Tutorial: Capital Ship Etiquette

[sindroms]

Welcome to my tutorial. Please note that all of the information below comes from one player and, as such, cannot guarantee absence of bias. Actually, this tutorial, as you will see in a moment, is biased as hell.

The tutorial I have prepared for you today comes from my own experience and should be taken as a rough guide in joint with other sources. I will try my best to keep personal preferences out of the tutorial and explain things as they are seen by the majority of the community, but at this point you should understand that in essence it is me basically explaining things how I think the community sees them. You have been warned.






CAPITAL SHIP ETIQUETTE TUTORIAL
In memorium of the "So you want to buy a capital ship" thread





If you have been a part of the Discovery Freelancer community and server for at least a few months, chances are that you already own a capital ship. Unlike other games such as, for example, EvE Online, you do not require a certain ''level'' or ''experience'' to obtain one of these powerful ships. In Disco, the only thing that limits your progression when it comes to ship type is the size of your wallet.

Though perhaps at this point you have also noticed how the overall interaction between players has changed. People treat you a lot more differently when you are piloting one of these flying fortresses....and not in the best way.
Capital ships in by themselves have always been a very controversial topic in our community and have been the core of many flamewars and inner-community arguments, which have often spiraled out of control. Indeed, even after years and years since they have been implemented, the capital ships, even though they are one of the largest additions the Discovery Mod brings to the game (no pun intended), remain in that grey area of where we as a community do not really know what to do with them.

There are many opinions as to what the role of a capital ship is and whether or not it was a beneficial addition to our game, but at least one thing is very certain- capital ships over the years have attracted a very negative stigma, which new players usually have hard time understanding. The purpose of this tutorial is to explain how this happened and how you can try and escape or at least reduce this negativity Capital Ships have attracted in order to make your own gameplay on these ships much more enjoyable not only for yourself but also the players around you.





WHAT IS THE CAPITAL SHIP STIGMA?

If you already happen to own a capital ship, chances are you already have experienced some of the negative aspects of flying one. The moment you create a character with a capital ship, you are put under a magnifying lens.

What this means is that every single thing you do will be contextualized by the other players with the "As a Cap" prefix attached to it, as well as every mistake you make is doubly judged if you fly a capital ship.

Perhaps you have already noticed how hostile-IDed characters often roleplay with you while throwing around taunts such as "Fat guy in a big ship" or how your captain "Lacks arms to fly a snub?" or similar callouts and how they repeat them to an obsessive degree, as if to hint to you you, that these insults are directed to you as a player? Then you have experienced the stigma firsthand.

Every single player flying a capital ship will go through this. Perhaps even every time they undock with their capital ship. This is unavoidable and there is a certain ''story'' as to why this is a thing.




"THE STORY"
Long read.

Origins of the Capship stigma

Let us go back to early 2008 (because this is the earliest I personally can remember). The mod version 4.84 has been out for a couple of months now and it is the second large update, which focuses on RP and, apart from new goodies, also adds tons of lore to the gameworld. While new pilotable capital ships were added by every update thus far, the 84 update added capital ships to almost every single faction.

Though capital ships back in 2008 were not at all as they are now. The currently used Turret Zoom and Turret Steering did not exist for the next few years, so capital ship PVP was not as good until 4.85 hit. The small choice of viable loadouts also hindered their usefulness in general and overall, capital ships were simply large transports, which happened to have large guns and small cargo holds.

But make no mistake- they were still popular and quite used. While many players flying them were newbies, who simply did not know better and sought out to get the largest ships they could, only to find how useless they were and sell them off again, other players did fly them quite often for a completely different reason. 4.84 was a mod version, which still focused mainly on snubcraft as the everyday ship and the PVP itself was still very similar to vanila Freelancer. There were very many good PVPers, who often flew around and looking for a fight.

Back in 2008, server rules regarding PVP interactions were a lot more strict than they are now. A player, who lost a fight would have to leave the system for 4 hours. And that is not all. A PVP ''death'' constituted not only being blown up by another player, but also engaging cruise engines during an engagement or otherwise ''fleeing'' out of range of the attacker. There was no way to ''escape'' a combat scenario.

