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Author Topic: Upcoming Revenant-class phase freighter/tanker as U-Tankers campaign mechanic  (Read 1405 times)

Helldiver

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One of the upcoming ships in the next update is the Revenant-class phase hybrid freighter/tanker. Such a ship classification brings up but one thing to mind: U-Tankers. U-Tankers were special WWII supply submarines designed to carry supplies and fuel and secretely resupply friendly attack submarines in enemy waters. They would hide until contacted by a sub and emerge to transfer fuel and torpedoes to them, extending their capabilities, before hiding again.

My suggestion is to add a similar campaign mechanic using to this upcoming ship - one that would be engaging both for allies and enemies.

Factions that make heavy use of phase ships (Tri-Tachyon, Persean League) could regularly dispatch small groups of Revenants (maybe with some phase escorts?) to the fringes of enemy faction systems where they would hide in Go Dark using their 0 sensor signature as phase ships. If the player is commissioned to them and trusted, they would be notified of the presence of these Revenants and, upon entering a system, would receive an encrypted comm indicating where the Revenants are hiding. Once there and without nearby ships from other factions, the Revenants would reveal themselves and tagging them would allow the player to request supplies and fuel. The price of these could be deducted from comission salary - at what rate/if at all is up to the dev to decide.

On the opposite side, being commissioned to a faction enemy to Tri-Tachyon/the Persean League could give you missions to find and destroy these hidden Revenants, adding much value to the Neutrino Detector as a phase ship hunting tool, same as how sub-chasers with sonars and hydrophones were hunting for U-Tankers in suspected locations IRL. Thematic as all hell.

If you've got ideas on why this is good or bad or how it could be made better, discuss!
« Last Edit: February 15, 2021, 02:19:46 PM by Helldiver »
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Megas

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They are probably a drop-in-the-bucket by endgame.  Not enough resources to supply a multi-capital endgame fleet, and probably not enough loot or reward to rob from.  The suggestion seems relevant for a short window during the midgame.

What I would like Revenant for is to bring some in a pure phase fleet for raiding.  Currently, I keep the blueprints and special items, but dump the rest of the vendor trash from raids into space because phase fleets have significantly worse capacity than even conventional warships, let alone haulers.
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Helldiver

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They are probably a drop-in-the-bucket by endgame.  Not enough resources to supply a multi-capital endgame fleet, and probably not enough loot or reward to rob from.  The suggestion seems relevant for a short window during the midgame.

That will depend on how much they can carry, or how many Revenants are in each hiding group. The reward for hunting them would depend on how much the bounty/mission pays, and being able to salvage and recover those potentially rare ships - at least that's my opinion.

And as you wrote, playing smaller phase fleets is a thing, for which they could be a good help if you need to stay a while in a system or don't have many supplies upon arriving.
I do think that they would be situational, but I don't think that situational gameplay features are bad.
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Gothars

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Supplying attack phase ships is, I believe, already their role. There are some new mechanics that will make running pure phase fleets a way more interesting option in the next release, and those fleet need to be supplies somehow.
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intrinsic_parity

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I like this idea a lot. Adding more unique different encounters is almost always good IMO. To be honest, the idea of supply convoys to the outer reaches and missions associated with them can be extended to conventional haulers as well, all though phase haulers would make for much more interesting and unique missions for sure.
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FooF

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Not that "realism" was really the goal anyway but having Revenant convoys re-supply in the outer-reaches or just "pop up out of nowhere" can be hand-waved away extremely easily. To be honest, if a Revenant wasn't the emergency supply ship of choice (think "distress signal"), I would be a little disappointed. Not that they're ubiquitous but they just seem especially designed for such a task.

I do like the OPs suggestion of a new mission type though, if nothing else, just using a "U-boat"-type mentality makes a lot of sense.
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SCC

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In the core, I don't think anything is far enough to warrant a resupply point. In the outer rim, I don't think there's a reason to specifically use the presumably vastly less efficient phase logistic ships, instead of normal, cheap logistic ships. Going dark in an asteroid belt does wonders to your sensor profile.