Time to break it down...
What is the dedicated carrier ship? i find after playing it i use the pegasus for everything its my battleship my carrier and my flagship the only other ship that seems to fill a role is the firestar looking capital ship as the siege the rest dont seem to do anything but sit there they dont really fill a role
Pegasus fills the Carrier role. Though technically every Battlestar is a very solid ship. But role differentiation can help drive out differences more. This is actually something I want to do with all the factions. This is a general view I have of different ships, but I'll take some liberties as I flesh out their roles.
Battleships - Good at taking on large #'s of frigates and tanking damage.
Carriers - Good at fielding large numbers of strikecraft, but less durable than a battleship.
Colonizer - General purpose capitalship with strong support role.
Support - Strongest support role with some tanking ability to be useful.
Siege - Good at taking on single targets like other capital ships and starbases in addition to sieging.
Destroyer - Typically unable to siege but higher dps potential. More of a cross between siege and battleship in terms of single target tanking ability.
Bring the hull points up a little bit for colonials and the armor they are easily beaten by the tec especially who also focus on ship survivability
Research and leveling will fill this void. Right now the research trees are not taylored yet for this approach. I don't want to high of values because this diminishes the early game struggle.
The next way is to level your capital ships. Their hull and armor almost double what vanilla ships do.
The real issue is their lack of shields which is where the flak shield comes in. Flak shields increase the mitigation values of the capital ship and nearby frigates.
Make the flack burst ability actually kill fighters
No, too powerful on every capital ship. I may give one of the battlestars an actual flak burst ability, but not all of them.
add more squadrons to most of the other capital ships as that is what most of the battlestars were made for is to bring loads of fighters to the battle
No, they already have more than vanilla ships and almost all of the frigates have strikecraft. It would unbalance the game if I add even more strikecraft to the capitals. Also, strikecraft are a real cause of lag so need to be careful how much is added here.
I like the Nova battlestar as like a command ship
Nova is slated to have
Abilities: Nuke (Planet/Starbase/Capitalship), Flak Shield, Virtual Intelligence and Rapid Manufacturing.
This would most likely fit somewhat of a command ship role if you want to call it that. It's weapons will be fitted more for the siege role though. Virtual Intelligence and Rapid Manufacturing will both have fleet support roles.
The Nova is also authorized to launch higher yield Nukes at planets, starbases or other capital ships.
Pegasus is slated to have
Abilities: Nuke, Flak Shield, Expanded Hangar Facilities, and Rapid Calculations
Mercury class ships will be authorized to fire medium yield nukes at any ship or structure.
Valkyrie as a stealth type ship
Basically already agree here. Valkyrie class Battlestar will have
Abilities: Electro-Magnetic Pulse, Point Defense, Stealth Recon, Scramble Vipers
So Stealth Recon will allow the Valkrie to act more like a scout ship with the ability to scramble extra vipers if it gets into trouble. Will also function as the dis-abler during battles.
Thor is the battleship and is currently way more powerful than any capitalship in the game. (Un)fortunately this will be changing. I do think the Enhanced armor is a good idea and fits the tanking role.
Abilities: Nuke Volley, Flak Shield/Burst?, Enhanced Armor, Scramble Bombers
Thor class Battlestars will be authorized to launch multiple lower yield nuclear missiles against multiple ship or structure targets in range.
Galactica is the colony.
Abilities: Colonize, Flak Shield, Deploy Stealth Bombers, Nuclear Defense, Non-Integrated Computer Systems
The Galactica's main support will be it's non-integrated systems which will make the Galactica and nearby ships immune to disables as ships will be able to shutdown networked systems relying on the Galactica on Galactica for fleet orders.
The Galactica is also authorized to launch medium yield nuclear weapons but requires a fairly experienced crew to perform.
The planet bomber is a good mix i like it alot keep it the way it is
The Cygnus Gunstar will become a very fast attack ship and will most likely get some new abilities. I haven't quite decided what to give it yet.
Sorry im not meaning to sound pushy just sugesting things
sorry for my ideas coming off wierd or unclear
This is good and much clearer what your points were.
The hardest part is seeing what I have done and understanding it's not yet where I want it to be. Bridging those two things with other peoples expectations is difficult especially as the end goal is a moving target that is not quite nailed down. This of course means there is room to change as you can see my original ability draft listed in the OP is not quite the same as what I am looking at now.
Edit - I should point out this is a rough plan listed here and hasn't been implemented yet. I'm currently focused on completing the Cylon assets before I revisit colonial. But I like talking through these things as it's easier to adjust an idea than it is to adjust something that's already been coded.