Forums » Suggestions
Tridents and Connies in convoys are very fun for us pirates and very fun to take down in groups, but there are a couple problems:
-They don't carry any cargo! Don't tell me that they're resorting to default cargo, because I've killed more than two Tridents. Each one drops 20cu of Scrap Metal and that's not the remainder of what the convoy has in its cargo but that's what they drop anyways (just as 6cu of Scrap Metal is to Behemoth Heavies). And it's not that there's no cargo left after what the rest of the convoy carries, most of the Tridents are in escorts with no other trade ships other than themselves, they still drop nothing. This is more of a bug than a suggestion... but still... fix it!
-The armor values can be a little high. I know their armor makes sense for things like Hive Skirmishes or Border Skirmishes, but that's because in those situations the capitals sit in one sector and constantly take heavy fire. The only way to take out Tridents right now is to grab an escort and then abort it (something that I do not like to do and frankly makes no RP sense at all and ruins the sense of "hunting") with a navigation length that you know is above 3 wormholes. In a hunting scenario you can't rely on something like that, chances are that the wormhole you're in is their final hop. You can't slow them down, either... they're too heavy for anyone to make any course diversions in the ship. For this I'd say to keep the shield values and the firepower the same, but make armor quite a bit lower. I'd say cut Trident armor in half to 500,000 armor from 1,000,000 armor and to cut the Constellation armor from 4,000,000 to 1,000,000 (for comparison: a Hive Queen has 300,000 armor). It could be some cheap variant built for trading and not military work, perhaps.
Yarrrr
-Chaakin Tockoa
Edit: and I haven't checked yet, but does anyone know if the capital ships are in Nation Space convoys, too? If they are, take them out lol. I know they're fun for pirates to take out in grey, but if they are in nation space and XCs can hop rides on them then I would say that that is ridiculous overkill lol.
-They don't carry any cargo! Don't tell me that they're resorting to default cargo, because I've killed more than two Tridents. Each one drops 20cu of Scrap Metal and that's not the remainder of what the convoy has in its cargo but that's what they drop anyways (just as 6cu of Scrap Metal is to Behemoth Heavies). And it's not that there's no cargo left after what the rest of the convoy carries, most of the Tridents are in escorts with no other trade ships other than themselves, they still drop nothing. This is more of a bug than a suggestion... but still... fix it!
-The armor values can be a little high. I know their armor makes sense for things like Hive Skirmishes or Border Skirmishes, but that's because in those situations the capitals sit in one sector and constantly take heavy fire. The only way to take out Tridents right now is to grab an escort and then abort it (something that I do not like to do and frankly makes no RP sense at all and ruins the sense of "hunting") with a navigation length that you know is above 3 wormholes. In a hunting scenario you can't rely on something like that, chances are that the wormhole you're in is their final hop. You can't slow them down, either... they're too heavy for anyone to make any course diversions in the ship. For this I'd say to keep the shield values and the firepower the same, but make armor quite a bit lower. I'd say cut Trident armor in half to 500,000 armor from 1,000,000 armor and to cut the Constellation armor from 4,000,000 to 1,000,000 (for comparison: a Hive Queen has 300,000 armor). It could be some cheap variant built for trading and not military work, perhaps.
Yarrrr
-Chaakin Tockoa
Edit: and I haven't checked yet, but does anyone know if the capital ships are in Nation Space convoys, too? If they are, take them out lol. I know they're fun for pirates to take out in grey, but if they are in nation space and XCs can hop rides on them then I would say that that is ridiculous overkill lol.
They're in nation space, too. We killed a few in Dau this weekend.
When you are an escorter like me the ones with tridents and connies also pay crap because they don't carry anything.
Lower armor is acceptable because it would make it more fun to try and save one that is actually at risk.
Lower armor is acceptable because it would make it more fun to try and save one that is actually at risk.
Great ideas! Capps should carry valuable cargo. There should be an XP bonus for taking one down.
There should be an XP bonus for taking one down.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Add a couple of lighter turrets that turn quicker but have shorter range and do less damage. Those massive Gauss weapons are pretty much useless against even semi-skilled pilots, though they looks and sound sweet.
Docking needs to be made a tad easier/smoother too I think.
Other than that (and the problems other people have mentioned), enjoying the cappies muchly. :D
Docking needs to be made a tad easier/smoother too I think.
Other than that (and the problems other people have mentioned), enjoying the cappies muchly. :D
Fair points, I have been travelling on the capships a lot, the ai seems very reliable now. Long term having commercial and military capship varients would be good.
Two suggestions I would make.
Firstly, give turrets a built in storm radar, it seems unrealistic to have it set at 200m. (A central connie turret can't target its own ends in a storm) I would suggest 500m for a first try, and the sweeping wireframe effect would be visually interesting.
Secondly, relocate the lower aft trident turret to the rear panel above the docking bay to give a realistic aft field of fire. As it stands bots can sit just behind a trident and a gunner never gets them on target.
Actually making f9 work when in a capship would be impressive too, if it is not a major job .
Two suggestions I would make.
Firstly, give turrets a built in storm radar, it seems unrealistic to have it set at 200m. (A central connie turret can't target its own ends in a storm) I would suggest 500m for a first try, and the sweeping wireframe effect would be visually interesting.
Secondly, relocate the lower aft trident turret to the rear panel above the docking bay to give a realistic aft field of fire. As it stands bots can sit just behind a trident and a gunner never gets them on target.
Actually making f9 work when in a capship would be impressive too, if it is not a major job .
Ecka has a good point about the trident's rear turret. It seems a bit silly that a ship with such a flat profile would have such huge blind spots, especially while the AI is too stupid to turn the ship a bit to help out the gunner.
