Home » Stars! 2.6/7 » The Academy » Some specific Nubian design questions
| Some specific Nubian design questions |
Fri, 15 May 2009 09:19  |
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After reading everything here I can find on Nubian design I have a few questions:
1) I saw two references with respect to shields, where the writer(s) said to use two slots with RS, one slot without. Why? I would think this would be reversed, to use two slots without RS, and one slot with RS. Thoughts?
2) I saw a few references to a 'fully gatable' ARM Nubian with two slots of ARMs. Well a Nubian hull, and two slots of ARMs, already has a weight of 310, and that is without an engine, shield, computers, etc. With an FM engine and 4 slots of comps the weight is 340, which will take damage from gating. Am I missing something here? What does 'fully gatable' mean to people?
Raindancer
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| Re: Some specific Nubian design questions |
Fri, 15 May 2009 09:43  |
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| Micha | 
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Messages: 2343
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1 | |
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| Raindancer wrote on Fri, 15 May 2009 15:19 |
1) I saw two references with respect to shields, where the writer(s) said to use two slots with RS, one slot without. Why? I would think this would be reversed, to use two slots without RS, and one slot with RS. Thoughts?
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I'm guessing one of those writers is Iztok. 
I believe there are two 'schools' here. Because of RS you have the advantage to get 40% more shielding per slot and they regenerate 10% of the *original* size. You can 1) maximize that advantage by using 2 slots and regenerate a whole lot of shielding. Or 2) you can use only one slot for shields and look at it as saving a slot for something else ...
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2) I saw a few references to a 'fully gatable' ARM Nubian with two slots of ARMs. Well a Nubian hull, and two slots of ARMs, already has a weight of 310, and that is without an engine, shield, computers, etc. With an FM engine and 4 slots of comps the weight is 340, which will take damage from gating. Am I missing something here? What does 'fully gatable' mean to people?
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'Fully gatable' depends on the situation. I can't give an exact number but the usual unarmored beamer BBs weighs around 374kT (NRSE), losses are minimal and merging an arrival will get rid of the damage. The arma nub you are referring too will probably be around 370kT as well.
For WMs their DNs tend to go above 400kT which is still tolarable. You'll often see a weight reduction by using lesser engines, thanks to their + 1/2 move bonus they can use the FM and OTs up front and still get fast beamers.
mch
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| Re: Some specific Nubian design questions |
Fri, 15 May 2009 19:16 |
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 mlaub |
 | Lieutenant |
Messages: 744
Registered: November 2003
Location: MN, USA | |
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| iztok wrote on Fri, 15 May 2009 10:54 |
Hi!
| Micha wrote on Fri, 15 May 2009 15:43 |
I'm guessing one of those writers is Iztok.
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 I'm just describing my "standard" nub design I adopted from old gurus. I really can't comment the differrence of 1 and 2 slots of shields, because I NEVER played without RS, but I guess I'd really use the the second one slot even if I'd go non-RS. Unfortunately I don't have much practical experience in Nub design. Games I'm in usually tend to end before Nub era.
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I had a long running discussion at one time that is similar to this question. The discussion itself was RS vs no RS. Basically the gist was that you use 1 slot for armor, instead of shields, if you did not choose RS, as it gives much more lasting protection against missiles. That shields are easy to destroy, and give less actual dp. The problem with the argument, IMO, is that it totally ignores the fp gained via cheaper nubian costs and hence a larger stack with base armor (which is cheaper overall IIRC). However, again IIRC, the overall difference was less than 15% in overall performance, but might be different per case basis. That is not a huge difference, but much of the end game battles are so one sided. That one sided-ness is yet another argument for RS, as shields are treated as a whole, while armor is not. And, once you start building a design, you usually stick with it for the stack benefits.
If you extend that to this argument, I am guessing that the person was thinking that you still want 1 stack of shields, period, in any sort of general design. However, without RS, the shields are lame enough you would need 3 stacks to approximate RS, but you still don't get the regen. So, just skip it all together and use some other device that might make the design competitive in other ways. Perhaps armor, comps, deflectors, OT's or jammers would be a better fit.
As someone who has played many games far into the nubian era, I can tell you there is no perfect nubian design. You may not like the counter design you have to build to defeat your enemy, but you can counter any design. And substituting a stack of non RS shields is a perfect example of where to start looking at design changes to make a counter to your enemies design. This might be where that statement comes from...
-Matt
Global Warming - A climatic change eagerly awaited by most Minnesotans.
