Wacky Idea (warning: opinions contained within)

[SnakThree]

Only if Caps became real caps. Hardly taken out by even 5 bombers.

>.> real caps HARDLY taken down? What?
Its a BOMBER. That's its job. If u dont like bombers then get a LF and kill them.

I love bombers. But since I use them 70% of my playtime, I know how broken balance vs capital ships they have.

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[Trogdor]

Guess what!!?? In RL, huge battleships used to be kings of the oceans until a few planes demonstrated that they could drop some bombs/torpedoes on it and sink it with relative ease. This revolutionized naval warfare and led to the development of the aircraft carrier and the carrier group. Why should this aspect of the game be so dramatically different because it's in space? (Didnt we have this discussion before?)

Guess what, Freelancer is not RL. You can't rely on having escorts like RL battleships can (unless maybe you're the LN, BAF, RM, GRN - but there are a whole lot more factions that have BS than just those four), and so I don't think we should balance BS around escorts being necessary. Furthermore, FL caps don't really serve the same purpose as their real-life contemporaries, because again, unless you're the LN or something, how often are you going to siege a base or have an opportunity for snubs to dock on you?

I think BS needs to be good at something one might expect to do reasonably often - and imo, that thing is killing cruisers. And it would take a change like this for me to be even willing to consider what the OP suggests.

We have had this discussion before, and we're getting off topic, but I think sufficient sentiment against the OP has already been expressed.

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[Highland Laddie]

Guess what, Freelancer is not RL....

No kidding it's not RL. But there seems to be people that are stressing how BSs SHOULD be based on some kind of personal knowledge and experience, or somehow based on real-world mechanics. My point is that, even in RL, large, powerful battleships can be sunk with relative ease if they aren't adequately defended. People seem to make the argument that "....a tiny ship like a bomber should not be able to destroy a BS....blah blah.." and my question to those people is: why SHOULDN'T it?

You can't rely on having escorts like RL battleships can (unless maybe you're the LN, BAF, RM, GRN - but there are a whole lot more factions that have BS than just those four), and so I don't think we should balance BS around escorts being necessary.

Now, people are OFTEN pointing out how this is a multi-player server with a lot of emphasis on player interaction...so why WOULDN'T you have BS use be based around having adequate escorts? That's not just good multi-player balancing, it's also just sound tactics. Maybe, if you aren't capable of putting together a few escorts to go with your BS...then you shouldn't fly your BS until you CAN find some escorts?

I think BS needs to be good at something one might expect to do reasonably often - and imo, that thing is killing cruisers. And it would take a change like this for me to be even willing to consider what the OP suggests.

Well...I actually don't currently fly BS or Cruisers, so I'm not personally familiar with how things are balanced now. I have been aware that in previous versions, even in 4.86...if you practice enough, you can usually kill 1 ship class bigger than you if you're good enough. I've seen Cruisers kill BS, GBs kill cruisers, bombers kill GBs, fighters kill bombers, etc. This becomes even easier when you have groups of similar class ships working together.

As much as I hate to say it, it seems Sindroms really hit the nail on the head:

Caps have no purpose on Disco. Give them a purpose and then we can finally adjust their strengths accordingly. Now all we are doing is desperately trying to avoid making them multifunctional.

Based on that, this is why I put forth the suggestions I did. Here's a repeat since you seemed to ignore them, or skip over them:
1) give BS the longest reaching guns to compensate for lack of maneuverability (edit: vs Cruisers this would help, yes?)
2) give BS more gun slots so they can dedicate more of them to anti snub weapons and make them less vulnerable
3) make BS anti-snub weapons more dangerous - increase refire rate, damage, distance

In my humble opinion, I think any one of these 3 fixes could help make BSs more useable and better balanced than they seem to not be. Does anyone have a counter point to one of these suggestions? (I'm not asking out of arrogance, but I wonder if there's something in my logic that I'm missing?)

I would genuinely like to see more people happy on this issue, as it apparently seems to take away from their fun.

[Trogdor]

Guess what, Freelancer is not RL....

