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Okay, the concept is exactly what it sounds like. I'd like to see Ensign station conversion kits for sale with energy credits and Lieutenant Commander upgrade kits for sale with emblems or cryptic points. These conversion kits would take an existing ensign station and convert it to the type that you just purchased and take an existing lieutenant station and upgrade it to lieutenant commander at the expense of downgrading an existing LC station to lieutenant.
The reasoning is pretty straightforward. The majority of ship types in this game are nearly identical with just slightly different ensign class bridge officer layouts. I'm thinking of 6 different escorts in this game right now, two of them have carbon copy bridge officer layouts and cloaking devices, two more of them have carbon copy bridge officer layouts diffentiated only by one having a really horrendous appearance and the other having one less console and a siege mode, the fifth one being 'unique' only in that its ensign is a scientist and the sixth one being a truly unique escort with a hybridized build that's only available from the cash shop.
If we allow players to choose what their one ensign slot would be, this would go a long way towards alleviating the difference in the number of options available to Klingon players, but it goes further than that because it opens up options for Federation players aswell. Back when I played on the Federation side I actually LIKED the way the Dervish looked. I was in the minority. But there was a significantly larger minority of players who disliked the Dervish look but liked the ensign engineering station. They played the Dervish and grumbled about it rather annoyingly and I think they now play Defiant-R's. Tthey would have loved the option of putting that engineering station on an Advanced Escort almost as much as Klingons would have loved the option of putting that engineering or science station on a Raptor.
Onto the Lieutenant Commander station. With the introduction of the MVAM Escort and the Vulcan Science Vessel who's name escapes me, we now see two truly unique hybrid ships. Truly unique if we pretend lumbering carrier's don't exist. The MVAM Escort is sporting an LC Science Station and Tactical Lieutenant and Ensign to make up for the loss, the Vulcan Vessel does the same thing but instead shuffles up an Engineer and down a Science officer. Of course these ships are revenue streams for Cryptic both because they're visually appealing and kinda cool, but also because they bring an interesting innovation within the existing game and almost tempt me to dust off my Federation Admiral and spend some Cryptic Points. But not tempted enough to leave the KDF. I however would be more than tempted to spend Cryptic Points if they added the option of putting an LC Engineer Station on a Garumba. Maybe it won't be as awesome as I think, I don't know, but I'd spend real money over the price of my subscription to find out.
The reasoning is pretty straightforward. The majority of ship types in this game are nearly identical with just slightly different ensign class bridge officer layouts. I'm thinking of 6 different escorts in this game right now, two of them have carbon copy bridge officer layouts and cloaking devices, two more of them have carbon copy bridge officer layouts diffentiated only by one having a really horrendous appearance and the other having one less console and a siege mode, the fifth one being 'unique' only in that its ensign is a scientist and the sixth one being a truly unique escort with a hybridized build that's only available from the cash shop.
If we allow players to choose what their one ensign slot would be, this would go a long way towards alleviating the difference in the number of options available to Klingon players, but it goes further than that because it opens up options for Federation players aswell. Back when I played on the Federation side I actually LIKED the way the Dervish looked. I was in the minority. But there was a significantly larger minority of players who disliked the Dervish look but liked the ensign engineering station. They played the Dervish and grumbled about it rather annoyingly and I think they now play Defiant-R's. Tthey would have loved the option of putting that engineering station on an Advanced Escort almost as much as Klingons would have loved the option of putting that engineering or science station on a Raptor.
Onto the Lieutenant Commander station. With the introduction of the MVAM Escort and the Vulcan Science Vessel who's name escapes me, we now see two truly unique hybrid ships. Truly unique if we pretend lumbering carrier's don't exist. The MVAM Escort is sporting an LC Science Station and Tactical Lieutenant and Ensign to make up for the loss, the Vulcan Vessel does the same thing but instead shuffles up an Engineer and down a Science officer. Of course these ships are revenue streams for Cryptic both because they're visually appealing and kinda cool, but also because they bring an interesting innovation within the existing game and almost tempt me to dust off my Federation Admiral and spend some Cryptic Points. But not tempted enough to leave the KDF. I however would be more than tempted to spend Cryptic Points if they added the option of putting an LC Engineer Station on a Garumba. Maybe it won't be as awesome as I think, I don't know, but I'd spend real money over the price of my subscription to find out.
