So we could have a fighter that say, will drain some weapon power, or any other system? Would shields be part of this? And what kind of a number drain are we talking here? 5 points, 10, 15 etc? Would that also be for each individual fighter, or for the hole "wing" of fighters?
So if I let out a group of fighters, say 4 of them in a group. Would each fighter have a chance to drain a system, or would the group as a hole drain? Also would this be a chance to drain like a % chance, or a, when they attack they drain X amount.
1. Current internal iteration of the Kar'fi Phase Shift Aux drain is at -12/sec from where it was at -10/sec. This puts the full duration Aux requirement at around 75 (previous full duration Aux requirement was about 50.)
I know Cryptic is excited about making this new shiny available, but I feel like much of the player approval in this thread can be categorized either as indifference or begrudging acknowledgement about the inevitability of the change. I make this comment based on my own unscientific observations in this thread, but I am sure others will correct me if Im wrong. IMHO, I do not believe this power will help increase the Kar'Fis survivability. Id suggest a more practical approach (base stats) first.
2. After some discussion with Geko about some of the special ability console inconsistencies, we're leaning towards starting to shift over special abilities to universal consoles - this would include the Kar'fi Phase Shift console and, where and as feasible, existing and new ships' special abilities as well.
I am fine with this being a special console, just make sure it is restricted and balanced so that players cant eventually collect all of the c-store ships and configure their power chains such that they become untouchable. I think were on the same page here.
3. Considering making some deployables to be essentially cloaked until some point barrier. This could theoretically include fighters, support platforms, syphon drones, etc. Almost certainly not the deployable frigates and BoP. Maybe mines. The purpose of this would be both to increase the surviveability of deployables and also to reduce spam-on-screen. This could be instead of or in addition to a straight Defense buff to small deployables.
Interesting, but ultimately futile. Most of the PvP spam fests Ive been in have everyone smashing into each other at 7 km or less. Prior suggestions to reduce the number of deployable objects and adjust stats accordingly will be more difficult to implement, but also a better long-term solution. However, it also solves the underlying problem instead of attempting to hide it.
4. Looking into seeing if we can put together some special carrier AI commands including Escort (follow designated friend, attack what attacks friend) and Intercept (attacks, in priority order, torpedoes, mines, fighters.) Unfortunately, at least in any initial iteration, this probably wouldn't be on a hanger-by-hanger basis. Where this would really shine is with different types of fighters having a chance to proc certain subsystem offline results (not shields, but depending on the fighter type, Weapons, Engines or Auxiliary). So, you could set your deployables that can sometimes take out Weapons, for example, to Escort your healer.
I am very excited to see support for new AI options, but neither of the above will mitigate the current problem of pet kiting. If its possible, give us the basics first. If youre prioritizing effort, apply the pet logic to all pets first. You can get fancy later if time permits. If you give us the same control scheme as was used in the City of X games, the players can macro it up from there. I still have my Mastermind numpad control system memorized BTW.
Lastly, I think fighter subsystem targeting is probably a bad idea. Id rather see variations in weapons, base stats, tactical powers, and quality first. Case in point, I am already annoyed by NPCs who spam powers on me faster than my counter powers will recharge (i.e. Borg Shield Drain, Borg SubNuke, etc.). If pets get the ability to perform sub-system disables, the chance to proc is much higher than for a single player.
When can we expect any of the ship changes to be implemented/tested ? I know, it´s hard to say, but are we talking about weeks, months, years or even soon (tm).
When can we expect any of the ship changes to be implemented/tested ? I know, it´s hard to say, but are we talking about weeks, months, years or even soon (tm).
Hmmm..
Regarding spam
I seem to remember some missions Fedside where you have to kill X Groups of ships and X sattelites or whatever
These stationary objects cannot be targetted until youre at 5kish range.
Would it be possibly to change all fighters and mines so they are like this?
This talk of consoles has me thinking. I'd like to see the Defiant get a console back, to bring it in line with its Klingon counterpart, the Raptor. The Defiant has 3k less hull, and one less console in order to give the Federation a Cloak. I never did like this choice. Why is the Raptor superior in every way to the Federations Defiant? I bring this up because it is related to the consoling issue.
