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[Sabaton]

I'm sure some of these have been suggested before, but after reading the upcoming plans for this game I've been having some things on my mind, namely....

     1. The number of starting scenarios is very limited, beginning as a pirate, ludd fanatic or a tritach corporate tool (all with their appropriate faction relations and starting ships) would go a long way in allowing players to start on their desired run quicker and with less hassle.

     2.Ship variants could use some polish:

     A)   The pirates, seeing as they’re supposed to play a bigger role in the future, could use some tuning.   I think their ship variants should have more flexible weapon slots, the Mule is a perfect example of that. Beggars can’t be choosers, and they would need to use any weapon they can get, no?
            Ramshacke ships like the Mudskipper mk II are also a nice touch, why not give them something like a carrier converted Prometheus? More converted shuttles with oversized guns? I know these guys are supposed to be loot pinatas, but that doesn't mean they should be boring loot pinatas, no?
 
     B)   Pathers, the luddic colossus is a sad joke of a ship, if there is a ship that would make a perfect pather conversion its the Venture. Remove all utilitarian hull mods, add SO+a hammer barrage on its nose+an actual fighter deck and you have a perfect pather flag ship.
   The Shepard is also a good candidate for the same treatment, replace the drones lasers with Swarmer missiles?

     C)    Giving the tritachs a converted Brawler was interesting, now they have an anvil to the Tempests hammer. Maybe give them a converted Dominator, an anvil to the Asuras hammer?

     D)    Hegemony auxiliary: Mule, Cerberus, Venture, Shepard, Prometheus, Wayfarer.
           Hegemony battlegroup: Legion, Mora, Conquest, Heron….bigger focus on larger ships as that will fall in line with Heg doctrine.

     3.More hull mods, both good and defective as the ones we already have are ok, but they all focus on combat and deal with the same  ship stats.

     Ex: expanded crew bunks, fuel tanks and cargo bays, usefull for augmenting your utilitarian ships.
     Contrasted by bamaged crew bunks/fuel tanks and cargo bays with the oposed effect, I believe this is a necessity to implement because as it
stands right now pure utility ships don’t have much going on for them. What are you gonna install on your Dram and Buffalo other than Unstable
Injector?  

Automated sistems-for reducing skeleton crew requiremts, efficient maitenance modifications- reduce maintenance per month on installed ship,
,damaged shield generator-reduce shield arc and efficiency, compromised fighter bay-makes one fighter bay unusable, etc.

     4. Stronger derelicts, so you want scavenging to be the primary way in which players get blueprints and such, how will you prevent them from
steamrolling everything if they luck out and get something cool?

     Derelict ships that get stronger as time passes, first few are your typical D clunkers, after that you face off fully repaired and eventually improved derelicts.

     That Rampart suddenly got scarier with heavy armor and a shield didn’t it? Also they could use a capital ship and a carrier for some variation.
     Same could be said for the [REDACTED], systems with fully armed battlestations should be full with better augmented fleets.

    5. Ship procuring missions, I’m sure there are many collectors out there who would like rare ships like a civilian Kite, Hyperion, Scarab, Omen.

Well that's all I can think of right now, back to the shadows...

[Alex]

Hey - just wanted to mention, as far as #4, that'll be more or less in place! Derelicts already get stronger as you defeat them, but in .9, their ships also become higher quality (i.e. less d-mods and better weapons), and they're subject to being auto-fitted like other factions' fleets, so their loadouts are dynamic.

I'd still expect them to get steamrolled, since that's their job, but then they're not the toughest salvaging-related challenge.

[Sabaton]

Cool, I had  a hunch the auto fitting will apply to them....and I'm sure new players will have an even nastier surprise from pather ships because of this.

I'm really looking forward for 0.9 as from what I've seen it will be the most content rich patch yet.

[Alex]

Yeah, autofitting can be quite the mixup. The other day I ran into a Buffalo Mk.II that volleyed 3 Salamanders at me.

