SE Warfare II: Dreadnoughts Suck

[@GetBrocked]

I explained 5:40 poorly. And it's sorta relevant to explain why smaller ships are quite efficient at killing larger ships The bigger a ship, the bigger the interior relative to the exterior surface area. So massive ships have a disproportionately bigger interior compared to a equal block count number of smaller ships. So (made-up) for a destroyer you need to build 5 interior blocks for every one exterior block, a super capital would need 10-20 probably more. The same way a 10" pizza is significantly smaller than a 12" pizza. As long as the required weapons can be mounted (minimum size), smaller ships are typically more efficient. Due to just having more surface area relative to the size, which allows for more weapons. This also completely ignores the weight penalty of having a massive interior entails

[@VestedUTuber]

To note, this would depend on ship size. A big, chonky cylinder of a supercapital like your "totally not the pillar of autumn", definitely. But something long, wide and flat, like a miniature replica of an Imperial Executor or First Order Supremacy class from Star Wars or one of a Tau Emissary-class from Warhammer 40,000, would have a lot less internal volume relative to surface area. Similarly, a ship with a lot of open spaces, such as many Star Trek designs, would have a huge amount of surface area to internal structure - although a ship like that might not be entirely practical.

[@rorythomas9469]

To summarise, Firepower in Space engineers is a function of surface area, not volume. The other thing is that on water, the square cube law and hydrodynamics make larger vessels far more efficient than smaller ones. In space, this isn’t true, so the advantage of going big isn’t there like it is on water.

[@NeilX2010]

Sorry, i have to say that you conclusion are so wrong. Supership is useless in your world because of the server setting. In real world battleship can and repeatedly deployed in small formation that being a navy magnet that attracts multiple time of its force. The most obvious case is Bismarck. Royal Navy first engaged her with 2x battleship task force, a force ratio of 2+ and Bismarck wrecked hood. In order to sink Bismarck,Royal Navy detached 4+ battleship, 2 carrier and other ship, that's a force ratio of 4+. One more example is the battle of jutland, Genman high sea fleet pinned British fleet that is 2x of its size, through out the war that only one battleship can wreck havoc to many escort, no number of cruiser, destory can remove the threat within reasonable loss. The reason why battleship suck in your server is because everyship is indeed a battleship, and they can easily outrun the projectile fired toward themselves. No cruiser/ destoryer dare to come point blank of a battleship because battleship main battery demorish them outside cruiser's cannon range, They can only throw torpedo to battleship which miss 9 out of 10. What they do is shadow the battleship and wait for reinforcement that's is another battleship. Ship can't dodge a round that will hit irl because the round travel much faster that the ship. And battlesship also outrange other class, However, in your server that everyship have same attack range and the projectile speed is way too slow compared with the ship speed. That's why main cannon never hit, what is in your server is everyone bullet reach the same distance and same speed, why bother a sniper rifle instead of a machine gun.

[@VestedUTuber]

@@NeilX2010 Three things. 1. Supercapitals aren't battleships. They're MUCH bigger and make up a much larger investment in resources. IRL, we've never had a supercapital because there was never a point. Closest thing would be the IJN Yamato but even then that was just an unusually large battleship. 2. We don't even use battleships IRL anymore, except on rare occasions as heavy artillery in asymmetric conflicts where the enemy doesn't have a reliable counter. Battleships were proven to be obsolete as early as WWII, where torpedo bombers and other attack aircraft proved to be a hard counter to them. 3. Another issue with battleships IRL is that for many economically weaker nations, building, maintaining and supplying even one would effectively bankrupt them, and even more economically powerful nations didn't make the bulk of their fleets out of them. And a lot of battleships were never even used in combat, because the nations that built them were saving them for big decisive battles that never came. You're focusing in the small picture of a single battle, when the primary issues with battleships and supercapitals are primarily within the larger picture of logistics.

[@GetBrocked]

That's fair. The downside is those types of ships have terrible firing arcs will pillar of autumn designs typically can bring both broadsides to bear in a 270 arc

[@chaotixthefox]

The irony is that the ships people like to call dreadnoughts often represent pre-Dreadnought design philosophy. The Dreadnought was so strong because it didn't have weapons for every opponent. It didn't try to perform a million different roles. It equipped only big guns, was a tough nut to crack, and packed big dick engines to be way faster than a battleship would normally be. The idea being to clap anything it could hit, shrug off anything it couldn't, and flee when outmatched.

[@StabbySabby]

isn't that the armored cruiser/battlecruiser concept?

[@chaotixthefox]

@@StabbySabby No, it is the HMS Dreadnought concept. Other countries were investigating the idea around the time, but a British admiral whose name escapes me sold the Royal Navy on his vision and got her built before anyone else. The captains of other ships referred to their vessels as 20-minuters, because that's how long they thought they'd last against HMS Dreadnought. It turns out even that was very generous as she went on to sinkk a pre-Dreadnought battleship in 4 minutes iirc. A battlecruiser is a smaller execution of the idea.

[@volatile100]

@@StabbySabby Armored cruisers were similar in concept, on a smaller scale. They were supposed to be able to match or outmatch everything that wasn't a dreadnought. The idea was completely replaced by battlecruisers, and then the armored cruiser then turned into "light cruisers". Heavy cruisers as an idea were essentially created by the Washington Naval Treaty. Battlecruisers were intended to hunt armored cruisers and other ships with lesser armaments, with dreadnought/battleship armaments, but with the speed of cruisers. Very similar in concept, run away from bigger ships, hunt everything smaller. But the battlecruiser had the express purpose of countering armored cruisers, even if that later changed. The dreadnought concept was like Chaotix said, big guns, and fast-ish, more importantly that they used steam turbines vs regular steam engines.

[@CC-2062]

@@chaotixthefox I believe you are talking about admiral Fisher.

[@BazilRat]

My 'Dreadnoughts' fit the dreadnought design philosophy. It has big guns, slightly smaller guns, and point defences. It's not designed to take out the cruisers and frigates and destroyers... that's what the cruisers, frigates and destroyers in the fleet are for. It's intended to defend itself against anything that gets through the fleet and fighters while getting into position to fuck up the enemy's bigger ships and stations with massed turret broadsides.

[@bryce5895]

I would say the main point really comes down to one thing: if you can't afford to lose it, you can't afford to use it. After all, you have to assume in planning that any ship you put in the line of fire will at some point be lost, and if the loss of that one single asset would cripple you, it loses its usefulness as it can't be effectively deployed.

[@GetBrocked]

yep, generally as a rule. Though there a scenarios where that's not true. Thinking off carriers in the pacific conflict comes to mind.

[@WaluigiIV]

The statement "If you can't afford to lose it" is literally the defining statement for the dreadnought arms race and the war which followed. There were a total of (IIRC) 3 naval engagements involving dreadnoughts, because everyone was too afraid to lose them.

[@chaotixthefox]

@@WaluigiIV The creation of HMS Dreadnought practically reset the worldwide naval standings, no one would want to fall behind. Any Dreadnought style ship would slap any pre-Dreadnought one, so the one with the most is the strongest.

[@VestedUTuber]

@@GetBrocked Only thing with carriers is that if they end up on the front lines, something has already gone very wrong. A traditional carrier is a backline support ship, not a frontline combat ship.

[@katarjin]

Learned that from Eve Online...real quick

[@mattp1337]

Boiled down to a single sentence: "Never have a single ship represent more than 30% of your total resources and personnel, because the strategic, tactical and logistical constraints on your fleet as a whole outweigh all possible value of a large asset." Or just: "The Tarkin Doctrine sucks" for us Star Wars nerds. *30% for arguments sake; the number might be higher/lower.

[@flawer1316]

Or basically the same way battleships just became obsolete

[@wraith_1367]

Note to self: build tie defenders and employ blue aliens

[@dontblink9445]

"The Tarkin doctrine sucks" said no one ever... heretical at best :P

[@dogebanzai456]

my swarm of corvettes can overcome any difficulty.

[@MrCoolguy425]

@@flawer1316 it’s a bit different than that. It’s more so that smaller ships do everything battleships did, but better. Battleships were important because no other ship could do what they did, win fights against battleships. When smaller ships (or aircraft carriers) could do this without being threatened by the battleship, they became obsolete

[@Sinaduel]

I've always thought the only huge ships worth building were Carriers, but the fact that SE doesnt really have the stability to support 30+ people in a fight those make no sense either.

[@badgerwildgaming6908]

Unless you count a drone carrer like Aaron used in one of his servers.

[@A.Person.Who.Exists]

Scripted auto drones are the best

[@Allegheny500]

We have one large space carrier in the works but we mostly rely on escort carriers that are not much larger than a destroyer. They carry six heavy fighters and five smaller craft or drones on a top side deck that allows the escort carrier to land in water and operate.

[@bobbywinicher9080]

I can PROMISE you that a properbuild dreadnaught Could our gun and outlast any fight against a bunch of smaller ships.

[@bigglasses2625]

@@bobbywinicher9080 one dreadnought cannot survive 15 playermade missiles + some decoys, dreadnoughts are not worth the cost

[@TheGobou77]

"can't split into smaller ships", man, i think you got a concept right there: what if it does ?

[@matchesburn]

I've seen people pull off amazing things with merge blocks and connectors alone. I haven't played SE in about 2 years now so I don't know the current state of the game and mods, but it should be even easier and have more options for such a thing. The biggest problem was that the control and interactivity between two connected ships isn't great and it would be a nightmare to build, script and action group it all out. Do-able, but it would be a headache.

[@jamess7140]

The remade Obsidian Blade in the second book of Neal Asher’s Jain Trilogy is a good example of this concept.

[@MDoomhammer]

hmm.. multivector assault mode? ;)

[@josephburchanowski4636]

In most cases, merging multiple smaller ships together provides no tactical advantage over having them in a formation.

[@XCal]

The psychological attrition would be unbearable. Imagine living in the constant knowledge that in theory, your battlecruisers could combine into the Space Dimensional Fortress Macross but they're constantly apart due to any and sensible fleet doctrine precluding the few niche events where this would be necessary. 99% of all crew members have this subtle eye twitch whenever they see Voltron or anything that combines, the Gunbuster combination sequence gets repeatedly uploaded onto Pornhub.

[@kinkrow6221]

The Infinity is a weird case though. Given pressure and threat of genocide, it was meant to be a colony ship in addition to military. They wanted it to carry materials, resources, and people en masse, with the ability to defend itself.

[@trenchbird]

I feel like not enough people know this. It's a constant misconception about what the Infinity is supposed to be, and why it gets used as a long-haul exploration vessel rather than a cornerstone of the UNSC's post-war Naval strategy, which actually *is* mass utilization of lighter ship lines.

[@kinkrow6221]

@@trenchbird Yeah, it's function is survival first, war second, and is meant to escape if need be. The scene where it slipspaces in and crashes through a Covie ship with far weaker shields was pretty hilarious though.

