[Zarax]

About the damage threshold/resistance: The simplest solution (and quite effective) is to apply it setting different values for subsystem, which means that non subsystem parts will be thougher while different subsystems will have different "armor"...
This way it would also be easier to set within the table files... You won't appreciate much more complexity in game anyways...

[KARMA]

I think the point is simple...
no fighter in theory should have enough firepower to completely take down (and I mean to reduce in pieces) a capship of almost any class, even a (single) bomber shouldn't be able to.
You would need wings and wings of bombers to seriously damage/destroy a capship.
This should be true unless you hit (by luck or purpose) a critical spot, if there is any. Even in this case you shouldn't be able to destroy a capship, and if it is possible, then it is the capship that suffer of a very bad design.
A battle between fleets should be a battle from distance between capships, using their huge firepower against each other.
With interceptors to attack enemy bombers and torpedos, and maybe to attack the weapons of enemy capships, to reduce their firepower, and their critical subsystems, to be deployed as fast as possible as reserves when/where needed.
With bombers, making torpedoes runs from safe distances, to project and increase the firepower of their own capships, to destroy critical subsystems.
With tactical ships, like ultra fast/light bombers to make sneak attacks, stealth bombers/fighters, etc etc for alternative stragies.
With fighters, to cover the bombers, to gain flight supremacy and to destroy enemy interceptors.
With antifighter weapons on capships to destroy enemy interceptors before they reduce the firepower or they cause too damages, and with antitorpedoes weapons to intercept enemy bombs.
You still should be able to destroy a capship with your alone fighter, but it would be almost impossible, you will have to be both a god between the pilots and an extremely lucky man. And still you would die 9 times on 10

But, on the other hand, this will require a real AI for all the computer controlled ships, starting from the capships.
Without a decent AI, the bombers are ineffective (look at the ravan mission), and the capships just sit there, firing at whatever comes in range. In this situation, if you really want to see capships going down, you just need to give more chanches to destroy a capship to the player.
Not to mention that it is fun to destory enemy big ships, it makes you feel better, althought it makes a game more arcade than a semirealistic simulator.

Btw there are worse situations than those in FS2.
I remember in xwa I took down in the same mission, alone, at max level of difficulty, something like 5 Stardestroyers with all their fighter complement, using a ship that should be just a transport:/

[SadisticSid]

On a slightly divergent note, I wonder if FS2's Lucifer accurately represents FS1's - did ships like the Orion receive technology upgrades in other areas (i.e. armour)? The destroyer's BGreens can cause a shedload of damage to a Lucifer while the Shivan's SReds do practically bugger-all.

[phreak]

Originally posted by TrashMan
You are wrong. They fell out becoause Carriers could launch attacks at greater distances and becoause missiles with long ranges made the main cannons allmost obsolete (their range is 40km.)

are you forgetting nuclear weapons made large naval fleets virtually obsolete overnight?  I would consider SSBNs the battleship of the cold-war era.  They could deliver nukes a hell of a distance and not even be seen until launch.
Some of the conventional stand off munitions of today can cause damage the battleships.  There's no way an Exocet or Harpoon would damage a battleship (unless it hit the superstructure), but a bunker buster or MOAB would do the trick.
And lastly, the theory that battleships could stand alone without protection is crap because of the Prince of Wales/Repulse. No air cover == dead meat.  Hell Billy Mitchell demostrated that in the '20s

[TrashMan]

"Btw there are worse situations than those in FS2.
I remember in xwa I took down in the same mission, alone, at max level of difficulty, something like 5 Stardestroyers with all their fighter complement, using a ship that should be just a transport:/"
--------------------------

Just circle around their bridge! I know...those tards will take themselvs out eventually!

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"And lastly, the theory that battleships could stand alone without protection is crap because of the Prince of Wales/Repulse. No air cover == dead meat. Hell Billy Mitchell demostrated that in the '20s"

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The Japs sent everything the got at them. Half of their airforce was concetrated only on those tow warships. They were designed to stand alone(against a typical enemy), but no one can stand alone against a whole army. It's not the same thing if you are attacked by 80 fighters and if you're attacked by 300!!!

[Flipside]

It's not really about the number of Guns that make Destroyers (and Battleships) so dangerous, it's how many inches of steel between outside and in. In this case, Destroyers tend to do a pretty good job, they can stand and fight, like the Bismark, for an extended duration. If you have enough Steel to withstand a 14" Shell, and 85% of the fleet have less than 14" guns, then unless someone gets lucky, 85% of the fleet can only effectively watch.

Flipside

[Akalabeth Angel]

On a slightly divergent note, I wonder if FS2's Lucifer accurately represents FS1's - did ships like the Orion receive technology upgrades in other areas (i.e. armour)? The destroyer's BGreens can cause a shedload of damage to a Lucifer while the Shivan's SReds do practically bugger-all.

  No, they don't represent it at all. The damage of the SRed is much less than that of an Shivan Super Laser in FS1. SReds will do a max damage of about 4000 every 25 seconds (plus warmup, cooldown times) whereas the Super Laser does 15000 set damage every 10 seconds. In the amount of time it takes to fire 8500 or so worth of SRed damage (50 seconds) the Super Laser will have fired for 45000 damage, which coupled with a fellow weapon do 90000 damage which is just shy of destroying an Orion.

