Sova, Halcyon, Skirantra - Do Capital Carriers suck or what?

The Sova is not one I like too much but both the Halcyon and Skiranta are very useful.  They Halcyon has an ability called telekenetic push that and really mess up your strike craft but even better has a passive ability that reduces cooldown of all energy based weapons; those are the two most notable abilities of the Halcyon.  The Skiranta's top ability is the repair cloud, within a area around it it can repair hull for 10 seconds, it is the best repair out there because it doesn't just work at one at a time but more of an area of effect thing.

I love playing the TEC and I think they should get a little flak going on because I think the Sova sucks...still, not many of them, like some sort of weak flak, I don't know.  Maybe all the caps should get an increase to their strikecraft, I thought maybe a squad per level would be sweet, so they end up with 10 at level 10.

The Repair Cloud downright sucks... until you figure out it repairs strikecraft

Well letting regular Capital Ships start with 2/3 strike craft - to a max of 4 or 5 (for some ships like the Akkan/motherships) is a good idea. The Carrier Cap should still start with a minimum of 4/5 though upgradable to 10 eventually.

It'll marginally help regular non-carrier cap ships them fight off carrier spam and increase their worth in battle, as for Carrier-caps once they reach lv. 7+ they should become REAL battlestars with 10 strike craft squadrons and Flak to really stand its own ground.

Really anything that buffs capital ships is a good idea, esp. the Flak cannons. Every single film/popular culture depicts Capital Ships with AA e.g. Star Destroyers, Battlestar Galactica. 

If we're comparing Sins space welfare to Naval Warfare, Battleships and Battlecrusiers had the most AA guns of anything ANYWHERE anytime.

In the Distant Star mod we made Cap Carriers better by bumping up the amount of starting SC to 4/5, maxed out to 8/9, and ALSO by giving Cap Carriers 'Elite' SC. You know only the best pilots get to fly on a Cap Carrier. These Elites have I think 25% more damage, armor and HP. Helps balance them out and give them an edge over light carriers.

I like this idea, but elite SC at 25% buff to everything might be too much. I'd just say just a 25% to attack power and a 5% buff to hp/armor.

Unkillable strike craft avoiding and shrugging off flak is annoying enough already.We need Flak to be viable in this game.

Ironclad, you hearing us?

Yes, carrier caps suck.  But carrier caps sucking is just an extension of all caps sucking.

To whoever mentioned repair cloud - I'm a vasari player.  I actually don't think that repair cloud is that good.  The problem with it is that you really can't make efficient use of it.  For instance, many times one of your ships is getting focus fired.  Using repair cloud in this instance means you are only healing one ship with an ability that can heal many ships at once - a waste.  Now, if by some chance many ships are being damaged at once (which also happens), how the heck are you supposed to watch all your ships, know when the optimium damage to them all has occurred, and then hit repair cloud?  Finally, it just requires too much micro to use.  I mean, observing all the damage levels of the ships with a finger over "repair cloud" mean you are essentially doing nothing else (focus firing, maneuvering, etc).  Putting the ability on autocast does not help the situation, because the cap will simply spam it mindlessly, putting it to no effective use.

Light carriers don't need a nerf to their range.  Their range is the whole point.

Look at the side menu - you can see the hull and shields strength of all pinned ships in your fleet!!!

Yes, I know.  But that doesn't help the situation.  My points still stand.

It does if you can read it. You know when to apply the ability based on how your fleet health looks!!!

You know, I can understand people finding the Sova sub-par, and I can see not finding repair cloud worthwhile.  However, calling the Halcyon worthless is another matter entirely.  First and foremost, it's your only anti-strike craft cap as the Advent.  Given how powerful strike craft are in the current version of the game, this automatically makes it a must-have in the mid-late game.  Beyond that, energy amplification aura is a big boon to any army.

As far as Sova and Skirantra go, they're one trick ponies.  You buy them for Embargo and Repair Cloud.  If you don't want those abilities, don't complain that they're not useful capital ships, because they are those abilities.  If you want direct damage, get a Marza/Kol or Devastator/Desolator.

 I dont understand why the Cap ships are so bad or especially the carrier ones. I guess it must be a multiplayer thing. The Halcyon is great in my opinion. The abilities are nothing short of fantastic combined with the Rapture and the Progenitor with Malice. Since the energy rate ability effects SCs and rapture gives them up to 30% damage combined with malice ships die very very quickly unless they have mucho flak frigates or way more fighters then i have. I easily kill cap ships in one or 2 runs focussing my SC or i just let them run amuck and harass the enemy so furiously i bombed his planets before he can counter.

