Poll: Implement Ships and Equipment up to Destroyer Class. C5 Weapons and Tier 10 Modules

[Sunleader]

I'd love a good space game ships of all these classes each filling its own role, but I don't think that game is Elite.
Gameplay wise I think they've said they always wanted Elite ships to be about piloting, and beyond a certain size it wouldn't be. I already dislike the large ship mechanics, dogfighting with smaller ships and hitting them with their forward firing main guns. Anything bigger would be a bridge too far and would require entirely new gameplay mechanics. Maybe if they devoted a whole expansion to it, but that's not where I'd hope for them to put all those resources.

Lore-wise, do such ships even exist in the Elite universe? As I understand it the size of the mailbox is a strong limiting factor on the size of ships. Once you get bigger than that you have to ferry stuff back and forth or have a dedicated dock, which is why there's a sharp jump in size lfrom the playable ships to the vast capital ships. I don't recall coming across any mention of intermediate classes of ships - several books feature Anaconda and Cutter sized vessels along with capital ships, but nothing in between (other than the Panther Clipper which is still on the playable end of the range.

1.
I dont see how thats a Problem.
Keeping an Enemy Ship Broadside with an Frigate or Destroyer. Especially in First Person would Require a Great Deal of Piloting Skills.
It would also be something requiring a different Skillset because you have to be able to Navigate mostly by Radar and Sensors rather than on your Sight.

2.
Dogfighting should not happen for anything beyond a Corvette.
In Reality as well. Corvettes had their Weapons Forward Facing.
Starting with Frigates and Destroyers the Weapons in Reality Started Shifting towards Broadsides
Which means that these Ships would have an Completely Different Flying Style. As they would not Turn after you. But rather attempt to keep Distance in a Diagonal Stride to you. In which they can Bring their Weapons to Bear on you while Rolling the Ship to keep Firing Arcs

Which at the same time means the Corvettes should be the last Ship where Forward Facing Weapons would be a Thing.
But at the same time. Corvettes would get an entirely new Role here.
Because with their Heavy Frontal Weapons and the Ability to Mount Strong Lasers while still getting several Torpedoes and Rockets on Smaller Slots. They would be the Choice of Ship when you want to Sink an Frigate or Destroyer
Since they got the Power to get the Shields of an Frigate or Destroyer Down and then lash out Mean Torpedoes into its Hull to Cause massive Damage



3.
I cannot tell if this stuff exists Lore Wise.
I never bothered much with the Elite Verse before Dangerous.
But I dont think thats a Problem.
Since the Universe is Evolving. So New Ships and also new Ship Classes being Build would not be Surprising.

The Mail Slot is not a Problem here.
There is alot of Easy ways to other Docking Options like External Docking Bridges etc.
Moreover. Since they also Started adding Bigger Space Stations like Shipyards and so on. It might also make sense. That Frigates and Destroyers would simply not be able to Dock at normal Spaceports which only got the Mail Slot

And then there is the Fact that an Frigate could have Class 9 and Class 10 Hangar Bays.
Which would be able to Hold Ships up to Small Landing Pad Size. And thus Act as Intermediate to Dock at the Station while your Main Ship waits outside the Station


More than enough Ways

 

[Sandmann]

Caveat: Not read the thread, just commenting on the OP and poll.

I'd be all for it, IF:
- the larger ships HAD to be crewed by multi players (not NPC's), crews of at least 8 players please.
- They were priced beyond the ability for a single person to have an entire navy of them
- even better if a player COULDN'T own them and had to EARN the right to assemble a crew and pilot them on specific missions, and they remained owned by superpowers
- If they were basically useless against smaller, more manoeuvrable, "normal" ships. The last thing I'd want to see is someone with a destroyer hanging around a station griefing noobz.

 

[Sunleader]

Caveat: Not read the thread, just commenting on the OP and poll.

I'd be all for it, IF:
- the larger ships HAD to be crewed by multi players (not NPC's), crews of at least 8 players please.
- They were priced beyond the ability for a single person to have an entire navy of them
- even better if a player COULDN'T own them and had to EARN the right to assemble a crew and pilot them on specific missions, and they remained owned by superpowers
- If they were basically useless against smaller, more manoeuvrable, "normal" ships. The last thing I'd want to see is someone with a destroyer hanging around a station griefing noobz.

1.
Disagree.
Sorry but I dont see how 8 Players would ever have anything to do on a Frigate Sized Ship which has only 3-4 Class 4 Turrets.
Moreover an insanely high number like this would be prohibiting and you would never see such Ships because you would never have 8 people together.
Needless to say that this would make them senseless cause you would not really get anything if you share it with 8 People.
These Ships should be Crewable with NPCs.

