(11-14-2018, 02:40 PM)Gardarik Wrote: With all due respect, CR's experience of using carriers in the recent event is not very illustrative as such massive combats occur very rarely these days with the limited playerbase.
As one of those luckies stuck with the Coalition Tempest that:
so big it is impossible to miss;
has laughable power core
has one single drone with stupid default AI that can not dodge even primes
I can definitely tell they are not enjoyable to play unless you engage in a really big combat that never happens (and for the Coalition cannot happen at all since we have 3 Tempests overall inRP).
While I do agree that the Tempest is one of the worse Carriers, I do not think that it is absolutely unplayable. As the name suggests it is now a carrier, a ship that should rely on the rest of a fleet to protect it while it can deal damage. I do not want to argue that the Tempest is good in it's current state, but I think that the ships should not be balanced after " we cannot log so many people". Instead, the Coalition should get a Battleship to compensate for the loss of their "Heavy Battleship" Tempest. But that's another topic.
(11-14-2018, 02:40 PM)Gardarik Wrote: While the idea of docking bays is fun, it is hardly achievable as those are very difficult to implement technically-wise.
Unless drones can be spammable and/or a number of them - no use. Just revert them back to battleships and be good. It is not about the idea being bad, it is about Freelancer being age-old with limited engine to support something that reminds a proper carrier like in EVE, Sins of Solar Empire, or Stellaris.
Reverting them ruins the purpose of the rework as it stands. Carriers are not supposed to be Battleship, otherwise, they would not be called Carriers and instead would be named Battleship or Dreadnought. One Drone is more than enough and it's damage is fine as it stands, but it has to be more reliable. The Missle Drone can be countered by a mere CM or Flak, and considering that it's one of your only damage tools and the one that delivers the blow while you stand on a longer range, it HAS to hit in my opinion. The frequency of the Drone was not an issue while I was using it, especially since we were using 2 in a fleet - as a Carrier should be used. I can't speak about the viability when you use them alone, but I think it's fine that they die to the heavily armed Battlecruisers and Battleships in a 1vs1.
(11-14-2018, 03:04 PM)Ash Wrote: You've hilighted some useful qualities about carriers' current version. Though wouldn't you say they're at least disjointed if not a bit lost in terms of their purpose? Battleships have a clear forte which is their overall power. Battlecruisers trump this with range. Snubs trump Battlecruisers with manoeuvrability and so on. If we play into the existing paradigms of which ship classes to trump then we shouldn't try to empower carriers to take on various ship types but instead a select few. So i'd argue carriers should own their reputation as very hittable blimps since their defense against heavy hitters should come from their entourage. As for the offensive capabilities, i'd call for a vast array of turrets comparable to the typhoon presently. Make them flying fortresses ideal for downing gunboats and cruisers but lacking the ordnance required to trump anything heavier than a battlecruiser.
Hence I'm suggesting to give them more Primary slots instead of the Heavy ones. If Carriers get their Heavy slots back, then what will happen is that people will tank in the heavier ones again, while having the drone as an extra tool. Or perhaps a heavy slot that cannot use anything but missiles also works for Carriers, to give them a Long-Range tool and to additionally support their Drone while it fights something at a considerable range.
The Atlantis is a neat example of a Carrier in my opinion:
It's got a shape that does not make it impossible to hit, it's got a moderate hull, and most importantly it has many many secondaries which should be a characteristic for Carriers. the Atlantis alone is not a real threat, but an Atlantis defending other Capitalships from incoming bombers while having a Drone on the enemy Capitals can be very annoying to take out.
Last words are for fools who have not yet said enough.
