While this would solve carrier-cap rushes, I have to ask: at what cost?  This will kill capital ship diversity, really cut down on early game strategy, and possibly make even more capital ships unused since players will never bother to get such high level prerequisites. 

Under this suggestion, we'd see Vasari go back to just cranking out multiple eggs, Advent would go back to solo-Progen with the Halcyon coming out later to provide energy amplification to the illuminators.  I think this suggestion would cause more damage than it would solve.

I just wanted to chime in here in case the devs got the wrong idea, and decided to nerf carrier capitals, LOL.  I don't think I've seen anyone complain that carrier capitals are OP.  Most people I have spoken to like the level of "buff" for carrier caps, and want it for the other caps as well.  In other words, the carrier capitals aren't OP, the other capitals are UP.

I myself have several posts on carrier caps (halcyon, sova), but I stated several times in these posts that I don't want these caps nerfed, rather I think a buff is in order to other caps.

Guys, this was simply a what if...

I'm not suggesting a nerf, but a better buff to the capital ships and the abiltiy to bring them out a higher level than what you can do early game due to them being OP otherwise, which is where certain carrier caps are right now especially against Vasari.

I really don't care if this is implemented or not. Like I said it is just a what if and an observation on how several other well liked mods work and thinking what if it worked this way with the base game.

well, one thing to remember about mods that use research-linked caps-

they probably do this to create a sense of progression, and in the case of some mods (Dawn of Victory comes to mind), to create a sense of scale. I think that for vanilla Sins, capship research wouldn't really be very interesting.

Here's my reasons- all three races, by the time the Entrenchment period came around, were able to build all types of capital ships (in the very beginning, the Vasari&Advent are really the only ones able to build their entire fleet roster, lore-wise). Thus, research for caps wouldn't make sense lore-wise, would probably be opposed by the MP community on the basis of- wanting all the caps out at the beginning (not literally, just the potential), and wanting games to be shorter.

That's the current issue at hand?  I thought the issue at hand was that caps died too easy to masses of lrm FF, not that caps were too OP early game.

Reference your posts:

F***ing Sova (https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/372560)

and

Dual Halcyon (https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/373165)

No, from everything I've seen, everybody's caps die too easy to mass lrm.  Almost everyone and their mother seems to agree with this, as evidenced by all the people chiming in on these threads, so why the insult?

It's a no-brainer that no matter how good you are, you put your cap in a battle where there are 80 illums on the other side, it's gonna evaporate instantaneously, so again why the insult?  You think that only MY caps die in that situation, where as everybody else's do just fine?

But you don't need to reference those posts, because I just referenced those posts myself, right here:

Anyway...

Well like I keep saying, I never said carrier caps were OP early game.  I think they are buffed correctly.  But if you think they are OP, I guess that's fine.  Perhaps you can make your case and ask for a nerf.

That was two months ago.  I've gotten more critical of carrier caps since then.  Especially recently, I've been trying to run with non-carrier openers, but the problem is that they're too vulnerable to carrier openers. 

The one suggestion I think that would help is buffing carrier cruisers and hangers (the latter significantly).  Both are somewhat prohibitive to begin with, and simply don't compare to capital carriers unless built in mass.  They can't produce new strike craft nearly as reliably and invariably will get overpowered.  If they got a buff to antimatter regeneration and their price point, that would make them a lot more competitive.

Yes, you will get no argument from me that carrier caps are are quite dominant, possibly too strong and OP.  Honestly, I find them QUITE bothersome.  The majority of my time and energy the last month or so playing online has revolved around trying to figure out a good way to counter them.  As always, trying to counter Advent is the worst.

But the reason I never criticize the carrier caps directly, and even "defend" them somewhat (they aren't OP, the other caps are UP!) is that the game had pathetically weak capships (crapships) for way, way too long.  It was so boring.  The devs FINALLY made a step in the right direction with buffing caps, so the last thing I want to do is tell them carrier caps are too strong, and to nerf them.  Then we are going back the other direction again.  I'd much rather see buffs to other caps, and Darvin has good ideas about buffing hangers and carrier cruisers (I have tried both and agree their performance is subpar).

How about if they just made it so leveled up caps are a lot more powerful?

So... I built this out as a personal mod, and atleast for myself, it just felt right for my style of SP play.

I justify my own idea of the Lore issue by assuming military research labs are necessary for producing the more complicated/experimental components that are required by Frigate and Capital Factories when constructing ships. The loss of the labs means the loss of the critical technology required to produce the ships.

So if I want an advanced siege capital ship for tech, I need to research the Krosov Prototype and then the Marza Prototype. If I want advanced Carrier capitalships, I need to research the Percheron Prototype first. You get the idea.

Also, For each tier'd level when the ship enters the battle field I made a scalar adjustment to the Hull, Shield, Command Points, etc. For example a Level 1 Marza comes off the assembly line with the same stats as a vanailla Level 3 Marza (except for abilities). A level 1 Kol comes off the assembly line with the same stats as a vanilla Level 6 Kol (except for abilities).

The distant stars mod still rocks for all around gameplay, capitalships and features though. I just wanted to try something different for myself and it was a good dive into modding entity files as well

IIRC Way back in ye'old vanilla beta you did need to research cap ships before you could build them... Dang that was long time ago :/