Armor has been a running meme for ages now.... it's existence is going to make the game make more sense and actually work as intended(rock paper scissors) but it's also going to cause even more spectrum "Reeeeee" as everyone suddenly realizes their ships can't keep doing what they've always done. I hope CIG rips off all the bandaids in 4.0 so we can finally get the game we all paid for. This includes the removal of "hard armistice"

Ded you should try the engineering test in AC. Worth remembering, it is just a test, however the hull values of the Hercules in that mode have been greatly increased and blowing up the ship is almost near impossible. But i think it certainly hints that they have that in mind.

reclaimer = pops like a baloon. retaliator = "tis but a flesh wound!"

Engineering is all reactive gameplay at this time. I think it seriously needs proportionally more proactive loops that give short term buffs to the ship (or a specific component) to make multi-crew a force multiplier in combat. These loops should allow for participation of multiple crew members to enhance the benefits received from the activity. This would make flying some of the larger ships soloable, but their effectiveness in combat is largely dependent upon the multi-crew component.

Armor is a huge factor that needs to come in. They way they've described it, it should be like how armor works in World or Tanks/World of Warships. A light fighter/interceptor just wouldn't be able to penetrate it...or, maybe at close range, at the right angle, with the right size weapon. That would make a massive difference. Plus it makes sense, those smaller fighters escort the Ares, etc, to get in to hit the large ship. Not a Buccaneer soloing anything.

This exactly. It’s had me really curious, because unless something changes, flying the bigger ones just won’t feel worth it. Here’s hoping it’s more ship tuning and optimization to fly better than “run around entire C2 replacing 40 fuses every 20min.”

They also need to allow turrets to shoot, at least during a period during nav mode, perhaps making the switch to nav from scm take longer and allow turret gunners to defend while running away while an attacking ship attack. Right now, without a dampener, it’s all run or fight. And industrial/ cargo ships are just going to run. At least make it matter that they fend off the attack for a few seconds before being able to run

The US Navy has had the “See-Wiz” automated defense turrets on our warships for years now; they can autonomously engage incoming misses and fighters with a speed and accuracy no human can match. Several similar systems exist within the fleets of other countries. This is 2024, and this tech has been around for a while… I realize that Star Citizen is a game, and CIG wants the majority of ship systems to require human input (and I totally get it). In the 2900’s-the time period Star Citizen is supposed to be set in-ALL ships would most likely fly themselves with no direct human piloting. Likewise, their weapon systems would almost certainly be completely Ai controlled, since we humans have poor reflexes and inadequate spatial awareness to accurately calculate the trajectories fast moving targets over large distances. Humans also would never find themselves piloting interceptors and flying “by the skin of their teeth”. But “reality” would make for a pretty boring game. We would essentially all be sitting inside of windowless armored machines, telling them where to go and what to do. Our whole experience would just be issuing commands, and waiting to see what happens. CIG has to walk a fine line here, and I assume they wrestle with these issues a great deal. Technological inconsistencies aside, I believe CIG should ask themselves (using the Reclaimer as an example) “How would this ship have been engineered and configured by a REAL company-were that company to exist within this artificial construct of a universe?” The Reclaimer’s purpose is to salvage, while, I assume being able to effectively defend its precious cargo from small to medium level threats. I don’t think a REAL company in this fictional universe would design a behemoth ship which constantly sits there salvaging with its pants down. I think the engineering priority would be to give it (perhaps automated) systems to swat small and medium fighters, and enough armor to get the F out of Dodge if something bigger comes knocking. Again, it’s a very difficult game to balance, even without the science-level/time-period quandary. Great video, as always!

I think someone at CIG talked about this on a recent SCL, pretty sure they said ships will be much harder to full death kill in 4.0. Engineering touches on so many parts of how the ships function, and how battles are meant to play out generally, especially (but not limited to) with larger ships, so they're making changes to allow that.

Have you tried attacking a reclaimer in 3.23? I’m not even remotely able to get through the thing’s shields with my cutlass black (let alone my Gladius). Even firing every single missile doesn’t seem to dent the shields

Yup. My MSR is completely useless right now AND if a fire starts, the pilot can not even flee to an escape route. HP is low, components are stacked next to each other on the wing.

4:50, not all heroes wear capes

My crew mainly does salvage and with the missions being "broken". We've taken to cleaning up destination points if we can access the ships. Its lead to some interesting gameplay.

100%. We need a way to tractor and drop the shields of Gamerule ships. Just let us do what we want to these abandoned ships.

3:07 and there’s an opportunity to balance the location of weak spots around the risk an attacker takes. E.G. near a turret or close to the field of view of the pilot.

small ships also can get more stealth and yes small weakpoints on big ships would be cool specifically for smaller ships.

I love to be able to repair abandoned ships and sell them.

