Capital Ships: Should they be researched?

I agree. Maybe have one avaliable (like the Kol since you already have one) but the rest shouldn't be so easy to get, methinks.

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.

maybe the shipyard just needs to be moved up to the same lvl as the kodak

along with this move the battleship into the cruisers file becouse it has always struck me as being to small to be a cap ship.

you would have to research it along with the other cruisers. and maybe have to have an upgrade to the frigate yard to make it big enough to produce the battleship

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

It should take that long. It is weird that a Kodiak is harder to get than a capital ship. Level 10 for a capital ship should take a very long time to reach.

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...

The devs want capital ships out early so that you can build them up over the course of the game.

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.

Capital ships shouldn't be researched. Maybe one or two if they add a new one. They are meant to be your virtual presence in the game. Eventually once the devs enable it, we will be able to name them. They are the key figure in your single player or multiplayer experience.

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.

Personally speaking I think each capital ship should require some degree of research as it would only be consistent with the functional concepts of the game. If there is some lore basis for having the tech prior to the start of the game then it should show as researched but otherwise some R&D should be made for such an important element in the game methinks.

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!

Capital ships should be researched and we should get them after Cruisers and Frigates. We should be able to build them in about a half hour (or a little longer) of real time.

It would be nice if each capital ship needed its own specific tech requirement costs. This way, we could attempt to focus research on a direct branch that leads to the Capital Ship of our choice. However, a focus research approach like this should leave us unable to build the other cap ships until we research their tech requirements as well.

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.

The AI still has a ways to go, but the devs have commented several times that all-cap strategies don't hold up at all in multiplayer. So I wouldn't expect it to work against the AI when it's complete either.

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.

The capital ships need to be researched prior to being able to construct them. Why have research for frigates and cruisers then? It would be lame to force research on the much less complicated frigates and cruisers, but just give everybody access to capital ships.

Where would I put capital ships in the research tree? Probably right after each similar Cruiser. For example, the KOL prerequisite could be the Kodiak Cruiser (maybe with an added heavy laser mount branch). The Sova prerequisite could be the Light Carrier (maybe with an added 'stacked' strike craft bay branch).

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.

Well speaking personally, I'd like to see MORE cap ships, and a higher unit limit for everyone. I'd like to see fleets with several cap ships, and several cruisers, frigates for everyone. I love to see HUGE battles like that. It makes the whole galactic conquest that much more fulfilling when I crush the life out of each faction.  

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

I like that. It would add diversity to a multiplayer game where people would need to guess and counter what the opponent choses as their capital lineup soonest to latest.

I would yes, starting with the Kol and the Carrier. But if they were all research items, id be just as merry.

Id just like to point out that carriers are pretty amazing at level 10 just like all the others, but it tends to be the most flexible and consequently, since 75% of its firepower is remote done by fighters, its quite easily the most powerful in just about all circumstances, by itself. Backed with a modest frigate support flotilla/fleet its quite easily the god of all Caps, and should be researched....

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.

Reasoning from the bacground story known to me: two of the races are already geared for war. They could have all ships available from the start. TEC is the race that has "redecorated" trade ships, which are by definition huge (the bigger the better for long range trade) or, to be exact, exist in all sizes. So I guess they should ALL have ALL sizes of ships available from the start.

The advancement war inevitably brings would have to be technology, not size.

I definitely agree that it seems unlogical that you have huge powerfull ships available from the start but have to research smaller ones. They must have existed far before the large ones...

IMO the game should demand the research of bigger and bigger sizes of ships or none at all (all are available from the start) and solely focus on technology used on them. Perhaps the research should allow new classes of already existing ship sizes.

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.

I believe that in a way you do research for them. After all you do have to research for super structures. And their cost is high.

But I have to admit, doing it like in HomeWorld will be kinda cool.

cheers