personally, I never saw these ships as Capital Ships. I see them more as medium sized frigates. half of the turrets can be taken out with dual gauss ii in a single run (and I am not a good pilot), and then the ship can be destroyed easily. It only takes 2 good pilots to take out a frigate when left to its own defenses.

A capital ship should be something that cant be destroyed like that. Going at a capital ship with a squad of fighters just means instant death. Going at it with 100 fighters means your all going to die, but you will inflict some damage. To destroy a capital ship you need 3 medium sized frigates, or perhaps your own capital ship, AND a few good fighter pilots.

The capital ship should instill fear. If I am in a sector and I see the enemy capitol ship arrive, I should have to either pray for back up or get the hell out.

I personally love the ships we have now. But I love them as frigates, not capitals.

These ships should act as frigates, and each side should have at least 2 of them in game at all times to add to the role playing and give us more to attack/defend.

Then, once a week, that is when the capital ship comes out. And that is when the jaws drop and all we once knew about combat is forgotten. I know I want this, but I guess i can't speak for everyone.

Thoughts?

Actually the current "turrets" are really kind of a test bed. The devs have hinted in the past about capital ship class weapons that would be much more powerful than the ones on it now.

We all agree that the turrets need some buffing up to make them harder to kill, and there are many many many threads on increasing the survivability of the hull itself. the suggestions include, but are not limited too....

- A defensive field similar to the attack of a lightning mine to ward off fighters that get too close

- Armor that absorbs a certain amount of damage, (200,400,600,800,1000, etc) before any is applied to the ship itself. meaning that to hurt the ship each shot has to do more than the threshold, making the light, high ROF weapons that are so effective in a light figher combat far less useful against a capital ship

-Various kinds of armor that protect against a certain "type" of damage. eg a ship with anti blast armor would be almost immune to rockets but veunerable to energy, and vice versa.

-Giving the capital ship turrets significantly faster shot speed to drastically increase thier effectiveness. (if the bolt comes out at you at 450m/s you WILL spend a lot more time dodging and less time shooting)

-in general improving the AI and behavior of the capital ship, something that is being worked on allready

There are quite a few others as well. Some searching of the forums will turn up quite a lot of disscussion

Well, now THAT's what I'm talking about.

I've posted alot on this topic before and I won't switch into sarcasm mode again to poke any more holes in the existing capship design/construction/pathfinding/survivability problems.

I know that the capship journeys to B8 were thrown in to test the thing out, a lot of people were not going after the SMV Nemesis Patrol capship that goes from Sol II to Deneb.

But once the Hive thing gets going, we'll all forget about the capships and we'll start complaining about how easy the Leviathans are to kill. (Devs - Make it REALLY HARD, OK?)

Rather than a lightning mine like beam to ward of fighters, why not a bunch of short range weapons with a good amount of spread?

... like FLECHETTES?!

One problem with a "defensive field similar to the attack of a lightning mine to ward off fighters that get too close" would be how do you accurately determine who's a friend, and who's a foe? You don't want friends getting zapped for accidentally shooting the cap ship when they were trying to hit someone else, but you do want to be sure enemies are afraid of it so they would stay back.

Flechettes (sadly) don't really have any spread. /me wishes they did, though.

Thumper mines! They push you back 1000m!

For the friend or foe thing, have a damage buffer that is proportional to how high up you are in the chain of things. If you're disliked, a couple accident volleys will give you a 30 minute ban from all their stations, and if you get too close to capitol ships you would be considered hostile and dealt with accordingly. If you continue to attack you will be given a non-expiring faction hit. Ship to ship collision damage would basically be ignored, unless it was considered intentional (like you're boosting into it at 150 m/s) then you would be forbidden to dock at that ship and any other nearby ones of the same nation.
If you are on good terms, several volleys would bring you a warning, a couple more would be a docking ban from that ship and nearby ones, and continuing attack would provide a faction hit and temporary station ban time proportional to the damage you do. Et cetera et cetera.
Current standing information would be available to the gunmen. If they attack someone who hasn't done anything they would be ejected from their seat back into the ship's turret select screen along with say, a 3 minute ban along with an explanation of why and how the system works, along with the victim being sent an apology and reimbursement for anything that may have been destroyed or require repairs.
If they attack someone who has a fuzzy standing they would be given a warning and told to stop (unless they recently attacked an ally ship, then they would be considered a hostile), if they continued they would be ejected with the 3 minute ban and the victim would be sent an apology.
If they attack someone who is deemed hostile, such as a recent attacker, someone who is violating a no-fly zone, or just a plain old enemy, nothing would happen to them. If they deal the most amount of damage to the target they will be given faction points and credits.
No-turret ban time would be lessened if they had a good standing with their nation and repeat offenders would be given more ban time, a loss in faction points, and possibly be ejected from the ship with a docking ban to that ship and nearby ones.

On the actual weapon used for close range anti-fighter, like the flechette, yes, but with pretty good auto-aim, a bit more spread, and perhaps more power and speed. The turrets would have a very wide firing arc. This would mean that longer range weapons would have a lesser firing arc due to them no longer needing to fight the fighter classes and to encourage gunners to take out bigger ships.