DW, USS, Independent Lawfuls

[underd0g]

What about:

1. Reducing all capital ship shields so a group of two or more fighters/bombers can disable it much easier. Longer recharge time and fewer batteries. This will mean fighter protection will be essential if you in your capital ship encounter enemies flying fighters and bombers.

2. Increase torpedo (excluding the already overpowered ones...) and class 9 missile explosive energy and radius.

3. Increase capital ship hull and firepower on destroyers/cruisers and above. Reduce rate of fire and/or velocity on turrets, cruisers and above. Other way around for gunboats, increase rate of fire and/or velocity on turrets, decrease hull some. Perhaps lower normal flight/cruise speed for cruisers and above. Armor upgrades for capital ships could be lowered or removed completely.

4. At least double the price (or as suggested, a capital ship license) of destroyers/cruisers up to the already quite expensive battleships. People will trade more, more potential income for the poor pirates.

People will be probably be spamming gunboats, but a gunboat won't stand a chance against a group of fighters without support. The thing I've noticed is that unless you're up against anti-shield equipped bombers or capital ships, you'll feel perfectly safe alone in your gunboat. With better fighter torpedoes and lower shield power/hull on your precious gunboat, you'll not feel safe ever again.

---

My characters on Disco:
[LN]-Andy.Doggett, The.Flying.Betty, Russ.Dalton, Harald.Treutiger

Stories:
The Shellback Identity
Trader Blues

[marauder]

So you want to overpower bombers and VHFs again while screwing capship pilots?

Damn am I glad I'd already decided that cruiser/destroyer and up was way too expensive and easy to kill to bother getting.

Pity I got myself a gunboat though...

[chopper]

Underdog,

It's been discussed a thousand times, and denied. Balance is cool as it is.

---

It is every Corsair's responsibility to die a beautiful death in defense of Crete, regardless of how OORP or how capwhoring the opposition is. Launch your fighter, joust the battlecruisers and die a beautiful death. Then, drink it down in the bar.

Can't let you bash folks in your sig Chopper-Del

[underd0g]

Underdog,

It's been discussed a thousand times, and denied. Balance is cool as it is.

And yet people are complaining about cap ship whoring ? There must be some way to motivate people to stay of the caps unless you have proper support with you, a fighter wing keeping the bombers and heavy fighters at bay. I know it's highly recommended you have that support right now, but it's obviously not keeping anyone from venturing alone on a trip to [insert system here], blow something up, feel all warm and fuzzy inside from the experience, and be your own hero of the day. Until a random bomber comes along to blow you out of your hubris.

So, there might be balance, and it might be all cool. But it's not really working, is it ?

---

My characters on Disco:
[LN]-Andy.Doggett, The.Flying.Betty, Russ.Dalton, Harald.Treutiger

Stories:
The Shellback Identity
Trader Blues

[Wombat]

it seems to me there is another way to rebalance this issue, split cap ship guns in to 2 classes anti cap ship and anti fighter, anti cap ship guns should have high damage but track slower than the fighters move giving the smaller craft a good chance of not being hit. Where as anti fighter guns should track fast but have fire power that compares more with what the fighters are carrying. In WW2 the main guns of battleships wernt exactally known for being good for fighter defence.

---

Always Look On The Bright Side Of Death

[RParade]

.. Balance is fine as it stands, currently. You can kill virtually anything on the module with a small squadron of VHFs (3-4 fighters).

Nerfing capitolships is not the answer. Gunboats are pretty nasty, but they damn well should be. Even still, you can down a GB with only a pair of Fighters (2 VHFs > any GB). Anything bigger than a Gunship is virtually impossible to evade CD's with.

Never mentioned anything but house militaries, frankly. These are the only factions I see as being "the whole faction", so to speak. The Zoners inherently would be fractured, as would the criminal factions and virtually anyone who wasn't government or corporate.

Agreed, really. A Bounty Hunter might be comparable to Han Solo or Boba Fett from Star Wars. The Bounty Hunter might be a loner by nature, but that isn't to say that he doesn't have allies.

What I found cumbersome was the fact that there was/is never any conflict between the Bounty Hunters (internally), when there probably should be at least occasionally. Bounty Hunting would be a very competitive and dangerous market, and honestly probably only the most skilled pilots would even want to try their hand at it (since Bounty Hunters are usually tortured if they're caught).

