I'd like an XL battleship DLC

[flywlyx]

So, after every faction copies the Terrans and builds a superpowerful battleship, wouldn't you expect the Terrans to respond with a deathstar-type vessel, to counter all those new battleships? After all, they are the recognized technology leader in the X Universe and they'd need to do something to regain their edge.

Syn is undoubtedly the most powerful destroyer right now, but I haven't seen players demanding that every faction get a direct copy of it.

There are countless ways to design a battleship, and copying Asgard is the worst approach. I believe Egosoft is better than that, and it's clear they have the capability to create unique designs. After the base game, the only destroyer that is somewhat a copy-paste is the Osaka—every other destroyer has its own distinct traits.

[Caedes91]

So, after every faction copies the Terrans and builds a superpowerful battleship, wouldn't you expect the Terrans to respond with a deathstar-type vessel, to counter all those new battleships? After all, they are the recognized technology leader in the X Universe and they'd need to do something to regain their edge. And then there would be a demand for all the factions to have their own deathstar version. And so on and so on. Where does it end? I really don't think the game needs more big guns. What it does need is more territory for the player to play in. That's where Egosoft's time should be spent, IMO. A bigger game world instead of bigger ships.

Finally, somebody who actually respects established lore instead of trying to homogenize every race to fit some imaginary game balance. Terrans are supposed to have the lead in technology. A single Terran ship obliterated the Khaak into obscurity, when the entire Commonwealth was losing entire systems to those bugs. That Saya Kho had to resort to terrorism and bomb the Torus Aeternal, because she realized, that the Argon and the rest of the Commonwealth have no hope of surviving the wrath of the Terrans. Hopefully she suffered before dying.

Terrans are already balanced enough into irrelevance. The original designs are already nerfed by having their weapons removed. See the empty grey spots where turrets were supposed to go on the Syn and Asgard. Anti-capital weapons were removed from the Terrrans altogether. They are too costly compared to their performance, so Terrans don't even represent "quality over quantity". The other races are actually much stronger than the Terrans, because their ships are much cheaper and with much more diverse weapons selection. Therefore they easily overwhelm any Terran fleet or ship. At a certain threshold, quantity becomes a quality in and of itself.

They are a far cry from what they used to be in past games. If anything they should even get more ATF ships instead. Don't even get me on the stupid fighter designs. Not a single serious looking ships from the Terran Protectorate, except the only two ships taken from the ATF.
No more power creep from other races.
If you want some XL-ships for other races, then specialize them for other uses. For example Teladi get XL-transport, Argon get XL-miner etc.
But if you for some reason buff other races, you have to buff the Terrans twice to restore lore accuracy. Meaning XXL battleships and carriers as well as stronger ships and weapons for Terrans across the board.

[TheDeliveryMan]

Factions are much more interesting if there are recognizable differences between them. Each faction should have their own (play)-style, their fleet should be specialzed for it.

So, not every faction needs a battleship. Why would a faction specializing in fighter swarms want to have a battleship? That just doesn't make sense.

[Nanook]

So, after every faction copies the Terrans and builds a superpowerful battleship, wouldn't you expect the Terrans to respond with a deathstar-type vessel, to counter all those new battleships? After all, they are the recognized technology leader in the X Universe and they'd need to do something to regain their edge.

Syn is undoubtedly the most powerful destroyer right now, but I haven't seen players demanding that every faction get a direct copy of it. ...

I never said "direct copy". I meant that the other factions would copy the Terrans by building their own battleships. And then superbattleships. And then ... 'deathstars'. Do you understand where I'm going with this?

[jlehtone]

Battleships represent the vision of warfare of each factions. Split would rather have firepower and speed in a battleship, Argon should have all round (plenty of everything but do not excel in any), Borons should have a massive shield tank and lots of support for its fleet, Paranid should have long range firepower and good speed and shield, Teladi should have a massive health pool, lots of shield and cargo space but impervious to small ship fire.

Battleships bring raw faction power and massive firepower, making space combat feel intense and strategic.

Isn't that almost (but not quite) the description for current Destroyers?

I never said "direct copy". I meant that the other factions would copy the Terrans by building their own battleships. And then superbattleships. And then ... 'deathstars'. Do you understand where I'm going with this?

Yes. If I'm given a battleship, then I do want Xenon* to get superbattleships that can oneshot my flagship. How else could the battles stay intense?


