[Game_Master64]

^^ but both are easily destroyed by the other

[Gamma_Draconis]

I think what most people fail to realize is, bombers and even fighters with the maxim cannon can take out the beam weaponry on capital ships. Once the beams are done, its a giant piece of scrap metal. And if its engines and navigations are taken out, it's as good as dead.

[TrashMan]

But it takes time to take out navigation and engines...and a capship can jusmp by then and escape..of course, they can practilcy allways escape.

A beam salvo can cripple the ship in 5 seconds flat..no bbr can do that.

IMHO, maxims and Trebs are so overpowered it's redicolous. Have you ever seen any warship carrying a weapon with shorter range than a fighter?

[Gamma_Draconis]

The Maxim is so powerful, I think they should replace the blob turrets with them. That'll end capital ship engagements even faster.

[Polpolion]

That'll end capital ship engagements even faster.

That's exactly why they shouldn't .

Capitol engagements are to short as it is.

[GenericCorvette]

If capital ships always had weaponry that beats fighters and bombers before they get within range, you'd be the captain of a Deimos corvette and Alpha wing would be escorting you.

[Snail]

I think what most people fail to realize is, bombers and even fighters with the maxim cannon can take out the beam weaponry on capital ships. Once the beams are done, its a giant piece of scrap metal. And if its engines and navigations are taken out, it's as good as dead.

The navigation subsystem does nothing at all.

[TrashMan]

The navigation subsystem does nothing at all.

Game mechanics-wise no... Freespace universe wise it does something.. Ships can't jump without it..or at least not fast... Or something like that

[Snail]

Yes, but right now we're talking game-wise.

Using the ai_profiles (IIRC) you can actually make the navigation govern the ability to warp out.

[TrashMan]

If capital ships always had weaponry that beats fighters and bombers before they get within range, you'd be the captain of a Deimos corvette and Alpha wing would be escorting you.

Who said that? I said equal range.. and even if capships had weapons with longer ranges, that still doens't mean anything for the player.
Evade, dodge, countermesure?

[BlueFlames]

Evade, dodge, countermesure?

Avoid the beam, and you won't get hit?

[wtf_cl0vvn]

The Maxim is so powerful, I think they should replace the blob turrets with them. That'll end capital ship engagements even faster.

oh GOD no.

I replaced 4 turrets on a Fenris with Maxims, and for the life of me I could not kill the damn thing. (heavy assault fighter)

Those guns have RANGE man...

[Game_Master64]

but IIRC, they cant actually kill anything bigger then a cruiser, corvet at most.

[Mustang19]

The Maxim is so powerful, I think they should replace the blob turrets with them. That'll end capital ship engagements even faster.

oh GOD no.

I replaced 4 turrets on a Fenris with Maxims, and for the life of me I could not kill the damn thing. (heavy assault fighter)

Those guns have RANGE man...

Which is the way things should be. One lone fighter should not be able to kill a cruiser.

You'll notice that the most lauded of PI's gameplay "improvements" is the strengthening of capital ship defenses. This is especially evident on the Saturn.

[TrashMan]

Which is why my capital ships are gonna be killign you 

[S-99]

The way capital ship armaments should have been is morning stars, flaks, and AAA beams for anti-fighter defenses. And that sounds reasonably repelling enough for fighters and bombers, and you might as well keep all the normal blob turrets on there, when the hell are you going to get hit by one of those to be killed? Plus the blob turrets could be like changed in a table where they only shoot at bombs and capital ships, and only at fighters if there's no capital ships around to engage with blob turrets coupled with flak and AAA beams and normal beams.

Pretty much i'm saying morning stars should be integrated onto bigger ships as weapon supplementing. Capital ships would then fill their role a lot better in the roles of anti-fighter, support, and killing other capships. Capships would also last a lot longer which i really wouldn't mind seeing. Capships already got enough antifighter weaponry that kills, but fighters and bombers can easily fly away. If you had morning stars on a capship (i'm not talking like an uber amount of morning stars, just a reasonable amount that would offer good coverage sort of like the intelligent placing of flaks on say a deimos or a triton freighter(the tritons single flak is very nice for where it's placed, and the fact that it's the only flak on the whole freighter), you'd be flakked, bounced around, maybe some blobbing, but in this horrible situation you'd be in if you were this poor fighter, you could still bug out before you recieved a blob and a beam.

Why do i suggest this? Well, it'd make capships more viable, and make capships safer i guess. I mean there's ships like the hecate which aren't really meant for or designed to take a direct assault, sort of like fenris cruisers. One of the motives of being a capship captain is that you want to stay away from fighters. And well this would make the world all better.

[TrashMan]

Making capships tougher - more HP and better AF defense means that the player will hardly be able to kill them alone....which is good.

No more 1 bbr wing attack, but whole friggin squads would attack. You'd have to take care of your wingmane and allies better, if for nothing else then for the fact that they'd make a good diversion

[S-99]

I wasn't thinking more hp, the normal amount of hp ships have is fine enough.

[Game_Master64]

downside would be that bombing runs would be almost impossible, taking all the fun out of it for the player. i mean, come on, do you want to get shot down 5 times by the same turret?

[BlueFlames]

I'm not sure that beefing up capital ships' armaments is necessarily the best solution to their vulnerability to fighters.  It's not the worst solution either, mind you, since blob turrets are so pathetic, but it's not the best.

I think the biggest problem with capital ships is that it is so easy for fighters to create blindspots in their defenses, even if initial turret coverage is pretty strong.  For example, the two AAA beams at the rear of the Sobek is a pretty strong deterant to attacking fighters, but once some brave/poor soul moves in to destroy them, that whole rear quadrant is utterly defenseless.  Let's pull a role reversal, and put you in the Sobek's command chair.  What do you do when your tactical officer informs you that your aft quarter has been neutered?  You probably tell your engineering teams, in no uncertain terms, who will be neutered next, if they don't restore those AAA beams to operation.  Of course, that's a lot of scripting (especially if you want repair rates to slow as more turrets are damaged, representing a splitting of the repair team's efforts), so from a meta-game perspective, it's not a viable option, except in the rarest of cases.

Aside from that, I'd also consider making a couple of the player's weapons a little less ridiculous.  The Maxim really needs its range dropped down to between 1250 and 1500 meters, like the Prometheus S, so that you can fire from a healthy range, but not without fear of reprisal.  On top of that, the Trebuchet needs to be targetable as a bomb.  This would make it equivilant to an advanced Stiletto in terms of its turret-smashing capabilities.  (i.e. You can kill turrets from beyond their range, but you'll need to fire off the better half of a bank in order to overwhelm the turrets you're firing at, thereby making them a slower and less attractive option.)

I suppose the solution you choose depends on if you want to beat the player with the whoopin' stick or the nerf stick.  Of course, lately, when I've been building missions, I opt for option three, not making the Maxim or Trebuchet available.  Don't like the Prometheus and Stiletto?  That's just too bad, now, isn't it?