And this is where capital ships came in. While they were almost completely useless in PVP, the biggest reason why people flew them was because of their survivability. It was almost completely impossible for a lone snubcraft, no matter how good of a player flying it, to take out a capital ship. And so caps became a safe heaven for players with low pvp skills, who actively flew them in order to avoid lone hostiles looking for a cheap kill, especially during the mornings, when the server activity was lower.

Needless to say, this sort of thing angered the snubcraft players a lot. It did not take long for the usage of a capital ship to be compared to being a newbie player or an unskilled one. There was an ever increasing gap between snub and capital ship flyers and now it was fueled with the pvp elite specifically teaming up to hunt down these players regardless of what kind of caps they flew. Capital ships soon became targets for huge raids and nobody really was inclined to feel any pity for them.

However, the hate towards capital ships was not just because they were a way to avoid skilled players from killing you, otherwise the argument would be way too one-sided. It did not take long for players to start getting back at the so called ''pvp elite'' for their current position and the server rules at the time offered them just that. Since a player could not flee from an engagement without losing the battle, capital ship players started actively hunting down lone fighters. The players, who had great PVP skills and were looking for a fight quickly learned that if they were caught by a capital ship, all the cap had to do was to sit back, cross their arms and wait for the snubcraft to fly away. There was no way for a lone fighter to force the capital ship to flee. The rules were on their side.

Not only this sparked a huge flame war and an even bigger dislike towards capital ships and the players behind them, it also was one of the driving forces for the elimination of that specific rule and the implementation of the Cruise Drain system, which did not allow capital ships to cruise up to fleeing targets.

At that point, the fighter pilots could mock capital ships full force once more. While they themselves could not easily kill those players, they themselves could not be killed and both sides knew who was the ''more skilled player'' at the time.

Until Turret Steering/Turret Zoom happened. This new mechanic flipped the table in more ways than one. One could only imagine just how it felt for the ''snub elite'' to have been ridiculing the playerbase that flew capital ships for years, only to suddenly realize one that "Oh god. These things hurt!". They were not safe anymore. It is hard to explain how odd it was to realize that hugging a capital ship was not an option anymore, that their weapons at that range hit flawlessly regardless of what kind of dodging you did or what skills you happened to possess and while it was possible to avoid capital ship fire by out-running them, it was clear that they were now a dangerous opponent, regardless of the player's skill. This made skilled PVPers burn through their seats in anger.

Snub pilots realized the change. Capital ship pilots realized the change. The bridges were burned and now we are where we are, both sides sitting on either side of a long table with enough distance between each other in order to wave their swords around, but close enough to tickle someone's chin with the tip of the blade. One side became ''pvp/snub purists/elitists'' while the other side was "unskilled/aimbot-using".

This overall dislike towards capital ships is transferred to new players via interaction with veteran players. They are taught, that hating capital ships is "cool" and normal. Obviously, players who happen to fly these ships would beg to differ.

The point of the story above is to give you a small backstory as to where this overall negativity came from and, most importantly, whether or not it is still relevant at this day and age, where the server rules and game mechanics are much more different.

This overall negativity by the community was and remains one of the biggest challenges for a new player once they start flying a capital ship.


TECHNICAL QUIRKS aka "Price VS Usefulness"

It would be completely redundant to say that captal ships are different from snubcraft in terms of how they are flown and used. But at this point it should be noted, that when it comes to setting up a cap, the mentality itself is something completely different.

Capital ships, unlike snubcraft, sacrifice their overall agility and the ability to avoid damage in exchange for raw firepower. The compensation, as you might have guessed by now, is the hitpoint pool and nanobot/Battery count.

This presents a certain problem for new players, who finally saved up a capital ship, only to find out that equipping one (regardless of size) is a very pricey endeavor. Like most large ships, capital ships need a good armor upgrade. Since the armor upgrade system works by applying a multiplyer to a ships existing hitpoint pool, a good armor upgrade can mean the difference of many thousands of hitpoints.

