I've been putting a lot of thought into a potential capital-class large port weapon to spice up capital combat a bit. The current state of capital combat is mostly just a turret battle. I understand that capital ships are still under heavy development, and that this may or may not fit into the vision.

Would love to discuss any potential alterations to the stats regarding balance.

Magnetic Accelerator Cannon - Large Port, Capitals only
Possibly manufactured?

Charged weapon: Minimum of 1 second of charge to fire, 3 seconds for max charge.
Drain of 400/s maybe? Unsure on how to balance this part.
Delay between shots: 5 seconds to cooldown.
Damage: 5000-15000
Velocity: 200m/s at 1s, 300m/s at 2s, 400m/s at 3s.
Ammunition: 40
Grid: 15-20
Mass: 30,000kg
Autoaim: Similar to that of the Plasma Annihilator, possibly a touch more.

I love the idea... +4 I'm unsure how to balance it myself so I'll leave the balancing suggestions & stuff for others

I see balance issues with this. I'm not sure there should be anything that strong.

So, the problem with saying 'nothing should be that strong' is that cap rails already are about that strong... Again, I'm open to discussing what should be changed regarding balance.

Balance is a difficult topic because a discussion of capship balance crosses different uses of the items involved.

For example, the ability to put a smaller power cell into a trident was taken away because the pirates didn't want a capship jumping quickly, even though the the smaller power cell greatly reduced the choice of weapons.

Pirates want an L port PCB and I've argued against it, it would help pirates take down capships which is good for pirates, but PCBs in general make fighting between capships less fun for people, which I want to see and do more.

So introducing weapons into the game more powerful or convenient than ones we have now runs a risk of having more capships left in stations unused. I remember the immediate effect the PCB had on how many tridents were left parked. We have to consider the people that pirate and the people who trade and the people that want battles. In my opinion battles between capships are already too short since the rail turret and pcb turret were added and I would be happy to remove both, but from my experience in this forum few people agree with me.

This might be a good topic for voice chat.

For example, the ability to put a smaller power cell into a trident was taken away because the pirates didn't want a capship jumping quickly, even though the the smaller power cell greatly reduced the choice of weapons.

Small correction: an Itani nationalist made that suggestion.

While I do agree that capships should have their own unique weapons for large port, this would be unbalanced as the game is currently. Goliaths don't even have enough grid to support capital turrets on their 3 turret ports, while Tridents can equip capital turrets on all 4 ports and still have 25 grid left for the large port. So you can be sure you'll see these capital large port weapons just end up making dents even more lopsided, since goli pilots can't really afford to sacrifice one more turret port. Once there's more power cell variety for capships or the grid imbalance is fixed, then this could be a possibility.

For the weapon suggested specifically in the OP, apart from the balancing issues I also don't think an ammo based weapon for a capship large port is a good idea, since it turns into a dead port after you run out of ammo. Not as easy to reload as a small ship.

I understand the complications involved with this particular idea. The grid was suggested to create the trade off of aggressive forward-facing power vs defensive turret power. The ammo, I feel, should be a requirement regardless. If it were an energy based weapon, you would need to make the energy requirements absolutely insane.

40 rounds might be too little but to make it have 'infinite' ammunition would make it absolutely overpowered. The intent is to add an incentive and advantage to being the aggressor in a capital battle, as opposed to turning over and just spamming turrets.

<i>Small correction: an Itani nationalist made that suggestion.</i>

Yes, he had an itani nationalist character, he also had multiple pirate and pirate-adjacent characters. He also didn't use his character name in the forums, but you focus on his itani nationalist connection. It's a distinction without a difference.

Remove the player aspect of this idea then put into deneb on the HAC/connie and it may fit. So +.5

Having discussed this with some other players in-game, I understand the idea behind putting this particular weapon on only HAC or connies, due to the inherent physics restrictions regarding a MAC.

However, doing so defeats the entire idea behind this suggestion, which is to come up with a true capital class LP weapon for the existing capships. This could be a LP weapon for *future* larger capships, such as player-owned Constellations or Teradons even. This suggestion could even be transformed into something a bit more... lightweight? Something more logical for our existing capital ships.