ive been flying around in border skirmish for a while and I have grown to dislike the superpowered yellow balls of death that are fired from the teradons. so here are a few things i have to suggest 1. make super deathballs less powerful 2. give cappies fighter ships for taking care of enemy fighters. 3. cappies should have area specific damage. 4. damageable systems like engines, bridge, shield generator. i would really like for cappies to not just blow up and be gone, its not very realistic for something that huge being totally vaporized. they sould at least leave behind flaming chunks of metal. 5. cappies should last longer in combat.
i know that some of this may already be suggested, and that it isnt a priority. i only want to know what people think about it and if the devs have anything simmilar planned

1 - meh don't really care eitherway
2 - Well they kinda have their escort, until it gets blown to pieces... I think we need to improve the AI to NOT attack cappies on their own, at least not teradons.
3 - YES!
4 - Same as number 3 man.
5 - Um well not necessarily longer, but number 1) would imply this anyway.

Area-specific damage has always been the plan, I believe. The wireframe of your own ship already documents damage to different regions of the ship - there's just no resultant loss of function as yet.

I don't want big chunks of flaming metal sitting around and harming my framerate during a battle. I thinkthe current explosion is good.

Cap based fighters would be cool, but only if they were limited by the number of enemies present (only so many scrambled at one time, and only a finite number on board). This would be different from or instead of the current Skirmish setup.

I'm undecided about the longevity of the cap ship. It always seems like the other side's HAC lives too long.

the thing about the chunks of metal is not that it stays forever, but that the ship slowly falls apart while the relatively undamaged portions of the ship continue to fire in a last ditch attempt to inflict damage on the enemy. so basically the ship explosion is longer

That doesn't really make that much sense to me, I'd imagine that the power systems would be failing everywhere. And if I were the captain of a ship and knew it was dying but still had 20-30 secs I'd order for my people to get the hell out of there and into escape pods.

That gave me a thought Zed, an escape pod animation worked into the ship explosion. Maybe it'd even leave behind stasis pod cargo? For that matter, why not cargo widgets of various ship parts, like the levi drops. It's a somewhat similar alternative to mr bean's idea; HACs wouldn't simply explode and disappear.

-Nautargos

HACs don't just "explode and disappear". They have a drawn-out explosion where large chunks go flying off in different directions. An interesting thing to note about these large chunks is that they register on your radar as "large objects"...

Anyone been hit by one?

IF you read teh backstory you will eventually find out about Golliath cannons.
Do you think they will suit your needs?

bojan did you read the thread? i dont want a super weapon.

Nah i just read super weapon.
In present time a torpedo can sink a battleship. And its pretty fast about it.

1. Great balls of fire have to be powerfull, its a main weapon. Slow but powerfull.

2. Fighter escorts i agree. But atm border skirmish battle tactics are hillarious. We discussed it before. Both sides have the stupidest admirals/generals in the universe.

3. Area specific damage would be realistic but imho it would kill the game.
Say wer have it and everyone knows that if you blast cappies power generator he is dead in the water. You grab your spamrag, aim at the right spot, blast the generator and voila, cappie is dead under 1 min. Whatta fun.
Lasting longer in combat? Joke.

1. The balls were specifically created as anti-capship weapons. Remember a Destroyer is meant to quickly disable a larger ship, hence the name.

2. Yeah, the fighters that come in act too randomly; get a number of them to hang around and just defend, like the ones around the Nemesis.

3.Part of the Devs' plan, but still ways away.

4. The chunks of metal do fly out and can kill you if you're not careful (I've tested this). There's been talk of more permanent debris, but most agree it would seriously compromise framerate after a time; maybe semi-permanent debris and wrecks that last for five minutes or so before vanishing.

5. Capships last far, far longer now than in their original re-introduction to the game (they were in there in Beta, but got pulled out when the game went Gold; no idea how tough they were in Beta). I think they are at the right balance now; capships simply die fast when faced off against other capships.