[TrashMan]

You just need to beef up the capships HP...and hte explosion shockwave damage.

Compare the size of the destroyer with a fighter and compare their hit points.

Hell, a destroyer should have a minimum of 2000000 hp.

[aldo_14]

You just need to beef up the capships HP...and hte explosion shockwave damage.

Compare the size of the destroyer with a fighter and compare their hit points.

Hell, a destroyer should have a minimum of 2000000 hp.

Yes, because the hull of an aircraft carrier is about 1500 times the strength and thickness of a tanks' armour in real life.

[TrashMan]

It's not just about armor - it's allso about size. Teh Fs2 destroyers are over 2000 meters long. 2000 meters!!!!

that's friggin huge. Granted, we havo no idea of the destroyer armor thickness, but armor isn't really simulated in fs2 anyway.

They just go down too fast and too easily for something that big. They lack the "omph!" of most large sci-fi warships...

[aldo_14]

What, like the HMS Sheffield being hit by an exocet?.....

[tobiwan81]

Yup. It should be way harder to destroy something as big and tough as an Orion or Hecate.

And unless you hit the weapons storage or reactors they should not really blow up.

[Prophet]

Yup. It should be way harder to destroy something as big and tough as an Orion or Hecate.

In theory, a modern day battleship can be sunk by a single missile/torpedo (depends on bazillion circumstances). In theory, Hecate/Orion can be destroyed (pronounced disabled/made inoperable) by a single large missile/torpedo/bomb. If three modern day cruise missiles hit Hecate on the same spot each after another, there will be a hole. Then again, during WW2 ships sometimes endured incredible amounts of punishment while still being able to fight back. I imagine that could also happen in Freespace, at least to a some degree. Space is somewhat more hostile as an enviroment than water and air...
It all depends on lots of things and has lots of variables, in real life I mean. But in Freespace it's all predictable, when that last tempest hits it's all over (something that could be improved).

Personally, I prefer long battles where capships hammer each others until the otherone gives. But some like destructive firepower presented in Freespace 2. Its very entertaining, I admit. But it somehow should be more difficult to destroy a couple of thousand lives.

Anyway, things are as they are in Freespace universe. And it works in its own way.

And unless you hit the weapons storage or reactors they should not really blow up.

This is where the ages old explolsion effect issue comes to haunt us.

[NGTM-1R]

What, like the HMS Sheffield being hit by an exocet?.....

Faulty metaphor; FS capships actually have armor. Because, let's face it now, if the Exocet had hit the WW2 light cruiser incarnation of the Sheffield it would have been more like "Sweepers man your brooms."

[aldo_14]

What, like the HMS Sheffield being hit by an exocet?.....

Faulty metaphor; FS capships actually have armor. Because, let's face it now, if the Exocet had hit the WW2 light cruiser incarnation of the Sheffield it would have been more like "Sweepers man your brooms."

And FS warheads are in the megatonne range.

[WeatherOp]

Well, to mee it's kind of easy to see, both times we seen them is with Orion class destroyers, well they have bad anti-fighter guns, so sticking a Diemos or a few Aeolus cruisers whitch have very good anti-fighter support is a good option. The Hecate class has good anti-fighter support anyways so there is no use in bringing in more ships to cover.

And besides, just guess what a Ravana would do to a Diemos. Flying blind in a nebula with ships that could take out a Diemos with one shot, and traveling in big battlegroups when one warship could fry them all, seams kind of dumb, don't ya think?

[NGTM-1R]

And FS warheads are in the megatonne range.

And armor has advanced too.

[karajorma]

So we're back to the Sheffield and one Exocet again then.

[NGTM-1R]

No, because the basic fact remains FS capships are armored to take that kind of punishment. Sheffield was not armored period.

[Cobra]

Destroyers won't need any kind of escort as long as they have Alpha 1.

[Mars]

I suppose that's the point... no wonder the Ravana destroyed the Delecroix... Alpha 1 wasn't there.

[aldo_14]

No, because the basic fact remains FS capships are armored to take that kind of punishment. Sheffield was not armored period.

And warheads are setup to take account of the armour upon the target vessel.

