Battleship weapon changes..

[X-Lancer]

so here is my idea...



Battleship weapon now have 3 major problems..

1.Regular BS turret=the turret can handle ANY situations...

2.because of regular BS turret can handle any situations...using motars and BR is kind of dump..lost their value..

3.Heavy weapon takes tons of energy and it sucks at damage..this cause Full regular BS turret=pwn all..



so here is my sugguestion..

BS weapon have 3 type..

Main Battery----Long range (4~5K). slow fire rate(0.16 ? that's 6 seconds reload time)...high speed for its shell (about 3K/s maybe?) slow turret aiming speed (for Iowa Battleship's turret..is 12/s..just a example..need some more test in game to see how slow the speed is..) of course..huge ass damage...



Secondary turret---med range..like the regular BS turret we have now..but lower the damage abit..like a cruiser gun would be good..



close range flak turret....fast re-fire rate..med explosion radius..short range..small damage...(like a missile...but with different animation...



and last thing..Battleship should have huge cargo space (at least 2000) and weapon takes up cargo space (depends on what weapon..if it's BS main Battery it should take alot of space..if it's flak turret should only take a little space) but doest use energy..this will make more battleship weapon combinations possible..(not like now..full regular turret pwn all because it use so little energy with huge damage output..so weapon like BR and motar become garbage)



(PS: Iowa battleship modern version has AA missile launcher..has CIWS(Close In Weapon System) has Tomahawk missile launcher...but i dont think long range missile type weapon fit disco..ppl seems to be like more perfer guns....)



The Art of Firepower!

[Tenacity]

I agree that serious capship weapon changes are needed, but not just for battleships.

Razors, Infernos, and Mortars all take ridiculous amounts of energy for the damage they deal. The only advantage to using these weapons is more damage per shot than standard turrets - but due to the extremely low refire rate you're not getting much more damage/second than you do with standard turrets.

Fighters, especially light fighters, are nigh-impossible to hit in most capships - even gunboats - unless you're using missile turrets. however, you're limited in hardpoint numbers, so sacraficing even a single standard turret for missiles severely limits your effectiveness against other capships. There's really no way to make a 'balanced' setup for a capship, as any way you go you either make yourself useless against half the enemies you fight, or below average against all of them.

I'm particularly worried about this on new ships being put in, particularly Jinx's zoner gunboat. That thing only has 4 turret hardpoints... and it's going to be nearly useless in pvp because of that. If you go with all standard turrets, you wont have the damage output to even scratch enemy capships, and fighters will still be difficult to hit. If you go all missile turrets, you might do ok against fighters but you wont do a thing to caps. If you go with all razors/infernos, your energy wont hold up long enough to do any damage to caps, and you wont be able to hit fighters. If you go with a balanced setup, you'll be ineffective against everything.

I'm not really sure how the problem can be solved, though.

I would like to see flak turrets put back in and improved for anti-fighter use, but the previous flak turrets were (according to what i've heard) extremely overpowered against fighters.

I think the solution to anti-fighter capship turrets is to put in a weapon with relatively short range (1000 meters or so) that does minimal damage (maybe 200-300 per shot) but has a high refire rate (8.33?) and extremely fast projectile speed (1000m/s or higher). That would seriously hurt a fighter's ability to out-manvuer the turret's fire, even at long range, but the turret's low damage output and low range would make it ineffective against capships.

I'd also like to see the energy requirements and refire times on heavier anti-capship weapons cut significantly. Earlier today, myself (zoner destroyer) and another order player (same ship, zoner destroyer) were testing out weapon effectiveness against one another.

Basically, I was using two light mortars, while he was using a combination of one light mortar and one cruiser battle razor. Neither of us, with those weapons, were able to get past the regeneration rate of the other's shields due to energy costs and refire rates. Our standard turrets were just as ineffective, and his missile turrets didnt even move my shield bar when they hit.

Now, firing both of my light mortars takes 3/4 of my energy bar, and i have to stop ALL fire for around 8 seconds to get enough energy back to fire both again. They took about 1/8 to 1/4 of his shields off per volley, if both shots hit, but the shields had regenerated fully by the time I could fire again.

Now, when I take my destroyer up against a battleship, their standard turrets can rip me open in only a few seconds of sustained fire, while I cant even scratch theirs despite my 'heavy hitting' light mortars.

So... basically capship weapons and energy requirements right now are completely out of whack. I honestly believe that, RP aside, the only reason people use caps is because they're more effective against NPC's and easier to do missions in... they have no real use in pvp unless you're in a battleship, and even then a pair of bombers can take you out fairly easily.

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[Tenshu]

Wait a second....long range missiles....This perks my interest.

Thinking about it the BS has the issue of being unable to catch smaller targets.
What if a cruise missle like weapon was available to track targets from far distances.

I would think it would have an impressive turn rate, high damage, Extreme range but massive power drain.

This would make it a bit more like a modern day Battleship.

