Romulan Turret. Part Deux

posted on May 28th, 2010, 5:28 am

  NO Quacking!  By Quacking I mean pointless chatter about topically-irrelevant things!  What kind of G-string Janeway wore is NOT part of this thread  .

  Or is it?

  No, it's not.  This is quacking:
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  So there's been a lot of speculation in a number of threads over what could be done to make the Romulan Turrets a little more worthwhile.  I'm going to use my kollege-ejucation to set out a little list of why it works, why it doesn't work, and what could be done to stretch those aspects a bit.



  Romulan Turret:

Pros:
  Relatively Cheap
  Easy and fast to build
  Cloaks permanently with a Cloaking Gen
  Upgradable with Prefine

Cons:
  Pulse-armed (weaker as game goes on)
  Relatively low stats as of 3.1.2
  TOTALLY reliant on a Generator to operate
  Overall (with Generator), more expensive and less flexible than other races
  A MAJOR investment to set up even a decent defense for early game.


  So basically, in my humble (and awesome) opinion, the situation exists for the Romulans to have a very unique and interesting base-defense system.  I do feel, however, that it's a very cool 3.1.2 idea running inside an old pre-3.1 system .  I'd like to propose a few options for changes that I believe might make them Rommies a bit more useful with their Turrets.

  Each idea will come as a pretty little package .



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  IDEA #1:

- Generators NOT needed for Turrets to fire.
- Turrets MUST be within Generator distance to Cloak using Cloak Gen station
- Turrets gain a rate of fire increase with Generator

  OR / AND

- Turrets gain a passive that reduces the pulse penalty from 20/40 to medium/large to 10/20.
- ADAI is removed to lower the overall cost of the structure.

    RESULT:  You've got a cheap, easily deployable turret that will deter early raiders but can be boosted with the Generator to up the DPS a bit and make the pulses a little less worthless against the larger vessels of the Borg, Warp-ins, yadda yadda ...  The Generator is not CRITICAL, but to continue to have a use as the game moves on, the Gen will allow the turrets to scale up a bit.  Further upgrades from prefine or whatever could possibly help scale up as well .  Those Rommies love refits!

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  IDEA #2:

- Generator refills special Energy as it currently does.  Gen basically REQUIRED to function.
- Turret's overall stats slightly increased.
- ADAI is removed to lower the cost of construction.
- High Density Shield Generators added instead.
- Generator itself will have to be slightly decreased in cost.

  RESULT:  Same basic setup, but the turrets are both cheaper due to the removal of ADAI and slightly sturdier due to the stat boost.  Weaker than any Fed platform still, but correspondingly cheaper.  High Density Shield Gens will increase the lifespan of the Turrets by reducing a bit of damage from ALL sources at least a little bit.  Short ranged attackers will still be the best option.  The result of keeping the Gen needed to fire means that the Gen itself will need to be made a bit cheaper, as otherwise it will cause a severe knot in the setup of a remotely decent defense.


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  IDEA #3:

- Generator NOT needed to fire basic weapons.
- ADAI remains.
- Turret splits firepower between Torpedo and Pulse while powered by Generator.
- Shield regeneration GREATLY increased by the presence of a Generator.

  RESULT:  A turret here or there can still act as a simple and cheap deterrent.  Powered by a Generator though allows it's damage to be focused more against larger ships.  A corresponding offensive increase could be allowed without balance upsetting IMO.  Greatly enhanced shield Regen on the turrets themselves means that, while still overall fragile, they suddenly are more resilient until the Generator is dead, then they quiet down a bit .


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  IDEA #4:

- Turret Pulse weapons do NOT take special energy to fire.
- Torpedoes are fired at the cost of 25-50 Special energy per shot.
- Generator required to have meaningful torpedo damage.
- Without Generator, special energy regens VERY slowly.

  RESULT:  The turrets are fully functional without the Generator, but can easily be overpowered by larger vessels and "fooled" into wasting their torpedo firepower on a small ship that can retreat.  The Generator would allow torpedoes to be fired a bit more frequently, allowing the Turrets to have a later-game fighting capability.


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  ONE LAST idea that I had was another unique passive to go along with or replace that one I suggested in Idea #1 - the passive that reduces the damage penalty of the pulses vs. medium and large units.

  A passive that is unique to the Rommie Turret (like the Dominion Turret's extra to shields but less to hull, weak to pulse weapons ) could be a very neato idea.  A disabling effect had crossed my mind, but it would have to be a passive that would not STACK based on how many turrets you had or based on how many ships were coming at you (to avoid a single Borg Cube being simply perma-stunned by 5 Rommie Turrets ). 

  Something like:

"Weak to Torpedoes, resistant to Beams and Pulses"
"Weak to Pulses, resistant to Torpedoes and Beams"

You get the idea ... some kind of thing like that might make it more interesting.


 

posted on May 28th, 2010, 6:20 am

A couple things that I've been thinking about with the rommie turrets...