Just for the sake of example, a Liberty Dreadnought (840,000 Hitpoints) without armor can withstand a Supernova Antimatter Cannon (132,000 damage) only 7 times. An Universal Armor Upgrade 8 (2,5 multiplier) will increase the number to 16 shots, while a Heavy Armor Upgrade 8 (4,0 multiplier) will increase the number to 26 shots. (Note, the example does not take bot/battery usage into account)

However, this also means that the smaller the capital ship is, the less difference an armor upgrade makes. While you should still strive for the best one you can afford, a gunboat (for example) can be comfortably flown with a HAU IV upgrade, while a cruiser would need at least a HAU V or VI.

Protip.
The armor upgrade you use on your capital ship can show how experienced you are as a player. A cruiser with a cheap heavy armor upgrade Mark II gives off the vibe, that you are a new player and just bought the ship and had no money left for an armor upgrade.


There is always a heated argument going around the actual usefulness of capital ships. Some players are quick to state, that it is completely absurd to throw out a billion credits for a battleship, when the same anti-capital-ship effect can be achieved with a pair of bombers, which can be set up for 60 million credits in-between the two.

However, the usual argument against that is that while the two bombers can achieve the same result, a battleship can do it a lot faster. Even two bombers need some time to kill a fully decked out battleship, while another properly equipped battleship can do the same under a minute, especially if they have invested in a cloak.




SETTING UP A CAPITAL SHIP


While this tutorial will not offer any specific tips on PVP with a capital ship, we still need to touch upon the subject of what the many types of capital ships are usually used for.


Below is a VERY SIMPLISTIC description of all the classes.

types of caps

Gunboats
Being the smallest and cheapest of capital ships, these are usually the first ones a new player might get. While not sporting too much in terms of armor, the ships themselves are agile enough to survive against larger capital ships if they keep a healthy distance. SOLARIS turrets have a small range, but high projectile speed, giving you the edge over small craft (including other gunboats), while the BASIC gunboat turrets are often used to kite larger capital ships.

Cruisers/Destroyers
This particular group of capital ships are considered one of the more balanced one. While they are a lot larger and slower than gunboats, they are still agile enough to evade fire at a good enough distance. Their weapons of choice are Cerberus turrets, which allow dealing damage to other capital ships over distance. Alternatively, the player can also use Razors for surprising snubcraft and gunboats if they get close enough.

Battlecruisers
A rather specific subspecies of the Cruiser, the battlecruiser sports more heavy weapon slots (Including two battleship primary turret slots) and can be devastating if it gets up close to cruisers, their thrust speed similar and thus not allowing the later to get distance from the BC. The tradeoff is the huge drop in agility, while the hitpoint pool stays roughtly the same, making these caps an easier target for battleships if they do not watch their back.

Light Battleships
These ships are usually shaped differently than their heavy counterparts and rely on strafing and rear-view fire, rather than charging other battleships head-on. Their size also makes using anti-snub weapons such as solaris turrets a viable choice. Like all battleships, their primary weapons are Battleship Cerberus turrets and Primary Turrets, which are usually never fired alongside their other guns due to energy consumption.

Heavy Battleships
These ships work best with large armor upgrades, allowing them to tank damage, while they go in close and unload all of their twenty-something turrets into the target. Their size, however, makes them a very easy target for cruisers and smaller battleships if they can keep distance. Their huge amount of secondary turrets, however, makes them lethal to gunboats and cruisers, if they get too close.

Choosing a faction is always of great importance, when it comes to capital ships. Since the ship itself is pricey, you sort of want to invest in one you can use often enough for that money to feel worth spent. If you are looking for active battlefields, Liberty and Rheinland are good choices due to the war, while GRN are also an emerging front in Bretonia.

Naming your capital ship is not as easy as it sounds at first. Most, if not all, factions have a certain guideline for capital ship names. Not only that, but independent capital ship players are encouraged to use a tag in front of their name for easier collaboration during group fights and raids.
For example, LNS-NAME is used by Liberty Navy capships, while RNC-NAME is used by the Rheinland Military.
The name itself also is often very specific to the faction. Liberty Navy, for example, names their ships after large rivers and lakes of the current US.