Having a good engineer on your ship should be almost like having a healer in WoW

Larger distortion weapons mounted on capital ships pass through lighter shields doing more damage to light fighter systems. ie turn them into sitting ducks for other turrets or leave them floating while the capital ships leave the AO. Component damage to a fighter ships system shuts it down, pilot would need to exit the ship to repair.

most of the time capital ships right now are piloted by 1 person. its rare that those ships have a crew. its only natural that a single small ship would then destroy the bigboi.

the first implementation of engineering will be overtuned for "test purposes" so you will not fly ur ship but run from one end to another repairing every 5 min as components break themselv out of thin air. and then they will leave it in this overtuned state for 5 years like the drink/food system.

You raise some excellent points.

I like your videos. I have played since the summer of 3.17. Since then they keep adding more game features faster than they can balance these new features into the game. I have done software development and read lots of early game development books so i have some background in games. I don't have your knowledge but i have some and i have worked on big defense software projects where the scope creep greatly outpaced what they could develop. I see lots of similarities with SC software development.

As long light fighters take a proportionate amount of “engineering” game play to maintain; I’m excited

This is already in the engineering test mode in the live patch and has been since 3.23 was in ptu the values for health are about 12 times the hp for the a1 in the mode I've never blown up before component death and boarding and counter boarding are a major thing

It'll be interesting to see where they take this. The timeline for implementing armour being unknown, I think it's safe to assume they'll monitor the situation and that some adjustments are made for the release of 4.0, or at least during its time on Live. There are also questions about how armour will be implemented, and what - if any - incentives players have not to hard death NPCs or other players (by destroying the power plant). This may influence smaller ships far more than larger ships, but it brings another challenge to engineering gameplay, in particular for solo-players and small ship players. Do I as a hornet pilot need to carry with me a repair tool and copious amount of repair canisters? I mean, that would be cool, but what are the chances I'll actually get to use any of that before a player or particularly vengeful NPC destroys my power plant and blows up my ship?

Ship health buffs I’m down for. The problem atm is not that a gladius can kill any given industrial or large ship. It’s twofold: no anti-fighter turret weapon exists, and TTK is too low. 1: They still haven’t added flak (proximity fuse aoe weapon - should be the lowest dps of its size, but the absolute easiest to land hits with, ballistic has bigger aoe and a little more damage, energy ofc gets infinite ammo). We must get flak as a weapon that’s restricted to *manned* turrets. This would give larger ships a weapon that can at least screen fighters, and can kill them very quickly if they stray too close. CIG insist they want WW2 in space, but refuse to implement WW2’s most basic answer to the threat small fighters posed to even the biggest ships: flak. 2. TTK is too low. A gladius can solo many bigger ships in less time than those ships can exit atmosphere, or even align and jump. This is both just bad balance and means interdiction isn’t necessary. A pirate duo with a mantis and gladius should be able to tackle a larger ship, and even wear it down, but it should take a while, and involve risk. Flak that is very accurate (90% or so) at about half size 1-4 cannon range, and down to about 5% at max size 1-4 cannon range, would make this a much more engaging gameplay loop. The mantis and gladius want to stay as close to their max weapon range as possible for evasion, but the flak can hit them, and it will obliterate them if they make mistakes. People imagining armor as truly immune to any weapon are insane. That’s just not how armor works, and even in World of Warships the smallest ships can and do kill the biggest, either via torpedoes or HE rounds. But it should take a long time) . Probably 10-15 minutes. If the pirates are expert pilots, and a bit lucky, they’ll get the win. If the industrial crew are prepared and keep up the pressure, they’ll most likely win. Flak would solve so many underlying issues in the game. Restricting it to manned turrets is vital, but it will give medium + ships a real anti-fighter tool that’s still skill based, still has risk-reward, but doesn’t invalidate all other weapons. By making it the lowest dps weapon class, it will be pretty useless against anything bigger than a Scorp or Vanguard. So do you equip your HH to be a mobile flak sphere, or equip it to obliterate other big ships? But!! This doesn’t invalidate fighters either. If they are ace evaders, they can sit out at their own max range, and plink away. They’ll still be vital as screens against other light ships (like the Harb and Ares). Similarly, all torpedo ships are now much more useful because you’re more likely to encounter crewed big ships, and because in a big fight it’ll be super beneficial to knock out the enemy flak boat. Finally, it’ll make all big ships viable. Having a flak boat to escort other big ships will be very important, but that flak boat also needs anti-big ship escort. The Redeemer would suddenly be on a much better spot, and a pair of them would be quite the threat. CIG need to stop with bandaid balance tweaks and just add a single weapon type to the game that is glaringly missing: flak for manned turrets. It must never be pilot controlled, but it must exist as an option for all multicrew turrets. This will massively diversify PvP, make multicrew ships genuinely viable, and significantly open up the spectrum of emergent gameplay. On manned turrets: obviously, remote turrets shoukd get flak, but for any remote turret equipped with flak it must not be slaved to the pilot’s controls. Ex: if a Super Hornet equips a flak turret, it would no longer be slaved to the pilot’s guns and require a second seat player to control it.

