New units' purpose

[Augustus Lucius Flavius]

2.1 is here! So now that we know what is in it, does anybody have opinions on the new stuff.  Mine are this: V-19: Awesome looking and fun to play with but what does it do.  Lucrehulk: Expensive and donuty. Like the Venator more.  Visvia: Awesome. Needs its tri-masers to have giant death beams of doom. EotH Dreadnaught: Awesomeness covered in awesome that shoots awesome. Imperial Civil War GC: No EotH, HALLELUJAH!.  Survival: Awesomeness incarnate.

[tlmiller]

V-19 - PA's most versatile fighter.  Good speed, very maneuverable, and concussion missiles make them rip through oppossing fighters.  Also, if you happen to have them in LARGE quantities, the conqs actually can knock down capital ship shields.  NOt as effective as true bombers, but they'll work in a pinch.

Lucrehulk - I personally still find it useless.  Too expensive, too much population for something that only has 8 fighter squads at a time, no shields so unless you stick it WELL out of harms way won't survive to launch a second wave, and no offensive capability other than it's fighters.  But IMO, wiht 2.1 there are no longer any dedicated carriers that are above light frigates that are worth anything anymore.

Visvia - I agree to expecting to see something a little more flashy when I read it's original description.

Bu'direch (or however you spell it) - Awesome ship, well designed, great looking.

[Corey]

But IMO, wiht 2.1 there are no longer any dedicated carriers that are above light frigates that are worth anything anymore.

I've been thinking about this a bit. The reduction was largely to change the whole "fighter spam wins all" and the lag they could cause, which worked, but it did significantly reduce the effectiveness of carriers beyond what we'd wanted. We can't really fix that by changing their pop caps, because that would just reintroduce the problems we fixed.

If we were to reduce prices proportionishly to their reduction in on-map fighters, would that make them more desireable ingame, or would their other stats still be too lackluster to use if that were the case?

[tlmiller]

I think reducing their price would make them very desirable early game.  Late game it might not as you'll have the funds that you can afford say 3 carona instead of an Endurance, to get the "right now" fighter complements to support your heavier units, and if you lose a Corona, no big deal, they're cheap enough that in the late game you can replace them in no time flat.  But EARLY game, when you're struggling to be able to afford things, having 2 Endurance set back and launch WAVE AFTER WAVE of fighters, even if it's not a LOT at a time, will allow you to wear down the opponent in a way that you really aren't able to otherwise due to being so concerned with losing the few mainline units you have.

[Desih]

I was a little let down by the Lucre.
Still awesome looking, but when I read that it had 100/10 Laser Cannons, I was really hoping it would be a solid heavy anti-fighter ship to counter the late game NR.
I really wanted the laser spam to happen

[jordanthejq12]

I'm kinda bummed to see the Quesar Fire gone from 4 and 5. Not only is it a superb carrier, it is a decent fighter killer too. I fondly remember a BFC playthrough where Quesars ended up being my main defensive ship. They performed admirably.

Also, about "laser cannons" in general: is the entire class of weapons anti-fighter, or is there a distinction between the type carried by corvettes and those carried by larger vessels (presumably good at killing transports and corvettes)? It's slightly confusing.

EDIT: Also, the Golan shield bug appears to still be unfixed. Can it be done at all, is the non-regenerating shielding intentional, is that just me, or is something really going on? (Or is the regeneration rate so low so as not to produce any visual effects?)

[Revanchist]

In the beta, I found Lucrehulk lasers to be quite effective against fighter spam. I have yet to play the full release, though.

[jordanthejq12]

When you do, check the accuracy values in case they were changed. That might be why.

[Pali]

Perhaps a middle ground on carriers might be to make it so that only dedicated carriers can launch their entire fighter wing at once?  So when I drop in an ISD-2 and a Venator, the ISD launches 3 of 6 squads, but the Venator launches all 12?

This might require some of the carriers' maximum number of squads lowered - the Lucrehulk instantly launching 38 squadrons would be a bit crazy - but it would reinforce the fighter-based nature of carriers vs the direct combat abilities of other ships.