Xaldor
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Posted - 2007.10.21 16:36:00 -
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I think it is silly to have a capital ships that are effectively outgunned by a battleship. I think it is silly to assign 5 fighter to a pilot that has no drone skills. I think it is silly to assign 5 fighters to a ship where the fighters are probably worth more than that other player's ship. It just makes no sense... none at all.
The problem is not that Carriers are able to launch lots of fighters, that is what carriers are meant to do. The problem is you do not want fleets of carriers without support ships. You do not want Carriers as front-line siege breakers. Why are they being used in those roles? Because they have no reall effective predator. Thanks to the comical Dreadnoughts and Titan designs, people only deploy them for support roles or comedy value.
My suggestion is to overhaul Dreadnoughts, they are sadly lacking in terms of effectiveness, which is probably why they are not all that popular. Give them an overhaul, make a new line of Dreads that are capital ship hunters, floating glass cannons, make them antt-Carrier and capital ship hunters of the battlefield.
The damage output of a Dread is rather pathetic, give them massive capital ships damage dealing potential with non-existant smaller ship damage, with a luke warm tank making them utterly dependant on fleet to stay alive with only one purpose, protect a fleet operation from enemy capitals.
They should be rather economical because they wont have the life expectancy of other capitals or have a lot of versatile roles they can perform. They are just good at engaging enemy capital ships. But, if a Cap hunter gets within range of a Carrier, it should absolutely sodomize the Carrier.
Because there is no natural predator to the Carrier, they are being used with their massive tanking potential to be frontline siege breakers. Put in a predator into the mix and you will change the way people will deploy and use their carriers without introducing lame carrier limitations.
You just have to understand WHY people are using carriers as they are.
My second suggestion is introduce mine deployment, floating mines which you can launch with a minelaying module which target capital ships that get within their effective range. They should do ridiculous damage to capital sized ships that get close to them and forces the capital ships to rely on smaller support craft to perform mineclearing duties.
Just make it so you need a module to be able to detect and target mines, as they would have built in sensor dampeners which are too advanced for drones to detect and engage. Mines should also have an effective range significantly greater than any smartbomb type device.
It opens up a whole new type of engagement possibilities with fleets luring enemy capitals into traps, using mines also as a means of defence against capitals. Capitals just need more predators and people will use them in a more realistic manner.
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