And it’s… a glass cannon?!

The header pretty much summarizes my thoughts on the new ship planned for Star Citizen.  While I’m sure it’ll be fun for some players, I’ve been playing space-sim games since the original Elite graced my television on my Commodore 64 and glass cannons are typically a bad investment.  In an even battle, there’s two factors… firepower and staying power.  In a “balanced” game, the two are equal and opposite.  A ship with high firepower, tends to have low armor.  A ship with strong armor, tends to have weak guns.  If they parked in front of each other and started shooting, they should kill each other at the same time.  The bigger guns of one, eating through the heavier armor of the other and vice-versa.

But in order to deal damage, you have to hit your target, and that requires gaming skill, which means, those ships will never be parked in front of each other shooting, they’re going to be dodging and moving, so the fact that firepower won’t be hitting 100% of the time, diminishes it’s effectiveness.  This can usually be offset by the fact that more armored ships tend to be slower and easier to hit, but combat is rarely also about two ships, and with multiple ships shooting at each other, armor is generally boosted to add general survival across the board.  The thing is, those heavily armored ships will benefit from this far more than a lightweight glass cannon, and it only takes a few hits from a wingman who gets a flanking position to put an end to a heavily armed aggressor.   In the end, the ship with the less staying power is typically the loser.

Not to say the Hurricane is going to be a bum ship.  I have every confidence that in the end, it’ll be balanced to where it’ll be considered fun to fly and play in, but my initial gut tells me it’s going to have a bumpy road getting there.  What are your thoughts on this?  That’s all for this month, Demonseed out.