New ship plans

[Bass_masta992]

The catch of Freelancer is ships in space. New ships for factions are made all the time, most fitting to a mold made by preexisting ships. Lets break that open.

Post ideas of new types of ships, Whether that is a new class, new 'abilities' of ships. Don't just say "More firepower" or "Better range" etc. etc. Make something that is actually different. CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM ONLY, IF AN IDEA HAS BEEN PROVEN IMPOSSIBLE, SAY SO, BUT DON'T PUT DOWN SOMEONE ELSE'S IDEA. Build off of others, negativity only hurts progression.

I'll start. War frigates was an idea brought up before by a number of people in the past. The idea in my head for them was a transport sized vessel, possibly undertaking the class 6 weapon role. I use the Valkyrie frigate from Starcraft as an example. The Startcraft Valkyrie is a terran ship that fires a large volley of anti air missiles in bursts, doing very large 'shotgun' damage, high damage very quick, and is especially deadly in groups. That style of gun could easily be incorporated into Freelancer. Guns could be made with a reasonably high damage, with a high refire, moderate/high speed, but very drawing energy drain.

If you could make a 'burst fire' script for a gun, causing it to fire multiple shots per activation, with a drawn out reload rate after that, you could make a high powered burst that would be great against fighters/bombers, and possibly have effectiveness against larger ships in close range. If it were possible to make a weapon have a wider aim reticule, that would be nice to create an area of effect, making it a more fighter capable weapon.

The frigate would not so much be ship original, it could take on a different type of guns for a different type of role. Another weapon could be 'dumbfire' missiels, An AoE missile with decent damage that only flies straight. Would be good for anti capital work. A fighter-able version could be made, just lower damage dumbfire missile with a higher refire rate. Possibly incorperate a detonation range for dumbfire missiles, to act as sort of a moving mine.

Post your own ideas, I want to see some original stuff here.

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[Tenacity]

IMO, frigates would be more of the bridge between gunboats and cruisers, just as battlecruisers are the bridge between cruisers and battleships. Your average battlecruiser is basically a heavy cruiser, with the addition of a pair of battleship hardpoints - but a cruiser in every respect other than that. Likewise, a frigate would essentially be a large gunboat with heavier-than-gunboat armor, and a pair of cruiser turrets with a light cruiser powerplant.

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[Bass_masta992]

Class 6 turrets could be something between bomber an Gunboat, maybe the SHF's could take them on, get their own type of weapons as mentioned above.

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[Linkus]

I would suggest that frigates don't simply become bigger gunboats but rather more specialised gunboats.
EG, whack some torpedo tubes on them instead.

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[Montezuma/Kukulcan]

EG, whack some torpedo tubes on them instead.

SNAC weilding gunboats?

Bye bye nicely worked balence...


I think frigates should be to gunboats what battlecruisers are to cruisers, meaning having a large GB poweplant (maybe about 800k - 1 mil), and having 2 cruiser turrets. While having agility somewhere between a gunboat and cruiser.

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[Cris]

Smuggling vessel?

A fast ship with a cargo of 500-600 but still maneuverable and with a thrust good enought to put the police forces to work, it would sacrifice weapons and armor for speed and maneuverability, maybe add it countermeasures and mines.

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[Cameron]

Fast attack craft. Ships of gunboat to frigate size equipped for anti cap work, like the bretonian gunboat from sp with its two forward guns and only a few turrents.

Frigates would be nice too, fleet escort ships made for anti fighter and gunboat work. If transport and gunboat turrents where bumped down a class, we'd have room for frigate turrents that cater to this role. they'd have a higher projectile speed and maybe range than current GB turrents, but a lower refire rate and/or damage output.

[Aoyagi]

Talking about bombers, what about some rather large ship capable of mounting heavy mortar and a few...say class 4 turrets? With a heavy gunboat armor... That could be useful in BS events...sort of.

...just a random idea.

[ophidian]

Actually, having carriers being able to "carry" something would be a "new ship" and would add lots of positive RP and combat values to the game, more than the work it will cause to design. So it would be a positive add. I guess it should be the first ship type to be implemented / altered.

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[Aoyagi]

Actually, having carriers being able to "carry" something would be a "new ship" and would add lots of positive RP and combat values to the game, more than the work it will cause to design. So it would be a positive add. I guess it should be the first ship type to be implemented / altered.

If you mean moving dockable base, I don't think game mechanisms will allow it.