It'd be really nice to have a designation system set up similar to some SciFi series or even modern military. Right now, there's really three classes of ship. Fighter, Bomber, and Light Transport. Sure there's "light fighter" "medium fighter" and whatnot, but IMHO they're not scaled/accurately depicted. A centurian is actually more fitted for an interceptor role, the Vulture a light fighter, the Warthog a light bomber. etc etc... Reason being, you cant really class the Centurian and the Valk in the same catagory and differentiate them by weight. Valk is actually a Space Superiority fighter, and anyone attacking them alone in say, a Vulture, would be considered "outclassed" Sure, a good vult pilot can take down a vult, but that's another thought.

Also, if the current Frigate is going to be the largest ship ever implemented, perhaps we should designate it as something else? Frigate is the _smallest_ capital-class ship in a navy. In my estimation, on scale with the current one or two man fighters/bombers, etc, the "frigate" would actually be a destroyer. Carrier class vessles imho should probably be the largest. They dont have to be player-owned, or even move around, but it's something that _somebody_ would have made by now, say a Carrier/cruiser class vessel, made by Serco, to outclass and overpower an Itani frigate squadron. There some kind of limit to the size of a ship? Not really, imho, military bodies are always coming up with something bigger/better than the opposition. Possibilities for race-specific ships here, say Serco favors large, lumbering, overly-friggin powerful battleships, Itani prefer light, manuverable and technologically superior frigates, Neutral specailizes in fast merchant vessles. (Neutral should _REALLY_ have a larger freighter than the Maud)

Another component which I strongly feel should be included at some point very near the release if not simultaneously, is dockable capital-class vessles. I think that since capital ships are going to be out of the price range of probably 99% of the population alone, that Guilds/other player groups will have to pay for them. Think someone's going to want to pay a few million of his hard-earned credits so some higher-ranked fool in his guild gets to fly around their flagship alone? nope! he wants to at the very least be able to dock and be able to call that ship his home.

The current universe really doesnt support capital-class ships of the size that I'm suggesting. Sectors are big, but they're not _that_ big in the way that they would allow more than a few frigates to go at it. Sure there's empty space, but who wants to fight out in the middle of nowhere? I've only seen a few places in my travels that are of adequate size to support large fleet battles, even with the current size of the "frigate"

Carrier function capital ships are also a good way to get people involved with one another. I'm sure guilds like the INM of SDF will want to have a carrier vessel they could bring into major conflicts. One or two players could be controlling the vessel, players could outfit their fighters/bombers Freespace style, with currently stocked weapons and ammunition that the Guild has provided and/or stored on the ship. Pilots go out, get killed, come back, and fly another fighter out of the ship until they run out of stock. (or come back and repair) Large frieghters would be integral here too, to resupply the ships on the front line.

I'm sorry if I'm wavering from you're set plans for the game. I'm thinking that eventually when the game becomes popular we'll be able to have several hundred pilots performing basic functions while fighting each other in large-scale battles, such as those that are in Homeworld. Post thoughts.

<edit>I know my thoughts are really jumbled here, I'll try to clean them up and make them a little more coherent later. Sorry.</edit>

The devs seem to make an effort to refer to the "frigate" as the "capital ship." I think I may have heard it called a battlecruiser once or twice.

As for the rest: yes, that would rock. It seems a long way off though.

If you ever targeted the "Frigate" as a whole, you would have noticed it was called "BattleCruiser".

but it's not a battlecruiser by scale with the rest of the ships. That's what my point is.

If most of the ships vary in length from 10-21m, and the "Frigate" is 720m in length (Or so the devs said when it was introduced), what kind of ship would it be then? Keep in mind 720m is equivalent to 60 Valks (12m each) or 72 Busses (10m each) lined up tip to stern.

I agree with alienb, the naming convention is a little off. anyone who has played any navel game (even battleship) knows the basic layout...

Scout - light and fast, light weapons, no cargo space
Fighter - light and fast, medium weapons, small cargo space
Bomber - medium and medium, heavy weapons, medium cargo space
Frigate - heavy and medium, medium weapons, large cargo space
Cruiser - heavy and slow, deployable fighter squads, large cargo space
Destroyer - heavy and medium, heavy weapons, no cargo space
Battleship - huge and slow, very heavy weapons, no cargo space

remember i'm not a dictator... these are suggestions.


MorbidlyWrong[VC]

it's more of a light destroyer, Celkan. Frigates are a bit smaller.

We're also missing some very important Corvette class vessles. Not dockable, but can have more than one pilot.

AlienB, I'd go more along the lines of a full cruiser. The problem is, that sitting after the cruiser-class vessels are two more classes, and hey, face it, the universe, while many systems in length and width, each sector is only so large, and maneuvering a capital class vessel that is larger than say, 800m is going to be mighty difficult an undertaking, not mentioning cargo transfers and everything else.

So,perhaps the 700-750 range should be Destroyer-class, and 751-800 be the Battleship. Since every meter also is graphically rendered, a huge cruiser can rapidly munch the framerates.


As for Corvettes, dont they really fit between Bomber and Frigate classes? Corvettes can be multi-function but are smaller than a full-bore frigate.

Yeah that's the role I intended them to have. Maybe I'll go and make my own game and license the WGAF engine :p

How about something like the Halo in Halo? A huge weapon surrounding the sector, it feasts on hapless traders who don't know the ropes and has a hull of about 1 mil. Some crazy fighting would be needed to take it out, and you'd need big groups to destroy it. If you had a ton of Jackhammers, you could get it pretty quickly (yeah, Jackhammers aren't the greatest, but I like them). It could have the "super-duper-mega-shot" which it fires every, say, 20 minutes or something. It would have smaller weapon turrets on it, but once in a while the "super-duper-mega-shot" would fire, killing anyone along its axis. It could have a 50m proximity from the actual shot. [If you can't picture this, take a circle, draw a line straight through the center (what the diameter would be) and have a 50m proximity around the line through the center, forming a cylinder] It could give 10,000 skill points to the person who destroys it (that would be nice). Anyways, I'll just throw this out for thought.

[off-topicness deleted]

Um....sure.

AlienB: "but it's not a battlecruiser by scale with the rest of the ships. That's what my point is."

On what basis can you say how large a battlecruiser is "supposed" to be? Remember these are 45th century spacecraft, not 20th century naval craft. As tempting as it may be to equate the two, it's not a valid comparison.

Otherwise, I agree with everything you said... I hope to see these features soon after release in the expansion pack!

45th century, sure. But explain to me why they've got atmospheric control surfaces? :]

Pyroman, the difference between 700m and 800m is a tiny one.

Carriers should be at least over 1.5km long. Why? They're floating cities. Space stations with armor, guns, and warp engines. Warping cities, to use Vendetta terminology.

Sectors can and will be tweaked, devs said. There's nothing wrong with huge sectors. Do you think that the current stations are the largest that they'll get? C'mon, don't you envision kilometer-wide stations on huge floating asteroids? The game is getting to a point where it will be easily scalable. When that point arrives, we're in for a huge treat.

"C'mon, don't you envision kilometer-wide stations on huge floating asteroids?"

mmMmmmmM

/me drools :}~

I can invision stations getting larger, with more docks. (or simply more stations put into the universe)
heh, with thousands of players ingame, there might be times you'd have to wait a little to dock.

now large stations are good and all... but where did all the small outpost staions go!

Some of the Itani stations are pretty small..

So are a few of the Serco stations. Usually Strongholds and Barracks tend to be smaller than usual.