One Tavara Thread To Rule Them All
posted on March 22nd, 2009, 5:25 am
First, a bit of history.
It was good times being Romulan when you could pop out five or more Tavaras in a row. With multiple yards, it was possible to build a fleet of these quickly and they were all one needed to win. More importantly, if for some reason they were all destroyed, they could be quickly replaced with the press of a button. Warbird queues were reset, putting the replacement Tavaras first, because there was absolutely no reason to build anything else until the Tavara cap was reached.
It was demoralizing for the other player to constantly fight wave after wave of dreadnought-sized vessels that basically cost the same as a battleship. This was very unbalanced. To counter this, the team had no recourse but to reduce the total number of Tavaras so that they wouldn’t be constantly built and rebuilt as the bulk of the Romulan fleet. But even with a smaller cap, this still happens. They’re just too valuable and too effortlessly created to do otherwise. Well, what if they weren’t as easy as a sorority girl her first month at college? What if they weren’t as easily replaced?
Introducing the “Deferred Construction” game mechanic. Basically, what this does is create a cool down period before your next Tavara can be built, limiting their quick production. For now, consider it to be similar to how warping in a descent works. You get one descent, and then you have to wait for a period of time before you get your next descent. So in its simplest form, Deferred Construction allows you to build one Tavara, and in this example a separate timer then makes you wait eight minutes before you can build the next Tavara. A Tavara takes about two minutes to build, so total construction time becomes ten minutes.
I now want to go into why this would be beneficial, and get into how it could be implemented later. By limiting how often a Tavara can be built, all other ships gain more importance, pretty much as they do now. That eight minute cool down allows four or five D’deridexes/Norexans to be built during that time. Or maybe smaller ships would be built instead. What’s important to understand is that normal ships continue to comprise the Romulan fleet, with Tavaras having more of a flagship role when they are restricted in this way.
What I like most about deferred construction is that it carries with it new aspects that reward good game play. By playing well and keeping those Tavaras alive, a player over time can have multiple Tavaras, for now let’s say a maximum of five. With the change in production, Tavaras no longer become dreadnoughts that can be thrown at a player and rebuilt wave after wave. Losing them means it will be some time before they become available again. This helps promote caution on the part of the player, a very Romulan trait.
This also creates a vulnerability that can be used by opposing players. As it stands now, if a player destroys two Tavaras, he knows they’ll be back in a matter of minutes. With the new mechanic, each Tavara destroyed becomes a small victory, and means that it will be a fair amount of time before he has to fight them again.
With the wait time I have mentioned in this post, it would take about 42 minutes to even get five Tavaras (compared to 10 minutes to get 5 from only one yard like it would be now); the game could be over by then. As the game progresses the cap would mean more. Something else to consider is that balancing becomes easy. Tavaras too powerful? Lengthen the wait time. Not useful enough? It could be shortened. In short, I feel it rewards skill based play on both sides.
Also, deferred construction doesn’t interrupt or change the cost or stats of the Tavara. The only thing it does is make it take longer to build multiple vessels, thus allowing a greater maximum cap. Really all this does is add another cost to the Tavara: Time. In an RTS, time is a resource just like any other. It is the fire in which we burn.
How to implement
This is a huge post, so I’m going to cut implementation to a minimum. One idea I had was to allow a kind of warp in for the Romulans. Maybe the power core of the ship has to come from Romulus, so you warp in a cargo ship which docks at the starbase. A warp in timer at the starbase could control the time in between “cargo runs”. It would be unique from federation warp in, because it’s largely for effect, and not bringing in any warships. Tavaras would still be constructed at the Warbird Yard.
Maybe the upgrade facility has to make certain parts, and there is a timer there. Maybe the timer would act as research does, and while you construct those parts, it would use the research bar. I don’t like this idea as well because it keeps you from using it to research shields and weapons, etc.
Maybe the simplest option is to put a timer on the Warbird Yard. When the Tavara is buildable, the build button is lit up. When it’s not available, the button is not lit up, since it’s missing the time requirement.
Let me know what you think. If anything I’ve said doesn’t make sense or is confusing I’ll try to explain it. I’m just glad it’s posted so I can stop obsessing about it.
It was good times being Romulan when you could pop out five or more Tavaras in a row. With multiple yards, it was possible to build a fleet of these quickly and they were all one needed to win. More importantly, if for some reason they were all destroyed, they could be quickly replaced with the press of a button. Warbird queues were reset, putting the replacement Tavaras first, because there was absolutely no reason to build anything else until the Tavara cap was reached.
