Disclaimer: This is a request for a significant rework of capital assets. I understand that the mod team is not terribly large, nor are they paid for their time, and understand that these things aren't as easy to complete as they are to propose. I would love to help in any way that I can.
Over the last week of spending perhaps too much time on Crossfire, I've been quite impressed with the diversity of ships available for piloting. Spread out over the server as they are, they also incentivize people traveling to sometimes forgotten systems to get a unique ship. I think that's great, and I also very much like the way different ships seem to have different roles. The mod only really seems to fall short in one regard: capital ships.
I recently picked up the Liberty Cruiser in Daedelus, and was somewhat disappointed to discover the ship had essentially not been worked on at all. It lacks all hardpoints (so the damage/projectile speed/range/etc) of the weapons are completely unknown, the lack of the ability to swap different turrets (shouldn't different factions have different damage types?), and the fact that the main gun does no damage. When I say it "does not damage," I don't mean the damage it does is very little, I mean it literally produces no damage on a target Turns out it just doesn't do damage to wrecks or stations. Pair these things with the fact that, even with Armor Upgrade X, the ship is still torn to shred by even the lowest class of snub fighter. I've also seen dreadnaughts that get melted by NPC snubfighters.
I propose that capital ships should be reworked, and at least given some of the attentions that have generously been afforded to the fighter craft. As it stands, there is no purpose to any cap ship, and they don't fit their role at all. A Dreadnaught should be a veritable fortress, with snubfighter craft pea-shooters glancing off like they weren't even there, leaving bombers, gunboats, cruisers, and other dreads to have the specific role of cap-killers. As far as suggestions go, I think all cap ships (gunboats and above) should be given significantly higher shields, armor, and damage output as well as a serious price increase to help offset how powerful they would be (and how powerful they should be). Also, if they could be given individual hardpoints for the swapping of different factions weapons.
Capital ships are supposed to lead fleets, smashing through swarms of fighters (that exist to fight other snubcraft, and clear the lanes for bombers to do the heavy lifting), lay siege to planets/stations/other fleets, and survive to do it all again. At present, capital ships are just giant paper targets that look pretty.
). They can be very devastating in PvE and also in PvP, IF you know use them .. that's it.
