In the newly imagined hit-series Battlestar Galactica, the capital ship had a very sophisticated Flak defense array capable of projecting a dense Flak shield around the battlestar. Now, I have to ask the Ironclad developers, have they ever seen the Anti-SC capabilities of a capital ship in that series? Well it looks like this:
That is a lot of Flak. Also in the series, we've seen on television how effective these Flak shields can be taking down several cylon raiders on several occasions on television. Battlestars were equipped with hundreds... of point-defense turrents that created the lightshow you see in the above picture.
In Star Wars Episode III, we saw dense capital ship Anti-Aircraft fire from the first minute.
In any canon Star Wars hand-book of ships, it lists major capital ships such as Star Destroyer as carrying several AA-missile batteries and AA-Ion cannons in addition to its TIE squadrons for a secondary line of Anti-SC defense.
In real life, the battleship - the epitome of what is considered a "capital ship" - is literally a moving Flak platform on wheels. The largest battleship ever created The Yamato had over 150 Type 96 25mm cannons, and over 25 type 93 13mm triple AA machine guns, other ships indeed almost any ship worth anything in battle carried Flak guns. Naval battles in the pacific tended to be massive Flak vs. Strike Craft contests with a lot of puff puff clouds covering the sky for miles.
The question is why then can't Capital Ships get Flak in this game? Yes, there are several caps (1-2 for each each) that has an anti-SC ability such the Kol Flak Burst, or the Dunov's Magnetize but does that really make up for Capital Ships not even having a small built in Flak defense system? No, not really.
Yes, there are a specialized type of frigate: the Flak Frigate that is meant to be the primarily Flak defense for ships in SINs but does that mean unless you always bring along Flak Frigates your capital ships will always be completely defenseless against SC? Yes, it does (not counting the starting 1-2 strike craft your non-carrier capital ships get)
What I propose is: give all capital-ships a general weak Flak capability equal to 2-3 Flak Frigates.
Why we should give Capital Ships Flak. (And Starbases)
Capital Ships loved to be focused fired on by strike craft from all types of players. They see the biggest thing on the battlefield and want to take it out. This means, Capital Ships are always in near-constant danger of strike craft every game that goes onto the mid-game. You cannot count on your Anti-matter abilities because you may not have any, and your starting SC will not be able to really protect you unless you've spammed them in the form of light carriers. This extra protection however slight is needed.
The philosophical question really is: Why shouldn't huge capital ships (and even larger Starbases) that are very expensive and valuable not be able to protect themselves against SC without relying on abilities or your own SC - even slightly? They may not even good at it, they may not be effective at it, but they should be able to fire back. In WW2, Flak was nessecarily the best option for taking down planes, and options such as interceptors were better, but that is no reason to completely strip capital ships from having it.
Why Capital Ship Flak is balanced.
The weak to moderate strenght Flak equipped on Capital Ships would only be a second to third line of defense for the capital ships against enemy-SC. Mass Flak Frigates would still be much more effective than relying solely on a Cap's light Flak defense, and your own fighter SC would also be much more effective. Essentially the balance will be unchanged from what it is right now, it'll only be just that now Capital Ships can shoot back and lightly dmg enemy SC swarming around them. Flak Frigates will NOT be obsolete (agent of Karma), Fighter SC will still be more effective, and enemy SC focus-firing on capitals will still be just as effective. Like I've mentioned, this is a humble change.
"We can live without Flak for capital ships, but do we really want to? Also on very principle we shouldn't. We owe it to the Science Fiction Genre. "
Why Starbase Flak is needed.
Everything that applied to capital ships applies here, except that Starbases in addition to being huge, expensive, and valuable, they are immobile. Strike Craft could simply avoid them, and they will be a zero threat. Now, for players attempting to assault these structures, they could send SC but its perfectly flesible and realistic they will take losses. Carrier Strike Craft, should not be able to jump in on the other side of the grav well released their strike craft, wait for a few minutes while the strike craft do their dirty work (without taking any losses, due to the lack of flak guns) then jump out once the Starbase dies. Yes, Starbases can have up to several SC of their own, but that is only available after multiple upgrades you need to buy. Starbases should already start out with built-in Flak or at least make it a cheap upgrade.
