Yes, another thread about carriers. The subject has been beaten to death in the past with many people dismissing the ship class as redundant outright. From whom i've discussed this with prior the general consensus seems to be that a version of carriers that is remotely playable in a PvP context hardly weighs up with the time and effort required to fix their critical problems. However there seems to be a genuine interest among the community in the ship class and a desire to see their potential fulfilled in fleet engagements. Otherwise why do these discussions keep popping up?
While drones gave carriers something to contribute, i get the impression it's fallen short of what alot of us were expecting. They are a nice addition but are moreso a minor feature masquerading as a core function of carriers, which leaves alot to be desired. Jump capabilities give carriers a second specialised function that relieve battleships of fleet navigation so they can focus on firepower. But as we all know the need for such a capability is quite circumstancial and notably rare.
To get to the point, it's my opinion that the functionality and purpose of carriers hinges on docking modules. Now let's put the nightmare of fixing docking modules on the back burner for a sec and have a think about what kind of ways we could we could implement them into carriers to make them useful from a functional standpoint.
This next bit might taste a bit bitter at first but just go with me on it for a sec. Docking with a carrier should not be considered PvP death. So now what do we have? Carriers going from being useless to the most OP ships in game due to the infinite regenerative services they provide to their entourage. I'm merely pointing this out to demonstrate that the DM game mechanic is a powerful entity in it's own right if utilised this way in a PvP scenario. This dynamic should be at the forfront carrier fighting style and one that complements it's original design as a support ship.
But then of course we'd have bustards roaming around with invincible squadrons of snubs which will undermine every other PvP style. So we regulate it. Now how we regulate it is up for discussion but for sake of example i'll make a suggestion.
Docking Module Cooldown of ≈ 20/30 minutes
Reduce the Docking Module Capacity of Carriers
These two entities would need to be balanced. For example a carrier with a single docking module and a cooldown of 50 minutes will (probably) dissuade any snubs supporting it from going on an all out offensive and leaving the carrier, their lifeline, vulnerable. In contrast five docking modules with a cooldown of ten minutes would be... well... cancer.
In summary i think if we can come to some sort of central idea of what we expect to get out of carriers we can stop fiddling around with the bells and whistles and get under the hood with a solid plan on what the ideal version of carriers should be.
I'd like to hear your ideas and if you'd like to see carriers become an entity or deleted outright. All opinions are welcome.
They would need to be fixed. Don't get me wrong, I'd be in favor of Carriers making a comeback through Docking Modules being fixed and being able to either deploy [player] fighters into combat or be a resupply point for fighters if there was a way to limit the amount of resupplying the Carrier can do.
Honestly, I wish Carriers would simply be copied and offered as battleship-type variant and as carrier-type variant with drones. Right now they are nothing more than an experimental class that only barely/rarely competes in actual PvP. Realistically, it'll probably take a long time until Docking Modules work the way they are intended to work. The drones are a nice toy but simply nothing for those who prefered to use carriers as battleships.
How about you simply don't play what you don't like?
Honestly this is becoming pretty annoying. We have like 5 or so carriers in the game, and the only faction that is stuck on a carrier because of lacking alternatives is the Coalition.
The other factions all have an alternative Battleship that you can hop on and simply play instead.
On a side note, I personally dont think carriers are as bad as everyone makes them out to be. Sure, they do need some love regarding their dps or general weapon Layouts but they are by no means unplayable. In the Recent CR vs OC event we managed to use two carriers rather well and in my eyes they did not feel way too weak.
What I would suggest is a buff to the Drone Missles. Make them uneffected by CM and a carrier will become way more effecient in beating up cruisers than a Battleship while still being fairly easy to just use.
Carriers are supposed to be different from Battleships so reverting them seems like a waste of a nice concept to me. They don't need the heavies, at least not while they have a drone that can still be tweaked and made better.
