We've all seen the footage. Huge, epic battles with hundreds of huge lumbering capital ships lined up - each firing pillars of destructive light or massive barrages of missiles - with tens of thousands of fighters swarming like angry bees from inside the formations of those terrible behemoths. It's in everything we've ever come to associate with space combat: BSG, Starwars, Startrek (well, we hear about them talking about these huge battles), Macross, Gundam... hell even Doctor Who had its fair share of space combat (when their budget wasn't being so cheap).
Lets face it, deep down, that's something we've always wanted in a game involving space combat. Perhaps, that's the reason why we play discovery.
The issue is... battles like the ones we like are actually two separate battles - one between the capital ships, and one between the fighters. Yeah, the two fights seem to be happening at the same time, and yeah the outcome of one of the two battles is likely to influence the other, but ideally speaking, it boils down to big ships shooting big ships and small ships shooting small ships. While creating situations akin to the space battles we so love would be fine and dandy had the server been one of infinite player capacity, the 200 player limit sorta throws a brick in the face of whatever hopes we had of making anything of this kind to come true.
Why is the player limit a problem you ask? It boils down to ratios, usefulness, and ship badassery.
What is a Capital ship?
A capital ship is essentially a big ship that has big guns that make big targets go boom. Allegations of compensation for certain short comings aside, people bring capital ships to bear when they want to feel like they're in command of a massive behemoth with monstrous firepower... fighting against other gargantuan compensation machines. A fighter to a capital ship should be inconsequential, insignificant - (unless you're in a huge spherical doom laser that is not a moon and has crappy construction workers leaving vents to your powercore exposed - that and the fighter in question has a high midichlorian count). The way it should be, one capital ship should be able to handle a swarm of fighters and expect to get out with barely anything more than a few squished fighters stuck in the engine exhaust vents (unless we're talking about bombers, but bombers are a major killjoy). In a word... awesome. After all, getting a capital ship probably cost more than its mass in fighters. The allure of the capital ship is that it is rarer than a fighter, that in the rare event that you do come across a capital ship, you will die (unless you're in a capital ship yourself in which case you've got showdown. OH SHIII--).
What is a fighter?
A fighter is a small agile ship, used to guard bigger things from other fighters. The primary focus of fighter combat is dogfighting - killing other fighters. Never, under any circumstance (excluding the one given above) should any (properly done) fighter be expected to fight with a capital ship in all seriousness without some serious numbers (unless you're a bomber, and thus a killjoy. enough about bombers already).
The reason why they can't be together
As everyone knows already, the server can only support 200 people at a time. This means that even in the most ideal situations where there is only one cap ship, the ratio is still 1 cap ship to 199 fighters from the 1 capital ship to [insert redonkulous number here]. Quite obviously since everyone has to play fair, the awesomeness of the cap ship has been massively nerfed. then hit with a bat, dragged off to a neighboring nerf fest and nefted again. Rinse wash repeat.
Now, what was once meant to be a terrifying juggernaught of a ship class is easy pickings for a couple of fighter sized ships (hell, it's not unheard of for a single bomber to make short work of a cruiser, or even a couple of fighters with decent mini razor aim and some good coordination whittling down a cruiser in a bit). Two classes, which were never meant to fight each other to begin with are now forced together (with a massive pro-fighter compromise). I mean, it's bad enough that the game mechanics don't allow for point defence systems in capital ships due to the fact that all the ships guns have to be under one control at all times. [/cap nerf whining]
As for fighters - the presence of capital ships ruins the fighter experience as well. Who hasn't been in a situation where there was an awesome dogfight going on between fighters only... only to have a capital ship just come out of nowhere, and in trying to be helpful, flood the area between you and the other guy with lethal amounts of pew pew? What about when you've got an awesomely fair fighter vs fighter situation that got ruined when a capital ship showed up and made it impossible for one side to lose just by BEING there? (Capital ships are nerfed up the wahzoo but they're still massive nuisances that you can't hope to scratch unless you've got a couple guys with you or you're, god forbid, a bomber that has no business in a dogfight in the first place. Sorry bombers, i just seem to be hating on you today. [/actual cap nerf whining]).