The AI doesn't counter capital ships very well, plus you get lots of experience because the AI gets units killed carelessly, so you typically have much higher levels in singleplayer than multiplayer.  That said, the Halcyon is perfectly respectable in multiplayer. The weakness of capital ships really comes out more in MP than SP, where players will use well prepared comboes to finish them off quickly, and it's harder to get your own caps up to higher levels.  They're not bad, it's just much harder to use them well and much easier to get them killed.

Sorry guys,

I really have no experience with the Halcyon as I mainly play TEC and sometimes Vasari, but I was genera;;y commenting on their pitiful strike craft capacity and direct dmg potential.

I understand you guys are agreeing with me on that point? All Carrier Caps should start with more Strike Wings! and max out at 9/10.

For my part I know the SOVA is a peice of [censored] !

They are far from unkillable. Just about everything in the mod has higher damage than Vanillia SINS so it still very balanced vs flak. And besides you cant spam a billion of them, Since they are just limited to Cap Carriers. Even if you build just Cap Carriers in the mod which is max Caps is 26 and say your TEC. With every Carrier maxed lvled you would only have 208 squads of SC. Compared to how many you could have via light carriers, I say it safe to say they are very balanced and give the Cap Carrier a reason to be somewhat feared.

I may be a bit outa of line as I have not been able to get my mutiplayer working- but you guys know that the Sova has a skill that increases the damage of it's SC. Also consider that they deploy missles batteries( If i remeber right they have 30 damage) so if you had had like 4 sova's spitting out a dozen batteries-nice field agaisnt ships trying to get up close. Then also arnent fighters mostly made for use against other SC? Just a thought...

The one 'itch' I have with giving carrier caps extra strike craft at level 1 is the issue with rushing.  If flak frigates got their appropriate buff, then this would probably be fine, but I'm a little worried because there just isn't a counter to strike craft right off the bat.  Sova is a particularly nasty rusher if it had a strong strike craft complement, since it can cripple your econ with embargo, and prolong its rush just by kiting.

Also, Sova is not a piece of junk, not by a longshot.  As I've said in other threads, Embargo is one of the game's most powerful abilities.  It doesn't help you win a battle, but used frequently and against the right target, it gives you a substantial economic edge that lets you win the war.

Fighters are better than bombers against all frigates except for flak frigates.  Since LRF's and carriers (which produce fighters, which counter bombers...) are the bulk of most armies these days, this leaves bombers with little purpose.  Unless your enemy is pumping heavy cruisers and support cruisers with minimal fighter support, bombers are relegated to the late-game when their damage upgrades allow them to be deployed (and then quickly recalled before fighters can do them in...) to destroy critical targets in a single sudden attack run.

Alright, I just remember. Many REGULAR capital ships like the Akkan, Progenitor Mothership, etc already start out with 1 Strike Craft while being able to be useful things like Colonize. All Caps are able to carry up to 2-3 SC already on their own.

CAPITAL CARRIERS despite that other less specialized Carriers already carry 1 SC to begin with only start with 2 SC while being much much weaker than the other ships. How does this make sense? Also this effectively means a lv. 1-3 Capital Ship = the firepower of a SINGLE light carrier (the carrier cap ship has crap weapons) which is infinitly cheaper and spammable.

And it has abilities.... And it quickly gets more SC as it levels up. A lvl 3-4 cap carrier has the same SC as 2 TEC/Vassari caps. Not bad if it was free initally.

But Embargo will also lock down a gravity well from building anything at level 3. So if it has a frigate factory or Cap ship factory it's SOL and won't be able to reenforce. Also the combined strength of the carrier weapons, plus Missile Batteries, plus strike craft makes it much more damaging than you would think at first glance. I have renewed respect for the Sova.

ok i am the biggest fan of strike craft.  I usually have 10-12 Advent Drone hosts alone alone with 1 Halcyon in the begining (by the end of the game i usually have 2-3).  the Halcyon is the first capital ship i build.  hands down.  and the two guys i play sins with both build Carrier capitol ships with in the first 10 min of the game.  We each play a diffrent race usually .  Im Advent, One of the is TEC and the other is Vasari.  In my experience with these Capital Ships, i can honestly say they have saved my butt more than i care to count.  so to say carrier capital ships are useless is an extream understatement as was mentioned above.

