deep-space combat-vessels.

posted on February 10th, 2010, 11:32 pm

I had the idea of adding a special weapon to the game that uses special energy per second to fly at in-system-warp speed. I had this idea in 3.07 as something funny for myself, but since the new patches I sometimes feel an urgency of having one or two ships in the fleet of having a special like this. Especially on bigger maps, a very limited amount of those "deep space" - combat vessels could be something very useful.

More concrete, every race should get a limited (by 2 - 4 ships dependable on which type it is) deep-space combat ship.
The federation could get the Prometheus (four nacelles would make an argument for that) and it could be limited to only one ship because of the battleship status. Special energy amount could start with 400 and the "interception-warp" uses 75-100 SE per second to make sure it's no "I can get everywhere within one jump" thing. Also the system should get a cooldown-time of half the length a non-veteran Descent uses for the shield reset.

Klingons... should get back the Fek'lhr for that. Limited by three as an alternative to the Bor'Tas.

I don't have an idea for romulans and Borg yet, but the Dominion could have a variant of the A-10-Destroyer limited by three ships, or because it's Dominion and these ships are small, six, but that makes a big rush-abuse danger in my eyes.

What do you guys think of an idea like that?

posted on February 10th, 2010, 11:50 pm

i would really appreciate some sort of warp feature being added in the future. i think your idea to limit the number of ships able to use it would make it less likely to be so unbalanced than in stock A2..

on a side note warp capabilities could be added with a on/off switch in the options somewhere but i think that has been suggested before..

is there anything of the like on todo or at all planed for future releases?

posted on February 10th, 2010, 11:53 pm

on a side note warp capabilities could be added with a on/off switch in the options somewhere but i think that has been suggested before..

Not only suggested already, but the game started out like that. FO has been rather ruthless at erasing most traces of a toggle option.

posted on February 11th, 2010, 1:03 am

Personally I love that warp has been eliminated in general, but there is no reason to ignore the interesting concept of each race getting one shipclass with the ability of changing the position faster than any other ship.

Think of the special ability this way: It's like the manouver used in "wargames" when the Hathaway jumped to warp for just about one or two seconds to deceive the Ferengi or like the Picard-manouver (with the Stargazer, not with his jacket) is described. You can get away the ship from a battle this way, or you can jump into it. Also, you can try to defend a possible expansion with it until reinforcements and a constructor arrive.
On very big maps it will also be good for scouting in dangerous areas, but it still is more of an "abuse the warp-engine for a few seconds". Simulating a maximum warp for the time the ship has got enough energy to provide it.

posted on February 12th, 2010, 12:07 pm

The main problem is, that it should not be "warp" as most every ship has a warp-capabilitie. A limited number of Hyper-Impulse vessels (stealing and modifying the sabres feature) would be cool. The alternatives are named Transwarp (oh, we already have it) and Jumper.

I'd love to see the Fek'ihr again.

posted on February 12th, 2010, 8:52 pm

Ah no.
Every ship has warp capacity doesn't eliminate a feature like that, because the federation Warpin already is ingame without giving any ship warp ingame.
I already told, the deep space ship range would use Warp in an excessive way with high energy drain.

posted on February 12th, 2010, 8:54 pm

I think it's a cool idea, Raven, I'm just hesitant to put warp back in at all because it's SUCH a game-changing feature.  Also it just wouldn't make much sense for a few vessels to have warp when the overall rule for the game is:  "everyone's using impulse".

  Transwarp is a little different ...

posted on February 12th, 2010, 9:29 pm

I think it could be implemented in a rather unique feature, as a passive. For maybe a certain support ship, the further it is from the original base, the higher its offence and speed maybe?

Just an idea 

posted on February 12th, 2010, 9:54 pm

I think it could be implemented in a rather unique feature, as a passive. For maybe a certain support ship, the further it is from the original base, the higher its offence and speed maybe?

Just an idea 

I honestly don't know if this is possible at all. I could only imagine to have a single ship replacing it's own odf depending on the distance to the base, and that seems to be difficult.

"everyone's using impulse".

  Transwarp is a little different ...

