Rework the Sovereign for a different role.

[Quatre]

posted on September 28th, 2011, 12:04 am

Last edited by Quatre on September 28th, 2011, 12:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

Because of that I think about reducing the offence while it is active.
Also, if you force the enemy to split fire with sovispam, you will split most of your fire too. One Quantum of a Sovi is not that strong. And if it hits not the effect will not be activatet. So there is the possibility that just one ship is hit.

And the Sovis can't do it forever and they are far to expensive to spam them and to lose them.

If you mix your fleet with sovis with this special and other ships. There will be a point where you loose effency because you lose to much firepower to compensate that with the defence of the Sovi.

And if it is still imba you can still reduce the maxnumber of ships that are angry. I just said 5 because a Sovi fires 5 times from 2 different weapons.

I like the current special too. And I dont say that the Sovy should use it. It could be inactivatet in the alternativ fireringmode with a cooldown after changing the mode.

If I understand it right the federation will use more things where ships will interact or support a fleet with a special like the saber does now. This could be an option for the Sovi
A big ship that is trying to protect the smaller ones.

[Nebula_Class_Ftw]

posted on September 28th, 2011, 12:55 am

Last edited by Nebula_Class_Ftw on September 28th, 2011, 1:25 am, edited 1 time in total.

Disclaimer: I have not read the entire thread.

I think the problem is that we hav three big researches for Feds (one of which is freaking required by every strategy that isn't spam, wtf), so people just don't feel the need to go thru two more when the practically mandatory one is enuff.
Maybe if start at chassis 1, chassis 2 research cost same for Mayson as Risner, chassis 3 research time reduced, , Monsoon moved to chassis 2, Steamrunner buildable at chassis 2, and special research needed to get Teutoburg and Phalanx; then we might see more Sovvies. Also, I just know Dominus will say that Feds need to be slowed down at the start. I really think there are ways to balance them that don't cause players to hav a mindset of being stuck at the middle of the techtree nearly the entire game.
As for the Sovvie in particular, I think Ablative is fine, but the officer/veteran stuff is boring.
Its special seems not like something Starfleet would actually bother with, as they have fast ships and wouldn't want to bring their own nearby ships to a halt (and you just know the moment they figure out how to stop it from affecting their own ships the other major factions would be able to stop it in a few months, or seconds for the Borg). Really seems more like a Borg thing to do (they need to stop stuff coming at them and then they use it back, so they are probably a lot better at stopping their own weapons from affecting their other ships, and often have fewer ships farther apart so less worry.)
A more fitting special might be a stream of focus-fired quantum torps, like in First Contact. Maybe some engine disabling that goes along with high single-target DPS that would make the Sovvie be better at killing larger targets with its torps, rather than the small ship swarm killer it is now (isn't that what Defiants are for???) Also great synergy with the E2 if you're facing capital ships, perhaps even make them affected by the Sovvie's special so that they fire off an extra torpedo or two at the cost of a bit of phaser-power.

I did read a bit about some new special weapon or ability ideas:
I don't like specials that force targeting a particular ship. On a really good player like Boggz, it will be useless cause his micro is so fast that he retargets before you get your money's worth. A special weapon should give me at least an ok an advantage (I don't mean overall, but that e. g. I would probably lose a bit less horribly against Boggz) against anyone, requiring resources or good strategy, not just faster clicking, on their part to counter.
Against players who aren't as good, I can see them ragequitting from three Sovvies set off at just the right moment (oh nice mega-fleet you've got there, mind if I make them all target my tanking ship while my little ships blow you to bits?) This is less likely to happen, but the power of target-redirection in a game where units have very high health to firepower ratios, leading to massive engagements where you finally hav enuff to one-volley things should not be underestimated.
That kind of usefulness vs. opponent skill curve isn't what I would want to see at all.