It was demoralizing for the other player to constantly fight wave after wave of dreadnought-sized vessels that basically cost the same as a battleship. This was very unbalanced. To counter this, the team had no recourse but to reduce the total number of Tavaras so that they wouldn’t be constantly built and rebuilt as the bulk of the Romulan fleet. But even with a smaller cap, this still happens. They’re just too valuable and too effortlessly created to do otherwise. Well, what if they weren’t as easy as a sorority girl her first month at college? What if they weren’t as easily replaced?
Introducing the “Deferred Construction” game mechanic. Basically, what this does is create a cool down period before your next Tavara can be built, limiting their quick production. For now, consider it to be similar to how warping in a descent works. You get one descent, and then you have to wait for a period of time before you get your next descent. So in its simplest form, Deferred Construction allows you to build one Tavara, and in this example a separate timer then makes you wait eight minutes before you can build the next Tavara. A Tavara takes about two minutes to build, so total construction time becomes ten minutes.
I now want to go into why this would be beneficial, and get into how it could be implemented later. By limiting how often a Tavara can be built, all other ships gain more importance, pretty much as they do now. That eight minute cool down allows four or five D’deridexes/Norexans to be built during that time. Or maybe smaller ships would be built instead. What’s important to understand is that normal ships continue to comprise the Romulan fleet, with Tavaras having more of a flagship role when they are restricted in this way.
What I like most about deferred construction is that it carries with it new aspects that reward good game play. By playing well and keeping those Tavaras alive, a player over time can have multiple Tavaras, for now let’s say a maximum of five. With the change in production, Tavaras no longer become dreadnoughts that can be thrown at a player and rebuilt wave after wave. Losing them means it will be some time before they become available again. This helps promote caution on the part of the player, a very Romulan trait.
This also creates a vulnerability that can be used by opposing players. As it stands now, if a player destroys two Tavaras, he knows they’ll be back in a matter of minutes. With the new mechanic, each Tavara destroyed becomes a small victory, and means that it will be a fair amount of time before he has to fight them again.
With the wait time I have mentioned in this post, it would take about 42 minutes to even get five Tavaras (compared to 10 minutes to get 5 from only one yard like it would be now); the game could be over by then. As the game progresses the cap would mean more. Something else to consider is that balancing becomes easy. Tavaras too powerful? Lengthen the wait time. Not useful enough? It could be shortened. In short, I feel it rewards skill based play on both sides.
Also, deferred construction doesn’t interrupt or change the cost or stats of the Tavara. The only thing it does is make it take longer to build multiple vessels, thus allowing a greater maximum cap. Really all this does is add another cost to the Tavara: Time. In an RTS, time is a resource just like any other. It is the fire in which we burn.
How to implement
This is a huge post, so I’m going to cut implementation to a minimum. One idea I had was to allow a kind of warp in for the Romulans. Maybe the power core of the ship has to come from Romulus, so you warp in a cargo ship which docks at the starbase. A warp in timer at the starbase could control the time in between “cargo runs”. It would be unique from federation warp in, because it’s largely for effect, and not bringing in any warships. Tavaras would still be constructed at the Warbird Yard.
Maybe the upgrade facility has to make certain parts, and there is a timer there. Maybe the timer would act as research does, and while you construct those parts, it would use the research bar. I don’t like this idea as well because it keeps you from using it to research shields and weapons, etc.
Maybe the simplest option is to put a timer on the Warbird Yard. When the Tavara is buildable, the build button is lit up. When it’s not available, the button is not lit up, since it’s missing the time requirement.
Let me know what you think. If anything I’ve said doesn’t make sense or is confusing I’ll try to explain it. I’m just glad it’s posted so I can stop obsessing about it.
posted on March 22nd, 2009, 6:23 am
posted on March 22nd, 2009, 6:27 am
posted on March 22nd, 2009, 7:21 am
posted on March 22nd, 2009, 8:54 am
Who says they will be destroyed ? I just build one tavara and keep it in my base until I finish building all 5, then make a new fleet with that ship that recharge the shields and go trashing enemy bases.
No, really, that ship is too powerful to have more than 2 or 3 of them.
No, really, that ship is too powerful to have more than 2 or 3 of them.
posted on March 22nd, 2009, 9:57 am
hm, a cooldown before construction boils down to most aspects of a long construction time.
Well basically the Tavara was not limited because it was to powerful - it was balanced in the v3 release - but because we just dont want a single vessel to be the bread and butter vessel of the Romulans. The Tavara was ment as a flagship or a command vessel rather then a fleet replacement, therefore they are limited now, we are happy with it and I don't think the limit will increase in the future. The Tavara will probably get some gameplay changes in the future, we want some special stuff for her, but that will take a while
Well basically the Tavara was not limited because it was to powerful - it was balanced in the v3 release - but because we just dont want a single vessel to be the bread and butter vessel of the Romulans. The Tavara was ment as a flagship or a command vessel rather then a fleet replacement, therefore they are limited now, we are happy with it and I don't think the limit will increase in the future. The Tavara will probably get some gameplay changes in the future, we want some special stuff for her, but that will take a while
posted on March 22nd, 2009, 11:02 am
Last edited by mimesot on March 22nd, 2009, 11:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
posted on March 22nd, 2009, 3:04 pm
posted on March 22nd, 2009, 4:32 pm
RFO Cairo1 wrote:this is honestly starting to make me kinda mad, everyone acts like the tavara is some kind game ending super ship.
