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[Lucky33]

First one.

Mora being a low-tech carrier.

"A venerable design the Onslaught-class battleships were first created to serve the Domain of Man eons ago, before the development of advanced strike weapons, fighter craft, modern energy weapons, and shield systems."

"The Conquest-class battlecruiser is the embodiment of concentrated firepower. Developed in the period just preceding the popularization of fighter craft, the class emphasizes firepower and speed over armor protection."

The whole fighter/carrier doctrine is almost a Fall era. After Onslaught, after Conquest. In, lets say, advanced midline era.

And yet here we go...

"This class of carrier was commissioned during the same period of carrier-centric Domain naval doctrine as the ubiquitous Talon fighter. Armored to withstand the fury of battle alongside the Onslaught, the Mora was nonetheless decommissioned en masse as doctrine shifted to favour heavier guns and capital ships flanked by line-cruisers."

I think its a clear contradiction. There shouldnt be any low-tech naval carriers with the exception of the converted freighters like Condor which I think, ideally represents how first carriers of the rebellious frontier looked like and what spiked the interest in the naval fighters in the first place which led to the development of Mora itself.

The ship is fine but its lore is not.



Second one.

Swarmer MRM.

Why for the love of everything ill-advisely modified in the era of Gauss-totting Mudskippers nobody has managed to employ these missiles in larger volleys which will give them a better chance of destroying a single Piranha bomber which is supposed to be the most typical target for said missiles for about two centuries of constant anti-fighter warfare?

Fighter version is fine and make sense. Drovers and Moras can launch 12 Talons and their 12 Swarmer launchers. Thats enough for the Piranha wing.

But shipborne version is so outwordlish useless that it destroys any resemblance of believability. Cant change the missile's blueprint for nanoforge? OK. I get it. Inability to change the launcher of said missiles to launch 8 insteed of 4 while the whole launcher looks like bunch of missiles barely strapped together and the missiles itself have so perfect autonomous guiding and maneuverability that you can literally hurl them into space from the airlock and they still be able to be effective!? Sorry but nope.


Yes the game is so good that after several years of playing it I have found only these two major flaws.

[Wyvern]

I don't see the contradiction in the first one - the Onslaught is "before the development of advanced [...] fighter craft", there's just a comma where an "and" might provide more clarity.  Similarly, that suggests that the Talon is not an advanced fighter craft, or a popular one, which, well, I think is honestly a pretty fair assessment.

For the second, well, huh.  I'm not sure the swarmer is intended to do what you think it's intended to do?  Admittedly, I don't use it much, but my general use-case for the things is supplemental HE damage on early-game frigates, intended for use against other frigates.  I don't use it as anti-fighter, and in particular, it doesn't seem like it'd be well-suited for shooting down piranhas, since their bomb launches tend to shield them a bit.  That said, a lot of this comes down to gameplay issues; from a "realism" perspective, you'd think that someone would take the salamander's auto-loader and develop something that could reload, say, hammer torpedos... but that'd be terrible for game balance, so it doesn't happen.

[Lucky33]

I don't see the contradiction in the first one - the Onslaught is "before the development of advanced [...] fighter craft", there's just a comma where an "and" might provide more clarity.  Similarly, that suggests that the Talon is not an advanced fighter craft, or a popular one, which, well, I think is honestly a pretty fair assessment.

For the second, well, huh.  I'm not sure the swarmer is intended to do what you think it's intended to do?  Admittedly, I don't use it much, but my general use-case for the things is supplemental HE damage on early-game frigates, intended for use against other frigates.  I don't use it as anti-fighter, and in particular, it doesn't seem like it'd be well-suited for shooting down piranhas, since their bomb launches tend to shield them a bit.  That said, a lot of this comes down to gameplay issues; from a "realism" perspective, you'd think that someone would take the salamander's auto-loader and develop something that could reload, say, hammer torpedos... but that'd be terrible for game balance, so it doesn't happen.

Contradiction is in the situation that low-tech Mora was designed and built in mid-line era.

Low-tech - Onslaught - Domain Navy doesnt care about carriers and fighters whatsoever.

Midline - Conquest - Domain Navy doesnt care about carriers and fighters whatsoever.