The captain's name is a Cap-centric quirk, which was given birth in the late 4.83s, where the addition of the captain's name before your post was often seen as a form of good roleplay. While this is not absolutely necessary, it is still seen as something along the lines of a secret handshake and is an unwritten rule, when it comes to ''good'' capital ship players.

Equipping your capital ship is different from player to player, but most of the people I personally have encountered, take some sort of pride for their ship, giving it the best possible armor, gadgets and so on. Most of these items are not just for decoration, however. Cloaking Devices and Jump Drives are often used in battle and having either one or the other is often than not mandatory for Battleships.

Joining official factions with a capital ship is mostly impossible. Most official factions have a strict no-cap policy these days and those who do not often fall under the same dramalama indie cap users do. It should be avoided.




PRACTICALITY

Oh boy. This word.
When people discuss how Capital Ships are and what is the role of those ships in Disco, someone is always going to bring up the topic of practicality. The problem with that is that the word is misleading.
The first association with that word is whether or not you should bother buying a capital ship, if the investment outweighs the benefit. However, in most topics, the discussion of practicality mostly boils down whether or not you can create a character with a capital ship and use them as a daily driver, so to speak.
Can you play only with a cap?
This is, oddly enough, very hard to answer. There are plenty of players who do this, obviously, but most of them are remembered for all the wrong reasons. Playing only with a capital ship limits you a lot and below you will find as to why.




PVP ETIQUETTE or "Things that apply to you, but nobody else"

This is where things start to become controversial. As we already saw in the Story, the interaction between capital ships and snub players is often the starting point for most cap-related arguments. There are some sort of unwritten rules, but most of these tend to contradict one another. I will try my best to describe the more popular ones, which are viewed as ''acceptable''.

I. Anti-Snub loadouts exist. Anti-Snub caps - do not.

Unless we are talking about gunboats- caps, which are specifically designed to combat snubcraft, shooting snubs in a capital ship is a huge taboo. This makes the usage of anti-snub orientated loadouts very iffy and if you happen to fly a cruiser with all solaris turrets and razors, people will wrinkle their noses upon scanning you.
A battleship, for example, has all rights to use solaris turrets for defense against bombers, but never ever would you be allowed to fly into a group of fighting snubs to help your fellow ID users.


2. Never ''help'' your snubcraft against other snubcraft.

This is one of those things, that new players in caps tend to misunderstand the most. While it seems normal to help an allied player against a hostile, you should first examine the situation before you jump into the fight. Many snub pilots enjoy duels and should be given the chance to bump horns with the hostile without help. Usually, if a player needs help, they will tell you to do so. Simply a few K outside the battle and saying that you are ''Standing By'' is more than enough and will often earn you bonus brownie points from both sides.


3. Giving bots and batteries to your snubs during a group fight is bad. Not giving bots and bats during a fight makes your fellow ID users angry at you.

There is no way you can win against this one. Giving bots and batteries is considered as harmful as it is useful. Some call it a cheap way to ruin a snubfight balance, while others call it strategy. The opinion differs from group to group, so just ask beforehand, though be ready to be yelled at by the other side for ruining a fight.


4. Ganking does not work both ways.

Due to the nature of a capital ship, ganking often does not apply to you. People can go mental if you sick two fighters on one snub, but they will not even hesitate to order caps or bombers to focus target on an enemy cap. This is just how it works. You need multiple people to efficiently take out a single cap. Cap ''duels'' are very rare.


5. Following orders.

This one is fairly simple. Being a captail ship, you have access to huge amounts of firepower, but unless you coordinate it, it will have a negative impact during a fight. Make sure you know who is the primary target, who should be shooting who. Going commando will make your own ID peeps quite upset.


6. Capital ships do not have authority.

This is another very hard habit to get rid of. When a person first buys a capital ship, they cannot help but to feel important. That they have achieved something that other players haven't. This sort of mentality, however, is very flawed. I have personally seen many newbies in capital ships tell other players of their own ID to bugger off, because they have a larger ship. Needless to say, said people were quickly enough removed from the group and in group fights were left alone to die.


