Ship roles in Star Conflict

Ship roles in Star Conflict

 

One and a half month have passed since the introduction of roles, but we still notice that some players do not fully understand the strengths and weaknesses of their chosen role. In today’s article we would like to tell you once again how we see the roles and show you some of their features.

 

As you know, each ship class has three different roles which have all have a unique performance on the battlefield.

We have the following roles: Interceptor: ECM(Electronic Warfare), Recon and Covert Ops. Fighter: Tackler, Command and Gunship. Frigate:Engineer, Guard and Long Range.

 

Interceptor

Let’s start with the smallest, but at the same time the fastest ships - Interceptors. The roles of these ships are suitable for playing in a coordinated group on the battlefield and attacking the enemy’s rear. We designed these three roles as following:

 

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These ships can take part in battles of any complexity in small groups. Using their modules ECM ships can disturb the normal operation of enemy ships. Because of their tactical importance, ECM ships are often subjected to attacks, for this reason they are equipped with heavy armor and a Metastable Energy Field Generator, which may temporarily disable the systems of enemy ships in order to escape enemy fire.

 

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As their name implies, these ships should infiltrate and identify the location of important ships in the enemy fleet. To perform this task, they are equipped with a special module which allows them to make mikrowarp over a great distance to change the position on the battlefield as fast as possible. In addition these ships can be equipped with a set of modules that helps to located stealthed enemy ships. The unique design of Recon ships allows them to capture objects faster than any other role.

 

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Covert Ops ships are lone fighters in battle, which use “hit and run” tactics - their modules allow them to sneak behind enemy line and inflict a big amount of damage before sneaking back. In groups these ships are perfect for taking down the enemy defense. Their role is based on inflicting as many critical damage as possible.

 

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Interceptors are displayed on the radar by the following icons:

 

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From left to right: ECM, Recon, Covert Ops

 

Fighter

 

Continuing the roles, let’s take a look at some heavier ships - Fighters. These ships have a lower speed compared to Interceptors, for this reason their task is to cover and strengthen allies. Furthermore their role is necessary in order to achieve a breakthrough on the enemy lines and for defending the own fleet.

 

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Tacklers are usually fighting in the second line — protecting Frigates from enemy attacks. In addition, these ships can secretly put minefields in tactically important locations by using invisibility. Tackler modules are aimed at weakening the enemy protection and slowing ships down in order to make them more vulnerable to a group focus. They are also very good for hunting down enemy ships, which sneaked through the defense.

 

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Command ships can be found in the center of every battle, in addition to strong weapons they are equipped with special shields that increase their survivability. Besides this, Command ships can perform the role of a supporter by using modules to reinforce allies nearby.

 

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Gunships are flying in the first attack wave. These ships are designed to inflict heavy blows on enemy ships and their modules help them achieving this by temporarily boosting firepower, speed and agility. They can focus on groups of enemies, but in breaks between the activation of modules, they are more vulnerable than other Fighters.

 

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Fighters are displayed on the radar by the following icons:

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From left to right: Tackler, Command, Gunship

 

Frigate

 

Finally we come to the heaviest ships - Frigates. These ships, despite their low speed, perform some of the most important roles on the battlefield.

 

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Engineer Frigates are the heart of the fleet. Their main task is the support of allies and the re-allocation of ships on the battlefield. Engineers are the only ships, which have modules that repair allied ships. That is why they must remain behind the main line of attack and get protected against any attack from enemy ships.

 

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Guard Frigates can fulfill the role of defenders in the rear as well as powerful ships causing a breakthrough. They have an incredible vitality, which helps them to survive even in difficult situations and a set of additional modules for protecting allied ships.

 

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These Frigates serve as fire support. They are most effective against fixed targets and slow ships, but it can also serve as a fire suppression against the enemy fleet. Long Range ships inflict significant damage from a great distance. In case of a breakthrough they can defend themselves - for this case they are the only ship role with 6 turrets.

 

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Frigates are displayed on the radar by the following icons:

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From left to right: Engineer, Guard, Long Range

 

As you may have noticed, we used the in-game interface to describe the roles. Soon you will find the information about ships and their modules in our in-game help!

 

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nice, some modules are missing from the pictures like mobile shield barriers and white noise jammer etc.

The most important thing to take away from this are those role icons… Yoink. http://wiki.star-conflict.com/index.php?title=Ship_Roles’>Much better.

So that’s what the Metastable Field Generator is. Here I was looking for some crazy module when in reality it’s just the Tachyon Cocoon. This… will be fixed.

 

Also, nice layout. ;]

“Hameleon”.  :taunt:

“Hameleon”.  :taunt:

First bacon, now ham? I’m bracing myself as we speak.

Ham is the new bacon.

Hey! Thanks for noticing this ) We’ll change it to be all right. 

Also worth noting guys… there are no such things as Attack Ships in game. They are called “Fighters” in game. I’m guessing Attack Ship is a direct translation from Russian?

Also worth noting guys… there are no such things as Attack Ships in game. They are called “Fighters” in game. I’m guessing Attack Ship is a direct translation from Russian?

They were once called Attack Ships, post will be changed in a second.

I really appreciate this post, but there are some other ways that you can help players learn what these roles are and how to use them.

 

  • Design the new-player experience to deliberately introduce them to these ship roles, and provide an experience-based learning opportunity for each. Yes, I understand that some races don’t all have access to everything.
  • Make the above post part of living document that is easily available to all players from the game’s web site.
  • Reduce the amount of overlap that exists between ECM and Tackler. Personally, I use both, and the ECM Interceptor is way better at tackling than the fighter due to the Stasis Generator
  • Adjust scoring for all game modes to reward successfully filling the roles. This would be the single most important, effective, and successful adjustment towards furthering the Ship-Role system. Right now, scoring, mostly, rewards lots of heals and pewpew. Scoring and ranking doesn’t really do that right now, and the discrepancy in scoring for the various type of assists makes the killing blow the most sought after result.

In short, players need to be aware of the roles. They will want to understand how to use the roles. They will want reference material to research for when they want to explore other ship roles. The roles need to be distinctly different from each other. Lastly, they need a reason to care about using those ship roles. It is not a coincidence that the polls you took showed the Gunship Fighter, Covert Ops Interceptor, and Engineer Frigate as the most popular.

Everything sppears to be great explained like that, but on the battelfield you notice that the real guards are the engineers. How is it that they have as many hitpoints as guards if the latter is supposed to be the tank? Somehow this doesn’t seem right.