Babylon 5 station's defense grid. Interceptor Station Point Defense Guns.
Specifics: Give the Akkan, Progenitor, and the Jarrasul a moderate Flak capability.
All the other capital ships and starbases will have a weak Flak equal to 2-3 Flak Frigates, however the Mothership type capital ship I adovcate for a moderate Flak ability equal to about 3-4 Flak Frigates.
The Akkan should receive moderate Flak abilities.
Again not much of a leg up, but still important. This makes these ships even better and helps protect your fleet in the immediate radius. The reasoning for this is, Flak is a support/defense ability these ships could have in contrast to the battleship capitals with their high hp + dmg and the command caps with their great abilities. This gives player an addition reason to go with these ships as their first capital ship knowing it will be very useful even in late-game battles vs. just slightly useful in combat.
PLEASE NOTE: This thread is not here to discuss Flak balance vs. Strike Craft Carrier balance. That is for another thread, and there are plently of them out there. Please do not post something like: "Great idea, but it's all unless without a carrier fix and a general buff to flak" [I actually agree with this, but keep it in another thread]
This is Silfarion's three criteria for adding in a change to the game. That I agree with.
1. It's balanced.
2. It fits the theme of the game and what the developers had in mind.
3. It works with minimal fuss or change.
---------------------
1. - Topic for debate. I say Yes.
2. - Yes, and double Yes. I have to ask, do the developers even watch BattleStar Galactica?
3. - Yes, and triple yes. It is easily implemented and won't create much of a fuss, (except for diehards out there such as Hack87, who won't like this idea no matter how humble)
I make sure to make all my trends very specific, full of examples, and with a Rebuttal section to combat the diehards out there, who hate new ideas no matter what they are. It is my hope that most people will see the merits of this humble proposal despite the over-the-topic critics that will surely seek to destroy this thread with everything they can muster.
Objections & Rebuttal COLUMN (read this first for all you diehards out there)
— "This isn't really needed"
Having cherry on a Ice-Cream Sunday isn't needed, but it's good and moreover it's "right". If we were to simply not do a change because it wasn't crucially needed and we only did things when it was absolutely nessecary in today's society then we would not have video games, ice cream, ... toilets. This change really implements the spirt of the genre and a humble change that will not cause any problems for balance.
— "Capital Ships already have 2 things to deal with squadrons ... It's a bad idea then, its a bad idea now."
Some Capital Ships have two thing to try to deal with SC, but with 1 they fail completely, the other is very micro/anti-matter dependent. I'm talking about of course their own SC, and their own capitial ship abilities that some ships have. The flaw in the first one is that the number of squadrons a cap carries (1-3 max) will almost never be enough to really protect it against enemy swarms. Second, the abilities are anti-matter dependent and highly situational. None of these 2 give a good reason why capitals shouldn't have a reliable built in Flak both in game-terms and philosophically.
— "Capital Ships aren't supposed to be a one-ship fleet, they support, and need support... they need Flak Frigates ad fighters already with them. Capital Ships are limited by hardcoding to three weapons systems..."
They're not. Capital ships will still very much need support to be effective. Giving capital ships a weak Flak will not by any means make them one-ship conquer all wonders. Flak Frigate support will still be very much desired, Fighter support will still be very viable. As for hardcoding, there are mods out there that already has this as a feature, so we know its all very much possible.
If the devs could increase the limit for caps and starbased to allow for 3 weapon types then I can see flak being in their. For balancing the flak can only be effective agaist strike craft.
Thank you everyone for the great comments. I'd glad to see so many people argeeing with me. This thread has been received very well indeed.
If you like what you see, feel appreciative of the quality of this thread, please feel free to give me karma.