After Conquest DN finally decided to notice whats going on and make their own specialized carriers and fighters. So Mora should be late midline just like Heron and Drover. Or have some very different story of the low-tech non-carrier ship got converted into such.

Swarmer.

"A short range guided missile launcher. The missiles are designed to intercept and destroy enemy fighters, and do little damage to heavier ships."

"it doesn't seem like it'd be well-suited for shooting down" anything.

[DrPhat]

Low-tech - Onslaught - Domain Navy doesnt care about carriers and fighters whatsoever.

Cough Legion XIV cough...

A survivor of the original 14th Domain Battlegroup which founded the Hegemony, this ship is a prime specimen of the Domain Navy's 'decisive battle' doctrine, particularly exhibited by a series of radical structural modifications performed using pre-Collapse industrial technology.

After the legendary success of the Onslaught design it became clear that rebellious systems without ultraheavy industrial capacity were able to develop carrier-based strike-craft capable of countering the 'Old Man' of the Domain Armada. Alongside new weapons - nimble anti-fighter missiles and rapid-tracking point defense cannon - the Strategic Council decided that the Armada needed a carrier of its own worthy to serve alongside the Onslaught. Thus the Legion was designed to provide a mobile platform for basing interceptors and strike-craft while able to stand on the line of battle.

There is a distinction between advanced fighter craft and not so. The early Legion didn't even have an on board nanoforge for fighter replacement.

[Lucky33]

Legion was removed from my list due to this vagueness of the description and the hybrid nature (battleship+carrier) of the ship itself. It ("a series of radical structural modifications") could be understood just as a modification of the existing ship.

[DrPhat]

From Legion description.

Proponents of the 'Cruiser School' criticized the Legion for being insufficiently specialized in its role.

From Mora description.

This class of carrier was commissioned during the same period of carrier-centric Domain naval doctrine as the ubiquitous Talon fighter. Armored to withstand the fury of battle alongside the Onslaught, the Mora was nonetheless decommissioned en masse as doctrine shifted to favour heavier guns and capital ships flanked by line-cruisers.

From this we can see the Mora came before the Legion.

What Domain capitals other than the Onslaught can replace the Mora?

Your making a big leap suggesting the Legion was ever created without having fighters to begin with. The hybrid Legion is the result of combining the Onslaught and Mora doctrines.

[MesoTroniK]

Swarmer that fires a larger salvo size would be OP, the weapon is fine.

[Thaago]

My 'timeline' of ships (which is purely my headcanon and probably not that well supported):

1) Onslaught, Dominator, Enforcer, Hound, Cerberus. Other ships that are lost to the mists of time.

2) 'Talon age'. Mora, Legion, perhaps other lost carriers. Perhaps warthogs/broadswords. No autofactories on carriers yet.

3) Shields developed and retrofitted onto old designs, with varying success. Modular energy weapons begin appearing. Line of battle ships built to take advantage of shields and mobility come to the fore: Conquests appear alongside other capitals. Eagle, Falcon, Hammerhead developed. Sunder developed as large modular energy test bed, proves successful.

5) Autofactories implemented on carriers. Strike fighters developed (Perdition analogs, Khopesh, perhaps now is when the heavy fighters appear). Drovers and Herons developed to deploy new autofactory fighters. 'Cruiser School' eschews the large capitals of previous generations in favor of a mobile screen of cruisers backed up by the new mobile strike carriers.

6) Breakthrough in flux and phase physics. Phase ships appear, making everyone scream continually. Phase detectors appear, making everyone unclench. High tech ships designed to exploit new weird physics and high mobility appear. Hubris leads to the developement of the super capitals.

[cicobuff]

Just out of curiosity, was the domain-era a period of warfare and strife?

Typically we see massive innovation during periods of tension and conflicts. Seldom does new ship or weapon designs happen during peace times. Those that does occur are often over budget and delayed.

So it would make sense that large number of designs only enter service during crisis periods.

[Lucky33]

From Legion description.

Proponents of the 'Cruiser School' criticized the Legion for being insufficiently specialized in its role.

From Mora description.

