Capital Ships

[Valor]

QUOTE (apochboi @ May 11 2009, 01:38 PM) I am contemplating going back to a microsoft based shipyard, where in you actually buy the ships you want rather than spending large amounts of cash to get access to each level of ship. Ie. Buy frigate for 7k then u can fly them for 6k each which brings the cost to get frigates down to 13k rather than 32k (light, medium class,+frigate)

Then probably looking at balancing the ships from there.

I honestly like that better.
Buy an MF to unlock Cruiser, etc.

[Adept]

QUOTE (phoenix1 @ May 10 2009, 06:39 AM) Just because that's how microsoft made it doesn't mean that's how it still is or even that it's how it should be.

What you should be thinking is "Just because Noir changed it doesn't make it better".

The current system with disruptors getting insane perks vs. heavy & super heavy hull is beyond stupid. Dis should be good at taking down shields, and only moderately useful vs. hull (think util weapons vs. non util hull). Dis shouldn't get a perk vs. heavier shield types either, just a given dps vs. shield. Galv needs to have a good bite vs. capital ship hull, but again, I don't see why it should do more vs. heavier caps.

Dis to take down the shield, galv & DFs to kill the thing. If this makes caps too hard to kill, I suggest we take a look at skycap RoF, which I seem to recall was significantly perked up, again by Noir. I'd also like the anti-capital-ship torpedo and defensive shipkiller caps to have a role in the game. I still think my idea of heavy "anti cap" cannon turrets and point defence SC turrets would be interesting. Cannons that shoot with longtom like delay (without area effect) that do serious damage per hit, and SCs to take on small ships. The anti cap torp could be worked into something that can be deployed by figbees, SBs and bombers, with bomber / heavy bomber possibly being able to mount several per rack.

***

No math or tests yet, but as the summer rolls by I'll be less busy and can put together more concrete numbers, and maybe a test core.

[Valor]

QUOTE (Adept @ May 16 2009, 07:22 AM) What you should be thinking is "Just because Noir changed it doesn't make it better".

The current system with disruptors getting insane perks vs. heavy & super heavy hull is beyond stupid. Dis should be good at taking down shields, and only moderately useful vs. hull (think util weapons vs. non util hull). Dis shouldn't get a perk vs. heavier shield types either, just a given dps vs. shield. Galv needs to have a good bite vs. capital ship hull, but again, I don't see why it should do more vs. heavier caps.

Dis to take down the shield, galv & DFs to kill the thing. If this makes caps too hard to kill, I suggest we take a look at skycap RoF, which I seem to recall was significantly perked up, again by Noir. I'd also like the anti-capital-ship torpedo and defensive shipkiller caps to have a role in the game. I still think my idea of heavy "anti cap" cannon turrets and point defence SC turrets would be interesting. Cannons that shoot with longtom like delay (without area effect) that do serious damage per hit, and SCs to take on small ships. The anti cap torp could be worked into something that can be deployed by figbees, SBs and bombers, with bomber / heavy bomber possibly being able to mount several per rack.

***

No math or tests yet, but as the summer rolls by I'll be less busy and can put together more concrete numbers, and maybe a test core.

Agree with your first sentence completely!
Noir made a lot of changes, mostly bad, b/c HE wanted it to be HIS core.
He wasn't concerned about balancing or improvement.

IMO galvs should be the sup cap killer, not dis2. Dis3 should have a better shot than dis2, but nowhere near galvs.

[BobtheHobo]

What if we put a new SY tech in each other tech path?

Like, once you get adv exp you have the option to research PW Mini-Cannon which is a turret mountable on cap ships that deals lots of AoE damage but only has a range of 1000m.

This would make SY stronger when used in conjunction with an already adv tech so it could be used as a replacement for figbees or HTTs.

[Vortrog]

QUOTE (phoenix1 @ Apr 22 2009, 11:28 AM) just thinking aloud here, juckto, but can we do one player controlling two turrets? I know we could do double launch missiles...

Missile turrets...now that would be a helluv a thing...reminds me of the pen and paper game Space Frontiers...or traveller...

[gr4vity]

Concerning Freighters:

You know what would make them actually useful? If they had a "gun" that would allow them to eject cargo (like ammo/prox/probes etc) directly on a target. This way you could be able to resupply ships much much quicker and more effective. But I guess that would require some code changes.

[Drizzo]

No. Freighters would be useful if they had HyperBurst.

[Makida]

QUOTE (gr4vity @ Jun 4 2009, 09:39 AM) Concerning Freighters:

You know what would make them actually useful? If they had a "gun" that would allow them to eject cargo (like ammo/prox/probes etc) directly on a target. This way you could be able to resupply ships much much quicker and more effective. But I guess that would require some code changes.

That would be awesome. I hate the slow, awkward way dropping cargo for other ships works now. A light version of the same "gun" for scouts would be great too. ^_^ But yeah, that's definitely way beyond the kind of things a core can change. >_>

[Psychosis]

SY in the MS releases was something we saw a bit more often, It would be very interesting to revert to that system, BIOS SY RUSH FTW

[SharpFish]

What about making capships faster?

I was in a game the other day where we camped a pair of belter capships and it was all over in seconds. In large part this was due to the fact that we had time to concentrate a bunch of ints on the aleph. If capships werre more mobile, they would be more useful - more able to strike with surprise, more survivable while moving to target under fire, more able to intercept attacks when operating defensively. There is no particular reason that a large ship should be slow in space. Also they don't seem to have much in the way of weapon systems other than the turrets, and so one wonders what all that volume is being taken up by. At the moment they function like super-heavy bombers, employed in much the same way with supporting nans, inching toward a target.

And even more radical suggestion might be auto-turrets. Although this may be seen as going against the grain of the teamwork ethos, I'm not convinved that capships are presently worth their cost. As with a bomber, dedicating 4 or 5 people to a capship means there are that many fewer places your team can be; that is, you get less flexible by virtue of buying and manning a capship. Even after you have paid the cost of purchase, the benefits of the capship are offset by this concentration, which raises the question of whether you are actually better off after buying them. If a capship was instead a 1-pilot whip with automatic turrets, it would really be a force multiplier, and would increase the effectiveness of the team.