[Shrike]

FS warships can take multi-gigaton bomb hits and can rapidly destroy warships that can take the same.  I wouldn't call that undergunned.  

Besides, look at how many discrete weapon systems modern combatants have.  Say 2 gun systems, 2 SAM units, a SSM cluster, a couple PD mounts.  That'd be a typical modern warship.

[kv1at3485]

@ adwight

I believe you are correct.  Monitor (or a close relative) was the first all-metal warship, but she can hardly be described as the ancestor of the 'modern' battleship as we know them.

In retrospect, the Dreadnaught was a linear descendent, not of the Monitor, but of the HMS Warrior, the first ironclad warship.  (Note, this is not the same as iron hulled, merely that she had iron armour plating over certain areas of her wooden hull.)

[Woolie Wool]

Starforce ships have a bit more anti-fighter firepower than FS2. The beams and fighter weapons are a lot more powerful in relation to shields and hull than in FS2 and the blob turrets are pretty much gone, replaced by versions of the fighter weapons. They aren't all that accurate per shot due to the faster speeds of everything (an interceptor can do around 120 without AB and 200 with AB and a pulse cannon blast, fighter-mounted or turreted, travels at 650) but they lay down a great deal of fire and can chew up your ship pretty quickly (a heavy pulse cannon has a fire wait of 0.45 and can take you out in four hits or so on higer difficulty levels). The AAA beams on the more powerful ships are pretty scary, and can take you out in a single blast if you absorb the entire shot. And the swarm missile turrets are really nasty. So in Starforce, even cruisers aren't easy for a fighter to take out.

[Deathstorm V2]

The most important thing to remember about the Dreadnoughts (British, anyway) was that they had two key strengths: they were very fast and that they could place a weapons barrage anywhere within 20 miles of their position.

FS2 destroyers aren't meant for this: they're slow and, without unique weapons, relatively short ranged, and I like them that way.

Any ships I mod are bristling with rapid fire turrets and AAA beams, so you can't even get close without finding something very nasty pointing at you.  It's better that way.

[TrashMan]

Originally posted by Raven2001
Well, now look at it this way: it is not the ships that suck... its the weapons (or the difficulty level...)!!!

I'm sure that the Hecate hasn't got as many turrets as the Iwoa class because the Iwoa hasn't got jump drives, or a big reactor to power them, or a big hangar, or those Huge engines... oh, not to mention a good fighter support
Also, the Iwoa has 80 40mm machine guns, that are small, and don't scratch a fighter, where the Hecate has what? 6 AAAf? THese last are much bigger, for they require something to juice them up, and that something isn't small bullets, but a reactor and whatshowever high tech imaginary mecanical complexes to make it fire...
The anti fighter weapons should be more powerful though...

So lets not compare reality to a game, nor the 1900s with the 2300s, ok??

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!:lol:

40mm guns can't scratch a fighter? Dude, you better check your facts! They'll rip it apart in 0.05 seconds flat!!

Iowa allso carried 2 hidroplanes (later replaced by 3 choppers). As you can see it had LOTS of crew for it's size.
And we're talking about someting more than 2km long - belive me, you have lot's of space in something that big! A aircraft carrier is only 334m long and it can carry 90 airplanes.

Anyway, I edited all the standard weaponry. The standard Terran Turrets now own (they fire much faster) and I allso made a anti-bomber turret (very slow shot speed so you can dodge shots with a fighter, but packs a terrible punch). And I set the Teran Huge Turret to do 1200 damage.  Belive me, capships now own (alltough they could still use more turrets)

You know what a battleship really is?
I tested my Iowa a while ago - sent 6x4 shivan bomber/heavy fighter wings at it (10 wawes each).
End result - all shivans dead, the Iowa at 98% hull.....:devil:

[Stryke 9]

Well, that's kinda the thing, though. You could pretty much throw a rock at a fighter and down it. Especially these days, when the rock'd impact at Mach 2 and probably tear something useful like a wing off. FS fighters are considerably slower and beefier than that- they're more equivalent to modern helicopters, which can take some brutal damage but move like a flying cow. Still not nearly a match for a well-kitted battleship or anything of the sort, but it strikes me that 240 fighters should be able to do pretty grievous damage to a capship.

[karajorma]

Let Trashman continue with his uber modifications. When no one plays his campaign because it's no fun maybe then he'll realise why [V] made a gameplay decision to give capships less powerful guns.

[TrashMan]

UPS...my bad....The Shivans were armed with poor weapons..and there was less fighters...around 120-160.....a typo!

And the Iowa has about 40 flak/aaf turets (will replace half of them with terran turrets)

And the campaign will be fun..Just coause a battleship is uber-armed (like it should be) that doesn't mean that every other ship will be..
Besides, I upped all Shivan fighter weapons have been (to double their normal damage)


My point is - I don't want to make a nearly impenetrable fortress out of all capships (maby only out of1-2 of the biggest ones). I want to make them a serious challenge - nt something that you would go at solo! (With the AI improvement, maby it will even turn up good)

[Killfrenzy]

I still maintain that Capships are supposed to be deadly to anything a fraction of their size. My biggest gripe in any space combat game is that somehow a piddly little one-man fighter can take down a warship without much of a problem. Bombers have a chance, but that's what they're designed to do.

My design philosophy for The Swarm War is to make sure that fighters don't knock down warships. The bombers making attack runs need to be protected by drawing the fire from the ship they're attacking. That's why Swarm War fighters are fast and agile - capships have a ***** of a time hitting you but choose to shoot at you rather than the bombers.