[Gregster2k]

Is it even possible to make a capital ship in FS2 have point defense systems capable of defending the ship against warheads? Like an equivalent of the Point Defense Systems (PDS) Mod for Homeworld 2 (that game suffered from the same problem FS2 has: no way to defend a capship from bombs without a fighter)?

I'm always one to like realism mods 

Who cares if it breaks mission balance? Rebalance the missions    I mean seriously, the sheer amount of missions with THIS is sickening:

Allied Command/Volition: WE GOT BOMBS! ALPHA 1 GO GET EM CUZ OUR DESTROYERS WERE DESIGNED TO BE COMPLETELY HELPLESS SO WE COULD ADD A GAMEPLAY ELEMENT OF CATCHING BOMBS TO THE GAME!

Boooooooorinnnnggggg.

It'd be fun to give capital ships "realistic capabilities" and then make missions where one is fully capable of just sitting back and WATCHING the capital ships fight it out, and get a slightly different battle each and every time. Just set oneself cloaked or whatever, sit back, grab some popcorn and watch the GTVA and Shivans fight.

What I'm getting at is that the reason Destroyers suck right now is because FreeSpace 2 was deliberately designed so that Alpha 1 was the savior of the universe in all situations. If some of us don't like that then I think it's time we armed our destroyers realistically, so that Alpha One becomes more of a spectator in the crossfire rather than God Almighty.

Many a time I wanted to scream at the Aquitaine: IS IT NOT TOO HARD TO SET YOUR DAMN CANNONS TO ANGLE AT THE TRAJECTORIES OF INCOMING BOMBS AND BLOW THEM UP YOURSELF? GO DIE! IM NOT FLYING AROUND YOU CATCHING UR STUPID BOMBS! *lets the Aquitaine die* SCREW YOU COMMAND!

"I can live with being a pawn if the game makes sense" --- sounds a lot funnier when read in the context of bomb-catching for capships, eh?

[Prophet]

Gregster2k has good points there. But Freespace is Freespace and we have no right to make such drastic changes. No one is ofcourse stopping you from creating something yourself. Go and complete Ferrium. I dare you.

[Shade]

What I'm getting at is that the reason Destroyers suck right now is because FreeSpace 2 was deliberately designed so that Alpha 1 was the savior of the universe in all situations.

That's not an armament problem at all actually. It's simply that capship AI effectively = No AI. If they actually used the weapons they have in any remotely intelligent way, they'd be far more capable of dealing with bombers (and other threats) than we see at the moment.

But of course that can't be allowed, because the first order of business would then be to nail Alpha 1 with a heavy beam before he could cause too much trouble

Anyway, it's not like ships of today are immune to airstrikes either. Indeed CIWS systems like the Vulcan have a pretty hard time dealing with newer, armoured missiles as the shells simply don't penetrate. Or they can be overwhelmed, missiles move fast and if you lob 10 of them at a target it's going to have a hard time getting them all no matter how good its defenses are. Also, keep in mind that for bombs to stand any chance in FS2, they need to be launched close up and at speed, or in large numbers, or they WILL be taken out by flak. Launch a missile at 500m from a carrier and I'm pretty sure that will hit too...

On that note, why hasn't anyone made a stealth missile yet? One needs to track them to hit them, after all, and it would be a lot easier to stealthify something of that size. Would instantly turn most existing naval air defense systems into expensive ballast.

[Wanderer]

This is just my take, but... afaik modern anti-shipping missiles are generally sea-skimming missiles that use active radar as terminal guidance system...

IMO stealthing a sea-skimming missile with (usually) active terminal guidance system is not very cost-effective. First no stealth is 'unpenetrable' at close range so missile is most likely detected, second missile moves very fast and moves directly towards the ship making its doppler shift relatively large so picking it up and recognicing it from even a faint signal is possible, third sea skimmers are detected at last moment anyway.. And finally active terminal guidace will give away the missile no matter what stealth it utilizes.

So stealthing it is most likely possible but it might achieve very little.. so not very cost effective.

[Ulala]

That's why we need CLOAKING missiles!