No. Why does midline need a battleship? It's based around the cruiser school and supposed to not bother as much with big capitals, if at all
"But Alex can do whatever he wants with the lore" - why should he? if there is to be a new midline capital then why would he do something that goes against established lore and that already exists in both Lowtech and Hightech instead of doing something more interesting?
Honestly, I think we need to stop treating techs as entities with strict rules based upon the lore or attached to any particular faction. The lore has changed so many times now that its not really a practical argument. Don't get me wrong, I love the the lore and think that it matters - probably more than those who are more dedicated to unique and interesting mechanics at any cost. However, when I think of "I want a midline capital" and the reasoning behind it I don't think its often related to any of that. Its because players want X ship in the
form of the midline style.
What is that form? Well, for one, David would know more than me, but my take: sleeker than low tech but not as sleek as high tech. More hard angles than curves. A combination of ballistic and energy weapons (missile emphasis exists in all techs imo it just depends on the ship), middle of the road shields and armor and mostly not emphasizing one over the other, and various other unique attributes that visually and mechanically come together to make a ship "midline" vs "low tech" or "high tech".
Players can want a midline battleship, or super carrier, or w.e simply because they like the way midline ships look and fly. I don't think that's a bad reason in and of itself and so I think the argument that midline doesn't need a battleship or that it aligns with the cruiser/carrier school of thought, etc, etc is an argument that doesn't really hold up upon careful scrutiny. Not only has the lore more often changed to match the game than the game change to match the lore (in fact I'm not sure the reverse has ever been the case), but the lore is also purposely vague or referencing historical records of the Domain that could be questionable, etc, that specifically exists to allow for exceptions and flexibility in ship design.
The fact of the matter is that any ship could be considered any tech and the lore could spin it that way if it wanted to. Imagine, for instance, an experimental low tech ship with really good shields and energy weapons. "It was the first ship of its kind back in the day, and the Domain took it under its wing and massed produced it only for it to fall into obscurity throughout the cycles... that was until the Collapse... until Kanta herself plundered the lost interior of station 0237a of the blah blah nebula and it was slowly distributed once again into the hungry maw of the desperate masses in need of starship power."
I mean, I do get that at some point the lore could lose all sense of cohesion if you make too many exceptions all over the place, but I think that we are a far cry from that point.
The issue with no existing gameplay niche? That's a more reasonable argument. I think that should be the primary focus of the discussion. Lets find a good niche! Or, failing that, find a way to make the ship feel different even if its filling the same role as, say, the Paragon, or Astral, or Onslaught. Even ships fulfilling similar roles can still
feel different to pilot or build for the AI. I think that should be the goal: getting an idea to that point.
(Also I think the Conquest is fine as a cruiser killer and not an anti-battleship ship. That in and of itself is a useful niche to have in a fleet after all!)