A fighter is a fighter, designed for engaging ships its own size.

Bombers are designed to strike large targets, but you'd need a LOT of them to take down anything bigger than a Light Cruiser.

Warships are designed as assault and defense units designed to attack and hold strategic objectives such as star systems. As a result they're big and nasty. A fighter shouldn't be a threat to them. If it is, then it's been very poorly designed.

Believe me, if I ever get this bloody TC finished you won't be going within three klicks of anything bigger than a Heavy Cruiser (if it's hostile of course).

[Woolie Wool]

Originally posted by karajorma
Let Trashman continue with his uber modifications. When no one plays his campaign because it's no fun maybe then he'll realise why [V] made a gameplay decision to give capships less powerful guns.

Yeah, I use a lot of AAA firepower on Starforce ships, but not too much. Attacking a cap will be tough (unless it's a Border Systems Coalition cruiser because they suck), but Alpha 1 (or Beta 1 in certain cases) has to be the person who is the deciding factor. A mission is no fun unless your actions decide the outcome of the mission.

Enough fighters will take a cruiser down (two to four fighters will be all that is sufficient to bring down a BSC Dainishi cruiser because of its poor armament but some cruisers like the Savaran Imperial Alliance SIC Eurus will be hellish targets for fighters to attack), but something more potent will be needed to take down anything bigger.

[karajorma]

The problem with that philosophy is can the AI handle it?

If the AI bombers get slaughtered every time they appear the campaign can become boring really fast because intercept missions are completely pointless.

[Woolie Wool]

I balanced this by making bombers really tough. A capship generally won't take down bombers quickly enough. However, a capship's anti-fighter turrets working in concert with light fighters are quite formidable, so bombers often have medium or heavy fighters as escort.

So basically interceptors go after the bombers while corvettes or heavy cruisers mop up the escort fighters.

Also, not all destroyers are the same. Most factions have one "Swiss army knife" destroyer, but the SIA has three destroyer classes. The Tereus has good anticap firepower and has armament on all sides, but its anti-fighter defenses are wimpy. The Thanatos has deadly anticap and anti-fighter weaponry, but all but one of its turrets point forward, so the Thanatos is mainly used in frontal assaults with other caps covering its rear. The Icelus is a nightmare for fighters, but its anti-cap firepower is lacking.

[karajorma]

That was meant for killfrenzy actually but you managed to sneak in a reply

[Nico]

Originally posted by karajorma
Let Trashman continue with his uber modifications. When no one plays his campaign because it's no fun maybe then he'll realise why [V] made a gameplay decision to give capships less powerful guns.

call me strange, but the best patr of the whole FS deal was the begining of FS1, when you had crappy guns and no shields, when you were at least worried when you saw a capship or a new fighter wing jumping in. Later, it was just " damn, I need to get those down fast so I can keep on with scaning those stupid subsystems - what for, btw? we never get to use any information from those, nothing comes from those scans, not even some crappy technobabbling during briefings.

[karajorma]

FS1 worked because it only kept the player weak for a few missions. Had the campaign been like that all the way through I doubt as many people would have enjoyed it. You'd die about twice as often and many missions which involved capships would have been impossible.

[Woolie Wool]

Yeah, even a Ma'at could be a ***** to take on if you weren't very good. Those blob turrets are pretty nasty against an unshielded fighter. Typhons would have been a major pain (fortunately, Volition didn't throw in a Typhon until AFTER you had acquired shield tech) because a Terran Huge Turret or FighterKiller could destroy you in one or two hits.

[Drew]

Originally posted by kv1at3485
@ adwight

I believe you are correct.  Monitor (or a close relative) was the first all-metal warship, but she can hardly be described as the ancestor of the 'modern' battleship as we know them.

to correct everyone, the CSS Virginia was the first ironclad ship to be used in battle. It was orignaly sunk by the North but the South raised it and transformed it into the Merrimac. The Monitor was launch cuz the Merrimac was pwning the North's fleet. The Monitor's rotating turret was another tech. marvel...

[Flipside]

Yes, but if I remember rightly the Virginia was a wooden ship with Iron 'Cladding' hence the name. The monitor was the first all metal ship, oh yes, and those guns were the first guns in the civil war whih could actually pentrate the cladding on the Merrimac.

They also made some kind of 'suicidals only' submarine, but I can't remember the name.

[Flaser]

This is the issue why I belive in a Damage Treshold/Damage Resistance system borrowed from the SPECIAL RPG system.

Just give a high treshold for warships, while bombers could recieve a high resistance.

What it means is the treshold is first substracted from any damage, then it is rounded down by the resistance factor.

IMHO the system tries to simulate how hard (treshold - it ignores low caliber weaponry) and how thick the armor is (resistance - this is how much damage it can absorb).

Of course it can be more complicated (in a computer game you can let the PC handle it after all, that's the difference between a board game and the comp.), by lowering both factors as the battering goes on - of course it would need area sensitive armor handling which is too complicated right now (needs a lot of empty subsystems - that was the last easiest solution I heard of).

This somewhat resembles the current flag system of FS but IMHO it could be a broader more handy system than having just a couple of flags to do a rough selection.

[Grey Wolf]

The Monitor was not the original ironclad built from the keel up. The British actually had ironclads first.  The distinguishing factor of the Monitor is it was the first to see actual combat, and to prove the concept worked.

Another ship that did the same thing was the Hunley, which was the first submarine that sunk a ship. Admittedly it didn't survive the attempt, but it was the first.