  At the same time, the Lucifer is no where near as powerful as the Nyarlathotep (spl?) from Derelict which uses 2x BFRed, 2x LRed and some other smaller guns. But basically the Lucifer could hold its own in FS2 if its weapons were accurately represented.

[Nico]

And the fact that only beams can threaten it, and not bombers, too

[Knight Templar]

27

[Fozzy]

There defently needs to be a more realistic campaign.

If you take on a destroyer on your own You WILL Die

If you Take on a Cruiser (Aeolus) You MIGHT Live

If You take on a Fighter or bomber about even

If you take on a Transport Or Freighter takes longer to kill but the chances are you will kill it with out sustaining to much damage.

I like this idea

[übermetroid]

Originally posted by Nico
And the fact that only beams can threaten it, and not bombers, too

Just wondering, is that how it is set up on the Port?

[TrashMan]

Bah....you can make your ships anway you want, but mine will be a tougher nut to crack. Period!

EDIT: A bunker buster or a MOAB...Maby...but the Iowa has point-defense weapons you know...gatling guns...and air-to-air missiles.

[Baron MacDoblin]

Weren't the Repulse and Prince of Mammels cursed with ****-for-brains AA fire-control systems?

[KARMA]

Originally posted by TrashMan
Bah....you can make your ships anway you want, but mine will be a tougher nut to crack. Period!
 

What I was trying to say is that you can obviously do that, just remember that fs2 has not be designed for this, and you risk to have an unbalanced gameplay, with no fun for the players.
If you make it harder for the players to hunt down capships, increasing their weaponary and hitpoints, and considering the fighter's AI, you risk that the only way to take down big ships will be to place other capships in the mission designing, with the players just sitting there looking an annoying beam battle, and the only thing you will be able to do in your camp will be scrambles, scrambles, scrambles.
Just be careful...

[Killfrenzy]

Aren't you forgetting the one thing that fighters are very good at?

Scouting!:D

That reason alone justifies the existence of small craft launched from a large warship. I mean, why risk a 150m long destroyer with her entire crew when all you really need to risk is a 20m fighter (which is less likely to be noticed) and one pilot!

[karajorma]

Sees that Karma has spotted the same pitfall I was on about

It's an easy mistake to make too and can easily results in a game which is no fun or a massive round of upgrades which results in everything doing more damage and having more hitpoints but the situation basically being the same as before.

Killfrenzy : Scouting might be fun for a bit but a 40 mission campaign that was almost completely scouting would be boring as hell. Thowing in a few missions where the player watches capships kill each other wouldn't help that much.

[Nico]

You know, as Icefire said, battleships are tough as hell, but with some lucky shot, lone planes could manage to destroy them.
Is it so difficult to reproduce that?
No, of course not, that's how they did in wing commander actually ( WC prophecy and secret ops, the ones before didn't manage all that well with subsystems ):
you need some SERIOUS firepower to destroy a capship head on in wing commander, so serious there's about no way you can do it, only other capships can ( and only those with big guns, like the plunkett or the vesuvius ). But you can go the smart way: you destroy the shield generator first, making the subsystems unprotected. Then you go for the bridge and the engines. No power, no command, the ship is as good as dead and, so, to simplify, it dies, in the game. Looks like the best way to me, and it works damn great. You won't be able to crack its shell, so go for the weak point. If those are tricky to reach, there's the fun to hunt capships: tough as hell to chew, but still at bombers reach if you manage to reach the right spots.
how's that?

[Flaser]

Any sane person would put the bridge deep into the hull itself.

Beside those systems would be the most armored.

[Nico]

Following that idea, the fighters wouldn't have glass cockpits, you'd make spherical ships for maximum coverage, you wouldn't bother with fighters, you'd go with nukes and that's it.
I hope you hate startrek designs for your own good. Mmh, and Star Wars. And Starship Troopers, too. Heck, even the Fenris has a bridge ( tho no subsystem to give it any importance ingame ). To sum up, about anything from any SF show/book/game.
you'd make a boring game.
But I'm curious to see your explanation on how you'd make the engines the most armored part of a ship .

[KARMA]

nico I agree with you obviously, I loved wing commander, and asked sometimes ago for a more realistic damage system to be implemented, and I'd like in fs2 something like the battles I described above.
Nonetheless, with the actual damage system, if you don't modify the AI of fighters, you will receive almost no help at all from your wings, this means that if you increase hitpoints, AAA weapons and the like, the only fighter capable of somehow hitting capships will be the player's ship, and since it will be already incredibly hard for you too, you risk to have missions with capships that can be destroyed only by other capships.
Upgraded apships would be cool, but only if you could perform some advanced strategies in game, with the aid of the wings: you will not destroy capships alone, you will do that with your squadron, and you will have to guide your squadron in the best way possible to make a succesful strike against the best objective. But again this means in my opinion to have more effective fighter's AI.