Once again, thank you to everyone that expressed such support.
im not giving you karma for an idea you didnt come up with
Yeah sorry, no Karma just because you asked for Karma lol. Karma goes to the first AA gun turret creator EVER! Like maybe a German army engineer or American Naval Mechanic, they get the Karma. Flak turrets are just common sense, proven by history and the future (BSG etc.)
-Phalnax
so true +100 karma to who ever made the flak turret
Credit - You are making things up again, picking things to support your argument without using the whole scenario you are lifting them from. You talk about real life and then base it on WWII.
What is this battleship? Which fleet is it currently serving in? Battleships are now obsolete in their traditional role. Now the are more for shore bombardment etc...
Today a carrier is the major ship in a fleet. They are surrounder by destroyers and cruisers that provide protection. However their main defence against enemy fighters/bombers (or even interceptors if someone was to use them) are their own fighters etc...
Why? Because they can fly over the horizon. The idea is to kill something BEFORE it can fire its weapons. By having an AWACS up, they can vector something to fly towards the attacker and engage it long before the carrier has it on its radar. In fact, the carrier's one is probably off due to it giving away their position.
The weapons on the carrier itself is point defence for last minute targetting of missiles that are close range - i.e. a few miles away or less.
And it was an A-Wing that took out the Executor. It's "flak" didn't protect it. Also, according to canow the Empire built the Lancer FRIGATE to kill the rebel fighters. The rebels fielded a Corillian Gunboat for a similar role.
In the B5 universe, those guns you point out are often used to shoot down incoming ordiance as well as fighters (That's what the star furies are used for).
Interceptors of both types were used to defend against incoming fire, as well as shooting down enemy starfighters. They fire slow moving pulses that actually intercept and disrupt incoming fire. The nature of this effect is unknown. It is also unknown how many interceptor emplacements are present, but they appear to be well positioned, allowing good coverage of the sky surrounding the station. In the image above right, the new interceptor emplacement is located off the starboard side of the communications tower (seen in the background).
THIS IS FROM THE SAME SITE
Now to be fair, they DID say the following about the bottom left grid gun
This emplacement has 4 barrels, each of which fires short blue pulses at a high rate. Reminiscent of a machinegun, this battery fires each barrel separately 0.17 second apart. This weapon is used against both starfighters and large warships.
They also pointed out that the defence grid overheated fighting a Centuari ship.
Babylon 5's defenses began intercepting Centauri fire at approximately 7 seconds into the clip. The announcement was made that the interceptors were overheating at approximately 21 seconds. Assuming that the battle is presented in realtime, B5's interceptors can defend the station from a Centauri warship of this class for less than 20 seconds, even though the warship was firing at multiple targets outside of Babylon 5.
Moving onto the game itself.
For those complaining about the lack of flak on star bases - BUILD SOME HANGERS. Outfit them with fighters and get the upgrade for flak for them. You now have flak surrounding your starbase. Which is actually better as it start hitting ships before they get to you if you put them in front. Plus your fighters will have started thinning out the enemy SC.
Why not just build those 2-3 ships. They are a level 2-3 tech and don't cost that much???
Lets see if I can find the FLAW here. You talk about an enemy swarm. Lets give it an arbitary value, say someone with 10 carriers vs 1 cap ship. Apart from the differences in fleet supply and ship cost, there is no difference between the two. So yeah. This is a valid argument. Forget I said anything. Please continue.
No wait - lets look at that some more... Come on, be serious - NO capital ship goes into combat unacompanied except for in the early game when you have scouted and know what you are facing. You don't send a Lvl1 cap to colonise a terran with 3 kodiaks, 4 garda, 5 cobalts, 3 LRM and some krosovs either. And if their SC are hitting your cap then they are either bombers which your SC will kill quickly, or fighters which do less damage and your SC can thin them out (since these are what most people build and swarm).
Here's an idea to help protect your cap - get some Hoshikos/ceilos (or overseers/subjugaters + guardians) to help repair them. Or maybe a second cap with an anti-SC ability so you get some synergies going???
