Theo Ramone
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Posted - 2007.05.15 18:18:00 -
[2]
I'll throw out my .02 cents for a minute, but I'm sure it'll get piled up somewhere once logic is brought to bear.... 
Since it seems the problem is the fact that cap ships are "unstoppable" (Aside from other cap ships) maybe the solution isnt another ship class but extensive modifications of current setups.
Lets look at history for a minute. A fleet of ships may invovle dozens or hundreds of ships of which a handful were capital class ships. Most were support ships of some type, whos ultimate purpose was to keep the capitals safe. The reason was that technology allowed firepower to outstrip size rather quickly. A perfect example is the Bismark. Essentially it was rendered useless by something as insignifigant as a small prop plane. Another example is the feared Wolf Packs. While a submarine is itself a weak target, its offensive capabilities are incredible. Its truly a capital ship with a paper hull, and many a true captial ship (Carrier, battleship) met its fate at the hand of a good submariner.
The defenses to this was the picket ships. Destroyers, cruisers and corvettes.
Capital ships were designed to bring overwhelming firepower to bear on other large capital ships and stationary targets (Bombardments) but were far from immune to small properly fitted ships themselves.
Obviously the in-game implementation of this would be diffiuclt however.
By allowing specific modules to be targetted one could allow smaller ships to focus fire and damage vastly larger ships. Just as a dive bomber can, to an extent, chose where his torpedo goes so could a smaller ship in game by allowing module targetting. Rather then target "the ship", you could choose to target various slots on the ship. Implement a new skill Hardpoint Targetting. Without the skill you target "the ship", with the skill you target specific modules. Allow a degree of error so that the lower the skill the greater the chance the shot hits "the ship" as opposed to the module. Overall ship defense (shield, armor, structure) could then be divided among the modules. Say 50% of total defense is split across hi-slots, 30% across all mid slot and 20% across all low slots.
Allow small ships to carry high firepower weapons. Another example is the stealth bomber. A small ship with big missiles. While as it currently stands its still not a threat to larger ships, it would become devastating if it could bring its firepower to bear on any one particular module. Whereas before a well equipped battleship or cap ship would laugh at a stealth bomber, suddenly that small ship becomes a very real threat if he can bring 100% of his firepower to bear on your individual modules. Sure, you'll never break the carrier, but if you start knocking modules offline hes gonna view you as a very real threat. At that point your fleet would want alot of picket ships to deal with smaller ships with high firepower weapons that threaten the larger ships, and due to the weapons carried cannot properly defend themselves against the small picket ships.
This would really open up the use of smaller ships. The smaller ships would now pose a real threat to larger ships that otherwise would ignore them, and now small ships would be used to screen against these types. As it is, if a few cruisers and frigs how up on the doorstep of a large fleet they would be laughed at. If these same ships could target modules with high firepower weapons, suddenly all cap's will be screaming for the screening ships to get on them before the large ships are rendered useless by a loss of modules.
Additionally this would help deal with the issues of tanking/NOS'ing. Tired of being NOS'ed to death? Cant break the tank? Hit the modules. See how the tank holds up when he starts losing shield extenders and rechargers.
Just my .02 cents, from a guy who loves the little ships but doesnt dare face off against a bigger one. 
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