This class of carrier was commissioned during the same period of carrier-centric Domain naval doctrine as the ubiquitous Talon fighter. Armored to withstand the fury of battle alongside the Onslaught, the Mora was nonetheless decommissioned en masse as doctrine shifted to favour heavier guns and capital ships flanked by line-cruisers.

From this we can see the Mora came before the Legion.

What Domain capitals other than the Onslaught can replace the Mora?

Your making a big leap suggesting the Legion was ever created without having fighters to begin with. The hybrid Legion is the result of combining the Onslaught and Mora doctrines.

Thats another evidence of the mentioned contradiction. Specialized carrier in the era before development and popularization of fighters.

Im not taking any leaps. Im giving a game's lore every excuse possible. However. If it is stated first that "before the development of ... fighter craft" and secondly that there was "carrier-centric Domain naval doctrine" in the same time... Well this is that I call the contradiction.

[Lucky33]

Swarmer that fires a larger salvo size would be OP, the weapon is fine.

8*75=600. Single Harpoon = 750.

[goduranus]

Yeah, swarmer is one of those underwhelming weapons I never use on purpose. It is particularly terrible at anti- fighter because all the common fighters are faster than it, and it never seem to score any hits.

[DrPhat]

While I agree with you lucky the damage for swarmers is terrible especially with how armor calculations work there are a couple balancing points to consider.

Harpoon does 750 but only has 3 shots, swarmer does 75 damage but has 60 shots. Ignoring armor for a second we have 2250 total damage on harpoons. For swarmer we have 4500. This is almost enough to make up for the huge amount of damage that is lost after armor is factored in.

BUT we have to consider point defence as well. How many harpoons will get shot down vs swarmer? Wouldn't it be a good bet a lot more damage would be lost this way before we even consider armor? Is this enough reason to use both at once?

The best use of each of these weapons isn't dependent on whos shooting them or what their hitting. It's about every other part of your fleet as well. If your using bombers you can bet using swarmers to defeat point defence would help out a lot more than just having a more powerfull alpha strike.

If you have 7 legions all with with harpoons on the other hand. You have a seriously deadly loadout that will trounce any fleet.

I'm not trying to burst your bubble but there are just niche uses for each weapons. I can tell that's really what the developers wanted. Not an end all be all attitude but choices that if carefully chosen lead to many viable paths.

[Lucky33]

Just out of curiosity, was the domain-era a period of warfare and strife?

Typically we see massive innovation during periods of tension and conflicts. Seldom does new ship or weapon designs happen during peace times. Those that does occur are often over budget and delayed.

So it would make sense that large number of designs only enter service during crisis periods.

Domain was eternal peace for the core worlds and start of the problems on the rim worlds (our whole sector is one of such areas). Those problems included creation of the whole shadow drone fleet including such  monstrosities as the Guardian.

Historically speaking, the most intense naval arms race occured in the peace time (1889-1914) with only some outer rim problems (Boer war, Boxer rebellion) for its main actor, Great Britain.

[Lucky33]

While I agree with you lucky the damage for swarmers is terrible especially with how armor calculations work there are a couple balancing points to consider.

Harpoon does 750 but only has 3 shots, swarmer has 75 damage but has 60 shots. Ignoring armor for a second we have 2250 total damage on harpoons. For swarmer we have 4500. This is almost enough to make up for the huge amount of damage that is lost after armor is factored in.

BUT we have to consider point defence as well. How many harpoons will get shot down vs swarmer? Wouldn't it be a good bet a lot more damage would be lost this way before we even consider armor? Is this enough reason to use both at once?

The best use of each of these weapons isn't dependent on whos shooting them or what their hitting. It's about every other part of your fleet as well. If your using bombers you can bet using swarmers to defeat point defence would help out a lot more than just having a more powerfull alpha strike.

If you have 7 legions all with with harpoons on the other hand. You have a seriously deadly loadout that will trounce any fleet.

I'm not trying to burst your bubble but there are just niche uses for each weapons. I can tell that's really what the developers wanted. Not an end all be all attitude but choices that if carefully chosen lead to many viable paths.

Im completely OK if the ammo loadout of the Swarmer will be cut. Just make this thing actually resembling a special purpose weapon it is supposed to be.