If only 1 of 10 they you're doing something wrong or completely neglecting two entire aspects of the game called economy and research.  Every single Dunov I build, if it doesn't earn it's own way up to level 6 or better, I buy it up to level 6.  Same with all of my capital ships.  It's dumb going to war underpowered if you can do something about it.

Let me elaborate. Most of the games end in over 1 hour, in this time it's very hard to build more than 2-3 capitals without being overwhelmed. And those 2-3 caps are usually carriers, colonizers and planet busters, not battleships or support caps.

Also, my point was, that while a Sova can hold on its own without any support, a Kol requires a Dunov to actually become powerful. I don't know, in real life i think it's the other way around, a carrier would be very vulnerable and weak alone while a battleship could rezist and inflict some damage around.

P.s : You actually use money to level up the caps ? I imagine what kind of games are you playing

Also, when you face a Kol and a Dunov, which of one you focus ? That's right, the Dunov, because killing it means that the Kol won't pose a threat and also, the Dunov has aprox the same cost of the Kol. So, a capital support ship would most likely be killed first before the others.

Okay, then let me elaborate.  Most games I play are with the intention of lasting a few hours at least, not quick and dirty and get it over with as fast as possible.  In this case I have the time to ramp up an economy as do my enemies.  Therefor we are able to push out more powerful ships as needed.  Even in the quick games, if you're not making a lot of stupid or unnecessary choices it's fairly easy to ramp up an economy...  (Unless you're Advent.) 

Your point, whatever it is, is actually a moot point because you fail to hold the real life carrier and the in-game carrier to the same standards.  Your comparison has the in-game carrier having the benefit of it's strike craft and missile platforms, whereas your real life carrier has absolutely none of that taken into account.  Therefore, your comparison can suck my left nut.  =]

Pit a Sova against any cap ship of equal level and don't use strike craft or missile platforms.  The Sova loses every single time.  It's actually with the support of the strike craft and the missile platforms the Sova ends up dominating the battlefield.  The same thing happens with a real life carrier.  All by itself, it's just a floating bulls-eye.  Take into account the strike craft it can launch and it dominates the battlefield.

Take WW2 for example.  Pre WW2, if your navy was to be taken seriously, you had to have at least one battleship.  Start the war in the pacific, the carrier, because of it's ability to project power much further, specialize it's attacks to the mission at hand, while also being faster to build, and faster to get from place to place, made it the ship to develop.  Mid way through the war, with all of the redesigns the US made to the carrier to improve it's survivability, the battleship was essentially unable to sink a carrier.  In fact, I don't believe there has ever been a single time in history where a battleship has sunk a carrier all by itself.  By the end of WW2, if you wanted your navy to be taken seriously, you had to have at least one carrier.  In real life, every time a carrier has faced a battleship with equal damage, the carrier won.  If both were fresh from the shipyards, or if both had just taken a beating, as long as the carrier could launch strike craft, it won.  In real life, count how many navies have carriers and how many have battleships in active service.  That should be all of the proof you need on which ship should win.

I really don't understand why people think the battleship is supposed to be this powerful ship and the carrier a fragile little weakling when if you look at the last battleships ever made which had centuries of development behind them, and compare them to modern super carriers which only have half a century of development behind them, the battleships lose in every single way.  Even if they went one on one in direct combat starting at sunrise, the super carrier spanks the hell out of the battleship and sits at home waiting for breakfast by the time the sun has completely risen above the horizon.

P.S. Yes, I use money to level up Caps all of the time, it's pretty much standard practice.  In longer games, it's an absolute must unless you like building them.  =]

When I face a Kol and a Dunov at the same time, you're absolutely right, I go after the Dunov first, but your reason is absolutely wrong.  It's not because the Kol get's weaker.  It's because I take less damage.  The Kol is the bigger threat in all areas.  It has the better guns, the higher armor, the higher hull, and the higher shields.  If I want to win, I kill off the Dunov first because it has the weaker armor, the weaker shields, and the weaker hull.  When it dies, that means there's that many less guns shooting at me and if I'm lucky I gain a level and get some insta hull and shields and better armor and guns to tackle the Kol with.  It's got nothing to do with the Kol being less effective.  Trust me, you're doing it for the exact same reason as me, you just don't realize it and you're trying to cover up that ignorance.

