Forums » Suggestions
Lord Q said:
Yes, cap ships can camp a wormhole, but pirates do that now!!
What pirates? I think they all vanished. Anyway...
The big ship-to-ship beam weapons should be like the ship-to-ship phasers on Star Trek. 5 second burst of fire, 10 second recharge or something. Disable autoaim for these weapons, so they will only really be useful for large targets.
Avalon torpedoes should be like the photon torpedoes on Star Trek, points of scintillating light that are dumb bombs that go slow, straight at where you aimed them. Again only useful for large targets.
I'd REALLY like to see flak cannons. Shooting flare-like weaponry that goes fast and straight, however: By holding down the trigger for longer periods of time (like the charged cannon), you control how far the shot goes before it auto-explodes into flak. There is no proximity trigger, so you can overshoot and have the flak explode behind your target if you do not aim well. For example:
If you hold the flak cannon trigger down for 5 seconds and release, the flak burst goes 1000 m at 300m/s and explodes with a large splash radius, say, 100m, doing 1000 damage.
If you hold it down for the minimum of time, the flak burst goes 100 m at 300m/s and explodes with a lesser splash radius, say 10 m, doing 200 damage.
This would force flak gunners to track targets and do some mental calculations on headings, speed, and targeting. A real skill to be developed.
Since the AI would be too good at this, we would need to either make unmanned flak turrets inactive, or build in some error to the computer's targeting.
And yes, something like swarms should be on the ship. Although I'd hate to see the lag produced when THREE capships with 10 turrets of chaos swarms all fire at once, instantly there are 120 more objects in-system to track, and you can fire these things what, every SECOND?!? That might be a little much. How about just something like Geminis with swarm-like tracking and a little more damage. That would be good.
Oh, and I like the lightning-mine-like electrified hull that damages enemy players who get TOO close. That'll prevent wingbugging in the short run, anyway.
I think armor amounts for now are pretty good.
As far as maneuvering, the objective of these capships/cruisers should be to "Cross their Enemy's T", meaning present their broadside to the enemy's nose (or stern). The enemy has less guns they can bring to bear, and the crossing cruiser has the whole broadside array of weapons.
Putting large energy weapons on the fore or stern would make this strategy unsuitable, so I'll say that the main large ship weapons should be on top bottom port or starboard.
But I will settle for capships that can avoid each other AND asteroids.
But wouldn't it be funny if the AI could detect when the cruisers had 3% health left and no weapons turrets remaining, they would automatically RAM their nearest opponent? RAMMING SPEEEEEED!
Yes, cap ships can camp a wormhole, but pirates do that now!!
What pirates? I think they all vanished. Anyway...
The big ship-to-ship beam weapons should be like the ship-to-ship phasers on Star Trek. 5 second burst of fire, 10 second recharge or something. Disable autoaim for these weapons, so they will only really be useful for large targets.
Avalon torpedoes should be like the photon torpedoes on Star Trek, points of scintillating light that are dumb bombs that go slow, straight at where you aimed them. Again only useful for large targets.
I'd REALLY like to see flak cannons. Shooting flare-like weaponry that goes fast and straight, however: By holding down the trigger for longer periods of time (like the charged cannon), you control how far the shot goes before it auto-explodes into flak. There is no proximity trigger, so you can overshoot and have the flak explode behind your target if you do not aim well. For example:
If you hold the flak cannon trigger down for 5 seconds and release, the flak burst goes 1000 m at 300m/s and explodes with a large splash radius, say, 100m, doing 1000 damage.
If you hold it down for the minimum of time, the flak burst goes 100 m at 300m/s and explodes with a lesser splash radius, say 10 m, doing 200 damage.
This would force flak gunners to track targets and do some mental calculations on headings, speed, and targeting. A real skill to be developed.
Since the AI would be too good at this, we would need to either make unmanned flak turrets inactive, or build in some error to the computer's targeting.
And yes, something like swarms should be on the ship. Although I'd hate to see the lag produced when THREE capships with 10 turrets of chaos swarms all fire at once, instantly there are 120 more objects in-system to track, and you can fire these things what, every SECOND?!? That might be a little much. How about just something like Geminis with swarm-like tracking and a little more damage. That would be good.
Oh, and I like the lightning-mine-like electrified hull that damages enemy players who get TOO close. That'll prevent wingbugging in the short run, anyway.
I think armor amounts for now are pretty good.
As far as maneuvering, the objective of these capships/cruisers should be to "Cross their Enemy's T", meaning present their broadside to the enemy's nose (or stern). The enemy has less guns they can bring to bear, and the crossing cruiser has the whole broadside array of weapons.
Putting large energy weapons on the fore or stern would make this strategy unsuitable, so I'll say that the main large ship weapons should be on top bottom port or starboard.