2.
Agreed. I would take the First Frigate (3 Class 4 Weapons and Twice the Size of a Corvette) to Cost at least 3 Times what the Corvette Costs.
Bigger Frigates with up to 4 Class 4 Weapons even costing up to 6 Times an Corvette.
The First Destroyer which would have 3 Class 5 Weapons should then as First Bigger Warship (Size being roughly that of 5-7 Corvettes) Cost roughly about as 50 Corvettes to make sure that this is really really Expensive.

3.
I Disagree. The Game should allow Owning Ships up to Destroyer Class.
It should Require a Clan of several People to Own a Cruiser.
And anything beyond that should not be Ownable at all but should be more like an Rental Thing which is available by having Maximum Rank with an Major Faction for example.

4.
I would suggest that Bigger Ships simply wont have much smaller Weapon Slots.
So Frigates and Destroyers Smallest Slots would be Class 3
These would be Fairly Spread out. So a Single wont really be Fired upon by most Weapons.
The Bigger Weapons would be Fairly Slow with Tracking and would thus not really be able to Follow Smaller Ships anyways.

The Best Balance here however is Simply Speed.
Frigates and Destroyer should have Speeds of 100-150 and should be Unable to use Boost. Because they are simply to Big in their Hull.
Instead using Boost would pretty much be an Emergency Power for the Engine which would Allow Fast Acceleration but not make the Game any Faster in the EndSpeed.
Maybe around 10-20 m/s but not more than that.
This would make sure that smaller Fighters could Simply Fly away with the Bigger Ships having no Way to Follow them.




5.
Something I would like to Add.
I think that the NPC Crew for should be the main Factor here.
An Frigate should require around 4 NPC Crew Members. These should depending on their Level Cost 100.000-1.000.000 Credits per Hour in Use.
Destroyers shoudl already require around 7 NPC Crew Members.

This would make sure that these Ships will Rarely be just sitting around.
Because just sitting around with an halfwat Decent Crew would Run you 1-2 Million Credits per Hour for an Frigate.
And with an Destroyer you would easily sit on 2-4 Million Credits per Hour when not using an Complete Rooky Crew
This would make sure that these Ships are only used for Missions and other more Importand Stuff and not for just idling about or Griefing Newbes.

 

[Corvos]

Hello,
1. Why? I have absolutely no problems with certain ships being NPC only and adding more flavour/colour/life to the galaxy. I for one am not of the "I want, I want" mentality. So if the art assets are there just for show then it's fine by me.
2. Yes we are Commanders of our own ships. That we pilot. So you get to command yourself and if/when multi crew comes out you get to command them too. But this game is about "sitting in the <expletive> cockpit and flying the <expletive> ship". There is another more popular(?) game you can try if you want the other style of command. Why should Elite be a cheap copycat of that other one.
3. I'm only for these big ships if they are NPC driven. Having to have a human crew to pilot these ships effectively would shut me and others like me out of this content, which I hope would be a paid expansion (then I don't have to buy it.) Again if they were implemented I would probably ignore this content (like I do CQC). The only problem I have with these ships (like I have with multi crew) is how would these affect the game balance for players not interested in these features.

The solution is simple. No need for C5 weapons. A frig for example could be outfitted in reguards to 3-4 C4 and 4-6 C3 splashing maybe a few C2. A destroyer on the otherhand could be outfitted with 1-2 C4 4-6 C3 and 6-8 C2 this would fill its role as multi armaments. Size would be around a 20% Increase to both off from each other.

 

[Adept]

In the lore, Frigates are specialised in taking down smaller ships and destroyers have the role modern destroyers have, the largest "surface combatants" fielded by most Navies, and only really out-massed by aircraft carriers.

As for weaponry, the larger than corvette navy ship armament should largely be stuff that is currently seen in the weapon batteries of the capital ships and in the space station defence turrets. I'd like to think that destroyers could have a main gun in a spinal mount, like having one of those main battery plasma projectors of the Majestic class, but as a fixed weapon firing straight forwards.

So. Frigates are for fighting fighters and torpedo boats, Destroyers are the main striking arm of a fleet, meant to blow up station defences and other destroyers, and probably taking on capital ships (but not alone).

 

[ROSS-128]

On the one hand, I would like to be able to fly a truly ludicrously huge ship.

On the other hand, as it stands I don't think the current game mechanics would support it. There's not much point to having a capital or sub-capital ship if it's still designed, armed, and piloted like a single-seat fighter.

