Ship Cripple on Death

[McNeo]

Voted yes.

I think this is an idea with a lot of merit. However, it should be accompanied by a broad strengthening of capital ship abilities, particularly their ability to protect themselves from bombers. Right now, this issue is most prevalent for medium and heavy cruisers, due to their inability to tank bomber damage combined with their mostly lacklustre precision weaponry.

For those who do whore their caps and 'don't want to pay to use them', I wonder if you heard but capital ships tend to take a lot more resources to keep in working order than a fighter. This is reflected in their cost to purchase, and should be reflected in forced repairs. The fear of a 20 odd million credit death bill should be a great discouraging factor to flying your cap in a silly way without support.

First of all, this policy would encourage the formation of groups around capital ship players who have friends. If we're all about teamwork, as the mining changes seem to imply, then this is only a good thing. Secondly, it discourages lots of them flying around at once shooting everything. Thirdly, the increased risk of taking out a cap should enable them to be slightly strengthened according to the estimated bill of one dying (GBs might not be strengthened at all, whereas battleships may receive a modest buff. Light battleships may receive a lesser buff than heavy ones, as heavy ones have more weapon hardpoints and will thus be more costly to repair upon death). Lastly, it won't simply be a cost that people can absorb like, for example, the ballooning cost of actually buying a cap, because it's the people who fly them who decide how much they pay. Those who fly in safe areas, or with a heavy guard may die very rarely, but those who feel the need to go with a Liberty Dreadnought to New Berlin will find themselves paying the price much more frequently.

The cost of repairs is a poor reason to vote no, as that's the entire point of such a policy. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that, on the assumption that the no votes consist mainly of those who can't be bothered to get credits or who fly their cap a lot, that their no vote is misguided and pretty selfish.

Not being able to find escorts is also a rubbish reason to vote negatively. Sina manages to find escorts just fine, to the extent that over the years, he's formed some of the most infamous groups of recent times. If you can't find anyone to play with, then make some friends.

I do hope this proposal is considered (along with a proportional buff to caps according to repair cost), but somehow I doubt it.

Edit: To clarify, until very recently, I owned a few large caps, and had access to a fair deal more. Keeping them safe from exploding wasn't really an issue in my mind (unless it was the Durango, in which case I'd get chewed out by Joe if it died on my watch). In fact, the only thing to act as a discouragement to flying these ships was the impact that dying would have on their "reputation", which is quite superfluous as a reason. Everyone else, without something to protect, would charge. Now, instead of their "reputation", it'll be their wallet. That's a good thing. Promoting caution, prior and strategic thinking and discouraging stupidity are all good things when you deal with caps, and raising the burn rate of credits with even fighters will encourage an increase in trading/mining across the board.

Now, it's almost free to fight in a fighter, and many prefer the razor to the CD. Well what if that razor cost you three million in repairs every time you died eh? Now I can see that balancing the number of razors and CDs I see around, and stop folks in bombers getting involved against an enemy cap with fighter escort (due to the cost of repairing a supernova for example). Sure, the cap might die, but so will most of the bombers, so it encourages each side to pick their battlefield more carefully.

Armour should definitely be exempted from forced repairs though. Just in case that got through by accident.