Things still need to be moved around for sure... But I like being able to have capital ships after about 20-30 minutes as it is now... Maybe make one or two of the support ships researchable ? I dunno..... Let someone with better opinion than I debate this.

um no... just imagine how long it would take to get a capital ship, yet alone upgrade it to level 10

Bumping capital ships off too much is a bad idea. they are supposed to be main elements of your fleet, not end-game uber-units. I think its been intimated that there might be more research involved for some capships tho...

its firepower is far too superior to do such.
its small, but its not that small. and it packs a SERIOUS wallop.

the thing about capital ships are that they are a VAST waste of resources anywhere before level 5, this is one of the main reasons that they are so low on the tech tree: so it doesnt take you ages to make a fleet that actually uses capital ships.


precisely and exactly.

its fine by me, but it shouldnt be up with the cruisers.

The reason why no research is needed for cap ships is because the dev's want them built early so they can fully level up by the end game. To a point i dont agree with that. You can still research a ship, build it, and still have it in your fleets in plenty of time to fight enough battles to level them up. Plus by researching some cap ships it will make the smaller ships even more important, because you will have to rely on them longer. Not all of the caps need to be researched IMO. Heres what i think.

The Kol, Marza, and Sova should be researched. The Akken (spelling), and Dunov i dont see an issue using right away since they seem to be the converted civilian ships. They dont have much firepower, but where they shine is in their abilitys.

The Kol. You get one in the beginning of the game as your flagship if you chose flagships. Consider it a Prototype, and a gift. So you better protect it! Since according to the lore it is the newest TEC ship design. Plus being the most powerful cap ship TEC has it MUST be researched to be able to build more of them. It should be high in the tech tree to reflect this (lvl 5 or 6 maybe, and very expensive to research).

The Marza doesnt look, or act like a converted freighter. It looks, and acts like a new TEC design built around a BFG So researching this is a must as well. While an older design than the Kol it is still quite powerful, but i wouldnt use it as the sole cap ship in a fleet. It lacks the firepower needed for a stand up fight, and it is very vulnerable to bomber attacks. The ship is designed to be a support, and planetary siege platform. I say put it around mid range on the tech tree, and a moderate cost to research.

The Sova is similar to the Marza in that it looks like a newer TEC design vs an old converted ship. Plus it can field a ton of bombers when fully leveled up. I say research this one as well, but put it low on the tech tree. Around the same area the light carrier needs to be researched, and at a reasonably low cost, because im sure carriers are nothing really new to TEC. Just this particular ship design is new.

The other 2 cap ships fit right in with the lore, and are similar to the newer cruisers in that they dont have much firepower, but can support a large force of frigates. Which is what they were designed to do. Being converted civilian ships no research should be necessary to build them.

Thats just my thoughts on the issue.

I don't mind having some basic capital ships early. They are the leftovers from an earlier era when warfighting was needed. Since the bad guys went away, the infrastucture was canabalized to much more profitable ventures, and the skilled craftsmen died. Now that the bad guys have returned, we can see how foolish we were to abandon that technology, and we have to poor massive amounts of effort and resources to regain what we have, and as we relearn the lessons we have forgotten, we figure out how to do things better, and different that we did before. With the new research, comes more powerful capital ships, and cruisers, and frigates. Different races lean towards different skills. Some races develop cloaking or masking abilities, difracting light and radar, and at advanced levels, reflecting laser weapons. Those darn rocks still hurt us though. A second race has had to deal with lots of asteroids, and has developed deflector technology. You only have to deflect the rock a little bit for it to miss you ship entirely. Deflectors, and perhaps interceptors would be the forte of this race. Another could have developed sheilds in response to the radiation belts they encountered. Useful against both mass drivers and lasers, but next to useless against those damn missles that bring the warhead right up against the hull before exploding. In fact, the sheilds keep in some of the force, causing additional damage! Each race would have some strengths, and some weaknesses that they have an advantage researching. How about a race that is like a collective, no defenses, because the individual has no worth, but you get run over by a zillion little swarm ships. (time to ally with someone who has great point defenses!) There are many ways to add to the game that would make each race distinct, and add a great deal of playability to what appears to be a great game!

Personally I'm torn on the issue. On the one hand capital ships are rather powerful while on the other they are suppose to be the center point of your fleets. Having to research them would really slow things down before they come out but on the other hand it wouldn't be as interesting having to wait till you have like 9-12 labs before you can build them. Personally I wouldn't mind them requiring more research as long as it's low on the number of labs required.

I know some of you said you wouldn't make all capital ship fleets but I've found that if I make a fleet of one of each of the five capital ships then train them up to level 5 they can handle most fleets the AI has and even take down there planets with ease. That's 5 ships taking on sometimes 30+ ships or so. And as they get higher in level the difference gets even bigger. And I play with the AI all on Hard.

