With all the recent talk and work on capital ships, has there been any serious consideration for something inbetween them and fighters? There is a gap at the moment for something with two or three crew, which handles mostly like a very heavy bomber but with a PC manned turret or two.

Cheaper than capital ships, easier to get the crew together to fully man it (especially given VO's low player population), and the flight and turret UI is pretty much there already now (standard fighter flight controls, and capital ship turret controls). 'All' it needs is a couple of new ship models...

The idea isn't new:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/14090

but may be more relevant now that capital ships are seeing greater and more effective use. Also, here's an old post where Incarnate mentioned a desire for mid-range vessels:

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/8054#94448

Have these desires died a death in the face of cold, hard reality?

Sam.

me likey... this might actually give some purpose to having heavy weap license of 13 or higher...

"Have these desires died a death in the face of cold, hard reality?"

Nope, they've just been prioritized down while the infrastructure has been built or rebuilt. If you've been following the Newsposts you'll see that they've been working deep in the bowels of the VO foundation, fixing things and making use of knowledge gained over the past year. 2008 is the beginning of Soon(tm).

/me drinks the cool-aide

Pretty soon, we will be writing timestamps with year count f.e. 3AS (After Soon(tm)) and historical timestamps with f.e. 5BU (Before Utopia).
/me can't wait.

incarnate expressed his desire to create a new form of docking, for the larger ships. "Moors" he called 'em. Alot of mystery surrounds this sort of thing... would your ship still exist after you logged out? What would happen if someone fired on your ship while it was moored? Would the new faction system need to be in place to deal with these situations? All these questions and more...

The idea itself is delicious. Some of the larger guardian hive ships run on a seemingly infinite turbo, at 140m/s or so. Strap some turreted weaponry on a ship like that, and you've got a ship faster than a Cappy, and slower than a fighter, but with the same endurance. I'd want to pilot such a ship with the current fighter controls, even if it was 10 times heavier than a 'moth. Especially if I had this control scheme...

Yes to gunships. Yes, yes, yes. Turrets and main weapons (say, an avalon?), enough thrust to propel it in a straight path and sufficient nimbleness, and we're set to go...

As for the docking problem: Perhaps there would have to be special stations with dedicated gunship hangars (barracks could be made to be special ports for those...), to solve it?

Technically, all space stations need to be upgraded in size, since it does look like a magic trick whenever a large convoy of moths launch.

Dedicated stations though which some ships need to be able to dock at sounds like an interesting idea. It could make PvP more expensive (in terms of time to repair/respawn if there are no suitable stations in the system) though.

Sam.

All you'd need is a connie sized funnel to fit into the existing docking bays.

I suppose a capital ship 'moor' on a station could have a force-field, not unlike the one used on the standard station exits, protecting the craft, so that the owner(s) don't have to be overly concerned about their expensive craft being blown out from under them while they're logged off. You'd have to literally blow up the station to get at the ship, and I can imagine that a lot of people (particularly traders) would not be terribly pleased about that.

Hmm... the 'not terribly pleased bit' made me smile wryly. When did the frustration of other players ever stop people from causing it?

Plus, the area of the force fields for the docks is minuscule compared to the estimated area required for, let's say, a Constellation. Perhaps special stations with incredibly 31337 power generators (and/or solar panels miles wide => player-driven content: shut down the power to the station and take the cappies sitting there as prizes!) that can provide the shield generators, and serve as 'dry docks', while normal stations require the capital ship to be manned with something closer to full complement than skeleton crew at all times.

The whole idea of 'not terribly pleased' would imply that if a pirate attempted to frustrate the players, they could be certain to have seven-fold the frustration caused visited back upon them. =^p

And I was thinking as to the moor force fields to only 'cover' the capital ship on the ends, with the rest be covered with ultra-dense XiRite, so the whole affair resembles a squashed tube. Of course, your destroy-the-reactor-to-get-at-the-ship idea isn't bad either.

I see stations and capships being in the same "class" in that they both should be permanent in the VO universe and not vanish when the owner logs. Giant moors for storage just don't seem feasible, while the capship is under construction, yes it should be kept in a moor, but not for storage. It's the owners choice to choose where to logout, if they choose to log out and park their cappie in an empty sector then so be it, it's their decision to pick the void of space over a well defended station.

The addition of an auto pilot would likely be required as well though since there are bound to be situations where the player won't always be able to log in a "safe" zone. Before logging they could simply set the ship's course for the nearest station. There would still be the possibility of it getting intercepted before it reached its destination, but that's just a downside of autopilot.

The addition of capital ships to the game would require a massive beefing up of station defenses anyways to make sure there are "safe" zones to park. Current strike forces just won't cut it when it comes to fighting off an invading HAC.