So by your own acknowledgement a cap cannot stand on its own... Cool. You just defeated your own agument. Good good. Enough SC hitting a cap without support will kill it!!! Genius at work here.
If you had a suitably balanced fleet with a similar number of points spent, the cap will still go down to frigate focus fire unless you micro it. Or your SC will kill THEIR cap and they have the same complaint you have. Except you will be happy as you won!!!
Also - when talking about how people have modified the game, you didn't ask "What have the mods changed to achieve this flak ability"? There are many mods out there that many people feel would ruin MP games, but are fine vs AI. For example, one of them is a version of Go-Big or Go-Home.
Oh no Hack mad another logically developed arguement back. Time to see credit go RED.
Again I say good argument both ways but Im sure credit will strive to scream him wrong.
Hack, I don't want to start, so I'm not going to. Any thread you touch turns into a messy shitfest over your own ego. I'll say this politely: please leave, thank you.
Adieu.
Btw, let me just say you've completely missed my point and gone off the high end.
Hack, I don't even want to start therefore im not, however I am going to poke a few holes in your counter arguments.
1) Carriers do have anti-air capability. An example from the Nimitz Class:
16-24 surface-to-air missiles 4 close-in weapons systems
Those close-in weapon systems or known on US ships as the Phalanx CIWS are anti-missile defense systems designed to destroy incoming anti-ship / air-surface missiles, and if a plane gets in too close they can kill it too. The reason why our carriers aren't lone ships is because of a few things, 1. submarines, yes carriers have ASW helicopters, but destroyers and frigates are far more suited to the job than a carrier. 2. A lone ship is vurenable, the Phalanx can't intercept 100% of the time, therefore having a defense perminater of ships is more logical.
2) Star Wars
Dont even try saying that ships did not have anti-fighter capabilities, yes the lancer was designed to help combat enemy fighters incoordination with capital ships, not by themselves. The reason why capital ships had a hard time killing fighters in starwars was due to a few things, 1) they had blindspots due to size and bad firing arcs. 2) It was hard for them to target the small craft with large guns since there moving pretty fast, thus came in the lancer which had really advanced anti-fighter tracking systems.
These are a few counter arguments, like I said I dont really want to get into this but im sick of people stating stuff liek they know everything. I am one of those that agrees that capital ships should have flak in realistic terms, but in this game it is currently hard to impliment. However like my post earlier there is a way to do it so people can see if it is balanced enough.
Repeat from earlier post:
In the entity files, I beleive there is a modifier under the weapons on each ship that if you replace the no with a yes it will enable the weapon to target strike craft. If you do this make sure you make a mod and not edit your direct files, also dont enable all the weapons, do the lowest damage one.
Someone mention that btw, the Executor's shields went down because all the Rebel capital ships were focus firing on it?
Then a random A-Wing (That was shot down by the Executor's AA ) crashed into the bridge. To answer a earlier question, the armaments I listed was for the battleship Yamato it's all accurate, feel free to look them up down to the exact type.
Yamato was credited with over 30 aircraft kills in its final battle with the US fleet.
I like how cloud04 argues. No snide comments, red or bold letters, or repeating of the same thing. credit you could learn from this guy.
That said cloud04 does infuse some good points like the fact that even carriers, especially fleet or cap carriers, carried a vast assortment of AA weapons from basic 50-cal to 40mm and modern day missile systems. These were basic last ditch efforts when all else failed of course, a basic oh-sh** plan Z.
Battleships were also turned from mighty ships to the sea to floating platforms of massive amounts of AA during WWII. Thats probably why I personally support the idea of flak on caps but I prefer them on the likes of Kol and Dunvo type vessels not the Akkans (Im very TEC oriented but you get the idea).
The biggest thing I see is this.
Can this game be improved?YES!Do I think caps should have flak on them?YES!Do I think devs should do it?NO!Should devs create the ability to mod this in?YES! and there is a minor ability to mod this but it is either poorly understood or supported.
Many people have different ideas of how games are to be developed. Ironclad and Stardock have done an excellent job of developing this with a vanillia game that can be heavily modified.
