Eh, if that was true then no one would build anything bigger than a gunboat. Like I pointed out, for the cost and crew of one battleship you get ten gunboats, and ten gunboats will take out anything.
I personally like the idea of stripping the shields off of battleships and increasing their armor.
I never liked the idea of having shields on a battleship, also, it isn't true to Vanilla freelancer.
If you look at it this way, how is a ship THAT large going to power it's movement, weapons, life support, hold supplies & crew and at the same time be able to hold a powerplant large enough to power a MASSIVE shield of INSANE POWER? (caps are just to emphasize the words) Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
That's just how I feel about it.
Not to mention, caps with no shields means targeting an enemies weaponry can actually come into play in cap fights.
EDIT:
I would also like to add, that two gunboats (well piloted by two people working WELL together [Like McNeo and I]) can destroy a battleship with relative ease.
Maybe limit some battleships to factions and create a battleship the rich arses can get their hands on. They would be weaker and smaller than the faction battleships. Kind of like a wealthy person's yacht, except armed to the teeth.
' Wrote:If you look at it this way, how is a ship THAT large going to power it's movement, weapons, life support, hold supplies & crew and at the same time be able to hold a powerplant large enough to power a MASSIVE shield of INSANE POWER? (caps are just to emphasize the words) Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
how ships actually would power up their movement and shielding isn't the problem...same way as todays ships that travel across oceans...they are small factory by them selves (i know i am in ship building in RL..making engines for them)...and space is even easier...there are no friction...so basically for ship to only move u dont need much power...for maneuvering it u need power...but size of the ship is the key...it has enough space on it to build power generators for any equipment that certain ship holds...if nuclear reactor of today can supply whole city with power and it is a size of one square meter...then i would hope that some kind of improvements would be made on power reactors of the future...(best example are submarines...closest u get to a space ship now days...they travel trough hostile environment - water - they have their own power reactors, air and food supply's for people...armed with rather slow but deadly torpedo's..with many weak spots and tricks how to maneuver it)
if u really want to go in that direction...if any ship is hard to equip with sheilds then it is fighters...much less space for powerful shield generators
and one fun fact: did u know that for one large tanker it takes almost an hour to get from full speed to full stop in normal conditions...
Do not limit the battleships let every one have them.
Change the shield rechargs rate and the Shield cap to that of a transport. Change the hull to 100 times its value.
What will happen is thata single player will think twice about flying a BS if they need to pay 60 mil to repair it after every battle. Massive armor will make sure battleships last long enough to provide support.
Nonono! We CANNOT take the shields off of Battleships. This has been discussed many times before, right up to the beginning of Discovery (It's there! Look for it), and battleships must keep their shields. I'm all for giving the Battleship more power, but I'd like to see it by giving it a second set of Hardpoints, cruiser guns for killing fighters, and making ammunition-requiring main guns, that cost 250000 a shot. There's you maintenance fee right there.
Quote:Quick comment - we thought that Panzer was the Leader, Swift. -Agmen
I actually agree with one battleship per faction. This would be the best way to see less battleships, and more fighters, gunboats and cruisers. As it stands, cruisers are nearly useless due to the fact that just about any well piloted gunboat can take one down. I am not in favour of such a massive armour increase, but maybe 7 times instead of ten. This wont make it too much work. The Cap armour mk VIII on a RH BS with the 10x base armour anyway, thats around 40x (correct me if im wrong) armour that it has now. I think the RH BS has around 700k armour now, so 40x700000 is 28 million armour. Bit too much imho. with your suggestion, i think this value should be around 23 million armour. (this is my opinion on your suggestion)
I like the idea quite a bit. With the battleship liscence on the faction battleships.
I would proceed by posting on the forums, a topic such as "All battleship pilots post here!" and compensate those who are not in a faction with money. Only those who post there though, as those with battleships have had more than enough time to know that the forums are there. Alot of work, but its the only way to implement this kind of change without a player wipe.
And yes, right now, the battleships are pretty underpowered, as are the cruisers. The gunboats are balanced, as they do their intended job well enough. However, they do a host of other jobs, such as cruiser killing, and in pairs, battleship killing. This really shouldn't be the case. So battleships and cruisers need their shield taken away and a pretty sizable armour tank (sorry for the EvE reference...).
IMO, the highest cruiser armour should be: 10 million (or thereabouts) with armour cap VIII. Possibly around 25 million for the most heavily armoured battleship. The gunboats should recieve a doubling of its base armour, but no other changes...
Also, now one of my ideas from not so long ago.
Can we make the battlecruiser PLEASE be a battleship killer as its only use (as I suggested before, 2 fixed cruiser forward guns, or with that armour tank, maybe 3) but only 2-4 normal cruiser turret slots. This would make it an integral part of strategy against enemy flagships, whilst making them useless to the average freelancer (who, as suggested earlier, should not have anything larger than a cruiser if these changes go through). I really don't like the idea of BC's being just bigger cruisers.
My opinion, as I wrote it.
EDIT TIME!:
@Doom: The mass of a ship in space would be much more, due to the fact that construction in space is done with no gravity restraints. Therefore, if you look at a star destroyer from starwars, and compare it to a TIE fighter, you will find that the Star destroyer is a lot heavier, bigger and more massive than the Aircraft Carrier in relation to an F22 Jet (bit confusing, what I mean is that the ratio of mass of Star destroyer : TIE Fighter is a lot higher than Aircraft carrier: F22 Jet.)
Also, nevermind moving 50000 tons through water, try getting a ship weighing in at 5 billion tons to move. That requires a lot of power, to go at any decent speed. You will keep accelerating, granted, but the rate of accelaration will be pretty slow...a lot slower than an Aircraft carrier's now.