[Midnight Kitsune]

How do they get stronger? I'm quite curious

[Alex]

In 0.8.1a when you defeat them, there's a message about a hyperwave pulse, right. The more you destroy, the larger their defensive fleets get, up to a point, iirc. In .9 their ship quality also goes up.

[Midnight Kitsune]

In 0.8.1a when you defeat them, there's a message about a hyperwave pulse, right. The more you destroy, the larger their defensive fleets get, up to a point, iirc. In .9 their ship quality also goes up.

Awesome, I never knew that!

[Megas]

I like to see more midline to high-tech ship conversions like Brawler (TT) for Tri-Tachyon.  Stuff like high-tech Hammerhead, Sunder, Falcon, Eagle, or Heron.  Possibly Conquest too.

For some reason, I would also like to see a few high-tech to midline or low-tech conversions, like a Wolf that is less mobile and high-tech, but can use some ballistics.  I know there are mods that add stuff like this, but it would be nice if some such ships became standard.

Pirates, Hegemony, Tri-Tachyon, and maybe Pathers seem somewhat distinctive.  The other major factions do not stand out beyond being clones of someone else

[Sabaton]

   Kitsune, how come you didn't notice that? It's pretty obvious...  tsk tsk Guess someone doesn't pay attention to the text.  

   Megas, I get where you're coming from but as you've said, there are mods if you have that itch. And come to think of it, wouldn't it be more interesting if they gave factions more unorthodox ships/variations?

   Like the Monitor,Omen, Odissey, a (P) Valkyrie with a large mount on it's nose, a (P) Prometheus that has been hollowed out to make room for an impractical number of fighter bays, an Atlas that has received the Buffalo Mk II treatment, or a Pather Gemini.

  This would be an interesting faction separation technique, with proper factions like Heg, Diktat and Tach having access to proper combat ships/variations.

  I can imagine the Diktat making use of ships with free Solar Shielding, call your admiral Solaire, grab some DK ships, with appropriate skills and only fight in coronas.   Maybe have the Diktat be fond of support ships like Monitors and Gryphons?
  
  While the others (League, Pirates, Ludds, which all amount to a loosely/very loosely groups of individuals) making use of more uncommon semi/civilian conversions.

   Perhaps have Church ships cost fewer maintenance supplies? What with them removing perceived luxuries. Or having the League make extesive use of nav buoys/ecm sensors?

  I think that improves the games meta and charm much more than many variations of the same the poster boy ships. Thou I don't see the reason of subdividing the factions, Lions Guard? Knights of Ludd? Why?

[Megas]

  Megas, I get where you're coming from but as you've said, there are mods if you have that itch. And come to think of it, wouldn't it be more interesting if they gave factions more unorthodox ships/variations?

Mods are not a good excuse.  Been down that road with other games before.

It would be nice if factions had the majority of ships completely different from each other, but that is not happening.

It is nice that some factions have unique hulls, like Scarab for Tri-Tachyon.  On the other-hand, faction variants of the base hull can make the faction stand out more.  Stuff like (P) hulls for pirates.  (A) and (XIV) hulls for Hegemony.  (TT) ships for Tri-Tachyon (but Tri-Tachyon only has the brawler, they need more).

What does Luddic Church, Persean League, Sindrian Diktat have to set themselves apart from the Independents or Hegemony?  Nothing or very little.  They feel like clone #1, clone #2, and clone #3.

What helps make ships differentiate factions from each other is not only paint job, but also various tweaks like midline-to-high-tech conversions for Tri-Tachyon.

[TaLaR]

     C)    Giving the tritachs a converted Brawler was interesting, now they have an anvil to the Tempests hammer. Maybe give them a converted Dominator, an anvil to the Asuras hammer?

I like the idea behind TT Brawler, but actual ship is a failure - all the unimpressive stats of base Brawler without ballistic slots.

Also, in practice 2 Tempests would perform better than any Tempest + other frigate combo.

[Sabaton]

   Megas my dude, I believe you misunderstood me....I'm fully on board with making the factions more distinct, am I'm sure the devs will do that once they move out of the implementing mechanics phase into the polish/balance phase.

