6. The DD needs to be improved.
Description
This article is from the netrek Frequently Offered Clever Suggestions list, by Tom Holub doosh@best.com with numerous contributions by others.
6. The DD needs to be improved.
Problem: The DD is weak. It can't take bomb as well as an SC, and it
can't fight as well as CA.
Proposal: Give the DD bigger shields, or bigger torps (30 is too
small), or more powerful phasers, and perhaps a bigger fuel tank.
Why not: As Tom Holub put it (paraphrased), "The CA is weak. It can't
bomb as well as a DD, and it can't fight as well as a BB." All ships
have their place, it's just a question of finding the right niche. DDs
can carry 5 armies, making them more of a threat to planets than the
SC.
Several discussions have raged over rec.games.netrek about what the
One True Use of the DD is. None have been found. They can't be used as
a big SC nor as a small CA; they require a different perspective. I
won't offer them here, but will instead relegate it to the
thrice-revised DD Players Guide.
As a side note, the cooling rate on DDs was changed from 6 to 7,
allowing them to go great distances without overheating. Many players
who previously thought the DD fully worthless now consider it to be
valuable in certain circumstances. This is another example of changes
in play styles affecting perception of the game; DD cooling was
originally changed from 7 to 6 because DD's were considered too
powerful.
Newer, alternative proposals:
* make the CA weaker, by reducing phaser strength or manuverability
(but then the SC gets correspondingly stronger) [implemented on
bigbang]
* have a reentry delay based on ship size (again, the SC gets
stronger, plus no one wants to spend time looking at the entry
screen.
* give the DD mondo plasmas, making it a special-purpose ship
* remove the DD entirely so people stop whining
I (the pronoun "I" is somewhat ambugious in this document, as I, Tom
Holub, have not removed all of Andy McFadden's "I"s) am personally of
the opinion that there isn't space for a full-time ship in between the
current CA and the current SC--any ship between the two will be either
useful only in spots, or will be powerful enough to make one of the
others obsolete. I don't think this is a bad thing.
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