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[Wyvern]

Edit: changed thread name.  Tempest ship system has been resolved; Apogee is under discussion...

Decided to extract this from the fighter blog thread, as it's a bit of a tangent.  I think I've got the whole conversation quoted here...

...opens up some interesting possibilities - I could see, for example, replacing all of the current drone-based ship systems with the new fighter mechanics (and perhaps having certain ships with their selection of "fighters" as a built-in weapon that can't be changed).

Most of the ships with drone systems were actually carriers in the first place! And the Shepherd's Borer drones are fun, and I don't exactly want to nuke them... though, yeah, was thinking along the same lines. Was never quite happy with drones. Also wouldn't mind a replacement system for the Tempest.

The Venture, at this point, has two built-in mining pod wings.

My suggestion for the Tempest: swap the terminator drone to a built-in "Terminator Drone LPC"... and don't give the ship a replacement system.  That's actually a thing I miss from earlier versions of Starsector: ships that just were what they were, no fancy bells or whistles.  I'd love, for example, a Hyperion (D) that gave up the teleporter in exchange for a lower deployment cost.

However, if no ship system isn't an option, then it should get something that's relatively weak - for example, giving it the Gryphon's Missile Autoforge would be a fairly safe choice, playing up the Tempest's place as an advanced strike vessel without significantly increasing its actual combat power.

For that matter, I could see the Terminator Drone (and the Borer Drone) as being valid fighter options for use on other vessels; certainly not the strongest available fighter type, but they could have their place.

The only drone that doesn't fit cleanly into the new paradigm would be the Apogee's sensor drones - an Astral with six of those would be more than a little bit absurd.  On the other hand, if the sensor boost was rolled into the Apogee's ship system, ion drones would certainly have some utility for other ships...

A (D) ship like that might work, but for a non-(D) ship, I think that might feel "unfinished" to the player.

Hmm. High energy focus might be nice on the Tempest, actually.

E: also, about the Terminator drone, I think since the phase cloak change it hasn't been in a good spot, and always felt the Tempest isnt really the right ship for it. A high-tech carrier or support ship, maybe. The Tempest is not as fun to pilot as other high-tech frigates for me because of the hands-off nature of the T drone. An active system that lowers speed to gain firepower or staying power would be fun on a frigate.. hmm. But tricky for the AI.

Ultimately having drones handled as a type of built in fighter rather than a ship system might be a better solution, but there'd need to be some sort of way to show their reduced autonomy.

Active is not always better or more fun, just one more thing the player needs to think about or micromanage.  All that matters in the end is how effective abilities are.  If two hypothetical abilities with no downsides are the same except one is passive and another is active, I will take passive.

With that said, if drones are basically fighters or vice-versa now, then having a frigate-sized carrier does not make much sense unless the ship was built specifically for the job (like Shepherd), or jury-rigged to do it (like Mudskipper II for heavy weapons).  Tempest seems to be a full-blown dedicated combat ship.

Ultimately having drones handled as a type of built in fighter rather than a ship system might be a better solution, but there'd need to be some sort of way to show their reduced autonomy.

Assuming fighter max range can be set per-fighter-type, that's easy: just make the drones not really able to roam as far as the real fighters.

Hmm. High energy focus might be nice on the Tempest, actually.

No!  No no no no.  While that would be a potent complement to the Tempest's weapon loadout, the Tempest (especially assuming it's keeping the terminator drone as a built-in LPC) does not need a strong ship system - I don't want to see another Hyperion where a previously good ship gets itself elevated to god-tier and then balanced by becoming too expensive to ever actually use.  That's why I suggested giving it the Missile Autoforge - it fits well with the terminator drone, giving the ship a feel of "this thing has an advanced internal factory, capable of replicating munitions on the fly" - but with only a single small missile point for it to synergize with, the autoforge isn't going to make the Tempest vastly more powerful.