[@martinosborne4703]

Why don't people read the lore? If they did, they'd know about this. It isn't even the first time in the halo franchise a civilian vessel was repurposed for the military. The Spirit of Fire was a colony ship meant to deploy habitation buildings and infrastructure. The Infinity was meant to be a contingency plan to flee the Covenant, going far into space (potentially beyond the Milky Way). When the war ended, it was given better armour and weapons and turned into a Warship.

[@pillarmenn1936]

@@martinosborne4703 Probably has something to do with the fact that 1.) Halo is branded as an action fps power fantasy so lore is the last thing majority of people look for and 2.) The lore is split into multiple mediums so its pretty hard to keep track.

[@CMTechnica]

@@pillarmenn1936it’d be the last option. The fact of the Infinity being an Ark for humanity if they lost the war is first (and only, I believe) in the books that take place between 3 and 4. That pretty much no one read

[@starmada105]

I think that supercapitals have their place in space engineers. Some systems like refinery armor or massive gravity cannons can only be used on really massive ships. Supercapitals are a chance to innovate, as you have near unlimited space to explore pretty much any concept of your choosing. To make a supercapital work, you can’t just use what the game gives you, you have to innovate, creating better armor, weapons, thrusters, etc. Player built munitions are often far stronger than game provided ones. Obviously supercapitals will never be common or super practical on survival servers but they have their place in this game.

[@StabbySabby]

i never played space engineers, but my guess is instead of building a "traditional" battleship with guns on all angles and all it ends up doing is making a pre-dreadnought with no large guns and in space, what you do is just make a gigantic ship with multiple extremely large custom made weapons like spinal-mounted Clang guns or something of that nature and instead of using it as a brawler, you use it as a flagship, sit at a distance and snipe enemy ships from a distance and only have one or two in your entire navy

[@Coldfront15]

@@StabbySabby You also have to think of how you employ your ships in this 3D environment. Range is a critical element, but profile of the ship, resourced dedicated to protection, and simple doctrine like defeat in detail or defending in depth allows you to minimize the damage of your ship. Generally, you want a force multiplier allowing you to overpower three to one... now its just a matter of calculating these force multipliers.

[@Aereto]

@@Coldfront15 Then there's carriers. Not designed for direct combat, but can support the fleet in terms of combat and recovery support, different from supply ships and tenders. One of my common design doctrines in my ships is repairability, where a projector or two is included in every ship for post-battle repairs and recovery, with choices to either quickly close hull gaps and leave the crew to repair interiors, or slowly repair inside out to restore combat-ready state before another combat encounter. If nothing else, keeping those disabled ships from being salvaged or captured by other factions would net potentially lost resources.

[@QualityPen]

If you take a supercapital ship and a fleet of missile corvettes and frigates with an equal combined mass, the latter will wipe the floor with the supercapital ship. Player made missiles have the firepower to burn through any armor A corvette launching a salvo of 8-16 small grid missiles will (assuming most reach) punch a hole through armor (doesn’t matter what) then eviscerate an interior section several blocks wide and a dozen or two blocks deep. That’s enough to destroy or seriously cripple up to an about 8,000 ton ship, depending on design. If you have a 200,000 ton ship facing down 100 such corvettes, that’s potentially 100 such holes. I doubt any 200,000 ton ship can sustain that kind of damage. The other thing is, as mass and internal volume increase, the ratio of surface area to volume and mass decreases according to the square cube law. Since weapons are positioned on that surface, that means the weapons to mass ratio likewise decreases. The fleet of individual ships will be able to bring more firepower to the fight. In conclusion, while a supercapital ship will no doubt defeat any opponent of a lesser class in a 1v1, the resources invested in its construction could be used to create a superior force in direct battle, to say nothing of the benefits of having multiple vessels to reinforce different areas.

[@lunkystraydog6572]

I built a Titan class once.

[@rhinocowboy3929]

I personally make use of only one dreadnought in my faction in space engineers, and calling it a dreadnought is probably a bit of a misnomer. We have no base and instead live on one of these massive warships, using it as a mobile base and disengaging from battles whenever possible. Even in our case I wouldn’t want to put it in combat, but if we do get backed up into a corner it’ll put up one heck of a fight. Basically my point is Dreadnought = Bad Mobile Base = Good

[@kabob0077]

You have a Craftworld... Or a Mothership.

[@nullproxy9639]

@@kabob0077 tis a holy ark mechanicus, not a xeno craftworld

[@Mikalent]

We did the same thing on an old server I played on, just because a few clans where so dominant on the server, you either had to be small enough to go unnoticed, or become nomadic.

[@briansouthparkstudio1357]

that what the infinity class in halo was meant as a powerful lifeboat in case they lost the war

[@A_random_nerd]

So the phalanx basically?

[@cdgonepotatoes4219]

The thing about flagships, these huge warships that make PR scream in joy: they're always designed to be accompanied by a sister ship or a fleet. They're not jacks of all trades, they're specialized either as support or a "hammer", carrying the biggest, baddest equipment to have both a range and a firepower advantage over the enemy. Their sister ship usually covers what the flagship lacks, say if your flagship is a carrier it has cannons or if it's full of cannons then they focus on anti-air, anti-destroyer and mine clearing duty. Each other are ready to rescue and retain the other's crew in case one of them is sunk. Of course, each warship/sister combo is then also usually accompanied by a few cruisers or destroyers as well as a screen for other vessels, if their goal is that to battle and not merely an escort.

[@nicklausdavis]

This is exactly what I think as well. “Super” ships entire purpose is to be the ultimate force multiplier. Sure they’re *very* strong by themselves but what their true strength is is enhancing the tactical options available to a fleet by being something that enemies *have* to address. I like to think of super ships as less of front line brawlers that are just another ship on the line and rather a tactical asset that can be sent alongside a support fleet to do jobs that would otherwise be too costly to do such as raiding back line planets, resource hubs, ship production, etc…

[@Arbyfig]

When it comes to space engineers, the reality is the weapon systems have a fixed size, realistically, space engineers is the perfect game for Jeune ecole ships, because the largest weapon a frigate can use(the railgun), is the same size and firepower as the largest weapon on a capital class ship, so an analogy will be that in a world war 2 context, the US destroyers have 5 inch main battery, but imagine if the fast battleships could also only mount 5 inch batteries rather than their 16 inch batteries. That is one of the major limitations for large combat ships, in my opinion. For superships. I think that the ideal 'supership' would be slightly larger than their standard capital, like the montanas to the iowas. If its any larger, than its more like a mobile starbase than a combat ship

[@GetBrocked]

for sure. I think I probably should have defined super capital; as something bigger than even a big battleship

[@Zetimenvec]

I can only imagine the universe in which warfare 2 considered this point, and included some massive 5x5 based or even bigger dreadnaut sized weapons platform who's recoil force was so great that any ships under 5,000 blocks would be helplessly spun and flung around. I also felt like that one mod that put in the stackable chamber for determining range of the weapon was a decent solution.

[@GetBrocked]

that's a good point. In fairness to SE. Warfare II basically only has destroyer/medium weapons. and the only "capital" weapon sucks on bigger ships, (and in general in Ship v Ship combat)

[@mikewhitaker2880]

when it comes to weapons scale a GOOD example is the 40k gothic universe, sure the names of the weapons are the same, but a macro cannon on a destroyer vs a macro cannon on a cruiser or battleship fires shells proportionate to the ship size..

[@Zetimenvec]

@@GetBrocked A cool way to make dreadnoughts viable is to add a third bigger block size grid with all new weapons and thrusters unique to it. I'm thinking they'd have better range, and better T2W ratios, but with higher consumption and greater material costs. I think the only problem would be having to have a bunch of custom curve/angle shapes to prevent the ships from looking like a minecraft mod.

[@portalpony477]

The point of SUPER MASSIVE ships is to specialize into a extreme, usually a super massive weapon that couldn't normally be used. That is why BIG BOYS exist.

[@mdbgamer556]

Exactly this. He does make a point about the cost being high, and if you don't have the resources you can't, but this exactly is the point of super massive ships: Overspecialization. Take for example the Death Star. It counts, it's fucking massive beyond belief, it's super fucking expensive, and guess what it could do? Delete planets from existence. Couldn't move worth a damn that I remember, but whoever was in charge could point at a planet, say they didn't want to see it anymore, and it wouldn't exist anymore. Where is all your power base? Planets, typically. Your power base, your resources, your people. Everything. It doesn't matter how many space stations you build, a majority of your shit will be on planets.

[@noname-zt2zk]

First thing I thought of was the 2cm laser mod

[@galacticgamer8760]

*Cough Cough* Malevolence Ion Cannon

[@galacticgamer8760]

That's more of a battle station than a dreadnought.

[@TarsonTalon]

The reason you can get away with something like Eternity's Edge, is because you aren't trying to hold territory. The vessel IS your territory. Your faction is protecting the assets of other factions out of the kindness of your hearts. But realistically, you can turn and dip out any time, and no one would be able to stop you. Maybe you should have made this clear to the CDF that the only reason you can even have a ship of this size, is because it is all you have. They have to defend space stations and mining outposts, whereas you just have to defend yourself. If they try to create a ship that can defeat the Eternity, they are going to lose everything else. They will not be able to protect their taxpayers, which means their only alternative then is to become mercenaries or pirates, and become just as trapped on their ship as you are.

[@GetBrocked]

shss don't tell anyone, but we were really close to abusing what you are discussing in a certain scenario.

[@TarsonTalon]

@@GetBrocked Heh...spoilers.

[@devindeocharan8323]

The eternity seems more like a long haul mothership rather than a Dreadnought. With all the production systems, durability, and size makes it quite useful for a expeditionary fleet. It could repair and maintain large fleet of vessels, acting as a mobile repair dockyard, along with that is its carrying capacity. It would be able to house multiple utility vessels, like mining, scouts, transports, faber, and other such parasite/subcraft that allows a fleet to run. Its able to safely carry them, making the fleet self-sufficient, since most fleets need a dedicated logistics unit and shipyard to reinforce the fleet. If you cut off logistics, they would run out necessary resources to maintain there vessels, making them less combat effective overall and giving them limited amount of time they can stay in combat, but you wouldn't have that. Same goes for cutting off access to shipyards, they cant make more ships and do extensive repairs, so you can eventually bleed them dry, with them unable to replenish loses, whereas you could. Infinity could handle most logistics purposes and has minor ship production ability via fabrication craft, which would take more time compared to a shipyard, when out in frontier or unknown that may not be luxury you have. As well Eternity could defend itself and handle large super heavy vessels that a fleet may encounter, which would usually inflict heavy loses. While infinite handles the enemy super capital the rest of the fleet could handle the remaining forces, especially with support from Eternity parasite craft. Eternity itself could heavily augment a greater exploratory fleets combat ability, with strike craft, fire support, handle larger vessels, and draw fire. Most fleet commanders, upon seeing infinity would target it, drawing fire away from rest of the fleet, which is logical it could field the most fire power, but its ability to support rest of fleet is far more useful. Do agree the concept of Dreadnought does not work, and role of super capital does not work for Eternity. But as a long haul vessel, mothership, and flagship for a fleet it does. A mothership like Eternity gives fleets far less dependency on supply lines, able to support fleet well via its firepower, and parasite craft, and handle heavy capitals. Equipping fleets on long haul expeditions, on patrol fleets on far off border, or to fleets going in deep into enemy lines would be a great benefit. dreadnought itself could work well in a larger armada, if its armed with a super weapon or weapon of mass destruction..The concept of Dreadnought that's a fleet on its own would not work, but as central vessel or centerpiece of an armada designed to support and work with it would. Edit 1) Someone did make a good point, dreadnoughts could come of use due to them fielding super weapons or weapons of mass destruction that can't be used by standard capital vessels, so thank you Mike Whitake

[@Demopans5990]

Currently, it is a similar case within Eve Online as well. Dreadnoughts in Eve are dedicated siege and counter-siege platforms. Super carriers and titans are mostly used for logistics and as flagships whenever there aren't several dozen titans deployed at once, by which point, you have other problems (B-R for example)

[@Kekatronic]

When you called a 25k block ship a dreadnought I realized how huge my ships are in from the depths cause thats like a normal warship to me

[@ravenknight4876]

FTD blocks are much smaller than SE blocks, and placing SE blocks is more complicated.

