[Idea] classLabel - reprogramWeapon

posted on April 13th, 2011, 4:28 pm

This "weapon" is used on stations that have a maximum crew complement of 0 and reprograms the stations computer so the station is used by the player using the reprogram weapon.  Reprogramming will take several seconds and the ship must survive to complete the reprogramming.  After the reprogramming is complete, the station is yours.

posted on April 13th, 2011, 9:25 pm

Too much chance for abuse I think.

posted on April 13th, 2011, 9:34 pm

Why do you think that?

posted on April 13th, 2011, 10:48 pm

I would not want this to be used on any turrets. What about failure rates? You can just automatically take over every turret on the map? Better be a ship I can shoot down with my turret in two shots.

posted on April 13th, 2011, 11:09 pm

I was thinking of failure rates, which is a good idea.  But the primary chance of failure is the fleet being alerted to the vessel's presence by the hack and being blown to vapors.

posted on April 14th, 2011, 12:50 am

If this gets added.........

60%+ failure rate.

If more than one ship capable of doing this are allowed, there needs to be a shared cool down period so the other vessels capable of doing this have to wait before making the next attempt (Say, half the regular cooldown period ?)

It needs to cost a high amount of supply (based on the races dependency on supply late game, very high for dominion/borg for example), perhaps make each use cost other resources as well as a way to make it something to be used tactically rather than willy nilly.

Prehaps tie it into special stations (SFC, Moqbara, Intel center, Hyperspace arty+subspace sensor, for the borg it'd need to depend on what they have next version be it command cube or some other object; or just have the borg stop generating or get reduced generating rate of CCs+supply in additon to the cost).

If it were to cost resources (and/or hinder their generation) AND shut down the special stations for some time, that would also make it's use require more consideration. For special stations I'd say give them a double cooldown period (or double special energy regen period) with the ability itself having the same time period cooldown.

posted on April 14th, 2011, 1:14 am

I was thinking of around 20% failure rate.  Shared cooldown time, yes, resource cost, no!

posted on April 14th, 2011, 1:45 am

80% chance to get a turret placed to do damage most of the time....... for FREE ?


No, if the % chance to do it is over 50% it should cost resources, if nothing else the decommission or the full build price of what you steal.

Only if you are more likely to fail to steal it should it be free.

posted on April 14th, 2011, 1:53 am

Fine!  60% max.

posted on April 14th, 2011, 2:24 am

60% chance to FAIL ?

Ok, that would be acceptable, prehaps also have the resource cost of the turret be added as that is still a pretty good chance to outright steal it.

Also what about perimeters, I dont think they use crew ....  they should NOT be stealable.

Also that raises more issues........  IE: you steal a rom singularity generator, you shut down multiple turrets after a few shots.



So prehaps ONLY these stations takeable (races w/o stealable turrets cant steal them either)...
Fed: Pulse/beam turret
Dom: Beam turret
Klingon: HWP cant be stolen, but they dont steal turrets (not honorable). That, or, have Martok avatar not steal, the house Duras chick can (but a lower chance to steal her HWP, but she has a lower chance to steal other turrets).
Romulan: THIS is were there is a problem, as stealing a singularity station shuts down multiple stations after a few shots, but if you steal their turrets you loose power after a few shots. If stolen rom turrets continue to get power from the generator then this works like normal, if not then roms will need to be done differntly.
Borg: No stealing dode relays, borg cant steal turrets. That or lower the crew for relay dodes before they deploy quite a bit so they can be captured if caught prior to deployment, and give the borg a hefty penalty towards stealing the turrets, or some other special method to be determined based on the borg rework.


That said I still think this is a bad idea, tho I got no problem trying to help improvei t.

posted on April 14th, 2011, 8:04 am

hm, sounds like an interesting idea. But, as Tok'ra already pointed out, I fear it is far to overpowered to be used this way. I could, however, think of it being a temporary effect, like lasting 15 seconds. that might be a nice special for something

posted on April 14th, 2011, 8:30 am

Or, as it is only useable on stations with no crew (As said in the first post), make it so that the time of reprogramming is about 6-10 seconds. That way, only certain ships will survive long enough to actually have a chance of stealing a turret (since those are the only ones with 0 crew I believe). If the ship is to weak to survive long enough, you could try to have other ships in the vacinity which hopefully will draw some fire from the turret.

In any case, only ONE ship may attempt a system override.
The success rate is always 100%.
It takes some time to rewrite the systems. Say 10 seconds (may depend on balancing off course)
A progressbar is visible for all to see the progression of the takeover. That way, the owner may attempt to destroy the capturing ship before it steals his turret.

This way, anyone can try to take over a lone turret, but the owner is able to steal it back from ya when you aren't defending it with some ships.

I can see some neat strategies forming from this.
Enemy steals my expansion mining and turret. He goes after something else, I steal it back from him.

posted on April 14th, 2011, 10:09 am

yes, i think that it'd be a nice idea for a temporary takeover. permanent would be a too serious hit for the enemy player to loose an expensive turret in a usually strategically important area plus then to have an enemy turret right in their neighborhood...

posted on April 14th, 2011, 11:59 am

The enemy will be able to take it back by using the same "weapon."

posted on April 14th, 2011, 12:47 pm

After he fought against an enemy raidingforce in his heartland supportet by his own tower(s)? Great idea.
I would say this ability would only not be op if the station is just shut down for some time.
And 10s to overtake is way not long enough.