Stock Ship Balance

[Reiver]

Hrm. Changing the target loses the ship its enigmatic style, though. Further, if you're going to use missiles, be aware that missiles can fire from a launcher that isn't lined up. This is actually the trick I was fiddling with, and exactly why I used missiles for the ranged punch - it means that an Athena is then able to fire both broadsides forward with the railguns; which is actually quite useful given the lower damage output/sec of missiles (About half that of a blaster, even before interceptions by PDS). Thus, leaving the sheilded bits where they are stays sensible, as if you're pointing at the badguys for most of the fight, at long ranges you actually do take the hits 'on the nose' a lot. It ends up much like a Hestia engaging a target from the front - invincible nose may not render it completely invulnerable, but it still helps survivability a lot.

It also looks classy as hell.

[TormakSaber]

Hrm. Changing the target loses the ship its enigmatic style, though. Further, if you're going to use missiles, be aware that missiles can fire from a launcher that isn't lined up. This is actually the trick I was fiddling with, and exactly why I used missiles for the ranged punch - it means that an Athena is then able to fire both broadsides forward with the railguns; which is actually quite useful given the lower damage output/sec of missiles (About half that of a blaster, even before interceptions by PDS). Thus, leaving the sheilded bits where they are stays sensible, as if you're pointing at the badguys for most of the fight, at long ranges you actually do take the hits 'on the nose' a lot. It ends up much like a Hestia engaging a target from the front - invincible nose may not render it completely invulnerable, but it still helps survivability a lot.

It also looks classy as hell.

Can you PM me a link to that missile launcher Athena, if you've uploaded it? I'm interested in looking at it.

[mtheminja]

Just a random idea: why not give it one deflector, leave it alone otherwise? It would only protect one side of the nose at a time, so you could more decently broadside.

[Reiver]

mtheminja: Sorta ruins the whole specialness of the Aegis deflectors though, doesn't it?

TormakSaber: I'd be more than happy to in the name of encouraging the debate, as long as I know th15 doesn't mind such blatantly derivative works being shared around - he doesn't share the maker files of the origional ships, afterall, so I'd like to doublecheck as to whether an otherwise pixel-perfect replica is also acceptable. There's a difference between making it, and sharing it, afterall...

[TormakSaber]

Well, if he cared about us remaking the ships, I don't think he'd have 1: Included Capt. Trek's remakes of them in the game itself, and 2: allowed me to remake *every ship in the game* in the "Making the Official Ships" topic.

[Cycerin]

Don't use the Hecate or Athena without a point defense ship to back it up.