If Super-Caps were implementated how would you have them??

My thoughts on how this could be incorprated would be;

- Crews: Uses 4 & 3 times size of a regular cap ship

- Build Limit: 3 - (3 of 1 type, 1 of each etc)
(Types would include - Megacarrier / Super battleship / Planet killer =(doesn't destroy planets just heavy population/health damage)

- Access: Requires 75% military tech researched or several tier 7 techs followed by a tier 8 on a long timer

- Abilities: Maybe a single powerful ability equivalent to a level 6 regular capship ability?

- Balanced / Why good idea: Build limit / Crew cost / Hi research cost/time = heavy investment
Global message alert to other players (like global artifact discovery message) whilst under construction to allow time to counter & prevent deployment

Get at end game to break stalemate / make late game more fun
Gives the player a proper more unique & cool flagship
Sins = epic so therefore needs epic units / powers
Top rts's like C&c and supreme commander both made epic units a major selling point

thoughts / comments appreciated

Cheers

I wouldn't attempt to add super-caps to the existing factions. I would use them as the base for a new faction that relied less on control of planets - perhaps even use them to flesh out the space pirates, although that would miss an opportunity for an unusual playable faction.

I would build on the classic Mothership theme, so the super-cap would be capable of building frigates and cruisers. A mobile capship factory would be too much though, so I'd look at some mechanism where the supercap had to anchor in order to produce capships.

I'm fine with the present Cap ships, but I would prefer level 10 offense/defense at the outset. The super abilities are not quite as important. What TEC player wouldn't prefer another squadron over the missle battery ability on the Sova? Uber Cap ships wouldn't add anything to an already great game and might even turn a number of players off.

Well... I think they'd be fine material for a new faction in an expansion. I'm sure someone will make capship mods as well. I'm less sure we really need them, but it is worth a try.

By the way, when I play TEC, I find that missile battery power pretty useful. I wouldn't swap my bomber squads for missile batteries, but I don't think I'd swap the missile battery power for an extra squadron either.

- How many crews would one use???
1 crew and 150 supply points (super capital ships would be roughly 3 times as strong as a standard capital ship).

- What would the build limit be???
1 super capital ship per team with a build time of 3 times as long as the existing capital ships.

- How accessible would one be???
Require owner to have at least 6 colonies and this super capital ship to have the cost be triple that of existing capital ships on top of the earlier crew and supply requirements.

- Would they have abilites or not???
Yes, different for each team.

TEC:
Magnetic Recycling - 3/6/12 (depending on level) structures orbiting a colony are pulled towards the super capital ship, devoured, and recycled into usable resources that go directly into your economy. Tactical structures preempt logistics structures.

Advent:
Purge Heathens - 30/60/90% (depending on level) of enemy ships are completely kicked out of the same gravity well this super capital ship is in and are required to phase jump back if they want to battle.

Vasari:
Phase Ram - 30/60/90% (depending on level) damage done to enemy ships and structures when this super capital ship phase jumps into a system and only slows down when it reaches the inner radius of the planet's gravity well. In other words, a straight line is drawn from the normal jump-in point to the planet and all ships and structures in that line's area of effect are damaged by the ramming.

- What would make them balanced???
All players should be able to tell where the enemy super capital ship is at all times (an icon will suffice), players should be alerted to where the super capital ship would be built, and all previous requirements stand on top of this.

I love the TEC one, ZJB, but I think the Advent and Vasari are kind of lame.

And I think it should be a 4 crew requirement and 200 supply. It should level like the regular capitals.

They should start out with 15k structure, and 7500 shield. They should have the 4 total abilities, all to level 3, with one reached at level 6. The experience should be MUCH more though. And they always get 75% of the experience. Also, they have fast regen, and like 1000 antimatter. Or more. They should start out with 5 strikecraft, and then eventually have 10.

Couple of abilties that I think would be cool:

Colonize Over, where you don't need to bomb the planet to colonize it, it just colonizes over the existing colony.

A nuclear bomb, where it does 1500 damage(More or less. These aren't meant to be balanced. Just ideas to start off with) to every enemy within it's radius. Maybe like a 3000 radius. It also has an EMP effect, where all abilties, movement, and weapons is stopped for 30 seconds.

