps a bit faster, they'd be more likely of surviving the hail of fire, especially as the Honorverse missles do go off at some range & then zap you.
 
As for 2) I dunno - without the ability to do multiple shield generators you can't do this. Its theoretically possible, in that a shield is a collision mesh, so you could define a mesh which covers the top and bottom, and link it to a shield with perfect defensive abilities, and then a mesh for the sides and link that to a subsystem with less than perfect stats... the game would have to take into account the idea of hitting multiple meshes, which would (certainly if overused) slow the game down if a ship is being hit *alot*.
 
Be nice if it did multiple shield meshes, even if it'd only ever hit one of them, the concept of sheild "banks" is rather pervasive.
 

[Furyofaseraph]

1) it doesnt NEED to be on its broadside to launch, thats just the ideal position. There are chase (bow and aft) armaments on most ships, but a good captain never really shows his bow or stern, and always tries to get the other to show his bow or stern. As such missiles are programed to try and scoot around the sidewalls (or wedge) to try and come in on a vector to the bow or stern.
2) the wedge would be easy to model. and program, except for the fact that sidewalls arent as powerful as the roof and floor of the wedge itself.

[Tophat1815]

 Do you have designs for Manticore,Andermani,Peeps,Solarian League,etc..?