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I don't do alot of PVP so my ignorance is about to show I'm sure, but I'm not sure how it would overbalance PVP. What would be the overbalancing direction to go, over specialization or hybrid builds?
If it's over specialization I'm pretty confused because with shared cool downs, I have enough trouble finding jobs for all of my tactical officers on my escort and all of my engineering officers on my cruiser. Again, this might just be my own utter lack of skill but getting a Klingon escort with an engineering ensign was a godsend to me because the tactical ensign on my Defiant-R was pretty much just sitting on his hands. Plus my suggestion wouldn't allow more specialized builds than what we see in the core KDF fleet with a commander, lieutenant commander and ensign all sharing a profession.
If it's hybridization that over powers, I'd ask if it was specific hybrid combinations that were over powered or just hybrids in general. If it's specific hybrids on specific classifications, I'd want to know if, between the Excelsior, the MVAE and the D'Kyr these hybrids were already represented in game and in what way they were overpowered so we could see if we can find a solution to recommend along with this.
So let's say you can switch out player stations and make your Excelsior into an Assault Cruiser, or an Intrepid into a D'Kyr...sort of...now; while that will allow anybody to play any ship they want to get the powers they want within some change here, imagine if you could change a LT into a LTC station....That could be any trainable or exchange skill...let's say TSS 3, EP2S 3, SIF 3, etc, just for examples. That would take a ship that was moderately balanced and make it into something that you would not be able to kill in PVP or depending on the ship would make it exceedingly more deadly.....
You would need some conditions placed on the station conversion like you can switch a LT to LTC but you lose a BO station...an ensign or something.....
Right, well, my idea with the 'upgrade kit' was to upgrade a Lieutenant station into a Lieutentant Commander, but at the cost of downgrading an existing station, so really it would be swapping an LC power for a different type of LC power.
It looks like two of those are engineering powers so these are examples of what you can do wtih the D'Kyr already? Are D'Kyr really that unkillable in PVP? Science vessels are not something I've played in depth so I don't really know but if you're going for pure survivability, would having EP2S 3 make a huge difference over having TSS 3? Is there a shared cooldown issue where you're able to more effectively stack survivability powers in preference to damage/debuff powers making a harder to kill but less damaging ship?
Or are we thinking about an escort with these engineer powers? Cause I know I'm drooling at the prospect of a Garumba with EP2S 3 but after weighing the loss of BO3 it seemed balanced to me.
You pretty much get a BO 3 with the ship in siege mode as it is. The D'Kyr can be made to be almost like the Vo'Quv but with the benefit of shields, and manuverability with the missing hull and drones....
While this may be interesting to a few people, I don't think that it will be given any face time being that it's a KDF idea...It has to be balanced properly and billed as a Fed introduced idea for it to get serious face time around here.....That's my thought on it.
Well, Siege mode is a BO 3 with a huge cost in manueverability and speed but you're right. My calculation is to trade my second BO 3 for the survivability of an engineer LC slot.
Well, there's no real balance issue for adjustable ensign spots. If you fly in the blue fleet pretty much any ensign station is available on any class of the core class of ships and that one power is always going to be more about flavor than about game changing. For the LC station I can admit issues might exist, but with cash shop ships Cryptic seems to be gradually entering that questionable territory any way.
As for the idea being taken seriously, the beauty of the suggestion is that it can appeal to Federation captains too. Admittedly they'd receive less of a benefit since they can mimic almost any bridge officer layout just by buying ships, but the satisfaction of picking your ship and then your bridge officer layout should be real for them too.
Yes, but anything that originated in this forum section is generally discarded because it came from the Klingon section...lol..unfair but true.