For GS, I'm not sure what's the best solution, I lean quite a bit to not making them a part of shipyard. Is there even a majority of people that desire any change at all to GS? If so then sure, let's mix things up a bit. I'd favour reducing their ship cost to $50 as it's a minor cost and I always disliked the $1 as newbies still tended to spam requests and I think $50 is enough of an impact that they likely wouldn't. GS are almost exclusively used by Bios, and it would be nice to see them occasionally used by other factions in a useful fashion, specifically interesting would be TF and Giga possibly... as to how to get them used more often, the only real way I think would be too move them to Garrison from Starbase.
Is moving GS to Garrison a great idea, well unless GS had other changes- probably not.
One simple change if moved would be to only give GS access to a pilot AC and turret SC if there was a starbase. <-
My preference.
Other ideas about lt/hvy GS, or mini-SC (I think the mini-SC has possibilities to think on) or not, are interesting though are more of a change, which is not a bad thing if people like the ideas. Possibly increasing the research cost (or not) if moved to Garrison is another option. Tying GS to SY somehow is also interesting, if GS are moved to Garrison for research though and not SY, you could then tie access to the turret and instead of allowing AC you could also grant SC.
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For Giga and Belt SY while it would be alright to give them standard access to shipyard, I thought perhaps just add one specialized ship for super heavy class for them.
The reason being is first it would be less of a change though still would fill their need, and second that it tries to stay with their themes.
Gigacorp Luxury Battleship;
A sleak luxury battleship to bring Gigacorp into the super heavy class of capital ships. Compared to most capships it's average in most respects. Noteably it has a small ripcord receiver (while being slow and costly itself to rip) and the ability to drop mines and probes of all kinds, it also serves as a minor hybrid of an assault ship to some extent by being much stealthier than most capships while being able to mount heavy cloak and having a slight perk to it's scan range and speed.
I see this ship as having more survivability similar to that of a lxy cruiser over a cruiser, same for it's weapons- and to make the pilot a real happy camper and knowing they are flying the caddy of battleships, gave him 2 weapon mounts. This ship is also a bit of a minor assault ship flavour to go with it's lxy feel, while it only has a light rip receiver (because I saw it more like an actual carrier (which we can't mimic) that can launch ships, we fake it a bit by letting them rip in). Gave dispensor full access to mines and probes to give it more ability to allow small ships ripping to it a little breathing room, plus it can drop a teleport probe (tp1 or tp2) to try and call in some bigger support. And to aide it in the minor assault ship aspect (especially with the tp1/tp2), gave it cloak... of course it's base signature is 250% over a normal assault ships 100%- you're probably going to know it's coming, unless you don't have decent probes out of course.
Belter Goliath Battleship;
The beast of the Belter shipyard the Goliath brings the largest and toughest ship into it's super heavy class of capital ships. While larger and slower than any other ship it also is the most powerful and deadly- capable even to cause Ga'Taraan commanders to take extra precautions with their Harbingers as the Goliath can mount the feared Doomsday resonator. The much reknowned Belter versatility is also shown with the Goliaths ability to carry any missile it can research or scavenge, and that combined with the pilots quad foward gun mounts and the ships ability to use heavy cloak make it a powerful thorn to the enemy. Thankfully even the slowest ship can quickly out pace it.
A monster, big, slow, and mean. Like many belt ships I kept it's stats to fit in with their theme, though beefed up the hull quite a bit and thus made it slower and more expensive comparitively to other capships. It mounts hvy cloak, not for any assault ship aspects (signature 600% anyone...) more for tricking it out to the most of belt enjoyment (seriously wouldn't you love to cloak that beast- even if only for a few seconds of joy). Sticking with the belt and versaitlity aspect of it, the Goliath can mount any missile- doesn't matter, if a GT Harbinger somehow gets ganked and there's one of these around, look out, you made a Belt comm laugh maniacally. While this beast is slow and can't rip, it does have the ability to drop tp1/tp2- as if everyone already wasn't nanning or turreting the beast. And while the ship does lack mass drivers or skyrippers, the pilot can, with an evil glint in his eye, use the quad weapon mounts for pure anti-cap defence/offence.
For more information on the above ships, and to see some comparisons for capship hull and shields;
http://www.freeallegiance.org/FAW/index.ph...baxter:CapShips
(let me know if you'd like more/less information or to have it presented differently- still working on it)
edit- added some more thoughts on the above ships.