I agree...

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.

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.

They are tiny compared to Cap Ships and without trying to argue with you i am just curious why do you think extra fire power to CS would be a bad thing!? What exactly wouldn't be right in your opinion?

My point is enhanced "realism" plus what i mentioned in my previous post:

"...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 balanced fleets would become more common as result..."

I do not condone making capital ships eat any other ship quickly. I am simply stating that thier defenses need to be enhanced. The example I gave earlier is to simply illustrate the multi-role capability of all of our real-world ships here in 2008 vs. the seemingly cramped roles of these future ships. At what point in the evolution of war did we decide that we will have ships that are solely for [X] role, and require a fleet of support ships to survive?

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.

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.

The manual clearly states with regard to the TEC LRM: "However, the Javelis' weak armor and shields make it an easy target, particularly for enemy fighters". Now if it can't deal with a little old fighter, then logic would dictate that it should fold when confronted with the vastly superior firepower of Cap ships.

Joe Bagodoe
I do not condone making capital ships eat any other ship quickly. I am simply stating that thier defenses need to be enhanced. The example I gave earlier is to simply illustrate the multi-role capability of all of our real-world ships here in 2008 vs. the seemingly cramped roles of these future ships. At what point in the evolution of war did we decide that we will have ships that are solely for [X] role, and require a fleet of support ships to survive?


I think a viable missle defense system would be nice. I agree that these future Cap ships seem to lack survivability against even underwhelming odds.

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.

Well, something else that's not exactly fully explained that I am willing to accept: an asteroid a few klicks across can wipe out life on earth as we know it, yet it takes a moon sized star destroyer a good while to knock out a planet...

I can live with it... just more stuff thats not 100% believable.

One solution: A random chance for Caps against small ships for a deathshot critical hit. Higher chance for smaller ships. Like a Kol catches a seeker in a fly by... odds are good the Seeker gets pwnd in one salvo. Odds against a Kodiak: very very very small. Odds against another CAP=0%. Could even be a cool announcement: BOOM headshot.

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.

the game devolopers did intend the caps to be mostly support ships this is evident in how crutial they can be in late game large battles. however a truely battle ship stile capital ship would be nice at times. so i would recomend altering the kol etc class ships to have significantly weaker abilities and higher DPS and health no cost change neccesary. this pressents players with a choice. level a support type cap ship early so it can help you later or use a combat type cap ship for a greater advantage early on. even a much stronger cap ship will eventualy be relegated by a mass of frigates. obviouly a carrier would not function as a overly powerful combat ship and nor should it. lastly in regards to frigates being thin skinned they kinda should be. the manual states the crew on a frigate crews number in the low hundreds (LRMS = 200 people) a cap ship is crewed by thousands (kol = 2500 people) so 2500/200 =12.5. logic also dictates that a big team working together should be far more efficient then several small teams working seperately so i would expect an additional half dozen to be easily handled. that means a kol should a kol ever find itself fighting 18 lrms it mutual destruction should be assured. i do not believe that is the case presently

Hello, Earth to Bob, have you guys never learned anything about military history? It takes a huge amount of firepower to take down a Cap ship, but only one well placed torpedo can sink a Frigate. Space battles are nothing more than zero gravity Navy battles. Although Nephilim may be simplistic in the way to rebalance the Cap ships, his post is dead on accurate. Cap ships are not support ships and never have been. They have always been about taking and dishing out abuse. Frigates support Cap ships because they are fast and manueverable. No this isn't Star Wars, Star Trek, or HW2 (which is poorly balanced), but that doesn't take away from the obvious balance issues. Do away with the free Cap ship and make getting a Cap ship harder to acheive through research and expense, but once you have one it should feel nearly unstopable.

Personally, I am confused that a Marza Dreadnought, with its 8 S-S missile Banks, and Radiation bombs, and its fewer guns and lasers can take out more opponents in a quicker time frame than a Kol Battleship.

I also find that if one were to use a balanced fleet of a few combat ships with a large number of Carrier/LRMs, one takes out targets at a faster rate.

I rationalize this as an inbred desire for players to use thier judgement and playstyle to select the type of capital ship they build. I also do not see many players using capital ships the way I believe the designers envisioned.

Capital ships are capped at a total of 16 per player. Yet I only see players with 1-5 at most in online games, whereas I use all 16 and then build a smaller frigate "meatshield" to protect my capital ships.

Your Capital ships use the same type of guns as your regular frigates do. The only difference is that they have far more of them. So using the Kol Battleship as an example.

Kol Battleship is the rough equivilent of 3 Heavy Cruisers. It takes 3 heavy cruisers approximately 15 seconds to kill 1 light cobalt. It takes a Kol only 10 seconds or so to kill the same light cobalt. So the Capital ships are balanced and perfectly acceptable as is. It is only the illusion that they have more powerful weapons so they should take out the opponent that much quicker; however players fail to comprehend that all a capital ship does is make up for 3-7 ships of frigate/cruiser class in a fleet, thereby giving you the same capability for a lesser number of ships and easier micro.