[@CaptainRhodor]

Bigger and more is often less. Two well-designed cruisers with good synergy can match or even surpass a single battleship/dreadnought/titan/Jimmy John's Super Salami Sub or whatever you want to call it. They're cheaper, more versatile, damage is spread out over two ships as is targeting priority, etc. Also, despite my bad call in overconcentrating the Rider heavies, I'm still proud that the Ravager never became a port princess like other "superships" of her ilk. She basically never left the front lines, outkilled most of the other ships in the fleet, and always came back for more.

[@GetBrocked]

Ah yes... the Jimmy John's Super Salami Class Super Missile Destroyer. aka JJSS Feared the universe over :D

[@CaptainRhodor]

@@GetBrocked After the war she was retired and became, ironically, a Subway delivery carrier

[@GetBrocked]

but then was fired. as it turned out, super subway carriers are far worse than a lot of smaller delivery vehicles

[@GetBrocked]

also as an aside, I don't consider the Ravager or the uh... new Battleships that are fielded as dreadnoughts. They're fine in terms of weapon to size ratios. This video more tackles oversized ships as we see so often in the SE community

[@CaptainRhodor]

@@GetBrocked But from a role perspective she fit perfectly into the description. She was a significant chunk of the Rider fleet strength, and losing her would have been catastrophic. She became the priority target in every fight, relied heavily on her escorts to swat away attackers, lacked versatility, and was too slow to dodge so she had to just take hits on the chin.

[@Lesminster]

Imo the most important thing is evasion. Auto guns predict where ship gonna be, which can actually be taken advantage of. If you constantly change directions the enemy guns won't be able to really hit you as you are never in a place they predict you would be. I remember capping entire space stations with a space suit just because of that fact ;) So, relatively tiny destro with way better ratio of engine thrust to mass will achieve better value for a block because it simply cannot be hit enough times by huge, bulky, capital weapon using dreadnought. And now you got 10 of them. Now 10 ships is pummeling that huge cow of a dreadnought while not receiving that much of a return fire.

[@GetBrocked]

yeeeep. Literally happened to the Eternity multiple times. She kills one ship and then has a really bad day. while the other 4 beat the shit out of her

[@mikewhitaker2880]

and the use of suit only is one reason we need the inhibitor block everyone hates now in many AI ship mods...

[@devindeocharan8323]

Seen a few ships making use of a ring that rotates separately of the ship that has multiple decoy blocks, making auto weapon unable to hit. Very good concept for anti capital strike craft like a bomber or gunship, would be especially useful against station which are mainly armed it them.

[@mpnuorva]

My favorite fictional example of this is the Imperial Star Destroyer from Star Wars. It's a normal ship for it's faction; there are literally hundreds of them around the galaxy, but at the same time it's also considerably bigger than anything fielded by anyone else. It's also less of a battleship and more of a mobile military base. Not only does it have the gun batteries and large hangars and fighter complement, it's designed to house and haul marine and ground forces complement from planet to planet. All in one ship. And it has all that, because it's not designed for warfare, but for policing and subduing scrappy rebels. I would guess that if you pit an ISD against a same sized ship, or even a smaller, nimbler one, that is purpose-built for hauling firepower to the field, the Imperial would lose.

[@GetBrocked]

it's interesting to note. The Eternity is sorta that too (but I left it out). She has massive areas for crew, a huge hanger that makes her basically a carrier. and the ability to produce food, water, etc. She is her own fleet tender. As mentioned for the EFN (those that built her) she isn't nearly as a big of a deal, thus not classified as a super battleships. So this makes sense.

[@AGrumpyPanda]

Another example is the Dictator cruiser from 40k. By replacing the lance batteries (read: huge lasers) with hangar bays, it becomes very good for planetary support and flushing out pirates, but if the strike craft aren't pulling its weight it's going to lose a straight gunfight against basically any other Imperial or Chaos cruiser.

[@homersimpson5497]

Interesting. I couldn’t disagree more. The Isd, especially the ISD2, is a purpose built battleship fresh from the lessons of the clone wars. It is larger than any contemporary vessel, has large, long range, powerful main guns, and is fast. It was designed to be the center piece of a fleet, able to dish out massive amounts of firepower from distance, while also being able to absorb hits from enemy ships. It has a small hanger, equipped with crappy fighters, and is absolutely massive. Contrary to what you say, it is purpose built to take on large enemy fleets. It was notoriously terrible at fighting rebels; their quick, in and out tactics, mixed with heavy fighter and bomber support clapped isds, who did not have small enough weapons to take on the smaller ships.

[@Can_O_Crayola]

@@homersimpson5497 Exactly. As we see in Rogue One, an ISD that actually gets to pin down an enemy fleet will absolutely trash the opposition. Vader's Star Destroyer single-handedly crippled Raddus's flagship and most of his support that didn't get away in time. The Rebellion's scrappy fighting tactics were there for a reason: any head-on attempt to fight an Imperial fleet was going to end poorly without significant advantages.

[@confusedturtle2275]

hundreds of them is an understatement. at the empires peak they had over 25 000 star destroyers

[@gravekeeper4469]

Dreadnaughts and big ships in general are a bad move if playing solo even against the AI as the time for fixing can take ages oppose to ten mins max on smaller ships

[@PatrixBest]

While I don't know how decoys work anymore, if you're playing solo vs AI, why wouldn't you have self-repair systems?

[@owo1744]

@@PatrixBest Its hard to manage what resources you need to repair a ship, and you need mods like the nanite one

[@PatrixBest]

@@owo1744 no, just well placed decoys and welders

[@CaptainRedbeard89]

Given how I pilot a fighter In se I agree

[@heretichamburger3775]

First time ever hearing of SE, immediately captivated, you have yourself a new sub! You are very thorough and could make documentaries

[@GetBrocked]

hah? no way. That's cool, though a bit confused how/why YT is showing you SE content.

[@daedricderp754]

SE is very fun. I'm glad you are interested in it

[@gelobledo]

SE is a hell of a drug

[@stokesseegers5012]

It's a cool game. The destruction of the structures was better five or 6 years ago. Parts of ships would Collide or get shot and it would just be pieces flying everywhere. But it made it very hard to build complex machines cuz they were just fall apart in a spectacular explosion of pieces LOL so now the explosions aren't as good but you can build some really cool stuff

[@sarbe6625]

You should know that while SE can be fun, it can be extremely buggy and this video is not representative of how gameplay usually works at all.

[@saturn5mtw567]

Another point I havent seen made amongst all these other excellent points: if killing one ship cripples your navy, the enemy can design one or more ships specifically for the task of killing that ship. Depending on the effectiveness of their counter, they might have to pin you down with their navy, or maybe its some BS meta-ship, 100% guaranteed at least 1 kill. Either way, for the cost of an relatively small tonnage of extremely specialized ship, they've crippled your entire navy, not just the flagship.

[@GetBrocked]

great point that I forgot. A specific class was created to deal with the Eternity; the DDK. Which was basically a destroyer with a high yield, low reload weapon, basically meant to fly right up to slow super-caps and just point blank them

[@saturn5mtw567]

@@GetBrocked was it a shotgun, or a cannon? My ideal vessel would be a super-shotgun style weapon, and fire into the rear engines. Most ships would be absolutely gutted. I also saw a rotor-based fragmentation missile, capable of coring out a ridiculous volume (on servers where those are allowed) a few super low cost missiles could potentially delete your entire navy.

[@stcredzero]

With the square/cube law, there SHOULD be a huge advantage to larger ships. The same thickness armor gets heavier proportional to hull area, or N^2, while the internal volume increases proportional to N^3. If greater internal volume enables greater ammunition stores and larger and more efficient engines and power plants, then given effective armor, larger ships should be more effective per unit weight and per unit cost. What this means, is that Space Engineers is balanced such that the square/cube law doesn't work. This actually makes sense for the game devs, because that way, they don't have to deal with burgeoning inflation of component count and load on the GPU. That could result in too much lag.

[@deriznohappehquite]

Yeah, if larger systems are more efficient per weight, then larger ships will be more effective.

[@mdbgamer556]

Such is the limitations of a computer program: It cannot properly replicate reality without at least one super computer. To boot, this is a video game, so it has a pass to not be one hundred percent accurate by default. Can you imagine having to deal with actual physics every time you entered orbit, entered the atmosphere, and tried to hit escape velocity? KSP gets that job done pretty well, but with the way SE is built, I don't think we'll be getting anything better than what we've got. (I did hear rumors of an SE2 though, so who knows?)

[@nuclearphoenix177]

I was apart of a faction in an SE server that was making a dreadnaught as our main base. For my whole time with that faction it took them over a week to build that single ship while other factions that were apparently weaker had there own fleet that essentially out powered what we had at that time. Easily said the ship got attacked and raided forces the leaders to just turn it into a station

[@Neptune0404]

The only viable reason I can think of for a proper "way too large to be conventionally practical" dreadnaught would be a ship primarily made as a mobile shipyard and command center. Any dreadnaught designed and intended to be used directly as an aggressive weapon is a waste, but a support dreadnaught can use its massive size to house technology other ships couldn't, and can sit in a defensive position without making its owners seem weak (as in the way using an aggressively oriented dreadnaught for defense might make you look afraid). In this case instead of having firepower in a less mobile configuration as it could be spread out in smaller ships, you instead have firepower in a more mobile configuration as the alternative is to fit it to a immobile structure. Importantly though, this means the only way this ship should be used is defensively. So for example, the Nova Class Battlestar is a good example of a ship such as this which is fairly well designed, but which notably was used wrong. The Last jedi's Supremacy is another example, as it would have served much better in a defensive role, and had no purpose being used to hunt enemy capital ships (although it was arguably too large even for a defensive role). While this removes or at least minimizes many of the problems aggressive dreadnaughts have, it is still putting a lot of eggs in one basket. And so, it will often still be better to spread the resources out, but in this defensive form, there are at least times when a navy might benefit from pooling its resources into one ship. Not by making an aggressive weapon, but by making a defensive tool.