Factions like DW are fine in concept, it only bothered me that they were acting as a universal Military (it seemed, anyway). It's more than "okay" for a Bounty Hunter to help out another Bounty Hunter, I just don't think that it should happen 100% of the time. Remember, most Bounty Hunters are in the business for the credits, not the glory.

Preatyre's approach to this is a very good one. Self-policing of the server by the community itself is always a good thing.

[Hunter-Seeker]

It could be a little radical, but how about restricting battleships and cruisers to official factions, where their usage can be limited by the "Gods" aka admins / "ones blessed with the Common Sense" aka faction leaders

This is from a few pages back but I have to say that this is probably the best solution to the problem, and that's coming from someone with all independent characters. Really, what are the downsides? Too much power to factions and not enough to independents? That's nonsense. This is an RP server and it defies all logic that most independents would be flying battleships and battlecruisers. The people in charge of the factions who would be flying these things have demonstrated their ability to RP well, and limiting these vessels to them makes perfect sense. If the community wished for it, it could even be implemented as a rule immdeiately. After all, power should have it's price in not only credits but in effort and participation as well.

[Craines]

Excuse me, but I have a legitimate reason to have a Kusari Destroyer for Richard Walters' craft of choice. Attempting to force independents to join factions in order to get to their RP-necessary ship is, to be blunt (that's all I can manage, bear with me), silly. Perhaps having to apply for a "heavy" would work, but still.

It's iffy.

Just my opinion.

---

[pchwang]

I would like to introduce a new facet into this conversation.

A while back, there was no such thing as "capwhoring." This was because people would respond to Cap attacks with Capships.

Personally, I think that the best solution would be to counter capships with capships, because people are NOT going to be persuaded that use bombers because their capships get owned by bombers.

Frankly, I think that we should do this.

Make Capships, stand alone, should cost 1 Billion credits or more. Currently, I think that the disco capships are too cheap. The Nimitz Class supercarrier, which is a fraction of the size of some disco warships costs 4.5 BILLION USD to build.

Raising the price of Capships will prevent capwhoring. Trust me.

In addition, making the standalone price around 1 Billion credits will require MANY more trade runs before the ship is completed. Thus, giving the capship building process a sense of realism.

Excuse me, but I have a legitimate reason to have a Kusari Destroyer for Richard Walters' craft of choice. Attempting to force independents to join factions in order to get to their RP-necessary ship is, to be blunt (that's all I can manage, bear with me), silly. Perhaps having to apply for a "heavy" would work, but still.

Harley is right. This game is called FREELANCER, not FACTIONLANCER.

---

[7:42:05 PM][6:51:36 PM] Igor (Smokey): btw terry
[6:51:48 PM] Terrance Cooper: Ye?
[6:52:00 PM] Igor (Smokey): nothin
[6:52:03 PM] Igor (Smokey): just sayin btw
[6:52:05 PM] Terrance Cooper: <_<

Johnny_Haas: you shot anti criuse speed rockets!!!
Johnny_Haas: but why????
Johnny_Haas: ??
Johnny_Haas: why you shoot criuse speed rockets?

[RParade]

In addition, making the standalone price around 1 Billion credits will require MANY more trade runs before the ship is completed. Thus, giving the capship building process a sense of realism.

Static pricings wouldn't work. You'd just have people buying all Battleships really. No one's going to trade up 1 billion credits just to buy a Destroyer when there's a better ship for the same price. I'm assuming that's what you had in mind with your proposal.

Excuse me, but I have a legitimate reason to have a Kusari Destroyer for Richard Walters' craft of choice. Attempting to force independents to join factions in order to get to their RP-necessary ship is, to be blunt (that's all I can manage, bear with me), silly. Perhaps having to apply for a "heavy" would work, but still.

.. And that "legitimate reason" is what, exactly? You stole it?

Kusarians are probably the most elitist, purist lawful group in the Freelancer setting - can you honestly justify them simply "giving" a Destroyer away to a random nobody? Unlikely. Militaries (especially paranoid ones, like the KNF) are not going to give away a destroyer (or any combat ship for that matter) for any amount of credits. It just doesn't happen, seriously.

Moreover, I can't see how any ship can be labelled as being "RP-necessary."