You have two ships shooting at you:
A does 30dps
B does 24dps
it takes 60 seconds to pop A
it takes 45 seconds to pop B

Going after A first means you take 4320 damage before you've dropped both.  Going after B first means you take 4230 damage.  A difference of saving 90 damage points by killing the weaker one first.  Those 90 points could mean the difference between winning and losing.  Same as the in the Kol and Dunov situation.  Replace A and B with Kol and Dunov and the result is still the same.  Killing the Dunov first, means you take less damage, plain and simple.  The Dunov boosting the ability of the Kol to increase it's damage and run it's adaptive force field more times only makes the gap between those damage numbers widen.  So if you don't go for the Dunov first in this situation, I think that legally makes you a retard.

The problem with the Kol is that you pay roughly the same money to get a ship that is way more useless/weaker than a Sova. You said it yourself, a carrier beats a battleship with the aircraft, but in return i believe it costs alot more than a battleship. Ingame, this isn't true a carrier destroys a battleship with easy and costs just abit more. If not for realism, this should be changed for the sake of gameplay because as of now, Kols are build just for their Flak ability.

@The Dunov problem : I stated 1 argument in favor killing a Dunov beside a Kol. That doesn't mean i don't have/know others and certainly doesn't make me an ignorant, just that you seem you like to attack people

Also, what does a long game mean to you ? 2 hours, 3 ? We had those kind of games on tunngle/steam, and it turned to frigate spamfest, with less to no capitals. The reason ? The capitals get focused fired and get themselves killed before they can escape. Anyway, this is another problem, right now i'm worried about my poor little Kol.

@Stant : Try not to be so harsh about these things. It's a game, and i made just a suggestion. It's not a life-breaking thing and i certainly don't need to be treated like a noob

P.s : Maybe you want to play a game with us, to see for real what i just told you

I'm cranky, I haven't slept in two days. 

That aside, it's really not a harsh response, you're just taking it that way because it's saying you're wrong and you don't want to be.  I understand, I don't like being wrong either...  I thought I was wrong once, turns out I was mistaken.

The cost of an aircraft carrier today is way more then that of a battleship if they were still being built, the only time you can do a cost comparison is during WW2 when they both were being built, in which case the carrier was cheaper because it lacked most of the technology that are in today's carriers and they were much smaller, as well as having less armor then the battleships of the time.  Metal cost a small fortune so using several hundred tons less meant saving millions.  $$$  Game wise, yes, they're similar, but then again, they're all similar in cost so unless someone wants to do an in dept cost to effectiveness ratio study and base the prices off of that, we're all just stuck guessing.

About the Dunov, I'm sure you know of more reasons to kill it off first, but you didn't state them.  The one reason you did give is a wrong reason at best.  Honestly, it's ignorant in my opinion and I said as much.  Killing the Dunov first does not in any way shape or form make the Kol weaker like you said.  It doesn't lose it's power just because the Dunov goes away.  It just means the Kol won't be getting the extra uses from it's abilities that the Dunov can give it.  Removing a bonus isn't a power reduction, it's removing a bonus...  I just took the time to correct the false claim.

Long game for me is 3+ hours.  Been in lots of 8 to 12's.

You combat frigate spam by building Kodiaks and upping your marzas to level 6.  Then all you have to do is sit back and watch those suckers pop.  Or my personal favorite, big red button on the starbase.  But I'm sure you already know that.  It's more for those that don't, so don't take it as me calling you a noob or treating you like one since I never did that.  In fact I do recall congratulating you on kicking my ass in a 1on 1 match we had not too long ago.  So if you're a noob then that makes me worse, so I know I wouldn't call you that.  Also, again for those that don't know, since I'm sure you know this one already, if someone is intent on focus firing on your caps, use it to your advantage.  Draw them into sucker ambushes.  There's a technique to combat everything.