For Vasari, a built in phase stabilizer. It's an ability though. So you can warp to it at any point, and for RA, ships appear near it.

TEC should be able to build frigates/cruisers on the fly, with an ability.

Advent should be able to drop broadcest centers, much like missile batteries, that don't need to have the supercap nearby to exist. So, they're basically real broadcest centers. Ability, of course.

You could have an extremely powerful targetting uplink, like the Akkans.

- How many crews would one use???

I would have it roughly 4-6 crew's because it would cut down on normal capital ship use.

- What would the build limit be???

The build limit would be one or if you cant set a specific limit, just have it a high costing ship so people cant AFFORD to have multiple.

(Limited by capship crews or set number?)

- How accessible would one be???

id have it a T8 research item, also id have the ship require max levels of all the military weapon/armor/reactor/hull research items, it is after all a super ship. It would also need max level of capital crew, capital crew training (the skill) and fleet supply.

(Require 75% military research completed? or a tier 8 research with several long research prerequisites all on long timers??)

- Would they have abilities or not???

Its a super ship, id have it have one Unique ability except for the Advent ship which would excel in support unless the one ability was extremely good, other than that have it excel in primary weapons as well as have allot of them.

- What would make them balanced???

Have them move SUPER SLOW, think of it like a fortress, meant to be total ownage but takes years to get anywhere, this also makes them counter able, also like in a previous post, make then announced to others, i also think each faction should have their own UNIQUE ship, ie,
TEC have a battleship that has MANY auto cannons, big, long, blocky type of ship that can kill anything close to it (having no blind spots as well as anti fighter weapons). The goal of this type of ship is to do low to medium damage VERRY FAST.

Vasari have a missile ship with short ranged, hard hiting missiles, also having anti fighter missiles. also i would limit it to JUST missiles with long reload times, to balance it out. due to size, maybe 1-2 fighter squads MAX. Also would have a Phase stabilizer node, however no RA comes out of it, it would be big and slow, so this would equal it out. The goal of this ship is to do HEAVY damage slowly

Advent would have a super carrier. The carrier would be meant for just that, a carrier, not a front line battleship with beams, a anti fighter, super carrier who can launch lots of strike craft at once, start off with 10-20 squadrons, again it would be VERY slow. Also i would modify the fighters so that it carries special squadrons with reduced health (easy to kill, hard hitting fighters, something not hard to counter but can kill a frigate/heavy cruiser in 1 hit sort of thing, although to prevent pure frigate spamming of Anti strike craft, also have them build faster than the average fighter/bomber. The goal of this ship is to spam fighters/bombers which are easily killed however it can build them fast enough so it is not left defenseless against the other ships. it is essentially a support ship compared to the other 2 ships which are main role battleships.

Also make em expensive, im talking a super capital ship for LATE game, so im thinking like 50-100k credits, 30k metal, 30k crystal. Also make it take like 10-20 min to build, and have it level like a normal ship with 20-30X the normal cap ship hp. Also have em do super damage, but make it so that a fleet can still take them out with enough force (proper built fleet)but can own a small fleet, keep in mind, a proper fleet should be able to take it out, it should also prevent plain ship spamming.

(research time / access??? / Build cost / time??? / Global alert upon construction/completion???)

thoughts / comments appreciated

StCobalt,

The ships that you describe seem to already exist. Problem is that their dps isn't consistent with their weaponry and Cap ship status. The twin Plasma Wave cannons on the Kortul Devastator should by right be able to slice a frigate class ship in half Shadow style (see: Baylon 5), but they don't. Why spend 30K when your 3k ship is supposed to be capable of doing the job? Fix the existing Cap ships and there is no need for the super Caps imo.

well, we all got our own opinions, you COULD modify the existing ships but IMO id prefer something that is going to be considered a super weapon more or less just mobile. and they don't really exist the way i describe it, although it comes down to if you play online where games tend to take place in early game, or if you play single player where they usually do not (i like to draw out games). keep in mind everyone has an opinion on what they think is cool or not, this is something i wouldn't mind seeing in the game, and may even create myself, its just an idea that is thrown out there in case anyone wants to do anything with it, the person asked a question in the OP and i answered it.

