Hm, dunno if this topic is a pvp or rp oriented question. To me it appears pvp oriented.
However, in original Freelancer Gunboats normally are superior to any fighters, but cheaper and easier to maintain than cruiser and battleship class vessels. They are built for patrol duties and fast raids, using the forward gun against static targets like stations.
Task of the Rheinland GB's near Willard in sp campaign was to destroy the base, not the cruiser.
In patrol tasks they also can use the gun against transports.
They are not build to attack cruiser and battleships.
Liberty did not need a Gunboat, because the cruiser with its gun could fulfil the same task, while also being able to use it against other capships.
In fact Liberty cruiser and dreadnought had the tasks exchanged in capship combat. A bunch of cruiser attacking enemy battleship, while the relatively small battleship fights enemy cruiser. Looking at loadouts it makes more sense than cruiser vs cruiser and battleship vs battleship (ignoring the existence of Mortars, Infernos and Razors of course).
With introduction of bombers, GB's and Cruiser equipped with FG became in fact useless as raid spearheads, because bombers with SN and Nova have a better firepower, but being much smaller and cheaper. Same applies for Mortars, Infernos and Razor. Before, the forward guns were at the top and packed the best punch. Now they are outclassed. Sure they provide a good energy efficiency, but cannot turned like Mortar, Inferno and Razor turrets.
I would never make any GB anti capship. They are all anti fighter, while the forward gun remains good against transports and in a supportive role in fleet battles against other caps, but being inferior to bomber weaponry
Pirates are the ones, who got a huge advantage using the GB's for piracy, which is indeed the perfect role for GB's now.
' Wrote:Right, we all seem to think that gunboats should be fighter-killers in Disco, but I'm not so sure.
In vanilla, all the gunboats had forward guns, which are designed to take out big ships. Liberty, not having gunboats, had forward guns on the crusiers instead.
The forward guns are used to take out stations, and larger vessels, giving the impression that gunboats take a similar role to bombers, actually, not as anti-fighter platforms.
Of course, this leaves one wondering what cruisers and battleships are for, the Liberty cruiser, with its giant gun being anti-cap, I imagine.
Opinions?
I'm not smart on naval vessels, but I always thought that cruisers were the air defense platforms for a naval group. Aren't they supposed to shoot down enemy aircraft that get too close and to destroy inbound missiles and such. Let me know if I'm wrong, but I always considered them a defensive platform ... not one for offense.
Battleships have 2 purposes ... 1) fight other battleships and naval groups and 2) pound land (bases/planets) to soften them up for landing parties to safely move in.
Bombers would be anti-ship weapons ... specifically for taking out the aircraft carriers. They are for softening up the enemy forces to make things easier for the army/marines to move in and occupy.
Fighters are meant to be anti-bomber platforms. They're supposed to take out the bombers that are trying to soften your forces.
Gunboats would be small but heavily armed vessels designed for quick strikes on soft targets or fast reaction ships for defending the bigger ships. This makes them perfect for piracy as well as anti-piracy.
I think of gunboats like pt-boats from ww2. They had torpedo launchers, so with luck they could do some damage to larger ships, but one shot and they were done for. PT boats had to be quick and manuverable to avoid fire from those larger ships; but primarily they were designed as quick and cheap patrol ships.
IMO, gunboats should be good anti-fighter ships, but IN NUMBERS they should be ok against larger ships. I dont think any single, lone gunboat should be able to take out a cruiser or higher (even though it is possible right now, with the more manuverable gunboats), but in small groups they should be able to hunt larger prey.
In short... I see gunboats as something built by houses to fill the need for capital ships on the front lines when they dont have the resources to actually build capital ships. They have small crews and dont cost a lot to make, but are more effective than fighters in dealing with both fighter, bomber, and capital craft.
Think of it in terms of the credit cost we have right now - a gunboat costs around 30 million credits. Most cruisers cost roughly 90-100 million. For the price of a cruiser, a house can build three gunboats, and thus patrol three times as much space, while still keeping similar firepower on each ship.
No I believe gunboats can take on the various roles from anti-fighter to anti-cap. Only drawback is that they have lesser armor and a smaller power core than the larger cap classes. So there's really no point in arguing about the role of GB's. Just setup the gb's weapon according to the scenario.
IMO, captial ships have no specified use, and they shouldnt.
Its up to the operator to decide wether its Anti Fighter/Bomber, Anti Capital or Multi-Task.
In my opinion gunboats are used for the anti-fighter ships mainly due to that since unless in numbers gunboats can hardly do damage towards caps.
Maquis|Leon.LaBreau-If your interested in joining the Maquis PM me. [RM]Of.Viktor.Niklovach[RoS]GhostFace[E]David.DeWester[101st] Order|Ens.Adam.Jones[C]Jean.Claude.Moreau Kruger Security-Johann Von Struger]bd[Akio.Kimura
The way I see it, Gunboats are sort of a Wildcard. They aren't ALL geared for anti fighter, anti cap, etc. For example, Kusari, Rogue and Dragon gunboats seem more like anti-fighter platforms, wheras Rhineland, Bretonian, and Corsair GBs are better suited for anti-capital ship operations.
I've actually written quite a large block of text somewhere about specific deployments of shipclasses related to the Consortium. Thing is, we don't have any gunboats yet, But will likely deploy them either as direct support for capital ships, commerce interdictors, and in large 'wolfpacks' to hunt down larger ships when viable. Though, this is dependant on the armarment of the Gunboat type in question.