7. In an argument against a snub-flying player, you will never be right.

You just won't. Plain and simple.


8. Capital ships are the noobtoob of Disco.

Or in other words, you are not good at pvp, if you fly a capship. Apart from what we already learned from the Story, capital ships in by themselves do not require as much experience to fly than snubcraft do. Keep that in mind the next time you are about to say how good you are in caps. It means little to nothing in Disco. Capital ships and how their mechanics are currently designed, give less-pvp-experienced players an alternative to be blue-bait to more experienced players.

POPULAR MISTAKES REGARDING CAPITAL SHIPS

Due to their size and power and cost, capital ships are often a goal for many new players, because they seem like endgame content. Needless to say, they are not. The fact that they are so very attractive to new players makes them a huge.

1. Learn turret steering and turret zoom and other essentials before getting a cap.

These game mechanics are obligatory to piloting capital ships in today's Disco. Movement, weapon grouping, weapon speeds and so on. Skim over all of it. You will need it. Nothing discouraged more than a player shooting razors and primary turrets in the same group.



2. Flexibility is often far worse than specialization.

The moment you make a capital ship to do X and Y, it will never do either of them well. You are instantly making a support ship. Support ships never win against specialized ships in a one-on-one fight.


3. If you have a battleship, get at least one flak turret.

Nova torpedoes not only do a lot of damage, they also rip off your guns and equipment. Getting at least one flak turret is essential.


4. Capital Ship Thrusters have less efficiency, but ten times the hitpoints.

Nova torpedoes, again, hurt a lot. Their explosion range is huge and often than not, the first thing that gets ripped off is the Thruster. If you are a cruiser, losing your thruster is a death sentence.


5. A capital ship you are saving up for costs X and another 20 million credits.

Buying your capital ship, only to realize that you have no more money left for guns is not fun. Personal experience talking there.


6. Never underestimate the power of focused fire.

A group of VHFs will ruin your day, even if you are in a HAU8 battleship. Seriously.


7. Cloaked battleships are a thing. Watch your back.

If you feel like the group of hostiles are purposefully pulling you further and further away from a friendly base and into nowhere, make sure that you are in a ship that can either tank or evade enemy battleship fire.


8. Capital ships are worse than snubs.

And never ever try to argue against that.

CONCLUSIONS

As already mentioned before, Capital Ships are and remain a very odd part of Discovery. Piloting one makes you become almost sub-human to most players on Disco. The stigma is there and it doesn't seem like it is going to go anywhere for a while now.

One could argue that it was a mistake to add these ships to a game centered around snubcraft PVP, but regardless of what could have been done, we need to address what has been done and deal with it.








There remains one more issue we need to discuss.....

Everything written above is what the overall standpoint of the community is towards capital ships. Limitations on pvp, limitations on RP.

But there is another way to fly a cap. You can simply buy the ship and fly it as you want. Because it is your character and nobody has the right to tell you what is right and what is wrong, when it is your money, time and effort you have put into it. As long as you follow the server rules, any whining about what is right and what is wrong etiquette-wise is just wind. Take it for what it is.


~Spazzy

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PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
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[Garrett Jax]

I liked, "The Story", Origins of the Capship stigma. I remember buying my first Cap ship. I read that old forum thread, "So you want to buy a capital ship" before I made my purchase. I tried to be very careful not to stick my cap nose where it wasn't wanted and unintentionally anger people. I also had to be wary of 'cap killers', particularly since I flew under the LNS tag. The stigma against caps was quite high at the time.

I quickly discovered that the least offensive use of my cap ship was as an RP tool and that opportunities to use my ship 'legitimately' in pvp were not as frequent as I had hoped. I could have perpetuated the hate against caps by attacking unlawful snubs every chance I got, but it didn't seem quite sporting, blasting the small guy just because I could.

After awhile, as was mentioned in the thread, "So you want to buy a capital ship", I got bored with it and went back to snubs.