Even at the beginning I ussually rush for the capital ships after I get a decent defense fleet of frigs up. Their abilities even at level 1 are useful not to mention with their high shields and heavy armor it's easy to hit the AI and kill a couple frigs and then withdraw making it so you lost no resources while they have to pay to replace their ships. And once you get 3 capitals out your well on your way to steam rolling the AI. The AI seems to use the capital ships more as they were intended though and only has a couple here and there occasionally.

Now there is a real difference between researching a ship and researching systems ON a ship.
The time frame of this game is way too short for a research tech up from small craft to large (normally 4x games go from just reaching space to empire) this game does not!
Now all of the SHIPS should be there, but the systems may not be . . that is where the researching should be done. You can make the battleship . . but to make it more effective you need defensive and offensive tech. This allows a real fleet to be made and used as soon as you have the money/resources to do so. But as you tech up the effectiveness of that fleet will grow. Now it seems the game does have some oddball cruisers that can only be made once teched up . . this is OK if there is a reason to do so (right now it is not obvious they are since we have only one side to play against)
I find this a VERY good way of handling it and Sin’s should be commended for going down this rough . . but it needs allot of tweaking and work at this time.

The focus should be on a FLEET not single ships, On tech IN the ships hot the ships them selves. Some ships may have to be developed to counter other “special” ships on the other side. Etc

One way to control early rushes of capital ships is to make less tech versions only so effective vs massed smaller ships, this could scale differently later in the game as you tech up. Also make real siegeing of planets hard to do at first then as you tech up cracking planets become more of a focus and abilities open up.
It should be not that hard to control the time line of the game by controlling Tech and Econ and still give you most everything to build . . it would just be just less effective early on.

This is assuming that the frigates and cruisers researched are not more technically advanced the the other ships. Size does not = more advanced.
Take the Kodiak Cruiser it is a special fast cruiser (normally such a ship would be call a frigate since frigate = role of ship) This may mean high tech engines (and a counter for another unseen ship class) So getting these later makes allot of sense.
The light carrier is a small cheep ship with a squadron of fighter/bomber craft, even the much larger craft only get one and possibly two for the big carrier at the start . . Massive bang for buck here . . and getting a smaller ship with such a load/support would be higher tech. etc
It would seem people are still stuck in the size = strength = newest = highest tech . . . . this is only because other older games set this up . . This is not how reality goes or how every game should be.

Look at the Ticonderoga-class Cruiser (really a Frigate redubbed a cruiser - these names really don’t mean that much anymore) and the Freedom class Frigate.
The highest tech typically goes into ships of this size/role since they are not Behemoths and take a long time to build the superstructure and is also a massive insane liability if the newer tech is less then optimal. And lesser ships are possibly too fragile or lot large enough to hold the additions. (some tech like stealth is best done small first) Also in a time where the size of the gun and how many you sport is not the determining factor for effectiveness . . such simple continuums such as size = strength = newest = highest tech just do not happen.

Beemer, try playing on larger maps then All the capships you could want... if only the AI would build them, and use them right.

Without the full back story, we really don't know the reasoning behind how the ship classes are arranged. When looking at the five capital ship classes though, the battlecruisers seem to be interim warships, more like luxury cruise ships or colony vessels. The rest (even the Kol, which to me is a nice design) look more purpose-built for the role they fit: General combat, strike craft, or sieges.

I'm slightly parroting other posters, but here's my take: Perhaps capital shipyards (forgive the aside, but why are they called factories?) will initially build Akkans and Dunovs, but require the Kol, Sova, and Marza to be researched after the flak frigate, light carrier, and siege frigate, respectively, have been researched. I use the flak frigate for the Kol since both use autocannon, and the Kol's flak barrage seems like the next step after designing a lighter anti-fighter vessel. Tying the Kol to the Kodiak makes it arrive way too late in the game to be as prevalent, unless it is adjusted to be more powerful initially. Also, the BCs might be knocked down a notch to represent their converted nature, but have the bonuses from leveling up scale more than the other ships. At level 10, all five can be roughly on par.

At worst, a Sova will need 5 research stations I think,(the light carrier is 3?) which can be done with 3-4 decently developed worlds. This sort of goes in line with the sentiment that a Sova will dominate a capship fight by virtue of its strike craft.

I really don't like the idea of requiring research to have access to any/all/some capital ships. Capital ships are expensive, thats plenty enough hindrance for me.

All capital ship fleets are downright deadly to the current AI, but I have a very strong feeling that the strategy wouldn't hold up at all against a human player. (If I see a capital ship, taking it down is my first priority) The problem with Capital ships currently being "overpowered" isn't that they're overpowered, it's just that the AI can't handle them correctly. Wait for the AI to get to more advanced stages, or at least wait until we can see if the strategy holds up in multiplayer, before making any rash decisions.