More like an iconic leader ship.  Yarr!!!

And needlessly so, IMO. 

This isn't a super ship, or a capital ship.  It is an iconic ship, something that has a personality presence in the game.  Think of it this way.  If the ability was 150 damage to all hostile ships in a wide area with a refresh of 60 seconds, and assuming that shield mitigation and armor didn't exist for the sake of argument, it would take a full 3 minutes to pop the shields on an Advent Seeker.  Instead it is meant to have a shock and awe factor: when a person's entire fleet lights up red to indicate combat status.  Might it have individually stronger stats?  Sure, there is only 1 deployed at at time, and only when there is a glut of bounty to be had. 

You guys seem rather myopic about ignoring the potential merits of the idea simply because the devs initially stated 'no cap ships for pirates'.  It is something that is quick and easy to program into the game and adds an extra touch of detail to appreciate. 

In response to the duder who suggested 5v5 online, I'd have to disagree that this is in any way an appealing or entertaining means of spending time.

Firstly, the set up was incredibly time consuming, with players seemingly incapable of agreeing on anything at all. The game, once launched, experienced regular lag, with multiple people dropping. There was little interaction between players, other than the occasional request for feeding, and the fight was in no way inspiring on either a tactical or strategic level. 

When compared to some of my preferred MP titles like Guild Wars, Mount and Blade Warband, Starcraft or World in Conflict, there just isn't much room for any individual player to showcase their abilities or affect the course of a battle. 

In short, it was like playing with the AI, except worse, in every respect. A proper game of 1v1 or 2v2 would be far preferable to these oversized 5v5 snorefests. Even then, it's difficult to imagine having fun when most of the game's elements (the diplomatic system, the mission system and the culture system) are entirely useless in MP. 

So I guess if you enjoy long waits on the lobby and getting caught in the lag, and if you're not into culture and you don't like diplo, log into 5v5 and escape.

I started a new thread regarding Crysis 2 and some of its disappointments. Head over there if you played the game. It's called, what did you think of crysis 2.

Im with you man

For you maybe. Many of us think the best things that's happened to the pirates was the option to turn them off. Would they be cool in theory, yes. In practice, no. I'd rather the Devs work on something more people can appreciate and have further pirate enhancements be the domain of mods. Its not like multiplayer is ever going to have them on anyways.

More myopic thinking.  Have you tried them at all with v1.2?  They're quite managable now.  Hell, the siege frigates don't even come out for the first hour of the game. 

I understand that some people seem to think that 5v5 on a random huge map with pirates disabled is 'the real game'. But in reality it is just one of many meta-games to utilize.  Even something as basic as 3v3v3 with pirates on can shake things up.  Then every team has to be wary that their actions might leave them open for a counterattack by other forces.  It adds a bit of tension that you don't see in the "hey, since 3 of us are in similar spots lets rush the newest player on the other team and kill them early to make this 5v4, besides we know people will drop out anyway, right," games.

Also, as I said, a single person on the dev team can program this in a week by utilizing files and assets already found in the game.  All of the building blocks are there and ready to be assembled.

If it's not a standard frigate or cruiser...

^

Technically a cruiser.

I wouldn't mind seeing some of the simple bits from Distant Stars becoming standard. Planetary defense, more planets, gunships, etc. The balancing is up to the devs.

As for the Dyson Sphere, the original concept was a group of satellites orbiting at the same distance from the star. The author never considered a solid shell or ring to be even close to reasonable.

btw, Tiberius, not sure if you've played with it, but the Distant Stars mod has pirate caps AND if you want to push it, Ryat has a Powerful Pirates mini-mod attached to it. Things are a bit shuffled right now with the recent patches, but if they're not up and running, I'm sure they soon will be.

Asteroid fields !!!!

Gravity wells where small ships would get huge bonus while the larger the ships, the bigger the malus would be ! Would be kind of a good defense / strategy point

Asteroid Fields are already in the game, along with Asteroid Belts.  Both apply a -20% accuracy modifier to all ships. 

So I tried distant stars, and wasnt very impressed. The planet icons were a pain to click on, the picturesets were messed up. I guess it is just a mod. Anyways, what stands out besides the tech tree enhancement? something I missed? I dont think the readme told me everything.

Well, with the recent patching, there's been a lot of visuals that have to get fixed, from planet meshes to icons. Be patient.

As for changes, I can only list a few:

12 new Planets
Varying sizes for each planet, affecting resources and population
66 new Planetary Bonuses
Ship Graveyards
Custom research for some of the new planets
Colonize Gas Giants
Improved Lighting and particle effects
New ship explosions & damage effects
Improved sounds enhancement
Caps made more powerful
Mines more powerful with upgrades
Both in an expanded tree and new technologies
Gunships and Electronic Warfare Bombers added
New faction portraits and icons
New music
Powerful Pirates mini mod available
Pirates have caps, including custom flagship
Pirates have orbital defenses
New Flagships mini mod available
Expanded fleet size, caps and supply units
Dynamic Movement mini mod available
Capturable derelicts, including the new surveillance station

It adds a lot and it takes time to find all the goodies. There is a GalaxyForge mod available so that you can also check out celestial bodies not normally allowed to spawn at random, such as Black Holes. It is not, by any measure, complete. There is both ongoing work now and with the release of Rebellion, we will see much more change.

All right well ill go back and check it out. I did like the music, though not solely because I am so sick of the default. Where did the main theme come from? I like it. I also liked the lighting. I heard and saw a few graphic imlementations that were a little gimmicky, and some that were good. For example, the flak frigs have these bullet casingss that come out and they dont seem the right size. I will go back and try it though again and in no way am I putting your mod down. I could not mod to save my life. I commend your efforts and perhaps one day I will learn to do stuff like that.

Don't worry, I'm not taking it to heart. I only do the 2-D stuff. Beyond that is beyond me. The theme is from E. S. Posthumus. A lot of the other songs come from Band of Brothers, Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander, etc. The bullet casings with the flak frigates and fighters? Well, below a certain size they don't really show up too well.

In any case, our mod is not for everyone. We just wanted to expand a lot on what the devs did. And really try out the Flagship mod (placing it on top of the mod list when active). The Flagships, although they might get model makeovers, are fun.

Flagship mod? is that a part of the extras for distant stars? Also I am not sure how the extras are implemented and the only one I saw was dynamic movement extra. So I activate it alongside distant stars, but my other theory on how the extras play out is that it is already part of distant stars and then you guys give the option to use dynamic movement without distant stars. that right? so where do I find flagship mod?

This is not a thread for Distant Stars. Please take your chatter elsewhere.

I hate the idea of capital ships for pirates. I hate the idea of pirates in general. What I think it should be is kind of like Insurgency. Pirates just launch raids from out of galaxy to your planets and wind up at your planets, and like Insurgency, the planet they go to is random.

Rebellion had better be worth all the hype. I still remember how disappointed my little brother was when FoC came out and it wasn't all it cracked up to be...

I could go for pirates being like that.

FoC was just poorly done with the OP Zann Consortium, the lack of at least one no Consortium GC, and Empire and Rebellion campaigns to keep the classic Galactic Civil War theme from EaW around.

Considering it was the original poster that went off thread he doesn't have to.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/dx5j6cjjvc2d6nf/Flagship.zip

There ya go.

I'm perfectly happy with pirates. I figure that if you're invading a place for the first time, they probably have less than friendly people already hanging out there. Besides, as a 4x game, this is actually very simple. I think having another small front to deal with makes up for the lack of the usual 4x dynamics, not that I'm always a fan of that all.

shooter, I'll PM you.

Yeah, you don't want him to hijack his own thread.