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[Gondoros]

When I first started playing Disco, I thought, yeah a battleship, that's what I want, even though I saw some tutorials, including yours, which clearly stated that caps are not the goal in disco. I was warned, but did not care, I wanted my cap. Learned the hard way that it is not in fact that big of a deal, quite the contrary, it lessens the interaction quality, if , first you are an indie, and second, you don't know what's what in a cap.
So I gave up on caps, focused on snubs, and enjoyed them much more, even though I'm not that good.
But, as time passed, I felt the caps calling again. Now that I've had a bit of experience (still much to gain), I'm confident that I can get some decent gaming out of a cap, with all the restrictions that they come with. Now I may be disappointed again (I'm sure it won't take long), but heck there's just something about them. I mean, if your focus is RP, you could actually have a lot of fun, cause PvP wise, not that much going, if you plan on going by the unwritten laws around here.
Funny thing is , I don't feel that way about snubs. I don't love'm now and hate them later like caps. The lure for snubs is a constant, unlike the one for caps which is like the weather.

[Connor]

Just had a quick look on the forums and i saw this. I was originally going to make one of these just for PvP but i decided to post bone it. Anyway, I've got a few things to point out, being an experienced Cap PvPer myself. I can, if i get time to reinstall everything and borrow a few ships, make a few cap videos on PvP. Don't expect it though.

Protip.
The armor upgrade you use on your capital ship can show how experienced you are as a player. A cruiser with a cheap heavy armor upgrade Mark II gives off the vibe, that you are a new player and just bought the ship and had no money left for an armor upgrade

This isn't always true. As you go on to mention further down in the post, newbies like to aim for the "end game" product which would be a suited and booted cap which involves the BS, weapons, BS Scanner and a Cap 8. Most of the experienced players i know like to fly around with Cap 6's because Cap 8's are just to expensive. Quite often people are surprised when they engaged a low armored Cap. I know i have fought several people with Haus and once even armourless and they wiped the floor.

Personally, a good indication of experience is whether or not the user has Pulses.

I. Anti-Snub loadouts exist. Anti-Snub caps - do not.

You don't really make it very clear here, because there are effective ways of using your battleship as an Anti Snub platform without pissing of people. As part of an old BAF/LN agreement, BAF were given 2 Carriers to use. I was given privileged to fly one under the BAF| tag. We RPed her out as an FoB (Forward Operating Base) which had a variety of anti snub weapons including a mixture of Solaris (Gatling and Cannons) along with Razors. I would often station her in the cloud and act as a command and control unit and a retreat zone where I'd cover our snubs if they're slowing dieing whilst they escaped.

6. Capital ships do not have authority.

Well, some of them do. You might want to mention that Official faction caps are usually flown by high ranking characters so ignoring them would be somewhat unwise.

7. In an argument against a snub-flying player, you will never be right.

You just won't. Plain and simple.

Yeah... No.

capital ships in by themselves do not require as much experience to fly than snubcraft do.

Well, yes they do and in some cases it's harder (Not all though). You require more tactics when flying in a Capital vessel because on mistake will end you, where as in a snub you can sometimes come back from it. Snub fights usually last alot longer than Cap fights do, especially when it's BS vs BS. Learning these tactics and weaknesses of ships is one thing, but utilizing them makes you a good Cap PvPer and some of these can be quite hard to do so.

2. Flexibility is often far worse than specialization.

The moment you make a capital ship to do X and Y, it will never do either of them well. You are instantly making a support ship. Support ships never win against specialized ships in a one-on-one fight.

That's not always true because you can have a BS with Full cerbs and Prims/Pulses to take out Capital Vessels and Solaris/Gatling to take out snubs.

3. If you have a battleship, get at least one flak turret.

Nova torpedoes not only do a lot of damage, they also rip off your guns and equipment. Getting at least one flak turret is essential.

I would honestly change this to something along the lines of "Get so many flaks so that you have at least one firing in every direction".

8. Capital ships are worse than snubs.

And never ever try to argue against that.

Yeah, again. No. It depends how you play and use your cap. For instance, if you intend to RP with it then that's great or if you want to pew other Caps then yeah. However, they are worse then snubs when you shuve them into a FAIR snub fight.