[@scribblerstudios9895]

Anther good ship I think would be the chapter ship home of the Imperial fists from 40k. (My brain ain't working just yet to remember the name but I'm sure someone does) It's slow and powerful, but it's main advantages is it's tired defenses, a mix of heavy plating and some of the best voidshields possible. It's also a berthing for the fists' chapter fleet, and tends to rely on those and its nigh uncountable void fighter craft hangers to deal with anything more then a small (for 40k) fleet. Hells, I'd call it a slightly mobile shipyard/defense platform rather then a ship.

[@vibesheriff]

I feel like the bigger ships should mostly be used as a seige weapon more than anything or be a big meatshield to distract enemy units rather than to be damaging or take out other units.

[@kookoobrick54]

It's funny, the kind of ships that dreadnoughts end up being in Space Engineers are the kind of ship that HMS Dreadnought, the ship that revolutionized warship design, broke away from. Pre-Dreadnoughts were these large ships with every caliber of gun under the sun, overbuilt and inaccurate as all hell. You couldn't tell the splash of one shell from another so how are you going to correct your aim after all.

[@seanrea550]

That and you had to store all that ammo for all those guns. At the end of the day it did not make sense to have big gun with slightly smaller gun.

[@1EthanCC]

This is similar to why you see Titans used so rarely in battle in Eve Online. They're a big resource investment (after the economy changes anyway) and using them always carries the risk that the enemy will drop a capital fleet on them, forcing you to commit *more* resources to defend it, and so on until you're in a massive UNPLANNED (very bad for an online group with IRL schedules) battle that carries a huge risk to your faction's security even if you win- which can't be guaranteed since you're at the mercy of who can log in. They also provide a vital function in their ability to bridge in subcapital ships, allowing you to drop the majority of your players in expendable ships wherever you manage to get a spearhead, so you can't afford not to have them. That being said, they're hardly irreplaceable, in fact thanks to years of economic shenanigans the big alliances pretty much have an endless well of Titans to spend. The real danger is the morale aspect of losing them: big alliances effectively have infinite resources and small ones can fight indefinitely without territory, MMO wars are decided by player morale and losing a Titan hits players harder than it really should because they're symbolic. The morale impact of losing a Titan is only really eclipsed by the morale impact of losing the biggest battle of the war, which is why you mainly see Titans committed in those regardless of the actual cost-effectiveness. This is also why you can't just sacrifice one, even if it would make the most economic sense morale trumps that. Better to lose far more in a pointless battle but keep players engaged than to just sacrifice a Titan. In a game, even if you could survive the loss of a super-ship in terms of resources, you might not in morale.

[@MMMAX013]

I used to have this massive ship back in the day on a server of about 30 active players. I used to show up and just own everything and one day everyone just made it their mission to destroy me. Mind you I was a single player taking entire clans on and winning. My destruction was when finally they made cheap fights that just kept coming and my ship would no longer sustain the damage and go destroyed. One team even boarded me and destroyed my jump drive. So I couldn't leave.

[@badgerwildgaming6908]

This was the thinking of the U.S. Iowa class vs the Yamato. The Japanese biggest fear of the Iowa was her speed and accuracy (which today is still the most accurate guns of any war ship to date) they where sure they could win if they saw the Iowa coming and could stay out of her range but give it a cloudy day and the Iowa closes in range the Yamato was too slow and too inaccurate to have a good chance of winning. It's one of the reasons they never fought.

[@GetBrocked]

it's also worth noting, that the Yamato isn't truly a dreadnought in many ways, as practically speaking. She's only marginally more powerful than what was fielded at the time But yeah. history got robbed of one helluva show down with a Iowa and the yamato

[@MasterChiefSargeant]

@@GetBrocked Dreadnaughts were outclassed by battleships such as Yamoto and Iowa class were around. We only use that term in science fiction because it sounds scary. It just described a new way of building the battleships after the HMS dreadnought. Dreadnought era ships were steam or other modern power sourced battleship with main guns. You really get what most people associate with a classic looking battleship. So yeah Yamato wasn't really a dreadnought not because it was marginally bigger than everything else but because it was just a battleships

[@GetBrocked]

@@MasterChiefSargeant yes I'm very aware I have a degree in this xD. I'm using the science fiction term. Much a space battleship probably won't even be called a battleship because... "ship"

[@mikewhitaker2880]

most universes also have another reason for dreadnoughts or super stations like a death star... and that is a super weapon or weapons of MASS destruction.. an example weapon we see in SE would be the Atlas super laser.... using these weapons can be a game changer considering the range and damage these weapons have... and MOST are balanced with long reload/recharge timers and/or huge energy requirements... whilst this may not be an issue in your verse, it is a consideration when dealing with the choice of whether or not a dreadnought or other super capitol/station does or does not suck...

[@GetBrocked]

that is actually a fair point that I completely glossed over because I am a fish

[@maverickr0x822]

@@GetBrocked not a frog? are you sure?

[@devindeocharan8323]

There's also player made ones, like auto railguns, MIRV's, and other fun stuff like that. Those are usually big power drains for a vessel, take up a large amount of space, and eats through resources especially for missile launchers that are able to fab more of them.

[@gen2mediainc.577]

superweapons designed for mega ships tend to be fixed, which makes sense but relegates them to siege roles since something big enough to manage the weapon typically cant turn to face an attacker in direct combat.

[@gen2mediainc.577]

when will we get the Special Crazy Turret 2000 so you can make giant warships for offensive roles? all of mine have to be command ships instead of combat ships since theres no huge turrets to build them around. i guess at that scale rotor turrets with superweapons on them are viable, but its still a shame that i have to just put more large guns instead of having a centerpiece that i can use during a fight

[@catzilla9330]

Damn I’ve never thought of it this way. But now that I think about it, one giant ship really is more vulnerable than a bunch of separate ships, no wonder any massive ships I build get shredded by cruisers xD

[@archiescriven6178]

It's funny how irl, a dreadnought battleship would arguably defined as ship with a unified main, heavy armament designed for long range accuracy and high speed in order to dictate the range of battle to your advantage. But the space engineers definition would be a fairly slow, heavy ship with as many different weapons as a french battleship from the late 1800's.

[@petros5155]

I think a quote from a book I read describes this perfectly; "the loss of the Hood was to the British a loss of ~7.5% of capital ship strength. To the Germans the loss of the Bismarck was a loss of ~45% of of capital ship strength."

[@GetBrocked]

that's what I was getting at, great good analogy. Big ships are relative. Another example: the loss of a US super carrier, while a big deal doesn't actually represent a massive loss in capability. While if any other country losses a super carrier (which none of them own) it would likely represent upwards of 90% of their air-sea power

[@samsonthemanson]

Ships of this size should rarely be used for anything but mobile resupply stations for the most advanced fleets, a rally point for repairs and the like. A giant fuel tanker with a large battery as a deterrent

[@ealtar]

For a great visual exemple watch OUTLANDS episode 7 as you see the shields MELT and how reliant on "secondary" munitions the eternity actualy is

[@GetBrocked]

she has *really* weak shields as well. We could obviously spice those up. But that's pretty lame from a gameplay perspective. But 7, as you mentioned, is a great example of the Eternity getting her lunch money taken. We don't move for like 10s, our secondaries are offline. And we get stomped by a bunch of gun boats essentially.

[@Cooldude-ko7ps]

@@GetBrocked ah. As in my opinion larger ships’s shields would have high health but low recharge rate (so they are better for attrition). Also I do think larger “super ships” could have a role but usually would be highly specialised. One such example could be a Halo UNSC Cradle mobile dockyard. By size it’s bigger than the infinity and it’s role is fleet support. I’m my opinion for a super sized ship to work well it either has to be built really well with practicality, etc or it has a designated role that benefits from the size. The Infinity could carry 10 frigates (probably destroyers or something by size, or bigger) so it could be construed that she is a way to give these smaller ships support (including heavy firepower).

[@marty7442]

The Carrier Ark Royal with Gloster Gladiators, and couple of destroyers was all it took to take out the Bismarck...

[@Cooldude-ko7ps]

@@marty7442 not just destroyers. There were multiple cruisers and battleships that participated in the sinking. All the Ark Royal did was disable Bismarcks rudder

[@luccagoldin5134]

what shield mod is used on outlands?

[@JonesCrimson]

Extremely large sized ships work amazingly well... As non-combatant vessels. Your crew size was basically half the real estimate, because a "Dreadnought" that requires 10 would need an escort of at least 10 fights to be fully effective. I think where these sort of builds shine is where you make it a rule that teams need a large enough ship to dock and "live on" and losing that counts as a loss, but for roleplay reasons you can just play with small ships and reasonably sized groups.

[@vi6ddarkking]

The "Dreadnought" Type Ships Are Supposed To Be Line Breakers. The Type Of Ship You Send To Deal With The Toughest Nuts. Supported By A Well Rounded Fleet, They Are NOT Supposed To Be Solo Actors. A Good Example Of This Being Done Right Is In Stellaris Gigastructural Engineering Mod With The Katzen. Trying To Deal With The Kaizer Moon Without Your Own Attack Moons Is A Pain, Extremely Costly And Show How Powerful This Type Of Ships Can Be.

[@RangerHouston]

I love these advice/tactics videos Brock. Really like your advice about making mistakes since even the smallest decision (like where to post your carrier) can have either fortuitous or disastrous implications on how the battle goes and that’s a decision usually made before any direct contact between the two opposing parties. _Hope to see more of these! loving the outlands season 2!_

[@jblockman_59nunyabidnis68]

The specific ship you mentioned might actually function perfectly well in an IRL setting, considering it has a manufacturing facility on board, it covers all of his maintenance costs because it's capable of taking in raw materials and replacing damaged components. It could in theory at that point build another one of itself. It seems like the centerpiece of a defensive force of a colony or expeditionary Force.

[@lykillcorreli6740]

You kinda run into the crewing issue, though, where even if they have the industrial capacity to make a copy of itself, if you're out in some colony or exploring unsettled territory, you'd basically be stuck either splitting your crew in half or ferrying more crew from the main inhabited areas of your home civilization, at which point if you can just make the trip back and forth or have colonies sufficiently developed to supply your crewing needs, you might as well leave the industrial capacity at home and use the freed up space to make the ship even more combat capable, or at least maneuverable.

[@collectiusindefinitus6935]

At that point I think it's better off being a carrier that emphasises speed to stay away from dangerous encounters and manufactures fighters. As if the smaller size of a cruiser means it has a tactical advantage over a dreadnought, the smaller size of a fighter should give it a tactical advantage over cruisers. The larger size of the carrier could let it mount more efficient technologies not found on smaller ships, while the fighters try to strike a balance between being small for the mass production / hard to hit factor and gained effeciency, said fighters are also preferably automated seeing how crew is an issue.

