Current Project Status

posted on November 27th, 2009, 12:19 pm

I liked the Draconarius... FO has too many special weapons and could do with a few 'run of the mill' ships.

posted on November 27th, 2009, 3:03 pm

I liked the Draconarius... FO has too many special weapons and could do with a few 'run of the mill' ships.

Ah, but without the special weapons, most ships would be pretty close to identical, as there is no boundary between "sea, air, or land" vehicles as in most other RTS's. I mean, what's the difference between a K'vort and a B'rel without the special weapons. One is just faster and less powerful than the other ... which means that you'd have all the more reason to spam your more powerful ships. Without special weapons, you'd be closer to A2 I fear.

posted on November 27th, 2009, 3:46 pm

Thats why I liked the classes that were used in a game called Empire Earth.  it was an rts game very similar to Age of empires (better IMHO)  any way, in around the middle ages, you could build frigates, cruisers, and battleships.  they were all large boats, and had a very specific cycle.  I don'r rember what it was exactally, but it was like this.  in a head to head, or even fleet battle, Cruisers beat Frigates, but are easily destroyed by battleships.  Frigates Beat battleships, but are destroyed by cruisers.  Battleships destroy Cruisers, but are easily destroyed by frigates.  now, this is a small circle, and could be expanded, however this is the kind of thing I liked, and would like to see in other games.

    Now there were also "arlitary" and "anti-air" , such as a missile submarine that could launch missiles at land but was easily destroyed by everything, and was slow.  but its "nukes" could destroy buildings in only a couple hits.  there were carriers, and anit air ships, but none of them had "Special Weapons", which I think are unrealistic to the trek universe.  I perfer passive weapons, and class upgrades, much like we have for the Norway and ships like that, but instead of giving it special weapons, it just makes it better suited to survive an attack from whatever the ship that can easily kill it.  you could also do this for each boat class in that game, but it took a while, and you could only upgrade each "subsystem, a set number of times, and could only select a small set number of upgrades for each game

    this would keep games balanced, interesting, and yet would allow for greater diversity among ships because each class is soo different from the others, but the ships within each class could be upgraded to be better than that of another races as well.

unfortunately that would require TONS of work and odfs, so I don't see it happening any time soon.


phew, sorry if I ramble...

posted on November 27th, 2009, 4:14 pm

"Special weapons" are used time and time again by the StarTrek universe - they just are called "re routing the phaser arrays through the main deflector" "developing a new anti shield technology" or "insert some technobabble here". The majority of the special weapons in FO have been seen in the Star Trek films and shows.

The kind of rock, paper, scissors game that you mentioned is not very conducive to fun strategies in my opinion - it's just boring because it relies on hard counters in order to balance game play. In FO we have soft counters so that players aren't immediately penalized for producing one class, or not relying on a specific vessel - it also promotes the idea of non-expandability and makes it easier to fully customize the tech tress. With a hard counter system, strategies like an instant tech up to Spheres or to Romulan Battleships would probably be completely useless, since if you pumped out the counter, they'd be immediately decimated. However, this argument has been done to death before in this forum.

posted on November 27th, 2009, 4:17 pm

If you want rock, paper, scissors, just play Klingon vs. Klingon!

posted on November 27th, 2009, 4:48 pm

Yeah, the 'special weapons' are common enough that Voltaire made up a song about it.

'The USS Make Shit Up'.

So bounce a graviton-particle beam off the main deflector dish, and embrace your special weapons!

posted on November 27th, 2009, 4:53 pm

If you want rock, paper, scissors, just play Klingon vs. Klingon!

Even that is not pure hard counters - well, maybe B'rels versus K'beajQ and K'vort versus B'rel (which makes the battle oh-so unforgiving), but K'beajQ versus K'vort was not exactly pure ownage - there was the possibility for the K'beajQ's defeat, even if it was ever so slight  .

posted on November 27th, 2009, 5:25 pm

I know it has been argued before, and I am not suggesting that all races use it.  I just think that we should have more base ships, and less super weapons.  more like the sabers weapon that, like you sugested re-routes energy, reducing other systems power.  even that doens't need to be researched.  I'm just saying that a battle shouldn't be changed by a single spwcial weapon, and some ships shouldn't rely on them to be useful.  we need some ships to just be good ships.

posted on November 27th, 2009, 10:27 pm

I know it has been argued before, and I am not suggesting that all races use it.  I just think that we should have more base ships, and less super weapons.  more like the sabers weapon that, like you sugested re-routes energy, reducing other systems power.  even that doens't need to be researched.  I'm just saying that a battle shouldn't be changed by a single spwcial weapon, and some ships shouldn't rely on them to be useful.  we need some ships to just be good ships.

110% agree with that statement.

posted on November 27th, 2009, 10:35 pm

Besides the current minority list of a few overpowered special weapons (which are going to be changed anyway), what special weapon does change a battle all by itself?

posted on November 28th, 2009, 12:59 am

The Nebula's sensor scan, of course!

posted on November 28th, 2009, 1:33 am

Are you sure you wouldn't rather mention the .. hm.. I can't actually think of a less used special weapon. Wait. Still thinking... hmmm... err.  

posted on November 28th, 2009, 1:55 am

What I think imbalances the game the most are the Chargh's combat tractor beam.  Or the C-11's weapon focus.  Those ships rely on those specials way too often for my tastes, and really change the outcome of the battle.

posted on November 28th, 2009, 2:05 am

Well, I must admit that I have used the ChargH's tractor beam on a few occasion's before - hey, I had to hold that Cube in battle some how (nevermind that all the other vessels were dead and I was just toyin around  )!  . Now the mixed-tech Newton's tractor beam... well, lets just say I had really hoped at the time that it would allow me to tractor out some of my damaged warships  . Darn those Newtons and their overpowered tractor beams! I mean, they are practically the best kiters out there - they make even Excelsior II's look wimpy. Heck, they even make it even more useless to build the Galaxy class (Mk 3.432) building!

C-11's weapon focus ... yeah, wasn't all that great, but 25% is 25% though

posted on November 28th, 2009, 3:47 am

Don't be talking smack about my newtons with combat tractor beams! >:(