i might buy a cruiser if they wherent discriminated against by agility stats that let ships the same size turn twice as fast or more, just because fairy magic.
Smaller cruisers do turn a lot better than their bigger bretheren. The Consitution class cruiser turns pretty well. The Galaxy, however, does not.
Smaller cruisers do turn a lot better than their bigger bretheren. The Consitution class cruiser turns pretty well. The Galaxy, however, does not.
Cruiser (aka Constitution Class): Turn Rate of 9 (305 meter length)
Heavy Escort (aka Akira Class): Turn Rate of 15 (464 meter length)
There is absolutely ZERO reason for a larger ship, to have a higher turn rate than a smaller one. Especially if you also consider, the Akira Class has a much larger mass than the Constitution Class refit.
The only reason the Akira has a high turn rate compared to the Constitution in STO, is because the Akira is set up as an Escort. While in actuality, the Akira Class is a Heavy Cruiser.
On the other hand,
Assault Cruiser (aka Sovereign Class): Turn Rate of 7 (680 meter length)
Advanced Escort (aka Prometheus Class): Turn Rate of 15 (415 meter length)
You'll note that the Advanced Escort has an identical turn rate compared to the Heavy Escort, despite the Advanced Escort being of a larger mass compared to the Heavy Escort. In this specific example, they correctly have "larger ship = lower turn rate", whereas in the Constitution/Akira example, the reverse holds true. Granted it's a poor example as the two ships belong in different eras, but going by Cryptic logic, the Constitution Class due to it's smaller size, should have a MUCH higher turn rate than it currently does.
In any case, all ships (Escorts, Cruisers, Science), should get a rebalance of their turn rates and inertia, based on known lengths and mass. A ship that is relatively long, and low mass (such as the Intrepid, at 343 meters and 700k ton mass) would have a rather high turn rate, while a long ship with high mass (such as the Galaxy, at 640 meters and 5000k ton mass) would have a much lower turn rate.
Better example:
Assault Cruiser: 680 meter length, 3500k ton mass
Exploration Cruiser: 643 meter length, 5000k ton mass
The Sovereign is slightly longer than the Galaxy, but has a much lower mass (based on reduced height of 26 decks vs 43 decks). As a result, the Sovereign should have significantly higher turn rate compared to the Galaxy. On the other hand, the Galaxy has 3 impulse engines, while the Sovereign has 2.
After all this "ranting", I suggest that in order to interest more players in the use of cruisers, they must first eliminate the existing "flying brick" feel to cruisers. All cruisers at endgame are extremely slow. What do slower ships benefit from, which faster ships don't?
EDIT: One last example, this time comparing 3 ships of the same tier:
Research Science (aka Olympic): 239 meters, 400k ton, turn 13, inertia 40
Heavy Escort (aka Akira): 464 meters, 3000k ton, turn 16, inertia 60
Heavy Cruiser (aka Cheyenne): 394 meters, 1300k ton, turn 8, inertia 30
There is literally no balance whatsoever between these three ships compared to what they should be. The Akira should be alot slower than the Cheyenne based on tonnage and length. Yet it's signficiantly HIGHER due to it being classified as an "Escort" by Cryptic.
I already bought the cruiser I want (mostly, anyway. Still need to wait until I have access to a T5 Shipyard because Cryptic saw fit to lock all Sovereign players out of a Fleet Assault Cruiser until they paid for access to a top-tier shipyard). I would, however, agree to funding a Kickstarter type deal that would "buy" development team time to seriously rebalance all the starships in the game to try to make currently-less-palatable choices much more viable.
Cruisers SHOULDN'T have awesome turn rates. They aren't jet fighters. What they SHOULD have is a respectable amount of firepower, which they presently do not. You never really saw the Galaxy move around much in the Dominion War scenes. They just kinda sat there and dispensed whoopass with their big saucer beams.
Unfortunately, there are no big saucer beams in the game.
Hey, if you rewatch Sacrifice of Angels, there are at least two Galaxy class starships that move into the breach, disposing of Galor class ships.
I think it would be helpful if they made turn rate literally increase at lower speeds. Currently, your ship "turns" better at lower speeds as a function of turn rate and speed making a little circle with the crappy turn rate instead of a giant circle with the crappy turn rate. But when you are going slower, it makes sense that you have more engine power available to maneuvering thrusters, so the faster you go, the lower your turn rate, the slower you go, the higher your turn rate. So when a cruiser really needs to maneuver, cut to 1/2-1/4 impulse, your turn speed goes up, change your direction, then kick it back up. So, in the oddy for example, if it's turn is average of 10 degrees per second (when you look at the stats while moving) when you cut to 3/4 impulse it could go to 11, 1/2 takes it to 12, 1/4 takes it to 13.
