[ReeNoiP]

In what situations would you say it is reasonable to deploy the different types of Capships? I mean you don't send an Orion after an Argo, but would it make sense commit a Fenris to take down a transport convoy?

The way I see it Cruisers function mostly as support in both attack and defense. As all capships (maybe excluding some shivan stuff), it needs fighter support to be effective, but if it has that it becomes deadly.
In a defensive role cruisers create an area (flack and beam range) where defending pilots have a huge advantage and fend off other cruisers and minor ships in the place of bombers.
On the offensive they take care of targets quickly while protected by fighters. I can see them used for protecting and attacking larger cargo convoys/depots, maybe guarding installations in relative safety or attacking as part of a larger force.

I don't really know about corvettes. Destroyer support, hunting smaller strike forces maybe? If they have fighter bays I can see them serving as a makeshift destroyer and protect nodes/supplies. Maybe lead small cruiser wings.

Destroyers are more like a base of operations than an attack ship (again maybe excluding the shivans). They defend the supply line to the front and critical locations. I can only imagine them seeking out important hard targets like installations, other destroyers or enemy battlegroups, mostly with support from cruisers or bombers in order to ensure decisive victory. If they are used in risky missions, the situation must be desperate.

[Dilmah G]

I agree with most of what you said, but it seems, from a historical point of view, the cruiser and corvette have swapped roles. In Freespace, I believe the corvette should be used primarily as an offensive weapon, but is also a great defender, they are used as "high priority cruisers", if you will, they guard strategic assets and carry out higher level attacks against the enemy, whilst taking part in larger fleet operations.

The cruiser, is used to escort convoys, support corvettes, and can be used in conjunction with corvettes to guard the flanks of capital ships in larger fleet operations. While they can be used in an offensive role against ships higher than cruiser class, their weaponry is often too light to be of any effect. I'd also imagine them doing the scouting of locations (excepting the leviathan), along with corvettes, due to their speed.

Capital Ships take the role of C2, along with supporting AWACS craft and the like. Capital ships, in my opinion, should be used in an offensive role against other capital ships, and form the base of fire when engaging installations or large numbers of enemy warships. In heated scenarios, such as node defence against an incursion force, they may supplement corvettes and cruisers.

[Black Wolf]

I think that a corvette is about as small as a ship can get while still being able to be deployed on its own to deal with an actual combat situation. Cruisers should be used for things like convoy defence (where combat is possible, but not certain so tying up a bigger ship would be impractical), or deployed as part of a taskforce, but wouldn't generally be sent into a combat zone alone (or even with fighter escort).

Corvettes on the other hand would be capable of going directly into combat without any other capships to back them up, as long as they were facing an inferior task force of course... for example, remember when you had to destroy those rahus in the main campaign? It was done with fighters, but if it had been a capship op, I'd expect a corvette would have been deployed there, even though something like a Leviathan or an Aeolus probably would have had the firepower to do the job. We've also seen corvettes deployed in combat support for destroyers, and paired up as a patrol in the nebula.

[headdie]

As Dilmah G points out it depends on the era as to what role warships take.

In FS 1
Cruisers
Fenris assault supported by appropriate fighter support (bombers if against big stuff and fighters in all other cases)
Leviathan defense and escort, to slow for assault
Aten - (cannon fodder) quasi-official light escort
Cain - assault supported by appropriate fighter support (bombers if against big stuff and fighters in all other cases)
Leviathan - all rounder

Corvettes didn't exists

Destroyers - All - Fighter base, territory holding, heavy assault, fleet management.

FS2

Cruisers - fighter deterrent and convoy ambush

Corvette - Heavy Assault with fighter support

Destroyers - Fighter base, territory holding, fleet management.

[General Battuta]

Be minimalist with capships. Try to avoid killing them where possible.

[BengalTiger]

The way I see it:

Cruisers:
-Escort and defence against attackers that are smaller than themselves, work best if they're fire support for fighters (except Aeolus, which can shoot down both bombs and the bombers that are firing them reliably and requires lots of enemies to be overwhelmed even without fighter cover).
-Offensively they could hunt other cruisers or smaller (except SC Lilith, which can hunt larger targets), however they also act best as fire support, unless there are no bombers available and the main offensive weapons are their beams (except Lilith, which has the firepower to kill destroyers all by itself). At close range Aeolus can also deliver a punch against big targets with it's plentiful flak guns.
-Cruisers appear to exist in large enough numbers to be used in groups.