See, the whole point of explaining tactics when they're brought up isn't to make someone feel stupid, it's just that a situation is brought up and if I'm brand new and reading this for the first time, then I'd like to read about the counter tactic, wouldn't you?  I don't half ass anything, not even answers.  Look at it this way, claiming that you only get a dunov to 6 or better only once every 10 games and that's what you leave it at giving the impression that we all have that issue (And you did leave it at that) It leaves it open to question what you're doing.  I'm obligated to let you and everyone else that may not know, that you're doing something wrong if that's what's happening.  That's a failure on your part to explain the situation you're commonly in that results in you having them that infrequently.  if you feel like you're being mistreated by the answer given then sleep on it and read it again tomorrow.

Again, it's not a harsh response, you're reading your own opinions and feelings into it, while I do agree that sarcasm doesn't come across in text very well, the one time I was being sarcastic, it got treated with the common practice of a smiley face after it, so if you can't figure it out, then that's on you.  I guess I did forget one at the very end, but that comment wasn't aimed at anyone specifically, so if you read it like that, then again, that's on you, not me.

The rest of it was mostly education with my own thoughts added in.  Honestly, I really don't care, I spent all night writing lore and mindless commenting is helping me recharge.

I always thought that battleship caps were primarily supposed to be 'hero killers' while simply being good tanks in any other situation.  The Visari one does this perfectly with the passive manaburn and power surge.  The Advent one is great at screwing other caps, but its tanking ability doesn't improve its survivability much.  Then there's the Kol, which does neither.  The gauss cannon doesn't do enough damage to scare off other caps, and it doesn't have the antimatter to use it and the shield ability for very long.  Lets not even talk about what happens if a Kol goes up against one of the other battleships.  At level 6, it can finally start to do something but any cap generally becomes a beast at level 6.

Making the shield ability a passive (weakening it slightly of course) would improve it as a tank, while allowing for more antimatter to spam the cannon.  From there you could see if it was able to go toe to toe with the other battleships or if it still gets its ass kicked and adjust accordingly.  If you're against making the shield a passive, you could also make it a 0 antimatter ability with a longer cooldown.

Official Distant Stars comment

We will be considering changes to the caps (as we have done over the whole course of the mod) after we complete the changes for the optimization mod.

We actually have nerfed the battleship's DPS and HP from previous versions due to their being so OP so we have tried it with the capital (battleships) ships being stronger.

@Stant : Don't worry, i wasn't offended in any way, just i senced some hostility from you and i'm happy to hear that it isn't something personal

@Ryat : Well, the buffs should be minimal and be applied gradual, maybe in a Beta MP Patch, i don't know :-?? anyway, it's good to hear that the suggestions are being taken under advisement

just remember that while they may be taken under advisement does not mean that they will be used please

There's always hope

Just to let everyone know where things stand on the Kol vs. Sova (this is important for DPS/HP changes), I ran a Kol and Sova without abilities or fighters against one another in a neutral environment.

Kol before the fight...

Sova before the fight...

Kol the second the fight ends. Thanks to Rotskull for his assistance.

that's because, the SC and abilities give the Sova a slight edge (though it can be handled quite easily with some escorts for the Kol, wait, what? use frigates and cruisers as escorts? nah!)

Hey, opinions aside, I wanted to give everyone a concrete, thorough experiment to work from. I believe in unbiased experimentation.

it does on a 1v1 bases

which is not surprising given that a Kol/Kortul/Radiance will always beat any other cap ship on a 1v1 bases without  SC and/or abilities

Might look up the Late War Battle off Samar part of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, and Taffy 3.  It's not an exact match to the example above, but it's pretty close.  At least one carrier was sunk and several damaged.