The death of the capital fleet

[Peenarse]

The day has sadly come where I must park my old battleship in drydock because they are no longer functionally useful. Easy to see, easy to shoot, slow, expensive - but at least they're well protected by armour... or used to be. Now there are plasma guns, so armour is irrelevant.

A parallax radar boosted with 2 adaptive receivers cannot spot a line ship at full broadside just over 8km away, so you can guarantee you'll be toast before you even get a track on the ship that melted you. Also despite being physically far larger than a battleship, the line ships have a much smaller radar signature, roughly half that of the battleship...

So exactly what reason is there why anybody would ever use a battleship ever again in the current build? You sacrifice speed, tactical flexibility, manoeuvrability, stealth, and 1000 points just for the hull. In exchange you gain good armour which no longer does anything, and some large weapon mounts which would be useful if not for the fact that your ship will be dead before you get a chance to use them.

I've sang this game's praises for a long time, argued against criticism when the missile update dropped from people who thought it wasn't balanced. But I find it very hard to defend the decisions that have been made in this update... It seems the devs just decided they didn't want capital ships to be a thing anymore so they've just been made obsolete.

[captainwolfs]

It is absolutely not true that a line ship has a smaller signature than a BB. I will agree that the BB is weaker vs OSP than it was vs ANS, but it is still viable, just harder to use

[Peenarse]

Originally posted by captainwolfs:

It is absolutely not true that a line ship has a smaller signature than a BB. I will agree that the BB is weaker vs OSP than it was vs ANS, but it is still viable, just harder to use

Literally got the game open right now in the fleet editor.
- OSP Line ship signature: 15745
- AN Battleship signature: 27876

These are both stock, unmodified base hull signatures.

[SEEK]

BB crushes LNs with support. the only actual threat is feeders getting close to you, which is extremely difficult for them and rocket shuttles, which is why you have a team ideally. LN agility means they can't get out of the way of 450 while BBs can. BBs can also nose tank nearly infinite amounts of 450 whereas LN cannot. Keep practicing, play in balanced, coordinated teams. the cannon BB no longer operates alone, but played correctly it is still quite strong.

[vren55]

Cannon BB is also more effecient than dual heavy cruisers due to greater fire output. You want to play more conservatively though and not just move into it. Using cover to shield yourself and you can punish lineships.

[Kryptic]

The solo BB off on their own attack moving on a flank by themselves? Yes...that one is dead full stop.

However, if you want to bring a BB and stick it in with an escort fleet of gun frigates or CL's they can push out a lot of damage easily defeating enemy line ships in detail.

If you are having trouble spotting LN's consider adding parallax or spyglasses into your fleet. They are very easy to spot at max range with a radar sig larger than an Axford.

[Peenarse]

I appreciate the replies and probably should have given more detail in the OP because whilst the advice is well-intended this is not new to me and I'm already doing these things.

- All 5 games I played were in a private discord with people who know the game and we were in close communication and coordination throughout - not once was the BB on its own. Any time it got picked up on radar it was simply focussed down with plasma and massive alpha-strikes. Jamming didn't matter because OSP ships are so cheap that they can hit you from several angles at once even if you jam a few of them.

- I was not out in the open, I prolly play 75% of my games as BB so I do know about positioning them, and I always play with due caution because I learned a long time ago the folly of reckless battleship piloting.

- Bow tanking did nothing to improve my longevity. Nose armour got melted with plasma so the angling became irrelevant, and the incoming fire simply tore down the hull greying everything on the front side of the ship in less than a minute.

- Yes we did kill a lot of their ships too, definitely one-for-one we output a lot more firepower. But we weren't one-for-one...

In the approximate year that I've been playing the game the most damage I've ever seen a single alliance ship output was around 50k. Within the first few hours of the update one of our guys (who was not a tester so had no prior advantage) dished out just shy of 72k with a single OSP ship.

[apocal43]

Originally posted by Peenarse:

In the approximate year that I've been playing the game the most damage I've ever seen a single alliance ship output was around 50k. Within the first few hours of the update one of our guys (who was not a tester so had no prior advantage) dished out just shy of 72k with a single OSP ship.

If it was a container ship, then you can safely divide by three to get an idea of its "real" damage dealt. Containers do huge damage numbers but largely to already dead ships. If a BB had the time and inclination, it could do the same with beams but most people won't bother. Containers though... it is easy to kill a ship with the first two or three and then have the next eight just rack the damage even higher.

