Shuttlecrafts

posted on January 1st, 2012, 10:13 pm

I'm wondering if shuttles have ever been considered? Something like the delta flyer would be cool, it could have great speed and manoeuvrability.

posted on January 1st, 2012, 10:19 pm

The only shuttles likely to be used in a full-scale fight are attack shuttles and Runabouts, both of which are present as fighters and the Venture Class scout (and their counterparts for other races).

Regular shuttles can be seen flying around stations, though.

posted on January 1st, 2012, 10:46 pm

The only shuttles likely to be used in a full-scale fight are attack shuttles and Runabouts, both of which are present as fighters and the Venture Class scout (and their counterparts for other races).

Penegrine and raiders  =/= shuttles/runabouts. In FO terms a shuttle would have less stats than a spawned fighter from a carrier. Not really worth it IMO.

However, combined with a previous suggestion for looting/raiding a shuttle/runabout with some limited cargo space can be interesting.

Regular shuttles can be seen flying around stations, though.

Probably more  like worker bees or maintenance pods. Never zoomed in close enough to take a look at them though.

posted on January 1st, 2012, 10:54 pm

I really don't think the delta flyer would ever be mass produced. I mean it was scrounged together from whatever the crew found in the Delta Quadrant, I doubt it's an efficient design.

[Tyler]

posted on January 1st, 2012, 11:01 pm

Last edited by Tyler on January 1st, 2012, 11:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Penegrine and raiders  =/= shuttles/runabouts. In FO terms a shuttle would have less stats than a spawned fighter from a carrier. Not really worth it IMO.

Fighters are shuttles with more weapons and heavier shields than the norm, that's why I specified attack shuttles as in ones designed for that purpose. The Runabout bit was the Venture Class scouts.

Probably more  like worker bees or maintenance pods. Never zoomed in close enough to take a look at them though.

Oh yeah, they were shuttles in a previous version... they were replaced with Workers, even on stations where it makes more sense with regular Shuttles.

posted on January 1st, 2012, 11:07 pm

Zeich did make a type 9 shuttle model...

posted on January 1st, 2012, 11:53 pm

Fighters are shuttles with more weapons and heavier shields than the norm, that's why I specified attack shuttles as in ones designed for that purpose. The Runabout bit was the Venture Class scouts.

How about the suggestion about using shuttles/runabouts with limited cargo space for raiding?

posted on January 2nd, 2012, 12:36 am

Fighters are one shot / one kill usually. A shuttle would be even more fragile. I always thought a ranked ship could drop one on death with officers. If one of your ships gets to it, instant rank! if the enemy gets to it, small pfft and little itty bitty fireball. 

posted on January 2nd, 2012, 1:15 am

There's no possible use for an independent unit that dies in one hit, doubly so when its only purpose is so that we can say: "Oh yeah, we added that." We have scouts, fighters, and station traffic. This is absolutely sufficient in the small craft department.

posted on January 2nd, 2012, 4:06 am

GO MY FLEETS OF ONE HIT WONDER SHUTTLES, GO RAID MINE ENEMY!
*all of them are obliterated by a single Plasma Coil shot, they all fire once and do 5 damage total to a miner*
...Maybe I should hav considered other battle strategies that do not involve space versions of pikkup trukks going into enemy territory.

Delta Flyer would be hardier, it might take a full three pulses from a B'rel to die.

posted on January 2nd, 2012, 12:42 pm

Or 4 torp-hits from a diamond with hero-bonus. Just transfer a little bit of life-support to raise the shield-output by 5000%.  If you then put out the navigational lights and transfer it to the weapons, you could kill a tac-cube, right? 

posted on January 2nd, 2012, 1:17 pm

delta flyer had plot armour to protect it from the borg queen

can't build plot armour.

posted on January 2nd, 2012, 1:18 pm

Why the ridicule. A danube or delta flyer would have specs between a fighter and saber/rhien.

With a small cargo hold and avoidance they could be interesting mining raiders/looters. Sure it is ill advised to have them go up against medium sized vessels, but a 1 shot one kill is not what we've seen in the series either.

In the FO game the spawned fighters are weak simply to preserve balance, but a buildable runabout class could have a nice usage ingame.

posted on January 2nd, 2012, 1:24 pm

i'd put danuabe at just under fighter specs, the maquis homebrew fighters seemed on par with the danubes, so military grade fighters should just about edge the danube.

the delta flyer is odd, it seemed big enough to be compared to a danube just about. but it also had borg influence from the very start of the design process, so it could be stronger than size would indicate. also keep in mind that the delta flyer was a one off thing, not mass produced, they could put in high spec high cost parts for the one delta flyer they made. danubes and fighters are mass produced, so a budget would be worth thinking about.

fighters in canon died in 1 hit from a galor's secondary beam weapons.

posted on January 2nd, 2012, 1:51 pm

Well, to ut it straight:
The specs of a fighter wont be over a defense value of 3 or 4, the offense value not over 5 and the sys-value would be 2 at max.

I think in this way, it would be nice to deploy shuttles as a secondary "helper" in the range of your starbase, that might attack ships outside the weapons-range of the sb itself. But to say it like mentioned above: Those ships cant do really well against a real attack force, so they only help you in the very early game, when you are attacked by 2 or max. 3 ships.

I also think, that we need an increased amount of fighters for the carriers. The fed-carrier is really ineffective right now, because it dies so fast and the fighters dont put out the damage in order to make them worth. The dominion fighter carrier is a little better, because he can sustain itself even without those fighters, but for a carrier, the fighters must be the "primary" attack. So, if those fighters would do... lets say 35 damage while having 5 per fighter, we have 7 fighters/carrier.