I agree with Ecka on turret placement on the Trident. Personally, I feel that the craft would have a better field of fire if the turrets were placed on the engine nacelle pylons (or thereabouts) rather than a top/bottom in-line configuration on the main hull. Well, that, and more turrets in general (maybe up the number to 6 or 8).
Do the Tridents currently in convoys have the swarm turrets? That might be an easier solution to the FoV problem. Anyways, my main problem with the current capitals in convoys is that XCs can load up on expensive heavy goods and just sit in a connie and taxi around in a near-invincible walking fortress. Actually, I'm perfectly fine with this as long as a few parameters are met:
1) Make convoy capital ships slower (I think this will also cover the issue of docking smoothly).
2) Give capital ships a maximum docking capacity in the form of ship mass (i.e. you can carry a shit-ton of centurions, a few proms, or maybe one or two laden XCs in a Trident, double that number in a Constellation) and possibly add cargo mass (1/2?) to this equation for when player controlled cappies come out.
3) The two suggestions at the beginning of the thread. Perhaps cargo coming from cappies should be guaranteed atleast 1,500 credits/cu of an original buy price but give slightly less of a profit cut to escorts to balance the lesser quality of a lot of moths with Ion Blaster II's versus one Trident with Sedina Chocolates. Also keep in mind that the second suggestion is just a change to armor value, not shield strength.
4) More dangers to capital ships in the universe are in order. I'm talking about packs of roaming Overseers (note: space whales?)* that only attack capital ships but are killable by light escort fighters and for now: resurrect some old weapons suggestions such as high damage dead fire contact detonation torpedos that can be outmaneuvered or destroyed (like actual torpedos) specialized to take down shields and rapid fire dead fire contact detonation flares that can't be stacked or take down shields but are specialized to hammer away at the hull after the shields have been dropped. And, in the future, Corvus variant Teradons!!!! RAHHHH!
*Nahhh, just kidding about the space whales replacing Overseers part... but we want space whales!!!! Hostile ones! But sometimes friendly! Depending on if they're coming in to check out your Trident and some nervous jackass convoy guard shoots a couple flares poorly aimed flares at one of the calves and pisses of the bull. But yeah, space whales, always wanted those.
1) Make convoy capital ships slower (I think this will also cover the issue of docking smoothly).
2) Give capital ships a maximum docking capacity in the form of ship mass (i.e. you can carry a shit-ton of centurions, a few proms, or maybe one or two laden XCs in a Trident, double that number in a Constellation) and possibly add cargo mass (1/2?) to this equation for when player controlled cappies come out.
3) The two suggestions at the beginning of the thread. Perhaps cargo coming from cappies should be guaranteed atleast 1,500 credits/cu of an original buy price but give slightly less of a profit cut to escorts to balance the lesser quality of a lot of moths with Ion Blaster II's versus one Trident with Sedina Chocolates. Also keep in mind that the second suggestion is just a change to armor value, not shield strength.
4) More dangers to capital ships in the universe are in order. I'm talking about packs of roaming Overseers (note: space whales?)* that only attack capital ships but are killable by light escort fighters and for now: resurrect some old weapons suggestions such as high damage dead fire contact detonation torpedos that can be outmaneuvered or destroyed (like actual torpedos) specialized to take down shields and rapid fire dead fire contact detonation flares that can't be stacked or take down shields but are specialized to hammer away at the hull after the shields have been dropped. And, in the future, Corvus variant Teradons!!!! RAHHHH!
*Nahhh, just kidding about the space whales replacing Overseers part... but we want space whales!!!! Hostile ones! But sometimes friendly! Depending on if they're coming in to check out your Trident and some nervous jackass convoy guard shoots a couple flares poorly aimed flares at one of the calves and pisses of the bull. But yeah, space whales, always wanted those.
It's time for Avalons to return. They have a role now!
yea even if they have to cut the blast radius down to 2 meters. that would solve the station nuking aspect of it. And make them contact detonation only. Granted that is an instakill against anybody you can actually hit with it, but if you can hit somebody with a rocket that goes 35m/s, more power to ya.
Seriously, fix the damn cargo thing. And none of this "well, it will carry 300cu rather than the full 1500cu capacity it has": we have to work in fairly large teams to kill these blasted things, and 300cu of just about anything isn't much when split among 3 or 4 pirates.
Why not better arm the tridents, add a couple neutron turrets. Then chop most of the hull and weapons off the connie, and use the tridents to escort the connies. Seems to me when you want to move things you use a freighter, not a battleship. And make the connies carry say 10k cu of whatever, mixed lot of medium high value crap. Given how big the connies are they should easily carry 10k of stuff if they aren't being built as warships. Hell, on really high value loads give them a teredon for an escort.
I know this would make the big freighters harder to take down alone but the teamwork would be fun for a change.
I know this would make the big freighters harder to take down alone but the teamwork would be fun for a change.
What LNH said. Three or four pirates can reduce a 4 moth + escorts convoy to nae' but scrap and booty in seconds, but the returns are slim and there's zero challenge.
i can reduce a 4 moth voy to scrap alone. and still theres usualyl not much payoff
With no hands, no less.
Perhaps the VO equivalent of a container ship?
Interesting thought pakettle. Dunno if it's possible, but can they make a ship that tows a bunch of 120cu containers? The containers get named "crate# XX: [contents]" If you do enough damage to the container ship it just drops the containers and takes off. Maybe make a capship that when it gets shot up enough drops XC's loaded with cargo, wich then try and complete the delivery.
I thought that was the original idea behind the Marauder?