Super Dreadnaughts

Hmmmmm... Interesting...............

I say the cost of the super massive ship should be about 20k credit, 8k metal, 5k crystal

And it should be at least 200 fleet supply

meh, why not just create an admiral fleet, double the number of ships of a normal fleet that you might have?

Although I don't mind getting a even larger ship

i dont think this would be done, atleast not so that you could see the different weapons on the hard points. that would take tons of coding and probably take a bite out of the performance. though i do think they should have a way to form an Adiral fleet and from that have sub-fleets, and a special ship that looks and performs like a uber battleship though wouldnt be much bigger than a kol (or w/e)

My idea for a future expansion (the third one?) would be super superweapons.  Things like "death stars" and what not.  Huge and monstrous things much bigger than starbases - something the size of a planet - that would take tons of resources, move slow and ponderously, but could move between grav wells.  Maybe one of these things (the vasari?) would literally eat planets, removing them from the game and giving their resources to the vasari.  Maybe the advent's would be like a "genesis device" (from star trek) that would "remake the planet," sterilizing it in the process of course.  The tec one - who knows?

Another thing I think is needed is a break away from ship that simply line up and "shoot" at each other.  What about an up-close heavy cruiser (or capship) that uses a flame-throwing attack?

What about cloaking - why haven't we seen that?

So many ideas, so little time and resources....

I just think it would be fun to have a something like that, a super powerful ship that you could customize to your play style.

right,,,so basically you wana take a starbase give it engines and a leveling up system then stick a label on it saying "super ship" ,,, why?

Everyone and their dog wants a super-sized-ship. You listening IC?

Would you like fries with that, sir?

       Maybe a more powerful, customize ship, but not larger, unless you make planets bigger. As it is now cap ships and frigates are huge compared to the celestal bodies in-game.

I have to say that instead of more super weapons or bigger ships, I'd much rather see the ability to capture enemy vessels. Just like you can do in Homeworld.

Homeworld 2 had a "Marine Frigate" which would get close to and dock with the enemy ship being captured. Once docked, it would take some time for it to be captured (simulating the marines slowly taking over the ship) and the marine frigate could get destroyed at any time cancelling the take over.

Just imagine how much more interesting it would get if any race could capture enemy ships. Of course, you don't get to build ships of that type but you do get to use that ship's special abilities.

1) Larger ships

well it can be done as far as more powerful (many mods have "Titan" class ships that cut through vanilla races like  a hot katana through butter) but as far as being Customisable and additional hardpoints, that cannot be done. something like that is hardcoded and Stardock arent gonna rewrite the entire game engine

2) Cloaking

once again, Hardcoded. Howeer you can get a cosmetic cloak in Major Stress' SoA2 mod.

3) Capturing ships

IS POSSIBLE (just to take away the negativity of this reply) all you need is to take the Domination ability from the Vanilla Advent, and mess with the code to allow for Starbase/capital ship/ Criuser control. Wanna make it more intresting, increase the time needed and shorten the range for that classic Homeworld 2 Feel

cause EVERYONE WANTS A SHIP THAT LEAVES THEIR ENEMY SAYING OMGWTFBBQ

enough said

Personnaly, before getting bigger ships i would like more small ones to pad the fleet. Something like a combat frigate and a battle cruiser.

Combat frigate : An heavy frigate that is meant for the front line, something that is tough, can dish damage and don't need to be replaced all the time. Reason : I find the basic frigate to die way too quickly to be useful in later game.

Battle cruiser : A cruiser that has the firepower to take on capitalship but lack the armor of one (bad against smaller ships). Reason : Well, it could be a cross between a Cruiser and a Capship, something else to worry about in large fleet battles.

Minelayer cruiser : A ship that can lay mine in contested territories (weaker mines than normal ones).

Artillery Cruiser : A ship that launch area effect weapons meant to damage cluster of ships. Reason : Sometimes we need something to crack large fleets that have plenty support vessels to fix them up.

Battle Fortress : A capitalship that is optimized to fight multiple frigate/cruisers at once (but lack the firepower to take on capitalships or heavy cruisers). Reason : Another mean to fight large swarm of smaller vessels.