I'm keeping the turn bonus to a modest 1 point per quarter step down from full as applying this across the board to all ships could get real messy if the turn rate increases were higher. Though they could do an inverse proportion so that ships that already have really fast turns have more modest gains from slowing down and bigger ships have higher gains from slowing down.
Cryptic has also claimed that one of the reasons for the crappy cruiser turn rate is that they start to be "squirrely" and odd looking fighting their inertia rating. Which is true, I've gotten some cruisers to have high turn ratesl by going full engines with lots of rcs and they do look... off. Well, the proposed slower speed=literal faster turn, not just the appearance of a faster turn, would totally remedy that situation.
Comments
Smaller cruisers do turn a lot better than their bigger bretheren. The Consitution class cruiser turns pretty well. The Galaxy, however, does not.
Cruiser (aka Constitution Class): Turn Rate of 9 (305 meter length)
Heavy Escort (aka Akira Class): Turn Rate of 15 (464 meter length)
There is absolutely ZERO reason for a larger ship, to have a higher turn rate than a smaller one. Especially if you also consider, the Akira Class has a much larger mass than the Constitution Class refit.
The only reason the Akira has a high turn rate compared to the Constitution in STO, is because the Akira is set up as an Escort. While in actuality, the Akira Class is a Heavy Cruiser.
On the other hand,
Assault Cruiser (aka Sovereign Class): Turn Rate of 7 (680 meter length)
Advanced Escort (aka Prometheus Class): Turn Rate of 15 (415 meter length)
You'll note that the Advanced Escort has an identical turn rate compared to the Heavy Escort, despite the Advanced Escort being of a larger mass compared to the Heavy Escort. In this specific example, they correctly have "larger ship = lower turn rate", whereas in the Constitution/Akira example, the reverse holds true. Granted it's a poor example as the two ships belong in different eras, but going by Cryptic logic, the Constitution Class due to it's smaller size, should have a MUCH higher turn rate than it currently does.
In any case, all ships (Escorts, Cruisers, Science), should get a rebalance of their turn rates and inertia, based on known lengths and mass. A ship that is relatively long, and low mass (such as the Intrepid, at 343 meters and 700k ton mass) would have a rather high turn rate, while a long ship with high mass (such as the Galaxy, at 640 meters and 5000k ton mass) would have a much lower turn rate.
Better example:
Assault Cruiser: 680 meter length, 3500k ton mass
Exploration Cruiser: 643 meter length, 5000k ton mass
The Sovereign is slightly longer than the Galaxy, but has a much lower mass (based on reduced height of 26 decks vs 43 decks). As a result, the Sovereign should have significantly higher turn rate compared to the Galaxy. On the other hand, the Galaxy has 3 impulse engines, while the Sovereign has 2.
After all this "ranting", I suggest that in order to interest more players in the use of cruisers, they must first eliminate the existing "flying brick" feel to cruisers. All cruisers at endgame are extremely slow. What do slower ships benefit from, which faster ships don't?
EDIT: One last example, this time comparing 3 ships of the same tier:
Research Science (aka Olympic): 239 meters, 400k ton, turn 13, inertia 40
Heavy Escort (aka Akira): 464 meters, 3000k ton, turn 16, inertia 60
Heavy Cruiser (aka Cheyenne): 394 meters, 1300k ton, turn 8, inertia 30
There is literally no balance whatsoever between these three ships compared to what they should be. The Akira should be alot slower than the Cheyenne based on tonnage and length. Yet it's signficiantly HIGHER due to it being classified as an "Escort" by Cryptic.
Hey, if you rewatch Sacrifice of Angels, there are at least two Galaxy class starships that move into the breach, disposing of Galor class ships.
Yeah, but those Galaxies aren't moving real quick. If anything, they're a little sluggish, at least in comparison to all the smaller craft zipping by.
I'm keeping the turn bonus to a modest 1 point per quarter step down from full as applying this across the board to all ships could get real messy if the turn rate increases were higher. Though they could do an inverse proportion so that ships that already have really fast turns have more modest gains from slowing down and bigger ships have higher gains from slowing down.
Cryptic has also claimed that one of the reasons for the crappy cruiser turn rate is that they start to be "squirrely" and odd looking fighting their inertia rating. Which is true, I've gotten some cruisers to have high turn ratesl by going full engines with lots of rcs and they do look... off. Well, the proposed slower speed=literal faster turn, not just the appearance of a faster turn, would totally remedy that situation.
I guess a D'Kora Marauder is as close as I'll get. Dabo.
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