The bottom line is, playing as a fighter is only fun when you're fighting other fighters (unless you're a bomber in which case you can go to hell >:o - I kid. Bombers are a special case since they can ONLY fight cap ships, a class added in an attempt to amalgamate cap ships and fighters - which ended in failure to achieve a proper balance) and playing as a cap ship is only fun when the only other threats are other cap ships (or things you can actually shoot at, like freighters or liners or transports, without the constant missing and cursing and attempted chainfiring of what I'm used to - anyone that says otherwise is a masochist! >:O again, i kid. but you know what i mean).
What I mean to say is from that horrible case of logorrhea that is the wall of text above, is that in order for the full appreciation of either the fighter or the cap ship class, the other's gotta go.
If the fighters go - then we can add waves of inconsequential NPC fighters to go about and blow up whenever we want to pew pew them (you know, for feel good points. those of us that are compensating for something aren't doing so for nothing you know). Perhaps use the flak 88 wingmen mod to hire wings of fighters for massive space battles:D
If cap ships go, then have (sparse) cap ship patrols as usual. Maybe a variation of the flak 88 mod
How's about sticking with what we have, instead of just removing things?
Many, many mods have managed to balance fighters against Capitals. Hell, the mod I came from had a fantastic balance.
It takes work, it takes time. Discovery has gone through massive changes in the past 2 years and it's still going on, but it is calming down.
There are less threads about 'TEH LOLCAPS ARE COMING! RUN FOR THE HILLS AND SAVE THE BABIES!' and the ever so lovely 'I NO WANT BOMBERS, I WANT TO RULE SPACE WITH CRUISER'.
Give it time and just remember that it is possible.
I'm not convinced you've ever been in a full scale fleet engagement. The heavy warships slug at each other while bombers try to pick at them and turn the scale (or dramatically alter the outcome via skilled subtargeting... SNAC goes the mortar and all that), and fighters attempt to disrupt the bombers from doing so or go around pack-hunting gunboats. Gunboats disrupt fighters or bombers from doing their job, and cruisers hang off to the side lobbing things into the fray or chasing gunboats under certain circumstances. The different ship classes have very different jobs, but they are all connected. Failure to utilize your fighters properly means that even a handful of bombers will turn the tide in the cap battles, especially if they have novas. I could go on but I'm not sure I should bother.
They are most certainly not as separate as you believe them to be... at least, they don't have to be. If all shipclasses are present, then you will not end up with snubships fighting only snubships unless there is a problem between a lot of keyboards and a lot of chairs.
That's not much of a reason to remove half the ships in the game...
Some people enjoy their fighters, some people enjoy their capital ships. Some people enjoy both.
It's not true that the fighters only fight fighters and capital ships only fight capital ships. You'll find the side that co-ordinates both the most effectively will usually win.
Look you take a big ship against half a dozen fighters or bombers with no escort then expect to DIE.
Want to be a fighter killing cap then buy an Osiris/Mako or one of the other tiny BS'es. Put 8 Solaris 2 Razors and 2 Mortars. Now go kill stuff.
Want some thing heavier like a Legate/ Ranseur/ Lib Carrier? Two Missiles One Mortar the rest Half Faction primaries half Basic primaries. And chain fire those primaries like mad. Though missiles expect to team kill a lot so warn your friends or go after isolated targets.
At the minimum have a 2 fighter escort and watch the blue messages pile up in any small to medium size engagement.
Now no more walls o' text. No more whining. Caps are fine.
-_- most of you are failing to see the point of the post. I'm just saying that capital ships aren't as awesome as they should be - and that the game mechanics don't allow them to be as awesome as they should be so long as there is a consideration to balance them against player fighters. Sure, it's quite possible to go either way in combat - a bomber can take out a cap ship, a cap ship can take out a bomber - but bringing up either fails to see the basic message =_=
On a side note :/ seems the lolno brigade struck faster than usual
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