The biggest problem I have with the string of game battleships I've seen recently is thier tickle guns. Huge turret mounted supercannons that do maybe 1/4 damage to your shields. It should be more realistic with a one shot kill or two at the most, it'll get your reflexes going. Also, small fighter fire should have zero effect on battleships, i.e. you cannot knock down a brick wall no matter how many frozen peas you throw at it and compared with the sturdy armour battleships should have, your weapons fire, apart from high end missiles and torps, is like the frozen peas.
But then theres the argument of playability over realism. Take SWG (Star Wars Galaxies) for example. When the Imperials got the AT-STs, the two legged walking tank things, most, if not all, the Rebels started whinging about them being too tough, then they started complaining that they dont have an equally powerful unit. Realism obviously didn't agree with them. The truth is we all like being able to bash the hell out of our enemies, no matter what they are. I think its an ego thing.
Also, how much fun would it be if everytime you ran across this certain unit in a game your only course of action, apart from suicide, was retreat. Think about it, you're there shooting little fighters to bits and then they bring in thier battlecruiser so you have to forfiet the dogfight and run away home. Games are there to escape from reality. If someone made a game that was exactly like real life what would be the appeal?, I can go outside and play basketball with a keyboard and I also get some exercise.
In any case, I vote for more realism in science fiction space flight simulators which have nothing to do with real life apart from sparodic mentions in the games fictional in game history.
Alrighty, I'm going to stop rambling now.

Attack, Engage, Destroy, Survive

If you can find a blind spot you can take them out easily, because the next thing is that the cruiser or battleship cant move or turn very quickly at all! So they cant deal with the threat!

The Mercenary Navy - Power Is Everything
Vist The Mercenary Navy Online .

Battleships can be taken out by fighters, because of the sheer scale of space battles. For a truly theatrical war, you need massive battleship and cruisers blasting away at each other with amazingly high powered guns, and the close-up melee of a dogfight buzzing around them. The essence of the game, people.

Of all the systems, in all the galaxy, you had to fly into mine.

Light Fighters are a type of ship. What is good at killing light fighters? Heavy Fighters. What's good at killing Heavy Fighters? Very Heavy Fighters. What's good at killing Very Heavy Fighters? Gunboats. What's good at killing gunboats? Cruisers. What's good at killing cruisers? Battleships.

So you see, Battleships weren't designed to destroy fighters. They were designed to destroy less massive, slow-moving targets, aka. Cruisers, and fixed targets. They don't have a heck of a lot of protection against the faster-moving fighters, so they are weak against them.

Why is it that I can't disable a certain mod? This is off the subject of battleships and why they are so easy to kill, by why can't I disable the mod?

When in doubt, BLOW IT UP!

True, but in one of the missions (won't say which, due to spoilers) a cruiser tells its fighters to take out the gunboats because they move too fast for their guns.

Gimme that, you petty excuse of an officer!
Prepare for LUDICROUS SPEED!!!
Ludicrous speed...GO!!!

Yeah, like a gunboat REALLY moves that fast.

I'm making record time!
If only I had someplace to be...

Edited by - Corsair#01 on 2/16/2004 9:24:38 AM

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True, but in one of the missions (won't say which, due to spoilers) a cruiser tells its fighters to take out the gunboats because they move too fast for their guns.

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In that case the ship was the Liberty cruiser design, so I would say that they were referring to the cruisers main gun, which is in a fixed position and shoots only in the direction the craft is facing. Gunboats are fast enough and manoeuvrable enough to stay out of the firing arc of that weapon.

The problem with the Liberty Cruiser is that appears to have been designed with one role in mind, to kill other capital ships with its main weapon. Against slower moving capital ships like other destroyer/cruiser/battleship classes it is devastating (as seen during several mission in the SP game) however against faster moving Gunboats or fighters it is limited to using its smaller turret weapons (which appear to be less numerous than those on say its Rheinland counterpart).



We don't really own this place, just break a few arms if we have to - Bounty Hunter Mitch Murphy, Bonn Station.

Liberty Cruiser seems to be an exception in that role. It's weak against gunboats but cuts like a dagger through battleships. Other cruisers that have stronger turrets would be able to dispatch gunboats more easily.

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my point is, what's thee point in even HAVING battleships if a heavy fighter can take them out? okay, so it doesn't take as long for a battleship to take out another battleship, but if a powerful VHF can slap a Dreadnought around what's the point in their existing anyway, except as a mobile base for fighter wings?

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Well let's look at it another way.
The Battleship Missouri, the Battleship Mississippi, the Battleship Rio Grande, the Battleship Yukon, the Battleship Norfolk, the Battleship Suffolk, the Battleship Essex, the Battleship York, the Battleship Nagumo, the Battleship Myoko, the Battleship Matsum and the Battleship Westfalen (I think that's all).
You could spend eternity shooting every weapon you have at your disposal at the above ships and not even scratch the paintwork!



We don't really own this place, just break a few arms if we have to - Bounty Hunter Mitch Murphy, Bonn Station.

Missed one: Battleship Hood. There's 13 dockable Battleships in FL, and the Hood does count, even though it's owned by the IMG.

"Xenos, the breakfast of champions" -YowuLing

Edited by - Stormscape on 2/17/2004 7:39:49 AM

Edited by - Stormscape on 2/17/2004 7:40:55 AM

I still don't understand how IMG got their hands on a Bretonian Military battleship without being attacked by the others.

It says on the infocard that the Hood was damaged in a battle, so the Armed Forces took off the weapons and engines and left it there since it couldn't make it back to the docks. Then the IMG took it over and made it into a Freeport sort of station.

Gimme that, you petty excuse of an officer!
Prepare for LUDICROUS SPEED!!!
Ludicrous speed...GO!!!

Caelistis, no, this isn't World War II, but consider how long naval technology had been around up to that point. It's a simple fact of reality, you can't create a vessel that has absolutely no drawbacks or weaknesses. Battleships, by their very nature, no matter what era, are intended to be the main body of a fleet, the powerhouses, the things that blow away the strongest things the enemy has to offer. But they need escorts, plain and simple. Always have, always will. It's a fact of life in any era. Do some research if you're not convinced. I have.