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| Re: Some specific Nubian design questions |
Tue, 19 May 2009 09:04 |
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| iztok |
| Commander |
Messages: 1219
Registered: April 2003
Location: Slovenia, Europe | |
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Hi!
| mlaub wrote on Sat, 16 May 2009 01:16 |
The problem with the argument, IMO, is that it totally ignores the fp gained via cheaper nubian costs and hence a larger stack with base armor (which is cheaper overall IIRC).
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Yeah  . The price for 3 SuperLat armors is higher than the price for a bare Nub hull.
Armors in Stars! are overpriced.  If cap-ship missiles wouldn't do the double damage to ships without shields, then armors would still be usefull. But this way I only put them on orbitals, and on my missile BBs. All that iron there is worth some additional protection...
I remember making a mod, where I decreased cost of all armors by about 50%, and decreased the weight of (most of) them by about 1/3. In a testbed it felt right, at least the RS was not such an obvious choice anymore.
BR, Iztok
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| Re: Some specific Nubian design questions |
Tue, 19 May 2009 17:46 |
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| mlaub |
| Lieutenant |
Messages: 744
Registered: November 2003
Location: MN, USA | |
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| iztok wrote on Tue, 19 May 2009 08:04 |
Hi!
| mlaub wrote on Sat, 16 May 2009 01:16 |
The problem with the argument, IMO, is that it totally ignores the fp gained via cheaper nubian costs and hence a larger stack with base armor (which is cheaper overall IIRC).
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Yeah . The price for 3 SuperLat armors is higher than the price for a bare Nub hull.
Armors in Stars! are overpriced. If cap-ship missiles wouldn't do the double damage to ships without shields, then armors would still be usefull. But this way I only put them on orbitals, and on my missile BBs. All that iron there is worth some additional protection...
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Well, armor is useful to AR's and HE's, and team games with AR's. It is simply amazing what happens to ships designs when minerals are irrelevant. Other than that I completely agree.
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I remember making a mod, where I decreased cost of all armors by about 50%, and decreased the weight of (most of) them by about 1/3. In a testbed it felt right, at least the RS was not such an obvious choice anymore.
BR, Iztok
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That sounds about right.
The biggest issue IMO, is getting fully armored gateable BB designs with normal races. The Midgame is where most people play, and unless you add another ship hull, or play WM, armor is just to heavy if you use almost the entire stack. If you don't, then it really is never worth it compared to RS.
My stab at it in the Glacier games is limiting shields to energy10 and no missiles, just torps (AR's special)...which has its own issues.
Also, "Armor = ultra heavy" seems like an old idea. Why does armor weigh more than a shield generator? I bet that the 2 would weigh similar amounts...
-Matt
Global Warming - A climatic change eagerly awaited by most Minnesotans.
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| Re: Some specific Nubian design questions |
Tue, 19 May 2009 19:43 |
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You guys are making me want to find StarEd again :3
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| Re: Some specific Nubian design questions |
Tue, 19 May 2009 20:52 |
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| Coyote wrote on Tue, 19 May 2009 16:43 |
You guys are making me want to find StarEd again :3
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Which I did - and couldn't get it to run. Bill Gates hates me.
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| Re: Some specific Nubian design questions |
Tue, 19 May 2009 21:33 |
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| mlaub |
| Lieutenant |
Messages: 744
Registered: November 2003
Location: MN, USA | |
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| Eagle of Fire wrote on Tue, 19 May 2009 19:08 |
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Also, "Armor = ultra heavy" seems like an old idea. Why does armor weigh more than a shield generator? I bet that the 2 would weigh similar amounts...
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I sure hope you are kidding.
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No, not really. Show me on paper how a device designed to absorb massive amounts of energy, and dissipate it too, is lighter than armor. By our current physics we can't even build a "containment field" for nuclear fusion no matter how heavy or large. However, we can make pretty damn good armor to slap on a tank...
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I understand that the STARS! tech files are misleading with their image of a shield representing the armor items for ships... But we're talking about adding, sheet by sheet, additionnal layers which cover the whole ship to provide protection.
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All in a nice tidy package that is getting lighter by the year. And we don't even have room temperature superconductors yet! Imagine!
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Versus small force shield generating devices which can easily be encased inside the ship itself.
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Talk about pure scifi!
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I have no idea how armor could ever be the same weight, unless we someday manage to find some kind of alloy which would, by default, be stronger than the armor layers you could possibly plan to sport on the ship...
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Modern armor is layered with different materials with different properties. You are also assuming that Armor is some passive componet like steel. What about Active Armor? That armor is explosives in a light case designed to explode and disrupt the shaped charge head of a missle. You could do the same thing by "polarizing" a hull. Hmmm... Now where have I heard of that before...
