Capital Ship Point Defense

[Tenacity]

@ Tenacity, as I told you numerous times now, Order Carrier can not be flown alone, it simply can't. I was getting the impression that Order build some 1-2 that are used only as combat support. You want it to be a "mini-battleship" and try to change all cruiser guns according to that, which won't really happen. It got armor increase to survive longer in the support role, it can get some similar means for the same purpose (surviving and/or running). But no it won't be getting any more deadly.

Better point defense = better survivability.

I've done a lot of pvp practice in the past few days with other order pilots of varying ship types. Here's the results:

-I cannot kill fighters. They cant kill me either unless it's a swarm of a half dozen fighters all with shieldbusters and razors, but that's how it should be, fighters are not designed for going against caps. The biggest issue I have with fighters right now is ramming, because despite the so called 'fix' for capship spinning, we still spin when bumped by anything smaller.

-I cannot kill bombers. Solaris turrets or not, I might be able to down a single bomber if he isnt good at dodging, and it does take a rather long time for a single bomber to kill me, but two or more bombers would completely wreck that ship and it's helpless defending against them. As said before, solaris turets dont have enough range to keep the bombers at a distance where the carrier can dodge supernovas, it's simply too big and lacks manuverability here.
For comparison, the carrier is roughly 30% LARGER than an osiris, with less shielding, less armor, and no flak guns available to it. It has all the weaknesses of a battleship, with none of the advantages of a battleship or cruiser. People keep using the other battlecruisers/cruisers as justification for lack of improvement to the carrier, and that simply does not work - the liberty battlecruiser is, literally, half the size of the carrier. That means it can avoid supernovas 50% easier than the carrier can, and it also gets more effective range out of it's solaris turrets.

Understandably, the issue here is that improving any of the weapons available to the carrier will overpower other battlecruisers and cruisers because they use the same weapons and dont have the unique disadvantages the carrier has. I realize that nothing can really be done to the weapons themselves without wrecking balance for other ships, but that doesnt mean that nothing should be done to improve the carrier itself.

-The largest gunboats (order gunboat, primarily) are a fair challenge. It's difficult for them to kill me, but it's just as difficult for me to kill them. Cruiser razors dont really seem all that effective in their anti-gunboat role, a single razor hit against an order gunboat hull might take around 1/8th of it's hull down, and the things have a ridiculous recharge time. However, right now I'd say things are fine between the carrier and large gunboats, if I get a lucky mortar hit in after shields go down I can kill them in a single shot.

However, smaller gunboats are impossible to hit with light mortars and razors alike. I honestly think that cruiser razors need a projectile speed buff to be effective against small gunboats/gunships, which from what I gathered on the capship weapons post is what they are MEANT to be used for. Right now, with the right setup, most of the small gunboats could probably solo the carrier with enough time.

-Cruisers are my perfect enemy. The order cruiser (destroyer, technically) is one of the smallest, with only the kusari destroyer being smaller sized, and I can beat that cruiser one on one every single time. Larger cruisers would be far easier to kill IMO, but I havent fought any yet. Right now, cruisers seem to be the only class of ship that I have 100% success against.

-Battlecruisers - I've fought a few other carriers and one lib bc, and so far it seems to go about 50/50. Considering we're the same class of ship, as far as game mechanics go, this seems fine.

-Battleships I have zero chance against. If Cruiser missiles worked as intended, and if they didnt take me almost 50% of my energy to fire, I -might- be able to kill the weakest battleships in an extremely extended fight. I'm not really complaining here though, the carrier doesnt need to be able to kill battleships, no battlecruiser should take them one on one. The nice thing is that, with the carrier's thruster, I can at least escape from lone battleships now that they dont have cruise disruptors or thrusters.


So, my three greatest opponents: Bombers, Small Gunboats, Battleships.

What I'm asking for - An improvement to cruiser razors so that they're more effective against small gunboats, and some kind of improvement to the carrier in particular so that it can at least survive a single bomber.

I think the cruiser razors need a speed buff to around 1200m/s, I dont think that's unreasonable considering battleship razors are 1600m/s right now. Razors are extremely inefficient with extremely long refire times, so it'd be nice to actually hit the enemy when I fire them - I shouldnt have to be 200m from the target to hit a small gunboat with a razor shot.

As far as improving the carrier itself goes, I'm fairly stuck here. I know that we cant feasibly improve the weaponry because that would overpower other ships, but at the same time something still needs to be done. The armor boost was a good start, but not enough - one of the biggest issues I have right now is that as soon as my measly 250k shields go down, my screen shakes so bad that I couldnt hit a battleship at point blank range, so all that extra hull strength really does me little good in a fight.

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