[DeepSpace9er]

Is it possible to remake some of the capships so that you can pilot them? I mean, make the AAA and anti-fighter weapons automatic and make the beams and missiles primaries and secondaries?

That would be so cool to pilot instead of a fighter all the time.

[StratComm]

Ah, the old debate... you're relatively new here so hopefully the wrath of the search mongers will not fall too heavily upon you.  The idea of pilotable capships has existed since modding FS was possible, but the HUD is not designed to handle the number of subsystems.  The game crashes when more than like 8 or 9 are damaged.  However, if someone were to design and build a capship with all of its main firepower forward (with gunpoints, not turrets) then SCP implimentations such as fighter beams would make this possible, if not somewhat unwieldy.  As it stands though, you could fly anything (until getting turret damage) but you wouldn't have control over any of the weapon systems on board.

The other issue is that, unless the model was specifically designed so that the bridge was on the extreme front of the ship, it would be a little hard.  Most of my models have the bridge near the back, and if you were sitting there you should be able to see the deck of the ship sprawling out in front of you.  With the way the HUD is drawn, however, the player ship will never be rendered, even if there are faces that should be visable from within the ship.

[Hippo]

Monger Monger Monger!

...

Some scp stuff would need to be implemated to make it work, but even then, how fun is it to fly a ship and have little control over weapons?

[DeepSpace9er]

Im tired of saying "bandits incoming!" "power up photon beam cannons... commence plasma core insertion" is what id rather say

[mikhael]

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY?!

Who wants to fly a big ass box that handles like a thrown brick and accellerates like brick that's already landed? I could see piloting a PT boat, a gunship, a support ship, a corvette or even a small cargo vessel. I cannot see piloting a proper capship though.

Besides that, all personal investment is lost. You're no longer playing fighter pilot. You're pretending to be the gunnery crew, the nav and manuevering officers, the skipper and the engineering crew. Where's the personal investment?

If you want that sort of game, you need to implement the sort of system that Indepence War 1 had, where you temporarily assumed the role (and the console) of each of the various officers on your Dreadnaught class Corvette.

[DeepSpace9er]

I wouldnt like to pilot the Colossus.. i was thinking more along the line of a Deimos, Aeolus, and Sobek class ships.

[Blue Lion]

Just max sheilds on an Ursa at the expense of engines. Boom,  capship.

[Trivial Psychic]

I think the vessel of choice would be along the lines of the Defiant from ST-DS9.  I had an idea for a Shivan vessel of this type, and a friend of mine has taken some preliminary steps to try to create it, but it would require some 'creative designing' in my opinion.  The plan to use it would involve a mission where the player is part of an SOC wing sent in to capture it, so you have fly it out (or should I way FIGHT it out) of Shivan space.  It had more firepower than a Rakchasa but was the size of a Satis, with speed and maneuverability on a par with low end bombers.  It would also pack some other cool features... I guess it would fall under the classification of Gunship or Torpedo Boat.  I guess its another ship that would benefit from Gunship AI... the other being the Whitestar from TBP... though you can't find the ship in their released models at this point.

Later!

[Gloriano]

piloting large capships is stupid because they are slow

[Flipside]

Well, think the difference between flying a capship and a fighter is that with a capship, you program it where to go (Heading 117 Mark3, Full Engines!) So, you don't actually steer these ships, combat manouveres are unknown to a Fenris. the pilot just punches in a direction and the ship alters course. This would be a somewhat boring past-time.

Flipside

[Gloriano]

Originally posted by Flipside
Well, think the difference between flying a capship and a fighter is that with a capship, you program it where to go (Heading 117 Mark3, Full Engines!) So, you don't actually steer these ships, combat manouveres are unknown to a Fenris. the pilot just punches in a direction and the ship alters course. This would be a somewhat boring past-time.

Flipside

[Flaser]

Coul it be that I was the only one to watch Crest of the Stars?
Or no one thinks that there will be a time in FS when a cruiser could handle like the Whitestar?

I think there would be a typicial high-speed generation of torpedo corvettes and assault gunboats following capella.

The navy is in ruins, the economy is stuggling, it would be a lot cheaper to build less expensive ships (corvettes instead of really big capships) and fit them with enough weaponry to stand on their own - the laster would counter the aim (an overfit corvette is expensive) so even doing so the numbers would be low compared to the demands - to ships woul have to be built fast in order to patrol most of the areas in need of assistance.

The way they could be  modeled would be finally giving a hint of newtonian physics:
They would have high speed (30-60 m/s) good acceleration (accelrating too long or to hard would damage the ship), but also a big momentum. So you could make them accelerate fast, but at a cost - and the ship should still drift a bit laterally for a couple of seconds.

[Flipside]

Agreed, that there should be a class somewhere between Bomber and Cruiser, possibly 'Gunboat', which may or may not have shields, but can be flown like a very very heavy bomber. Possibly have a few automated turrets, but the player has control of forward facing 'Main Guns', which would be slow heavy cannon of some desription, for attacking cruisers and the like? Also, it would have forward facing bomb-launchers for the same purpose? No beams though

[Gloriano]

fast capships would be nice

[ChronoReverse]

What would be cool is a gunship class that' basically a ship smaller than a cruiser but larger than a bomber that moves fairly fast and packs exactly one beam cannon and two flak turrets.  It will be an AI ship (meaning capital) and using argv_[1]'s new code, it would be able to fly in packs designed to take out large capital ships and yet be fast enough to dodge the large anti-capital ship beams.  Perhaps shielding may be possible even.

[aldo_14]

millenium falcon

(ok, it's not exactly a capship, but it's the closest thing that we can do in FS2 IMO)

[Hippo]

This whole topic is sortof related to my Escape Pod Plan™... Except, you replace big, with small...

[Unknown Target]

Originally posted by Flipside
Well, think the difference between flying a capship and a fighter is that with a capship, you program it where to go (Heading 117 Mark3, Full Engines!) So, you don't actually steer these ships, combat manouveres are unknown to a Fenris. the pilot just punches in a direction and the ship alters course. This would be a somewhat boring past-time.

Flipside

That's why I thought Bridge Commander wasn't too great. You simply told your guy what to attack, and he did the rest. No "Helm, hard to port, fire all phasers!"

[Stealth]

Originally posted by Blue Lion
Just max sheilds on an Ursa at the expense of engines. Boom,  capship.

HA, are you kidding me?

I remember "flying" the Orion once, and it had a top speed of like 7, and it took a minute just to get to that speed.

[Raptor]

Originally posted by Unknown Target
That's why I thought Bridge Commander wasn't too great. You simply told your guy what to attack, and he did the rest. No "Helm, hard to port, fire all phasers!"

You do know that you can take manual control of the weapons and ship yourself?

BOT, the Millenium Falcon and the Defiant are really, ATT, the closest we can get to capship piloting.

Watch this space....