Corvettes:
-For defensive duties they seem to be in too low numbers to cover small convoys, however they have the ability to defend against any threats up to their own size (except Liliths). I think they'd work best as a backup unit called into battles where cruisers don't have enough durability to last long, but for some reason Command requires a ship that can deliver lots of firepower and hold a position for extended periods. They are like a cavalry charge in the 19-th century, which could stop even a large attack force.
-Offensively they can (with the support of disarming units) attack destroyers or other large targets. I don't think they're often used against anything below cruiser sized, however warping one in the middle of an enemy convoy would result in many big explosions. They'd also make good escorts for larger ships that are moving into battle (especially GTD Orions and SD Demons which pretty much drop the ball when it comes to defending themselves against strike craft).
-These ships are to replace cruisers (at least in the GTVA), so I'd expect them to be used in groups once there's enough of them produced.
-The SCv Moloch would make a good ship for recon, patrol and spec-op duties thanks to it's hangar.

Destroyers:
-These ships are command and control units and flying hangars mainly, however some (like the Hatshepsut, Orion or any SD) posess really heavy firepower. Offensively this means they could duke it out with other destroyers (or with the help of disarming units even juggernauts). Generally not used against smaller targets in direct combat (but if there were destroyers bored to death I'd guess they would sometimes be used against corvettes).
-Defensively they are capable of blockading a jumpnode. They are also pretty expensive, and generally have their own escorts nearby.
-All destroyers have hangar bays, and their main armament is their strike craft which they can deploy anywhere in a system. This means they are capable of fighting in a much larger area than the smaller classes of ships.
-Being far less numerous than the smaller ships I doubt they ever fly in formations.

Juggernauts:
-A unit showing off the power of a faction (GTVA Big 'C')
-A unit used in large numbers to make the Big 'C' look like a wussy and then blow up a star (SJ Sath).

[Black Wolf]

Be minimalist with capships. Try to avoid killing them where possible.

Hard and fast rules like that are silly. Clever use of capships is what's important, not minimizing their use. Consider the last few missions against the NTF - capships blowing up all over the place, but lots of fun regardless.

The reality is that capships are part of a very small array of things we can use as mission architecture - you need to be somewhat liberal with their use to differentiate missions from one another.

[General Battuta]

Well, I was thinking of Volition's 'zen mission' guidelines. I would say that using the minimal amount of architecture to get the job done is generally very sound.

Even in the NTF missions you cited there are rarely more than two or three warships on the field at one time.

[Dragon]

I think that destruction of such ships should be avoided and they should be reused quite heavly.
Retreat due to battle damage should be a common tactic.

[NGTM-1R]

Ooh, tactics. I'll talk tactics.
Note that this only applies to canonical ship designs; by playing with armament, speed, and hitpoints it's quite possible to create a completely different tactical situation. The basic illustration of this is between the canonical Cain and Lilth. The Cain is a support ship. The Lilith is a solo hunter-killer.

A cruiser is a jack of all trades, but is essentially a "low" asset in a classic high-low mix force structure. Wherever the threat level is relatively low and the assignment is not very critical, there you find a cruiser. They can serve in more dangerous or critical tasks normally reserved to larger ships, but in such cases they should operate in groups and deploy so they're mutually supporting. This means being relatively close to each other. They're not really escort craft; the range of their weapons is not sufficent to cover a whole convoy and they have significant dead zones in their weapons, particularly aft. Multiple ships will be required (and they should react intelligently to threats like moving to screen against incoming fighters or turning to unmask their best batteries to deal with the situation...actually scratch that every ship should be doing those things). A cruiser is basically a support craft and that is what it should spend its time doing: support of other ships. A cruiser alone is a cruiser that could very quickly end up in over its head and drowning, and so they should never be alone if practicable. In an ideal world they would operate in pairs at minimum and have fightercraft cover. No battle plan should ever rely on cruisers to accomplish the critical objectives.

