hey, im back from holidays
so, lets get to it:
Yeah, i was definitly thinking of making it Active, its mainly as a first strike attack so it can get into the middle of an enemy fleet quickly, make a big entrance (as in, plowing in and damaging/destroying/knocking aside ships in the way) and then starting to open up with its weapons... Makes sense. That would be kinda cool.. I don't want all the SotL's to do this though.. Probably just the TEC would have this... The Advent could have some "Telekinetic Cannon" which is like a monodirectional repulse, only WAAAAY more powerful. Essentially throwing the enemy ship across the gravity well.. The Vasari woul probably use a "Phase Bomb" (aka: mini-kostura) to move ships away from a central point, but only slightly. Each of these abilities would of course cause damage.
With the ramming speed (the original idea) like i said, i wanted it a one-time, 'surprise attack' style effect that simultaneously brought the SotL well within firing range of most of the enemy fleet with as many weapons as possible, while also disrupting formations and what-not, causing havoc and creating an initial advantage. its mainly to make sure the generally very slow moving SotL has an immediate effect on a battle, not just rocking up when the battle is all but decided.
This said, the other ideas were good, race-specific, but dont quite achieve this outcome... perhaps Vasari do their short range phase jump thing their... Defensive Utility Cruiser, is it?... does, and "due to the large size of the ship and amount of power required, the exit point of the jump causes nearby ships to be damaged and thrown out of the way", while the Advent could maybe have some sort of inertial field causing the SotL to move much faster with less effort, while telekinetically repulsing the enemy ships, doing damage much like the TEC Ramming Speed... or else maybe expanding their shields, to simulatneously push away enemy ships, and increase the speed of the SotL by using the shield as leverage... meh, call/explain it as you will, but that was my original idea.
is there a way to disable the ability to turn autocast on or off? the idea is its mainly a first strike thing and after that it becomes useless, and i dont want the ship to be going to ramming speed for no reason... Well, we could make it active, so yes, there is a way. If you don't want it used again, just give it a 3 min cooldown
No, i meant, is it possible to deactivate Autocast on an ability? so even if you right click it it wont autocast every three minutes... (i also say this because ive seen Kodiaks simply manouvering in a GW use their Intercept ability wastefully, and with a 3 minute cooldown... if a SotL uses its Ramming Speed-esque ability to get from one side of a GW to another, just before it goes into battle, it would be annoying) as for 3 min cool down, thats cool. i cant see it being needed within 3 minutes once activated anyway.
i was also thinking of SotL weapons having a slight knockback effect?
I like that. That would be very nice and would achieve what we want. As far as knockback, you would have to have weapons apply a repulse buff to the target which I don't think you can do without having it as an ability on the ship. Just like Incendiary Rounds or Cluster Bombs. You could have it, but I don't know if it would be all that beneficial. Perhaps just have KB on missiles, phase missiles, and plasma shots.
I dont know if we want it on all SotLs in-game, i was simply wondering from a movie-making point of view, it would facilitate the whole coming to the rescue at the last minute... i could always have an Akkan fire an Ion Bolt at the same time the SotL rocks up, but yeah, if you think its possible and worthwhile to have in-game, sure, lets try it.
btw, i saw the new forum you made for the mod on Aurora Games... And?
i was getting to it... you might also want to advertise it somewhere in the OP, because i only found it by chance
And, of course, Starbases could always be considered like 'heavy turrets'. One thing, though, could be to double (or just increase) the number of SB's allowed per GW. So, the average GW would have 2 SB's, Stars could have 6-8, and UCGW's could have 2-3... Maybe... I'll have to think about that one due to the nature of SB's. Two or more could have interesting effects on the battle. Two Argonevs... Not something you want to see. The reason that there are four on stars is that they can't have orbital defenses like repair platforms. If you have two Argo's plus a shield generator, a dozen guass turrets, three repair platforms, and a couple hangars, the enemy could not take that world unless they brought multiple SotL in... I guess my answer is maybe.. It depends on how easy SotL are to get...
i realise this... as much as i would like to see it (sometimes on central worlds with many Phase Lanes, a single TEC or Advent SB just doesnt quite cover all the entrances...) i can understand that 2 Big Red Buttons would be a kick in the head... still... perhaps making the heavy weapon platforms you are talking about appear like starbases (in the sense that they are simply large, well armored structures with many weapons that can fire over 360 degrees at many targets) would be a good idea... perhaps incorporate them with a secondary ability... anti-SC, recharge AM/Shields/Hull etc etc... or not, big guns is cool with me too.
However, making light turrets sill viable should be a concern. perhaps making light (as in the current turrets that we have) turrets better suited against light targets like scouts/LF/LRF/LC etc while heavy weapon platforms as better vs SC/HC/Caps/SotLs etc
Medium Range Anti-SC ability that does high damage.
Direct Damage backloaded ability. Think souped up GRG. (Weird, but I just realized that that is my mom's initials... I know, random...)