As for your post about strike craft improvement, you seem to have forgotten some things about space opera theme. Mainly Capital ships in Wing commander seems like big carrier but are very weak against bombers...that's why they rely only on their chase force to take down ennemy bombers, isn't?

The same thing in star wars. Star destroyers are built to destroy other big ships or conquer system solar. They rely on their tie fighter suqadron and bomber in order to defend themselves against ennemy strike craft.

To return on your topic, Sova carrier doesn't stink...ok you can have 6 light carrier...but can make 6 light carrier against a squadron of flak frigate, or against one kol battleship? Flee o die. against flas frigate, Sova can crush them quick easily, calling back their squadron, ...and against kol...well missile battery ability could help a lot..:D

I'll agree that cap carriers suck ( at the moment ), especially the Sova. With Embargo, the Sova is a one trick pony. If it works, you stand a good chance of winning. If it doesn't, you have useless cap. The DPS potential for the Sova is awful. Even with the missile batteries ( which are not mobile ), it pales in comparison to a Kol or Marza. The Dunov can at least NEGATE a huge damage potential by restoring shields. The Akkan has colonize, and armistice, which is a nice  'get out of jail free' card for your fleet.

More squads would be a big help. If I didn't have to max level a Sova to get 7 squads, it would at the very least be an alternative to the Kol/Marza/Akkan first cap. Maybe limit the Sova to fighters only, to stop bomber spam, and add in some flak turrets. Elite SC might be a nice addition as well. 4 or 5 squads to start, and 10 at level ten would certainly make me look twice at it. 10 elite fighter squads would be a huge help in clearing the hoards of lesser SC we seem to face now. Hell with flak as useless as it is now, I'd by two or three Sova's instead.

Maybe, as a side note, instead of light carriers starting with two squads, they start with one, and have to tech up to two squads ? Call it Advanced Fleet Logistics or some such. You have to tech up every other ship out there, why not LC's ?

give them moar SC since as they are right nao the amount of SC the have isnt much higher than the other caps

I think people here are nitpicking at the idea and then pretending the idea sucks.

To Marc Paris, Star Destroyer's are not Carriers they are more like Kol's and Kol's can carry 1-2 SC which is fine. Sova is more like a Battlestar, where it carries multiple SC wings.We all know how a Battlestar has a lot of SC, plus unrivalled Flak capabilities ripping apart any Cylons getting in the Flak shield. (so no its not weak against SC)

So your analogy fails. Completely. Really and why are we putting such unflexible lines when we're dealing with Sci-fi?

To The Federation, I already mentioned the Halcyon might be an exception due to its good abilities but why don't be go try that with the Sova and the Vasari Carrier? This is an logicall fallacy, you think: Oh, I build Halcyon's (while playing only Advent) and do well with them so Dorian position must be wrong.Nevermind the state of the two other carrier caps.

You making them doesn't mean they still aren't as effective as they should be. That is also a logical fallacy, just because something "works" doesn't mean it should be something else.

Most people here seem to argee, Capital Carriers should be better while at the same time not being useless. Fine, they are not useless, but they still should be better. Esp. the Sova, and the Vasari Carrier. I hope the developer's see this.

Capital Carrier's should start out with 4 Strike Craft, maxing out at 9/10 and get a general buff to their shields and hp by 15% along with all capital ships in general. As someone already noted, capital carriers suck, but its an extension of all capital ships sucking right now. I agree with this, in my other trend to give capital ships a slight buff to their hp/shields.

This is not unreasonable. The firepower of a single carrier cap vs. 6 Light Carriers you could make instead is ridiculous. If you are against this, then you are just promoting the continued crappyness of capital ships vs. spam.

To any that opposes my proposition, speak out and do your worst, for I shall do mine. Un guarde.

A standard escort carrier in SW carriers 72 SC (a wing).

A Imp or Imp Deuce SD carries that many SC too.

I wasn't aware a Kol can carry that many SC.

You mentioned the REBEL SC rolls from SW in your original interceptor post.... The rebels use their SC for insurgency tactics - the Empire didn't need to worry about that due to the number of capital ships they field....

Feeling threatened by others opinions???