Special Weapon Limits

posted on October 16th, 2009, 8:37 pm

One thing that's bothered me since I've been playing FleetOps is the Special Weapon energy. To me, this doesn't feel all too realistic. Take the Intrepid, for example. I believe in Voyager it was mentioned that it carried only ten Tricobalt devices; this is not the case in FleetOps Intrepid-Class. Instead, you can use it, wait until the recharge time is back up, and then fire it again. Essentially, it has unlimited Tricobalts.

What I propose is this: Have some new coding that makes all projectile special weapons (Tricobalt, Shield-Breaking, Tetryon-Photon) have a limited amount of uses, say ten, for a nice round number. When these uses are finished, the ship can return to a repair yard, where they will be reloaded.

How's this work with you guys? 

posted on October 16th, 2009, 8:42 pm

Ugh, this has been proposed a few years back... and I think most people didn't like the idea of limited weaponry. I believe even the Devs didn't like it.

Personally I think limited weaponry just ends up making balancing harder on such big maps... also, I don't like it because it will quickly render some sorts of ships useless... and end up making beam weaponry very valuable. Even that should run out as anti matter isn't exactly common stuff.

Special weapon energy represents the commonness or rareness and also the energy taxing nature of weapons... most games have a cooldown of some sort to represent this--and very few have limited "tank shells" etc because of how much more difficult (and in my opinion, less playable) it makes the game...

posted on October 16th, 2009, 8:45 pm

maybe some ships that use special weapons which use really rare stuff that cant be reproduce in the ship can just get a special energy recharge that equals zero? with the addition that yard get the ability to reload special energy while repairing, this could make hit&run tactics more interesting in my opinion.

posted on October 16th, 2009, 9:04 pm

Well... supply costing special abilities sort of act like limited weaponry... in a limited way 

I guess the idea is that supply routes always exist.

posted on October 17th, 2009, 2:54 pm

Quite honestly, I thought this idea would have been a bit more popular. I suggested it because it seemed to fit the style of real individual ship strategy that FleetOps seemed to be going for. Having essentially unlimited reloads of a weapon didn't sit quite well with me. But hey, if the popular consensus says no, who am I to argue?

posted on October 17th, 2009, 3:08 pm

I guess you should keep in mind that although Fleet Operations tries to make every ship unique, the emphasis is also on how ships work together as a fleet. Thus, as I believe Optec has said before (correct me if I'm wrong), some ship classes can be spammed, but they will not be as effective as a mixed fleet used properly. Consequently, individual ships are still not the center of attention--it is more how they complement other vessels. I guess a game like Legacy would fit the type of style you are proposing, but I am not sure that Fleet Ops would

posted on October 17th, 2009, 3:18 pm

I guess you're right. I have played Legacy before (computer can't handle it all that great, had to give it up), and I suppose that this would fit better there than it would here. Come to think of it, I think people would find it incredibly annoying to keep sending ships back to the yards in order to keep their supply full. Well, it was worth a shot....