[@ezariogerion3138]

The fair point to discuss in the capital ship design is concentration of force. Having one biggest ship means it have all that firepower and durability in one place. It doesn't have to maneuver together with other ships to maintain cohesion, so it can move as it likes. It can survive much more punishment than other ships, so it can lead an assault and still be operational after the fight. It doesn't make sense for the capitals to consist all of your fleet, but to have one leading your navy totally makes sense.

[@ALUCARD-us3il]

I only build ships that big for the looks and Roleplay, nothing more, just like in real life dreadnoughts are an obsolete class of ship with very VERY few exceptions

[@zzurge1173]

If there's one thing I've learned from starsector is that if your dreadnought isn't working, *you aren't using enough*

[@EB-fc2mp]

A good example of this on a tactical scale is from an experience I had in star citizen. It's pretty simple: one group held a location with a 'super' ship relative to this one engagement - it wouldn't be classed as such in the face of more organised opposition, but this server's opposition was basically a pirate militia - alongside 2 other escort fighters and a functionally unequipped ground team loading a transport with cargo. My friend and I utilised this high density of assets to sneak into close proximity of the site on foot, and when the escorts went off to deal with an attack we engaged the big ship with what are essentially MANPADs for just long enough for whoever the attackers were to kill one escort and cripple the other before feigning a retreat. The big ship, considering my friend and I dealt with, went to deal with the attackers alone and no longer with an advantage. My friend and I used this lull to sneak aboard the transport and activate its self destruct, destroying the cargo, and then we proceeded to engage the ground crew in a fire fight. It turns out the big ship won its engagement, but barely, but it didn't matter by that point. My friend and I had set them back 30 minutes and now were actively contesting the site preventing them from loading cargo for another 10-20 before both of us were killed. Most importantly though, we humbled them, making it an objective victory. Had they instead put the crew of the big ship into 2 smaller ones and left one crew member as a properly equipped and alert security guard, this would not have been possible - using our MANPADs would've left us very vulnerable to sniper fire as all of our attention was focused on avoiding being hit by the largely inaccurate shots from the big ship, that could only really guess at where we were. Ultimately the big ship presented a single point of failure, as it represented 50-60% of their personnel and most of their firepower, and it ended up being bogged down for just a little too long by two idiots hiding in some rocks.

[@kaiserepsilon4011]

The reason Pre-Dreadnoughts became obsolete to Battleships is the exact same reason Battleships became obsolete to Missile Cruisers. Each subsequent design didn't need to win every fight they got into to survive, and ended up being more bang for their buck. So what if you go down in one well-aimed shot. You can deploy 5 Missile Cruisers while your enemy can only destroy a single Battleship, and kill theirs in the same amount of shots.

[@experiment506]

Maximum practical size is an interesting thing to talk about with warfare paradigms in scifi settings. For real life, the maximum is minimum. Each individual ship can't really protect itself from the weapons used on the field, so you make them as small as you can manage with as many as possible.

[@mobiuscoreindustries]

This is the reason why I bank heavily on custom scripted weapons, because on top of being HIGHLY customizable, it is by definition one of the highest force multiplier you can get on a ship, even with the added logistical cost, the cost of the weapon and the heightened complexity of operating the ship. Simply put, it allows ships to punch well above their weight by greatly increasing the potential of ship components by being smart about their use. for example, a big spinal weapon system can allow ships to really bring in the hurt on the larger vessels but it quickly loses efficiency over distance or against more nimble targets. However by using a ballistic computer, for difficult shots you can have the computer aim at the predicted intercept point. While you lose some things (like being able to aim at a specific part of the ship) and you add the extra complexity of operating a complex lock-on system, but on the flipside you can DRASTICALLY increase the envelope of situations the ship can comfortably hit the target at, including for some cases *ranges beyond the visual capability of the pilot* though pulling those off is not only are but requires fleet coordination. Another great examples is guided missiles, especially large grid ones. They require a dedicated, purpose built ship to really work with any degree of reliability, which puts IMMENSE additional design pressure upon the vessel, however their key aspect is being able to turn ship components (like thrusters, hydrogen tanks, or blast doors) into potent weapons. They do not rely on the same rules as weapons, instead following the same limitations as ships (usually far more constraining but also changing what weapons work best against them). And they tend to scale in their damage output the bigger the target is, allowing a small ship, piloted by a smart and aware crew, to punch above their weight class in a way that is usually not easily done without these kinds of systems. It can also be used in a more passive way to increase individual effectiveness of each crew by giving them acess to more information or automating some tasks. For example, you can have 15 fighter pilots, or one drone operator operating 15 drone fighters. You lose a lot of individual skillsets for the fighter pilots yet that means you can now allocate those 15 fighter pilots to, for example, fly 15 missile corvettes. It allows to shift strengths in unconventional ways which thus allows to defeat enemies which by any regards would de-facto win by using conventional tactics and ship designs.

[@chloekaftan]

i have a counter argument for this, and i realized it while i was in the middle of building my capital ship in SE after going through a few days worth of nonstop grinding in World of Warships; first of all we need to clear all of the confusion in the room, "Dreadnought" is a term given to a very heavily armored ship that can fight any kind of threat with reasonable effectiveness, which fits in Space Engineers because a Massive Jack of All Trades Ship is best described as such. historically Dreadnoughts have existed originally as Heavy Cruisers retrofitted to have far more armor, and bigger guns, as well as a substantial array of casemate guns, AA batteries, Dual purpose Flak Cannons, etc. this style of combat was gradually phased out by World War II due to the rising prevalence of Aircraft Carriers and the rising costs of maintaining these Dreadnoughts amid the Washington & London Treaties. eventually to reduce costs and risks of losing their Dreadnoughts, a new type of ship was born. based on the Dreadnought design principle but vastly different in roles. the first is what we are all very familiar with, Battleships. These Ships were designed strictly to engage the enemy at extremely long ranges, most designs of this type did away with its casemate turrets and added a dual layered casemate belt and main armor belt, their armor was redesigned to follow the "Turtleback" configuration, whereby the interior of the ship would be armored layer by layer to form strongholds within every section of the ship, from the Fore/Bow & Stern/Aft Armor Sections, the Primary Armor Belt, the Casemate Belt, the Auxiliary Section, the Torpedo Belt, the Superstructure Section, the Barbette Armor, the Primary Gunmounts Armor, and the Citadel Section. (you can guess which one is the most important) some ships would even have a Secondary Citadel for protecting the Barbettes, and the Primary Citadel would gain an extra spaced layer and be renamed the Stronghold Citadel. These Ships were heavily armored for both long range and close range combat, but the latter is avoided as much as possible. Some designs would also have "Icebreaker Armor Belts" for Bow Tanking or Ramming an enemy ship. The entire purpose of Battleships designed with the Turtleback Configuration is to essentially be the proverbial "Castle that stems the Tide". fighting from a distance to support smaller friendly ships, offering a juicy distraction for the opponents while the team intercepts them, providing a delaying action to help buy time for allied ships to change the tide of battle, or acting as the primary command center for every ship in the fleet. these ships can definitely hold their own, but are not designed to fight alone in protracted engagements. the second type of ship is what is known as Battlecruisers. These Ships are designed with mobility in mind, borrowing the best parts of Heavy Cruisers, laying down heavy fire or long range artillery fire while evading incoming fire, these ships are intentionally designed as "Glass Cannons" to boost their mobility and maneuverability, and therefore are designed with an "All or Nothing" Armor Configuration, intentionally thinning the armor of all the previously mentioned sections, or taking full advantage of armor angling to force exhibit armor ablation, peeling the armor to prevent an over-penetration into vital sections (and yes this actually works in space engineers too), with the only armor section having any real protection being the Citadels of the Ship. The entire purpose of Battlecruisers designed with All or Nothing Configuration is to distract the enemy as much as possible while making them hurt hard, and finally when you have their attention, make them miss every single shot aimed at you so you waste their time while they cant focus on your allied ships. this is the embodiment of the Opportunistic Sniper, taking cheap shots and immediately dipping out before things can even have a chance to get hairy. the third type of ship is what is known as Pocket Battleships. These Ships are designed with the ability to brawl at close range and absolutely decimate the enemy before retreating, these ships are designed specifically to have as much weapons as humanly possible with an emphasis on extremely hard hitting unavoidable saturation of damage on an enemy ship, either to cripple them or to destroy them, and are meant to stalk their prey under the cover of land masses, rough oceans, or heavy storms, the very emphasis of Guerilla Warfare and Hit & Run tactics employed by the Americans, and of Blitzkrieg employed by the Germans. this type of ship is much smaller than the previous two types, and therefore don't strictly need to pick between a Turtleback scheme or All or Nothing scheme for its Armor Layout since its smaller size guarantees much greater mobility, maneuverability and lower detection profile. however these ships are extremely risky to pilot since the tactic used to saturate the enemy requires that the ship has to be so close to and surprise them that they cannot react fast enough to evade, retreat, or retaliate, making the chance of your own demise extremely high if you are not a very experienced and confident captain. unlike the first two types however, this type works best alone to keep its trail hidden.

[@rogofos]

so basically super heavy ships are just another example of focusing so much on winning the battle that you're sacrificing the entire campaign for it

[@killer13324]

main point against dreadnaughts comes from a very good piece of advice from EVE Online: Don't fly a ship if you cannot afford to replace it. In other words, if you cannot replace a dreadnaught, don't build and field a dreadnaught.

[@techstuff9198]

You're not describing a dreadnought, you're describing a pre-dreadnought ship.

[@GetBrocked]

we're in space/in the future. I'm using the sci-fi definition of dreadnought

[@techstuff9198]

@@GetBrocked The point remains the same. These are not the problems of a dreadnought style ship.

[@admiralmallard7500]

@@techstuff9198 Sci fi dreadnoughts carry a ton of various weapons because they're taking on various units. Pre dreadnoughts packed everything they could on board because accuracy was ass. And dreadnoughts focused on being accurate with one type of weapon but in turn were worse at engaging smaller ships

[@Husker5454]

Space engineers has a sweet spot between Functional and Mass . Too small and you can be crippled by a few vollys of weapons or stripped of turrets . Too large and you cant repair / build or maneuver . For me i think the sweet spot would be 18k blocks and the largest around 25k for survival combat .

[@GetBrocked]

my argument, is that 25k is way to much. Especially when you could realistically field 5x5k ships.

