Capital Ships with Integrated Weapons

[ZombiePotatoSalad]

Are there any plans to incorporate more capital ships with integrated weapons?

My favorite capital ship in X Rebirth was the Secellus, with its spinal-mounted railgun. It stood out from the others, and I thought it was an interesting idea. It made me sad to see there were no others like it. Are we likely to encounter more ships like that in X4?

[mr.WHO]

Behemot destroyer has frontal mounted weapons with limited firing arc turrets.

[RodentofDoom]

Yes, I liked that ship too.
I also liked the Balor.

Even with the behaviour Mod running it was annoying to see them attempt to get close-in to targets.
Hopefully, if we have comparable ships in x4 they will have fixed this.

There was just something so satisfying with having a mixed-fleet of 10 LR frigates blowing things apart from the other side of the map

[CorruptUser]

I actually like the idea of special abilities/weapons for specific ships, but I don't know how you'd be able to, say, send a freighter with the weapon in cargo to replace a destroyed railgun.

[ishmaeltheforsaken]

I actually like the idea of special abilities/weapons for specific ships, but I don't know how you'd be able to, say, send a freighter with the weapon in cargo to replace a destroyed railgun.

The Sucellus's main cannon wasn't destructable the way surface elements are. Rather, it was "part of the hull," if you will. I'd imagine that, if Egosoft were to implement a similar ship in X4, the same policy would be in place.

[Geek]

So far most warships we have seen, if not every of them (I have doubts for the carrier), have front weapons.
That seems a standard feature in X4.

[Chris0132]

It'd definitely make them more interesting to personally fly if they come with some kind of doomsday weapon built in.

[Tenlar Scarflame]

Plenty of the Big Boys we've seen so far have front-mounted *turrets*, but I don't think we've seen any *spine-mounted* guns (as in, the kind that you'd be able to fire by pulling the trigger from the pilot seat) which is what I'd say the Sucellus's main gun would likely be in X4's context.

I'd be super into that, though - if I had my way, having a gigantic spine-mounted gun would be what makes a destroyer a destroyer. I'd shy away from making them built-in, just so you could have a varied and extensible array of doomsday weapons for whatever tactics you were interested in, or maybe allow there to be both generic and faction-specific ones.

[Geek]

I think you are confusing gimballed front guns with turrets.
Streams showed you fire those manually.

[Chris0132]

I am hopeful that perhaps front mounted capship guns might facilitate the possibility of a greater variety of weapon ranges than in X3.

[sh1pman]

I really dig the idea of having a single “death ray” gun, way too massive to move, and only useful against other capships and stations. Maybe it should even use some energy from shield generator and have a charging time.

[Tenlar Scarflame]

I think you are confusing gimballed front guns with turrets.
Streams showed you fire those manually.

...hm. You're right. I was assuming since those were able to gimbal *at all* that in the X world they counted as turrets. Good catch

[Général Grievous]

I'd rather the Taranis gameplay, were you have to place your destroyer to allow a maximum of turrets hitting the target.
Driving a heavy ship with 2 front canons is not fun, as you always have to keep you ennemy in front of you. this is the kind of gameplay i dislike.

[ZombiePotatoSalad]

I'd rather the Taranis gameplay, were you have to place your destroyer to allow a maximum of turrets hitting the target.
Driving a heavy ship with 2 front canons is not fun, as you always have to keep you ennemy in front of you. this is the kind of gameplay i dislike.

That's only if you drive it. Ships like the Sucellus are more for long-range artillery support, attacking capital ships and stations while other ships move in to fight.

If you're referring to the design of the capital ships we have seen... then so far, we may have only seen a specific class. So far, those designs seem to be more attributed to the above example: hanging back while firing, letting the small turrets fend off fighters. Or they are meant to be the core of a fleet, surrounded by escorts who do most of the work.

A capital ship is not an end-all-beat-all. Just as any other ship class, it has pros and cons. It's not meant for dogfighting. You have to play to its strength, and cover the weaknesses.

I for one, fully intend on commanding from the bridge of my capital ship, watching the fleet battle through the front window.

[Chris0132]

I think you could perhaps do something quite interesting if capital ships handled kinda like very slow versions of X3's fighters, where you do repeated passes.