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[E X O D I T E]

5. A capital ship you are saving up for costs X and another 20 million credits.

Buying your capital ship, only to realize that you have no more money left for guns is not fun. Personal experience talking there.

I think it would be a bit more than that. A snub costs X + 40.75 (give or take) million (15 for UAU8, 25 for Cheetah, 750k (give or take) for weapons) credits.
If you're flying a capship without an AU, you deserve to die.

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User was banned for: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=182360
Time left: (Permanent)

[Trevor McFallon]

Well, as for the exp I have with them flying without an AU is not only wasteful but psychotic. For example, a Corsair Dread with a Cap 8 will withstand the brutality of a novatorp equipped bomber only because the pilot may very well run out of ammo before you even touch your shield replenishment.
A battle cruiser working alongside a Cap8 equipped dread will suffer staggering damage if not properly equipped with the right AU. I too, speak from experience. The battle cruiser took some serious damage from the opposing gunboats that had it not been for the backup from the Dread, it would have popped like a thin skinned balloon! AU is essential as the capacity of the cargo hold is not the idea, in regards to trying to make a buck by trade in a Cap. Bad form, period. IF transport is an issue it should be for sensitive and pricey cargo such as SCIDaTa, etc. 3 million a pop? You bet your sweet arse you want it in a properly equipped Cap that can get thru iffy territory ID-wise and if it's a big dollar item, then spend the big dollars and get that puppy cloaked. Then too, if said cargo is going thru iffy territory consider a snub or light freighter that has some ponies behind it. In other words, consider a Dromedary at 425k speeds or the Sunburst. Healthy speeds and healthy loadouts.

That is all....
McFallon

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Always remember to shoot at other humans. The nomads love you for it and telepathically radiate the amusement they feel for the stupidity of the human race. So much for leaving the prejudices and warmongering behind when we polluted Sirius space with our stench.

[Traxit]

4. Ganking does not work both ways.

Due to the nature of a capital ship, ganking often does not apply to you. People can go mental if you sick two fighters on one snub, but they will not even hesitate to order caps or bombers to focus target on an enemy cap. This is just how it works. You need multiple people to efficiently take out a single cap. Cap ''duels'' are very rare.


5. Following orders.

This one is fairly simple. Being a captail ship, you have access to huge amounts of firepower, but unless you coordinate it, it will have a negative impact during a fight. Make sure you know who is the primary target, who should be shooting who. Going commando will make your own ID peeps quite upset.

6. Never underestimate the power of focused fire.

A group of VHFs(any shipclass really) will ruin your day, even if you are in a HAU8 battleship. Seriously.

Out of this gigantic eye-killing wall of text, these are the best highlights.

And obviously knowing how to turret steer.


Take notes, newbies.

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The best Video Game OST
Just Got Better

[Hubjump]

Can we lock this outdated grave dig?
Also Traxit you forgot to highlight this too. Else yes what Traxit highlighted and this quote are the only things worth taking from this out dated post.
And don't get involved with snub fights.

3. If you have a battleship, get at least one flak turret.

Nova torpedoes not only do a lot of damage, they also rip off your guns and equipment. Getting at least one flak turret is essential.

[Diablo666Daemon666]

My problem with Capital Ships is simple.
Every muppet in the game thinks having one is THE BEST THING EVER.

They spend hours grinding money just to get one, then bitch and whine every time their full ship is blown to smithereens.
These things need to be removed.

Other than small-ish Freighters and Gunboats, there should be NO ability to get one of these things.
That goes for RP or not.

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"He who controls the past commands the future, He who commands the future, conquers the past."
- Kane, Brotherhood Of NOD.

[Busy Miner]

My problem with Capital Ships is simple.
Every muppet in the game thinks having one is THE BEST THING EVER.

They spend hours grinding money just to get one, then bitch and whine every time their full ship is blown to smithereens.
These things need to be removed.

Other than small-ish Freighters and Gunboats, there should be NO ability to get one of these things.
That goes for RP or not.

I would call this a non-sequitur fallacy in arguing.