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Author Topic: Gravitational wells and a few other suggestions  (Read 1943 times)

Vensalir

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Gravitational wells and a few other suggestions
« on: February 21, 2012, 02:57:17 PM »

Lo Everyone ! Bought this game a few days ago and I'm totally loving it.. I have played the campaign for some time now, and would like to make a couple of humble suggestions  :)

1) Gravity wells : Another user (sorry, can't remember the name) suggested to introduce engine boost in campaign map in order to allow bigger ships to catch smaller ones by burning up extra fuel. I find that to be an excellent idea. On the same line of work, I think we could add specialized "gravity well" modules that slow down ships on the map or even in tactical battles very much like planets do. The slowdown effect would be proportional to the size of the affected ship and on the power of the generator. For instance, you could mount a low-power version on a medium or large slot of any vessel or a much more powerful one aboard a specialized ship, which could come in a variety of classes, ranging from frigate (starter level, good for catching lone pirates but incapable of affecting ships over x mass due to limited power) to cruiser-sized or maybe even a new "support capital" class for slowing down whoel fleets. In order to avoid abuse, activating the well should require a special, expensive, new resource or maybe even cause damage to the player's fleet due to gravity shears. I think this would create intresting tactical scenarios, especially if the AI is allowed to use the module as well. Proper countermeasures for the well might also be a good idea, whether as a specialized new design capable of protecting your vessels from the effect or as a hull modification. Higher end well generators may also have a double-function mode, where mode A would slow down and mode B would shield your fleet.

2) Missile tubes/racks : I've noticed that most missiles come in 3-shot racks. While this is indeed appropriate for frigates and fighters, I feel that bigger designs should have the option to mount internal tubes,more like a torpedo launching system. Choosing a tube setup would require a bigger slot, for instance, the "Sabot SRM, Tube mount" would require a med missile slot instead of a small, but it would have a faster rate of fire, more ammo and more damage resistance. New frigates could be designed around this concept, as well as allow the player to use missiles as their primary firepower source instead of just using them as a finisher or a situational weapon.

3) Cruise missile and decoys: I've also noticed there isn't  a medium/big missile type, you jump straight from Pilum to Torpedo. Adding an intermediate level would increase tactical possibilities. For instance, a medium-sized "cruise missile" with an approx damage of 1500-2000, fired in pairs , capable of high speed and launching small decoys in it's final approach. The tube/rack mechanic should be applicable to this as well. If you wish to maintain roman/latin names I suggest either Ballista or Scorpion  ;)

4) Energy point-defense: Energy-type small weapons seem to lack effective PD capability. While ships that mount energy weapons are usually more manueverable and have better shields than their projectile-based counterparts, larger vessels have little chance to effectively defend themselves from missiles. Beam PD lasers have to remain locked on single missiles for too long in order to destroy them, and higher-tier ones like the burst laser PD have too low a ROF to be able to stop swarms of missiles, while a simple pair of vulcans will easily dispatch all missiles save for Pilums and MIRVs. Raising the beam's DPS might be a solution, I think.


5) Tracking Enhancer: I've noticed the standard AI tracking on large guns is rather sloppy, and sometimes chooses inappropriate targets. I believe larger ships should be allowe to mount,either as a module or a hull modification, a "Tracking Enhancer" mod, that would give turrets a better leading mechanic and the ability to better discern it's targets by prioritizing larger vessels in case of med/large mounts or guns with slow bullets or ligher ones in case of small or high-speed weapons.

That is pretty much everything I could come up at the moment, more coming if I get positive feedbacks  ;)

Also, I'm fully aware I'm a bit.. verbose  ;D Thank you for your patience in reading my little post.
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arwan

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Re: Gravitational wells and a few other suggestions
« Reply #1 on: February 21, 2012, 03:15:34 PM »

the hurricane MIRV is the only large missile i have seen.

agree we could use a few more large missile types. also would like to see more than 3 shot racks.. i know the game is loosely based on WWI WWII era war ships but for the sake of fun would be nice to be able to have a real missile complement akin to pilum missiles for at least some destroyers and cruisers and up in general.
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Alex
You won't be able to refit fighters and bombers at all. They're designed/balanced around having a particular set of weapons and would be very broken if you could change it. Which ones you pick for your fleet -out of quite a few that are available- is the choice here, not how they're outfitted.