Anyway that's my noobish addititive to this thread :crazy:

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[Jinx]

turrets must not take up cargo space, cause they are limited to the turret hardpoints anyway. we had a video of FL:CE ( freelancer evolved ) around yesterday... and i watched the other trailers of it... and it appears to be capital ship based.

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=TdexKjX0oFQ

the capship combat "looks" MUCH more like i d love to see it. the combination of very fast projectiles and the slow yellow beams looks good. i don t know anything about the balance - and thats just a trailer, but it looks quite interesting.

so my idea is like..

- firstly - improve battleship armour by a lot. cap ships should survive much longer. if needed, "only" nerf shields to the cruiser class, i don t care - but tenfold the armour - even if its shaking like mad most of the time then. - but with todays weapons, i d rather like to see the shields of a battleship being shot down in seconds, but the armour to withstand the enemy for minutes ( literally minutes of sustained heavy bombardement - so i d rather give them 10 times the current armour while giving cruisers and battleships only gunboat shields )

- secondly - nerf battleship turn rate and agility down to 50% of what its atm. i know they allready turn like a turtle, but some can still be used like a fighter. i d like it if they slowly drifted around each other like 16th century sails; practicly immobile from the point of view of fighter classes.

- main turret: 500 ms, 10000 damage, 6k range ( irrelevant, cause it won t hit at that range ), 2.0 refire, 10.000 energy - if the armour was multiplied by 10 - such a damage output would be 50% of what its now. ships would survive twice as long when shot with only main turrets, but they could rip smaller vessels apart more easily ... provided they hit.

main target: other battleship, cruisers
weakness: fighter / bomber

- secondary turret - 2100 ms, 4000 damage, 3k range, 4.0 refire, 15.000 energy - a quick firing compromise between a new main turret and a small craft defense turret. - the projectile speed is much faster of course, making hits easier, the damage is less than 50% of the main turret while the energy consumtion is still 150% of the main turret. - such a turret should be an alternative, but should eat through the energy of a battleship quickly.

main target: gunboats
weakness: none

- point defense turrets - 6000 ms, 300 damage, 1k range, 1.0 refire, 1000 energy - an allmost instant beam that deals not much more damage than a fighter. if we look at it from a fighters point of view, a battleship would have to mount at least 12 of those to match the DPS of a fighter. ( refire is very low and the damage is low ) - but the chance to hit is good. those turrets have basicly no energy use but due to the low damage would be useless against even gunboats.
a battleship had to mount at least 6 to be a real threat to a fighter ( still not matching a fighter escort that deals more damage / shot and fires at least twice as quickly ) - but it helps against overzealous pilots that think they can attack a battleship without taking any damage at all. a fighter should get hit - not like now, that its destroyed in two lucky salvos, but it should be hit.

main target: fighter / bomber
weakness: all capital class ships

- missile turret basic - 350 ms, 1200 damage, 4500 range ( or 120 seconds longevity of the missile ), 0.2 refire ( once every 5 seconds ), 50.000 energy. ( and if possible - lock the turret twist, so the turret can really only fire into the original direction [ doesn t affect missiles too much, cause they launch when the missile has the target in the line-of-sight ] )
the blast radius should be as big as a cannonball - the line of sight of the missile should be at least 120 degrees and the turn rate should be as good as a bomber ( good enough, but not good enough to outturn a VHF when its activly dodging ) - such a weapon wouldn t be a fighter killer, but a weapon to keep them busy. a fighter won t be insta killed, especially not at that low fire rate, but the pilot won t have a second to relax while he is in the vicincy of a hostile battleship.

main target: fighter / bomber
weakness: all capital class ships

- missile turret torpedo - 50 ms, 500.000 damage, 6k range, 0.05 refire ( once every 20 seconds ), 100.000 energy. this missile should give a torpedo warning - and it should replace mortars. the missile itself should be the size of a light fighter and be targettable and being able to destroy of course. the damage wouldn t be off too much, cause battleships with such weapons had 10 times the armour. these would be very slow moving projectiles that are passed from one battleship to another. - fighter could shoot them down or the battleships could target them and take them down themselves ( but it would require more work from the BB captains, too )
not to give vanilla caps a disadvantage, these torpedos should not be missiles at all, but energy weapons with a missile model projectile and a smoke trail. ( don t know - can you shoot energy projectiles down? ) from what i know, supernovas have a torpedo projectile, but are energy weapons, but i never managed to actually shoot one down... .

main target: all capital class ships
weakness: fighter / bomber

these are the main weapons i d like to see. - that d be some extreme changes, especially upgrading BB armour and decreasing the shields. - i know the shaking IS a problem, but if battleships are mainly build to counter other battleships, they can hit those even while shaking - against fighters, they d have batteries of 6k ms turrets - thats still allmost impossible to hit a fighter while you re shaking around, but thats something one gotto learn to live with.