Because of this I consider the limitation and energy costs for "warp-abuse"  a must-have.
In-system, starfleet vessels for example aren't even allowed to use warp drive in the way we here use cars in cities.

I could also think of "If we use more than maximum warp for a few seconds, the engines are offline for some time after using it".

posted on February 12th, 2010, 10:25 pm

I will give my opinion.  Warp should not be in FO for these reasons.

first of all, it never really worked in a2 anyway.

To be realistic, the maps we play on are solar systems. If you were to use warp for just a fraction of a second, you would be propelled outside the solar system in the blink of an eye.

Now If the FO team could program warp so that it wouldn't work unless you told the ship to go somewhere say 10,000 units away, then maybe I would support it, but that would make it no better than the transwarp already in the game, which is a borg special.

the reason that the Feds have warpin, is because they call a ship from very far away, to warp in to their sector.  it is very different.


    However, what if we could tell a ship to Warp-to a point, at a certain time.  So you tell it to warp to where you think the enemy's mining set is, say in five minutes. (the time to arrival would be limited by class size) so a scout could warp to that point in 15 seconds or more, a saber 30, akira 1 minute, ect.

    So what the ship(s) would do is turn to the closest edge of the map and warp off the map and be gone for that 5 minutes.  Say its taking the long way around .  Then at that time, those ships warp in, and you regain control of them, just like warpin.  Now if your base is blown up before your ships re appear, I would say that is to bad for you.  You should also have some kind of sub-space relay built in order for this to work.
Maybe even have the area scouted already.  How about that?

posted on February 12th, 2010, 10:55 pm

Personally I think having Transwarp and Hyper Impulse fulfill the needs for warp. Having more "similar options" would take away from the uniqueness I think 

posted on February 15th, 2010, 1:55 am

I actually like the idea. First off A2 was off the charts in gay. But I also have to say that it was a cool concept.

First off, if you go to warp for a fraction of a second and you end up out of the system how did picard pull his stuff with the stargazer and second how did riker pull his stunt? honestly, the computers would be advanced enough to handle the triangulation and such to keep the ship in place.

For an idea regarding the visual aspect of a ship jumping to warp. Instead of doing it so that you use energy, just have it warp to anywhere in the system, it moves slowly for a second, and then jumps (at an incredible fast speed, the ship streatches out and jumps to warp) but it's only moving for less than a second. Between point A and point B there is very limited travel time. It wouldn't be anything like A2.

This would be great for those who get wrapped up into tactics. One ship, good combat abilities, but can be over whelmed, use it wisely.

posted on February 15th, 2010, 7:13 am

First off A2 was off the charts in gay.

While I love how funny that sounds , I have to say that while we were modding A1 ages ago A2 was a HUGE step above it.  Warp was one of the key features that we had all been anticipating.  It just ended up changing the game in a way no one really predicted and ended up not being practical.

First off, if you go to warp for a fraction of a second and you end up out of the system how did picard pull his stuff with the stargazer and second how did riker pull his stunt?

Writers decided this, not scientists .  He was able to do this because the script needed him to do something that Riker would know how to counter.  It has only a shadow of sense in reality.

posted on February 15th, 2010, 4:08 pm

I still think that to be a grand over statement, computers in that time hypothetically speaking would be advanced enough to project the flight telemetry and come out of max warp and still be in the same system. Regardless, I think one ship for each race capable of what we would call a "combat jump" to be a plausible idea.

Since it can be spammed and the ship is not all powerful it would be viable for fleet support or tactical use only (guerrilla tactics). This could add another layer to the game's over all strategy, and besides, if it turned out to not work through testing or by player opinion it could be removed in later patches.

posted on February 15th, 2010, 4:18 pm

First off A2 was off the charts in gay.

A2 hater!

First off, if you go to warp for a fraction of a second and you end up out of the system how did picard pull his stuff with the stargazer and second how did riker pull his stunt? honestly, the computers would be advanced enough to handle the triangulation and such to keep the ship in place.

Enterprise had FTL sensors, Stargazers Ferengi enemies didn't, and Picard thought he was against them. Simple.