Let us assign a flagship to Heroes

Yes 

I would be more than happy to send my heroes out more often rather govern all day if they could be captains of massive carrier gunboats

Or their corevettes could reflect their factions more (I know theyre Academy based, but one could grab some new keys?)

I understand the devs perspective on gameplay though, this idea may be apart of a new game entirely and I would be for it.

I agree with you and would like to add that the ships in question shouldn't be the ships from the race you're playing but the ones from the race that the hero as affinity with.

Hate to be that guy, but I doubt this idea is really still on the table and being worked on if after two major DLC and 6 months of updates it hasn't even been mentioned anywhere. However, I desperatly want this to happen because I'm tired of how downright useless hero ships are in battles, and would love to see my hero commanding some badass flagship, something unique.

Yes. Wonder if this is still something on the table of the developers, but being able to put a hero in a ship design would be awesome.

Just imagine a Hissho warlord commanding his fleet from a Juggernaut...

This is a really cool idea!

I also have to second this idea, and hope significant alterations are made. Someone above made a great comparison. The hero ships look like Star Wars Republic vessels, totally divorced from the visual style of the endless universe. The idea of the hero upgrading to different Hulls as they level, and have each heroes ship more closely resemble the style of the Faction they belong to is what I would prefer, despite knowing the amount of work that would go into that. As long as it was incorporated into a big DLC package so they get compensated for the effort, I don't see it as unreasonable. 

I can't fully appreciate the need for hero ships to look unique and that's for one reason:  There is absolutely no active participation in battles.  You don't need to spot the hero to target it, chase it down, or give your fleet special orders to avoid it; you see an enemy hero, you choose to engage and your fleet does the rest.

It was far more important in Endless Legend, where you actively selected and commanded heroes in turn-based battles and making a wrong move meant losing your hero or even a war.  Visual distinction there was completely critical.  Here, battles are completely passive and you're not likely to find a hero just cruising the starlanes alone--hell, even with a fleet you don't see the wireframe of your hero's ship on the map!  The only time heroes DO absolutely need that visual distinction is when you're moving them between flotillas--ironically, that's where they LEAST stand out, thanks to the fairly monochrome icons in ES2.

Aweome idea but if it were to happen I would love to see ships of different class and not the exact racial counterparts but various models lets get some variety!

I am so happy that this idea is now listed on "nice to have", because the mod I created is an unbalanced, buggy piece of shit and I definitly lack the skill to make it more than that. If we really get an option to put our heroes into something better than currently, my life is complete.

ValhallasAshes wrote:

Oops.  Looks like I misunderstood your concept.  We have approached the dev's about this issue back during early access and they unilaterally shot it down, because they wanted the Hero ships to be unique in appearance compared to faction specific ships.  Plus heros are "technically" members of the Academy and not your faction.  The Academy is technically a faction in its' own right.  So on that basis, you would probably be more influential if you pushed for Academy/Hero ships to become hull upgradable rather than what you're proposing.  Where you could pay to upgrade the hero's ship hull class.  This would also allow the Dev's to keep the unique look/aesthetic of the hero ships that they want, but give us the hero ship scalability that we want.

I also agree on that. Plus the Devs' idea is really nice when you understand it.

In regard of the Heroes' abilities and boosts, a fleet with a Hero would annihilate a fleet without one (if all other stats are equal) in 100% of the battles therefore forcing the players to prioritize getting Guardian Heroes as often as possible rather thany anything else. IMO

Yeah, I've often found myself taking an RP approach when selecting a Hero (sometimes out of boredom, sometimes because of beer, whatever) and while the hero's skillset works the ship is inadequate for the role assigned (too many weapon slots, not enough defense or support items, etc).  The option to select a ship upon hire would be nice, and to upgrade the class would even be better.  

It wouldn't have to be from the listing of that particular species either -a whole subdet of Hero/Academy based ships provided by or stolen from Issyander and his follwers.  Or something like that.  Just a thought.

I would just like to see Hero Ship Upgrades. Mid-size at level 10 and Large-size at level 20.

nSanity wrote:

So the academy faction just keeps fighting one another? Is that not a little weird? If you fight for a certain faction it would be Ok to get a faction flagship, no? One can always put the heroes in a state of the art 'small' ship (like the one they have now) if he goes off on his own for exploration (under diplomatic protection maybe?)

The Academy is nothing more than a mercenary corporation. They will fight themselves if they are paid to do it. Their heroes are just treated as "special" individuals because of their exposure to Dust.

That said, I think this problem was brought up earlier: in the late game, everyone is going to put heroes exclusively on Dreadnaughts and Battleships. It is going to break balance because hero ships don't count towards a fleet's CP limit. What's more dangerous than a fleet full of Obliterators? A fleet full of Obliterators plus One More.

This goes for the AI too. The only logical way to use this is to assign the most powerful ship design to any hero. That's one more Battleship - with all of its armor, upgrades and weapon boosts - to kill per fleet for as many heroes an AI has. Versus one other AI you can maybe manage it if you trump their upgrades, but against an alliance of two or three? You'll start seeing posts on the forum about how the AI always puts heroes on only carriers and nothing else.

Also, it's going to dissuade people from putting heroes into fleets until at least Battleships are unlocked. Why put a hero on a weak ship now and risk them getting injured when you can just idle them on a colony until you rush the Battleship techs? By then they'll have more points invested in colony skills rather than admiral ones (unless you're a real sadist and insist they remain useless until they get a ship much, much, much later into the game), so putting them on a fleet is kind of pointless unless it's to just add one more ship over the CP cap.

Don't get me wrong: I'm all for visual aesthetics. I do agree that hero ships look completely out of place as they are right now, but I can understand why they're stuck in their own tiny ships instead of commanding on a massive carrier. Lorewise, it makes more sense for a fleet commander to be on a nimble ship that can evade enemy fire and boarding parties, rather than a cumbersome capital ship. That way, they can also zip in and out quickly to assess battlespace situations faster, and don't have to rely on standard (slow) communicators.

tl;dr: ValhallasAshes is right. Hull-upgradeable hero ships yes, assigning ships to heroes no.

ValhallasAshes wrote:

Oops.  Looks like I misunderstood your concept.  We have approached the dev's about this issue back during early access and they unilaterally shot it down, because they wanted the Hero ships to be unique in appearance compared to faction specific ships.  Plus heros are "technically" members of the Academy and not your faction.  The Academy is technically a faction in its' own right.  So on that basis, you would probably be more influential if you pushed for Academy/Hero ships to become hull upgradable rather than what you're proposing.  Where you could pay to upgrade the hero's ship hull class.  This would also allow the Dev's to keep the unique look/aesthetic of the hero ships that they want, but give us the hero ship scalability that we want.

So the academy faction just keeps fighting one another? Is that not a little weird? If you fight for a certain faction it would be Ok to get a faction flagship, no? One can always put the heroes in a state of the art 'small' ship (like the one they have now) if he goes off on his own for exploration (under diplomatic protection maybe?)

Personally, I think this is a very good idea, I found myself wanting this as well. Although in addition I think heroes should gain access to unique academy themed ships as the academy levels up. Or maybe you could unlock hero ships through quests, like giving the top player in the academy quest Isyander Shumèd's ship, and each faction could unlock their own hero cruiser through their faction quest.