Please Give Flagships a Purpose

Flagships might also be uber c n c ships that enhance the 'performance' of all the ships assigned to that particular fleet. 

I would like to see a more potent than usual "huge" or whatever the top hull size is hull at the end of the game.

This is a collection of really cool ideas, the flagship does become a drain on your budget after the initial wave of anomalies are exhausted (unless you have medium hulls researched and upgrade it to a main line fighting ship). I would like to see something more done with it!

I would like to see the flagship be the only ship with prototype weapons in the beginning of the game. Seems odd that we leave and explore deep space without any sort of mild defensive capabilities.

Opens up the possibilities for different types of anomalies that are more hostile and lead to you defending oneself against a hostile entity. Or even mention the usage of weapons to overcome an asteroid. Obviously these prototypes should be weaker forms than the researched type of weapons available.

I'm all for missions for flagships, but I would like to see a bit more volatile exploration phase. Space should be dangerous even if you have to fight a giant space worm in an asteroid.

How could the flagship drain your budget? It doesn't have a maintenance cost (unless you add weapons).

GalCiv 1 had space monsters. I really hope they return.

Mine does   On Large or bigger maps I rush down sensors and a basic weapons tech (and engines if the flagships too far away from my space and there's time) and upgrade my flag to do damage, war early game before people have planetary invasion and kill off my neighbours flagships, securing all of the anomalies for me!   It's my experience that the AI didn't rebuild it's flagship after I killed it, and if I made peace after they were willing to talk to me then by mid game there was no real penalty. And if they didn't want to return to peace well.... Some weapons, engine and sensor techs are already in the bag, it's not too hard to add basic logistics and planetary invasion to that.

But long story short, my flagship usually has a maintenance cost.

Fate,

Okay, but this is then your choice, and not an intrinsic problem of the flagship.

Correct as usual Gaunathor.

Maybe the "flagship" should be a property you give a ship in your fleet, rather than a specific ship. I mean in the late game, my gigantic death machine Nightmare class "TDN Hopeslayer" should be my flagship, not some puny ship I got at the start of the game.

Flagships in the real world are functionally command ships, the leader of a fleet was on it. Maybe we should go that way, where the player can designate a flagship and that ship gives other ships nearby a bonus due to the fleet admiral's presence.

^ +1

I think I'd actually prefer to start the game with an "automated Probe" or "Survey Ship" rather than a flag ship.

Really, it's sole purpose is to act as a scout.  It doesn't really match the idea that the "Flag ship" is one of the most powerful, impressive ships in your military. At least that's what springs to my mind when I think of the term "Flag ship"

I agree.

the scout ability as an early start makes sense for the flagship but as soon as i can build scouts the flagship has become just a scout with a different name

it would be nice if some of the above suggestions get put into the game

Ooooh, I really like the idea of having Flagships confer a bonus to a fleet. +1 for sure! 

All fantastic ideas, defiantly on-board with the Fleet Commander idea in particular. Perhaps a system with some inspiration/bits and pieces taken out of Endless Space's hero management? They hit the nail on the head doing it.

I agree with adding a single point of firepower to the flagship if it returns. It was a little pointless in mid-game, and merely wound up circling my homeworld as a makeshift defender in my games. Decidedly not being an expression of national pride and military expertise, but a laughable night-light blinking in the sky and waiting to die. Would also like anomaly events that add additional weapons, defenses, etc, and a fleet-boosting statistic added in general.

I think we should be able to designate a ship our "Flagship" at will, and gaining a mild boost centered around morale to the ships in fleet with her, but risking a global morale loss if we lose them. Kinda like real flagships- powerful, venerated ships that losing has very tangible consequences. Example: H.M.A.S Hood, WW II. But simply being told the starting bolt-bucket is your one-and-only flagship is a bit pale in my opinion.

I would like to see a system in game to really put that ship to use. The ideas above are great, thanks, but why not add things like contests on the different stats of the ships? Add races, naval duels and other things for the flagship to do, and give another reason for the players to strap guns on them when they can. Add missions and objectives for them, including escorts and dispute resolution, but also diplomatic fly-the-flag operations to help spread influence to your neighbors, and festivals and military displays to add experience to your ships and tourism money to your coffers. Special, risky black-bag missions could also be something cool, have great rewards, but huge diplomacy issues tied into them. That way, what you decide to do with your ships could affect your racial ethos as well as the random events.

I don't know, but I think there should be a tweak done to the flagship. There's plenty it could do, but more often than not it just sits about once the few anomalies have been snapped up.

And, thanks for the OP, Nelsmonster. Great stuff!

Dawn of War Dark Crusade had similar mechanic - Tau could "summon" Ethereal, who acted relatively similar way to what you just described.

That'd be HMS Hood, not HMAS, Australia has never had a ship of that name, the famous battleship is British

Fate,

Yes, the Bismark sure found out!

Or maybe some mechanic to confer flagship and/or class status upon the first ship built of those certain classes.

EDIT: Just thought about how easy it would be to take advantage of such a system. So it's okay for me to have it but not you guys.

Haha You just thought of having a fleet of bonus'd up flagships by making every ship a subtly different class didn't you! Cheeky sausage!

Fate,

This is nitpicky but it always bugged me a bit that one starts the game with a medium class hull but doesn't have the technology to actually build a medium class hull until much later.  The ship also contains sensors and other tech you have not yet developed. 

You basically set them on automate because of their magic sensors that knew where all the goodies were.I hated that it basically killed exploring for loot.