So my grip is not that these ideas should or should not be talked about it (my family loves to debate so I follow these forums with interest) but that we should not demand the devs put in our own ideas. This is their creation their right to do what they will. But they have given us the option of modifying their work and that should be a better topic of discussion.
That's correct Ryat,
My purpose is to show the developers that this idea has merit and a significant body of support behind it in the SINs community. (well, apart from a few diehards who hate everything of course)
It's completely up to them to implement it or not, but Ironclad implemented a lot of their community's ideas into entrenchment and unlike most companies Ironclad actually does read these forums.
Oh and I forgot one more thing about battleships,
During WWII, after realizing that air power was the key to winning in the pacific and Carriers became the dominant capital ship, battleships were moved into the secondary role. This role was mainly command, shore bombardment and the main one, AA cover for carriers. In a fleet the carriers would be in the center surronded by a force of battleships, then cruisers then destroyers, creating a massive protection screen. Even carriers during WWII carried considerably AA guns as well, but not nearly as much as a battleship.
Take the Iowa class for example which is considered as a fast battleship with the exact purpose of keeping speed with carriers to give AA cover. Thier AA consists of:
20 × 5 in (127 mm) 38 cal. Mark 12 guns 80 x 40 mm 56 cal. anti-aircraft guns 49 x 20 mm 70 cal. anti-aircraft guns
The US 5 inch guns are the most famous of the war for thier dual purpose. They are considered the most accurate AA guns of the war, which is why most carriers, cruisers and even destroyers were equiped with them.
My bad!!!
Why - becauseI spend the time to write a counter argument? Where are those debating skills and big words you keep hardping on about?
I know what they are. The point is that the enemy plane shoots from long range. Exocet/Harpoon can fire from well over the horizon and sea skim.
I never did. However my point is that a special ship was required!!!
"We count thirty Rebel ships, Lord Vader. But they're so small they're evading our turbo-lasers!" "We'll have to destroy them ship to ship. Get the crews to their fighters."
Hence...
Imperial starships had long focused on ship-to-ship combat capabilities, relegating smaller capital ships to planetary defense rather than picket duty. As Rebel Alliance pilots learned to exploit the major weaknesses of Star Destroyers, commonly called "Trench Run Disease", Imperial officers grew increasingly concerned over the growing relative effectiveness of these heavily-armed and shielded starfighters. After the first Death Star's destruction at the Battle of Yavin by a handful of Alliance starfighters, the need for greater starfighter defense was clear.[2]
Admiral Drez proposed using the KDY Lancer-class ships to screen enemy starfighters to allow dominant Star Destroyers to pummel enemies in ship-to-ship combat. This was then approved by the Imperial Naval Command. The final iteration of the craft ran a slim 250 meters with twenty quad laser cannon batteries designed specifically for starfighter hunting, but required a relatively large crew of 850, however this came at cost of having no capitol grade weaponry or shielding, leaving the ships vulnerable to other capital ships. The ship was also quite slow, allowing many fighters to simply outrun it.
As opposed to a SSD going down due to the Trench Run tactic? Ask Warlord Zsinj how his Executor class ships AA went against the massed star fighters???
Quite true - but that was 60 years ago - they didn't have precision guided, self propelled ordanence back then. We do now. Hence you need to project your defensive out past the immediate vicinity and need planes to do that.
OK guys, we are getting a bit off topic. If you guys have played nexus, then thats how flak guns should behave.
ya know im suprised there is not a flak-based capship. With the hard code moved upwards they could add one in. maybe similar to the lancer class frigate the imps use in star wars, cept bigger and more flakkyness
In general I would agree with you guys, sounds like a nice idea.
However, would it not make the flak frigate nearly obsolete? Perhaps I am wrong...
With respect to be realistic and stuff... It's a game... As long as it is well balanced, that's all I care.
Now, that carriers take their time to build new strike craft, we will have to see how things work out. If they don't work out then flak frigates need to be powered up...