Defiant: 2 Eng Consoles, 2 Sci Consoles, 4 Tac Consoles
Raptor: 3 Eng Consoles, 2 Sci Consoles, 4 Tac Consoles
Defiant: Cloak
Raptor: Cloak
I think what happened here, is that in the mix of the Console system someone said 'hey cloak should take up a console slot on the Defiant', forgetting how that played out on the Red side of things. Raptor Hulls are better than Federation Escort Hulls across the board. This however is offset by a superior turn rate on the Defiant. Fleet Escorts do not get this same benefit, but then again they do not get cloak also.
I'm not suggesting a nerf to the Klingon side here. I'm suggesting that the Federation vessels be brought in line with the Klingons. Some people don't like this, but then again, the Federation is well known for having very precise Sensors. Maybe something should be made of that, or maybe the Defiant should get its Engineering slot back, and the Fleet escort get +3k hull.
With regard to Cloaking and all of that, I have to ask: Why don't the Vo'quv pets cloak? These are Klingon Birds of Prey flying out of the Hangar Bays. I've never understood that, and the same is true of the little fighters.
This issue of cloaking has also had me wondering why the General's Chariot and the Standard Class of Shuttle for the Klingons not also have a form of Cloak. Klingons love cloak, that's always felt wrong to me. Cloak seems very much part of their 'big game hunter' style.
Having more variations of hangar bays/pets on both the Vo'quv and the Kar'fi would be fantastic. I think one way to make things a little more interesting as well, is to put in more Hangar bays on both vessels but just shrink up what they can spit out, that way players can have more control on what they use, for both ships.
With regard to Cloaking and all of that, I have to ask: Why don't the Vo'quv pets cloak? These are Klingon Birds of Prey flying out of the Hangar Bays. I've never understood that, and the same is true of the little fighters.
The torps are an issue if your shields are down via shield strip/phaser proc/whatever. I've gotten hit by 12k+ crits from a Carrier's BoPs before
Yeah, but frigates would be normally visible.. I meant only the small spawns should be invisible at 5k+range.. Repair Drones, Fighters, Mines.. It could even be explained by adding a note in the description saying the ships/mines are designed to have a low sensor profile.. It would also make mines a tactical weapon you can trick people to fly into.
If we're talking about giving fighters power drain, we SERIOUSLY need to look at making the Siphon Pods and the Repair Pods significantly better at what they do. I've always wanted to run my Vo'quv with the Pods, but its never been quite feasible in large part because they're too stupid to evade, take too long to respawn, are too easily defeated, and don't do much to begin with. If you're going to give power drain to pets that can pile on significant damage, then the power siphon from siphoning pets should really do a number on enemy subsystems... These items were a really cool idea that I felt never got the fair shake they deserved.
This talk of consoles has me thinking. I'd like to see the Defiant get a console back, to bring it in line with its Klingon counterpart, the Raptor. The Defiant has 3k less hull, and one less console in order to give the Federation a Cloak. I never did like this choice. Why is the Raptor superior in every way to the Federations Defiant? I bring this up because it is related to the consoling issue.
The Defiant (like all Fed Escorts) gets more shields, and it has a higher turn rate. I think KDF players would generally prefer to have the Defiant than the Raptor (mostly because of the turn rate - an RCS console cannot make up for the difference, oddly enough.)
I forgot some of those points. But ya and i also hate the fact pets (to'duj/BoP's) will return to you after leaving "Red Alert." I hate that i want to be able to have them out as "an escort waiting to do my bidding" and only command them to return when i want.
If a person can use saucer seperation or MVAM to prepare to enter a battle i should be able to to launch the max number of fighter ahead of time
I agree with you on this.
I find it strange that The Carriers need to be in range of a target to launch there vessels off.
It takes me 3 min and 24 seconds to get 6 BOP launched off my Carrier but it only takes 10 seconds out of combat to loose them all .
I'd love to see the Carriers get more customization options like being able to drop a hanger bay to add more weapons or a cloaking device.
I forgot some of those points. But ya and i also hate the fact pets (to'duj/BoP's) will return to you after leaving "Red Alert." I hate that i want to be able to have them out as "an escort waiting to do my bidding" and only command them to return when i want.
If a person can use saucer seperation or MVAM to prepare to enter a battle i should be able to to launch the max number of fighter ahead of time
I find it strange that The Carriers need to be in range of a target to launch there vessels off.
It takes me 3 min and 24 seconds to get 6 BOP launched off my Carrier but it only takes 10 seconds out of combat to loose them all .
I'd love to see the Carriers get more customization options like being able to drop a hanger bay to add more weapons or a cloaking device.
Ya and the same needs to be for Science Officrs Photonic Fleet.