Projectile upgrade?  Basically mandatory.  Even if you ignore the range boost, the change to projectile seems to even out it's damage.  Yes, regardless of the -3 offense, I got superior performance out of the projectile upgrade.  It's still bad performance, as it took 9 of them to kill a Sabre in 6 salvos, but it also allowed them to make some kind of impact upon a Descent.

So, I'd honestly like to see something like this

Projectile becomes it's standard weapon.  With the addition of a generator, the turret is able to online an additional weapon of shorter range.  Preferably a beam, torpedo, or projectile weapon.

I think that alone (defaulting to a more useful weapon, and getting a boost to damage capability) would be enough.  As is, Mijural's ability to use the turrets for a few seconds without the generator?  It might matter if the turrets hit hard enough to be a threat.  As is, it's not a useful ability at all, and won't be without harder-hitting turrets.  The old bonus of Mijural's turrets being more heavily armed was far better.

posted on May 28th, 2010, 7:29 am

An idea that could be stuck on any of those is a passive that reduces damage taken from torpedo weapons, increasing its defensive staying power as the game goes on to compensate for decaying offensive power.

posted on May 28th, 2010, 9:20 am

the best idea which isnt going to happen is to get rid of the singularity generator, add a plasma bolt and add attack damage to the plasma bolt and the distruptor bolt, increase shielding and hull, loose the special energy or have it drain on cloak ability or remove the cloak and increase the price and construction speed. very effective and no complicated ideas about it. shame that it wont come .

the whole point in a defense station is to defend, if i cant do its job, why is it there? you would have better luck damaging a ship with small stones, out there is a space suit throwing stones then the station has at destroying a level 1 ship like a b'rel, saber or bug ship.

i would go with idea 4, just to give it some usefulness!

[Tyler]

posted on May 28th, 2010, 9:24 am

Last edited by Tyler on May 28th, 2010, 9:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

That's not the best idea, that's just you wanting to be lazy and not get used to the new design. As I said before, that would make it just a dull clone of the other turrets.

I agree with idea 4, though I still like the current style.

posted on May 28th, 2010, 9:30 am

ive never liked these turrets, the generator itself is an exploit and will never shift my belief in this. why i dont like the turrets atm is they are too weak!, its not lazy, its a matter of resource control. i wouldnt spend thousands of resources in defenses that are not gonna work especially once the generator is gone. where as i spend it all in ship building at least there is a chance i can defend it better or attack the enemy before they can to me.

posted on May 28th, 2010, 9:58 am

How on Earth is the generator an exploit?

posted on May 28th, 2010, 9:59 am

target generator shoot, destroy, turrets down.. need i say anymore.

[Tyler]

posted on May 28th, 2010, 10:07 am

Last edited by Tyler on May 28th, 2010, 10:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

And while you're attacking the transmitter, you have a group of Turrets and (often) a fleet of warships destroying your more fragile ships and thinning the ranks. Leaving your stronger ships more vulnerable to the enemies numbers.

The only time attacking the transmitter is useful is when you have enough ships to make the choice of target meaningless.

posted on May 28th, 2010, 10:14 am

The thing that annoys me is the enemy ships are actually forced to do this if the turrets are cloaked, the turrets don't do much to thin the ranks of the enemy while it's happening, and often a fleet can't get over there fast enough to save the one station.

posted on May 28th, 2010, 11:01 am

we will most probably stay with the current system and do not allow turrets to operate outside of an transmitters area of effect. yet, we do have some ideas on how to make them more fun

posted on May 28th, 2010, 11:55 am

I would prefer a mine laying function costing energy. As long as the turret has energy he will spawn mines like those support refits. I really really want a minelayer turret plz

[Nebula_Class_Ftw]

posted on May 28th, 2010, 1:58 pm

Last edited by Nebula_Class_Ftw on May 28th, 2010, 2:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It's Janeway's G-string, it can probably kill a thousand Borg drones/other threats to Voyager in 3.5 seconds  . Too bad the Romulans don't use that for their turrets.

When I play Romulans I just put a few cloaked ships near my expansion. Their my mobile cloaked turrets  :shuriken:. Romulan turrets are virtually useless. They're like Mayson's pulse turrets (compare the stats and range with phaser turret for Mayson, phaser beats pulse in every category), but weaker and you need a special building near them.

posted on May 28th, 2010, 2:26 pm

When I play Romulans I just put a few cloaked ships near my expansion.

Nice, so while you are staying there at your expansion, I will expand into my 4th Dil moon and make all your base belong to me.

posted on May 28th, 2010, 5:24 pm

we will most probably stay with the current system and do not allow turrets to operate outside of an transmitters area of effect. yet, we do have some ideas on how to make them more fun

  Good to know

  I think the current Turret idea is great, personally, it's just that the turrets are a bit lacking for the effort and resources needed to implement them correctly .

  Glad to hear though that you are looking to make them more "fun" as well