Ayden Cater
Grumpy Goat
I'll go ahead and say that I find it exceptionally irking when I see people make characters, weapons, ships, etc and attempt to balance out their prodigious strengths with piddling weaknesses. This is exacerbated when the character/weapon/ship is portrayed in a manner that directly contradicts that weakness. "Oh, my character is a Force God, but he doesn't really get along with others. Now watch as he teams up with three other people to take down an enemy and doesn't fight with his teammates at all," or "This ship has weak shielding. Now watch as it gets hammered for ten posts without taking any real damage."
Obviously as this is a factory discussion and not a general discussion, I'm gonna focus more on these areas, specifically ships as that is my personal forte, but the general idea applies across pretty much every other area that highlights strengths and weaknesses.
One of the more common things I've seen used for starships as an attempted balancing factor, for example, is a lack of a back-up hyperdrive. Most capital ships will only have a back-up hyperdrive as a token redundancy. They're not necessary; hence the term 'back-up'. But somehow, a lack of this unnecessary system means that the ship is now capable of fielding tons of new, stronger weapons.
And that's just one minor example. There are others, some more noteworthy, but this isn't a thread meant to rag on an issue, but rather attempt to come up with solutions. I hate threads that are just slam-fests with no proposed changes or solutions, so I'm not gonna let this be one.
The most obvious and basic solution is just compiling a list of such weaknesses. Those people who don't spend much of their freetime in researching/making/playing games that deal with X system will, more often than not, simply not be aware of what is and is not a good balancing factor. So if we make a list and show it to them, they can better understand the system.
For starfighters, their small size means they don't really have a large potential pool to draw from, both for strengths or weaknesses. The most common weaknesses you'll find at this size are blind spots (most commonly the aft), poor maneuverability (usually bombers, which will usually attempt to compensate for this with stronger shields/hull), or weak cannons.
For capital ships, the larger they become the more numerous their potential weaknesses could be, but they can generally be boiled down to some of the following.
A weakness should be meaningful, and come about as a direct consequence of some strength. If your ship is fast, it's poorly armored. If it's got tremendous shield and hull power, its offensive power should suffer. Size is not a meaningful weakness as it is something specifically chosen for. You don't choose to make a large ship and then bemoan the fact that it's such a big target. Likewise, you don't make a small ship and fret over comparing it to a Star Destroyer. For this, you should probably be looking to frame the weakness in terms of defensive power.
Maneuverability is kept off the list for similar reasons. A weakness is something that should stand out in spite of the ship's defining traits, not because of them. Capital ships will be slower than a starfighter. This does not make it a weakness, unless it's in additional to that normal expectation. Corvettes, for example, are often faster than cruisers. If your corvette is then slower than a cruiser, that's a noteworthy weakness.
Weaknesses are not something that should be shied from, or made to be as non-damaging as possible. It is weakness, as much as strengths, that define and shape the things we make and help us make better stories.
Obviously as this is a factory discussion and not a general discussion, I'm gonna focus more on these areas, specifically ships as that is my personal forte, but the general idea applies across pretty much every other area that highlights strengths and weaknesses.
One of the more common things I've seen used for starships as an attempted balancing factor, for example, is a lack of a back-up hyperdrive. Most capital ships will only have a back-up hyperdrive as a token redundancy. They're not necessary; hence the term 'back-up'. But somehow, a lack of this unnecessary system means that the ship is now capable of fielding tons of new, stronger weapons.
And that's just one minor example. There are others, some more noteworthy, but this isn't a thread meant to rag on an issue, but rather attempt to come up with solutions. I hate threads that are just slam-fests with no proposed changes or solutions, so I'm not gonna let this be one.
The most obvious and basic solution is just compiling a list of such weaknesses. Those people who don't spend much of their freetime in researching/making/playing games that deal with X system will, more often than not, simply not be aware of what is and is not a good balancing factor. So if we make a list and show it to them, they can better understand the system.
For starfighters, their small size means they don't really have a large potential pool to draw from, both for strengths or weaknesses. The most common weaknesses you'll find at this size are blind spots (most commonly the aft), poor maneuverability (usually bombers, which will usually attempt to compensate for this with stronger shields/hull), or weak cannons.
For capital ships, the larger they become the more numerous their potential weaknesses could be, but they can generally be boiled down to some of the following.
- Firing Arcs: Ships with this weakness tend to focus their guns either all forward or to the sides for a broadside. This is a double-edged sword, as it gives them a powerful strength AND a meaningful weakness. If all of your guns fire forward and few if any can swivel to fire at the sides, or vice versa, then any attacks that come at you from this weak spot will have a natural advantage. This particular weakness is one that is more pronounced with larger and large ships, as their large mass means poor maneuverability. Smaller, faster ships can reorient in time to largely mitigate this weakness.
- Range: Ships that specialize for a certain role will take weapons to emphasize that role. Long-range ships will want long-range cannons and energy torpedoes. Short-range ships will favor heavy cannons and assault concussion missiles. Much like with firing arcs, this creates a meaningful strength and a meaningful weakness. If your ship is design for long distance bombardments, if an enemy ship comes in close you're going to be in trouble, and vice versa.
- Poor Armor/Shields: Bigger ships are meant to absorb more punishment, so their hull and shields are designed to match that expectation. Thus, if a ship fails to meet that level of punishment, their ship will rapidly find itself in serious trouble in an extended match. Another descriptive for ships like this would be glass cannons.
- Specialization: Much like 1 and 2 above, ships that specialize for specific roles also create their own worst enemies. Ships that are designed as destroyers, to take out enemy capital ships, will inevitable make themselves vulnerable to coordinated starfighter attacks as their guns will naturally be incapable of targeting the nimble starfighters. Conversely, if your ship is meant to take out starfighter swarms, it's going to suffer if an enemy capital ship comes its way.
A weakness should be meaningful, and come about as a direct consequence of some strength. If your ship is fast, it's poorly armored. If it's got tremendous shield and hull power, its offensive power should suffer. Size is not a meaningful weakness as it is something specifically chosen for. You don't choose to make a large ship and then bemoan the fact that it's such a big target. Likewise, you don't make a small ship and fret over comparing it to a Star Destroyer. For this, you should probably be looking to frame the weakness in terms of defensive power.
Maneuverability is kept off the list for similar reasons. A weakness is something that should stand out in spite of the ship's defining traits, not because of them. Capital ships will be slower than a starfighter. This does not make it a weakness, unless it's in additional to that normal expectation. Corvettes, for example, are often faster than cruisers. If your corvette is then slower than a cruiser, that's a noteworthy weakness.
Weaknesses are not something that should be shied from, or made to be as non-damaging as possible. It is weakness, as much as strengths, that define and shape the things we make and help us make better stories.