   Yes, some factions do look like they were just plopped in...

  But I don't think polishing the factions should be done simply by giving them dozens of variations of the same ever so popular ships. That would lead to pointless content bloat.

  For example: How would a high tech Sunder be any different from the regular one? Oh, so instead of 3 small ballistics you have 3 small energy....not worth it. Or why would you need a high tech Falcon/Eagle when the Asura is already the speedy energy cruiser?

  Then there's also faction doctrine, why would TT need a high tech Conquest when they have the Paragon (huge range) and Asura (speed)?
  
  It depends on a per ship basis.

  As for the other factions, you need to take their doctrine and lore into consideration, no? What is the church? A religious organization with low technical skills and a focus on numerous, carrier centric ships. What could that translate into? Lots of frigates and civilian->carrier conversions like Venture, Gemini, Shepard, Vigilance (energy to ballistic), etc. Same for pathers as they're closely tied.

  What I'm trying to say is that faction specialization should be broader (focus on conversion of more unorthodox ships types,) not concentrated (give them all versions of the same rock stars).

  TaLaR, tell me about it, from what I've seen the only Brawler worth it's salt is the Pather one as it can walk in, smash face and pull out before the enemy can retaliate.  But that's fine, not every ship has to be a killing machine, not every fleet has the luxury of picking from the best.  

 

[Megas]

Re: Brawler
The only Brawler I like is the standard one, which can kite-and-snipe with Mauler and HVD.  It was better with either the original Accelerated Ammo Feeder or stronger Damper Field.  At 50%, I will never use the Damper Field because Brawler takes too much damage even while field is up.  Better to just vent and eat full damage.

High-tech Brawler "is a failure".  Needs better flux stats to use flux hogs.

Pather Brawler has built-in Safety Override, which ruins sniper loadouts.

That said, I am not fond of Brawlers because they have no defenses whatsoever.  Classic Brawler could at least spew a ton of shots from long range with ammo feeder, which it cannot do anymore.

Moving on...

But I don't think polishing the factions should be done simply by giving them dozens of variations of the same ever so popular ships. That would lead to pointless content bloat.

  For example: How would a high tech Sunder be any different from the regular one? Oh, so instead of 3 small ballistics you have 3 small energy....not worth it. Or why would you need a high tech Falcon/Eagle when the Asura is already the speedy energy cruiser?

Yes, losing ballistics without compensation would be terrible, because then Sunder cannot combine needlers with HIL or lance.  But with compensation, it could do things better than a stock Sunder.  Maybe better flux stats, shields, and/or mobility so that it can use non-beam loadouts better.

Asura, I guess you mean Aurora and not Blackrock's Asura?  In case of Eagle, what can be done?  Trade ballistics for better mobility? better flux stats? better shields?  Or maybe be all-about beams and fire almost as many as Paragon can.  Eagle can focus much more mounts worth of firepower than Aurora.  Aurora seems primarily about dual blaster or missile spam.

As for possible high-tech Conquest, maybe turn it into a fast battleship focused on energy weapons or a missileboat that can use large Hammers and Reapers effectively?  Paragon and Astral are slow, and Odyssey is a failed attempt at a battlestar.

Pathers are somewhat distinct.  Luddic Church, not so much.  Though, admittedly, they are the only faction except maybe pirates that use hybrids often in fleets.

What I'm trying to say is that faction specialization should be broader (focus on conversion of more unorthodox ships types,) not concentrated (give them all versions of the same rock stars).

That would be nice if factions had mostly unique ships like mods do.  Failing that, the next best thing is variations of the "same rock stars", which makes sense because the base hulls are effective enough that everyone wants them (not to mention probably less work than many more new ships), yet each faction probably wants their individual touch to better suit their preferences.

[Retry]

TT Brawler is tough to use in vanilla with its flux stats simply due to lack of viable weaponry.  It's a shame as I really like the plasma jet system.  I've had a bit of success with twin Ion Pulsers on a TT Brawler.

