Troopships. Again.

posted on March 2nd, 2010, 1:34 pm

First, I checked back more than one month for any similar topic and found none. So instead of "necroing" a very old thread, I decided to make  a new one.

I've been reading the "experiments with assimilation" thread and did a little thinking. What follows is a reply I was about to post in that thread, but thought that it actually didn't belong there, and had the risk of being lost if someone wanted to further comment about troopships. Here goes:

All these assimilation suggestions brought me back to one of my "pet peeves": the inadequacy of TroopShips.

If Tavaras can drop 75 commandos (150 for Mijural) in one go, if Borg can use mass transporting specials (Auto-assimilator, Holding Beam and the Boarding special ), why on the NINE HELLS we have a ten troopship limit WHEN they can only transport three crewmen at a time, and BOTH "troopships" have such ludicrous amounts of crew to send over???

IF you manage to amass a medium fleet of Galaxies, you out do a Vutpa' or a War Frigate fleet both in the transporting capacity and in the amount of available crew.

Let's not put the scenario of 5 spheres using Boarding simultaneously. With 10, you can capture a Tavara, or reduce it to space debris, whatever you feel like at the moment. Hell, any Borg ship above Assimilator is an uncapped Troopship!

Taking into account any ship class with more crew than a "troopship" transports exactly the same amount of troops in the exactly same amount of time and it's usually better armed and/or armoured, what's the point of even having them, much less capped?

The implicit message those ships convey is "they are here for show, don't bother building them". Even if the War Frigate has that nice, but incorrectly placed, "IS missile" special.

posted on March 2nd, 2010, 1:44 pm

Well, I think troopships should be heavily armored and should be able to use some kind of tractor beam after the shields of the enemy are shot down. This tractor beam should hold the enemy in position and should also deactivate its weapon. Now you can initiate the boarding. Against a fleet of ships, you can use one troopship against one enemy, if you are able to shoot down at least the shields.

This would be balanced, because if you are able to de-shield an enemy, it is already dead - so you can capture it anyway. You only need a troopship.
An increased boarding ability by numbers would also be nice, so that you dont stay hal an hour to capture a destroyer.

posted on March 2nd, 2010, 1:51 pm

I'd vote for more boarding in FO

Klingons are amazig fighters and really should use their martial arts skills to their advance.
Romulans would surly send some agents over there to stab the enemies crew from behind.
Dominion should send over swarms of intruders, perhaps easier to kill but too large in numbers.
Federation ... well, we normally ee a small force going there turning the tide in unbelievable ways

posted on March 2nd, 2010, 1:58 pm

The dominion is in my eyes the party with the best close quarter abilities from all, standing aside the borg.

posted on March 2nd, 2010, 2:02 pm

But a klingon's pure will to kill the other is incomparable 

[Tyler]

posted on March 2nd, 2010, 2:13 pm

Last edited by Tyler on March 2nd, 2010, 3:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Though the Jem'Hadar are stronger, faster, never lose the will to fight and are entirely tireless. Jem'Hadar hyave the advantage over Klingons; it takes more than will to win.

posted on March 2nd, 2010, 3:28 pm

Well, the point was not a discussion about factions and boarding tactics...

We have two ships branded as "troopships", but in their current state, they are woefully inadequate for that role, both for their crew projection ability and for low available crew to beam over.

I agree that IF a troopship needs to drop shields in order to beam the crew to an enemy ship, it should be able to withstand disproportionate amounts of damage with its bare armor. Maybe not borg-tough, but descent-is-a-tinfoil-armored-wimp tough. Ideally, it should have balanced shielding and armor, but be able to beam troops without lowering shields.

I also don't like the fact that you can build as many Vutpa's as you want, but actually have ten with the "troopship" upgrade, so if you lose one troopship Vutpa', you can instantly replace it just upgrading another Vutpa', while the Dominion have to resort to the time consuming shipyards to recover any losses. Ideally, to equalize things, the War Frigate might be built WITHOUT the troopship upgrade and as many as you want. And you can have ten upgraded to troopships, but losing the IS missile in order to gain the troopship status. May be then we could also give the un-upgraded Vutpa' some interesting special too. Still, this part of my opinion is just a refinement, while the first part are what I perceive as serious flaws in the troopship designs that should be addressed as soon as posible.

posted on March 2nd, 2010, 10:27 pm

Troopships are meant to be a special thing in Fleet Operations but there will be some nice changes next patch which will make both of them more useful I think (and in the future... change how the Borg use boarding stuff too). I don't think there is any need to make War Frigate and Vutpa' so similar - why is it an issue that one cannot be "upgraded immediately"? I don't hear feddies complaining that they don't get a sixth Fighter Carrier like the Dominion does (and yup, the proto is quite nice for combat too). 

posted on March 3rd, 2010, 3:17 am

As I said, the real flaws in both troopships are the low crew capacity, the inadequate armor for their role, and their inability to drop more than the standard crew transfer rate. Tavaras make WAY more better troopships than the "real" ones.

The other points were only a suggestion to fix a perceived disadvantage the Dominion suffer over the Klingons. Usually, no one spams Vupta's in order to have instant replacements of lost troopships. Correction: no one "spams" Vutpa's. Period.

But the option exists for the Klingons. Also, the nice IS missile looks a little out of place on a troopship.

posted on March 3rd, 2010, 3:37 am

But I want an Iwo'Jima Class!!!

posted on March 3rd, 2010, 7:57 am

But I want an Iwo'Jima Class!!!

You seem to love the ugliest designs of ships

I think the Galaxy class without civilians would make a much better troop ship in times of war, because of plenty of room for boarding parties as well as lots of transporter rooms. The Galaxy is just very vulnerable, which would fit the federation overall nontheless.

posted on March 3rd, 2010, 2:10 pm

But I want an Iwo'Jima Class!!!

I don't want that eye sore back in. Too horrible even with the Upgrade Project textures.

Though if you are despirate for a fedy Marine ship. See if one of these could do the job.

'Fabrux' Class
"Free Mayson" Class Freighter
(Or at least that is what I'd call it, you can replace the cargo hold with troop bunks and weapon stacks)
Windrunner Class
Monygham

To me I could settle for one of those. Or another FO original.

posted on March 3rd, 2010, 2:12 pm

Interstellar Machines Iwo Jima isn't ugly...

posted on March 3rd, 2010, 3:38 pm

None of those ships are worthy of that.(i mean a freighter? really)

Maybe the fabrux class, but I like Ravens idea(even if it was a lil insulting to not only my taste, but to those skilled modelers who make those ships)

What about a klingon mixed-tech buildable galaxy Class, venture refit?  It could be armed with marines instead of civilians?

That would be cool, and please a ton of people, making it buildable.

[RedEyedRaven]

posted on March 3rd, 2010, 4:26 pm

Last edited by RedEyedRaven on March 3rd, 2010, 4:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Interstellar Machines Iwo Jima isn't ugly...

The model is not bad, but I don't like the overall design. Also it's too small to be a believable troopship.

Maybe the fabrux class, but I like Ravens idea(even if it was a lil insulting to not only my taste, but to those skilled modelers who make those ships)

I only mentioned the design to be ugly, which was basically the idea of the original STA2 developer-staff. Particular models from modellers were no part of my statement.


Edit: The buildable Galaxy is still not desired by the FO-staff and even a mixed-tech suggestion is futile with it