Transporting abilities are lame, don't need more crew much except facing Assims (and I DO NOT want my assim rush counter being top-tier that I will never get to in time!) and if we try to bother with canon transporter info then we hav to contend with the ability to transport an entire Klingon ship crew at once onto an Intrepid-class (yes, Voyager...) as part of emergency transport procedures. Similar with DS9 and crew-swapping with a BoP. Please don't argue that the Sovvie having more transporters in canon means it should get cool stuff.

posted on September 28th, 2011, 1:54 am

I think that if we do have something that redirects fire at the Sovereign, then one thing it could have is reduced offensive power and increased defensive power. It wouldn't be the only ship targeted, but it WOULD be the highest priority one. To balance the ability out, the ship wouldn't HAVE to be targeted, a player manually controlling his forces can just target another ship. Simply put, it would force a player to pay attention and micromanage their forces better.

Personally, I think the sovvie is fine as is and not in need of changing at the moment, but this kind of ability DOES sound pretty cool, and I wouldn't mind changing to it

posted on September 28th, 2011, 3:52 am

Hang on a moment, I think I just read something brilliant.  Quatre said it, even if it wasn't his main point: The new feds are all about synergistic abilities.

What if attacks from the Sovereign could cause cover fire for ANY federation ship?

...okay, that would be a nightmare atm with the replaceweapon issues.  If those didn't exist it would be awesome.  Still, there are any number of fleet support abilities it could get.

-Each shot reduces the target's rate of fire for a few seconds.
-Each shot increases the damage the target takes from friendly vessels, cumulatively.
-The Sovereign adds 1 additional torpedo to each volley it fires at the same target, slowly working its way up to a stream of torpedoey death!

Okay, so the abilities are getting a little less support-like.  I like the idea of having a ship with super high defensive value, low offensive value but a special that allows it to deal heavy burst damage.  Something that will make it extra-worthwhile to use the Remore's targeting special on it.

Woah, I got it.  Okay here we go:

Flagship computing
In addition to its normal tactical systems, the Sovereign is outfitted with a number of computing systems designed specifically to coordinate the fleet.  This improved organization allows support abilities to be utilized more fully in the fleet.

Whenever a friendly special is used on the Sovereign, it is duplicated and applied to 5 other ships you control within a medium-range area.  (The Fed Support abilities are Fleet Supply, Emergency Power, and Vector Calculation.  Shield Reset does not count) This ability cannot affect other Sovereigns so no double-bouncing effects.

The Prime use for this ability will be Vector Calculation, obviously, making for a clear and beautiful synergy between the Remore's targeting computers and the Sovereign's command computers.  This will be the Feds' lategame weapon of awesomeness when done correctly.  Even the other two abilities could have some interesting uses.  The Veteran ability of the Sovereign could increase the range to long and increase the affected targets to 10, plus allowing abilities from other races to use the ability (only Order to Chaos would benefit much from this, but it would be devastating)

So? What do you guys think?

[Tok`ra]

posted on September 28th, 2011, 4:14 am

Last edited by Tok`ra on September 28th, 2011, 4:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

Teching up should not be better.At the moment there is no gain by adding the sovi to a fleet. No matter if in high or low numbers.

If I tech up I like to build a Sov or two, then pop the special in the middle of an action, either to cover a retreat or to prevent the enemy from running, or when trying to kill a diamond to get rid of the nanites the Sov is REALLY useful because you pop it's engines.

Now that the community has evolved to support much better raiding, the underpowered nature of tech-up strategies is becoming much more noticeable.  3-4 minutes without production is a huge price to pay when you're under pressure from a good opponent, and it's not as easy to pull off as you say.

Indeed, dom techs up and I'll just rape his base of all it's miners any anything easily killable, then for the fun of it slap a yard in his base and cycle ships as his starbase dies.

Tryptic, I like the synergy idea where vector calc's bounce to other fed ships, but I think that prehaps the Sov could get something else, prehaps it's phasers can target two enemies at once.

posted on September 28th, 2011, 11:54 am

For my idea I thought more about that the ships the effect is castet on not accept targetorders as long as the effect is active. The primary and only target is the Sovi. You can move them but they will shot at the sovi (maybe even if they are out of range to balance it for short range ships).
It is also a ability that would work better against fleets with a lot of big ships. Against small ships it is possible that only one ship is hit. Against sabers even 0 is possible.

Then Boggz can click as much as he want. He won't change the target.