A capital ship would likely need things like turret hardpoints, where the turret is part of the ship and you can stick a number of fixed weapons in the turret's bay (essentially allowing you to have all the strengths of a fixed weapon in a turret, with the catch that everything in the same bay is co-axial). A capital ship would also need some form of internal ammo storage, because the ammo counts available for fighter-class weapons don't scale up to capital ships. They'd need to be able to bring extra ammo for any ammo-based weapon to be viable at that scale. Overall, outfitting a capital ship should probably resemble outfitting a battlemech in the Mechwarrior games more than it resembles the current ship outfitting (for example, a make a class 5 hardpoint able to hold a class 5 weapon, or two linked class 4s, or four linked class 3s, etc.).

Capital ships would also need to be able to establish a missile lock in any direction, since a forward-looking lock is pretty useless to a ship that is too big to dogfight.

And of course, a capital ship would most certainly need a crew, NPCs at a minimum. Or the captain running from station to station to man them himself.

 

[ShadowWolf Kell]

I'd be perfectly happy running a capital ship, being able to walk around the bridge (as well as other parts of the ship), and being limited to only be able to fly it with an actual crew. That alone would definitely improve the social aspect of the game in any mode (well except Solo.)

I miss that form SWG both with POBs and Gunships. Having a full REAL crew was just downright awesome. POBs were basically like crewed Pythons, Anacondas, Vettes and the like.

 

[Sunleader]

In the lore, Frigates are specialised in taking down smaller ships and destroyers have the role modern destroyers have, the largest "surface combatants" fielded by most Navies, and only really out-massed by aircraft carriers.

As for weaponry, the larger than corvette navy ship armament should largely be stuff that is currently seen in the weapon batteries of the capital ships and in the space station defence turrets. I'd like to think that destroyers could have a main gun in a spinal mount, like having one of those main battery plasma projectors of the Majestic class, but as a fixed weapon firing straight forwards.

So. Frigates are for fighting fighters and torpedo boats, Destroyers are the main striking arm of a fleet, meant to blow up station defences and other destroyers, and probably taking on capital ships (but not alone).

An Realism rather than an Tradition Approach.
I dont like that Idea tough. It would go back the Frontal Weaponry thing. Which would turn these Ships into Turn and Lance Fighters. Which is exactly what I would like to Break Up.
I would Prefer the Idea of an Frigate still using the C4 Weapons a Corvette has as well. But having more than a Corvette and having them Broadside rather than Frontally. Because that would result in a new Fighting Style being Implemented.

On the one hand, I would like to be able to fly a truly ludicrously huge ship.

On the other hand, as it stands I don't think the current game mechanics would support it. There's not much point to having a capital or sub-capital ship if it's still designed, armed, and piloted like a single-seat fighter.

A capital ship would likely need things like turret hardpoints, where the turret is part of the ship and you can stick a number of fixed weapons in the turret's bay (essentially allowing you to have all the strengths of a fixed weapon in a turret, with the catch that everything in the same bay is co-axial). A capital ship would also need some form of internal ammo storage, because the ammo counts available for fighter-class weapons don't scale up to capital ships. They'd need to be able to bring extra ammo for any ammo-based weapon to be viable at that scale. Overall, outfitting a capital ship should probably resemble outfitting a battlemech in the Mechwarrior games more than it resembles the current ship outfitting (for example, a make a class 5 hardpoint able to hold a class 5 weapon, or two linked class 4s, or four linked class 3s, etc.).

Capital ships would also need to be able to establish a missile lock in any direction, since a forward-looking lock is pretty useless to a ship that is too big to dogfight.

And of course, a capital ship would most certainly need a crew, NPCs at a minimum. Or the captain running from station to station to man them himself.

As stated above this can be Changed Purely by the Weapon Placement.
Currently most Craft we got Behave like Fighters. Because all Craft we have are Inherently Aiming their Weapons Forward.
ALL Weapons on ANY Craft we got are Firing Forward. And ALL Main Weapons usually are Forward ONLY.
Which means that no matter what you do Fighting Direction is Forward Facing for any Ship.

If an Frigate had three Turrets with C4 Weapons. Out of which 2 are Rear Mounted and thus Cannot Fire Forward.
As well as 10 Smaller Weapons aligned on the Broadsides. Out of which 5 can Fire to the Sides but only 2 can Fire Forward or Rear.
This would Instantly Change how Ships Fight.
Because this Ship would have no meaning in attempting to Turnfight an Enemy.
The Game Mechanics are currently allowing for pretty much any Type of Fight to be Honest.
Its just that with the Current Ships which are All completely Modeled for Turnfighting due to their Frontal Weaponry. There is no Sense in doing anything else.
If we got Ships which have more Firepower to the Broadside than to the Front. We would immediately have different Fighting in the Game as well

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I think if we are going to get bigger ships then the only way for them to work would be with a crew, either NPC or player or a mixture of the two.

