Something I was kicking around in my head today. What if there were a new class of ship in the game, one that was a sort of middle ground between cap ships and the heavy cruisers. Basically, battle cruisers. They would be built at cap ship factories, but be about half the size and strength, and they would not use up cap ship points. They would also level up like cap ships. I was also thinking they could be given several upgrade paths to customize their abilities based on what you need (anti-ship, anti-small craft, and support are the 3 I was thinking of).
I thought I would put this out there and see what you guys thought. I think these would be a great middle ground, flex unit for people looking to flesh out their fleets more, but either do not need or do not want more actual cap ships.
as good as the idea is, putting true battlecruisers into the game (manuverability of a cruiser and firepower of a battleship) would break the game, they would simply be too powerful
if you get the cost right (fleet support and resources) than you can put something of aany amount of power in. you could put in the deathstar, but it would have to take up nearly all of your fleet support.
Levelling cruisers would horribly screw up the balance of the game, especially with being able to choose abilities withput costing cap ship points. However, I like the idea of hving different capital ships costing different amounts of points, but the amount of cap ship points you could obtain would have to be increased to macth the new scale. Maybe a truly dedicated carrier with weak weapons, lots of fighters and matching abilities, and a planetary support ship for affecting planet develpoment/repair and culture spread with reverse effects for offencives on enemy planets.
I like the idea but its not what we need. I'll throw my 2 cents in on the issue on extra ships and what the game's balance really needs.
As always love the gameplay and wish for a single player campaign. But their is one thing that's been bugging me, ok well multiple venues stemming from one idea. The only race right now that needs another ship is the TEC, yes they have great abilities but their ships generally do less damage. Albiet I understand that this is the result of the TEC being more Trader Oriented than Fierce Warriors.
So why is it that the original model of the KOl Battleship (The Most Original Unique TEC Ship) was replaced by a model that would give the assumption that the TEC military engineers are watching too much Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica then sticking to their freighter to warship astecthic (Don't get me wrong the new Kol looks cool, but the original tops it).
I'm not saying we go back to just the original but why not make the Original ship one of the default Capital Class vessels and the new KOL a researchable capital class vessel (A KOL Mark 2... catchy ain't it.). And give the newer KOL more unique abilities. This would lore wise show the TEC's beginnings of becoming more combat oriented, remember these guys are more trader than warrior.
Now along these lines why is it that the TEC who are a more projectile based empire have laser cannons everywhere when Autocannons or missile launchers do the Job better.
There is an old and new KOL? Can you post links for comparison?
A link to a picture of the original KOL
I'll try to find a better picture.
yeah, the old Kol looked cool too, bit like the omega destroyers though (yes, from B5).
in general, the 'mark 2' idea is actually fairly decent, something in that direction could be cool.
Was this in Beta or something? I always remember the KOL looking as it does now.
I think making some of the TEC's Capital vessels researchable like the new Kol and the Marza would add to the gameplay and make the races feel a bit more Unique. Right now all the races are unique but feel very similar. They all have the same types of units with just different models and stats. Logically the Advent and the Vasari would not think like the TEC. Therefore military doctrine of all three would be vastly different.
From a research standpoint the TEC have the most, their catching up as it were to the other races. The original Kol, along with the Dunov, and the Akkan: represent the TEC as they began their militarization. When they were converting freighters, transports and beginning to build dedicated warships. Whereas the Marza, Sova and the newer Kol represent years of research, tactics, planing, and military defeats and successes.
So here's and idea, Make the Original Kol (Slightly less stats then the current one, but same abilities), Akkan, and Dunov the default capital vessels available at purchase in the beginning of the game. And then make the Marza, Sova, and the newer Kol (Higher stats in all areas representing the culmination of weapons and development research, and give it new abilities) requiring research, thus justifying a weapons boost for them. Particularly the newer Kol, as I said before classify it as a Kol Mk 2 symbolizing the TEC's years of research into weapons and combat ship development.
*edit* The newer model was added a couple months after release if I remember correctly.
I'm not so much talking gameplay here, but I just like this idea, be it for lore reasons or whyever. it's basically pretty similar to what I have in my head too.
Thank you for your comments Shadowhal, and yeah its been rolling around my head too. I wish the TEC would follow their lore more. And I think it would really add to the diversification of the races. Because to be honest research aside the races are just carbon copies of ships with new models and stats. With a unique super weapon to each race.