But I will settle for capships that can avoid each other AND asteroids.
But wouldn't it be funny if the AI could detect when the cruisers had 3% health left and no weapons turrets remaining, they would automatically RAM their nearest opponent? RAMMING SPEEEEEED!
While this isn't a cap-ship issue per se, it does have to do with what Leber said.
One thing that I find reeeeealy annoying is constantly having to check the top-right corner of my HUD for the distance to my enemy, as well as NOT having an offscreen indicator that tells me how far I have to turn to face my enemy. My radar is already pretty useless with multiple enemies and rockets, etc.
Here are my ideas:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v178/Dimpfinator/newscreenie1-01.jpg
A health meter, as well as an offscreen indicator (see top right area), and perhaps a speed indicator.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v178/Dimpfinator/imgonnaplayfreespace.jpg
Again, the health meter near the center of the HUD so I don't have to look all over the place, as well as a distance meter located next to the wireframe targeting box, or on the bottom-right hand side of the targeting box, depending on the mode.
This was brought on by his suggestion for the flak. We really shouldn't be doing guesswork here, and even modern fighter pilots have these things, and I find it hard to believe that these ideas have somehow died out.
One thing that I find reeeeealy annoying is constantly having to check the top-right corner of my HUD for the distance to my enemy, as well as NOT having an offscreen indicator that tells me how far I have to turn to face my enemy. My radar is already pretty useless with multiple enemies and rockets, etc.
Here are my ideas:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v178/Dimpfinator/newscreenie1-01.jpg
A health meter, as well as an offscreen indicator (see top right area), and perhaps a speed indicator.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v178/Dimpfinator/imgonnaplayfreespace.jpg
Again, the health meter near the center of the HUD so I don't have to look all over the place, as well as a distance meter located next to the wireframe targeting box, or on the bottom-right hand side of the targeting box, depending on the mode.
This was brought on by his suggestion for the flak. We really shouldn't be doing guesswork here, and even modern fighter pilots have these things, and I find it hard to believe that these ideas have somehow died out.
Perhaps an Aerna Seeker 400m/s rapid-fire chaingun.
An array of 5 beam cannons converging on a single target when the trigger is pressed.
A lightning-mine-style-but-targeted zapping turret device for electrifying the bottom half of the ship.
A ridiculously fast rocket-firing flak cannon mounted under the nose.
A charge cannon with 20m-wide when-fully-charged 500m/s bolts.
BIGGER GUNS DAMMIT. But NOT, NOT, NOT turrets with these on.
Forward-mounted externally-visible death devices. Hell, put 4 on a real BATTLESHIP, and have it RIP TO SHREDS other huge ships.
Case in point, the marauder. It must be possible to expand the design to make it huge and mount 3 gargantuan weapons on the front. Little turret/fighter protection, HUGE destructive power.
The HAC. Big guns easily mounted beneath the nose, 2 of them. Decent turret coverage making it an all-round bastard to take down, and it actually packs a punch. I'm not saying the turrets shouldnt be useful against other big ships, im just saying they shouldn't be the main weapons you rely on in an assault. The BIG guns would have enough oomph to physically knock other similar-size ships off course and give a noticeable recoil with a large reload time.
The beauty of having these fitted colossal bangers is... well. Stations are modular, so perhaps this can be adapted to the capital ships. Brief designs of 5 types of weapon could be knocked up reasonably quickly, maybe- and because they are objects in themselves, they can be blown up and taken down without the whole ship going kablooie. So the combat involves the fighters staving the bombers off the critical parts of the capital ships- the big kahunas mounted on the front/back/side. In the meantime, skilled captains of the big ships are trying to second-guess the opposing fleet, trying to blast off and disable as much weaponry as possible before closing in for an all-out turret slug-fest. By giving these external weapons their own HP, say 15% of the capital ship's, they act as an auxiliary damage-dealer and enable a different type of combat- whilst giving one hell of a "WOW" factor as you see space-time rippled but a few metres from your prometheus cockpit by a monumental blast from your local friendly portable armageddon...
An array of 5 beam cannons converging on a single target when the trigger is pressed.
A lightning-mine-style-but-targeted zapping turret device for electrifying the bottom half of the ship.
A ridiculously fast rocket-firing flak cannon mounted under the nose.
A charge cannon with 20m-wide when-fully-charged 500m/s bolts.
BIGGER GUNS DAMMIT. But NOT, NOT, NOT turrets with these on.
Forward-mounted externally-visible death devices. Hell, put 4 on a real BATTLESHIP, and have it RIP TO SHREDS other huge ships.
