Yard built Miners.

posted on July 4th, 2012, 2:38 pm

That's an interesting idea pretty much the same idea than I had just on a different approach.

I dont know if a disposable miner for dominion is necessary.... I dont know if the benefits would outweigh the costs.

This thing would be paper thin and easily destroyed but would also need a cost to balance the convenience of how quickly its built and its relative location to resources. I see it more as a liability than boon.

True but then again if one faction gets it all factions should get it. Imagine they can't build miners of their ship yards then they will have a hard time to to replace casualties compared to other factions.

Pro:

- Makes those long flight routes vanish.

- allows faster game play especially early on.

- removes the advantage for cloakers to hit valuable miners during their transit.

- Could encourage people to get more than 1 expansion in game. Cause 80% of the people online just go with one.

Contra:

-Makes raiding pretty much pointless unless you really wipe out all 6 expansion miners of them at the same time. Because casualties could get replaced to easily causing that the resource income rates for lost miners wouldn't be that drastic anymore meaning that it won't really affect the enemy economy in a long run.

-Removes the advantage of cloakers to hit their prey. You see that's a pro & contra. Cause cloakers especially Romulans need that advantage early on. Keeping the enemy economy down means he wont outproduce you any time soon.

-Allows certain factions to build less turrets than before. Could result in massive early fed rolls then again it also depends on the opponent if he allows that or not. So that point depends on the situation.

- Requires massive re balancing of game mechanics.

posted on July 4th, 2012, 6:12 pm

Pro:

- Makes those long flight routes vanish.

- allows faster game play especially early on.

- removes the advantage for cloakers to hit valuable miners during their transit.

- Could encourage people to get more than 1 expansion in game. Cause 80% of the people online just go with one.

Generally agreed, although I think the speed benefit to early game isn't going to be too decisive.

On that third point some maps, Duel II especially, makes it really hard to protect multiple expansions as the main base resourcing can be raided without contending with the starbase, and frequently the first good unanswered resource raid gains enough initiative to win the game there and then.

Contra:

-Makes raiding pretty much pointless unless you really wipe out all 6 expansion miners of them at the same time. Because casualties could get replaced to easily causing that the resource income rates for lost miners wouldn't be that drastic anymore meaning that it won't really affect the enemy economy in a long run.

-Removes the advantage of cloakers to hit their prey. You see that's a pro & contra. Cause cloakers especially Romulans need that advantage early on. Keeping the enemy economy down means he wont outproduce you any time soon.

-Allows certain factions to build less turrets than before. Could result in massive early fed rolls then again it also depends on the opponent if he allows that or not. So that point depends on the situation.

- Requires massive re balancing of game mechanics.

Firstly, I don't think it makes raiding pointless. Even if the miners are instantly replaced there's still the resources spent in rebuilding them as an advantage, and there will be lost mining time. Also, I think it's a plus that raiders -- especially cloaked raiders -- should need to hang around to kill 2 - 3 miners to make it telling. That creates a larger window for the cloaked fleet to be caught, something that is fundamentally a net positive as cloakers have a pathetically huge advantage in scouting fleet movements.

Remember also that tying up a yard with miner production means that it isn't being used for real warship production. This is no small consequence; replacing two miners is a minute out of ship production (90 seconds if my suggestion of having miners take 50% longer to build at a yard is adopted with this proposal). Hit that expansion a time or two after the miners are rebuilt, and you can put a significant dent into their ship production.

Finally, in the various replays I don't see Feds building many turrets anyway, so I'm not sure how much of a difference that makes. Fedrolls depend on the player being able to a) produce and b) preserve their fleet while managing to attrit their opponents.

posted on July 8th, 2012, 3:22 pm

How about light weapons on the miners themselves. We know from the series that merchant vessels carried some weapons mostly against space debris.

A weak plasma canon could be interesting on a miner.

posted on July 8th, 2012, 3:32 pm

The devs don't seem to like the idea of armed civilian ships, that's why the Newton was stripped of its weapon (well that one's military but it fits as a non-combat ship).

The guide has this under the FAQ, Gameplay and Features section:

In the Star Trek Universe, freighters and construction ships probably do have phasers for firing on asteroids. However, in the 24th century simply having a phaser without a targeting system does not win a fight. With Electronic Counter Measures (ECM), anti sensor hull plating and I-don’t-know-what (good references are that TNG technology block or the Dominion War episodes) a construction ship would not be able to target the opponent or even hit it. That is why civil weapons are ignored by Fleet Operations in game. The Klingons, for instance, spend resources on processor capacity and install small advanced targeting systems on their construction ships - and that's why these vessels have weapons in Fleet Operations.

posted on July 8th, 2012, 11:33 pm

The devs don't seem to like the idea of armed civilian ships, that's why the Newton was stripped of its weapon (well that one's military but it fits as a non-combat ship).

The guide has this under the FAQ, Gameplay and Features section:

In the Star Trek Universe, freighters and construction ships probably do have phasers for firing on asteroids. However, in the 24th century simply having a phaser without a targeting system does not win a fight. With Electronic Counter Measures (ECM), anti sensor hull plating and I-don’t-know-what (good references are that TNG technology block or the Dominion War episodes) a construction ship would not be able to target the opponent or even hit it. That is why civil weapons are ignored by Fleet Operations in game. The Klingons, for instance, spend resources on processor capacity and install small advanced targeting systems on their construction ships - and that's why these vessels have weapons in Fleet Operations.

i generally agree with this pov, fleetops is set during war time, civilians will be completely outmatched by war time tech. different league altogether. civilian captains would put all energy into shields/engines so they could get away, rather than waste them on a weapon that will just embarrass them.

example in ds9, dukat has a freighter, and they come up against a real common low level klingon ship, captained by only the drunkest morons in the klingon fleet. they sit still for dukat to line up his best shot, with shields turned off (guess they knew the dominion war was coming and shields wouldn't be used) and dukat couldn't even tickle them with his popgun. dukat had to take a gun from a base to hurt that klingon ship. the klingon ship was a warship, in a war. dukat's freighter was never a threat until they macgyver'd up something better.

posted on July 14th, 2012, 6:19 am

For the Dominion 's " Disposeable miner" increase its cargo capacity up to 50% but increase its load/ unload time to double a stock miner . Plus make it Nutered in its ability to switch to a constructor. Make it buildable from the supply generator. Building from station will shut down operations at that station for the build length+ a cooldown retool time . The same for the Klingons allow the refinery to "upgrade a Kbq to a miner , with a 10- 15% reduction in speed and 3-5% decrease in defense stats. and the upgrade is permant!