I think they should stay as frigates, they just need to be balanced..
I agree...and I wasn't thinking of the devs doing this, but rather people doing this...again, not saying this is how the game should be changed, but rather some people may wish to do this on their own...I already know Sinperium is interested in tying CVs to gravity wells (and other people seconded his opinion)...just investigating a viable way to do that...
That being said, no one seems happy with CVs, and I don't think they are going to ever be well balanced given their current implementation...they are strongest against LRFs yet countered by flak (which also counter LRFs), completely marginalizing LRFs...they have composite weaponry, and ant-light weaponry for shooting bombers, and debuffing abilities, making them a jack of all trades that are good at pretty much everything...that is a difficult unit type to balance...won't say it isn't doable, but it'd be tricky and I think you'll see a lot of mods radically change how CVs are implemented...the bottom line is, even if CVs could be balanced, some people still aren't going to like them....
Personally, I'm trying to still think of a good system that doesn't radically change the essence of CVs, but I'm really hitting a wall...in my mind, the intended counter for CVs and the intended role for CVs makes for a fundamentally flawed counter system...
As far as shields are concerned...if you are re-purposing the units to be SC (that are replaced for free) I don't think you'd want shields on them anyway...not sure yet what the exact HP or DPS values would be but those could be figured out...I'd be more concerned with the 3 weapons not working...I don't think SC have a hardcoded limit different from frigates but I've never actually tested it....
I've been trying to think of a way to go with Sinperium's original idea but definitely am not seeing a "clean" way of doing it (though some clumsy methods may work)...