If that does not work, perhaps give carriers 6 Primary slots. They seem pretty good on long range and giving them the ability to mount pulses and Primaries Sounds like a good way to support on long Ranges. Or perhaps a carrier only weapon with more range than the Usual primaries.
Just don't jump off and call them ***** before you use them ( like I did) because they are really not entirely useless, all they need is a decent playground.
Last words are for fools who have not yet said enough.
Wanted to write something about carriers but then realized its yet another thread about carriers and all the previous ones were fruitless.
In my opinion Carriers should be proper battleships and not big floating targets that do less dps than a battlecruiser. Maybe give them missile silos with low damage and high refire.
With all due respect, CR's experience of using carriers in the recent event is not very illustrative as such massive combats occur very rarely these days with the limited playerbase.
As one of those luckies stuck with the Coalition Tempest that:
so big it is impossible to miss;
has laughable power core
has one single drone with stupid default AI that can not dodge even primes
I can definitely tell they are not enjoyable to play unless you engage in a really big combat that never happens (and for the Coalition cannot happen at all since we have 3 Tempests overall inRP).
While the idea of docking bays is fun, it is hardly achievable as those are very difficult to implement technically-wise.
Unless drones can be spammable and/or a number of them - no use. Just revert them back to battleships and be good. It is not about the idea being bad, it is about Freelancer being age-old with limited engine to support something that reminds a proper carrier like in EVE, Sins of Solar Empire, or Stellaris.
(11-14-2018, 01:10 PM)Lucas Wrote: How about you simply don't play what you don't like?
Honestly this is becoming pretty annoying. We have like 5 or so carriers in the game, and the only faction that is stuck on a carrier because of lacking alternatives is the Coalition.
The other factions all have an alternative Battleship that you can hop on and simply play instead.
On a side note, I personally dont think carriers are as bad as everyone makes them out to be. Sure, they do need some love regarding their dps or general weapon Layouts but they are by no means unplayable. In the Recent CR vs OC event we managed to use two carriers rather well and in my eyes they did not feel way too weak.
What I would suggest is a buff to the Drone Missles. Make them uneffected by CM and a carrier will become way more effecient in beating up cruisers than a Battleship while still being fairly easy to just use.
Carriers are supposed to be different from Battleships so reverting them seems like a waste of a nice concept to me. They don't need the heavies, at least not while they have a drone that can still be tweaked and made better.
If that does not work, perhaps give carriers 6 Primary slots. They seem pretty good on long range and giving them the ability to mount pulses and Primaries Sounds like a good way to support on long Ranges. Or perhaps a carrier only weapon with more range than the Usual primaries.
Just don't jump off and call them ***** before you use them ( like I did) because they are really not entirely useless, all they need is a decent playground.
You've hilighted some useful qualities about carriers' current version. Though wouldn't you say they're at least disjointed if not a bit lost in terms of their purpose? Battleships have a clear forte which is their overall power. Battlecruisers trump this with range. Snubs trump Battlecruisers with manoeuvrability and so on. If we play into the existing paradigms of which ship classes to trump then we shouldn't try to empower carriers to take on various ship types but instead a select few. So i'd argue carriers should own their reputation as very hittable blimps since their defense against heavy hitters should come from their entourage. As for the offensive capabilities, i'd call for a vast array of turrets comparable to the typhoon presently. Make them flying fortresses ideal for downing gunboats and cruisers but lacking the ordnance required to trump anything heavier than a battlecruiser.
(11-14-2018, 02:30 PM)Reddy Wrote: Wanted to write something about carriers but then realized its yet another thread about carriers and all the previous ones were fruitless.
In my opinion Carriers should be proper battleships and not big floating targets that do less dps than a battlecruiser. Maybe give them missile silos with low damage and high refire.
The 'mothership' status of carriers should make them a point for defense and a rear guard in fleet engagements. Presently fleet engagements seem to be moreso about brute strength and tactically selected targets. Vulnerability could add more reasons why targets are selected during fleet engagements aside from whoever is weakest or dealing the most damage. The vulnerability of carriers could therefore be tolerated within fleets if the payoff is worth it (mobile snub repair).
