As I was idly waiting for a render to finish up, I was wonder how the current playerbase would like to see capital ships introduced.

This question extends beyond just how they will perform and how they will be controlled(even though these are always fun things to discuss) but also what impact they will have on the game. Their availability and cost. How we would operate them. Et cetera.

Please play the game and search the forums before posting. Not only have these things been discussed ad nauseum, but cap ships already exist.

I think he meant player controlled capital ships, not the npc ones.

I did search ""Capital ship" cost" into the search engine, and the most relevant topic I found was something about a mining capital ship. No mention of how much people think it should cost, but some decent discussion on it's abilities.

I'm looking for a more varied and wide-scope discussion.

What types of capital ships should be available?

How much should they cost?

How hard should they be to obtain?

This answers the last 2 questions:

Mon, Mar 17, 2008 incarnate
My thinking is not solely guild-driven, but yes, specific rare ores will largely be located in grayspace, to create a driver for many kinds of conflict (guild, corporate, nation, hive vs human, etc). The intra-nation hives (Itani/Serco) will contend over some resources, but not others (and resource availability will potentially impact the type and equipment of hives located therein). Even distribution of ores has never been planned.

NOTE: I expect guild competition over resources to become much more prevalent once manufacturing ("crafting") becomes a more significant part of the game. Ie, not the lame hacked version we have now. At that point, capital ships will rely in large part on assembly of various resources, many of which will be rare, and will greatly benefit from the resources of a larger group (guild). The acquisition of resources for construction, repair and replacement of these vessels, along with other specific items, will likely become a source contention between player guilds.

(Also this: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/17613#221323 )

Wow, thanks whistler! Wrong search keywords.

So capships on the open market will likely be a no. Which -may- lead to a perhaps thriving player market in Capships. Since players will set the price, you can bet that it'll be high.

Any word yet on how we will control these ships? If not, any ideas?

According to the wikipedia article (not a very good source, imho) they want to put in a Homeworld-inspired interface. I, having never played Homeworld, have no idea what this would be like. (Again, not a good source, in my opinion. We would need the devs to either confirm or deny this for it to be accurate, and knowing them, they will not do so.)

if they get the capship ui close to homeworld2 trust me its going to kick serious ass

I played the Homeworld demo for a short time, during which I couldn't find an effective method for viewing ships directly above or below. I considered that one could employ the rigid camera settings to their adversaries' disadvantage. I hope that the future Cap-ship UI treats all of 3 dimensions with impunity.

If I recall correctly (haven't played HW2 in a while now), there was a way (hotkeyed) to immediately zoom out and view space from the top down.

He's such an eager lil' n00blet.

None too bright, though.