There will be an Ultimate/Planned Capital Ship Battle (6) Saturday, June 11, 2005, at 7pm GMT. Use Daylight Saving Time (where applicable) to translate the time. We will be using Scenario 2 for this battle.

The final rules can be found here:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/10404

There are going to be some changes for the battle this Saturday:

19:00 GMT All cap ships will spawn at their ready positions:
(UIT -- Azek I-16, Serco -- Initros O-12 and Itani -- Edras H-15
19:15 GMT Cap ships will start moving toward Sedina B8. When the cap ships get to the start positions (UIT = Latos H-2, Serco = Ukari A-10 and Itani = Pelatus K-15) and I announce the start of the battle, the battle will begin.

The battle will begin as close to 7:15 GMT as possible. Please be on time.

Remember you must register with your nation leader before the start of the battle. Only those players that register will be awarded Combat XP and money.

Serco and UIT (especially Serco) make sure you have a leader in place by 7pm GMT. Hopefully at your Cap ship’s spawning position. Since the battle will start earlier I need you to organize quickly. I will disqualify any team that doesn’t have a leader by 7:10pm GMT. (I will be in game by 6:45pm GMT please contact me as soon as you pick someone.)

More info about the changes to the cap ships here:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/10446#119961

The UIT currently hold the record for keeping their cap ship alive the longest. Let’s see if we can break that record :)

I once again want to thank the developers and guides for their help. Without them we wouldn’t have a game at all.

If you want the time changed for the next battle let me know.

I’m only posting here to make sure everyone knows about the battle. Please leave your suggestions, comments and opinions here:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/10581

JB

PS. All donations to the prize fund are welcome. Just see me in game to donate.

As you already know Update 1.2.3.3 was posted earlier today.

There are some major changes to the cap ships that will require some changes to the Ultimate/Planned Capital Ship Battles.

We are using Scenario 1 instead for this battle.

BE ON TIME!!! CAPITAL SHIPS WILL SPAWN IN SEDINA B8 AT 7:15pm GMT. Battle will start at that time.

Serco and UIT leaders it more important then ever that you pick a leader before the battle starts,

Everyone will get 25k for their participation. Consider this a test. I want to continue you to try to make it fair for all sides. But the people tonight have a distinct advantage over the players who weren’t here for the little pre-test.

*** PART SPOILER IF YOU WANT A SURPRISE DON”T READ BELOW ***
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Changes to the cap ships (what we learned tonight after the update)

1. Cap ships are 4 times stronger and so are the turrets.
2. Instant kill beam weapons are used on the turrets now. One to two hits will kill almost any player.
3. Beam range is 750m.
4. Cap ships will now shoot at each other. They will try to get close together and fire on one another.

There are more changes that will be discussed here:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/10606

Apology here:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/8/10614

But make sure you are on time. It is gonna be one heck of a fight!!!

Thanks to Andy and Michael for making the changes. (And any of the other developers who helped out.) I/We do really appreciate it.

Jestatis Bess

Jes: maybe it should be to simply knock out all of the opponent cruisers' turrets. The 8000000 armor is still really tough, even for 10 players, to beat down.

With everything in the game the way it is, the capships are obviously too tough for a small group of players to take out. I apologize; 4 times seemed reasonable given how easy they were before, but I guess we should have done some calculations. The capships will take eachother out within an hour, which I know JB thinks of as more fun for the bots rather than players, but I think the players can, more or less, determine what order the capships go out in, and which is left standing. So, I think it can still be lots of fun.

Also... the turret AI doesn't fire at the maximum rate of the weapon and doesn't really employ any strategy in choosing its targets, therefore if those players who would rather not risk being blown out of the sky within seconds of engaging a capship would dock with their nation's ship in the sector adjacent to b8 that it will be waiting in for 15 minutes, they can make a difference in the battle without so much dying. Wow, that was a long sentence :)

I'm about to take down the machine I play the game on and swap out the motherboard so that I have my Athlon64 in a non-vital box I can bring to work and compile the client on. I fully expect to be back online in time for the battle, but if I'm not, the guides know how to start the battle (hopefully at least one is planning on being there). If both boards die or something equally unlikely, I'll do my best to make it to the office in time in case there aren't any guides (and cuz I'd really like to be in the battle anyway).

