Category:Capital Combatant

Once a player reaches this distinctive level of ship, they’ll find that they are playing in a whole different ballgame; even moreso than Corvettes, a capital ship pilot is less active in the actual combat, as the forward-fixed pilot-controlled battery is steadily reduced in importance as the ship gets bigger, being removed altogether towards the largest examples of the category. In exchange, an array of devastating automatic turrets covers most sections of the ship, with the heaviest combatants actually having more forward-firing-capable turrets than smaller ships with a forward-fixed weapons battery.

Capital Combatants are meant for the player who not only wants to lead a fleet, but wants to actually lead it -- these giants are meant to wade into the thick of battle, shredding enemy subcapitals with ease and going head-to-head with opposing capital ships. The lattermost of these engagements tend to be protracted slugging matches, where whichever side’s ship has more DPS compared to the enemy’s shielding will be the victor. Battles involving these ships are often the most spectacular events in a combat-oriented player’s X3 experience, as the massive guns wielded by them will literally fill the screen.

There are a few downsides. First of all, most players will become almost entirely Jumpdrive-dependent, if they’re wise, as even the single-fastest capital ship, the Split M7 Wolf, can reach exactly 150m/s with full propulsion upgrades, and of course being a Split ship it sacrifices any notion of shielding to attain this relatively high speed. The player loses the ability to dock at the majority of the game’s station types, instead only being able to dock at a select few that have capital-class hangar bays. The biggest joke with that is that one may find that those hangars are occupied by AI ships (as even the largest shipyards have a limited number), and there is nothing that the game does to tell the AI ships to get out of the way. So one needs to either carefully plan out which Military Outposts one is going to visit to buy up ordnance and E-Cells, or else figure out the concept of freight exchange with smaller ships that ARE capable of docking with the smaller stations. While powerful, Capital Combatants' turrets are typically more oriented on destroying larger enemy ships and stations. It is true that almost every Capital Combatant has point-defense positions, and of course with something like MARS your turrets will wisely choose between light guns for smaller targets and heavy artillery for enemy capitals, but fighters may move too quickly and erratically for the turrets to be able to draw a proper bead on them.