Sorry if I came across in a bad way, as that was not my intention. I found myself talking about the inadequacies of Cap ships in another thread and I guess my sentiments carried over here. In a sense I agree with your vision of uber Cap ships, especially the TEC one. Nothing makes me happier then watching my Kols blaze away with autocannons, just wished they did what they look like they should do. BTW, I mostly play AI because I too prefer the longer drawn out game with big Cap ships. Also having a wife and 2 small cchildren (who can't seem to appreciate the grandeur of Sins) makes it difficult to commit to multiplayer.

personally i hate playing against other players for games like this, i enjoy building an economy and exploring over worrying about getting my but kicked in the first 30 min, i like to defend rather than attack, this is my preferred play stile, you do have a valid point tho, the cap ships now are like, that is suppose to be scary (laughter). I was looking for something that would make a battle between 2-3 ships last for 30-40 min sort of thing while still keeping true to each races tactics/weapons. TEC is mostly autocannons, and nothing looks more sweet than just say, 50 low damage high burst rate/reload rate weapons going all out constantly. Vasari are a missile race, however, missiles are usualy heavy hitters, so i was thinking medium range or close range cruise missile type of deal which hit around 2000 dmg a hit, have 8 missiles shoot, and take 60 seconds to reload. as for Advent, a ship that HAS to say at the back of the fleet to survive, a ship that HAS to rely on massing fighters/bombers left right and center to win, of course strike craft are hard to kill with a fleet not designed to handle them, so what you do, you lower the health, and increase the range to 3-4 times what it is now. im thinking of a strike craft that hits 200 damage a craft but has like 50 hp, so it gets off one or 2 hits before it dies. of course this would require allot of tweaking to balance but it could be done.

On another note, i hate how this game has no units truly unique to a race so having only one ship for the super capital is also a must. that way you have a strategy to use which is unique to that race.

Also i might draw up some concept art or look around for a few pics/ideas of ships, i got a general idea of want im looking for in a "super capital ship" its just getting a model done of it and then coding it. Worse comes to worse i get myself a modeling program and take a but of time to learn how to use it and make them myself.

Crews? I'd have it be at least 2, probably 3 or 4.

Build Limit? Well, as many as you can fit. It's not like you can really get an excessive amount of capships as it is, and if you get 4 Super-caps, then you're going to win anyway.

Accessibility would be probably around tier 6-8 military tech, and research into the previous class (A super-carrier would have to have carrier researched, etc).

To balance it, I would have it take a long time to build (2-3x normal capship time, cost a ton of money/resources(4-5x normal capship), and they would be very powerful. If I spend 10k on one ship, I want it to be able to do stuff worth 10k. I would give them some of the standard cap ship capabilities, but they would do more - Faster antimatter regen, heavier shields/armor, more small craft, etc.

I agree with you. A drawn out game is much more enjoyable for me as well. I sit back and defend against pirates and AI strikes until my 4-5 Kols are all around level 8-10 then I go out on the attack with full ballistics/shield/armor research. Multiplayer with multiple star systems allows this kind of play as well, although I don't get to play them much.

Well as for this topic i created a super carrier out of bordum for Vasari, just about to text it there now. the only thing i want to really do and cant is get a larger, extremely unique cap ship to use. i might look some up, i already got an idea for the TEC battleship, its just getting its model, as for vasari and advent, im not quite sure yet, might look up a few ships later on today or tomorrow for ideas on what i think would suit them.

Don't know if your a Babylon 5 fan, but the Earth Federation ships remind me of the TEC. Take a look...

http://www.b5tech.com/earthalliance/earthallianceshipsandvessels/earthcapships/earthcapships.html

Never really heard of it or it least in enough detail to get me interested in it. the Warlock class is a nice looking ship, dont fussy the others tho.

Like the super-faction that's tailing the vasari? I like the idea of a super-capital 'anchoring' itself to a resource patch and becoming a factory - This would be interesting with a more organic universe system, where you could actually hide in an out of the way sector, using electronic warfare research to keep your opponents from getting a precise deep-scan on your activities.

you play Eve online dont you?

No, MMO's ask too much cash and time, EVE seems like the only one that's remotely interesting though - since I'm a sucker for space.

When i think of a more natural universe I think of something like Independence War 2, with ships able to freely travel about a solar system, but only able to travel *between* systems from specific points, which would open the way for blockades in a strategy title.