I like the idea of faction-specific modifications like the TT Brawler, and they're generally some of my favourite things in general Ship Packs: They're not super unique and distinct compared to just adding an entirely new ship but it adds flavour to the universe and contributes to the feel of factions trying to get by in a post-collapsed Universe and don't really have the resources to custom design and lay down entirely new classes of vessels to fit their doctrine perfectly.  I don't view variants as pointless bloat even if the variants play similarly to each other (and well, they should, they're variants after all).

High-Tech TT Sunder:
I'd think changing the small mounts from ballistic to energy seems very Tri-Tachy and could change up the variants somewhat (ex: Using a PD or LRPD array instead of a Vulcan array for PD.  While you can't use Needlers, its worth noting that the energy weapons do benefit from Sunder's system, and some mods or weapon packs include pretty good energy weapons too), other things that could be done is turning the missile mount to a Synergy one or, as Megas said, upping the shield or flux.  Maybe add a slight maintenance penalty for it as well.

TT Falcon/Eagle:
At absolute minimum, the system could be changed to Plasma Jets.  That + the paint job would honestly be enough to justify it for me.  We could also use Megas's other suggestion of general shields/flux upgrades and energy slots.  We could also do something more exotic for either of them: For instance, compiling the Eagle's fowards ballistic slots into 1 or 2 Large slots, or even a built-in system like the Thermal Pulse Cannon (presumably with an OP penalty due to the free weapon).  A possible fluff justification for that could be that TT engineers salvaged components of destroyed Hegemony Onslaughts and used the functional TPCs on reconstructed Eagle/Falcon hulls.

TT Conquest:
One of the Dynasector/Nexerelin compatible faction mods (Tyrador Safeguard Coalition IIRC) adds a Conquest in TT livery.  It looks really good under their colors, surprisingly.  I think it's just a palette swap unfortunately and doesn't have any stat change from the normal Conquest but it blends into Vanilla seamlessly.

It's true that Tri-Tachyon has the Paragon & Astral, but both of these capital ships are "new", rare and expensive.  Since TT is presumably not the industrial juggernaut that the Hegemony is and the Hegemony has a cruiser/battleship doctrine, it seems unlikely that TT can match up every Onslaught with a Paragon or every Legion with an Astral, so they're going to need alternative caps to shore up gaps or be forced to fight with a big size disadvantage, so it seems logical that the Tri-Tachyon would refit and use more common and less flashy workhorses like the older Conquest.  Modernizing, recommissioning and refitting older hulls with new equipment is a tried-and-true method of bolstering water navies, with the most famous example being the Iowa-Class Battleship which was recommissioned twice.  I don't think it'd be much different in Space.

(While the TT does have the Odyssey too, it's kind of bad, still high-tech and expensive to maintain and is even worse at standing up to true Capitals than the Conquest, so I still stand by the idea that the TT commissioning Conquests would be entirely reasonable.)

As to how the TT Conquest would/should differ from the Vanilla variant?  I don't know.

---------------------------------------------------

Sure, variants depend on a per-ship basis.  You'll probably not find a Luddic Church variant of the Medusa, and you'll probably not find any Hyperions or Scarabs outside of Tri-Tachyon Space.  Meanwhile the Tri-Tachyon might just skip renovating pure old junkers like the Hound and Cerberus.  But something like a Hammerhead or especially the Eagle are probably ubiquitous enough to be found in common use by all major factions, so I could easily see plenty of variants for them, perhaps even 1 for each faction if the factions were distinct enough.

[Megas]

@ Retry:  I thought about fewer large hardpoints on a theoretical Eagle (TT) too.  Could be heavy Eagle, sort of like energy Dominator.

Midline is used by every faction, except maybe Pathers.  Also, just because factions have variants does not mean they only use those.  Hegemony uses standard versions in addition to XIV, although XIV is mostly an upgrade.  TT ships veers into custom variant, and the only one so far, Brawler, is a downgrade.

More TT ships need an upgrade elsewhere to compensate the general downgrade from ballistics to energy.  Or most energy weapons can be buffed so they are competitive with ballistics for universal slots or midline ships with more mounts than OP or flux to support.