So in present day terms: A kol Battleship is not the same as an Iowa-class. Rather it is a 32,000 ton warship with a larger number of 5 inchers than a regulare 1052 or Aegis cruiser. thats all the difference is.

They are balanced as it is, but they are kind of silly. They are way to cheap and build way to fast. Capital ships should be a huge investment, I would say increase their cost by 10 times and make them take 20-30 minutes to build. Then increase their firepower considerably as well as their HP.

This is probably best done as a mod rather than over the entire game as the current game is balanced perfectly fine, its just many of us would like to see these capital ships are true flagships of the fleet, you shouldn't be able to spam them or rebuild them in under 1 minute. They should be high value assets that you don't risk needlessly.

By increasing their cost and build times to super high levels, but making their firepower/HP high enough to justify building, you will add a new level of strategic play. You will want to scout your enemy territory often, know where they have capital shipyards. When you find them building a capital ship, you will want to mount a strike force to destroy that shipyard before the capital is done being built.


As I said before, because this would greatly change the game dynamics, even if properly balanced, it should really be done as a mod/option.

I would say something like rough cost being 20000 credits, 7500 metal 5000 crystal and take 20-30 minutes to build. Double their starting stats(firepower, defense) and increase their per level gains to rate of fire, shield regen, hull regen rates(the crew gets more experienced from combat and can use the equipment more effectively.

Obviously though, as this is such a large change to the way the game is, it would require a ton of balance testing.

Problem is people are assuming there opions make for good balance or for realism.

when its just there preferd play style.

Cap ships have skills way more hps and shields, and can get stronger weapons as they levelas well as even more hps and shields.

I do agree they die to fast in the late game, and should get more % for hps and shields as they level to make them live longer.

If they do what some want then what reason would anyone make frigs? i mean a cap ship with 3 times the weapon power (done in sevral mods) can blow thru a frig in less then 5 seconds, so even at 150 pop 150pop in frigs would stand 0 chance of wining anyway.


Also people like to bring up real BS in the nava, but dont bother to mention they travel with suport ships, as a single sub can take out a BS yes a real BS is scary carrys a crap load of weapons but they are weak vrs subs, and thats why BS travel with destroyers who are the subs worst enemy.



If Sins would make Caps that powerfull then there needs to be a counter unit that can pwn the cap for your soc alled realism.

really rediculous to watch battle mothership killing 3 little shitties for 10 minutes and alsto get ass kicked by em and left with 300hp

your scale seems a bit too large something more moderate would be more appropriate for time. the game could end before you even have a cap ship. and the first team to get one would be unstoppable. cap ships should be powerful but not invincible i. if ppl want to use cams as jugernauts just give them one cap ship that is like one(take away the kols abilities and add armour and weapons.)

The bulk of the Marza's weapons are on the front of the vessel so it will take down a single ship faster then a Kol. OTOH, the Marza lacks the survivability or multitargeting of the Kol. One is made to wade into the middle of opposing fleets and do damage while the other is primarily for long range assualt against individual Cap ships and structures.

Three HC are the equivalent of a level one Kol offensively. Factoring in the armor differences makes it about 5:1. To get the offense/defense of a level 10 max research/full ability Kol you would probably need about 10 HCs.

Homeworld I had it right when the depicted the size differences between frigates and Cap ships. The turrets on some cap ships are in truth the size of some frigates and that fact played out in Capship vs frigate battles. Looking at the size difference between the Kol's railgun/rt side auto cannons and a cobalt frigate should one not expect the same result?

When I think of Capital Ship I think BSG

Caps are pretty well balanced the way they are... dmg/cost vs dmg/cost they match up against any of the smaller ships well enough, and have a deal more HP, which is as it should be, it is bigger after all. Also since its more expensive a large focus would be put into armor/shield systems etc rather than raw firepower... because of course if it doesn't live, you lose all that cash, and all that firepower. That also means of course that at least 1/2 of the size increase in turrets is raw armor... don't want your guns going *poof* in the middle of a firefight now do you?