(11-14-2018, 02:40 PM)Gardarik Wrote: With all due respect, CR's experience of using carriers in the recent event is not very illustrative as such massive combats occur very rarely these days with the limited playerbase.
As one of those luckies stuck with the Coalition Tempest that:
so big it is impossible to miss;
has laughable power core
has one single drone with stupid default AI that can not dodge even primes
I can definitely tell they are not enjoyable to play unless you engage in a really big combat that never happens (and for the Coalition cannot happen at all since we have 3 Tempests overall inRP).
While I do agree that the Tempest is one of the worse Carriers, I do not think that it is absolutely unplayable. As the name suggests it is now a carrier, a ship that should rely on the rest of a fleet to protect it while it can deal damage. I do not want to argue that the Tempest is good in it's current state, but I think that the ships should not be balanced after " we cannot log so many people". Instead, the Coalition should get a Battleship to compensate for the loss of their "Heavy Battleship" Tempest. But that's another topic.
(11-14-2018, 02:40 PM)Gardarik Wrote: While the idea of docking bays is fun, it is hardly achievable as those are very difficult to implement technically-wise.
Unless drones can be spammable and/or a number of them - no use. Just revert them back to battleships and be good. It is not about the idea being bad, it is about Freelancer being age-old with limited engine to support something that reminds a proper carrier like in EVE, Sins of Solar Empire, or Stellaris.
Reverting them ruins the purpose of the rework as it stands. Carriers are not supposed to be Battleship, otherwise, they would not be called Carriers and instead would be named Battleship or Dreadnought. One Drone is more than enough and it's damage is fine as it stands, but it has to be more reliable. The Missle Drone can be countered by a mere CM or Flak, and considering that it's one of your only damage tools and the one that delivers the blow while you stand on a longer range, it HAS to hit in my opinion. The frequency of the Drone was not an issue while I was using it, especially since we were using 2 in a fleet - as a Carrier should be used. I can't speak about the viability when you use them alone, but I think it's fine that they die to the heavily armed Battlecruisers and Battleships in a 1vs1.
(11-14-2018, 03:04 PM)Ash Wrote: You've hilighted some useful qualities about carriers' current version. Though wouldn't you say they're at least disjointed if not a bit lost in terms of their purpose? Battleships have a clear forte which is their overall power. Battlecruisers trump this with range. Snubs trump Battlecruisers with manoeuvrability and so on. If we play into the existing paradigms of which ship classes to trump then we shouldn't try to empower carriers to take on various ship types but instead a select few. So i'd argue carriers should own their reputation as very hittable blimps since their defense against heavy hitters should come from their entourage. As for the offensive capabilities, i'd call for a vast array of turrets comparable to the typhoon presently. Make them flying fortresses ideal for downing gunboats and cruisers but lacking the ordnance required to trump anything heavier than a battlecruiser.
Hence I'm suggesting to give them more Primary slots instead of the Heavy ones. If Carriers get their Heavy slots back, then what will happen is that people will tank in the heavier ones again, while having the drone as an extra tool. Or perhaps a heavy slot that cannot use anything but missiles also works for Carriers, to give them a Long-Range tool and to additionally support their Drone while it fights something at a considerable range.
The Atlantis is a neat example of a Carrier in my opinion:
It's got a shape that does not make it impossible to hit, it's got a moderate hull, and most importantly it has many many secondaries which should be a characteristic for Carriers. the Atlantis alone is not a real threat, but an Atlantis defending other Capitalships from incoming bombers while having a Drone on the enemy Capitals can be very annoying to take out.
Last words are for fools who have not yet said enough.
Adding more secondaries is the right idea for fixing the class, but it's not feasible from a performance standpoint because it causes server lag. At least, that is what we were told several years ago.