Some bonus to increase combat effectiveness
Anti-SC ability: cool, something like tracer fire... or detonating "Nukes" at medium range from the ship (when i say Nukes, just to give an idea and a visual, we can call it whatever.
DDBA: first off, what is Backloaded? second, i did want to give all SotLs a very high powered DD cannon much like on their respective lancers specifically for Anti-SotL combat. something on a turret to cause massive damage to SotLs and SB's but have such drawbacks as to make it ineffecient to use against anything smaller than a Cap. it would also have the draw back of a short period of disabilty, much like the lancers have now when firing, but much shorter. (say, 5-7 seconds). each Race's weapon type would be the same as its lancer prototype, but more powerful and visually different (so say the Advent Beam Cannon is Blue/Green, the SotL version may be redish-pink with a less confined (messier) beam)
I had two passive ideas in mind for all SotLs:
1. Increases damage/reduces damage taken/increases regen/increases speed/increases chance to hit/increases firing speed or all of the above (general combat effectiveness increase) of all friendly or owned ships in a GW by 5/7/10% or some other appropriate number
2. when the SotL is destroyed, all friendly/owned ships in a GW lose buffs stated in 1. and suffer 5% reduction of general combat effectiveness for 15-20 seconds after SotL is destroyed, and returning to normal after the 15-20 second period.
the idea is to make them like real "Hero" ships, increasing general combat effectiveness for ships in a battle, and weakening moral when destroyed...
i am concerned about one thing though, didnt you say each ship has a certain number of 'nulls', where 13 are taken up by engines, 3 by weapons and 4 by abilities or something like that? i remember because i wanted to give caps an anti-SC ability but you used the above as a reason for why its impossible... so im just asking, if that 20 null limit is hardcoded, how are we going to fit everything we want on each SotL?
Anyway, i figure here is a good place to finish the Vasari SotL
Weapons Fore: 2 Phase Missile Banks, 4 Pulse Beam Cannons, 2 Wave Cannons (the Starbase type that is effective vs structures also)
Weapons Port/Starboard: 3 Phase Missile Banks, 3 Wave Cannons
Weapons Aft: 4 Pulse Cannons, 2 Wave Cannons
Abilities:
Ramming Speed Equivalent
Direct Damage Anti-SotL ability on a turret
Passive Combat Effectiveness Buffing Ability (including the negative buff when SotL is destroyed)
Anti-SC ability... perhaps a Turbulent Gravitational Field that rips SC apart.
im also wondering if we want to give SotLs some meagre SC capacity... maybe let them build 2-4 squadrons of interceptors only? or some other style of SC to fill a niche...
alternatively, if its possible, the ability to choose which SC style (Bombers/Fighters/Interceptors etc) you want, and have all Squadrons slots filled with that one type...
the thing is, due to the incredible power of SotLs im cautious of making them too Race specific... i think making them do generally the same thing with slightly different number values/names/styles/drawbacks etc, maybe a single unique ability for each SotL will be best... otherwise the balancing could become hell and would affect battles negatively (insofar as balance would be broken). We could create 2 types of SotL, one more Combat oriented and the other more Utility/Ability oriented... and you get to choose which you want for your three...
i wont go into backstory because Volt said he will change it anyway, so ill leave that up to you.
also, one thing i was thinking about, i was playing a mod the other day and i saw the author had replaced the standard SC style with a 'formation' of SC that worked exactly like that, flying around in formation, firing together or slightly off-set... i think this would be awesome for Interceptors, just from a visual point of view...
lastly, i was thinking about each races missile-esque tech... the Vasari fire one blast every few moments, (from memory) TEC fire mad barrages, and Advent only have their Psionic Blast tech on the starbase so its not very common anyway...
i was thinking about some sort of missile cruiser or a 'corvette'. medium speed, just has lots of missile tubes (or equivalents) for firing on multiple targets... i know it doesnt fill a need anywhere, and could be quite superfluous, but im just putting it out there.
Also, some other kind of Utility cruiser would be nice, just to add something new and fresh, considering all we've done so far is add combat ships... it would have to be race specific (for instance, TEC could use a UC to replenish shields etc, while Advent could use one for Hull. this sint necessarily a suggestion, just an example)
i think some researchables for speed and turning speed for each race would be great. the upgrades would affect all ships by speeding up their accelleration, top speed and turning speed. we would have to decide which race we would like to be the fastest and which the slowest... i imagine the fastest would be Vasari... slowest Advent, considering they prefer damage output and survivability over speed...
lastly, i was thinking about the LF thing we were talking about to increase its combat survivability. So, instead of increasing its speed or something, why not a researchable passive that increases the chance to miss/decreases chance to hit (however it works) of any ships attacking the LF. and just a thought that popped into my head now, some sort of researchable active abilty that gives the LF a short range Rocket Barrage within a narrow cone, just for like a DD targettable thing to increase damage output
so, those were most of the thoughts i had over the holis... how is everyone btw? how was Band Camp Volt?
