Capital Ships - the way they should be!?

I do agree with this , you'd think a capital ship wouldn't have so many problems with a tiny frigate lol. Bit like a tank struggling against a jeep!

Exactly...

And as i said i have no problem paying double price for it in money and resources if it needs to be - but could Devs make "Tank" feel like a tank and make it pwn "Jeep" to the ground in one or two shots...

I have been playing with the new low fleet supply option, which is a little better by making capital ships more a part of your fleet rather than the way it usually feels, like they are just tagging along with your frigates. The only downside though is with fewer fleet points, its not really a good idea to build more than one.

As noted in another thread, it is not a good idea to build more than one or two. I think they should not cost so many fleet points.

Ok but this post isnt about how many capital ships we should or shouldn't build but it specifically points on rather weird "feel" of seeing "big boy" shooting at the "little one" for 3 minutes struggling to kill it... Like what PirateNeilsouth said its like watching Tank shoots at Jeep for 3 minutes...

Point of the post is that capital ships don't exactly feel like name suggests - their firepower although visually impressive practically isn't that great so why not double their fire power (and the cost of the ship at the same time - of course) making them feel and play the way they suppose to - as CAPITAL SHIPS!

Amen, ive only played a few games against the AI, but they are rather weak with regards to firepower.

Pit two light frigates against each other, time how long it takes for one frigate to kill the other. Ok, now do the same with a cap and the same frigate, time how long. You will see the cap ship is much faster at killing, and not only that, but that cap ship has weapons it can fire (usually) at frigates at the side doing damage to them. This is not HW2 where ships are destroyed like popcorn, it's supposed to take a while for ships of any kind to kill each other, to give time to get reinforcements to the battle.

Nobody wants a pop-corn effect here just a little bit better balance perhaps... Of course Cap will kill Frig faster - but argument here is that "faster" still isnt as fast as it should be considering the fact we are talking about Cap Ship here...

In any case valid argument and thanks for posting man

I agree - it isnt balanced to watch all that lovely firepower booming away for ages to knock off small units - make em rare and have them smoke everything in sight.

Simply doubling the cost and firepower of capships atm would not make them 'more capital' it would make them irrelevant beyond the first ship which would be the only important thing in your fleet, late game the capships would still get focus-fired and go down in less than a minute but now they'd be an even greater cost to them. The abilities is what makes capital ships useful and it's their survivability late game rather than damage that needs to be looked at..

dude your a cap ship can can take out 6 hard pirats and gass guns and some 4 or 5 frigets and some cursers and then some rebles came with bounces and it killed them to by them selfs at a level 10 wf reserves but wf that they cant get any highter in levels pass 10 or more exp points for more fire power with that said ya it takes a long time for them to get that high in level but they hit hard
a level 10 cap ship has like 5200 hull points and 2300 shield and hit ships hard showing off there true power as a cap ship plus it was shooting from all sides it has
to lock on to 1 ship at a time but if other ships are on the other side of it, cap ships will fire at them to,. the more exp points they get the smarter the al gets at fireing

This thread has nothing at all to do with balance. What they do is more or less balanced as-is.

Now, I could agree that they don't behave as space-behemoth-y as one might expect but as was said, doubling all of the factors you're highlighting isn't going to help actual balance at all. They already have a lot more punch than any other basic ship and their abilities can make a huge difference in the outcome of a fight. You can't simply change the damage values and costs without making a mess of quite a few other things and at this point, that's just far more trouble than it's worth.

Redneck... punctation, for the love of all that is holy!

I have found Capital Ships just about where I want them. Powerful but not over the top.
As Advalary said, this is not HW2, where the capitals smoked hordes of frigates. In a game like this, ones ships should not go down as fast as in a true rts so that a proper battle can be fought, with manouvers and reinforcements being brought in.