 

[Cosmo]

Yes! I want Frigates, Destroyers and even Cruisers or maybe even more!

I think if we are going to get bigger ships then the only way for them to work would be with a crew, either NPC or player or a mixture of the two.

Yes like in the Anaconda with multi-crew, just bigger.

 

[Sunleader]

I think if we are going to get bigger ships then the only way for them to work would be with a crew, either NPC or player or a mixture of the two.

NPC.
As I said.
I think the Best way of Regulation would be to make them have High Maintenance Cost.

If you have to Pay 5 Million per Hour to use that Fancy Cruiser you got. You wont be seeing People Flying around with it all the Time. Simply because usually a Cruiser will only be Taken out if there is a Reason to.
Also if that Cruiser Costs 120 Billion Credits to Buy in the First Place. You can Assume that getting one will be an Insane Feat for a Single Person and will usually be Something only a Group of Players will Manage.

Albeit for this they would first need to Give Players the Option to actually Trade with each other Properly.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Yes! I want Frigates, Destroyers and even Cruisers or maybe even more!

DA HECK ?????
YOU AGREEING WITH ME ????????

I need to make some Preparations before I leave Home for Work later. I dont want to be hit by the Pigs that will Rain from the Sky....

 

[Adept]

Having a Battlecruiser's main gun as a spinal mount doesn't turn a Destroyer into a head-on jouster. I did talk about the majority of the armament being stuff like interceptor batteries as seen on the Majestic and Farragut classes.

I also suspect these ships will manoeuvre like ocean liners, espeically compared to the ships we have now. At least as sluggishly as similar class ships do in Homeworld and Homeworld II. You won't be jousting with anything, you'll be bringing your ship into position, trying to set up an intercept or escape vector against other large warships etc. At most you may be able to evade torpedo volleys (assuming we ever get proper anti-warship torpedos).

 

[Crash1099]

I like to see bigger ships than the corvette and anaconda. However i think they should require a lot of turrets if they get that big.

 

[ChrisT]

For larger ships to work, two things need to happen first.

* Multi-crew needs to be released
* Ship launched fighters needs an update, to A: Integrate them with multi-crew B: Allow multiple fighters for really large ships.

I cant see the how having a battle-cruiser would work, if it had only one crew member. And really large ships HAVE to be able to launch multiple figthers, both for defence and attack.

So....

It would be cool. But overall, Id much rather see Atmospheric landings (on Earth likes) and even space legs first.

 

[The Wallet Inspector]

I would say yes, if they limit them to multi crew only

 

[son of khzvoltz]

how will they jump, will it be like the capital ships

will a CMDR be alerted when their little eagle in a CZ gets a frig+destroyer ECT jumped into, will it say "exsess FSD emissions detected"? or "large FSD emissions detected" rather then "capital ship class detected"?

how will it look like to a player both in the ship and out?

 

[Sunleader]

how will they jump, will it be like the capital ships

will a CMDR be alerted when their little eagle in a CZ gets a frig+destroyer ECT jumped into, will it say "exsess FSD emissions detected"? or "large FSD emissions detected" rather then "capital ship class detected"?

how will it look like to a player both in the ship and out?

I think that Depends on how Big they Go.

A Frigate would be only about 2-3 Times as Long as an Corvette. So while being like 20 times the Volume. They would in External measurements not be that much Bigger. And nowhere close to the Capital Ships.
A Destroyer would only be 3-4 Times as Long as an Corvette. So also not that much Bigger in External Measurements. And also Miles away from the current Capital Ships.

So for Destroyers and Frigates I think it would be enough if they just made the Gate a bit Bigger and Increased the Time its Displayed beforehand by a few Seconds


The Inside of an Frigate or Destroyer would likely be an Top Bridge Similar to the Corvette and Anaconda.
With some more Chairs tough as its way Bigger.



I Support the Idea that these Ships should in a Sense Require Multi Crew.
To be Precise I think this can be done very easy without actually setting an Requirement.
The Guns on a Frigate or Destroyer would have much more Limited Arcs than the ones on Corvettes etc.

As the Automatic Turrets in ED are Fairly unable to properly Track different Targets. At once. Especially if you want to have any Proper Control on who your Engaging.
A Frigate or Destroyer by Default would be much much Weaker when not using at least 2 Additional Players to take Control of the Bigger Guns. As the AI would thanks to the slow Turret Rotation likely end up rarely Firing at anything as it would constantly Try to Track the Ships around.

 

[Lightspeed]

For a moment I thought the polls had been brought back !

 

[Kurdran]

For a moment I thought the polls had been brought back !

Me too

 

[Cmdr Travers]

I don't think so. My two Corvettes are already near indestructible.