Duly noted. I just want to give it something... Tempest-y. As in, fitting the ship's name.

You know, it would be really fitting if it could blow stuff away. Like, produce a powerful (phase?) gust that pushes fighters and missiles off screen

Huh, interesting. Might be too much work to nail down a suitable visual effect, but it's a neat idea.

I do not know about autoforge on Tempest.  It is thematic, but Tempest is one of those ships where I gladly sacrifice missiles to fit everything else more important.  Well, (currently) I can fit a missile rack if I use Heavy Blaster and Tactical Laser, but it I use two medium weapons, only 0 OP missiles get used.

EDIT:  If I do have OP to afford a missile rack on Tempest, Salamander is a no-brainer because it regenerates and it is simply too good.  Autoforge would not help this.

EDIT:  I like terminator drone most as pseudo-PD.  Without it and a narrow shield, Tempest has no PD, unless it uses both mounts for PD (which defeats its purpose).  I probably would ditch the Tempest if it lost the drone for a non-defensive system.  Something like Active Flares, Phase Skimmer, or Damper Field would be useful if the drone has to go.

So, thread's now open for business - and for suggestions for replacement ship systems for the Tempest (and perhaps for other ships that would be affected by swapping all drones to built-in LPCs - I believe the list is just Tempest, Shepherd, Apogee?)
Note that - at least for the Tempest and the Apogee - it's fair play to suggest systems that would entirely replace their drones, instead of functioning in addition; my justification above for not wanting to give the Tempest the HEF kinda loses steam if the Tempest is losing its terminator drone, for an example.

[Wyvern]

@Megas: I actually agree on skipping missiles on the Tempest, or giving it a salamander if anything.  That's actually one of the reasons I suggested the autoforge in the first place; it makes regular missiles just a little bit more rewarding to install.

However, if we want a really Tempest-y system, I don't think you can get any better than the Scarab's Temporal Shell.  However, giving that to the Tempest, even if we removed the Terminator Drone entirely, would be more than a little bit absurd.  Perhaps a lesser version of the Temporal Shell that - in addition to the cooldown - comes with limited charges that don't regenerate during battle?  That'd also open up a bit of utility for officer type, too: an aggressive captain might burn a charge just to get closer to the battle that much faster, a steady captain would use it when they saw a good opening in battle, and a Cautious or Timid captain would reserve those charges for defensive use.

Alternatively, instead of working off the association of the word "tempest" with rapidity, we could go off storms - perhaps the terminator drone system is a built-in LPC that launches, say, three ion cannon drones - and the Tempest's ship system is a zero-cooldown device that makes one of its drones self-destruct in an Omen-style burst of EMP lightning.

[TJJ]

The Tempest could do with a ship system that made its combination of high agility(turn rate acceleration) & omni shield more manageable.

In the hands of the AI, it's fine.

However in the hands of a human, you either:
- control the omni shield and struggle with key-based rotation on a ship with insane turn rate acceleration.
or
- have the ship turn to cursor, and forgo the benefits of the omni shield.

I've no ideas as to what form such a ship system could take, but Tempest is the prime candidate for it.
The only other ships with such high turn rate accelerations are the Omen (few weapons that need targeting, and rarely a player ship), and the Hyperion (fixed forward shield by default).

[FooF]

A "Tempest-y" system, to me, brings up the image of a cyclone. The Tempest has a shield emitter that creates a sphere that "swirls," redirecting projectiles out and around the ship. Perhaps the neat trick in all of this is that projectiles that hit the shield gain a boost in angular momentum but are "phased" to a particular frequency that allied ships are in-tune with and aren't hurt by...but enemies are. Otherwise, such a system would hurt your own ships as much as the enemy!

