Dominion Long Range Transporters

posted on January 13th, 2010, 6:50 pm

I was watching a ds9 repeat the other day, the episode featured the long range dominion transporter that worked over several lightyears.

it seems that the dominion are quite the transporter wizards, so maybe their troop ship could have transporter bonuses like longer range and/or more troops per second.

another idea is for a long range transporter to be used as a weapon, my idea is:

have a station which is equipped with long range transporters, make it available at mid to late game. this station would be able to equip one of your ships with a transporter beacon/tag/transmitter thing. this ship would then be able to sneak the tag aboard/onto the hull of any enemy ship.

When you push the button at the station the transporter station would transport explosives aboard/onto the hull of the ship with the tag and the ship might take damage/explode.

Some resources would be paid to place the tag on a friendly ship, then a much higher lot when you push the button.

this sounds like the romulan intel centre, it is a bit. but it should be more expensive as you can choose the target.

possible balancing ideas:

* make the station expensive, or hard to get.

* make the transport itself really expensive.

* give it a special energy and a high special energy cost.

* give the tag a chance to not stick to/beam aboard the enemy ship.

* once the tag is applied, if the ship gets to a repair yard it can remove the tag, like the graviton marker.

* give the transporter a chance of failure, a chance to do damage, and a chance to immediately destroy. maybe it could rank up to have a higher chance of destroy.

Other ideas:

* give the station research options to increase its effectiveness. maybe one to increase its special energy regen. one to increase the chance of blowing up a ship etc.

Feel free to criticise. 

posted on January 13th, 2010, 7:02 pm

That's a pretty neat idea....it IS similar to the sabotage thing...but I still like it,because, like you said, you can choose the ship. What if you also had the option to beam a sensor tracker onto the other ship. So, instead of seeing all of the enemy's ships and station, etc., you could only see what the sensor range of the ship is. Then, you could see wherever the ship goes. I think it'd be a pretty neat option...

posted on January 13th, 2010, 7:05 pm

i LOVE sneak-a-lly blowing up stuff,  count me in 

posted on January 13th, 2010, 7:06 pm

maybe have both, the sensor would cost less, or you would have to research to get the bomb.

EDIT: ninja-ed

posted on January 13th, 2010, 7:54 pm

The one issue I have with it is it seems like if any race could choose to sabotage a particular ship it would be the Romulans, not the Dominion.

posted on January 13th, 2010, 7:57 pm

but its got canon evidence   

the long range transporter was used from empok nor, to transport kira from terok nor (DS9) with the use of a small tag. if a dominion ship could get that tag onto another ship, or on the hull, they could beam explosives to it. i presume it would be expensive though.

even though you get to choose the ship you attack, you have to get one of your own ships close to tag it.

posted on January 13th, 2010, 8:02 pm

The one issue I have with it is it seems like if any race could choose to sabotage a particular ship it would be the Romulans, not the Dominion.

Agreed, Dominion goes for brute strength rather than stealth.

posted on January 13th, 2010, 8:06 pm

Yeah, that's what I meant.  While the Dominion certainly could do it, they never actually transport bombs onto enemy ships.  The Romulans, given the chance, wouldn't hesitate to do it.

posted on January 13th, 2010, 8:09 pm

@ captain proton: it wouldn't be stealthy though, you would have to get your ship next to theirs, giving them the chance to blow you to pieces. and letting them know instantly that they may have a tag onboard and to get repaired to remove it.

@ Ruanek: the romulans don't have long range transporters though i really believe that they would exploit this powerful tech. another suggestion was to use it just to get sensor data on a ship. maybe another option is that if you get the tag to an enemy miner you can steal the resources onboard

posted on January 13th, 2010, 8:20 pm

True, the Romulans don't have long range transporters, but the Dominion isn't in the habit of using theirs to spy on/blow up enemy ships.  There's also the fact that if the ship has to get close to the other ship, then it ceases to be a "long range" transporter, and if it needs to get close, there's a good chance one ship will blow up the other, making the ability either worthless or cost a ship.  As for stealing resources, I'd argue that it would only make sense if you somehow got the miner to you.  You can't just beam for example one person onto a miner and get their resources.  Sabotaging resource gathering would make more sense, but even then I'd think that that's more of a Romulan idea.

posted on January 13th, 2010, 8:40 pm

you misunderstand the idea, you put the tag on your ship then take your ship to an enemy ship. then you can retreat your ship.

maybe put the tag on a small cheap ship and sacrifice it to put a tag on a battleship.

then you use the station to transport to the tag. cos in ds9 we saw that the transporter needed a tag to work over long distance. and we dont noe if the dominion didnt use the transporters as a weapon. its silly to assume that they wouldnt use such a lovely advantage. its like the romulans never using cloak. or the klingons turning up for duty sober

your point about bringing miners is void, as i explained earlier that the small ship only delivers the tag, then you activate from afar.

its not really that sneaky. you blatantly fly up to them and tag them. they would then have to check if their ships have been tagged. i think the dominion can be clever sometimes. look at their plan to blow up the allied fleet at ds9.

posted on January 13th, 2010, 8:52 pm

I wouldn't use something like a long range transporter to place bombs if I were a Jem'Hadar. But if modified to something we really don't have in FO now, how about giving the Dominion a strongly modified version of this lr-transporter to move turrets or mining stations to a place in artillery range? The constructor could get this as a special weapon that costs up to 50 supply units per use and has to be researched for a heavy price at the cloning station.

Otherwise I wouldn't think it would make a good addition, as much as I like the general idea behind it.

posted on January 13th, 2010, 9:46 pm

Sorry for misunderstanding; I haven't seen any DS9 episodes that included it.  But the fact is that to the best of our knowledge the Dominion never used this.  Yes, the Founders can be clever, and yes, they did do a bit of espionage (infiltrating Starfleet, the Klingons, etc.), but given the fact that the Jem'Hadar will willingly sacrifice themselves for their cause I think that if they could do this they would, because then they could very easily destroy enemy ships without having to lose their own ships.  But instead they sacrifice themselves.  You can make the argument that the Founders don't care too much about the Jem'Hadar, since they can easily be replaced, but in a battle I'm sure they realize that more ships is better.  The Romulans will obviously cloak, because that's a major part of their military mindset.  Espionage/sabotage isn't a major part of the Dominion military mindset.

posted on January 13th, 2010, 10:50 pm

True, the Romulans don't have long range transporters, but the Dominion isn't in the habit of using theirs to spy on/blow up enemy ships.  There's also the fact that...

am i the only one who remember "changling Bashir" stealing a runabout in an attempt to blow up the bajorian sun and wiping out a combined fleet of Federation / klingon & romulans?

posted on January 13th, 2010, 10:52 pm

Why not use the long range transporters as assault transporters.