Case in point, the marauder. It must be possible to expand the design to make it huge and mount 3 gargantuan weapons on the front. Little turret/fighter protection, HUGE destructive power.
The HAC. Big guns easily mounted beneath the nose, 2 of them. Decent turret coverage making it an all-round bastard to take down, and it actually packs a punch. I'm not saying the turrets shouldnt be useful against other big ships, im just saying they shouldn't be the main weapons you rely on in an assault. The BIG guns would have enough oomph to physically knock other similar-size ships off course and give a noticeable recoil with a large reload time.
The beauty of having these fitted colossal bangers is... well. Stations are modular, so perhaps this can be adapted to the capital ships. Brief designs of 5 types of weapon could be knocked up reasonably quickly, maybe- and because they are objects in themselves, they can be blown up and taken down without the whole ship going kablooie. So the combat involves the fighters staving the bombers off the critical parts of the capital ships- the big kahunas mounted on the front/back/side. In the meantime, skilled captains of the big ships are trying to second-guess the opposing fleet, trying to blast off and disable as much weaponry as possible before closing in for an all-out turret slug-fest. By giving these external weapons their own HP, say 15% of the capital ship's, they act as an auxiliary damage-dealer and enable a different type of combat- whilst giving one hell of a "WOW" factor as you see space-time rippled but a few metres from your prometheus cockpit by a monumental blast from your local friendly portable armageddon...
or 20 meter wide gauss bolts... That would rock.... absolutely rock...
And UncleDave, these could be giant turrets (like battleship main cannons), but they take like a minute to traverse from the complete left to the complete right, and they have very limited elevation, so the orientation of the ship is very important. This would make them nearly impossible to hit fighters with, but if one just happened to start to head towards your crosshairs....
And UncleDave, these could be giant turrets (like battleship main cannons), but they take like a minute to traverse from the complete left to the complete right, and they have very limited elevation, so the orientation of the ship is very important. This would make them nearly impossible to hit fighters with, but if one just happened to start to head towards your crosshairs....
I think the Dev team should just take a look at some battle ships of the US Navy, or the Royal Navy, or what have you... those are how good battle ships are designed. Why wouldn't these design ideas still ring true in space ship battle ships?
Actually, in in modern navies today, the only real "capital ship" left is the aircraft carrier. But yeah, If you go back to say WWII when aircraft had not yet achieved total dominance, you can see some scary looking battleships.
I do want to see carrier oriented capital ships in VO, but I don't want them to parallel today's navies to the point where they overpower all other capital ships.
I do want to see carrier oriented capital ships in VO, but I don't want them to parallel today's navies to the point where they overpower all other capital ships.
usually, a carrier (as i have seen them in most games) are usually weak against other capital ships, so carriers overpowering the cap ships probably wouldnt be possible. thats why other cap ships usually escort carriers. carriers provide fighter and bomber support.
Beo: yea... I bought a book on the I.J.N. Yamato. It has deckplans, and schematics of pretty much everything. It may have died quickly, and was probably not as good as the Iowa class battleships, but it looked good.
I'd suggest adding this to Vendetta, but it's 600k+ polygons
http://www.evula.org/virtualgoo/images/yamato_entry.jpg
I'd suggest adding this to Vendetta, but it's 600k+ polygons
http://www.evula.org/virtualgoo/images/yamato_entry.jpg
@Blacklight: Yeah, I really doubt carriers would ever be the "uber" capships, I was just pointing out that in today's navies, they are.
Sweet model, CP. I want a better look at the underside, it looks like it has some turrets on the bottom, but from what I can see it does look like it might be a bit vulnerable there.
Sweet model, CP. I want a better look at the underside, it looks like it has some turrets on the bottom, but from what I can see it does look like it might be a bit vulnerable there.
nice model CP, looks like one of those cap ships in the movie Wing Commander
carriers have been the dominant capship since mid WWII (pacific campain). The carrier itself is not all that well armed, and is a sitting duck without it's fighter force. The primary purpose of a carrier is to put fighters where fighters would not otherwise be, or would not otherwise be so often. Any (long deck) carrier (since post WWII), combined with it's full fighter force, will take out any non-carrier ship, 1v1. The US has parked all it's battleships (and most of it's crussers). The long deck carrier is the undesputed king of cap ships, and even missle subs avoid it.
I hope this hasn't been mentioned before, but the cap ship that was spawned for the battle and survived the destruction of the others should immediatly return to its capital; instead of sitting around and waiting to die.
[Edit]
Additionaly, sorry for bumping this thread if it was dead, (the above posts seem a bit off topic) but it was the designated place for this suggestion.
[Edit]
Additionaly, sorry for bumping this thread if it was dead, (the above posts seem a bit off topic) but it was the designated place for this suggestion.