Firstly: I have a Flak on by Battlecruiser and I think it performs as it is meant to.
Now, I fly transports a lot. And imo transports could need:
> some more variation in defense guns (weapon groups, different guns for different tasks)
> higher survivability in general (why does the transport player always have to lose and why is the "win" condition on a transport per default (the rather frustrating) "you did not die. Be glad.")
> something to counter the (increasing amount of) Nova torpedos (as most have no CD and no CM)
If transports could field one Flak, you could:
> have weapon groups for different tasks => makes flying/fighting more interesting
> have an incentive to actively fight as your chances to e.g. do some damage and thus get the escorts to finish a bomber are increased.
> have the thrill of not only thrusting to safety but...
> ... have turret view, scan for the Novas, try to shoot them, while turret steer-dodging.
> have to watch out for friendly fire effects for your escorts (making coordination necessary)
Summed up:
Open (a smaller?) variation of the anti-snub cap weapons to transports to make this backbone-class of Discovery more interesting and challenging to fly. Once a transport is not only prey to everything, there will be people who fly it for more than "Oh no, I need money... *logs transport*"
Weaker versions of battleship turrets might be interesting....
Then we can do lulz in Xeno "battleships".
Seriously. Just give Transports battleship hardpoints and energy that cannot fire regular battleship turrets. Take basic battleship turret types and tone them down a lot.
' Wrote:new turrets and all that are nice and dandy ideas.
However I think we should make clear what a "winning" condition is a for a transport.
The way I see it, that doesn't involve beating vhf/bomber/gb so that they need to run. It's simply the transport getting where it wanted to .
This.
If you want it the other way, just use a smaller transport. The key to this is the agility. A Mammoth can cope very well with a single fighter, even a Firefly can do it although it has only four guns to fire at the target.
A Battletransport has far more guns, but is not agile at all and will collect everything thrown at it.
' Wrote:for those who missed it: the moral of it all is ----> traders with teeth are fun for pirates. - within reason.
Fly transports. Fly more transports. Fly lots of transports. And tell me that it would not be nice to be able to do more than: "Oh, enemy... run for the hills!", especially when flying in teams, etc...
I would find it awesome to be able to actively defend yourself e.g. against incoming torpedos, not just turretsteer-dodge to safety, dock, grin, wait, undock, continue.
I am not asking for a transport to be able to solo attackers. A flak would not allow them to. But would add some interesting change from the pattern "full turret type 3, fly towards base, turret-steer, fire backwards..." and give people a choice in loadout.
And, tnx for the "how to survive". Standard answer to something that I did not ask about. =)