Corvettes, on the other hand, are the "high" of a high-low force structure. The important and the dangerous jobs go to them. Escorting convoys carrying military supplies or personnel is a corvette's job, as is any real sort of offensive action. Finding a single cruiser should be rare, but finding a single corvette is more possible. It can be reasonably expected to stand up to fire long enough to summon aid or escape, and poses a fairly formidable tactical problem in its own right. Ideally a corvette ought to be able to depend on a couple of wings of fightercraft escorts and perhaps a cruiser or pair of cruisers to assist. Truly high-risk (and therefore high-importance, or you shouldn't be taking the risk) tasks should see corvettes assembled into groups.

Destroyers are different. They're all or nothing. You win or you die. Losing a destroyer isn't just losing the hull and its native tactical advantages, it's losing a significant portion of a fleet's brainpower and fightercraft arm. A destroyer should never be alone; there are absolutely no acceptable circumstances for such a thing! It should always be able to count on at least two escorting cruisers and two interceptor wings. A destroyer should be able to launch some kind of ready group of reserve fighters, most likely a small strike package. (Two space superiority wings, one heavy wing, one medium bomber wing in my head; in your head this can be whatever you feel like depending on how hangerage and flight deck ops work in your conception, but the capablity should be there for some kind of reserve fighter force to launch). Should the situation be considered serious, a destroyer would have the authority to pull in other assets to protect itself. If commited to offensive action, sufficent firepower should accompany the destroyer to decide the battle in the first salvo.

Now, there are some special cases. Most of them are Shivan, because the Shivans apparently operate on a different strategic concept that doesn't have defensive concerns.

The Lilth is a solo hunter-killer. If you need a capital craft dead, get a Lilith. Just a single Lilith. It'll probably do the job with or without fighter cover. It could be defending and supporting other ships like a regular cruiser, though. Its flexible main battery armament gives it the ability to direct fire in a wide enough arc for this.

The Rakshasa is too fragile to operate away from fighter assistance or take on destroyers all alone, but like the Lilith it's clearly an offensive-oriented design. Unlike the Lilith, it's not flexible. A Rakshasa's main battery has no flexiblity, and its secondaries are not sufficent to pose a real threat to fighters or bombers, so it has no role screening other ships. If it's not out hunting down enemy ships, it's dead weight. Larger groups of hostiles or destroyers should merit the attention of multiple Rakshasas.

The Ravana is the offensive role of the destroyer mentioned above, in 62-point flashing red font. If you can't bring enough firepower to the field with your destroyer to decide the battle in one salvo, you shouldn't be using it offensively. The Ravana gets this. The cost is that its defensive abilities are stunted and a Ravana should have a stronger than normal fighter escort and, with a rather larger hanger area than most ships appear to have, probably a larger ready group.

[Nuclear1]

I agree with Battuta.  Be conservative with using capital ships.  I get frustrated when I have to blow up more than a few cruisers or a couple of corvettes in one mission.  Not because it's too difficult, but because it's just lazy.  Need something to pose a threat to capital ships?  Either spam bombers, or balance between bombers and sending in several capships over the course of ten minutes.  To put it one way:  in the course of ten minutes in quite a few escort missions out there, nearly twenty thousand people on the opposing side are killed onboard cruisers/corvettes attacking your ship.

Snipes once said "the rebs are slow, but they're not stupid."  It gets god awful annoying watching ships warp in and get nearly blasted to pieces in less than a minute by anticap beams.  It's weird, because in most of the campaigns where this is a problem, when it's the reverse and the player is attacking capitals, he's given directives to disable cap beams on nearly everything that warps in.  Why don't the enemy bombers do the same thing?

The main campaign treated losses of ships as tragedies.  The losses of the GTC Trafalgar and GVC Andromeda were command briefing worthy.  The only time you were destroying (non-Shivan) warships en masse was during the NTF rush on the Knossos.

[Dilmah G]

Be minimalist with capships. Try to avoid killing them where possible.

It's not that you should avoid killing them, but be smart about the way you do. Command and Control for your entire fleet doesn't just sit there and let a corvette maul it to death; it'll be jinking and deploying its supporting corvettes and cruisers to cover its flanks and so on. And it better have a damn good reason for not jumping out, as should other battleships.