[@knighthunter5333]

“Like the UNSC infinity, where it won’t go down even in a 1v5…” Atriox: Am I a joke to you

[@PyroMancer2k]

It's been a while since I played SE but I don't recall needing a crew to fly a large ship. I use to solo build and fly large ships on my own all the time. Back before the point system to limit the number of blocks, and even Holographic Blueprints were put in is when I use to play. In survival for simplicity I went for the Borg style of ship design with multiple layers of armor. My first design was suppose to be Borg Sphere but it looked more like a Diamond cause SE doesn't do curves. It was a large ship block set with one turret on each of the 6 ends and I got so good at building them I could build it survival in about 10-20 minutes or so. For larger ships I built a Borg Cube which was 13x13x13 Heavy Armor with layered armor on the inside. The thing was a brick with the most important internals at the center so even when all my weapons were gone I still could often break off from combat to get away. But that wasn't the largest ships I made in survival. The largest was the Borg Tactical Cube which was 26x26x26 heavy armor and took me about 6-8 hours as I recall to build in survival. Which was pretty fast considering I had building the standard cubes down to a science that only took about 3 hours and this thing was several times their size. Both cubes were meant for a single role, combat. So they didn't have the multi-function issue you mention. The Tactical cube was basically just more of the same, more surface area for more turrets, larger insides for more layers of hull. The ships both used gravity drives so they could could go really fast and thrusters were mostly just for making slow maneuvers. The Tactical Cube was so well armored I actually just used it to ram other ships sometimes including cutting a larger ship in half as it was a lot longer but not as tall or wide as my T.Cube. I took moderate damage but they were in pieces, and I did it more for fun and as a way to show I don't care about my ship getting damage than it being tactically advantageous. During that time I came to find I had a lot of the same lessons as mentioned in this video. Even though I was a solo fighting against groups so I could only be in one spot at a time having the one large ship had some major draw backs. First and foremost was the resource cost and time. Repairing those cubes was a PAIN. there would have damaged or destroyed parts on the other side of the layered armor. So I would have to grind out the damaged armor piece to replace tubes used to feed ammo to the turrets. The Gyros were encased in heavy armor as well and again sometimes a few would get destroyed and being in the middle of the ship it was hard to get to them other then fly through the hole to manually repair. At times it was easier to just grind down who sections of the ship and replace it. For those wondering how a solo could build such large ships in a short period, it is with a large welding ships. I had 13x13 wielders on the front of a modest ship that was mostly just assemblers and cargo bays. I made it that size so it could build one full layer of the Cube without needing to move. So much like a 3D printer I just laid one layer at a time turned on wielders and waited a couple mins and repeat.. Most of the build time was simply placing blocks. With the new blue print system I could probably pop out a cube in like 20 minutes, though the addition of engines damaging blocks on the ship make internal engines a problem now. Have a bunch of large ships around my base with auto turrets on was great for defense though. When it came to attacking though a lot of combat in those days was more scouting and raids. Thus the quick and cheap to produce Borg Spheres became my goto ship as I didn't really care if I lost one and they were super easy to repair plus with 6 turrets of which 5 could always fire from any angle when approaching the ship made it have a relatively high damage output compared to a lot of other ships I would stumble across. And being a lot smaller also meant it was really hard to it. The result was I mass produced them and would do raids and fights dealing way more damage then I took in a ship I didn't care about losing. Since they were also heavy armor at times when I lost my turrets I would use them to ram the enemy ship causing massive damage. Then just respawn at base hop in another which I got several of and go again as one mining run got me enough to build dozens of them. For size the spheres were basically two small thrusters point in all 6 directions, gyro, turret on each end, and encased in heavy armor. A single door on one side with like one open block inside and the cockpit is how compact it was. If had a team we would of zergs the enemy like crazy. :) So yeah the Massive ships are cool to look at, fun to take out for a fight, but when it comes to the logistics of war they aren't that great.

[@catfwish]

What I took from this: if you make a supership, and please don't, make it a cluster ship using a modular system so complex it makes you sick from the disorientation of thinking about it.

[@boad6484]

I know super ships are just a Kilomitors long billboard sign saying "I'M AN SCARY SHIP". and don't have much use. *But it's still an kilometers long billboard sign saying "I'M AN SCARY SHIP"* try getting FF pilots to engage that kinda thing without nope'ing out XD

[@GetBrocked]

the irony is that this comment is from the faction that engaged a super cap with Frigates on 3 separate occasions... and actually did quite well.

[@boad6484]

yes but (most) other faction in fhe intirity of SE are not ready to die in an blaze of glory!!

[@knightpal1545]

I fully respect the video. It brings good points, but it also follows the real world logic. It's why we stopped building dreadnoughts majorly. They costed so much and didn't have speed to out race torpedoes.

[@vaelaris]

The only real exception to this rule aside from niche applications, at least in my opinion, is when you don't have anyone to fly the other ships--it doesn't matter if you have a fleet of 30 little warships, if you only have enough people to fly one or two. Dreadnoughts make a lot more sense when you have similar resources to multiplayer factions, but only one pilot.

[@deltacx1059]

Now I don't know what the "turns" crap is about but me and my friends build our equipment to our needs which normally means one or two huge ships near the end game because we simply don't have the people to populate a bunch of small stuff, we also don't consider weapon spam a thing because YOU HAVE TO FEED THE GUNS, you need the resources, storage and manufacturing capacity to keep feeding the things. That being said to be good with large ships you really need to specialize and think the design through for it to work well. You also need the right parts, vanilla parts just flat out suck for large applications which leads to a good chunk of your ship being thrusters and gyros, better parts fix that issue all together.

[@acetraker1988]

Needs more dakka, unless/until you have god tier defence (most games have very weak defence). Mobility helps No Hits = No Damage. However Mobility gets rekt when targeting gets insane. E.g. in SE terms, OP scripted weapon systems. Quantity can beat Quality to a point.

[@georgethompson1460]

Or even warfare 2 guided missiles/drones.

[@Darkwingfriend11]

Accuracy by volume is my favorite tactic.

[@edwardglass9602]

One interesting tidbit about "superships" - they have a place in a very specific doctrine of naval warfare, and that's decisive battle - the concept of a single major engagement being able to define a war either through forcing peace or destroying enemy assets. The example you put forth was Yamato, and I think that's a great demonstration because the IJN was obsessed with the mythical "decisive battle." This wasn't them being dreamy or stupid, this was them taking into account the smaller size of their production capacity and determining that quick, decisive strikes (essentially against public opinion as well as against military targets) would be needed to force the cost of victory beyond what its opponents were willing to pay. In those major engagements, at least theoretically, the Yamato would have the support of its fleet, and there would be no reason to hold it back from the exact engagement that it was built for. And that wasn't just wishful thinking - it was influenced by the victory at Tsushima, the textbook example of a decisive battle (arguably) ending a war. But what the Japanese forgot was that Tsushima was a great victory not because of any crazy giant ships or great superweapons, but because they had a balanced fleet of well-built workhorse ships commanded by good leadership. Also, the advent of carriers rendered the entire concept of the battleship tactically moot anyway, and their strategic roles (escorting, shore bombardment, fleet-in-being) could be performed by smaller, cheaper, but far more efficient regular fast battleships like the Iowa or Nagato-classes. So even in its intended role, the Yamato was a waste.

[@martinkurdi436]

I'd say that the main reason to have something like a dreadnought is to use as a mobile operations base, they have enough space to be used as support for your cruiser, and enough armor to not get f'ed if you get caught in a surprise attack

[@GetBrocked]

yeah, but most capital ships can handle that (Cruisers and above)

[@Illianor123]

Super ships only make sense if there is some economy of scale, pretty much an exponential scale on reactors that can then be funnelled into shields, or energy weapons (which can then outrange smaller ships - enough to significantly whittle down the horde).

[@aurenian8247]

I often think about ships in terms of what they get for the weight they have to haul around. Super capital ships always have so much dead weight. Especially if they are also production centres. If you have tons of production modules as well as tons and tons of cargo on board that isn't repair components or ammo then you are that much slower in a fight for no gain. Instead of a ship battle, a fight against some of these ridiculous ships becomes more of a base assault. The big ship is basically stationary and the attacking fleet can pick how and where to strike.

[@Blue_Doge]

as a starwars nerd I immideatlly saw the problem with the eternity, think battle of endor (and on quite a few occasions this did happen to it although it was not destroyed) the executor was a massive extreamlly capable ship that was massive compared to evreything else (obv besided DS.2) but the rebellion focoused all of their effort onto destryoing it, and once destroyed the empires fleet crumpled, they lost a vast ammount of recources, and morale took a MASSIVE hit. this philosiphy is shown to be pretty bad when Eckharts Ladder made a video imporving the empires fleet compisition and stratagy at endor that removed the executor and replaced it with more smaller ships. now just replace executor with eternity Although Super ships work well when they are properlly supported, part of the fun of the eternity is watching it have to content with the challenges of not having a support fleet. Also if you have the resources to build a proper support fleet, you need to have a lot more resources than your opponent because they can just build a fleet to counter yours. (thats why we generally only see super ships dominate in universes where we have 1 faction that is vastlly superior to the others) A great place I learned about space combat fleet tactics is from a community guide on empire at war called "Admiral's 101: How to Space Battle" which gives usefull tips like fleet compisition, what certan ships are used for and how to use them properlly, how to position your fleet, and certan tactics you can use (albiet this being an EAW guide hase some stuff that can't be carried over to space engineers). Theres even an exaple of don't put your super ship to face an enemy fleet it will get destroyed

[@batnacks]

An advantage that a single large ship has is that in a situation where you only have one person, a larger ship can field more firepower for fewer players

[@FarremShamist]

It's also a HUGE pain in the ass for a single player to maintain.

[@deadredherring]

A very fine presentation. It makes a lot of sense. It gave me an interesting prespective on fleet configurations and ship engineering.

[@advencro3379]

Imagine someone watching this video half way done with their battleship then they just cancel it xD.

[@GetBrocked]

man that would be depressing.

[@JEL625]

I think what people forget about the eternity is that its a really big fish in a small pond and its still gets kicked around on a semi regular basis. At a glance you'd think it would dominate most engagements with far superior weapons and armor, but once the opposition starts taking it seriously its not hard to force it to retreat. If it had been on an equal ground tech wise with the other factions it would never have made it as far. It also has a major issue with staying on top of its supplies because its power comes at a cost. Sure it can deal devastating damage and take more hits than its competition but every shell fired and each armor plate punctured needs to be replaced or it becomes a floating grave.

[@xXStampsXx]

For some historical context for everything Brock has spoken about look at the German kriegsmarine during world War 2. Specifically the heavy surface raiders and the Bismark. The battle of the river plate shows how one "super" ship can lose to a group of smaller ships Artic convoys JW51B and JW55B are both battles that again show "super" ships or heavy capital ship forces can be beaten by larger groups of smaller ships and better coordination. The channel dash shows how "super" ships are always major targets The entire outcome of the surface raiding plan by the kriegsmarine shows how only having a small group of heavy/super capital ships means you don't have the hulls to be everywhere you need and take advantage of all opportunities to win or do damage. It also shows how in these types of fleets even moderate damages of capital ships csn cause a mission kill and delay operations for months or more.

[@kirknay]

German wunderwaffe, Japanese SBBs and SSCVs (like the I-400 series), or even a much more recent on the nose conflict (though corruption def did not help there) for more examples... What use is a super tank if you only have 5-6, and everything else has been missing tires for years?

