I don't think we should chew out the FL battleships, Some of them actually make sense ( wow, I'm saying this...?).
Battleships are NOT a checkmate move... The commander of the Hood tried that, it was totally obliterated, and taken over by the IMG, Battleships are good when properly supported, a Battleship should not be the answer to a fleet of fighters, a fleet of gunboats or a fleet of light fighters should be the answer.
Battleships need not be "uberised", they're fine as they are, though, Jinx's idea might be cool, a battleship in itself is no entire battle group, its one ship, if it's unsuported, yes, fighters and bombers will "chew off" its hull.
And, maybe your an amazing bomber pilot, or the battleship commander didn't have a clue, but, most people CAN'T take down a battleship shield in an unsupported bomber. You need 2 or 3 bombers to take down a Battleship. And why do the battleships need a range increase...? They're already quite long range...
And, Jinx, you're not... >_> The Battleships are FINE the way they are.
Making the battleships "realistic" is about keeping them bad to a certain degree, the Liberty Navy don't spam battleships in Freelancer, they have LOTS of battlegroups, why? Because they're supposed to be for DEFENCE mainly, losing a battleship is a hideous loss, I reckon a hundred people man a Battleship, losing a fighter, thats one person, losing a gunboat, thats maybe 5 or 10 people, losing a cruiser..? A mere 30-50, losing a battleship...? Now that ****s you up, but, right now, losing a battleship is no less painful than losing a fighter, except the nanobots and shield bats cost more to replace, if we had to have about 5 people in each battleship, maybe taking control of a few turrets each, then, you'd have a much more realistic situation, but, well, FL won't do that basicly, one person controls one battleship...
From what I see, they're supposed to take down other battleships, and they serve as a mobile command centre, you can dock on a battleship in SP, that's their main use, not just pwning everything, its a support ship.
