First: I used some abbreviations i want to explain first.
Probably most of you knew this allready but just to be sure
FF = Frigate
DD = Destroyer
CA = Cruiser
CV = Carrier
BC = Battlecruiser
BB = Battleship
With those balancing i tried stick to the only area in our history while we had "equal" Seabattles with "modern" technology.. that means Early/Mid WW2 and some influence of the late area there.
I also tried to get some refits into this like the refit of the Iowa Battleship class while they get a small amount of Anti Ship missles and Long Range Missles.
But i didnt wanted to use the present versions because since WW2 there wasnt any "big" need in building up equal Navys, thx to the Atomweapons carried by ICBMs or Aircrafts..
So there was some development of new anti ship weapons like the harpoon or exotec and some new torpedos but thats all.. the area of big battleships was more or less history.
(Who needs a weapon plattform that can only reach 40km far, while you need 2000 People to keep it up, months to build it and funds large enough to build several Bomberwings and everything the enemy has to do is keeping the Targets 50km away from the coast..)
But well.. enough about right now. I want to tell you some of the early changes ive made so far to the fighters,interceptors and bombers ^^.
The InterceptorsI tried to design them how they where designed at the end of WW2 and during the Cold War time. Fast and light armed to deal with any other Plane.
Talon - Good against Bombers and Fighters but the Mainweapon cant penetrate any Armor of a FF and larger. No secondary weapons to deal with them.
Wasp - Faster then the Talon, same Mainweapon but less hitpoints with only a slight armor upgrade compared to the Talon. Stronger against Bombers, weaker against Fighters (But not that much @ both)
Both Ships are fast enough to evade small and medium amounts of Point Defense in most cases.
The FightersI wanted them to have better chances within a battle while covering the bombers engaging the enemy. So they are faster then Bombers, have a fair amount of Hitpoints and Armor but nothing thats good enough to deal with bigger ships then a light FF.
Broadsword - Average Fighter, good against Bombers and light armored FFs but has some problems as soon as Interceptors are joining the Fight.
Longbow - Light Fighter, light armed with a higher speed then all other fighters but it lacks the same protection the other fighters have.
Xyphos - Light Fighter with good weapons against other Fighters and Bombers, even against damaged Interceptors but without a real chance against FFs and more.
All Ships have a good chance to evade smaller amounts of Point Defense Systems but they will be hit and damaged after a time.. they cant dodge them forever.
The Bomber I didnt liked the idea that a single Bomber could destroy a Battleship without any bigger problems as long as you let them attack in "masses" (2-3-4..).
There would be no one who would build capital ships anymore if you could take them out with 1/100000 of the ressources. So i tried to make them weaker while still beeing a big threat to any capital ship.
They are now generating 75% Flux and 25% Damage. The flux should simulate a damage dealed to a subsystem like weapons/shieldgenerator. So you can send in some bombers to disable the weapons of a cruiser for example, and take him out with your heavy armed but weake armored FFs.
Compare it to the Battle of the Denmark Strait at WW2. The Torpedo Bombers couldnt destroy the Bismark at all... they had several hits on her but only a lucky hit at the rudder did "damage" to the ship...not even the Torpedo Broadside of an Destroyer could sink a crippled ship that was under fire for over an hour by several other ships including hostile Battleships.
So Torpedos where powerful against smaller targets but less powerful against larger ships like CA, BC or BBs while dealing direct damage until the armor of one of those ships is critical. After that they can finish them too.
I didnt wanted to use todays Torpedo technology because they advanced while there was no big development effort in increasing the countermeasures or suitable armor upgrades for ships.
(There was for example a research project in germany/france to build something like the phalanx on US Ships,placed on top of a Ship to use it as a anti torpedo weapon... spray enough bullets into the water as soon as the torpedo is near the surface and hope youll hit him.. but it was stopped and the funds went into other projects like the EF)
Dagger - The Dagger is a heavy Bomber. Many Hitpoints, the best armor a bomber can have but it comes with a lack of speed even some light FFs can match them. Heavy armed with Ioncannons and Reaper torpedos to attack subsystems and open up a window for other heavy armed ships while the victim cant engage them.
Piranha - Light Bomber (well.. twice the hitpoints and armor then the broadsword), fast but light armed. Not designed for Capital Ships but FFs and DDs.
Trident - Super Heavy Bomber,can deal a lot of flux and damage to every ship. Very slow but good protected against the first PD Attacks of a Capital Ship so it should deal enough flux in the first attack run to survive after that too, but easy targets for Fighters and Interceptors and PD Escorts.
All Versions have a strong Front Shield to withstand the first attack of enemy Point Defense Systems while Fighters or Interceptors in their back have a good chance to get them quickly.
To show you how it looks ingame, i made another small clip.
First the Conquest is under attack by 3 Bomberwings, one of those wings could incapacitate the Conquest with the second volley of Torpedos keeping the ship incapacitate for at least 60 Seconds until it runs out of Torpedos.
Because of the strong front shields the Point Defense Systems arent strong enough to destroy them fast enough.
While they are keeping the flux level high enough other forced could finish the Conquest without getting hurt by her primary and secondary weapons. If there are no other Ships, the bomber could deal with the Conquest but you would have enough time to move reinforcments to her like those Interceptors in the Video...
Thats all for today.
I hope i can offer a first version tomorrow, have to pimp the last 4 Ships for a first release.