Just my two cents
since sins's official release i've always wondered why capital ships were low on guns.... not even a single flak system "except for the kol's ability ofcourse.."
about every known starship/station i can think of has some type of anti-fighter system installed "tough the Death Star's turbolasers were to big to deal with the Y/X-wings..."
SC are a serious threat, as the Japanese obviously understood, the yamato, being a moving flak-ship, the attack on pearl-harbor using only strike-craft "and a few minisubmarines.. but im no expert on that"
so i totally agree with CreditSuisse capital ships / stations can't really be named like that unless having a few flak-batteries even if it's just to make it feel epic "or more epic for those that dont want to change stuff"
who doesnt dream of being on cap-ship bridge with dozens of flak-guns tracking the enemy, and thousands of shells being fired from them..explosions left n right...
Gah, i got myself dreaming again....
IIRC, Carriers, mothership, and battle cruisers in HW 2 had low powered AA guns, they could defend the ship against a single bomber squadron, but had no hope of stopping bigger swarms. If something similar could be implemeted for caps and starbases, without having take out anything they currently have, i'm all for it
Like I said I don't want to get into a huge argument, but Hack you are really good at cropping out information that best suits your argument when you need it too.
Trench-run disease:
Pilots facing large starships would fly close to the surface of a ship's outer hull, using trenches to avoid enemy fire. Starfighters could thus deliver their payload with impunity to sensitive ship segments
Avoid enemy fire, oh you mean the anti-starfighter defenses on the capital ships. Yes the lancer was put to use to help stop this tactic, however it was a old ship (deployed a few months after the clone wars), and since there wasn't many of them, officers had to relie on thier starfighter squadrons inconjunction with thier own anti-starfighter defenses. I believe in my earlier post I said the reason why the capital ship AA wasn't that great was because the fighters would get into blind spots, hmmm. Also that first qoute was about the deathstar, not an imperial capital ship, so nice try there of cropping stuff to your argument.
Before I go off even more Im going to refrian. Just to let you know before you start arguing I am a have a bacholers degree in History with a focus on naval vessels (highlighting the WWII era), also im a fequent poster on the fleet junkie thread on theforce.net boards, so dont even start with using starwars.
Cap ships do need a better flak defense then they have now. But if done right a cple of flak frigates sitting near your cap and have them set to fire at enemeies in their area of effect and bam keep your capships together as much as possible and sc no longer a problem. I used this method with the torpedo boats for the tec anginst an advent starbase and all my boats surrvived.
again and again, Marza is not supposed to be alone...this capital ship is doomed to blast planet, not defend against SC. Put a Kol/Dunov/flak frigates next to it to protect it.
Why do you want all capital ships have flak?! Your idea of capital ship is no-flaws ship?
That would be boring fight after all.
If you want to change something, try to add some protect option for defensiv SC (like : aim ennemy bombers in priority), that's a good addition to tactics to Sins...but I don't if it's easy to add in game code.
For my point of view, all TEC and Vasari (I don't know enough Advent tactics) capital ships are correctly balanced : all useful, and not overpowerful.
Aren't autocannons on the Kol the primary damage dealer?
Anyways, I'm all for the idea strictly from the ASTHETIC perspective. If we have to I say give them all flak weapons that don't do anything!!! I just want more eye candy.
BUT, 2 or 3 frigates worth of flak won't change much. If that was what were added.
These ideas all have their worth and merit for both sides, but it is all academic if you can't stay in the game for more than 5 minutes because of minidump freezes.
Hack, stop trolling.
The pictures alone make this thread great, it is not usual to see worthful thread like this.
And as I suggested, I think it is good idea (whether it is old or not.)
P.S Btw Hack, sins of solar empire is based on WWI/II era, not modern warfare.
If it was, we should not have "battleships" "battlecruisers" (they don't exist in modern era anymore) but just destroyers (wow, we don't have them in game!), cruisers (some with Aegis system) and a gigantic carrier which dealy strikecrafts (far stronger than current state)
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