[Peenarse]

I had a bit of time to figure out my actual thoughts about this and why it has bothered me the way it has.

It feels upside down the way it is now. In every major conflict that there's ever been, the the technologically inferior force has always sought to avoid direct engagements in the open and instead use guerrilla tactics - ambushes, decoys, misdirection, traps, hit-and-run tactics.

What we have with the OSP is a faction which has been branded from the beginning as "rag-tag", obsolete, jury-rigged civilian craft, hastily cobbled together to form a makeshift fighting force using whatever happened to be available.

The Alliance are presented as a conventional 'spit n polish' standing military with a penchant for big heavy artillery.

So by all of these measures you would expect the OSP to be a faction that's all about trying to catch the Alliance with their trousers down, give them a good spanking, then get the hell out of dodge before they can effectively respond. But in actuality they dominate in a shooting match in the open. Alliance have to cling to cover like a toddler clings to their mother's trouser-leg.

My problem isn't that Alliance can't win (they can and do) it's that they win by doing the very opposite of what they are styled around doing, and the same is true for the OSP. It's upside-down and that's what really gets me about it.

[SEEK]

the reason the solo BB works less than it did is precisely because of OSP's asymmetric warfare stuff though. if the rockets catch you alone, you die. BBs can fight LNs at range just fine, the BB is a better toe to toe fighter than an LN unless the LN is at point blank range where the superior weight of fire can tell. Even at PBR, if the BB has bemes the BB still wins pretty decisively.

[ZETA6]

the best way for osp to take on axe and solly is with feeders mounting 350s and 2 fire rate boosters. you get 4 shots with only 2 sec delay. the plaz is just not worth it for the armor striping massed quad 100mm fire ap strip armor to they just have short range but thats not an issue if your team is playing osp right. the plaz is best for range and the fact that it hits many parts. it can kill smaler ships in sconds if massed. oh and line ships suck with casemate just use the turrents.

[Peenarse]

Right, but I did clarify in a previous comment here that I'm not talking about solo BB. Even in a formed up fleet it generally gets singled out for massed plasma and 450 casemates when engaging in toe-to-toe shooting. Now I know people respond to that by saying "but Alliance shouldn't go toe-to-toe with OSP" which is exactly my point: should that not be the other way around? Why would the civilians be better in a straight fight than the military?

And sure maybe one-for-one a Solomon is overall stronger than a Line ship. But you'll never be one-for-one, because the Line ships and their equipment is so cheap. And even on those exceptionally rare cases where you are one-for-one, once that line ship dumps its broadside on you all the chat about it's slow reload is irrelevant, because that solomon is half-red at that point. If a couple of Plasmas were in that broadside then you can probably kiss goodnight to half your components.

[ZETA6]

oh and another thing the solly has allways suked people just never realized it.

[ZETA6]

Originally posted by Peenarse:

Right, but I did clarify in a previous comment here that I'm not talking about solo BB. Even in a formed up fleet it generally gets singled out for massed plasma and 450 casemates when engaging in toe-to-toe shooting. Now I know people respond to that by saying "but Alliance shouldn't go toe-to-toe with OSP" which is exactly my point: should that not be the other way around? Why would the civilians be better in a straight fight than the military?

And sure maybe one-for-one a Solomon is overall stronger than a Line ship. But you'll never be one-for-one, because the Line ships and their equipment is so cheap. And even on those exceptionally rare cases where you are one-for-one, once that line ship dumps its broadside on you all the chat about it's slow reload is irrelevant, because that solomon is half-red at that point. If a couple of Plasmas were in that broadside then you can probably kiss goodnight to half your components.

fyi armor was never relavent and this game has tons of issues. the game has toxic commuity and the dev is same. i try to tell people whats going on but no they just say all is well.

[ZETA6]

but Alliance shouldn't go toe-to-toe with OSP" which is exactly my point: should that not be the other way around? Why would the civilians be better in a straight fight than the military?

lol just like dev and most off players you have no idea what your doing and whats real.

for a long time its all been projection man yes the civs can beat the military just like that. people just belive they cant so they dont try. its all about projection and intell. like how many people know that fiberglass dampens raidar tons but they dont think and thats why all toms ♥♥♥♥♥ and harrys dont have a b2.

[Peenarse]

Okay I feel we're going a tad off topic there... not going to get into that.