Warp-In Penalty Tweak

posted on January 30th, 2011, 6:11 pm

general costs for warpins probably wont happen, as that isnt what warpins are about.

warpins are emergency ships, u are sending a distress call for help. they wont say: "we'll only save your life if u give us money" thats ferengi morals lol.

they charge u for sending them to their deaths after the fact, ie when they are angry that u called for emergency help only to let them die. ie "please help us, the enemy miners are looking at us funny, warp in and blast them to bits"

posted on January 30th, 2011, 6:26 pm

general costs for warpins probably wont happen, as that isnt what warpins are about.

warpins are emergency ships, u are sending a distress call for help. they wont say: "we'll only save your life if u give us money" thats ferengi morals lol.

they charge u for sending them to their deaths after the fact, ie when they are angry that u called for emergency help only to let them die. ie "please help us, the enemy miners are looking at us funny, warp in and blast them to bits"

My way, you get your emergency ships, a few warpin's worth.

Anything past that, it's assumed you're building a fleet and you need to show command that you're logistically capable of supporting those vessels.

posted on January 30th, 2011, 7:04 pm

My way, you get your emergency ships, a few warpin's worth.

Anything past that, it's assumed you're building a fleet and you need to show command that you're logistically capable of supporting those vessels.

then that wouldnt be a distress call and the entire idea of warpin will change. if u are suggesting that, go make an idea thread for it.

posted on January 30th, 2011, 7:11 pm

Actually, it'd make the first 10 or so ships free. The emergency forces.

That, or have the current supply cost only apply once you've got 10 warpins ranked up and call in more.

posted on January 30th, 2011, 7:27 pm

I think you should play online and see how warpins as they are work.  I doubt you continue to advocate 10 ships on the first call

posted on January 30th, 2011, 9:25 pm

I think you should play online and see how warpins as they are work.  I doubt you continue to advocate 10 ships on the first call

either you misread or I misspoke


The first 10 total (not all at once) are your reinforcements.

IE: It tracks the total number of warpins you call in the game.

After the warpin in which the 10th vessel answers your distress call (IE: 4th time you use it, which nets you only one of the vessels unless you've ranked up some of the eaerliers (or vet'd a nova)  any additonal warpin vessels (once you loose or rank up the pre-existing ones) cost a certain ammount of supplies to bring in, as you've allready called in vessels for your emergency.

Basicly, fed gets enough freebes to fill up their warpin cap, then after that they still have a cap BUT using the warpin after that costs cash.

posted on January 30th, 2011, 9:30 pm

the problem with that is that if u get the warpins above the current cap for less than the balanced cost of ships of their stats then u are getting a discount, getting powerful ships at under a balanced price.

if u get them for a balanced cost, ie u pay what you would for a comparable buildable ship, then warpins just become like buildables, just faster. not imbalanced, cos the cost of "building" them is there, just not the original idea of warpins

i dont think buildable warpins are what is wanted, as i think it is gonna stay as an emergency thing.

posted on January 30th, 2011, 9:35 pm

Bottom line in my opinion, Tok'ra is that the Feds do not NEED free ships.  I don't see why the first 10, 5, or even 1 Warpin should be free when they already have the cheapest ships in the game and the Feds have such a history of steamrolling people.

  The ships are FREE.  FREE.  FREE.  Only if you lose them do they end up costing you something and really it's not that much in the grand scheme of the Fed faction.  Feds are still the strongest race in my opinion and they don't need a buff to their Warpins .  They're finally close to balanced and adding a supply penalty to the Warpin was a critical part of that.

  I think that ends my involvement here

posted on January 30th, 2011, 9:35 pm

If anyone wants a Warp-In with a resource cost, they just use a map with a McKinely Yard on it. That's probably the only place they should cost money without being Warped-In through a neutral Ferengi station.

posted on January 30th, 2011, 11:03 pm

From what everyone seems to be saying here it's become pretty clear that the Feds don't need a buff to stay competitive or anything. That wasn't even really my reason for bringing this up.

To sort of refocus what I was trying to say:

I don't like the fact that warp-ins called in to join your fleet or to defend a station as part of an existing fleet can be targeted first for no other reason than to cost the player supply. I'd like to find a way to still penalize you for loosing them, but not have them be priority targets, not based on their tactical threat to the enemy, but because it hurts the player's economy more if they go down.

The Feds don't need any buffs, but I think treating the warp-ins as what they are, just extra Starfleet ships no different to the enemy than the home grown ones, could improve the feel of the gameplay.

Maybe in the future either the other races may get buffed or the Feds nerfed, then removing the supply penalty could work.

I still like the "adding time to the cooldown" one. 
If other people like the "target warp-ins first" strategy, then I guess everything's fine.

posted on January 31st, 2011, 12:20 am

I've seen the Descent used in an early-game battle. It was basically impossible to kill with the combined fleets of me and my ally (both Klingon), and got even more frustrating when the Romulans showed up and a second Descent warped in.
This was all the way back in 3.1.2, so I don't know whether it is still so hard to kill an early-game Descent now, but I can tell you that a Descent in your mining is nothing to laff at. It has the power to force miners to run, and if a few Intrepids come in to support it, it will probably kill miners. A normal warpin will get more kills, but a Descent is actually a much safer option before the enemy has critical mass on a super-defense ship that has effectively double shields.
Really, the Descent has always been the less-OP brother to warpins.
Most people don't even think about the Descent until their base is being slaughtered, which is unfortunate.

As for supply costs on non-Descent, I think that 10% less supply cost at double silver would be good. As a suicide warpin almost certainly won't get that rank without support from the fleet (or the opponent being really bad about retreating miners.)
But ranks alone will not balance it for defensive fleets, so I would also like to see the cost decrease with time. Down to 90% in one minute, 5% less with each 30 seconds down to 75%.

posted on January 31st, 2011, 2:51 pm

a descent is 1 ship that cant fire backwards and is too slow to escape most early game ships. Killing it just means following it and chipping away after it uses shield reset.

I like the strategy of targeting warpins first, it gives warpins a weakness they sorely needed.