"So you want to buy a capital-class vessel" Discussion thread

[Akumabito]

Actually, I believe a single bomber wing cannot bring nearly the firepower a Battleship can.
Sure, a nova deals a lot of damage. Granted, they're a mite better than the battleship Big Guns. But the battleship can mount at least 12 very powerful 'standard' cannons, and fire them continually, for hours. I suspect any sneak attack, where someone fires on a planetary shield (Bretonia has them, and has had them since the Phantoms Mox bombed Cambridge. The rest of the planets probably have them too.) would be discovered by the power fluctuations reported by the shield. The source would quickly be found, and eliminated.

If that's the case a Battleship poses no greater threat, it doesn't do that much more damage than a bomber, is easier to detect further out so it will be detected and eliminated as well, which negates you last point that these cap ships are a threat to planets .

When you said " A planet or a station is EXTREMELY vulnerable", did you really mean it? Or were you just trying to justify something with logic that wasn't all that sound?

[Athenian]

Moreover, moving such a ship, capable of contesting a world or station's defense, and actually bombarding that world or station, through someone else's territory will worry that person a great deal, because you have just threatened their home. Just by being there, because they really cannot tell what your intentions are.

A valid point when it comes to RP ing a capital vessel. Many have pointed out the RP value of battleships, as tools of diplomacy I among other things I think they mean, and I'll try to incorporate that into the first page of the thread later as well as adding in more detail about the vulnerability of the ship in certain circumstances.

I can't really comment on the "bomber-whoring" debate as the thread was originally intended to pool experience of capital ships and I think the vulnerability of lone capital ships to bombers has been well-stated by now. The game engine seems to weigh in favour of anything as large as a capital vessel needing at least some sort of fighter escort to function effectively.

And I wasn't suggesting a registration system or rules; if you've read this thread earlier you might have noticed that I've added some of the feedback from people to the initial post. Just guidelines, folks, advice based on experience that might help people when it comes to role-playing capital ships.

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Former member of "the most paranoid group of people in the community"
Discovery Community Forum Rules

[sovereign]

If that's the case a Battleship poses no greater threat, it doesn't do that much more damage than a bomber, is easier to detect further out so it will be detected and eliminated as well, which negates you last point that these cap ships are a threat to planets .

When you said " A planet or a station is EXTREMELY vulnerable", did you really mean it? Or were you just trying to justify something with logic that wasn't all that sound?

Point, a battleship does little more damage than a bomber. Also point, it is a lot harder to destroy with a planet's standing fleet. A lone bomber that looks hostile or doesn't halt would get shot up before it got into range- a battleship, while doing little more damage with its guns, would get a lot more than one supernova's worth of damage in before it was finally pulled down.

Still, you really do have a good point about bombers and planets. As people show up on skype I'll talk to them about mandating a bomber "safe distance" from planets like there is for capital ships.

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[Unseelie]

A standard bretonian teritary battleship turret deals 2160 damage twice a second. A Dunkirk can mount 12 of these, and deal approximately 51,840 damage each second, without any energy drain, at all..

A bomber can fire one Supernova cannon, for 132000 damage, with a refire of .17...thats 22,440 damage a second.
Battleships are more dangerous.
Most battleships have more guns than a dukirk, as well.

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[Akumabito]

hm, akuma in WW2 was some destroyers,cruisers and battleship destroyed after hit of 1 torpedo/bomb...

Can you name them?

The only decisive air victory over a battleship was the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse, the Repulse took several hits from an overwhelming air attack, and it was a WWI ship without torpedo defenses, the Prince of Wales took six torpedo and one bomb hit (although many many many bombs and torps were dropped at her) that warped her prop shaft causing a leak and a list and eventually sunk her.

The Japanese were unable to do the same damage to the USS Lexington later in the war when it was caught alone by an air wing.

You have to remember at the time air power was new.

All the factors involved in these battles are not factors in space. In space battleships aren't in water while aircraft are in the air. In space the Prince of Wales wouldn't have taken a list keeping her anti aircraft guns from being able to return fire. In space she wouldn't have sunk from water.

In real life a large, heavily armed space ship would destroy any number of smaller craft. It would have room for better sensors, bigger, longer range missiles (and missiles don't miss nowdays) and also have point defense much like modern ships that shoot down incoming missiles.

In real life you probably couldn't match vectors between ships to fight in space, and combat would have to take place at planets.

But it's not real life. It's a game, a game that is supposed to be fun for everyone, including the indies.

[Akumabito]

A standard bretonian teritary battleship turret deals 2160 damage twice a second. A Dunkirk can mount 12 of these, and deal approximately 51,840 damage each second, without any energy drain, at all..

A bomber can fire one Supernova cannon, for 132000 damage, with a refire of .17...thats 22,440 damage a second.
Battleships are more dangerous.
Most battleships have more guns than a dukirk, as well.