i think it would improve the longevity of battleships while not unbalancing the game much. the battleships would have less weapons to counter bombers, who on their turn take much longer to take a battleship down ( due to the higher armour ) - if a battleship wants to be strong vs. fighters, it would have to give up a lot of its firepower for antifighter turrets leaving it vulnerable to other capital ships with more anti cap turrets.

this concept has no universal turrets ( except for the secondary turret that is meant to be a compromise but drain the energy quickly ) - the energy of battleships could stay like it is now, but i d rather like to see the base amount being something like 14 million while at the same time decreasing the replenishment by 50%. that way - decissions would have to be made. energy lost = a longer time to replenish. but you d have more energy to make decissions with. ( like cannons on medieval ships. - you fire them and then you have a long time to reload )

edit: oh, and one more thought. - i d get rid of bats / bots from all capital ships ( gunboats - battleships ) completely and reduce bats bots on fighters by 50%. anyway - i think only fighter / bomber classes should be able to use bats/bots.

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Shipdesigns made for DiscoveryGC

[Tic]

- secondly - nerf battleship turn rate and
agility down to 50% of what its atm. i know they allready turn like a turtle, but some can still be used like
a fighter. i d like it if they slowly drifted around each other like 16th century sails; practicly immobile from
the point of view of fighter classes.

Noooo way! We can't do this. We could if ships wouldn't spin when rammed, but currently when 1 bomber
ramms you, it would take 15 secs to get in the previous position, and then some other fighter would ram
you.(i mean on NPCs)

Also players would abuse it, as they do now. When im in battle with Corsair fleets their bombers and fighters
regullary ram me when they realize their BB is about to die.

And for the weapon proposal, i like it. And as far as i am concerned, id like to see this. And for armor, make
battleship armor 8 or 10 times higher, but remove shields completly. Also make BB turrets have more hit
points. Or give them not GB, but transport lvl 7 shields.

[Jinx]

@Tic:

allright, i gotto admit, i totally forgot about spinning:laugh:. ahhh.... good point though. allthough we know that intentional ramming is a violation and can be reported if it happens too much. - but didn t you have a nice idea about increasing the damage of ramming? - something to ... at least discourage ramming for players.

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Shipdesigns made for DiscoveryGC

[Tic]

@Jinx

Yea that would work, make fighters explode when they hit BB at speed of 150+...

Also that would make asteroids BB death if they had no shields.

But it would effect everything... Not only BBs...

[sgrana]

has the suggestion every been made about reversing the roles of weapons?

What i think is that energy weapons would be for close in fire against fighters while long rage weaons would be done primarily by missiles (ainti-cap).

Here this is taken from honor harrington universe game trailer (sorry you might have to download trailer to play it).

I don't know if its possible but it would make more sense for space combat.

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zoners: [zk](I)_Shane, Peter, Timothy

Harvesters: harvester_15

[Grimly]

good idea but why don't change our tactics first ?

we've destroyed 5 hunter BS/Cruisers WITHOUT ANY FIGHTER/BOMBER in escort who tried to kill us (corsairs)
they were in a asteroid field and we got a lot of bombers .... (yeah it was a stupid attack)

A good army may be a mix between fighters, bombers and capships, not a full fighters, or full capship ....

I think ur idea is good but let give a 100k shield capacity (against npcs fighters) with a high time of reloading (30 sec ? more?) + no bats/bots

Like its called, a NANObots are small, and not used to repair BIG ships


We may work then again on weapons power (i think the point defence turret is not enough strong for a 1.0 refire)

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Taking what's yours since 816 A.S.

[Jinx]

point defense:



the idea behind that was to give a battleship a weapon that can "wear a target down - but not instantly" - the fighter pilot should have a chance to consider his chances. - i agree that 1.0 is not much, but combined with a 6000 ms, it turns into a weapon with extreme precission. ( you can allmost actually target the ship instead of the reticule )



an attacking ship slowly looses shields and hull, but not too fast, - the fighter can still decide to retreat. ( gotto keep the chances on each side ) - currently it is different. you either don t hit the fighter at all, but when you do, you strip it off all its shields and another salvo would destroy the fighter completely. - no time to decide for a fighter ( only the time between having his shields down untill they are up again or he is dead )



it should be easy to hit with, but hard to do much damage with ( compared to a real escort ) - i would set it to 300 / 1.0 - to ensure that we don t have to face anti fighter ships that equip 16 of those turrets to "own" fighters. - of course, they would be useless against other capital ships. - but so are gunboats with excessive missile loadouts - and they caused problems, too.



a refire of 1.0 but an easy to hit speed is better than a refire of 8.33 but a bad hitrate. - you d just spam the space around you with useless projectiles.



a battleship turret should not make fighter escorts useless, but a battleship shouldn t be helpless against pilots dodging either. - such a turret should be lvl10 only, cause it should purely be used in turret mode on ships that are allmost non mobile. - on gunships, such a turret would be utter overkill.

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Shipdesigns made for DiscoveryGC