it makes sense that you could drop off/pick up commodities at a station (most likely some sort of shuttle service, maybe a fee for this?).

but repairs are another matter should require a lot of specialized equipment I suspect would only be found at ship-yards and special repair facilities... I can't see how every station would have these tools, or even the bulk resources required for such large hull repair.

I like Lecter's idea: only being able to repair at Capital or high enough tier guild stations. No docking, transactions in stations without the proper facilities would be in the form of the Cappie coming close to the station and a Behemoth running back and forth grabbing and unloading cargo (fun to raid). Repairs far from home would need to employ man hours of fighter crafts with repair guns, an effort that would be easy to thwart in the field. And of course, there wouldn't be a way for a Capital ship to log out, guilds will have to hide it, guard it, or stick it next to a station when it's idle (raid, cripple, 'n ransom perhaps? Yarrr). It just wouldn't make much sense for such a large, limited thing to disappear. Capital ships are Capital and should require maintenance and defense. Also, the devs have been talking about adding features to the "Bar" feature about getting ideas of player locations through the word of the fellow npc patrons; if you ask me, a constellation making its way through grey would generate a lot of attention.

As for movement: knowing TGFT or any other money-exploiting large trade guild, they'll probably stuff every 100,000cu with sunflares and/or adv. rails. This fact combined with the above handicaps of trading with a capital ship in grey space would probably make a trade run with a connie a heavily guarded and heavily attacked event, fun for the whole community.

-Chaakin Tockoa

I hope so, Chaak.

I just wanna make sure they're killable. Not that I'm planning on participating in any RAIDS or anything... hehe. Nope. Not me. I'm reformed.

>:D

As mentioned earlier, a small group of Pirates equipped to take out a Capital Ship will be able to do so quickly. If you're a Solo Pirate trying to Solo a player-owned Capital Ship then perhaps you're either in the Wrong Profession, or you need to pull a Corvus and get in a pirate guild large enough to organize such activity.

Fighters are traditionally "super-effective" against Capital ships, but that is only if the number of fighters is high enough. I don't remember playing any RTS where a single fighter can take out any type of capital ship alone (even ion frigates from the original Homeworld could take out a single fighter eventually). I realize that this is indeed not an RTS, but this situation brings a few common things to the table.

I'd imagine we have some sort of torpedo / bomb that could inflict very heavy damage to a ship's hull if allowed to make contact.

Its also possible some sort of interdictor like a modified Trident will be introduced. While interdicting it would have a gravity well just like an asteroid only mobile, preventing jumps within 3000m of its hull. Sure the connie could still use the wormhole but as long as that trident is tailing it the connie won't be going anywhere but back through the wormhole.

Check please!

Oh.... wait..... where is the waiter?

One solution to the invincible trader cap ship problem would be to make the most aggressive cap ship hold the least cargo. A weak cap ship could hold the most cargo.

I imagine that when we are able to get Cappies of our very own, the Devs will be bringing back the Avalon... or making something similar.

How about intercepting them in Ion Storms?

Whenever a Capship is caught in an Ion Storm, it's sheer size makes it light up like a christmas tree, even in the storm, which would make Ion Storm camping a relatively good choice for the people that will be hunting the players that currently do not plot around 'roid fields.

Any decent trader will never EVER get caught in an ion storm. Even right now, the trade guilds have jump-plotting routines/methods that avoid all asteroid fields and get them as close as possible to the wormhole when warping.

I know, I've made my own for the Deneb Run, any trader who has purchased a Constellation class cargo ship will obviously NEVER go through the risks of entering an Ion storm, it might mean death for them, even without any player intervention.

Cappies have shields now Leber... and they are a pain.
I suppose 200 hive bots could get a Constelation shield down in 30 mins if they all attack at once. Or not.

A constellation got stuck in the huge roid cluster in an Azek J2 storm once - it got massacred pretty fast.

Oh I know Bojan, I know they have shields, that's kinda the point of this thread. I wanna make sure that 3 or 4 or 5 pirates working together can actually present a deadly threat to a trader in a Connie.

Yeah I bet 3 or 4 Arklans will take down shields relatively fast, add in some Valent Assaults and it will be dead quickly.

Player ships do not have that kind of firepower, Arklan Guardians have dual AGT and seem to be able to just spew that stuff forever, and valents can fire their one N2 nonstop, so the shields will eventually wear down.

2ish players can take out the shields of a HAC in one go, so they can take down the shields of a regular Constellation no sweat.