[@GetBrocked]

the pacific was also a great example. The BBs really didn't do that much during the critical stages of the war. And most of the action was handled by destroyers and cruisers. The logistics of the war, and attacking/defending it (which by it's very nature was spread out, even during guadalcanal) meant that the BBs were really sorta overkill. Even when we saw major BBs be deployed. They really were only a flash in the pan. Which some sucess, but also absurd repair times. At the end of the day BBs ended up existing to counter the enemy's ability to have a single decisive battle, but practically speaking, never really did all that much. Not that this video was about BBs, but it does help my point. You got fulfil your commitments with Cruisers and Destroyers before you can have aspirtation of wunder projects.

[@kirknay]

@@GetBrocked BBs in the pacific also served better as ground support, such as artillery for amphibious landings, than against other ships most of the time. This was also shown in Europe on some notable occasions, such as when an American BB overfilled their ballast on one side so their guns could send artillery just that little bit further.

[@brendanjohnson4931]

@ 3:55; The saying is "A big fish in a small pond", and while that fish might impress the smaller fish in the small pond, in a bigger pond no one cares.

[@danielk.english6004]

big ships are more cinematic in practice, efficient builds are best, which means minimal everything to get the job done so fewer corridors, enough armor to get by, enough guns to kill the enemy, and a good enough engine to get to your destination and back this is also more cost effective (as per square cube law)

[@henryplumb5200]

This. This is why I try build all my ships in survival first, and then greeble and pretty them up in Creative. If a single space dude/dudette could assemble it with pieces from his backgarden and it can kill modded in ships with ease using only vanilla/official DLC weapon systems with the 110 speed cap? Probably a decent ship innit.

[@Joeythedungeonmaster]

I agree with the inflexibility thing. In a game I play called stellaris, you build ships. There is a supership called the juggernaut, and it takes many years of in game time to build, and is costly, so I don't want to lose it. Typically I feel better off building a smaller fleet than using the juggernaut.

[@alexmakins9496]

I think you really countered your own conclusion at the end. Dreadnoughts are more effective as a center of a fleet. We see this at the end of Outlands season 1 when the riders lend some ships to help the Eternity and we see the true power of it. In combat ut allows the Eternity to focus on maiming one ship at a time as the fleet helps defend it from the other enemy ships avoiding it getting swarmed. More importantly though if its set up as a mobile refinery and factory it can allow a fleet to extend its operational range. So to end: yeah I dividually they might suck.. but using a nuke as a sniper rofle would suck as well. Its more about how you use them rather than the class it's self.

[@GetBrocked]

I addressed why that's bad/good. The Eternity works as a center of a rider fleet because she's free. The riders got her for free. ofc a super cap in a fight will be amazing. The issue isn't that these ships are bad, they'll win every 1v1 or even 1v3. It's the cost -benefit analysis that makes them suck, they don't inherently suck.

[@Cooldude-ko7ps]

@@GetBrocked true. The cost is important

[@samtheman825]

TLDR; big ships with small budget= bad. Smaller ships with small budget= good

[@Zankaroo]

I'm honestly surprised the US super carriers weren't mentioned. They are super flexible and can defend themselves with there wide array of planes but yet they always have 10-20 other ships surrounding them to make a protective bubble because losing one would be a massive hit to our power in that area. Plus the possible demoralization and fear it could cause knowing that another nation can take out one of our supers which are thought to be near untouchable currently. I do remember watching a video a few months ago that was talking about a idea going around in the navy brass to down size some of our ships into more smaller cheaper vessels because of a variety of reasons. Also kind surprised EVE Online wasn't mentioned at some point. Grant it you could say the titans are "affordable" considering how many there are after them being out for years now and the snowball of wealth out weighed them getting destroyed. But to me when any one ship type stands out as a priority target well above all others around them, its too big affordable or not. Aside from carriers, because they have to be a certain size to do what they do and they also point out how a bunch of smaller craft are more effective. Why send a bunch of expensive ships to do what a few cheap planes can do. I mean think about the damage a wave of say 50 carrier based bombers can do. Or looking at today's multi role jets, 1 jet out of the typical 65 planes on a super carrier, (which have up to 90 variety of planes or 130 Hornets,) can do so much more than any of our ships per cost.

[@GetBrocked]

US super carriers are like the covenant CSOs I mentioned. A super vessel by any metric except the US's. Put another way, we have more Super Carriers than any other nation has regular carriers. From our pov these are not super ships, these are a standard part of our navy.

[@maofamily6509]

us is the country that has 5000 point insted of 100 point us can afford supercarrier but still have points for other things

[@mervinreyes3008]

@@GetBrocked honestly iam wondering how your define dreadnought if I remember right dreadnoughts were pretty much just battleships that had one thing about them soo good they change battleship design.(HMS dreadnought) like when I hear dreadnought I pretty much hear what you describe minus it can be taken down easily but I guess that's really up to the setting, like in mass effect a bigger ship = better range on its main gun.\ but they are limited in size because of ezzo while your CP's are limits the size. Do you think there would be a point when the ship is so big and so many guns it can take on fleets of smaller ships? in S.E

[@GetBrocked]

@@mervinreyes3008 absolutely. The issue then becomes, "how big", and was it worth it

[@mervinreyes3008]

@@GetBrocked ok hear my idea for a dreadnought with no limits in the building tell me what you think. ( mind you i don't play SE just watch the vids so I am not sure what mods and what vanilla.) if it's big enough have railguns as turrets to deal with ships also have missile tubes that can fire a guided missile big enough to hurt most ships and fast enough to hit from far. not sure if this is cheating but let's also give it a hanger bay to let out 40 fighters and 20 bombers. inside you got 10 small ship that is utility aka mining/ repair ships and ever things you need to build up a base in a new area. Think armor covering being surrounded by multiple shield Layers. a gravity drive for the speed mind you think would be a dreadnought so in my eyes about 1 Km long and crewed by more than a few players let's say 200 with 60 being the pilots for the if you had a god made computer and some 200 people got their points together to build that one ship in the beginning vs 200 other people how do you think it would go would it be big enough to get the job done.

[@danburrykerman6826]

Funnily enough, carriers and, to an extent, motherships, can contradict this statement. As while they can or will take a vast majority of a navy’s resources to build, they will never really go into the center of the battlefield, even if they have a large well of shields and/or tons of capital weapons. They can just sit at the edge of a battle and deploy a fleet of small destroyers and tagalong cruisers(and if advanced enough, build more on the spot). Each fleet of ships will only use a small amount of materials, or points, whichever, and if defeated the mothership can return usually without damage.

[@GetBrocked]

seems pretty cool on paper, but terrible in practice. If the Mother ship sent in 10 destroyers and the other side didn't have a mothership, but sent in 20,30 or whatever destroyers (because they had more resources) It just seems like the side that committed to the fight more wins

[@advencro3379]

Okay im watching the backround and noooooo the oil

[@williamgoyette517]

Big ships can work, but it’s typically because in most more realistic warfare scenarios it’s asymmetric. You can bring a big ship and a bunch of little ones to an engagement where the enemy has far less total firepower.

[@GetBrocked]

historically this doesn't work though. Because the enemy just shows up somewhere else. Or when the ship is big enough they just converge onto it. Because the war is centered around kill that ship

[@schoenperkins8210]

I wonder how the exact inverse of this situation would work IE: a simply massive swarm of automated or otherwise cheap ships

[@prometheus8010]

Super ships really need to have mods, it can be done without but mods help alot especially for mods that cut down on the amount of thrusters and gyros you need

[@astronomicalgamer205]

Me and some friends ran into the problem of large dreadnoughts being useless after I captained one and we saw all of these downsides. It's just pointless to waste these resources on such a useless ship. Carrier of the same size could be more effective

[@tomc.5704]

A super ship could make sense -- if the enemy cooperated and let you do what you wanted to do. If it has double the health and double the DPS, it _will_ win a 1v2 provided that it can focus its fire, taking out one enemy and then the other. But the resource cost (and repair cost), health, and damage have to be competitive. And you have to be able to focus fire.

[@Jacob-yg7lz]

This is one of the reason why IRL dreadnoughts fell out of style. When all you chips are on the big scary ship, you're gonna be scared as hell to use it.

[@QualityPen]

IRL, there were no dreadnoughts like the concept being discussed in this video, because nobody was dumb enough to pour their entire navy’s resources into one or two or three massive ships. Real-world dreadnoughts were just ordinary battleships. HMS Dreadnought is remembered today because it was technologically superior to all other ships when it was built and it became the model for future battleship classes, not because it was a uniquely large ship. IRL battleships fell out of style because airplanes and missiles were too much of a threat and armor could not protect a ship against a barrage of anti-ship missiles or torpedos or 1000lb bombs. It was more effective to manufacture unarmored missile bearing ships and possibly carriers. The USS Iowa was dragged out of retirement with upgrades in the 80’s after the USSR launched the Kirov class heavy guided missile cruisers (many in the Anglosphere call these battlecruisers). Realistically though, this was a symbolic gesture rather than a military one. A Kirov could have sunk the Iowa without ever coming close enough for the Iowa to fire against it. Flagships like the Yamamoto, Bismarck, or Peter the Great are always carefully guarded and often seen as superships, but the reality is they are only marginally larger than other ships in the navy. Their role and its associated symbolism makes them larger than life.

[@truereaper4572]

@@QualityPen The Kirov class wouldn't have been able to sink an Iowa.

[@theinfinium3247]

cant help but notice your "eternity's advent" looks an awful lot like the pillar of autumn from halo or just a halcyon class ship from the same series, whether it was intentional or not i like it as that's always been one of my favorite looking ships in video games.

[@GetBrocked]

very intentional

[@Savsgames]

I call this problem the Yamato problem. The Yamato was big. It was powerful. It was downright terrifying. And it cost the IJN a massive portion of it's budget. It's biggest problem? Logistics.

[@sigonsteele]

This is why large ships should never be alone. Carriers, battleships and dreadnoughts need escorts to cover their weaknesses.

[@davidstrife165]

The way I came to understand them, large ships at the relative scale of a "supership/dreadnaut" would better serve as a mobile fortress, taking up the rear of any fleet as a carrier and moving defensive position. Things like The Mothership in Homeworld for example, if its seeing frontline combat, we have bigger problems.

[@l0rf]

Good comparison. But I'd argue that the mothership never occupied the same role as a dreadnought like perhaps Sajuuk did. It was a mobile center of operations, resource gathering and production, never intended for actual line battles even if it was outfitted with guns. It's more like a Detroit or Rhein-Ruhr or some similar industrial center but with engine strapped on. And absolutely crucial to the war effort but never conceived as a front line ship like a UNSC Infinity.

[@davidstrife165]

@@l0rf your not wrong, but its the first thing that came to mind

[@l0rf]

@@davidstrife165 Oh yeah like I said, I didn't disagree with you and it is correct that if the mothership was under attack, you knew you had to do something this instant.