I agree with the OP. An easy fix is to make Capital ships do 200% damage to all frigates and 150% damage to heavy cruisers. That would be fair and more realistic. Also one would think that Cap ships would have capable missle defense systems. Cap ships should be capable of stopping at least 60% of incoming Frigate based missles in addition to the standard shield mitigation. This fix would lessen LRM spam imo.

You must see capships with regards to SOSE's logic/story.

In SoSE, Capships are not wtfpwnships. Capships are support ships, command platforms if you will. Which brings me to another point-

Frigates are not tiny. Frigates are pretty damn big. *Fighters* are tiny. Frigates and cruisers are supposed to be the bulk of your force, and capships are meant to support them.

This is not Star Wars or Star Trek or

I really don't see anything in the storyline that supports this contention. The developers put in a lengthy leveling system for Cap ships to encourage the early game utilization of smaller craft, not to make them the centerpiece of your fleet throughout the span of the game. However players take advantage of this and spam/quick rush these low cost units and in doing so relegate Cap ships to supporting roles. In essence, players have dictated the storyline.

As do I!

I agree that capital ships house the commander of that group. Generally, it runs a tiered offense or defense utilizing the group ships as the firepower. It should engage enemy only when necessary. For instance, if enemy ships arrive and engage, and some of the group ships are unprepared, the capital ship may help.

There are of course group commanders that have something to prove and may risk the crew of his ship to show his bravery, but that is not common. Simply put, the capital ships are designed to be defensively strong to protect the valuable on board personnel.

The only argument that I do see for an accent to capital ships is that, for instance, a US Naval battleship, our largest ship, is multi-role. It is very powerful. It can launch its own campaign against a small country, and it can also defend itself against incoming missiles and aircraft with amazing accuracy. It's this multi-role design that enable cost saving and tactical versatility.

No, the DEVELOPERS dictated it by making that the most effective role. You're -supposed- to "spam"/"rush" the small ships. If they wanted capships to be main combat units they would have made them better at that role and lessened their abilities..but they didn't.

Cap ships are supposed to be relegated to supporting roles.

This is why at least the combat Cap ships need to be enhanced. The Iowa class battleships that you referenced were/are capable of destroying any frigate with a single salvo from its nine sixteen inch guns. Considering the cost in crew/supply/materials/credits, shouldn't the Kol/Radiance/Devastator be equally capable?

Cool to see this thread growing and even better to see different opinions

As i said in OP - love the game as it is really so my suggestion isnt by any mean request - its just that - a suggestion... which i still think is very good one indeed...

Also i can see that some people are still taking it as "make Cap ships uber powerful" which isnt at all what i am suggesting...

No one here wants a "pop-corn blasting super-weapon" just a bit of extra fire power that can indeed be compensated by higher cost of the ship.

Personally i find some things sad (not to say silly) in regards to current state of the game and mainly here i am referring to spamage - LRMs being most common one, counter spamages, HC spamage etc...

Now, having a unit with bit more significant fire power (CS as per my suggestion) naturally wouldn't be counter to any spam, however it would psychologically influence gamers and more balance fleets would become common as result.

Again - just my 2 cents - so please keep your feedbacks coming...

CS with boosted fire power or as it is?

Your call...

The developers did make them capable in the role of fleet hammer , you just have to wait through the long leveling process and do the research. The choice to use them as such is in the hands of the players.

SoSE is not set in modern-day America. Just because the Kol/Radiance/Devastator share the "Battleship" title doesn't mean they are the same thing.

I would advocate just enhancing the battleships (Kol, Radiance, Devastator) and increasing their cost.

No, they are not the same but the manual clearly designates them as "combat" ships. It makes no sense that a thinned skinned LRM frigate should be able to withstand multiple railgun/autocannon blast from a Kol in the early game. JMHO.

Why? They are combat ships-all ships are. However, their power lies in their special abilities, not their regular guns.

Also, what makes you think an LRM frigate is "thin skinned"? LRMs are -big- ships, as all frigs are.