[IronBeer]

One thing I haven't seen brought up yet:

Remember that as a pilot, the player is going to be flying off of a capital ship of some weal. It makes a bit of sense to try and foster some sort of emotional connection to the player's "home". C'mon- the way  used the Galatea in the FS1 campaign was spot-on- we don't see her much, but when we do, she's really kicking ass. And how could we forget her destruction? It may just be me (and the fact that I first ran through FS1 when I was about eight), but the Galatea's destruction was a legitimate tragedy.
/rambling done.

tl;dr- Capital ships are, quite naturally, the ships most suited to usage as plot devices and props.

[TrashMan]

Don't blow capships up like crazy. Be smart in their usage.

Unless the enemy is shivan (or some race that doesn't give a damn), damaged ships WILL try to escape of call reinforcements. Things like that should be taken into mission design.
Smarter enemies will have specific goals of their own. They would focus on a specific ship or subsystem. Basicly, enemies with some brains behind them should act that way.

I myself started to implement it, altough in retrospect, a little late. For instance, in the first few COTS missions, I should have made pirates run away more often.

[ReeNoiP]

I agree that destruction of capships should be used sparingly, especially for Terrans and Vasudans. Shivans do seem to really care, but they don't throw things at the enemy if they don't expect it to work. No attacking a Deimos with just a lone Cain.

Liliths seem to be in a class of their own because of their insane firepower, but I can't really see them attacking a destroyer alone. A corvette, yes, but only if they have fighter escort. I liked the way they were used in Blue Planet, staying at close to max range and beaming away while fighters and bombers occupied the enemy.

I can't remember seeing the speed of some cruisers used to their advantage. Probably because most cruiser attacks have the cruiser jumping in in front of their target and then just beam away. I know making capships move in anything but a straight line is a chore, but just once in a while I would like to see a Fenris use it's speed to outmaneuver a Leviathan.

[Dilmah G]

That doesn't happen often these days, Fenris v. Leviathan battles, but I'm working on a mission in which two Allied Corvettes fight off cruisers and fighters from civilisation x (not naming them) by performing a loose 'Scissors', in which the corvettes jink across each other's path (one is higher), and provide mutual protection from all sides during this maneuver. They use their speed during this maneuver to avoid hostile fire and distribute their fire among the hostiles, who either lack the speed or the firepower to engage the corvettes.

[headdie]

another pont to mention about using capships is that we see small numbers of capships in retail missions due  in part to the limitations of the retail engine, a good example of this is High Noon should have had several capships supporting the colossus and I would also envisage several nearby side battles going on being fought with the remainder of the fleet i assume would accompany such a large ship, Ravanas, Moloch and Lilith for example.

[Dilmah G]

I did something similar with High Noon actually, it's not great, but it's a little bit more plausible IMO. It's up on FSMods if you have ten minutes or so to kill.

[IronForge]

I believe I once saw a fenris with a big bad beam cannon, and bristling with flak/AAAbeams. Basically I think a mass deployment of these babes at say 5k range to snipe an orion or something while moving too fast for enemy beams to hit accurately is a good move.

Levis are a little slower and are good to counter the above strategy.

Corvettes are more like hard nuts to crack, mini destroyers without the ability to launch fighters... but still hard hitting nonetheless.

[Commander Zane]

I agree with Battuta.  Be conservative with using capital ships.  I get frustrated when I have to blow up more than a few cruisers or a couple of corvettes in one mission.  Not because it's too difficult, but because it's just lazy.  Need something to pose a threat to capital ships?  Either spam bombers, or balance between bombers and sending in several capships over the course of ten minutes.
It's weird, because in most of the campaigns where this is a problem, when it's the reverse and the player is attacking capitals, he's given directives to disable cap beams on nearly everything that warps in.  Why don't the enemy bombers do the same thing?

What, and make the mission frustrating beyond comprehension like both the Nemesis mission on Inferno and the Nemesis-styled mission on Dawn of Sol? Sorry but it's just stupid to force the player to keep track of four - six bomber wings spread out three kilometers from each other in the field at one time, DoS also has another mission that features a similar act with a convoy escort against seven waves of six fighter wings.

And you can make enemy bombers disarm your capital ships, but again it will be the player doing all the work considering the friendly fighter AI suffers incompetince like no other.

Edit: And just to throw this in because it's such a great example of friendly AI incompetince, four Valkyries against one HoL Seth, took 6 minutes and 40 seconds, and the only reason it ever did end was because I took the time to fly the eight kilometers they somehow ended up at doing their little "airshow" to blast the Seth in literally two seconds.