So, your initial charge towards an enemy capital ship might be focused around trying to keep its flank to you to minimize its ability to bring its forward guns to bear on you, then you're forced through inertia to keep going past it, but you want to control your roll and which way you pitch so that your turreted guns continue to fire on other targets.

Sort of a world of warships battleship type thing, where speed takes a while to build up and is important for dodging incoming fire, and turning takes a long time and you want to be very aware of what you're exposing yourself to when you maneuver, as well as being careful not to over commit.

Rather than the X3-like capship game where they just kinda park up near each other and pew pew until one dies.

[ZombiePotatoSalad]

I think you could perhaps do something quite interesting if capital ships handled kinda like very slow versions of X3's fighters, where you do repeated passes.

So, your initial charge towards an enemy capital ship might be focused around trying to keep its flank to you to minimize its ability to bring its forward guns to bear on you, then you're forced through inertia to keep going past it, but you want to control your roll and which way you pitch so that your turreted guns continue to fire on other targets.

Sort of a world of warships battleship type thing, where speed takes a while to build up and is important for dodging incoming fire, and turning takes a long time and you want to be very aware of what you're exposing yourself to when you maneuver, as well as being careful not to over commit.

Rather than the X3-like capship game where they just kinda park up near each other and pew pew until one dies.

You mean like in X Rebirth, where we had capital ship dogfights?

[HowDoYouPurr]

I actually like the idea of special abilities/weapons for specific ships, but I don't know how you'd be able to, say, send a freighter with the weapon in cargo to replace a destroyed railgun.

Such a great idea. I shared it in the steam forums

X4 What would you like to see in game.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/392160/d ... 20/?ctp=36

[Chris0132]

I think you could perhaps do something quite interesting if capital ships handled kinda like very slow versions of X3's fighters, where you do repeated passes.

So, your initial charge towards an enemy capital ship might be focused around trying to keep its flank to you to minimize its ability to bring its forward guns to bear on you, then you're forced through inertia to keep going past it, but you want to control your roll and which way you pitch so that your turreted guns continue to fire on other targets.

Sort of a world of warships battleship type thing, where speed takes a while to build up and is important for dodging incoming fire, and turning takes a long time and you want to be very aware of what you're exposing yourself to when you maneuver, as well as being careful not to over commit.

Rather than the X3-like capship game where they just kinda park up near each other and pew pew until one dies.

You mean like in X Rebirth, where we had capital ship dogfights?

Kinda hard to tell, honestly? I never got the chance to actually use them in Rebirth, and obviously we couldn't pilot them ourselves so none of the stuff about actually thinking about it really applies.

[Général Grievous]

I'd rather the Taranis gameplay, were you have to place your destroyer to allow a maximum of turrets hitting the target.
Driving a heavy ship with 2 front canons is not fun, as you always have to keep you ennemy in front of you. this is the kind of gameplay i dislike.

That's only if you drive it. Ships like the Sucellus are more for long-range artillery support, attacking capital ships and stations while other ships move in to fight.

If you're referring to the design of the capital ships we have seen... then so far, we may have only seen a specific class. So far, those designs seem to be more attributed to the above example: hanging back while firing, letting the small turrets fend off fighters. Or they are meant to be the core of a fleet, surrounded by escorts who do most of the work.

A capital ship is not an end-all-beat-all. Just as any other ship class, it has pros and cons. It's not meant for dogfighting. You have to play to its strength, and cover the weaknesses.

I for one, fully intend on commanding from the bridge of my capital ship, watching the fleet battle through the front window.

Well, that's not what i wanted to say.
I mean, when your fleet is engaged, i'd rather manage my ships and my fighter wings instead of manually keep my capital ship in front of the ennemy one, and manually fireing my 2 main front guns.
For the Sucellus, it's different, because you have a very powerfull long range weapon in front of it. So you have to keep it away from the fight. And, the canon is automatic by the way.
Maybe you can let the AI doing that, but, in all X games, it was not recommanded to let the AI taking command of your flagship during a battle.

Well, we'll see. I espect a lot of fun during those battle anyway.

I can't imagine how fun would it be to pilot a heavy ship like the Taranis, and watch all different turrets fireing all together. But i'm not sure we will have the same amount of turrets in X4.