Siege cruiser : A bigger version of the assault frigate that has more range (like the structure busting cruiser), more armor and a light capability to defend itself against strike crafts. Reason : Something to fill the gap between the assault frig and the capitalships in planetary bombardment.

Mine sweeper frigate : A dedicated mine clearer that can clear multiple mines at once (expensive). Reason : If minesweeper get in, we need some way to clear mines that pop everywhere...

The only problem with adding anykind of super ships is that you create an arms race. He who have the most superships first wins. Since everyone wants supership to destroy everything. The only way to counter said ships is with your own superships. To counter those ships you need more superships. ETC ETC ETC ETC. Its the problem with any game that has superweapons.

 Just a thought that i had when i read your post on SuperShips,    It reminds me a bit of when i played GuildWars, and had a Monk, and a Warrior, and later an Archer, was that i spent ... like hours... and hours leveling and honing and getting certain charms that you could find in only certain parts of the game world. So what it amounted to was a custom Character. No two Monks were completely the same, some had aggressive powers, some passive, some were african and wore sari's and beaded necklaces, some were pristine blondes with greek white robes and sandals and picked up powers from deep in the game where some made it, and alot didn't.

The point here that i'm leading to is this. What if we had a mod, haha, yes, a mod, because surely we can't turn the game "completely" upside down.    We make three or possibly four capitals, these are SuperCapitals, they level, but way ... way beyond 10 levels. And the ability slots are variable, i can make it a SuperMarza, or a Havoc wrecking Advent Carrier... or the Vasari Dreadnaught. But here is the difference, YOU pick the abilities. Out of how many? three dozen abilities? Four or Five dozen? So each ship becomes a unique craft, a unique character. And the ships should have more than 4 slots, or now 5 in Entrenchment. Have a page... like the research tree pages where each ability is activated, but they cost a horrendous amount. And it takes time, im talking huge amounts of time, maybe hours to get to one level, half a day to get to the next, three days later to get the next one, and a week for the next...

This all implies of course ships that carry from game to game, or else at least one long.... super long game where i could colonize and ravage or get my self kicked and killed in a few weeks time. This means expandable maps, maps that can be added to without starting over from scratch with the ships we have. Ok its a sandbox, but why not make it a HUGE sandbox?   WIth thousands ... of worlds.    

Give me one ship, and have me lay waste, and almost get wasted myself in the beginning fighting off small bands of Pirates and Militia, but later, i dont have to even blink to turn them all into vapor. So where is the challenge? Why its in that SuperMarza that has skittered across my holo-screens several times on several worlds without us yet engaging. That is now almost level 19 and im still pushing 12. And he's got the guns, but i've got shields and armor that say bleh and we slug it out for hours, turns and fights, the planet gets in the way and get torn up, not because we're fighting for it, but because its between me and my enemy and we keep scarring each other up. Prowl and turn, fire and bank. Until one or the other retreats, not because we're half dead, but because we need to go level somewhere to get another set of abilities to add.    

I dont really know if anyone but me thinks this is interesting or not, but it might be like "Submarine warfare with us having a lone ship and slipping under the waves or on top for attack and retreat, plotting courses and readying weapons to take out the enemy.  

Haha, boy silly thought tonight, but it might even be a lot of fun. Superships that keep leveling and leveling against all the other AI. Or multi-player where you bring your custom made Capital and Lay waste and get wasted, but never really have to start over. Just walk away with your Horrendous Havoc Carrier and get some more levels and come back.  

... I seem to have this obsession with the starting over thingy, haha, i haven't figured out exactly why yet, but there it is. I just "wanna" keep building and going on... and on...

Persistent i think is the word. Yes, persistent.

Good idea though in your post, SuperCapitals, i like it.  

-Teal

snd that will ruin the fine balance sins has.

Hmmm... That is what MODS are for.     So we can throw everything in Havoc and Chaos and then turn around a boot a vanilla game that hasn't changed a bit.  

-Teal

Get serious - you are talking about combat in space. Space is cold. It won't be very effective. And even if it does heat up part of the hull, the rest of it is going to just act as a giant radiator and help vent that heat away...