And to anyone who says letting sci officer do that would mean PF even combined with MVAM would be over powered don't even start the whining/crying because if u let MVAM and PF fight eachnother not intervention from player MVAM wins
I think it would be cool if one wing of fighters could be out at all times sort of flying a cap for the carrier. When you get within 15 you could start to launch the other wings per the norm and when out of combat all but the "cap" would return to the hangers.
I fly a Kar'fi now as an eng and it is definitely a powerful ship. I think the idea of fewer but more powerful fighters is a great idea. I think the ideas for the other changes to the Kar'fi are in line as well. Another hangerbay and a 2 min oh **** button are not something that would make it that unbalanced. The only issue I see with less Kar'fi fighters is that they blow themselves up :P perhaps if they ram they could reduce the cooldown on that hanger by a couple seconds?
Kor
I.K.S. Rock Lobster (I really should change the name)
If you really want to increase the survivability of the Kar'fi it's actually quite simple, just give it more hull. doesn't anyone else find it odd that a carrier has less hull than the the Vor'cha refit? It only has like 1500 more than the T5 raptor. A gimmicky phase cloak that will take up a console slot and drain your Aux looks more like a handicap, almost all it's heals are science and with no aux, no heals and more time to launch pets. So you hit your "oh TRIBBLE" button then come out without the ability to protect yourself. Just doesn't look like the answer. I will gladly take another launch bay though.
I did skip a bunch in the middle of this thread so sorry if I brought up something that has already been talked about. I just think it's not the answer, more hull is. The simplest solution is generally the best one.
when you think about it, boosting the fighters stats but takeing some away is a nerf. fighters are only good in large pack as you have to shoot 1 at a time.
the best thing about fighters are their mini torps. they do a lot to enemy shields as their are a lot of them and the cannons do allmost nothing. if you have 1 fighter in the place of 3 you get better dps but overall you lose much more firepower.
think about what you would wont, 6 torps hiting a shield or 18 mini torps hiting the shield. a fighter has what? 3k hull? so 3k x 3 = 9k. a FF ship has about 12k and in my carrier i can take them out in 3 sec so how long do you think a fighter with 9k will really last?
I will probably be throwing out a few more threads like this over the next month or so as we go through and tweak a bunch of ship issues. Some of things we are working on we aren't ready to talk about yet, but we can certainly start to talk about some of the balance issues.
VERY IMPORTANT: If you don't see us ask specifically about something, please do not assume that we don't care about it or aren't aware of it. There are a number of restrictions to what we can and can't do - the usual suspects like schedule and technical issues (which, for example, is holding up the irritating-as-hell HoT issue with the Enhanced Battle Cloak), but others have to do with other things happening that we can't talk about.
Also, and almost as important, everybody has different opinions on what direction they want to see the game or specific ships go in, and there's no way we can make everyone happy. What we can do is listen to the feedback and balance that with what we can do and what other longer term plans are working under the hood.
With all of that out of the way, let's get on to some things we're thinking about regarding carriers in general and the Kar'fi in particular.
Carriers
Some people love them, some people hate them. Some people think they are reasonable in the IP, some don't. For the forseeable future we do see a role for them to play in the KDF. Similarly, we do not currently have any plans to give carriers to the Federation.
Fighters
I almost titled this "Spam", but my professionalism won out this time (barely). Right now, fighters die too fast, yet there are, frankly, too many on the screen for performance and targeting purposes. There are some user interface issues that I think are the biggest problem here, but in parallel I think there is some benefit to simply cutting down the sheer number of fighters, but making them more effective individually.
Controls
This is being looked into. This is, unfortunately, a very meaty problem that is going to be expensive to address; user interface changes are not cheap. That being said, we are seeing if there are some things we can do to ease things a bit in the mid-term.
Vo'quv
There seems to be a split in opinion as to - after FAW is dealt a swift slap in the face, of course - whether the Vo'quv is fine or not. It is an incredibly beefy ship with a really nice bridge officer seating, and this makes it tough to take down without coordination or tactics. That being said, right now we're leaning towards leaving it alone for the moment, at least until we see the effect the FAW fix and the above-mentioned fighter thinning-out have.
Lower-Tier Carriers
This is currently under consideration.
Kar'fi
The Kar'fi is a bit of a problem child. It has a very aggressive bridge officer seating, but its turn rate is what you would expect from a large carrier. Combined with the lack of a cloak, this makes it relatively fragile. On top of this, although it has four forward weapon slots, this puts it in the awkward position of whether to devote more power to Weapons or more power to Auxiliary.