@Tok`ra
I like the Sovi and its ability too.
But beside this special there is no role for the sovi in a fleet. She is a tank and a capital ship killer. But she won't tank and there are enough killers for feds.
I think the most people just need something to add her to a fleet.


@Tryptic
And they said my idea is to strong 

posted on September 28th, 2011, 1:03 pm

thats not true, adai doesnt mean the intrep does more damage to medium, it means it takes 31% less damage from medium. the intrep does base*0.5 to the sovvie.

so the sovvie takes half damage from intreps, and intreps take 69% (lol) from sovvies. but intreps have numbers and speed.

Whoops, my misunderstanding 

However Intrepids still do good damage against Sovies in my opinion, probably because their torps never miss on them. The numbers of Intrepids compensate the reduced damage quite well.

posted on September 28th, 2011, 1:57 pm

your right about the numbers, each intrep does bad damage, but you should be able to outnumber them. plus they do 31% less to you as well, so neither side gets many kills until very large numbers, and the intreps can raid, and have a turret killing special. the sovvie special will be the way they get kills.

posted on September 28th, 2011, 2:53 pm

Flagship computing
In addition to its normal tactical systems, the Sovereign is outfitted with a number of computing systems designed specifically to coordinate the fleet.  This improved organization allows support abilities to be utilized more fully in the fleet.

Whenever a friendly special is used on the Sovereign, it is duplicated and applied to 5 other ships you control within a medium-range area.  (The Fed Support abilities are Fleet Supply, Emergency Power, and Vector Calculation.  Shield Reset does not count) This ability cannot affect other Sovereigns so no double-bouncing effects.

The Prime use for this ability will be Vector Calculation, obviously, making for a clear and beautiful synergy between the Remore's targeting computers and the Sovereign's command computers.  This will be the Feds' lategame weapon of awesomeness when done correctly.  Even the other two abilities could have some interesting uses.  The Veteran ability of the Sovereign could increase the range to long and increase the affected targets to 10, plus allowing abilities from other races to use the ability (only Order to Chaos would benefit much from this, but it would be devastating)

So? What do you guys think?

Sounds like an interesting idea. I for one don't see enough of the Remore and I think this would be a great way to get it used more. It should probably be like 2-3 ships instead of 5 though, as 5 could be a bit too powerful, especially with the Vector Calculation.

posted on September 28th, 2011, 3:51 pm

the next patch will invoke major changes to all factions (pre-redo-phase) and i could imagine a new role for the Sovereign somewhere down the road. I cant guarantee its for the next patch, though

posted on October 13th, 2011, 9:31 am

NOTE: I POSTED THIS WITHOUT READING PG 2&3
I think sovvies should be a fleet killer to the point of being a game changer. you create a sovereign either as a last stand or a final blow. my ideas for Sovereigns
off:42 def:50 sys:20 speed:100 crew:500 for vet info
off:65 def:110 sys:26
Price:
Di:1000
Tri:300
Sup:30
time:110
and put the defiant's time down to 125.
Passives:Extra Energy Stores,Fast Tracking Computers,Ablative Armor Plates
Now this is a fleet killer, its A bit OP but you can nerf it a bit as long as the time stays more or less the same.
but a sovereign is suposed to be the elite of the elite, the ship that is the game changer, and its supposed to be very expensive. ok... you might say that the feds will be waaayyy OP with this, but still, you're not going to get this ship out unless you want to fix your position or when you're desperate. this acts like the Dom's mixtech or the Borg cube or the Rom's Tarvara.

posted on October 13th, 2011, 9:39 am

The common response to that suggestion would be that feds don't build dreads.

Not every race needs a dread.

posted on October 13th, 2011, 11:31 am

The common response to that suggestion would be that feds don't build dreads.

Not every race needs a dread.

Then why invent a sovvie in the first place?

posted on October 13th, 2011, 12:00 pm

Then why invent a sovvie in the first place?

the current sovvie isnt a dread though. you're proposing to make it a dread.

posted on October 13th, 2011, 12:23 pm

the current sovvie isnt a dread though. you're proposing to make it a dread.

WELLLLL............. It is like 10-20 years after Nemisis though isn't it?