Flagship Ideas?

posted on March 20th, 2009, 12:14 pm

Maybe it couldnt defeat a starbase but it could easily repel any attempts of rushing, thus making the strategy of rushing unavailable.

Oh and what do u propose for the Borg, their command vessle must be the cube, should they get 1 at the beginning?

posted on March 20th, 2009, 1:17 pm

Just one thought:

A flagship (unique, thus rather powerful) will make all early attempts to decimate the enemy improper. If you attack the enemy in its base, it will sloughter you with its flagship. If you send your own flagship with your attacking fleet, one flagship is likly to get destroyed, thus the game will be unbalanced from now until the players have normal capital ships ready to counter the flagship.

That has to be overcome, e.g. the flagship warps to your main base after a spezific time, preferably after 25min.

25 min seems rather long i was thinking maybe along the lines of 3 to 5 min. however a stronger vessel should be warped in later than a weaker vessel.

posted on March 20th, 2009, 1:45 pm

Maybe it couldnt defeat a starbase but it could easily repel any attempts of rushing, thus making the strategy of rushing unavailable.

Oh and what do u propose for the Borg, their command vessle must be the cube, should they get 1 at the beginning?

Their command vessel would likely vary (Cube for Assimilation, Diamond for Optimization?).

Assuming they even bothered with command ships.

posted on March 20th, 2009, 3:18 pm

Starting the game with flagships would be incredibly unbalancing: imagine how easy it would be to punish expanding for instance 

posted on March 20th, 2009, 3:22 pm

I don't know how good you guys play, but is is possible to defend a mining outpost after 3 to 5 min (as dircome suggests) if a flagship arrives with some company???

posted on March 20th, 2009, 3:31 pm

Starting the game with flagships would be incredibly unbalancing: imagine how easy it would be to punish expanding for instance 

And imagine how easy it woulf be for your flagship to prevent someone elses from causing problems. It's only unbalanced if one person gets a Dreadnought, while another gets something like a Cruiser.

posted on March 20th, 2009, 4:11 pm

Which is exactly what will happen Tyler: each race and avatar will NOT get the same ships, and to expect that one can easily defend a mining outpost with a slow as heck ship, when attaked by a fast and cloaking ship is ridiculous etc.

posted on March 20th, 2009, 4:15 pm

Your point suggests that everyone will keep it in the base and only move it when attacked. I keep ships in the Mining base until it is properly defended, and even a slow moving ship can fire at a decloaking target.

posted on March 20th, 2009, 4:42 pm

I don't know about you, but personally I like to attack mining bases (or research stations near the starbase) that aren't protected, especially if I can cloak, and my enemy cannot 

Having a flagship that can cloak will only make it that much easier to bring excessive firepower to the table at the very start of the match. If I got a ship that early that could cloak, the first thing I'd do would be to send it to my enemy's base and wipe out any hope they have of expanding. You can't be everywhere at once with only one ship afterall.

[Exodus]

posted on March 20th, 2009, 5:25 pm

Last edited by Exodus on March 20th, 2009, 5:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Which is exactly what will happen Tyler: each race and avatar will NOT get the same ships, and to expect that one can easily defend a mining outpost with a slow as heck ship, when attaked by a fast and cloaking ship is ridiculous etc.

Yeah, and that's why avatars with stronger flagships have them warped in LATER.
And what makes it impossible for you to adapt? If you're afraid your little construction ship/mining base expansion is going to be destroyed by a mighty (or earlier, not so mighty) flagship then flipping well defend it with something!
Surely this is truer to real war?

You know, this makes me want trading stations back  :D

EDIT:  tldr: I flash of pretty much unrelated inspiration hit me, and I talked about it.
I tell you what I think would be cool - a new "game mode" (if you will) where for the early stage of the game you only have particularly weak "cannon fodder" units and a powerful flagship (able to withstand attack from a few of these vessels before they become a threat). Resource collecting would be the aim until it was possible to tech out of this phase - say by researching the first proper spaceframes. This would leave all these enemy mining bases over the map in the later stage (ripe for plunder!), as the you and the enemy were forced to over-expand earlier on.

posted on March 20th, 2009, 5:45 pm

"Yeah, and that's why avatars with stronger flagships have them warped in LATER.
And what makes it impossible for you to adapt? If you're afraid your little construction ship/mining base expansion is going to be destroyed by a mighty (or earlier, not so mighty) flagship then flipping well defend it with something!
Surely this is truer to real war?"

Clearly I haven't worded this properly. If you START with a flagship you can send it IMMEDIATELY (as in before the first shipyard or even mining station is built). If every race had the exact same flagship, this would be fine (strategy wise: not gameplay wise because having the same ship would suck big time). However, those flagships that are faster or can cloak would have the advantage as they could hit any sort of expansion effort before the first ships are out (I have never seen someone wait 'till they have ships to expand... if they did, they have already lost the game).

If we then analyze your first statement, we find that the game is completely unbalanced because if avatars with stronger flaships "have them warped in later", the early game advantage is given to those avatars that can go out and attack with that starting flagship. Do you understand my point?

posted on March 20th, 2009, 6:39 pm

That's the reason, why I would introduce flagships rather late, say over 15min, because then, you surel have at least generix, vorcha, ... classes do dfend yourself properly. Thans for analysing that well.

posted on March 20th, 2009, 6:44 pm

Things like those issues are why I suggested things that for the most part are very defensive as a flagship, and not ships of supreme power.  As for the Borg, considering that the Devs seem to have selected TNG Borg, rather than Voyager/First Contact Borg, the reason I selected a more durable Sphere using only the not-quite-terrifying beams...

The Queen is Irrelevant.  Status Symbols are Irrelevant.  We are Borg.  Lower your shields and prepare to be assimilated.  Resistance is futile.

posted on March 20th, 2009, 9:56 pm

Well you complicate this discussion too much.

Just make the flagship an upgrade that must be researched, no damn warp-in at any time.

Or as i suggested earlier, the first ship of any faction in the game that reaches max experience becomes their flagship automatically. (i know the Borg need another solution, just make the first Cube/Diamond built the flagship).

I think that avoids any balancing problems at all.

posted on March 20th, 2009, 10:00 pm

[quote="Darthashur"]
Well you complicate this discussion too much.

Just make the flagship an upgrade that must be researched, no damn warp-in at any time.

Or as i suggested earlier, the first ship of any faction in the game that reaches max experience becomes their flagship automatically. (i know the Borg need another solution, just make the first Cube/Diamond built the flagship).

I think that avoids any balancing problems at all.
[/quote

but that spoils the fun of having a real flagship with unique abilities and strengths.
that was the initial intention behind this post.

we seem to have detracted quite a bit.