I see the suggestion from time to time, and indeed it would be cool to be able to fly something larger then a frigate. But of course, there is the “minor” issue that if you keep adding bigger and stronger stuff, eventually the smallest stuff will become difficult at best to use.
Since we now have a ships forum, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have a thread dedicated to discussing the potential addition, and more importantly, the balancing of ships larger than a frigate.
So far, here is the best I can come up with on that manner.
First off, larger ships would be given their own single ship slot, separate from the 3-4 used for smaller ships.
Next, not just ANYONE can use a ship larger then frigate. There would be only a few people allowed to, and they would be randomly chosen during the pre-mission ship selection. If they do not wish to use their large-ship, then they can select a different ship and the option will be offered to a different person at random instead. Additionally, when one is destroyed, the option will be presented to a different player at random as well (at least once another player also dies and is back at the selection screen).
Another thing: Larger ships would have higher value. That is, if your team kills one, they would get, say, 3 kill points instead of just 1 like they would from killing an interceptor, fighter, or frigate. And some game modes might benefit from only having one, or even not having them at all.
Another thing worth discussing is what sort of roles would be viable, particularly given what we already have devoted to frigs, fights, and ints. Here the possible roles are easier to ponder, to be honest. For instance, here are some basic ideas:
First off: “weapons” here refers to the usual weapons. “Turrets” refers to weapon mountings that will target and attack enemies on their own.
Destroyer role: a large ship with only a few normal weapons, and either just one or two, or absolutely no turrets. They can have multiple large-size missile slots though. Their special is effectively a number of powerful long range weapons. Weapons that dwarfs the disintegrator easily. But unlike the disintegrator, they are slow. They take more then 5 seconds (maybe even as high as 10) to travel their 10ish km range. Additionally, they may only be fired within a few degrees of the ship’s nose, and do have a small amount of spread.
Basically, Destroyer ships would be for destroying other large ships. They would be weak to attack by smaller vessels due to having limited weaponry. A single reasonably equipped frigate could take them on at short range, for instance, unless they were stupid enough to attack from head-on.
Cruiser Role: A large ship with a bunch of turrets and a well-spread-out group of conventional weapons, and a reasonable spread of missiles. The amount of firepower they present from any one angle, while consistent regardless of direction, isn’t terribly high however. So a pair of frigates attacking from one direction can take it down without too much trouble if its alone (a single one could easily do so with asteroids to use as cover, given how large ship classes would be too slow to handle that). They are also weak to Destroyer role ships, naturally. They would also be vulnerable to couple smaller ships in “bomber” configurations (i.e. a couple small ships with long range torpedos start firing them at the cruiser from outside its weapon range).
Their role? They are basically made to take out interceptors and fighters, and to a lesser extent frigates. They can only do so well however if they have smaller ships escorting them. While being properly escorted though, they can provide weak but omni-directional assisted fire from their turrets to help their escorts kill nearby enemies, and can manually provide a reasonable amount of directed fire using their normal weapons.
As for what kinds of modules would be available for larger vessels, a “resupply” type could be of use. That is, a module that resupplies missiles to smaller ships that are nearby (it would of course have a long cooldown, or perhaps even only be useable once for the duration of flying that ship for that battle).