Well, I've heard a lot from the developers in the past about not wishing to introduce player capital ships for several reasons. One of those reason's being that they are difficult to control with they're current stats. I've no doubt this is true, but I have a suggestion that may make it easier to impliment player owned capital ships, and perhaps also make combat a little more fun. Sadly, it would require a lot of rebalancing. But seeing as they've had to write an entirely new code for Kourier to replace the broken deliverator, such a task would likely seem like child's play.

Anyways, my suggestion is that the speed for all light and heavy fighters be doubled, and they're maneuverability even increased somewhat. And capital ships should handle like behemoths, medium ships handling perhaps like a heavy fighter. As I mention, this would require a lot of rebalancing, but damned if it wouldn't be cool. Admittedly the chances of this being implimented are...very VERY slim, but I thought I'd throw it out there, just in case the devs might think it worth considering.

On another note, I'd like to suggest some really badass forward firing cannons for the capital ships. 1) Because it'd be really goddamn fun. 2) Because the pilot won't feel so left out, being bored as hell flying around the battlefield to no real effect. (Except for making sure the ship is broadside to whatever should be blowing up.) 3) Because if the ship has a forward mounted deathray, NOT being in front of the ship becomes immensilely appealing, and thus adds a new dimension to combat. Specifically flanking and ambushing, as otherwise the safest approach to take is to charge directly at the front of a HAC, as then it can't shoot so many guns at you.

End.

if we could have a 2- or 3-player moth heavy, it would quench our thirst for player cappies.

but hey. not like it hasn't been suggested before.

i like ship speeds the way they are now.

Increase ship speed beyond what it is now and combat becomes almost impossible. Human reflexes reach the point where it ceases to be skill and starts to become pure luck to hit anything.

Having to up your combat skills sounds like a whole mess of fun to me!

The trouble with increasing combat speeds is more fundamental than just reaction time. It puts much greater pressure on the network to keep up. All of a sudden, the game only becomes playable for users who have ideal connections to the server (Broadband and lower-48 USA). We've already lost major pilots (Icarus) from the UK and elsewhere, when ships were sped up to a point where the game becomes unplayable for all but ideal network conditions.

On a separate note, we are working on adding capship weaponry. Ie, directed weapons, not defensive turrets.

Wahey, capship weapons! And officially confirmed, too!

It's always nice to see the game coming along.

Note: No irony or cycnism intended.

*drags the thread further off-topic*

I thought the delay in capitle ships was more an issue of the sheer non compatability with flying a ship that size with the curent fighter centric interface, than their manuverability. Developing that amidst all the other stuff the dev's have to do would take a fair amount of time.

1) They're very difficult to fly at present. We're aiming for a homeworld-style interface (or something along those lines, more RTSey) for navigating capships.

2) It's currently impossible to launch in a capship without some probability of exploding (since they don't fit in launch bays, and there's usually some amount of wingbug-type intercollision with the bay). As people have suggested, we could address this by spawning them outside in space, but we're still in the process of creating capship "moorings" in sectors and so on, where we know there'll be a "safe place" for the ships.

3) There's also a lot of other, ancillary work that needs to be done in making capships purchasable. They are not supposed to simply be another ship that you buy, for a gargantuan amount of money. They're basically going to be our first-generation Crafting output (along with other factors).

4) We're also still having performance and navigability problems with capships on the server. So, our first task is making bots work properly (Kourier) and then making them perform reasonably well (more Border Skirmish type gameplay to test this out).

i dont understand why all these things need to be in-place for guild-owned cappies. surely it'll all be cool to have some dock and economy and crafting and ... gosh the list goes on...

why can't we have a simple implementation for now and you guys develop the cooler finer points of it as time go by?

have a guild commander be the only one able to purchase a cappy-in-a-box (shelf top solution!) for a gargantuesque amount of cash. And I mean dozens of millions. To control, simple thing. Use the nav map, plot a single DESTINATION point and hit ENGAGE!

Ship appears at capital, we board and go for a ride.

Let us blow our cash. Let us have fun until all the cooler universe thingies is are available. Then we can consider crafting the cappies for much lesser ammount of cash but with ores and raw material.

I can't see this requiring any more stuff than that for now.

Oh. And multiplayer Moth heavys.

And guild banks.

(one can see I'm getting emotional by the use of capital letters.... this is all OOC).

Hmm. Wouldn't spending time doing everything you said, upper case, just further delay the implementation of Cap-ships as they should be?

what's there to implement? It's all there. geez, even if it takes two weeks to code for a quick and dirty job so we have fun until the real deal is there. we've been promised cappies for more than two years. i dont care if the cappy get's blown at the next zebra crossing. it'll be a lottery.

guides can already spawn cappies with destination targets. it would just be the same thing. plus the wallet.

so nothing new. except we can do it and have fun. now. not in two more years.

Well, no, it's not all there. Read incarnate's post.

no. u!

we dont need to navigate it. we dont need to spit it out from launch bays. we dont need to craft them.

yes in the long run for even better gameplay but just so we can toy and waste cash at it, everything is there. how many times have we seen cappy wars? that's basically it. with the sole difference guilds get to spew cash out and set the destination point, and at their discretion.

what more do we really want? all we want is to be able to launch one such things and go station-camp roda. or some other fun/futile op. heck. a suicide mission into enemy territory just fer fun. bring border skirmish down pyronis side. fer the thrill of it.

Navigation was on the to-do list of incarnate's, I believe. Twice actually.

patience, upper case.

alternatively, you could give the devs more money...

We have absolutely no need to pilot capships right now. Sure it would be cool, sure a few people have been waiting a long time for them, but we've gone without piloting them for 4 years now. I think we can last without them.

you guys as dodging the issue by pole-waxing the "projected plan".

not having to pilot the cappies is exactly what i'm talking about. you set a destination point and just enjoy the ride. enjoy the ride. yeah. enjoy the ride. then shoot at stuff. make events around this.

it brings people together.

what are the most enjoyable things at this moment? they're player-run events like nation wars, the capture the flag thing and "spontaneous" h2 encounters. and that's because you can expect things at these events and encounter people.

i'd frickin crash a nation war event with a cappy and my buddies!

but meh.

you guys have fun your own way.