(*Terrans too. I like crushing Valhalla.)

[jlehtone]

So, not every faction needs a battleship. Why would a faction specializing in fighter swarms want to have a battleship? That just doesn't make sense.

Indeed. The VIG have no Battleship. Not even Destroyers nor M-class vessels, yet they seem to pose a "tactical challenge". Inconceivable!

[LameFox]

People are taking this overly literally if we're talking about minor factions getting them now. No, VIG, ALI, PIO, HAT, and what-have-you probably don't need one. Though it probably wouldn't hurt VIG to have invented a carrier.

Xenon are one of the few who already have one.

[chew-ie]

People are taking this overly literally if we're talking about minor factions getting them now. No, VIG, ALI, PIO, HAT, and what-have-you probably don't need one. Though it probably wouldn't hurt VIG to have invented a carrier.

Xenon are one of the few who already have one.

As I really like my idea of VIG restoring an old X³ TEL Phoenix and because they don't have that big ship to begin with (because someone stole the Erlking ) I'd say VIG indeed needs a big ship. At the very least that ship I mentioned provides a good cover and missile platform

[vvvvvvvv]

Why would a faction specializing in fighter swarms want to have a battleship?

They could have a carrier, though.

Given that VIG has a copy-pasted Gannascus, could be updated to serve as both carrier and construction vessel. Maybe even as carrier, construction and aux. That would be definitely unique.

[Raptor34]

Why would a faction specializing in fighter swarms want to have a battleship?

They could have a carrier, though.

Given that VIG has a copy-pasted Gannascus, could be updated to serve as both carrier and construction vessel. Maybe even as carrier, construction and aux. That would be definitely unique.

Great idea. Something more special and fitting than ship with turrets No.5.
The Split already have a hybrid carrier/battleship. So other races could get unique stuff too.

[Thomas2052]

So, after every faction copies the Terrans and builds a superpowerful battleship, wouldn't you expect the Terrans to respond with a deathstar-type vessel, to counter all those new battleships?

I know you said more after this, but I stopped here.

Terran Deathstar? WANT.

Regards

[vvvvvvvv]

So, after every faction copies the Terrans and builds a superpowerful battleship, wouldn't you expect the Terrans to respond with a deathstar-type vessel, to counter all those new battleships?

I know you said more after this, but I stopped here.

Terran Deathstar? WANT.

Regards

"How we are going to fit it through a gate?"
"... "
"Or through an accelerator?"
"... jumpdrive?"

[jlehtone]

People are taking this overly literally ...

You can be either crystal clear, precise to every detail, to achieve absolute unambiguity on what "this" is -- which allows others to reject your idea because it differs from theirs -- or allow leeway and room for devilish misinterpretation. Particularly the devs, should they avoid paying too much attention to our "ideas"?

[jlehtone]

Terran Deathstar? WANT.

Regards

"How we are going to fit it through a gate?"
"... "
"Or through an accelerator?"
"... jumpdrive?"

No, that is raison d'etre for a completely new class of ships. The class that can assemble Deathstar class vessels.

[surferx]

Yes. If I'm given a battleship, then I do want Xenon* to get superbattleships that can oneshot my flagship. How else could the battles stay intense?

This will not satisfy the players who just want an easier game using their IWIN XL battleships. Once the Xenon gets a superbattleship the next thread here will be begging for an even larger player ship. It will never end.
Battles have to stay intense or else the game isn't worth playing.

[LameFox]

People are taking this overly literally ...

You can be either crystal clear, precise to every detail, to achieve absolute unambiguity on what "this" is -- which allows others to reject your idea because it differs from theirs -- or allow leeway and room for devilish misinterpretation. Particularly the devs, should they avoid paying too much attention to our "ideas"?

I don't think there is any realistic risk of the devs misinterpreting and giving battleships to literally all factions in the game tbh. It's pretty clear contextually that most players requesting this are talking about the game's primary factions, not adding them to something that was never fully fleshed out in the first place.

Yes. If I'm given a battleship, then I do want Xenon* to get superbattleships that can oneshot my flagship. How else could the battles stay intense?

This will not satisfy the players who just want an easier game using their IWIN XL battleships. Once the Xenon gets a superbattleship the next thread here will be begging for an even larger player ship. It will never end.
Battles have to stay intense or else the game isn't worth playing.

