as good as the idea is, putting true battlecruisers into the game (manuverability of a cruiser and firepower of a battleship) would break the game, they would simply be too powerful

Levelling cruisers would horribly screw up the balance of the game, especially with being able to choose abilities withput costing cap ship points. However, I like the idea of hving different capital ships costing different amounts of points, but the amount of cap ship points you could obtain would have to be increased to macth the new scale. Maybe a truly dedicated carrier with weak weapons, lots of fighters and matching abilities, and a planetary support ship for affecting planet develpoment/repair and culture spread with reverse effects for offencives on enemy planets.

There is an old and new KOL?  Can you post links for comparison?

yeah, the old Kol looked cool too, bit like the omega destroyers though (yes, from B5).

in general, the 'mark 2' idea is actually fairly decent, something in that direction could be cool.

I think making some of the TEC's Capital vessels researchable like the new Kol and the Marza would add to the gameplay and make the races feel a bit more Unique. Right now all the races are unique but feel very similar. They all have the same types of units with just different models and stats. Logically the Advent and the Vasari would not think like the TEC. Therefore military doctrine of all three would be vastly different.

From a research standpoint the TEC have the most, their catching up as it were to the other races. The original Kol, along with the Dunov, and the Akkan: represent the TEC as they began their militarization. When they were converting freighters, transports and beginning to build dedicated warships. Whereas the Marza, Sova and the newer Kol represent years of research, tactics, planing, and military defeats and successes.

So here's and idea, Make the Original Kol (Slightly less stats then the current one, but same abilities), Akkan, and Dunov the default capital vessels available at purchase in the beginning of the game. And then make the Marza, Sova, and the newer Kol (Higher stats in all areas representing the culmination of weapons and development research, and give it new abilities) requiring research, thus justifying a weapons boost for them. Particularly the newer Kol, as I said before classify it as a Kol Mk 2 symbolizing the TEC's years of research into weapons and combat ship development.

*edit* The newer model was added a couple months after release if I remember correctly.

Thank you for your comments Shadowhal, and yeah its been rolling around my head too. I wish the TEC would follow their lore more. And I think it would really add to the diversification of the races. Because to be honest research aside the races are just carbon copies of ships with new models and stats. With a unique super weapon to each race.

I understand a need for balance, but not at the cost of diversification. And abilities can not be the only way to diversify races.

the research trees are in fact where races acutally differ. and quite a lot so. you see, there are not only the ultimate techs, but also strong intermediate ones, like the production speed bonus for tec (which suits their 'generate loads of money and spam units' style), the phase gates and speeding up abilities or the forced labour techs for the vasari or the various techs for advent like increased mitigation, extra culture and such.

then, keep in mind that there is also a difference in a) how many upgrades there are in certain areas. advent have strong shields, so they have more shield techs than the other races, vasari have tougher hulls, so they have more armour upgrades, then I think there are differences in resource extraction numbers. and , upgrades come at different stages. it kinda makes a difference whether trade stations are available at tier 2 (tec) or tier 4 (vasari) and there are several other examples. this IS after all a rts/ 4x hybrid, which means that all, or almost all, functions in the game have to be available to all races - at some point. imagine a civ like game where a race has no catapults, or airplanes, or walls or whatever.

that said, I always said a tad more differention, even if it has no real gameplay impact is purely artistical, wouldn't hurt. believe me, there was a huge discussion about a year ago ... several actually.

don't bombers effectively counter heavy cruisers? I'd imagine hc's to be too slow and cumbersome to catch light carriers and do significant damage. I never had the chance to wipe out large amounts of hc's with carriers/ bombers though.

I was playing the star wars mod of this game. I think what these game needs its just more ships.  A few more frigets.  More crusiers, for example we could have a normal cruiser, then the heavy cruisers, then a battle cruiser. More caps as well. 

Give the 5 caps we have now more power then add a few more.  Perhaps we could have different versions (like your kol mark II idea).  Perhaps we could have super carrier that trades abilities for more strike craft.....

well, there could be a anti-fighter/bomber cap, high armor and hull values, but low attack power other than intercept weapons.  this one would be nearly entirely for fleet surviveability.  a Full Broadside cap would be nice - it would have battles just like the old naval sea battles...wow, I am waaaaaaay too into the time period.  I can't beleive I just referred to the 20th-21st century sea battles as "the old naval sea battles". anyway, a traveling broadside pass would be a cool battle.

Kinda like the HMS Hood (battlecruisers) and the Bismark (caps)

The Hood and the Bismark were two ships that dueled in WWII.  the Hood was a British Battleship and the Bismark was a german battleship.  the Bismark easily won having much greater armor compared to the Hoods negligible armor, even though the Hood had slightly bigger guns.

anyway  The minelayer could be a battlecruiser (except its damage is in its mines, not its guns); as could a sniper vessel - it would need some form of cloaking and a slow weapon cooldown; and a sensors vessel (for detecting spy ships and sniper ships w/ cloaking); and a pure power vessel.