I understand a need for balance, but not at the cost of diversification. And abilities can not be the only way to diversify races.
But aren't all the Grand Cruisers in the hands of the Traitors?
Anyway, the primary question you should be asking yourself is what does this unit add to the game, and is there a unit that already fulfills the purpose?
For example, large carriers. Having a carrier is 10+ squadrons would be too powerful. Unless cruisers and capital ships started carrying point defense against them, but by that logic, they should be to target missiles. Well, that sorta screws over the TEC and Vasari, doesn't it? Well, then you have to make missiles much longer ranged...
It's a viscious circle and it makes balance a pain in the ass. We already have the heavy cruiser, which is extremely powerful. Really, the heavy cruiser is too spammy for my tastes, as it really has no efficient counter, other than other heavy cruisers. This makes WitchFire a sad panda.
the research trees are in fact where races acutally differ. and quite a lot so. you see, there are not only the ultimate techs, but also strong intermediate ones, like the production speed bonus for tec (which suits their 'generate loads of money and spam units' style), the phase gates and speeding up abilities or the forced labour techs for the vasari or the various techs for advent like increased mitigation, extra culture and such.
then, keep in mind that there is also a difference in a) how many upgrades there are in certain areas. advent have strong shields, so they have more shield techs than the other races, vasari have tougher hulls, so they have more armour upgrades, then I think there are differences in resource extraction numbers. and , upgrades come at different stages. it kinda makes a difference whether trade stations are available at tier 2 (tec) or tier 4 (vasari) and there are several other examples. this IS after all a rts/ 4x hybrid, which means that all, or almost all, functions in the game have to be available to all races - at some point. imagine a civ like game where a race has no catapults, or airplanes, or walls or whatever.
that said, I always said a tad more differention, even if it has no real gameplay impact is purely artistical, wouldn't hurt. believe me, there was a huge discussion about a year ago ... several actually.
don't bombers effectively counter heavy cruisers? I'd imagine hc's to be too slow and cumbersome to catch light carriers and do significant damage. I never had the chance to wipe out large amounts of hc's with carriers/ bombers though.
Yeah I remember a few of the discussions from my previous account, its been about a year since I last was active on these forums.
Its just I wish their were other main areas of diversity other than research trees.
I was playing the star wars mod of this game. I think what these game needs its just more ships. A few more frigets. More crusiers, for example we could have a normal cruiser, then the heavy cruisers, then a battle cruiser. More caps as well.
Give the 5 caps we have now more power then add a few more. Perhaps we could have different versions (like your kol mark II idea). Perhaps we could have super carrier that trades abilities for more strike craft.....
you have to keep in mind, the definition of a battlecruiser is a ship with the firepower of a battleship, and the maneuverability of a cruiser. the only way to achieve this is to lower the amount of armor on the ship. therefore, were we to add a battlecruiser class, they would be extremely powerful, but would have low armor and hull points.
well, there could be a anti-fighter/bomber cap, high armor and hull values, but low attack power other than intercept weapons. this one would be nearly entirely for fleet surviveability. a Full Broadside cap would be nice - it would have battles just like the old naval sea battles...wow, I am waaaaaaay too into the time period. I can't beleive I just referred to the 20th-21st century sea battles as "the old naval sea battles". anyway, a traveling broadside pass would be a cool battle.
I think in order for the battlecruiser to work caps would need to be more powerful. I am talking about DPS not abilities. If we up the DPS on caps (which is not as good as it could be) then we can make the battlescruiser work. It would have high DPS like a cap, (which is why we up it) and would trade ablities and armor for speed. It would bring the punch but it could not take it.
The only real problem I see is caps just see to die to easily. Focus fired and they go down, so the battlecruiser would go down really easy. The only way for it to work is to really up the power on the capital ships.
Kinda like the HMS Hood (battlecruisers) and the Bismark (caps)
The Hood and the Bismark were two ships that dueled in WWII. the Hood was a British Battleship and the Bismark was a german battleship. the Bismark easily won having much greater armor compared to the Hoods negligible armor, even though the Hood had slightly bigger guns.
anyway The minelayer could be a battlecruiser (except its damage is in its mines, not its guns); as could a sniper vessel - it would need some form of cloaking and a slow weapon cooldown; and a sensors vessel (for detecting spy ships and sniper ships w/ cloaking); and a pure power vessel.
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