To this end, we are considering the following changes:
1. Adding a second hanger bay.
2. Adding a Kar-fi-only Science console with a power called Phase Shift based off of the Fek'ihri escort NPC currently in the game. This console would come with the ship. If we do this, existing Kar'fi would be given this console for free.
3. Modifying the fighters (only) to give them increased maneuverability to improve their attempts to kamikaze, since right now they miss far too frequently - which sometimes also leads to AI issues.
Becomes untargetable (you actually lose targeting lock on it)
Gains stealth against ships roughly outside of normal combat range
Can move freely through other ships
Cannot launch fighters or frigates
Cannot use torpedos or mines
It would still be able to use other powers (including heals and beams), but this would be intended to provide an emergency reprieve capability to at least partially compensate for the lack of high level Engineering bridge officer slots.
The intent would be for the Kar'fi to be a very aggressive carrier - but definitely a carrier - that is more maneuverable than the Vo'quv, but with less ability to survive serious punishment.
Opinions and feedback are welcome, but please keep it productive.
Personally i think the klingons have been dealt enouh nerfs in the ship department and this post is an insult. I dont see why you feel the need to take action against klingon ship and comes back to my suspicion the cryptic place more priority on bad feedback from complainers than those who actually play the game. All i can say is im disappointed and will seriously consider not bothering with STO should meaningless stupid changes get pushed through.
Personally i think the klingons have been dealt enouh nerfs in the ship department and this post is an insult. I dont see why you feel the need to take action against klingon ship and comes back to my suspicion the cryptic place more priority on bad feedback from complainers than those who actually play the game. All i can say is im disappointed and will seriously consider not bothering with STO should meaningless stupid changes get pushed through.
Where are you reading "nerf" in there??! I think you're overreacting.
Personally i think the klingons have been dealt enouh nerfs in the ship department and this post is an insult. I dont see why you feel the need to take action against klingon ship and comes back to my suspicion the cryptic place more priority on bad feedback from complainers than those who actually play the game. All i can say is im disappointed and will seriously consider not bothering with STO should meaningless stupid changes get pushed through.
I don't see nerfing. I see Devs considering adding a second bay to the Kar'fi. \m/ Go devs, give my favorite ship some lovins'!
Ok lets refocus to the positive! I believe Andrew_Harnaman just jumped to wrong conclusion about nerf and over reacted a little. For the most part this thread has done well with some great ideas that will help out the carrier pilots. Overall this a great thing as the Dev team is looking at issues and trying to improve the carrier ship classes. It would be nice to see a post from the Dev team on that they want to do now after taking in all the feedback.
The Phase Shift seems alright on paper, but -12 aux per second... ouch. If you depend on heal skills which require aux to use, and phase shift drains your aux... even in phase shift you won't get much healing done probably. Would have to see how that'd work on Tribble me guesses.
Comments
So if I let out a group of fighters, say 4 of them in a group. Would each fighter have a chance to drain a system, or would the group as a hole drain? Also would this be a chance to drain like a % chance, or a, when they attack they drain X amount.
Lastly, I think fighter subsystem targeting is probably a bad idea. Id rather see variations in weapons, base stats, tactical powers, and quality first. Case in point, I am already annoyed by NPCs who spam powers on me faster than my counter powers will recharge (i.e. Borg Shield Drain, Borg SubNuke, etc.). If pets get the ability to perform sub-system disables, the chance to proc is much higher than for a single player.
Hmmm..
Regarding spam
I seem to remember some missions Fedside where you have to kill X Groups of ships and X sattelites or whatever
These stationary objects cannot be targetted until youre at 5kish range.
Would it be possibly to change all fighters and mines so they are like this?
That's a really neat idea, but don't fighters have an effective range greater than 5k?
It would stink to be shot at without being able to shoot back. The stationary objects don't have that issue; as far as I know they don't shoot at you.
Maybe it would work for mines, as long as they don't home in on anything farther than 5k.
I have no idea why you quoted me, I didn´t spam anything nor was I talking about spam.
Wrong post quoted, sorry.
And just for clearification, "spam" in my post refer to massuse of fighters and mines"
Mmm.. Perhaps.. But consider..
Outside 5k range, the fighters cannondamage are even more trivial than at PB range. And the torps aint a huge concern either..