[@thezerg618]

Also its just that small ships can just kill with artillery and railguns from long range and dodge the dreadnoughts shots

[@RaptureZJ88]

I like your video, however, I would say a 'Super-Capital' ship isn't just a ship. It is a statement. It is a symbol of national prestige. They are the flagship's of their nation. They are not a fleet upon themselves, but they are a fleet worthy threat. A threat in being. If I know your super capital is in a area, I have to dedicate enough ships to counter. More then counter. I have to leave enough ships in order to deter you from risking such a ship. 5 destroyers may be a threat to the Eternity, but that might be a risk you are willing to take. If I only have 15 destroyers, and it takes 10 defensively deployed to deter you, now my fleet is down to 5 ships for aggressive actions. A super capital is a threat and a boast. "Look what I can build and field. I am so powerful, I can afford such a ship. Do you really want to risk my wrath." And super capitals are not usually deployed alone. I really like your arguments presented, but don't over estimate the phycological effect. A super ship isn't the one and only ship you build though. Japan didn't just build the Yamato alone. It was the super ship at the head of a very diverse and powerful fleet. I would say a super ship should be like the US super carriers. They are the centerpiece of a fleet and a power projector. A force multiplier. We don't deploy the Nimitz alone. It has a fleet with it all times but it brings a fleet's worth of firepower alone. If you are going to try and take it on, you want to make sure. You will assign overkill to guarantee. Which I would say again, ties up the enemy. Because that super ship always represents a "what if" in the back of your enemies mind.

[@GetBrocked]

Except the US can build a lot of super carriers, more than any other nation can build regular carriers. Such that I wouldn't consider US carriers as a super project. This would be more akin, in my eyes, if we built a carrier design that dropped our fleet carriers from ~12 to 2. Now I think you'd agree, sure, there's national prestige, but to the point where it's actively limited our combat capability. Good points however

[@RaptureZJ88]

@@GetBrocked Oh yeah, a all eggs in one basket isn't a good strategy. The Infinity was a bit of this but that is because she was meant to be a Ark ship for humanity to flee on. They needed a all purpose style of ship and it was only after finding the shield world and the technology from there that she became a 'super ship.' Often they are a great narrative design though. Like Galactica. The last Battlestar against the Cyclons. It plays great for the story but not really in practice.

[@VestedUTuber]

You've got a good point about deployment, but I do want to note that it assumes you have the resources to deploy a diverse fleet alongside a supercapital. That's kinda hard to do in SE.

[@ealtar]

@@GetBrocked prestige is overated and looses the war i would take a dozen Normandy SR2s or even SR1s over a couple of destiny ascensions

[@christopherpoet458]

Its nice to see someone make a point of the weaknesses and issues of these ships. If you are keeping to Space Engineers Terms, just in general the Supership is not game-friendly. I used to play on a server with a bunch of friends ages ago before we all moved on in life to other things. At the time, I and a friend (Lets call him Sionnach) founded a CIS faction with the intent to keep a CIS theme to our faction. We also had a UNSC faction and I think the third player was a Star Treck themed faction. The UNSC player was the "scarry" one. It had a totoal 5 man team and they went for the supership build right out of the gate. It was their mobile base. So did the Star Treck guy but we can't count them much on this because the team dropped playing first. The game was centered around Earth. There were little to no astroids and no other planets. At least, we all agreed there were "no other planets" lol. Anyway, My friend and I were the only two on the CIS team. We started out with a deployment fortress similar to the one seen in The Clone Wars (I do not remember the arc). We built two tanks for ground base defence, four heavy Turbo Towers (yes we had the turboi laisers mod), and then went to build three malificant class frigits. The first thing I noticed right away was how costly it was just building three frigits as opposed to the singile super. We thought about going all in on a providence, and we choose not too after a resource cost comparison. If I recall right, we could build nearly seven frigits for just over or just under the cost of one providance. So, that was what we did. We built three of these frigits. We were half way through a fourth before the first fight broke out. Funny enough, it was also the last fight on the server too. UNSC decided to gun it for the Star Treck faction. They were the most under developed of the teams mainly due to playtime restrictions and the UNSC plan at the time was to intergrate the Star Treck team and build two support ships for their super ship. The only reason this fight happened was because I and my friend took an innititave to set up becons up to 10k out from our base as a warning system. If a player entered their sensor radious, it was bounce a warning signal back to HQ. UNSC, for all their scouting, did not know this. They pinnged seven becons, showing their course projection and alterting us to their attack plan. So, we got on a call with Star Treck (discord) and warned them. They in turn asked for hour help. They had one semi-functional supership that was still underarmed and largly incomplete on the interior. We agreed. We saw it as an opertunity to at least ground and set back the UNSC team and didn't care what happened outside of that. We just wanted to knock down their super a peg or two. All in all, it turned into a three and a half ships vs 1 fight. The UNSC gunned it for the other super first thinking the ship was their biggest threat. The fight only lasted a few minutes befure the UNSC super was getting shredded. We did get a little lucky in that my friend was able to board their ship half way theough the fight and disabled the shield generator. I will note at the time, we had gotten their shields down to under 40% and they were STILL focused on the Star treck ship. It was at this moment they turned to fight us and we enter the conclusion. At the end of the day, we lost 1 malificant friget and the other two were damaged. 1 more than the other. The UNSC was a pile of burning scrap quickly falling towards the ground. The Star Treck super was heavily damaged too, but the incomplete state was somewhat of a saving grace as in all technicality, it was maybe 60% damaged. Most of that damage just being the hull. In the fatermath, the UNSC team lader quist the server. According to one of the teammates, we was royally pissed he not only lost the fight but lost the ship. The Star Treck team quit outright. Their morality broken over the time it would take to rebuild. My friend and I stuck to the server with the remainign UNSC faction for about a week. After that they dropped. They were struggling to get back into a decent footing and by the tme they managed to build a new base and two new ships, my friend and I sat happily at 5 malificant frigits. Two guarded our base. One patrolled a parimiter around the Star Treck base just in case their team came back and needed the protection. The remaining two were lurking close to the new UNSC base where I camped and kept an eye on the UNSC progress. The UNSC team found out about the new ships during a scout run they made and they gave up. Gave us a GG and left the server. We stayed for a few days longer but then stopped too. It was a privet server hosted by my friend for a short while. The funny part is the UNSC plan would have worked if they knew about the sensors. The only reason we got involved was because we detected their movements and had we not, they would have had a better chance to stay on top. I spoke with one of the players about the fight some time after and he said the two hardest problems they had was the ammo consumption when we joined the fight and the disoray caused by my friend for bording. That and their team lead was having a mental breakdown as their ship was being ripped apart. Half their guns were only semi-functional because of the ammo demands.

[@CaptainRhodor]

I remember facing down Captain Jack's Vengeance supergunbrick in a frigate once. I died because ultimately I was just one frigate, but because I was so much faster and was actually landing hits, I softened the ship up enough that the vanguard fleet of two cruisers and a destroyer was able to kill the thing. Our own battleship didn't even need to get involved XD

[@sirkrustin]

Good analysis. Parallels a lot of my thinking. The engine just can't handle large block counts very well. This creates a lot of problems beyond just fleet battles.

[@y0nezer067]

I’ve never even heard of SE but I love in-depth analysis like this! Awesome way of explaining things and great mic and voice quality. Definitely subbed

[@kaede795]

I can understand the whole thing of dreadnoughts being bad, although i did make dreadnoughts myself i have a Preference for Smaller ships that are considerd overgunned, my first Real ship was a Light cruiser Named Königsberg, i used it to fight a Dreadnought and the Königsberg did get destroyed but so did the Dreadnought because i overgunned it.

[@theaveragegamer7221]

I remember people experimenting with built in turrets and guns and "reloading" was building the round using a hologram after firing.

[@HairyHillman]

This reminds me so much of the real world experience of the Royal Navy under Henry 8th. Henry went all in on a super ship (the Mary Rose) which sank. After that the Royal Navy focused on deploying multiple smaller ships and found that the navy performed much better

[@ImperialGuard322nd]

You do realize that she had a 30 year career and was far from the only Great Ship in the Navy Royal? It was an embarrassing event, but it wasn't crippling to the fleet in any way, and she wasn't even the largest ship in Henry's fleet.

[@icecold7184]

Just subbed. We need more SE content creators

[@factor3290]

I’ve been looking for a good SE server for a while. Is this one patron members only?

[@boad6484]

you should check brock's videos on what outlands is and you'll figure out that it isn't an permanantly on server, rather an place to roleplay every so often. and the easy way to join is by just joining the discord and joining an faction there. no need to waist your money, unless you like the content ofcourse :) hope this helps

[@dragonmaster1500]

It's really interesting to see people talk about this in general. It makes me think about how different naval doctrines can emphasize different parts of space combat. For example from my own sci-fi setting there are two nations, one is a giant Empire that loves fielding battleships and is constantly engaging with other large polities that also tend to field larger ships, like Cruisers and Carriers. The other nation is a relatively new, small republic whose navy is built around the idea of being able to rapidly deploy so they can defend against pirate attacks on their trade routs and civilian space stations. They tend to prefer building a large number of small Corvette type ships which are easy to manufacture, have a small crew requirement, can be rapidly deployed to several locations because of their sheer numbers and many are built with a spinal mounted heavy canon. Which, while it does take up space that could be used for other things and adds more complexity to the design, basically means that while also being a fully functional corvette, the ship is also a mobile battleship canon. Great video, great explanation about the benefits and detriment, mostly detriments, that come with fielding a large ship by itself with no support fleet. Have a sub.

[@bcbc2524]

Ive always Found that SE, even with high power weapon mods, suffers from the simple hardsci truth that dodging exists. Even in the event a huge ship has massive firepower, armor belts, and to an extent shields, a lesser ship has the speed to outmanuver these muninitions, wherein the capital does not. larger SE ships just as a rule struggle, and supercapitals are simply the culmination of such. The only point this isnt the case, is when you introduce say.. A laser weapon mod. Something that allows a well designed capital to safely and reliably pick off targets at range. Ironically, as others in the comments have noted, this is a dreadnaught scenario.. Have the Armor, Range, and Speed, to kill everyone you meet... Although i feel you already acknowledged such an ideal ship when mentioning general capitals. But its a fun point regardless. Of course, any and all discussion ends when you add Spinals, especially modded ones, that can pummel capitals into submission at franky absurd ranges. But thats just the inverse logical extreme of the previous point in practice.. Either way, i feel actual fleet structure, a well rounded spread of ships will always win over any one consideration.. If you have the room for a supercapital in your doctrine. And the backup, i think you can justify making room for one. Its general tunnel-vision that is more likely to doom a factions navy more then any one investment or logistical burden.

[@thorveim1174]

Spinals are an anti capital that only capitals or a ship entirely built around it can use. But yeah once laser come in to make dodging an unreliable defense, being able to take the hits becomes more important, and thats when ship size naturally increases to have thicker armor and accomodate more redundancies.

[@chiefgully9353]

Good roundout discusion. 3-5 units. That's the rule for army comand. 3 allows you enough units to do something. 5 is about the right amount to keep track of.