One concept a see, here and there about caps is that they should stay in thier home systems is wrong.
Folks have it backwards here because they want to do some gundamn wing fly by the seat of thier pants action. The fact of the matter is battleships(which function as carriers as well) are supposed to be at the vanguard of a assault fleet.
Lets look at modern military uses of great ships. We do not patrol our boarder waters with carriers and send gunboats out into the deep sea. Ig anything I'd say the ships dont need so much changeing but the pilots do.
It seems that some want the balance to be adjusted so that they can have thier dog fights WWII style.
According to Trents journals it takes months to cross surius useing common routes and trade lanes. With that in mind fighters, bomber and similar strike craft should be the ones staying home. They simply do not have the resources and facilities to accomidate such long trips.
By resources I mean not enough food, no gallies, no latrines, no beds, no where to excercise to keep muscles from atrophy. I think for better RP and because many folks, when they arrive come here to try the things they could not before. IE: capital ships. Many are finished with fighters after beating SP 20 times. Now some folks fall in to that inverse E-Peen of smaller ships = better RP.
The fact of the matter is the bigger ships would be seen abroad MUCH more often the the fighters. Just as many more people in the world have seen a U.S. aircraft carrier than one of our missle frigates or patrol boats up close.
Now heres some blasphemy. It would not be terrible if the majority of the server were in capital ships. This would cause no problems at all. The only thing this may damage is if your bent on gundam wing style antics and cannot find an opponet. But if you have good RP for one of those strike craft then there should be no problem.
As for some of the practical uses of capitol ships besides real tactics and logistics. It's nice to be able to RP with out getting killed by NPCs. Capital ships can stay safe from most of them if they keep moveing.
Bottom line when an attack fleet moves in to do battle it is rather rediculous to see a all fighter bomber wing attack anywhere. Capital ships were ment to be the tip of the spear as it were.
In terms of numbers. We must consider the NPCs too. They are part of our universe. Thus there are already thousands of fighters out in space. Enough to justify everyone being in at least a gunboat. Yet not everyone will use capitol ships as fighters when supported by a cap make great recon ships, transport are superior for tradeing. You need bombers to multiply a fleets capabilities against another. I have found with some of my faction mates that 1 gunboat, 1 HF, and 1 Bomber is a very deadly combonation. Able to kill most threats of any size not number.
Right now the idea of fighters and bombers being the star of the show is the problem. They are only the star of any show thats about only fighters and bombers. Robotech, Gundam, and Macross. But one game that has an accurate idea of ship balance is the Homeworld series. There fighters are important but you dont just send a swarm and own everything. When it comes down to it the gunboat is the most used warship then the criuser, then the fighters/bombers, and finally the battleship.
Nerfing ZOIs is the wrong answer. We dont need to nerf those ZOIs only because noobs get capships. Noobs will be delt with by the rules and if a player is hell bent on being in a fighter or bomber then they must understand they cannot be top dog. The days of fighters getting brownie points for saying "look how little gear I can RP in" is over. It is harder to RP in a fighter an thier is less plausible RP to be done in one. If you nerf your self to strike craft only then accept it or get a capitol ship and show the noobs how to RP them.
But lets avoid these twisted rules and blurry reasoning for keeping capitol ships out of the game so folks can have thier flea fights with out being killed by a hostile cap when the fact is they simply werent prepared. If a house gets 10 of thier fighters owned by a couple caps thats thier own fault for not fielding the right compliment.
Capital ships were never designed to stay home. They were designed to bring the home of the war machine as close to the battle front as possible and survive while haveing the firepower to repel all but the most cordinated attacks.
![[Image: Harvester00acopy.jpg]](http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a261/jc_lehner/Photoshop%20requests/Harvester00acopy.jpg)