No kidding it's not RL. But there seems to be people that are stressing how BSs SHOULD be based on some kind of personal knowledge and experience, or somehow based on real-world mechanics. My point is that, even in RL, large, powerful battleships can be sunk with relative ease if they aren't adequately defended. People seem to make the argument that "....a tiny ship like a bomber should not be able to destroy a BS....blah blah.." and my question to those people is: why SHOULDN'T it?

Because, inRP, the people building the ships are not stupid. They would not put massive resources into building what is basically an enormous pinata. The insanity of Freelancer's SP campaign battleships notwithstanding.
Furthermore, real battleships are also good at destroying ships smaller than themselves. The same cannot be said about our BSs.

You can't rely on having escorts like RL battleships can (unless maybe you're the LN, BAF, RM, GRN - but there are a whole lot more factions that have BS than just those four), and so I don't think we should balance BS around escorts being necessary.

Now, people are OFTEN pointing out how this is a multi-player server with a lot of emphasis on player interaction...so why WOULDN'T you have BS use be based around having adequate escorts? That's not just good multi-player balancing, it's also just sound tactics. Maybe, if you aren't capable of putting together a few escorts to go with your BS...then you shouldn't fly your BS until you CAN find some escorts?

It's hard for me to take your argument seriously when you later admit that you don't fly caps.
Some people can't fly snubs, because they don't have the skill for it or their connection is too laggy. Or, maybe that's just the character they've put the most effort into, in terms of money or roleplay or both. You're telling that person they shouldn't play that character unless they can find people to fly with them, and with our community being as small as it is, only a few factions can actually do that.
Furthermore even if you do find escorts, the battleship's role in any kind of group conflict is basically, you fight the enemy's battleship... and that's about all you're good for.

I think BS needs to be good at something one might expect to do reasonably often - and imo, that thing is killing cruisers. And it would take a change like this for me to be even willing to consider what the OP suggests.

Well...I actually don't currently fly BS or Cruisers, so I'm not personally familiar with how things are balanced now. I have been aware that in previous versions, even in 4.86...if you practice enough, you can usually kill 1 ship class bigger than you if you're good enough. I've seen Cruisers kill BS, GBs kill cruisers, bombers kill GBs, fighters kill bombers, etc. This becomes even easier when you have groups of similar class ships working together.

Balance right now is basically "battleship loses vs. everything else." The enemy kills you, or can easily run away. Either way, you lose. (assuming your enemy isn't a newbie)
It is ridiculous to me that cruisers can both outrun (because thrusters) and outgun (because their weapons reach far enough to hit the battleship at a range where the battleship's weapons are too slow to connect) a BS.

This is why I have been pushing for long-range, high-speed, low-damage, low-refire, low-turret-rotation-speed class 9's for battleships in other threads.

As much as I hate to say it, it seems Sindroms really hit the nail on the head:

Caps have no purpose on Disco. Give them a purpose and then we can finally adjust their strengths accordingly. Now all we are doing is desperately trying to avoid making them multifunctional.

Based on that, this is why I put forth the suggestions I did. Here's a repeat since you seemed to ignore them, or skip over them:
1) give BS the longest reaching guns to compensate for lack of maneuverability (edit: vs Cruisers this would help, yes?)
2) give BS more gun slots so they can dedicate more of them to anti snub weapons and make them less vulnerable
3) make BS anti-snub weapons more dangerous - increase refire rate, damage, distance

In my humble opinion, I think any one of these 3 fixes could help make BSs more useable and better balanced than they seem to not be. Does anyone have a counter point to one of these suggestions? (I'm not asking out of arrogance, but I wonder if there's something in my logic that I'm missing?)

I would genuinely like to see more people happy on this issue, as it apparently seems to take away from their fun.

Obviously I agree with 1. I think BS should have the advantage vs. cruiser.
2 and 3, not so much. Bombers should have the advantage vs. BS, and I think if BS got the aforementioned buff vs cruiser, BS vs. bomber balance would probably be acceptable. BS's current anti-snub weapons (solaris and flak) are sufficient, we don't want to make BS into a go-anywhere, pew-anything blue message platform.