As for the whole idea of super ships and death starts etc... This is Sins. Not Star Wars. Not Star Trek. Not BSG. Not B5 even (it didn't even have shields)....

Players really need to THINK about what they are asking for. It seems the ones asking for these things are the ones who want a ship to make winning easier for them. This suggests they have issues winning. But if they are not as good as other players, they are going to find out that they are facing these behemoths, not fielding them. So many people have been complaining about how OP a Marza is with Lvl 6 Missile Barrage and you want to put something into the game that will be able to swat a starbase and allow it to roam the whole map??? That is a game breaker.

Player 1 - Cool. I just got my super ship built due to a massive feed from my allies.

<Queue other team quitting>

Player 1 - Where did they all go? Their wasn't even a gg from anyone!!!

I completely agree with everything in this post.

My origanal idea of a super dreadnaught is that you can ONLY build one (at any given time, if it is distroyed you could build another one), and research for one would be late in the game, and after reserched it would be extreamly expencive to build, and take a big chunk out of the fleet logistics.  At first it wouldnt be all that more powerful than a regular cap ship, but after a wile (leveling would take much longer than regular ships) it would get more and more powerful.  And not so powerful that it is invincible, it will defantly be tough, but you would still you have to protect it.  Also, the facility you would build this ship would compleatly take up the planet logistics at the location it is built (astroids wouldnt be able to build it), and in order to level your ship, you would have to keep this facility.  this also means you would be moving this ship back every time for upgrades.  you could even give additional fleet upkeep tax after building one. And I never ment that it would be really really big, at max, maybe 3 or 4 times the size of a Kol battleship.

Also the mechanics in the game engine  are already there, it would only take a few tweeks to support this ship. (ever build trade ports on a tec starbase?)

And you could always have an option pre game to turn off or on the ability to build a super dreadnaught (like turning on and off the pirates) if you dont want one or want your opponits to build one.

Its not about not being able to win a game or not, its just an idea for more options in game, giving players the ablity to cusomize the way the game is played a little more.

I'm not 100% sure that they are actually!!!

Dude, come on.  We are brainstorming ideas about a FUTURE EXPANSION (or at least I was).  What's wrong with that?  Since this expansion was called "Entrenchment" and was about defense, I just figured another expansion might be about offense.  What's wrong with brainstorming on super-superweapons ("death star" like weapons)?  No, it wouldn't actually be a Star Wars "Death Star," I just used that as an example of the size and scale of superweapon that I'm talking about.  In other words, something huge (size-wise), monstrous, and expensive.

Do I want any of this hacked into the current game?  NO - I'M TALKING ABOUT AN EXPANSION FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.

I'm also strictly against a supership, because ... it never feels like much strategy to bunker down and save for a 'all-purpose super ship of total annohilation'. if it's just a tad stronger than a capship, well, maybe, but something even stronger than fully upgraded starbase would at least for me be a definite no-no. but it's your thread. I just want my objection be noted and be done with it. if so many people want it, then have it your way. I don't have to get it after all and it is just brain storming after all.

SuperCap ships could be a useful addition to the game.  Now being an EVE player my logic is this:  the more advanced the ship (i.e. supercap) the more specialised it would be.  So yeah it's big, it's expensive, it's made of rice paper but does something really cool to buff your fleet/local area.  Perhaps terraforming or shutting down phase drives in the gravity well.  You could even have one that can take a fixed number of smaller ships directly to another star system.

Big dumb logistics boats FTW!  Something other than a solopwnmobile at the very least. 

All of that being said their are other deficencies in the fleet (such as mine hunters) that realistically should appear long before a SuperCap.

well speaking from a coding experience, something like a Super Dreadnaught would be useful for busting heavy defenses (like some noob late game putting 3 starbases in a chokepoint with a minefield while he continues to snipe your planets with a superweapon) The SuperDreadnaught in question well be something used in an all out assult. that being said it should be able to win against cap ships but be relatively inneffective against say Light Frigs or strikecraft.  Even the death star had it's limitations. Same for the Borg

all i am saying is to think of the Dreadnaught class (or whatever you want to call it) as a More specilaised capital ship. Useful for fricken big targets but sucks against swarms of smaller ships