The Persephone is a Unique Ship and as such cannot just be SRPed by any person. Unique Ships are owned by their players. That's why they have higher restrictions too.
(09-01-2017, 11:09 AM)Skorak Wrote: The Persephone is a Unique Ship and as such cannot just be SRPed by any person. Unique Ships are owned by their players. That's why they have higher restrictions too.
Yes, I know. I just stated that Zoners already have an SRP BS, so making the Neph an SRP seems superflous.
(09-01-2017, 11:09 AM)Skorak Wrote: The Persephone is a Unique Ship and as such cannot just be SRPed by any person. Unique Ships are owned by their players. That's why they have higher restrictions too.
^ Basically this. It is an SRP ship, but it may only be SRP'd by the guy who owns the unique ship, so it is off limits for others.
Making the Neph an SRP only ship would go a long way of making the faction a bit more believable. The Aquilon is weird, but it should also go into that SRP only nieche. That leaves the Zoners with the Fearless, which is incredibly good. Given that it's small, it also doesn't upset one's suspension of disbelief when Zoners have caps - because the Fearless is at least not a giant supercity flying through space that for some reason belongs to a faction that is essentially the Civilian ID of this mod version.
Regarding your Zoner bomber suggestion, I am indifferent. It should be noted that the Zoners have access to the Borderworlds and the Civilian shiplines on 100% and the Order snubs at 90%, meaning they can choose between all bomber classes, light bombers like Roc and Cutlass, medium bombers like the Sekhmet, Havok Mk II and Broadsword, and heavy bombers like the Waran. I don't see why further choice is needed.
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(09-01-2017, 11:03 AM)NonSequitor Wrote: The Fearless is a good destroyer, but the heavy hardpoints need an adjustment. Having a third on center top would be more optimal for LM placement, and thus making it a more effective anti-capital vessel. This could be done without increasing the powercore. However, I still feel a powercore increase from light to medium would be reasonable, especially if the Nephilim is converted and the Aquillion gets nixed. If the Core feels left out, I wouldn't be against their dessies getting the same powercore upgrade.
What about the Zoner bomber suggestion? Any thoughts?
Fearless is, as you mentioned, already a good destroyer, and perfectly capable of dealing with capital ships as it is. You don't just-like-that buff its stats out of the blue, that's the exact opposite point of balance. I know every cruiser inside out so let's compare it to other light cruisers - Typhoon, Crecy, AI Cruiser and Dragon Cruiser. All of them have 2 heavies, a light core and small size for a reason. That's what defines a light cruiser. All of them share similar characteristics, with Fearless being very flat which makes fighting battleships terrifyingly good, further emphasizing the already present advantage of light cruisers.
Now imagine Fearless got buffed like you suggested. Stop for a second and tell me it wouldn't be a broken ship, because I can see it from a mile away. It'd be flat out better than light cruisers because of an extra turret and core with no drawbacks, while it'd be better than medium cruisers because of how small it is compared to them. We'd end up with a pre-nerf Scylla or Typhoon. I understand we'd all like to see our favorite ships buffed, be it for legitimate reasons or not, but that's not how it works.
As for the bomber, sadly nobody cares about bombers in general so I doubt you'll receive any input on it. It'd be nice to have, but I'm sure 99% of the community won't look past a "random new ship they'll never fly".
Fair points. If the Fearless is upgraded to a medium, then I would expect it to be balanced as a medium dessie: reduced agility, size increase, etc. If the powercore remains light, I would still be in favor of, at least, adding a heavy hardpoint to the top center position. I'm not suggesting breaking the Fearless, just giving players more options with turret placement.
Neph's infocard says it's modeled after the Leviathan which has heavies and prims. It also says that the neph is a "guard ship" which probably means they want it to be able to defend itself and whatever it's guarding(like a colony). I don't think 30 secondaries will be enough considering the horrible arcs on this thing. On the other hand though, more than 30 will be too many for even a heavy bs powercore to function properly. What i'm trying to say is it needs its prims and heavies.
If Nephs get turned SRP only to make it more "believable" that they have caps, will libdreads, lib carriers, dunkirks and bret carriers stay open to the indie ID? Will it just be accepted that suddenly there was a massive boom in resources and there are now more libdreads than valors? Did the order and core suddenly stumble upon a planet made of already finished batteship parts that they used to build hundreds more? And don't even get me started on Ranseurs.
Right now it's nowhere near bad enough to justify taking nephs away from indies(nor any other caps that are available to them). Only a few people who hate the idea of "i am neutral, you cant pirate me!"(which is bad, i know) so much they'll do anything to stop it from happening to them. Why doesn't anyone try and point out mistakes instead of just deleting everything?
I've told myself to quit when it comes to trying to defend nephs because everyone who has an opinion that matters seems to despise them. Maybe ill try just one more time, even though i'll eventually get told "your opinion doesn't matter"
P.S. This isn't directed at anyone specific. I was writing this as i read other replies
When it comes to zoner capital ships I suggest the simplest solution of downgrading class but leaving size the same. It loses PvP capabilities which true Zoners don't need and leaves them able to keep roleplaying the same.
Might not be standard approach but noone loses the ships in the process except for trigger happy "Zoners" that prefers to use the ship rather than roleplay a proper Zoner.
I suppose the Neph could be under SRP... Also the Aquilon doesn't need to be a warship. However, given that the player-body of the Core are more Cap heavy in fights I don't believe it would be a realistic solution to have the Aquilon and Neph neutered; although that might drive some more combat hungry players to the Order.
I do not believe roleplay concerns should play a role in balance. The idea of removing Zoner capitals has been floating around for as long as they have existed, but since we have them now they should be treated and balanced like other ships of their class. Gimping them in some fashion, with the idea that they can be "used as the roleplay platforms they were intended to be" does not make sense to me. The combat ability of a ship does not enhance or detract from its use in roleplay.
When I was preparing to rebalance (mostly buff) freighters I remember hearing that "they were good for roleplay and don't need combat potential".
Well, what's the problem with roleplaying in a ship that's useful in combat?
Restricting or removing the battleships is debatable, but as long as that doesn't happen they deserve to be balanced normally.
I would also like to mention that battleships, heavies in particular, are not as much of a combat asset as people like to think. Great, slow lumps without CDs that cannot really effectively engage anything smaller than themselves. A faction's cruiser fleet is offensively oriented and flexible. If you really wanted Zoners to lose combat potential as a faction, you should look at the Fearless, not the battleships - which, considering it's one of the best cruisers, we might have to do anyway.
I see many people still have a misconception about Zoners. Many lolwuts ingame with their Nephilims. Many people here in this thread. I wonder if it takes Finn to get redfaced every single time to explain what Zoners matter of factly are, and not what people like them to be. They are not civilians. Some of them, sure. Some Red Hessians are also civilians.