The cap ships in the game make sense as they are. They're designed to be the same thing battleships/destroyers are designed to be in modern warfare. They're not lead attack vessels, they're command centers and bombardment/general support. You don't send your most expensive ship head first into enemy territory. You have many smaller, cheaper ships for that. The changes your talking about would turn them into something they shouldn't be. AKA what they were in Homeworld 2. Because honestly, the amount of small combat ships required to take out a heavy cruiser in HW2 was completely ridiculous. The things had like 10k HP and 6 or 8 sets of turrets that would damn near one shot a frigate, if it didn't actually one shot it. and the frigates were doing similar numerical damage to whats done in Sins :/

Someone also mentioned star wars for massive ships being front line attackers... even in star wars that isn't true. They have several different classes of star destroyers, cruisers, corvettes etc in that universe and the fleets behave in exactly the same fashion I'm describing in this post. The Imperial class star destroyer sits comfortably in the middle of his fleet of fighters/cruisers/corvettes/ smaller star destroyers, and mostly only uses its weapons for planetary bombardment or taking out other capital ships. Because, of course, its the biggest baddest thing in the fleet, hence its the safest thing for the commander to be in, and talented commanders are hard to come by. If the command ship dies, whatever battle operation they're in the middle of is likely to at best turn into an organized retreat unless the odds are ridiculously in their favor in the first place. Of course theres always the chance a support commander could pick right up where the commander left off... but maybe the support commander is some position jockeying nephew of a senator or some such and doesn't have a clue(these things not being uncommon).

All in all, it'd be nice if people on this forum would stop whining about stuff that ain't broken/don't need to be fixed(thats not directed specifically at anyone btw, just an observation about the forums in general, they're beginning to remind me of wow forums, which is to say, at the least, not good). LRMs needed a slight nerf, siege frigates needed a slight nerf. Other than that they need to do something about the unlimited resources from returning armada and maybe cap the number of them you can have and after that theres only minor tweaks at best. The game is fairly well balanced as is, RA just needs caps put in place so its not as overpowering late game, it really makes being anything other than vasari for a large map damn near pointless, and it wouldn't affect SP much, just MP, as AI don't use RA anyways(that I've noticed anyhow)

Sorry for going OT a bit, but well, most of its on topic, and basically the caps are fine as they are... maybe some slight ability tweaking etc, but no major changes are necessary. Simply the fact that there are lots of different complaints about x ship or ability from x race being overpowered is a very good sign for balance. If you want caps that turn everything into swiss cheese in 10 seconds or less, go invest 30 bucks in a copy of Homeworld 2 and get all maybe 50(being optimistic) good hours of gameplay out of it before you become bored and likely never play it again.

In a relatively small battle I've always had great luck with capital ships. Granted, in the endgame with 100 ship fleets running around, caps get smoked with the quickness. But until then caps can soak up some pain.

Disclaimer: I like TEC, and I really like Kols with both capital and cruiser level repair ships behind them. Run after the repair ships and you get to play chase-the-robotics-cruiser around the system while the Kol dogs your tail. Hit the Kol, and being a Kol it'll quite happily sit there and take it.

The idea of having giant cap ships as the center of the game is quite good at first glance but then I had to realize that this would turn Sins basically into Warcraft 3, were all is focused on the hero unit - I don't like that.

I like Capitals as they are for combat prowess, especially early game. Late game they'er a bit too vulnerable to massed focus-fire (good luck keeping any cap alive long enough to get through it's Anti-Matter stores in most large late game engagements) but under certain situations with the right support ships you can keep a fleet together at least.

My main problem with them is just how expensive upgrading the crew caps can be, especially beyond three or four. Capitals are good, but frankly the cost is just so high to go beyond that, that if you're in a tight race it just isn't practical to invest in another capital, because usually Heavy Cruisers or LRMs for the same population cap and much less price (since they don't require the crew cap upgrade) are more effective and can be fielded faster. I understand why the crew cap is in place ( helps avoid someone just pulling out three or four caps early game and being almost impossible to stop before they wreck worlds). But doing more than a few capitals is just so expensive and they're so frail by the time you can afford it.

That's my take on it.

You raise valid points Ironhandx. I don't think this would be a discussion if a Cap ship came out of the factory with level 10 firepower and defenses. Wouldn't it be nice after building a Sova that you had 7 heavy fighter squadrons ready for battle as opposed to 2 ordinary ones? Its a shame that 10-12 LRMs would likely kill a newly minted Sova. At level 7-10, my money's on the Carrier. The problem lies in the leveling system. I'd gladly give up the Kol's "finest hour/flak ability to have level 10 regular armament in addition to paying more money for it.

The Homeworld depiction of Cap ships abilities were dead on. With a dramatic advantage in range/armor/firepower a frigate would barely get into its own firing range before being annihilated. A single large caliber slug moving at 10K would liquefy a frigate hull and suck the crew out the exit hole. Thats why the Cap ship cost the big bucks. It is designed to casually swat frigates. On the modern battlefield, the carrier (sole operational Cap ship) is still the preeminent weapon of naval warfare. No other vessel can put the smack down on an enemy like the carrier (ballistic missle subs excepted). Even unescorted you would need a sizable naval/airforce force to even hope of taking one out. The "State" does not waste money on a Capital ship unless it yields capital results.