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[Haste]

Nothing wrong with giving Battleships some teeth, although I'd say buffing their hull and such is a bad idea. You want to make killing them challenging, not a very long and boring chore.

Of course, the above only applies if some sort of cost / downtime is 'attached' to caps. If the buffs were significant, I'd say there should be "upkeep costs" - so docking repairs should be expensive, as well as getting blown up.

Buff BS' without actual drawbacks to using them and they'll get spammed more than they are now.

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[Scumbag]

Well at least the majority of people agree that battleships need a buff and that capitals should have a bigger death penalty.

I can post my thoughts here right?

I think battleships should work on the concept of area denial, it makes sense in rp because we have battleships posted in strategic places around the map. So they have to reach a long way with their guns and be deadly in that sphere. Both to other capitals and to snubs. Maybe use some missiles for snubs, bring back the razors for caps etc. But they should be slow, Barge kind of slow, with long cruise charge times.

Carriers should also have area denial but only against snubs, no real power against other capitals.

Cruisers/destroyers should do what their name says, move fast, engage capitals and destroy them. But they should be weak against snubs.

Battlecruisers should have some survivability against snubs and lose some atack power against capitals.

Gunboats should have a similar area of denial as the battleships, only on a smaller sphere. The heavy ones having some power against bigger caps too, better forword guns, that should hurt when aimed properly.

Bombers should kill capitals if they manage to enter the area of denial. So snacs beeing particularly good against gunboats and transports. Novas against the bigger caps. Heavy bombers beeing able to carry both.

Fighters should kill bombers and other fighters naturaly.

SHFs should be a danger to bombers and gunboats too. A snac or double minirazors, with lower power recharging then bombers. And better torpedos dangerous to gunboats.
VHFs fastest killer of bombers, best firepower.
HFs killer of VHFs and bombers lower firepower, better agility.
LFs Interceptors and being able to hold their ground in a fight until they have the opportunity to leave. I don't think light fighters should be unhittable. Only the speedracers should have the insane agility that lfs have now. Those are the true incerceptors.

I still believe that snubs should be more sluggish, with HFs being as agile as VHFs are now. Especially bombers because they have that huge powercore that can fire Snacs and propulsate novas up to 4km away.


This way we would make possibles minigames like: Stop the carrier traverse a system; Destroy the battleship camping a gate; Stop the destroyer from reaching the battleship; Defend the traders convoy by surrounding them with gunboats; Kill the bombers before they kill your capital.

[Trogdor]

I'm.. not sure where you're seeing battleship spam, Scumbag... I certainly don't see it. I see a lot of snubs. I see a lot of transports. I see the occasional cruiser. I haven't seen a battleship floating around that wasn't me for....a while now. Granted I do play during US Central evenings, so server population is usually under 100, and I have been avoiding the Rheinland-Liberty-Gallia warzones.

But still, I don't think bringing BS in line with every other class of ship - i.e. good at killing itself plus at least one other class - is just cause for attaching extra death penalties.

Making BS slower? ... I don't see the point... they're already the slowest ships in the game (barge notwithstanding), don't have thrusters and don't have CDs. Anything that wants to get away from a battleship... can. Thrust on, mouse flight, and throw the cursor to the corners of the screen. All this is going to do is make it more of a PITA to get around Sirius. If that's what it takes to get some proper anti-cruiser guns, I would absolutely make that tradeoff, but again, I don't think it will serve any purpose other than to frustrate the person flying it.

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[Scumbag]

I am saying that battleships should kill any other ship that enters it's area. The downside of that would be the mobility nerf.

[Haste]

Battleships need high-speed, low efficiency anti-cruiser weapons or something. That's all.

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[Knjaz]

As a capship-only player, I'm all for the battleship buff in exchange for various death penalties. It'd positively affect both balance and in-game immersion.

Battleships need high-speed, low efficiency anti-cruiser weapons or something. That's all.

Anti-gunboat as well, now.