New Capital Ships?

Yes, it was stated that each race gets a new envoy cruiser... but that capital ship... that is news!

A new cap could make things interesting for fleet makeup....  *hopes*

Good catch; I was only paying attention to the new tech tree and the lovely new character portraits (though my favourite remains the one I chose for my avatar).  Presumably the number of capital ships should remain even, but perhaps this isn't a capital ship but rather a new unit built from the capital ship factory.

I get the feeling the change is that now you can actually purposefully build constructor ships, and that the new cap pictured is the envoy ship.  Who knows though, I hope I'm wrong...I'd certainly love to see a whole new cap ship  

Well, the button in the pic appears to be a modified Akkan button...

Also:

Id actually like to see more variety in all of the ship varients. Not just an alternative but a choice to I go hard on shields, or weapons, or abilities. Or do i do a balance. It would surely inspire more variety in Fleet sizes and its makeup.

"Id actually like to see more variety in all of the ship varients. Not just an alternative but a choice to I go hard on shields, or weapons, or abilities. Or do i do a balance. It would surely inspire more variety in Fleet sizes and its makeup."

 me too.

I think I figured it out.

The ship int hat capital build list is the enovey cruisers.

The Icon of the ship in frigate menu looks exactly like the the plantetary building constructors you get for free. I think TEC is reciving a way to build Mines and maybe other things in neutral gavaty wells by putting in a builder that can phase around.

The devs must have known this detail was hidden among the released screenshots; now that we've found it and pointed it out, any chance we can get confirmation on what those two ships are?  Is the the envoy + a new capital, or is it a capital envoy + something else?

Personally, I still lean towards envoy+ new capital, since we were told the envoys were "cruisers" and the 1st menu is definitely the cruiser menu, while the 2nd menu is the capital ship menu...

Suck havign 2 threads talk about the same thing.

In the capitla factor is the diplomacy cruiser.

Because if you look closely at teh one of the frigate factory de button looks like the TEC controctor ship. Top arm facing back. Buttom arms facing forward.

SEE?

or maybe now that you colonize a planet......you have to build the constructors instead of instantly getting them when you colonize or upgrade the planets slots.

Then again............the constructors are frigates........not cruisers so maybe their just a place holder.

Or maybe with dyplomacy you get to build stuff in wells you do now own. Neutral wells or friendly wells. Maybe soemthignt o do with say building an embacy. Or thier just givign TEC a way to build mines anywere like Advent and Vasari.

yeah but the constructors are no wheres near the size of cruisers, their smaller then frigates, they would belong in the frigate panel.

Hmmm... so construction vessels can now be built at the frigate factory.  Perfect, now we can replace these things in the heat of battle to build up new structures.  Always annoyed me that fighters could snipe out all these guys in one attack run and leave you without construction capacity for the duration of the battle.  Now you'll have to deal with constant replacements if you want to keep new repair bays and such out of play.

I seem to remember  something from around PAX saying that that was a placeholder...

If that's the new TEC envoy ship, its not doing a good job by flipping the bird as soon it exits the phase lanes.

IMO, it looks more of a salvage cruiser.

Kitkun is correct.  I took those screenshots and forgot to turn run it in release mode, so the placeholder art was still being used.

YAY! Dip crusiers wont be butt ugly! (Atleast not as much as construction frigs )

Then what is it that we will be building in the capital ship yards?

Well, we've now gone full circle!  I'm still suspicious that the construction ship is a placeholder for the envoy cruiser, and that the other ship is a new capital!

Not meaning to necro this thread (i dont visit these forums much) but imo a envoy as a cap would make more sense if you think that a large chunk of diplo is making an impression so a big shiny ship would be more impressive than a middle sized putput.

why is it a Capital is assumed to be the Envoy Cruiser? Cruisers are massive, maybe not the size of a Capital but the Capitals have good reason to be so large. A Envoy Cruiser wouldnt, and anyone trying to argue that the capabilities of the Envoys mean their Capitals are forgetting the TEC scouts, those things have almost as many abilities as a Capital. And there one of the smallest ships in the game.

  It seems a little late in the scheme of things to add Capitols, especially after the ammount of cash that would have been spent on all sides developing and deploying the Starbases.  Still, it would be a way to shake up tactics even more, and ultimately they've left themselves no choice- The Capitol Ships are balanced to do what the whole list of Frigates/Cruisers can, but not the other way around, so a completely new Cruiser would mean a required new Capitol Ship if the game were to remain Balanced in this regard.

Note-This marks a lack of insight for the Vasari's Minelayer- It was the only unique new ship not mimicked in a Capitol, and the only race to do it.

Note-I see the lack of Long-Range weapons as made up for by the high survivability of the Capitols in Shields, Hull, and Armor.

All in all, i think the Diplomacy Expansion and all its new additions will lead to one thing- Unified TEC, Vasari, and Advent Against the mysterious enemy that's been chasing the Vasari, as the Third Expansion.  Don't know how thy'd do it, but that would be an awsome way to round things off.

Well I guess well have to findout when the Devs decide to drop it all on us.

lets see we've already got combat(offensive and defensive) , carrier, colonizer, siege n support

how about we split the combat caps into 2 : 1 full offense combat and 1 full defense combat?

Beta 1 is now out!  As such, some of the mystery is revealed, but some is not!

Recall: this thread is about the two screenshots orginially released for Sins, which showed additional ships in both the frigate and capital ship constructions selection boxes.

We have now confirmed through Beta 1 that, as suspected, the Envoy Cruiser is built in the Frigate Factory. 

This leaves us with the suspicious 6th icon in the capital ship factory.

This icon is not present in Beta 1 gameplay.

I would love to have the devs chime in at this point, and answer any or all of the following questions, which get raised by this new outcome:

1. What was the ship in that screenshot, and was it supposed to be there?
2. Were you toying with the idea of a new capital, and decided against it?  Never intended it?  Do intend it, but couldn't get it ready for Beta 1?
3. If it is intended, what held it back from beta 1?
4. If it was never intended, what was that icon doing there?  Is there an interesting story, or reason for its existance?