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And from my POV, that's what the base armor is also supposed to represent IMHO: increase in strenght of the base hull versus lower CONstruction hulls.
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No. My view of the hull is just that. Picture a modern navy warship that is compartmentalized. Built with basic Armor...
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And before you argue about realisticity: why do we have to destroy the whole armor layer before being able to destroy a ship instead of hammering a single point on the vessel and destroying everything from the inside when it is breached?
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Wow, tough crowd. Back at you. Why would any sane Admiral order all the shields on every ship of a particular class to be removed, before moving on to the armor of individual ships, using beam weapons? That right there is much more unrealistic than your armor question.
You can just assume that the Armor value is not the "true" value, but a set arbitrary averaged value before catastrophic burn through somewhere in the ship.
There is no similar concept that I can conceptualize for "Let's combine all the shields of every ship into one big shield". I mean, be honest, if it was possible, you don't think that there would be burn throughs at points of concentrated fire? Really?
And if a stack can do it, why not all the ships in the battle?
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I think armored STARS! vessel have it quite good already.
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I suppose you want your opponets to use armor. Good plan!
-Matt
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Global Warming - A climatic change eagerly awaited by most Minnesotans.
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| Re: Some specific Nubian design questions |
Wed, 20 May 2009 01:08 |
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| Coyote wrote on Tue, 19 May 2009 20:52 |
| Coyote wrote on Tue, 19 May 2009 16:43 |
You guys are making me want to find StarEd again :3
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Which I did - and couldn't get it to run. Bill Gates hates me.
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It should work fine but only with the jrc3 patch.
I played with it when thinking about my "Mauryan Campaign" scenario a while back. I made a mod to allow some advanced ships to be built for free & a few other things & then transfered the ships from one race to another & back.
From then on the game could be played with the jrc4 patch.
BTW the reason for transfering the ships is that otherwise the advanced ships turn to mush - i.e. advanced tech items are converted to current tech equivalents.
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| Re: Some specific Nubian design questions |
Wed, 20 May 2009 14:54 |
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| m.a@stars |
| Commander |
Messages: 2768
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third star to the left | |
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| mlaub wrote on Wed, 20 May 2009 03:33 |
There is no similar concept that I can conceptualize for "Let's combine all the shields of every ship into one big shield". I mean, be honest, if it was possible, you don't think that there would be burn throughs at points of concentrated fire? Really?
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Why not? Ships of the same design, with identical autopiloting computers, flying in extremely close formation, overlapping shields of exactly the same specs, while the enemy fires at them form a significant distance away... 
It would then take pretty good accuracy, and also a severe weakening of all the overlapped shields, to hit & puncture a single ship in such a crowd. 
So many Stars, so few Missiles!
In space no one can hear you scheme!  Report message to a moderator
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| Re: Some specific Nubian design questions |
Mon, 09 March 2020 05:04 |
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| magic9mushroom |
| Commander |
Messages: 1369
Registered: May 2008 | |
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WRT shields on Nubians:
1 slot of shields is worthwhile because it reduces shipkills from battles you win easily. With no shields you take 1 kill/5000 dp from beams and torpedoes and 1 kill/2500 dp from missiles. With shields, until the shields drop (which they won't, given the criterion of "win easily") you take no shipkills from beams, and 1 kill/10000 dp from torpedoes and missiles.
The second slot of shields is not worth it as non-RS, as high-tech shields are expensive and jammers and beam deflectors (cheap due to miniaturisation) are more efficient (a second slot of Complete Phase Shields instead of deflectors typically gives about +25% iron cost and +15% germ cost on a beamer nubian). Even as RS, I'd think twice about doing it on a beamer nubian, although torpedo/missile nubs are much more expensive in iron and germ (so the cost increase is less significant) and thus the second slot is a good idea.
WRT armour on Nubians:
The only circumstance in which you should even consider using armour on nubians is if both:
1) You don't have RS
2) Your limiting factor is germanium.
Superlatanium is inefficient in iron and incredibly inefficient in resources compared to simply building more Nubian hulls, but building more Nubian hulls will force you to use more electronics/beam deflectors and thus spend more germanium (the hull itself also costs some germ). If you've got plenty of iron and resources but no germ (factoried races can wind up here), then superlatanium is essentially free and thus of some use - the decrease in shipkills is pretty enormous (note the weight, though; your beamers will tend to move first and your torp ships take a hit in gatability). Otherwise, stay away; that stuff's meant for Dreadnoughts and Death Stars (and even then, the argument for using dreads in the nub era also revolves around germ).
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