So, if you threw a Tempest into a huge firefight and it activates this ability, enemy shots fired at it (or perhaps even sucked in?) swirl around the Tempest for a second and then get launched at whatever trajectory they were on: ignoring friendly ships but hurting enemy ships. It would be completely random as to how much damage you could potentially do but it not only mitigates damage for the Tempest itself (which the drone was doing) but it gives the Tempest a fleet role of both guardian and wildcard. Plus it would look frickin' cool having missiles, energy shots, and ballistics swirling all over the place and then launching out. There are some modded ships that suck in weapon fire and either explode or whatnot but for this, the projectiles going in are ones going out.

I would imagine this system would generate flux on a per damage basis (so you can't have a Tempest shutting down the frontal firepower of an Onslaught or entire fleet) but it would be relatively generous, say 10:1. Or you could mitigate via long cooldowns but I would prefer shorter more active bursts of the system. Obviously, the Tempest could not fire weapons while the system is activated.

Pitfalls to this would be the question about what to do with beams and what kind of range do the redirected projectiles have. Perhaps weapon ranges simply get reset rather than conserving whatever range they had prior to hitting the cyclone. Also, would missiles still try to track targets or become dumbfire at that point? Finally, would fighters be tossed around or other ships (small ones, of course).

[Megas]

@ Wyvern: I did not mention Temporal Shell because that system is extremely powerful.  Despite being fitting for it, it would turn Tempest into a godship for its size.  If Scarab did not have that system or similarly overpowered alternative (like Hyperion's teleportation), it would be garbage due to being stuck with 500 range weapons.  With it, Scarab is very powerful.  Tempest with Temporal Shell would probably be even better.

I think Active Flares (used by Mercury) would be more useful than missile forge for those who eschew limited missiles.  There may be better ideas, I do not have one now.

EDIT:  Two ideas:
* When I think of Tempest and video games, I think of the classic Atari game (and maybe the sequel).  Add a new SuperZapper system.  One use (or long cooldown), instantly destroys all missiles and fighters on the screen.  May cause damage to bigger ships and/or overloads shields.  For Bonus Points, show "Eat Electric Death!"  Okay, maybe not that last bit due to too blatant of a shout-out.

* Direct-fire weapons become homing weapons for a while.  Pulse lasers become like Templars' Sentennias for a few seconds.

[Embolism]

Well, Active Flares were what Tempests used to have before Terminators, and it can certainly benefit from them... they're just rather boring.

Then again it seems like there are more and more unique active systems while the older, "generic" systems are becoming less common despite their... generic-ness.

[TaLaR]

Replacing system with Active Flares or Missile Autoforge would be something along lines of: "You have good enough stats, so you don't get any interesting systems".

Tempest would most benefit from any system that allows twitch evasion, like phase skimmer. Not phase skimmer itself though, this would just make it a super-Wolf.

[Deshara]

I think the Tempest should get a system where you press F and it deletes the Tempest from the game

[Midnight Kitsune]

I think the Tempest should get a system where you press F and it deletes the Tempest from the game

Someone's Salty~

[Embolism]

Replacing system with Active Flares or Missile Autoforge would be something along lines of: "You have good enough stats, so you don't get any interesting systems".

Tempest would most benefit from any system that allows twitch evasion, like phase skimmer. Not phase skimmer itself though, this would just make it a super-Wolf.

Eh. Given the Tempest's lack of point defense (without greatly sacrificing firepower that is) Active Flare actually fits. Plus Active Flare is actually quite rare as the ships that do use it almost never participate in combat.

Not every ship has to be a special snowflake. I actually don't like how more and more ships are getting unique systems (first phase ships, which is fine as they're weird; but now most carriers? Meh). It takes away from the novelty when everyone is special.

[Auraknight]

I think the Tempest should get a system where you press F and it deletes the Tempest from the game

So like a super-phase? Maybe the old phase system, but with a duration bar of it's own, so you can't just spam it forever. This would let you switch between a 3x time and 1x time? The 1x would either not have a cooldown, or an independant one from the right-click phase, so it'd be the only ship who could still dodge twitchily with phase? (it'd still need to have enough flux to handle dropping in and out of phase so much, and the right-click would still have a cooldown like all other phases.

