New special ability for veterans

posted on June 22nd, 2011, 8:22 pm

Emergency Warpout :  A short distanced, swift, escape mechanism which requires full recharge of special energy so that it is not entirely abused.  It could be used for hit and run tactics, skipping a line of enemy turrets, or just chickening out when your ship is on the brink of destruction lol!  There are probably many other possible uses for this special ability which I probably could have contrived if I had had the patience to fully contemplate this idea  , so maybe it could be implemented just to thicken the strategy of the game.  I do realize why the warp drives were taken from the game and I absolutely agree, but I think that this would add to the strategy of the game rather then limiting it. 

Any thoughts on this idea? 

posted on June 22nd, 2011, 8:26 pm

On a related note (I will go into detail why on my next post) is there a story reason why there is no warp in FO?

posted on June 22nd, 2011, 8:29 pm

i dont want to crush your creativity, but the idea is flawed imo.

currently veterans take loads of fire to go down, this would basically make vets unkillable, provided they dont use their specials. which is complete bargain for me. vets can take enough fire to let you use the special, then the vet lives every time.

so many different ways to make it annoying, the basic way would be any time a vet gets shot at in normal fleet battle, warp it away and it lives, and all that fire that went to it counts for nothing.

use it to raid with impunity, any time a fleet comes back to defend, warp away. and have the rest of your fleet attack somewhere else.

vets are hard enough to kill now.

posted on June 22nd, 2011, 9:05 pm

On a related note (I will go into detail why on my next post) is there a story reason why there is no warp in FO?

I don't remember seeing one, but it might be because the games are in areas too small to be worth it. It's much easier to keep a fleet together if they're moving slower.

posted on June 22nd, 2011, 9:10 pm

Insane idea it would make vets almost impossible to kill.

posted on June 22nd, 2011, 9:26 pm

On a related note (I will go into detail why on my next post) is there a story reason why there is no warp in FO?

Somewhere in the Guide it mentions that the devs felt it would be too easy to warp in, blow stuff up, and warp back out without the enemy having time to respond.

posted on June 22nd, 2011, 9:29 pm

That's gameplay, not story.

posted on June 22nd, 2011, 9:30 pm

I don't remember seeing one, but it might be because the games are in areas too small to be worth it. It's much easier to keep a fleet together if they're moving slower.

Okay thanks, I guess an ability using warp then could be called something like "Interplanetary Warp Jump" or something else implying "short" range and that it is too difficult for most ships computerrs/helmsmen to do.

posted on June 22nd, 2011, 9:49 pm

Of course this seems to be un-Trecky, but for an RTS game you always have to adapt the source material - in this case Star Trek - to fit the requirements of the genre. If you really need a “technical” argument, a Fleet Operations map is a sector. We rarely hear of any warp traffic within a sector or star system and as seen in one of the movies and some of the episodes, it’s also not a good idea to go to warp while being in a star system. If warp drive were that useful, nobody would use impulse drives. It is a weak point, but that's enough for the developers, as strategy always goes first - this is a game, not a simulation.

Of course, there will be and are units that have similar capabilities, like Transwarp

[davidusk2]

posted on June 22nd, 2011, 11:30 pm

Last edited by davidusk2 on June 22nd, 2011, 11:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

This ability would replace all that a veteran would normally have, so instead of having stronger shields and hull integrity, it would have an escape mechanism.  Also, this ability requires all of its special energy, so it would take quite a bit of time for it to recharge again.  And also, the less special energy that the particular veteran ship is capable of generating, the shorter the jump will be, thereby eliminating the problem of ships with less special energy to recharge jumping more swiftly than a veteran with a higher amount of special energy to recharge.   So the veteran would be just as easy to kill as it was before, except that you would have to catch it before its special energy fully recharges; and even then, the warp jump only goes so far, because of the extreme warp factor (hence "swift" warp jump), so it might not even manage to escape your fleet, if it is widespread enough.  So there are plenty of ways to kill this ship, it will just have an advantage, just like any veteran.

For those of you stating that a short warp jump would be too "difficult" for a helmsman to do, are you aware of the Picard maneuver?  Since this is a veteran ship, the helmsman should have sufficient skill.

Any more thoughts? 

posted on June 22nd, 2011, 11:34 pm

The Picard maneuver (the ship one, not the shirt tug) wouldn't work, all major empire ships would have faster-than-light sensors by FO time. The absence of those is vital to the tactic.

posted on June 22nd, 2011, 11:42 pm

The emergency warp jump would be used to escape a hostile situation, so it will take the ship farther than the Picard maneuver took the Stargazer.  Also, remember the Picard maneuver was an offensive move, meant to bring the Stargazer directly on top of the enemy ship, but this is a defensive move, meant to get [i]away[i] from the enemy ship.

posted on June 22nd, 2011, 11:47 pm

This is gameplay for fleetops, the faster-than-light sensors of the star trek universe would not be applicable in this game.  If it was, every ship would be able to detect the entire map and everything in it at one time, so the point made in your previous post is inconsequential in the fleet ops game, but it does make sense in the star trek universe itself, so you are right, in a way.

posted on June 23rd, 2011, 2:39 am

I do think it's a good idea, but I don't think it should be a veteran ability since as the others have said, it's very powerful.  I do think it would make a good idea for some ship...wait.

the ability already exists, it's called transwarp and can be researched for borg scouts, probes, and scubes.  Also the Mix-Tech rhienn can use it which is incredibly useful but doesn't see much action due to the expensiveness of mixed-tech.

posted on June 23rd, 2011, 5:22 pm

This is gameplay for fleetops, the faster-than-light sensors of the star trek universe would not be applicable in this game.  If it was, every ship would be able to detect the entire map and everything in it at one time, so the point made in your previous post is inconsequential in the fleet ops game, but it does make sense in the star trek universe itself, so you are right, in a way.

How do sensors intended to detect things moving faster than light speed affect sensor range? They're not the long-range sensors.