As of 2007, not a single Naval force in this planet has a single Battleship class in commission. The last Battleship class, the Iowa class, was decommissioned by the US Navy just last year, and there are no plans to design and construct newer battleships. The Navy works much more efficiently with smaller ships with specialized roles.

This bit of reality also seems to seep into FO. Battleships, (Sovereigns, D'Deridexes, Negh'Vars) are really not worth the cost and the time and the research. A fleet comprised of a well-balanced force of destroyers and cruisers outmatches 4~6 large, bulky, slow battleships.

My suggestion is to make Battleships really worth the trouble. I'm not talking about reducing research costs and shipbuild times, (For my suggestions to work, cost and time should be increased drastically) I'm talking about the actual specs of the battleships themselves.

1) Multi-targetting weapons: I cannot imagine how a heavily armed battleship with dozens of phaser banks would only fire at one target at a time. Even Voyager, and Intepid Class ship, was seen firing up to 3 phaser blasts at 3 different targets (VOY: Dragon's Teeth). A Sovereign, for example, should be able to target and fire at least 4 ships at once.

2) Support Crafts: Larger ships should be able to launch a variety of support ships, such as Peregrine class fighters, or at least several shuttles for scouting.
3) Battleships could also provide benefits to ships in a specific radius, such as increased fire rate, shield recharge rate, etc

4) Since Battleships are supposed to be expensive, let's make it expensive. There are only 2 Sovereign class ships in the entire Federation. A player shouldn't be economically able to build more than 1~2.

Sorry if this whole thing sounds a bit noncoherent. I'm really tired right now .. lol

1)

Less than possible with Armada's current Engine. All ships should be able to multi target by this rule, since ALL ships in this game have dramatically reduced weapons arrays because of how the games engine is designed. Even the saber class ships have more than one phaser array, thus they should be able to multi-target.

2)

Also possible, and we have some ships which do this. Sovereign class carries no fighters, Scoutships maybe but by this regard all ships have shuttles for the most part.

3)

This is interesting, the presence of a battleship could be a moral boost to you and a drain on the enemy, since your soldiers value their own lives over the end of the battle. But, support ships generally perform this same function.

4)

No.

There are more than 2 Sovereign class ships in the Federation. OR there are less.

(And there are other designs such as the Prometheus which are arguably just as strong.)

If you do not consider games canon, then there is one. If you do, then there are many, likely half a dozen. Simply because the Galaxy class is now a common ship in the Federation so it is more likely for them to be commissioning a few Sovereign class ships.

Yeah, its definitely possible, with a little bit of ODF editing. The Dominion Battleship's Excessive Strike special weapon has multiple targetting, if I'm not mistaken..

i'll take up the challenege, in terms fo adding multi targeting that is quite easy an is one small piece of odf code, beefing up starbases won't be to hard either or giving them the ability to fire on multiple targets at once... the question is, who wants to beta test...

In some random mod I played like 4 years ago, multi targeting was a partial solution to gang banging, but all of my ships still targetted one "common" ship to gangbang..lol

Its Ultrian Burst isn't it, that has the ODF modifier?

I would Beta Test it if you want. How long do you think the first odf work is ready? I recommend to take all the time you need...cos I'm on a trial journey during the next 2 or 3  weeks and I don't know if I'm gonna have internet. pm me your email address plz and we can sort it out.

I long to see the results of this! (of both I mean )