This is probably not the right place for this, but since momerath brought it up: maybe instead of having uber armor, maybe the cap ship should be able to defend itself against projectiles.

I know this has been brought up dozens of times before, but if the beam weapons track slowly so as to be used against other cap ships and heavy bombers, and there are flechette-type weapons used as point defense against faster fighters and projectiles (naturally following that a well placed shot should be able to shoot down incoming missiles), then the armor doesn't need to be as strong, because less projectiles will be able to make it to the armor. This would encourage overwhelming projectile attacks, or close in energy attacks, and I think that players would have much more say (with much more immediate rewards) on which cap ships last longer than others.

Judging from last night, I think the beam weapons are excellent anti-fighter weapons, and that's as it should be. You don't want to be able to fly up close (<750m) to a cap ship without expecting to get blown out of the sky.

What we really need are some ship to ship weapons on the battlecruiser. Guns that are slow (5 second refire) have a low shot velocity (150 m/s, not a threat to fighters) do massive damage (25,000, like the avalon torpedo) and have a long range (30 second duration: 4.5k range)

Cap ships could engage each other at range, the fights wouldn't last forever, and the shots would be slow enough so as not to be a threat to fighters. Heck, they could even use the Avalon Torpedo graphic.

phaser: I found that cap ship fighting was a lot more fun when you COULD get close, be able to sneak in through the gats and hug the hull in blind spots. But with the beam cannons, any attempt to get close to bombard is usually a one way trip, so everything is rockets from 1000+ m and missiles from 1000+ m.

And at the speeds that these ships move, shots that go 150 m/s would not likely hit until the ships were bumping each other.

I think that the large cap ship weapons SHOULD be a danger to fighters, but they track very slowly, so that they only kill fast fighters if the fast fighter isn't paying attention, but they're geared towards hitting cap ships and heavy bombers.

But what I'm saying is that I think that these cap ships are way over on the side of too strong, and they were way over on the side of too weak. So there needs to be a middle ground. Weaker armor, less beam cannons that track more slowly, but with the super gatlings for point defense against small fighters and projectiles.

Note that I haven't had a chance to see the new buffed up cap ships yet, but I'm going to go ahead & disagree with CrippledPidgeon anyway. IMO Cap Ships should be next to impossible (not completely impossible, but almost) to destroy with anything other than another Cap Ship (or Station Defences, once we have them).

/me cheers for the new uber-capships!

Well, I did make it just in time, and I think people generally had fun, though it was near suicide to go after the ships, and a lot of people were having lag problems. I had lag problems last night, but after rebooting my modem, router and game box, everything was quite responsive; I can only suggest trying that, and we'll look into things on our end.
Can we move the suggestions about how to make the capships better to the suggestions forum, please?:)

Well, i personally experienced a lot of lag during previous cap ship battles, but not much more than normal during this one, and boy was it fun.

Nuff said.

I had a lot more fun during this battle than I have on previous ones, because it was possible to hit players with the weapons, and it was also possible to shoot the other cap ships.

Yes, turrets should have a tracking speed, and we need to cut the number of beam turrets down by a lot (half?), and replace the others with a variety of Rails, and Super-AGT. If we were to have a large beam turret mounted on the front of the ship, that would be excellent also.

One other thing: we need some sort of way of telling when the turret fires, like a glow or flash of some sort around the turret.

We need to post things in the right place so the developers can see them. Links below.

LINKS HERE:

Suggested changes to new capships here:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/10619

Suggested changes to border patrol mission here
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/10620

Any comments about the update here:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/10606

General Chat about the new cap ships here:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/10582

About the last battle here:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/7/10581

Bugs about the new up date here:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/2/10616
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/2/10615

Missed it, what a surprise. Still, CP makes sense. Now it's about HELPING your capship kill the others by missile spamming from a distance, all the while protecting it from people attempting to do the same to it.

So now it's capships engaging each other, with the support fighters actually giving support. Sounds cooler.

Now I just have to develop an interest in these things again.