In the end we'll probably just get like 5 different types of fuses and a fuse operator mode

love the way you do your vids

I just want reloadable ballistic weapons. like on the mechs in the matrix 3 or in the expanse.

agree. 100%. It seems to be their goal anyhow, per Thorston on a recent QA.

Multicrew ship should pop after short delay if all the power plants have been destroyed and the delay should be longer the bigger the ship

wasn't it said by someone from CIG that they want to make a move away from HP-based combat to subsystems-based combat? as in, ships won't have HP anymore, and as an attacker you won't be able to just hit any spot on your target, but attackers will have to target specific subsystems, otherwise targets will not be defeated.

well if you think about if a reclaimer has a full crew with gunners and light fighter come the wont stand a chance ive had crews on mine an d do fine but yes solo or duo a reclaimer you cant fight a fighter

Called it about the new era of piracy supremacy

Agree 100%

The one thing I disagree with is the idea that longer TTK would lead to more hulks. There should be fewer, because more ships will probably be able to escape.

“If they were a pirate how do they move the cargo” Lol the common misconception: just because YOU don’t see the prize ship doesn’t mean it’s not currently either waiting somewhere in space or in the process of being organised!! It is very common for solo pirates to grab a surprise hit and then ask for help with a prize ship from org mates. And yes it’s not easy because of “ship balance” it’s easy because traders, salvagers refuse to do anything but run solo, in a sperm suit with no weapons, no turret gunners and no protection!!

Reclaimer needs a bronze pass, how tf are you going to eng when it doesnt have components, the ladders keep you in a permanent loop, and most of the buttons arent even on physical buttons or even close to a mfd

Just more that can go wrong. Latest patch has the game crashing so much it’s not playable for me. Not everyone wants online play with actual people either. I like Loner experience in SC. If I need a crew to fly bigger ships I’m not interested.

You know what else they NEED to address fpr engineering to work? The movement inside moving ships. How the hell are we supposed to do engineering if we get send to the ground every other step if the ship is flying faster then 100m/s? I think that whole can of worms should just be thrown out of the window as long as the grav generator of the ship is still working. And on annother note: Why has there never been a simple version of armor and penetration values? Doesnt Wold of Tanks have a system like that? I mean for the sake of fancy tech wed still be getting this ahh so important dynamic everything system but i think its still kinda stupid that so long into development we dont even have a simple bandaid fix for stuff like that. It feels like the whole stick with the map "were gonna do a full rework so we dont do anything to fix the current busted iteration since it would only be wasted effort.... for almost 3 years or so" if we have to wait so long for a full rework, why tf not give a fix or a simple version until then? I am no software engineer or developer so i have very limited knowlege but if they can tune all sorts of numbers with components and basic ship values such as speed without needing to difficultly adjust the thrust and power consumption of engines then why cant they give ships a basic armor value to reduce certain incomming damage? such a armor system is far from uniqe and new. Minecraftr has ist, WoW, Warframe, Destiny, World of tanks, friggen games like genshin have a defens stat for stuff like that. It cant be to difficult right? and if it is quite difficult .... then wth is going to happen in the future where this game is supposed to be even bigger and more complicated then it already is? I mean i want this game to succed more then anything but if such simple things that have been done a million times over in all sorts of games "isnt that simple" for star citizen, then how are there supposed to be comprehensive buggfixes and important value changes in the future? I cant play the game since 3.23 because of some stupid infinite loading screen bug but stuff like that CANT happen later down the road. Im not "star citizen is a scam" ing but after so long in the oven with some good more time ahead i just cant be as optimistic about all that good tech when i see how even simpler games with bigger studios fundamentaly fail time and time and time again.

The issue i have with your statement is you assume Pirate/PVP orgs are not structured. WE have Cargo pilots and Specialist too. With RMC being bank atm, Need to hire Security.....Just my thougts. ALso my biggest issue with this ENGINEERING game play is HOW.... you cant walk around when pulling GS...Plus ill troll my friends when they least expect it... Hey lets pull this fuse as the ships about to land LUL.....

With all the trash ships left at all stations, all the trash left everywhere. The server migration issues and invisible enemies CGI should concentrate on making the game better by making it stable. Don't add more shit that's gonna be heavy on the server, all this will cause dsync and finish ruining the game that's already broken

Or start a junk yard and tow them there to have your buddies salvage them

The game risks becoming too complex to be a game. Plus a big ship cannot run away from a small one so the end result is frankly inevitable. Given that the source inspiration is Pacific War the idea of a Zero blowing up a cruiser is what is impled. Yeah...right...

They have already said that in the future ships won't be exploding as much or like they do now. When the power plant is at zero health the ship will go into a repairable soft death like state.