I think it would be cool if fighters could serve as a fighter compliment to the frigates as they fought, the frigate takes them in and the fighters deploy to protect the frigate from the other one's fighters as the two or three frigates deck it out.

Also, as long as the engagement is s9 followed SDF Fire Exchage Orders.

That's a somewhat interesting suggestion for a class of ships that haven't been discussed before. In concept, the 'artillery ships' are similar to early gunships like the USS Monitor in that they are small ships with proto-dreadnought features like turrets and mounting a single battery of guns of the largest size you can mount. Alternately, they are similar to some of the hypothetical 'littoral combat ships' on the drawing board at present in that they are essentially as you put it artillery platforms. We could work them from more balanced classes of ships by dumping the anti-fighter weaponry in favor of either upgunning the 'VL slots' to 'large turret' slots or increasing the manueverability. We should be careful with regards increasing manueverability though to make sure that they can't win easily against larger ships by just keeping the range.

So here are some first attempts at balanced 'artillery ships':

Patrol Gunship: 75000 cr
------------
Length: 70m
Hull: 75000
Armor Slots: 4
Equipment Slots: 9
Manueverability: Very Poor
Engine Slots: 4
Battery Slots: 4
Cruising Speed: As average of engines*
Turbo Speed: As average of engines*
Weapons: 2 turret, 1 large turret
Cargo: 30
Special: 10% penalty to maximum speed & 20% penalty to turbo efficiency

(Capital Ship) Fleet Support Gunship - 300,000cr
---------
Length: 170m
Hull: 180,000
Armor Slots: 5
Equipment Slots: 9
Shields: Class V
Engines: 1 (capital ship drive)
Weapon Slots: 2 turrets, 2 large turrets
Fighter Bays: 2
Cargo: 50
Maneuverability: Bad
Special: No turbo + 10% penalty to speed

They are a little bit one dimensional, but they do give a relatively 'poor' individual the ability to reach out and touch a capital ship (just slightly before getting blown out of the sky) a little bit harder than you could in a single fighter. Of course, maybe either of the above ships would have trouble with single fighter with a skill pilot too, so there you go.

just like the rags have trouble with single fighters but in group battles they are very helpful, in a team effort those ships would be excellent at keeping enemy fighters on their toes while the teammates move in and pick them off in fighter craft.

>.<
i want that! it'd be like "wow".
okay, so i am megalomaniacal, but i simply want to fly a space colony. and i shall dub her... marathon!

It would be nice to see eventually battles where we have people with both fighters AND cap ships. IE fighters to cover the cap ships and to kill other fighters, and cap ships to kill cap ships. :) 2+ fleets flying together to kill.. sounds fun. :)

yeah, but a capship battle would be more awe-inspiring. think of two giant somethings, looming at each other, and spewing every ounce of explosives at one another....

Ships with bigass guns and turrets used to take out frigates and other large targets. Ohhhhh!! See Homeworld and Homeworld 2 for good examples.

=)

ah now i like frigates taking out frigates, that sounds good enough to me.

-io

yep the first thing i want to really remember is a frigate war in s9 or something lol

blow up the new s9 station

yes... capital ship battles... /me starts drooling :-9~···
damn... where'd i put those handkerchiefs?

lol

-io

i just cant wait

I'll settle for a reset...

BTW, a1 said the server is "working" on their test server, and suggested that they may be able to release this Friday.