Capital Ships

Vordrak · Post by **Vordrak** » Fri Sep 17, 2010 4:41 pm

Hi,

This game looks great. But what I really want to see is the ability to fly capital ships. In X3 I liked my Paranid carrier. I could jump anywhere then launch my fighter to fly around conveniently.

In this series capital ship flight has not been available. Will it be in this final installment?

I hope so

49rTbird · Post by **49rTbird** » Fri Sep 17, 2010 5:01 pm

Hello Vordrak, welcome to the forum. Cap ships are not available at this point. I don't believe there are any plans for that.

BraveHart · Post by **BraveHart** » Fri Sep 17, 2010 5:09 pm

"Welcome Aboard Vordrak" Looking forward to seeing you in MP

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Sat Sep 18, 2010 12:05 am

Hi Vordrak, welcome to the game and forum. Hope to see you out there...

Post by **Marvin** » Sat Sep 18, 2010 2:46 am

The pilots here don't fly the heavies. Fighter pilots all. Or, if not that, mom & pop transport pilots.

TGS · Post by **TGS** » Sat Sep 18, 2010 10:57 am

To be honest this horse has been beaten dead many times. I personally have to go with the standard flow of opinion which seems to be primarily against flying capital ships. However I would be inclined to deviate a bit in that I don't believe capital ships should be "flyable" but they should be commandable in some sense or another.

I have X3 but haven't played it extensively... but I know if a game followed any sense of commonality in the genre capital ships would be slow... they would have extremely movement both in agility and speed. So in reality I'm not sure why anyone would want to "fly" one. In reality though the Evochron series is actually perfect for capital ships being implemented although I don't think direct flight would be fun or overly rewarding. However owning/commanding one and having the ability to dock with it and/or manipulate it to some degree would be amazing.

I would love to see them become a fleet sort of aspect and be tied into military rank. They would have few benefits similar to station ownership although more pronounced... They should also be much more expensive as well as requiring regular maintenance/upkeep fee's (which would actually be hard to do given the save system) also they would extend the owners range by allowing the owner to dock with them and "jump" much MUCH farther than their standard and even experimental jump drive would allow.

There would have to be downsides to larger ship ownership... such as much larger fuel consumption. Also with ownership of such a ship there would obviously be risks such as losing such a massive investment if it were to get swarmed without your protection.

Anyway I'll get back to primarily why it will probably never be implemented... setting up a command structure specifically for them would require a lot of work on Vice's part. Although I'd say EM has built some framework that would potentially work in favor of this in the form of "server-side" objects. A coupling of the server-side stations, mobile... plus some fleet control would work. As for flying them... will not and should not ever happen. For one a capital ship has a lot of weapons and is designed to fight enemies from most angles... you as the pilot cannot control more than one direction of attack. So not only would flying a capital ship be quite boring in its speed and lack of agility you also couldn't really fight well with it. You couldn't dock with anything. You couldn't land on planets. Any interaction needed with the ship would have to be done at a micromanagement level. You would have to get out of the ship in your fighter and go pick up whatever the ship needed then fly back. Which would be cool but I don't know that Vice would want to put that sort of system into place.

Originally posted by Vordrak
Hi,

This game looks great. But what I really want to see is the ability to fly capital ships. In X3 I liked my Paranid carrier. I could jump anywhere then launch my fighter to fly around conveniently.

In this series capital ship flight has not been available. Will it be in this final installment?

I hope so

MindYerBeak · Post by **MindYerBeak** » Sun Sep 19, 2010 2:41 am

What would be a nice addition would be humungous NPC capital ships populating the universe, all going about their daily business. With such a large universe as Evochron it seems a waste to not use space to it's full advantage by filling up sectors with capital ships. It would make the game seem more authentic. Not that you could fly or attack them or anything, but it would be awesome to see a gigantic NPC capital ship pass by your puny liitle fighter, maybe even follow them to their destination.

TGS · Post by **TGS** » Sun Sep 19, 2010 5:06 am

You will see them flying about doing their own thing from time to time. They just won't be an overly common sight. But fly around a bit... you'll find some. I was flying in MP yesterday and on two occasions I can remember a battleship jumping in near me. One literally tried to jump in right on top of me which I thought was quite funny. Lucky Vice has the gravity push thing on large ships otherwise I would have been destroyed from the random chance that it picked right next to me as its exit point.

Originally posted by MindYerBeak
What would be a nice addition would be humungous NPC capital ships populating the universe, all going about their daily business. With such a large universe as Evochron it seems a waste to not use space to it's full advantage by filling up sectors with capital ships. It would make the game seem more authentic. Not that you could fly or attack them or anything, but it would be awesome to see a gigantic NPC capital ship pass by your puny liitle fighter, maybe even follow them to their destination.