@Epyon: Maybe not removing the shield, but making it like an asteroid barrier. Not useful for much else (same as gunboat shield?) except stopping low-level NPC attacks and the asteroids...
@pipsqueak: You do realise, that a RH BS would have 700000x400 armour... thats...over a quarter of a billion armour! That, its silly, imo...
Actually, Battlecruisers are for hunting Cruisers and gunboats. If it were a BS killer that engagement between Bismarck and Hood would have turned out much differently.
Also, no faction limitations. Just make em cost seven hundred a pop, and the license three. People will think twice...
Quote:Quick comment - we thought that Panzer was the Leader, Swift. -Agmen
' Wrote:Re: blunt vs monk... Agree with blunt. There's a reason nobody has built a battleship since before WWII. Not just bombers, but ordinance in general (rocketry is a big one) has badly surpassed armour technology at sea. In the olden days battleships didn't need protection; they WERE the protection. I guess the question is, what erra does a Freelancer battleship fit into? Is it the monster that takes point and shrugs off everything the enemy throws at it? Or is it the bombardment tool that hides behind a screen of defenders? (If it's the bombardment tool then it doesn't really has no practical use in the hands of players)
CP
Battleships so were NOT the protection. Battleship screens have been in effect for a very long time and they continue to this day with Aircraft Carriers. The Battleship was always vulnerable to attack simply because its HUGE and no matter how much armour you have if you are that big and that dangerous then everyone is gonna shoot at you. Napoleon said when faced with many enemies put yourself between them and face the strongest. Whats the strongest in a fleet? The BS of course. So a battleship is slow, sturdy, and armed to the teeth. The main purpose of a BS is to be a moving weapons platform. They throw big crap at stuff and that stuff doesn't survive that big crap.
The simple matter is that in the beginning of time we had small boats. Then we met other people with small boats. We decided that we wanted to take what the other people had and we attacked their small boat. That didn't work so well cause it was an even match. So we made a bigger boat. They made an even bigger one. Eventually we ended up with massive ships that counter the other massive ships. Then someone thought "Hey those suckers are huge and I can swim circles around him if I'm smaller". Then you have corvettes and destroyers and eventually submarines. So how do you counter the smaller ships when in a bigger one? You throw a wall of crap at them and have a bunch of small maneuverable ships with you to A get hit before you and B chase after the ships too fast for you to hit.
Then you get to aircraft... well they really screw with the BS but thats where we end cause if space ships are like water vessels then there is no aircraft. Maybe fighters. Point is that a BS was always vulnerable alone. The Bismark was wounded by one torpedo from a Bi-Plane torpedo bomber. One dinky plane with one torpedo injured the greatest BS ever to the point that it was vulnerable to all the other big suckers. The BS doesn't need to be all powerful cause it already is. Look at its guns. In a fight a fighter cant even slow it down, only a bomber and even then alone you likely get wasted. The problem a BS faces is being faced with many enemies without support.
So should a BS be impossible to sink? No, it is in reality quite vulnerable. Forced plasma weapons and torpedoes etc... all of them can rip through a ship that big and that ship can't really evade. So the balance issue really only comes from people who don't want to fly around in groups. A group of a few bombers can waste a BS if they fly correctly. Same with GBs. But you take a BS and have a few fighters for GBs for escort and suddenly a few lone bombers or GBs isn't gonna be so hot. Then you need another BS to throw big crap at the other BS and you also need more fighters to fight the other fighters... etc...
So what are our balance issues? The ships themselves I don't think are that bad. The problem is that cooperation is required to kill them. Not much either. The only downfall of that is that it takes many millions to make a GB or Bomber worthy of killing a BS and since we're getting weird on who uses which guns then well how am I gonna get a NOVA if I can't dock with that Molly base in Dublin?
Guided ordnance is too expensive to kill a BS since you can lose half a mil in 10 seconds if you get killed so we need NOVAs basically, but maybe we need an equivalent everywhere. Same with Coladas and Tizonas. That brings RP into alignment if we all decide to like... play as a team when we see a pesky BS. After that we don't have a worry since a BS can't pirate and they're too slow to actually fly solo into asteroid fields and isolated places all over.
The other thing I think of is RP reasons for having one. Well if we limit people to needing an excuse to have one, say I've got a Liberty Military Tag and I'm in a Liberty BS then yay you win you can fly the sucker. But fly it alone without escort and you're dead. Give us RP guns everywhere that we can use that aren't Corsair only and then average people can maybe think of taking them on too.
Ugh... long post for a guy with less than 100 posts.
Personally I think the biggest problem with cap ship whoring is prices. I think all the capital ships need their prices raised, a lot.
In my opinion the prices should range like this:
My Opinion For Ship prices
Battleships: 1 Billion and Higher
Battle Cruisers: 400-500 Million
Cruisers & Destroyers: 250-400 Million
Gunboats: 100-250 Million
My Opinion For Weapon Prices
Battleship Weapons: 80-120 Million
Cruiser/Destroyer Weapons: 30-40 Million
Gunboat Weapons: 10-20 Million
Personally I think the raised prices would do a couple of things, first off it would raise the value of the ships and weapons that already exist and are owned by players, possibly encouraging some players to sell them off for the cash.
Second, I believe that it would prevent any future PVP-Whore behavior as only a well organized and large faction could afford to put together a small fleet of capital ships.
Third, this would not effect all of the currently existing factions who have their fleets already, as they have their ships (assuming) fully kitted out already.
Finally, I know the prices aren't fair for the people who didn't get battleships prior to a price raise, but isn't the point to discourage an increase in capital ship usage to increase role-play?