CR: Kronos and the Zephyr

[Syrus]

I guess the big miss-understanding here is the perception that smaller factions with Battleships should have their battleships preforming on the level of House ships.
This is wrong because they never preformed on that level- see the Arbeiter/Spyglass of 4.85 for example, it is bigger then house heavy caps, slower with 3 heavy slots and less secondary turrets. Spyglass had also 8m core as well in 4.85
I wont tell anything about the Hessian BS because well.. you know who balanced it together with the main user. Second really good ship in small faction hands is Dragon BS- somehow it landed on the better part of the balance.
Kronos clearly have Heavy Battleship size, compared with medium battleship agility it would be bad BS.I was not aware that it is that big, then Dane Request to have 2 docking bays and 200 more cargo is reasonable one.

I can't say much about the Arbiter from "own experience", since I haven't flown it in battle. From what I saw, though, it is of extreme size - should have included it in the picture I linked, it'd probably be the longest by far - but now it actually has a fitting powercore for that size as well as some decent armor. It's not a very good battleship, but at least it's not too bad. From what I saw I'd put it at the lower end of "decent". But - it's hard to tell.

Other BS for smaller factions - I'd like to include Outcasts and Corsairs as well, as they are seen as way bigger than they are actually supposed to be. What about the Order and their Osiris? Best battleship till .86. Legate got power and armor for its size, turns rather fast as well, gets stuck in asteroids though. Sarissa - ok, you got me there. But the Ranseur was quite a monster in .85 with 16 guns forward and extremly good arcs while not being too big and being able to sneak through asteroid fields. The new Ranseur isn't anywhere near that good, but it still doesn't suck. Council? Eh. 6 Class 10 all-rounder.
Zoner Aquillion? Well, it's a carrier. Zoner ... Nephilim? Big, bigger ... Nephilim. Not a battleship. And as you already pointed out, the Hessian and Blood Dragon BS ended up on the "better part of the balancement scale". BHG BS? Well, it's not too big. Is it good? Seems low on armor. Still should be able to kite. Haven't flown it since .85 to be honest.

Overall, I wouldn't say that "small faction's BS have to be really weaker". What they shouldn't be, though, are ships which are supposed to overpower the enemy. That's why I see battleships unfitting for all non-house factions, actually - but that's another story. If they get BS, then they shouldn't have them on par with houses - in size and strength! But not in agility! A smaller faction would build smaller "BS", to use the advantages that gives them.

But heh, this can be talked about for ever - as I stated before. Zephyr, yes, but with more armor - Kronos, no.

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