A new role for Siege Ships

Busting caps or facilities.

from Sins Forums
Siege ships have by far the largest weapons in the game. They have to, after all. They're tasked with taking down planets, the largest targets imaginable. Siege ships must be capable of smashing through massive layers of rock and armor, in order to kill all the juicy resistance on the planet.

Why is it that they can't turn these weapons against enemies? I understand that the weapons may be too unwieldy to use against smaller vessels such as frigates, cruisers, and strike craft. What about using planet busting weaponry against the bigger targets? I suggest:

Siege Ships vs. orbital structures. These structures are immobile and defenseless. Using siege weapons, you can take them out far faster and more efficiently.

Siege Ships vs. Capital Ships. Hey, a useful (and currently nonexistant) combat role! The sheer force of siege weaponry can be used to overwhelm capital ship shields and hull. Capital ships are massive, slow, easy to hit targets, so a siege weapon should not have trouble hitting them. The high cost, high supply, otherwise extremely vulnerable Siege Ship is more than enough counterbalance to filling this role.

What about capital ships using siege weapons against each other? Well, that isn't totally unreasonable, it would make capital ships a form of counter to themselves. But, you can also say that they simply don't have enough raw energy/crew/resources to pull it off. It's more effective for them to use their main weapons constantly, rather than to shut them all down to use the siege gun.
18,755 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
When I look at siege weapons, I see them as being very inaccurate because of the way the shots go off at angles from the forward axis of the ship (I know some people would say they are just targeting specific cities/infrastructure) but that's why I have always assumed they didn't turn these weapons on anything smaller than a large asteroid. Besides, have you seen how slow planet bombardment weapons travel? (excluding vasari) How can you expect that to accurately target even a cap ship?
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
I think you should be able to duct tape siege ships onto the sides and bottom and top of a Capital ship so they can add their firepower to your main ship.

Also we need suicide ships that are loaded down with explosives and dead hookers so we not only blow up the enemy but demoralize them with all the floating weaves in space.
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
How can you expect that to accurately target even a cap ship?
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Because capital ships are BIG. There's no way such a shot can hit smaller ships, but capital ships take up a pretty chunk of space estate.

It seems you're saying it's not feasible simply due to how the TEC's siege weapon appears in game. Not EVERY siege weapon is so deliberately inaccurate. The Advent and Vasari siege weapons have very small cones of fire, and have a much higher projectile speed. There's no reason that they can not hit a very large target with low mobility. However, it would not be fair to give the option to only 2 out of the 3 races.

Thanks for the free bump napalm, but keep your pointless poison someplace else. It is not some leap of faith to have a BIG gun capable of hitting BIG targets. In fact, it would still be underpowered due to how expensive and fragile siege ships are as is.

In order for it to even start being an option, a 15 supply siege ship would need at least 20-30DPS from such a weapon. This would still leave it nowhere near as combat worthy as a heavy cruiser, or even light cruiser spam, but it's not like they are main combat vessels, and the weapon won't be viable against frigates.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
How can you expect that to accurately target even a cap ship?Because capital ships are BIG. There's no way such a shot can hit smaller ships, but capital ships take up a pretty chunk of space estate.It seems you're saying it's not feasible simply due to how the TEC's siege weapon appears in game. Not EVERY siege weapon is so deliberately inaccurate. The Advent and Vasari siege weapons have very small cones of fire, and have a much higher projectile speed. There's no reason that they can not hit a very large target with low mobility. However, it would not be fair to give the option to only 2 out of the 3 races.Thanks for the free bump napalm, but keep your pointless poison someplace else. It is not some leap of faith to have a BIG gun capable of hitting BIG targets. In fact, it would still be underpowered due to how expensive and fragile siege ships are as is.In order for it to even start being an option, a 15 supply siege ship would need at least 20-30DPS from such a weapon. This would still leave it nowhere near as combat worthy as a heavy cruiser, or even light cruiser spam, but it's not like they are main combat vessels, and the weapon won't be viable against frigates.
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Pointless poison?

It's called a joke, why don't you lighten up instead of getting your panties in a bunch.

Man... laugh a little?

Defensive little prick.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Oh don't get me started on Siege. Too many whiners from SP that get tired of the AI beatign them using siege = siege ships nerfed beyond usefulness :(
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
Is this a "wouldn't it be cool if..." kind of suggestion or are you looking for a way to make siege frigates worth using?

If it's the former, then sure. Why not. I'm sure game balance would allow for something like this although I personally think it's already pretty easy to take down cap ships and structures with the tools we have.

If it's the latter, siege frigates just need to be better at their actual job: sieging planets. The problem right now is that, for cost and fleet cap, cap ships do a better job of sieging planets (or, at least, surviving long enough to do so) than actual siege weaponry. Fix that and they earn a spot in my fleet. In the necessary clean-up crew, anyway.

They already have a singular role. They just suck because the all-purpose cap ships are much better suited for that role, among a number of others.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
It would be neat to give Siege Frigates more use, especially after the hits they've taken in price and population that make them just not terribly feasible compared to capital ships.

But Capital Ships themselves have issues with being downed so fast to focus fire by relatively cheap ships, even fairly early in the game (I love the Guardian later in game, the Repel Ability really can help to save capitals from the insane focus fire they catch in most large battles against people).

Siege Frigates are pretty useless right now, but I think making them strong planet bombardiers at reasonable cost, but with low hitpoints to prevent them just tanking into a fortified world would be suffice, rather than looking to change or diversify their role.