Last I checked, any such players could already print as many Asgards as their hearts desired. Introducing different XL warships for other factions seems unlikely to make the game any easier than that does already.

[Thomas2052]

This will not satisfy the players who just want an easier game using their IWIN XL battleships. Once the Xenon gets a superbattleship the next thread here will be begging for an even larger player ship. It will never end.
Battles have to stay intense or else the game isn't worth playing.

Rock, paper, scissors, I think is the order of the day.

It's funny I think that most players fear VIG above all as their small fighter / torpedo spam is a direct counter to most players' destroyer - heavy fleet.

If everyone gets a Battleship, fine, but it needs to have a built-in vulnerability for a balance. I insist that my Terran Deathstar has a small, exposed exhaust vent that can only be targeted by s-class ships, dammit!

Interestingly, I actually think that's the balance that X4 is lacking in it's current state: the old rts spearman<archer<cavalry consideration.

[Raptor34]

This will not satisfy the players who just want an easier game using their IWIN XL battleships. Once the Xenon gets a superbattleship the next thread here will be begging for an even larger player ship. It will never end.
Battles have to stay intense or else the game isn't worth playing.

Rock, paper, scissors, I think is the order of the day.

It's funny I think that most players fear VIG above all as their small fighter / torpedo spam is a direct counter to most players' destroyer - heavy fleet.

If everyone gets a Battleship, fine, but it needs to have a built-in vulnerability for a balance. I insist that my Terran Deathstar has a small, exposed exhaust vent that can only be targeted by s-class ships, dammit!

Interestingly, I actually think that's the balance that X4 is lacking in it's current state: the old rts spearman<archer<cavalry consideration.

M turrets don't work, and funnily enough they work better on capitals. So you can't really change much there without making capitals counter fighters themselves. Which tbh is not that desirable for me, I like that carrier fleets are finally useful.
That's why imo they should give gunships back their missile turrets. That and probably do some changing about how even the smallest launcher can fire the biggest missiles. Without that particular balancing lever things kinda become very complicated. But under my idea, you'll have fighters > capitals, light missile equipped M ships > fighters, capitals > M ships. You can run missiles on your capitals, but it has logistics issues. It's way easier to send your M ships back to reload at an EQ dock. You have aux ships of course, but the issues are well known.
Maybe retuning M class main guns might be useful too. M class isn't something widely used by the AI factions last I checked, so perhaps boosting the M class beam emitters with better range might help make them more of a counter to fighters.

[mr.WHO]

Missiles are still logistic nightmare without going through hoops like "Closed Loop" production method.

It would be far better, if all logistic ships would have additional "ammo" storage where you could just set up how many and what types of missile you want to produce - e.g. 100 heavy torpedos, 100 guided missiles etc - we have it like this on stations, but not on logistic ships

That way the cargo storage would be for production materials and independed of your "ammo storage" that is ready for supply of other ships.

It would also make carriers usable for missile resuply (currently they have too small cargo to bother).

[Raptor34]

Missiles are still logistic nightmare without going through hoops like "Closed Loop" production method.

It would be far better, if all logistic ships would have additional "ammo" storage where you could just set up how many and what types of missile you want to produce - e.g. 100 heavy torpedos, 100 guided missiles etc - we have it like this on stations, but not on logistic ships

That way the cargo storage would be for production materials and independed of your "ammo storage" that is ready for supply of other ships.

It would also make carriers usable for missile resuply (currently they have too small cargo to bother).

I've proposed that before. Though in the form of "stored" ammo, so you can't just have a ship use it's cargo bay to directly augment it's ammo capacity, but through a carrier/aux ship you can reload your launchers. That way rather than carrying a complicated mix of materials in your cargo bay, you'll carry ammo directly instead.
But that's irrelevant for here. What I'm thinking is you'll just have your M ships fly back, they are fast enough and you can generally carry enough missiles to kill whatever needs to be killed. Not so useful for gate defense where you'll just leave it on auto, but for breaching into a sector, it'll be a skill to judge how much ammo you need, and also to cycle in fresh armed M ships. Besides, it's not like there are unlimited enemy fighters, it's only against VIG that you'll be really stressed. For everyone else just keeping say 3 separate groups of 20 gunships with missile turrets and having one on station, one flying back to rearm and one flying to the combat zone shouldn't be a difficult issue. It'll also incentivize building EQ docks on the frontlines too. If you prestore your wares on a couple L transports, you can pop one up in less than an hour.