Maybe because it is?
Nah, seriously. The ammount of Tavaras is just right. Nobody wants to deal with more of them, because it gets to costly. For a relative cheap price you get hell of a meatshield, a meatshield that unlike for example the Descent is in fact a threat alone.
Romulans where overpowered with the release of 3.0, so stop complaining about that they are not longer.
posted on March 22nd, 2009, 6:24 pm
Maybe I should have changed the subject title to “Please don’t beat me with a stick!” 
Before I continue I just want to say that I’m not going to be stressing this idea over and over. I have a lot of great ideas, but I don’t expect every one of them to get added. Once Optic posts, everything else is just purely academic and for fun. You guys remember fun, don’t you?!
I guess I need to explain why I posted this. I’ve been thinking about it for the past eight or nine days. I guess I assumed Optic and Doca wanted more Tavaras (hence why we got so many in the first place), but realized it was unbalanced and so had to restrict their numbers. So I got to thinking: Is there any way to keep Tavaras exactly as they are now, but increase the cap and still make it balanced?
I got the answer in about 2 days and spent the rest of the week writing the concept down. I’ve got about 6 pages and probably 25 hours of work thinking and writing about this. I’m not writing that to toot my own horn, but I’m just trying to explain that I have been a man obsessed.
This was a puzzle to solve and I love puzzles.
And I’m pretty happy with the solution I came up with. Now that it’s posted I’ll stop losing sleep thinking about it. I think Mimesot explains the construction aspect pretty well. Nothing would change in the way Romulans are handled, except Tavaras are slower to construct. I’m even happy with the lower cap that others have suggested.
One thing I forgot to mention in my post (it’s in my long pages of notes) is that this mechanic would be useful on it’s own. Forget Tavaras for a moment. Do you feel that kind of construction system would be useful for races like the noxter and iconians? Does it have merit on its own? Thinking about Tavaras may have started it, but the idea is bigger than just one ship. My only regret is I don't know how to write the odfs just to create proof of concept for it. I would love to see my idea in action.
Before I continue I just want to say that I’m not going to be stressing this idea over and over. I have a lot of great ideas, but I don’t expect every one of them to get added. Once Optic posts, everything else is just purely academic and for fun. You guys remember fun, don’t you?!
I guess I need to explain why I posted this. I’ve been thinking about it for the past eight or nine days. I guess I assumed Optic and Doca wanted more Tavaras (hence why we got so many in the first place), but realized it was unbalanced and so had to restrict their numbers. So I got to thinking: Is there any way to keep Tavaras exactly as they are now, but increase the cap and still make it balanced?
I got the answer in about 2 days and spent the rest of the week writing the concept down. I’ve got about 6 pages and probably 25 hours of work thinking and writing about this. I’m not writing that to toot my own horn, but I’m just trying to explain that I have been a man obsessed.
This was a puzzle to solve and I love puzzles. And I’m pretty happy with the solution I came up with. Now that it’s posted I’ll stop losing sleep thinking about it. I think Mimesot explains the construction aspect pretty well. Nothing would change in the way Romulans are handled, except Tavaras are slower to construct. I’m even happy with the lower cap that others have suggested.
One thing I forgot to mention in my post (it’s in my long pages of notes) is that this mechanic would be useful on it’s own. Forget Tavaras for a moment. Do you feel that kind of construction system would be useful for races like the noxter and iconians? Does it have merit on its own? Thinking about Tavaras may have started it, but the idea is bigger than just one ship. My only regret is I don't know how to write the odfs just to create proof of concept for it. I would love to see my idea in action.
posted on March 22nd, 2009, 7:15 pm
Yep i think your idea could make an interessting feature for future vessels or races, got noted down 
We are always open to interessting gameplay or balancing concepts from the community. I didn't want to finish this topic, its just the opinion of the development team at the moment, that the Tavara is fine how it is now (as a unique vessel) and will just get some changes here and there in the future, that will require some more work
We are always open to interessting gameplay or balancing concepts from the community. I didn't want to finish this topic, its just the opinion of the development team at the moment, that the Tavara is fine how it is now (as a unique vessel) and will just get some changes here and there in the future, that will require some more work
posted on March 22nd, 2009, 7:36 pm
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