[borgrel]

A "Tempest-y" system, to me, brings up the image of a cyclone. The Tempest has a shield emitter that creates a sphere that "swirls," redirecting projectiles out and around the ship. Perhaps the neat trick in all of this is that projectiles that hit the shield gain a boost in angular momentum

i kind of like the idea of the tempestuous cyclotron.

not sure if it should be able to protect its allies from the projectiles that fly off though .......


**********************************
give the tempest well ...... a tempest
activate the system and for about 10s (is that tooo long?) random forks of EMP lightning shoot out around the tempest (600range?)
it will take out some missiles and some fighters and if ur lucky even fry the shield ur aiming at ....
(anything inside 300 range increases the chance for an arc to go in that direction? .... this should make arcs sometimes 'ride' the tempests weapons fire into the enemy ship .... giving the ship some control? and increasing the chance it will defend the ship by taking out missiles without guaranteeing that the ship is invulnerable

i think seeing a cluster of weapons fire suddenly start glowing and and unleash thors might on the targetted ship would be pretty as hell

[mendonca]

The Tempest could do with a ship system that made its combination of high agility(turn rate acceleration) & omni shield more manageable.

I agree with this. I always saw, as Megas suggests, the Tempest as a kind of side-scrolling shoot-em-up R-Type / Menace / Nemesis type ship.

My idea would be:

Built-in hullmod: Electro-gravitic anchors. The turret mounts on the tempest are uniquely configured such that the rotating mechanism is secondarily attached via an electro-gravitic anchor mechanism to the hull systems; which allows for efficient exchange of primary energy and flux whilst greatly increasing the available rotational speed of the attached weapon. Robust safety mechanisms protect the weapon mount from complete disconnection; shutting off the mount even under relatively light combat stress.

Turret rotation speed +100%
Turret takes half normal damage before shutting down.

System:
Temporal Shock:
Allowing the ship to skim rapidly under p-space for a brief period, as it re-emerges a local shift in the barrier between p and n-space generates what is effectively a powerful but constrained EM shockwave.

Basically a limited and shortened temporal shell, allowing the Tempest to reposition itself in a similar manner to a phase skimmer (but under direct control, pilot-skill allows for avoiding missiles / projectiles etc.). All weapons switched off, when it springs out of time-shift a local (600 SUs?) circular discharge is generated - doing some EM damage, balanced to switch off harpoons or something similar.

Could bring down the base speed a touch, perhaps, and with a reasonably long system cooldown. The temporal mess would psychically effect the crew, maybe could push up the supply cost or have a minor CR penalty on use.

[Megas]

Replacing system with Active Flares or Missile Autoforge would be something along lines of: "You have good enough stats, so you don't get any interesting systems".

Tempest would most benefit from any system that allows twitch evasion, like phase skimmer. Not phase skimmer itself though, this would just make it a super-Wolf.

Tempest already is super-Wolf, especially after Wolf lost omni-shield and became more expensive to use.  Wolf used to be a decent Tempest substitute, but not anymore.

I think the Tempest should get a system where you press F and it deletes the Tempest from the game

That reminds me of the Inviso cloak from the Defender sequel Stargate.  Press Inviso, and your ship disappears and destroys any missile or enemy your cloaked ship collides with.  The system closest to that idea I have seen in Starsector is the Jesuit's system from the Knights Templar mod.

That is an idea.  A new (for standard) system, Phase Drive, that tells Tempest to phase, go somewhere quickly in a straight line (while controls are locked) for a second or more, and hurt things in its path (presumably by leaving behind some energy trail like Thraddash afterburner).

[TJJ]

Mines? (as in proximity bombs)

Doesn't really fit the brief for the Tempest, but if they're being consciously excluded from being widespread weapons, having them as a ship system seems reasonable.