So a battleship can do twice the damage a single bomber can (more or less, if we change the loadouts and include four lvl 10 guns on the bomber it may change fractionally). However, with planetary shields it doesn't matter, does it?

You started by saying a planet was extremely vulnerable, then you argue that it isn't. If they have planetary shields they aren't vulnerable, if they don't then a bomber takes twice as long to level the planet, but it's still a weapon of mass murder.

A lone bomber that looks hostile or doesn't halt would get shot up before it got into range-

Planetary defense fighters and bombers will take down the cap ship in moments, a bomber lasts longer in a fight because it can dodge and fire. In any large engagements the caps fall first while a bomber can last against overwhelming odds for quite a while longer by dodging while it's shields regen, easily double what the battleship will.

Sounds like the factions need to start pvp whoring these indie bomber pilots, for the good of us all.

[Athenian]

As I've said earlier, the WW2 example cited was specifically chosen to illustrate to the unwary how vulnerable these ships can be in the game. I am NOT trying to generate an entire re-appraisal of the game mechanics nor am I arguing for or against the current stats of bombers, cruisers or starfliers nor do I want to get into using military history to justify the rights and wrongs of anything. What I wanted was for experienced capital vessel players to give some constructive advice on how best to roleplay a capital vessel.

It's clear that the faction vs. independent split, if such a thing exists, is only going to be exasperated by more of this kind of talk, so can we get back to the original point of the thread please and try to keep it positive.

And don't talk to me about the Prince of Wales, I had a grand-uncle on that ship.....:(

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Former member of "the most paranoid group of people in the community"
Discovery Community Forum Rules

[sovereign]

Can you name them?

The only decisive air victory over a battleship was the sinking of Prince of Wales and Repulse, the Repulse took several hits from an overwhelming air attack, and it was a WWI ship without torpedo defenses, the Prince of Wales took six torpedo and one bomb hit (although many many many bombs and torps were dropped at her) that warped her prop shaft and eventually sunk her.

The Japanese were unable to do the same damage to the USS Lexington later in the war when it was caught alone by an air wing.

You have to remember at the time air power was new.

All the factors involved in these battles are not factors in space. In space battleships aren't in water while aircraft are in the air. In space the Prince of Wales wouldn't have taken a list keeping her anti aircraft guns from being able to return fire. In space she wouldn't have sunk from water.

In real life a large, heavily armed space ship would destroy any number of smaller craft. It would have room for better sensors, bigger, longer range missiles (and missiles don't miss nowdays) and also have point defense much like modern ships that shoot down incoming missiles.

In real life you probably couldn't match vectors between ships to fight in space, and combat would have to take place at planets.

But it's not real life. It's a game, a game that is supposed to be fun for everyone, including the indies.

Its also supposed to be fun for the factions. In fact, who gives a damn if its faction or indie, its supposed to be fun for everyone willing to let everyone else have fun too. Funnily enough, selfish greedy bastards who dockrape people and buy the biggest ship they can buy to stretch their e-penises have this tendency to get rejected by factions. I wonder why.

I really don't see how this got onto factions vs indies. These suggestions should be applied even more heavily by faction flagships than anything else, actually.

As for WWII history, its not that relevant, but the Bismarck was sunk because of an air attack. Torpedo detonated off the rudder and forced it into a continual hard turn, sealing her doom. Also, a rather large amount of U-boats were sunk by aircraft. Keep in mind that U-boats in WWII were more like submersible and not submarines, and were fairly well armored. Like little cruisers that could go underwater. I can go fetch the statistic if you want, but aircraft are pretty good at sinking ships unless the ship is designed to handle aircraft, or has escorts that are.

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[Magoo!]

Other than hating the word "vessel" now, I kind of agree.

But it seems like everybody is writing this stuff just for the possibility of getting it pinned.

Ever since Xoria's "So you wanna make a faction" post got pinned, I've seen like, 30 of these.

P.S. I agree with Eternal's first post as well. Perhaps moreso than the first one.

[Akumabito]

I really don't see how this got onto factions vs indies.

Yes you do. It is a faction vs. indie issue, it's the factions claiming to own cap ships and putting in unofficial rules, aimed at the indies, and enforced by oorp pvp bomber whoring.

As for WWII history, its not that relevant, but the Bismarck was sunk because of an air attack.

Nope, while an air launched torp did jam her rudder, she was already damaged from naval bombardment from the Hood (she took three shells) and it was the fact that the oil slick allowed the planes to find her and that the damage the hood had caused her limited her speed to 16 knots that allowed that torp hit.

The Bismark was sunk because of a massive attack over several days, air attacks alone never would have sunk her.

All modern warships have air defenses of some sort. The only reason bombers can destroy cap ships in disco is that they threw weapon logic out the window to allow it, by making a bomber and a supernova not fit the physics of the rest of the weapons and ships as far as power plant size and weapon yield for power expended goes.