I think it's important to limit the weapons and the weapon firepower carried.
Yeah RoC, what baffles me is that you don't cover your ships in weaponry. They have like big flat open areas all over them yet only puny gun turrets. Even my Corvette has more firepower than that mothership thing you built.
@Strana & Fighter Defenses
Yeah the only solutions you have for anti-fighter defense on mother ships are either pay to make the weapons custom and have greater range, or just put them all over the ship. My Corvette which is tailored for anti-capitol ship duty, has 13 weapon emplacements, but 9 of them are meant for use against enemy fighters, and aren't strong enough to do much damage against big ships. (Though the main turret and the missiles could probably do surface damage or destroy exterior components.) The point is you gotta put them on all sides of your ship to protect against attacks from all angles.
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by using the same weapons power rules as flyer's (big weapons mean big heat)
and setting speed limits (big ships mean big inertia)
based on size, means the ship/s have to be built to serve a tactical purpose.
Forcing the fleet to be based on a tactical plan.
most modern naval fleets work in this very way.
Having done a battle in this scale, I can agree level 1 and 2 weapons lack range.
The next time I do a battle on this scale all weapons ranges will be doubled with
the second half having a -1 one to hit and -1 to damage.
You should have tried this over multiple levels. Then it gets interesting