Capital ship (Particularly Battleship) Balance

[Markam]

Greetings.

Just wanted to get something off my chest regarding Battleship Balance in Discovery, sort of a veteran player; though I have been gone for long periods of time (last played +1 year ago), this is something that always bothered me.

I'm a bit of a history buff, and one era that captures my imagination is the ship combat in the age of sail, ships of the line, highly positional, slow firing, but a single volley something of awe.

Looking at discovery Battleship combat, I see something more frantic, something rushed, a constant machine gun flow of coloured balls, all over in the flash of a pan.
I think to myself, Is there no way to slow this down, make it more tactical, more engaging? There is also the issue of big battleship vs small battleship, in most circumstances, due to the pace of the combat, lets the big battleship bum rush the small ship before any tactics are in play, lets not forget that most people who play discovery are not PvP experts, capable of mastering small battleship combat.

But enough of the fluff, my desire is to make the combat slower, plain and simple.

How? There are many ideas, they needn't be looked at as a set, but multiple options to pick and choose.

1) Increase health substantially
+Simple, blunt solution
-Significantly effects other balance, anti cap weaponry would need to be adjusted heavily

2) Decrease refire rates on Battleship weaponry; i.e Primaries Fire once every 20 seconds, like a volley; be nice if there would be a countdown too
+Even with current battleship stats, fights would be significantly slower
+Cements battleships role as anti-battleship, as their guns are ineffective against anything else
-Larger battleships are going to find it harder to hit anything at range, so something else must be changed to offset this disadvantage

3) Restrict firing arcs on guns/slow turret speed
+Less firepower can be used simultaneously, lowering dps, making fights slower
-+Makes combat more complex, with certain angles being favoured, more blind spots

3.1) Fix in place some arcs completely; i.e make some slots work the same as forward guns, only sideways, backwards, upward, etc.
>This is a direct inspiration to ship of the line combat, where you can only fire most of your weapons sideways, a game called "Rebel Galaxy" LINK did this, although that game essentially made it so that up-down did not exist as it does in Freelancer

4) Decrease Battleship impulse speed/turning speed
+Being less able to maneuver/close in on opponents slows down combat, depending on the changes, a battleship will joust another battleship, and then have to spend time turning around to line up again
-Being so slow essentially makes battleships sitting ducks against most else, so increasing health may be a ideal trade off

5) Removal of special weapons
Pulses, mortars, missiles etc, reducing battleships to mostly primaries/secondaries, removing the forward gun from the valor (say its inrp only anti-base gun)
+Goes without saying that combat is slower without pulses and mortars
-Arguably less variety, less interesting to some, and it is of course a little disrespectful for all the work done in relation to these weapons

6) Lower gun damage significantly
+Same as health increase, a very simple way to slow combat down, though it doesn't change the way combat works as is
-Again, would change other balance and require more complex changes

Finally, though most of what I mentioned refers to Battleships, in many ways destroyer/cruiser/battle-cruiser combat is also somewhat fast, and may benefit from a similar style of thinking.

I would be happy if any of my ideas inspired some changes, but i'm not under any disillusions.

---

Markam is evil