It would cut down the onscreen clutter, which is the main "problem" with mines/fighters.. Then all that is needed is some sort of petcontrol..
That way you could have them attack a target, and clutter their targetting, instead of just spamming and cluttering for every person in range.
The torps are an issue if your shields are down via shield strip/phaser proc/whatever. I've gotten hit by 12k+ crits from a Carrier's BoPs before
Defiant: 30,000 Hull
Raptor: 33,000 Hull
Defiant: 2 Device Slots
Raptor: 2 Device Slots
Defiant: 17 deg turn / 70 Inertia
Raptor: 15 deg turn / 60 Inertia
Defiant & Raptor = Same Bridge Officer Slotting
Defiant: 2 Eng Consoles, 2 Sci Consoles, 4 Tac Consoles
Raptor: 3 Eng Consoles, 2 Sci Consoles, 4 Tac Consoles
Defiant: Cloak
Raptor: Cloak
I think what happened here, is that in the mix of the Console system someone said 'hey cloak should take up a console slot on the Defiant', forgetting how that played out on the Red side of things. Raptor Hulls are better than Federation Escort Hulls across the board. This however is offset by a superior turn rate on the Defiant. Fleet Escorts do not get this same benefit, but then again they do not get cloak also.
I'm not suggesting a nerf to the Klingon side here. I'm suggesting that the Federation vessels be brought in line with the Klingons. Some people don't like this, but then again, the Federation is well known for having very precise Sensors. Maybe something should be made of that, or maybe the Defiant should get its Engineering slot back, and the Fleet escort get +3k hull.
This issue of cloaking has also had me wondering why the General's Chariot and the Standard Class of Shuttle for the Klingons not also have a form of Cloak. Klingons love cloak, that's always felt wrong to me. Cloak seems very much part of their 'big game hunter' style.
Having more variations of hangar bays/pets on both the Vo'quv and the Kar'fi would be fantastic. I think one way to make things a little more interesting as well, is to put in more Hangar bays on both vessels but just shrink up what they can spit out, that way players can have more control on what they use, for both ships.
The BoP pets do cloak.
Yeah, but frigates would be normally visible.. I meant only the small spawns should be invisible at 5k+range.. Repair Drones, Fighters, Mines.. It could even be explained by adding a note in the description saying the ships/mines are designed to have a low sensor profile.. It would also make mines a tactical weapon you can trick people to fly into.
I agree with you on this.
I find it strange that The Carriers need to be in range of a target to launch there vessels off.
It takes me 3 min and 24 seconds to get 6 BOP launched off my Carrier but it only takes 10 seconds out of combat to loose them all
I'd love to see the Carriers get more customization options like being able to drop a hanger bay to add more weapons or a cloaking device.
Ya and the same needs to be for Science Officrs Photonic Fleet.
And to anyone who says letting sci officer do that would mean PF even combined with MVAM would be over powered don't even start the whining/crying because if u let MVAM and PF fight eachnother not intervention from player MVAM wins
I fly a Kar'fi now as an eng and it is definitely a powerful ship. I think the idea of fewer but more powerful fighters is a great idea. I think the ideas for the other changes to the Kar'fi are in line as well. Another hangerbay and a 2 min oh **** button are not something that would make it that unbalanced. The only issue I see with less Kar'fi fighters is that they blow themselves up :P perhaps if they ram they could reduce the cooldown on that hanger by a couple seconds?
Kor
I.K.S. Rock Lobster (I really should change the name)
I did skip a bunch in the middle of this thread so sorry if I brought up something that has already been talked about. I just think it's not the answer, more hull is. The simplest solution is generally the best one.
the best thing about fighters are their mini torps. they do a lot to enemy shields as their are a lot of them and the cannons do allmost nothing. if you have 1 fighter in the place of 3 you get better dps but overall you lose much more firepower.
think about what you would wont, 6 torps hiting a shield or 18 mini torps hiting the shield. a fighter has what? 3k hull? so 3k x 3 = 9k. a FF ship has about 12k and in my carrier i can take them out in 3 sec so how long do you think a fighter with 9k will really last?
Ya I really love this seeing the player base come together to get things working better is really great!
Personally i think the klingons have been dealt enouh nerfs in the ship department and this post is an insult. I dont see why you feel the need to take action against klingon ship and comes back to my suspicion the cryptic place more priority on bad feedback from complainers than those who actually play the game. All i can say is im disappointed and will seriously consider not bothering with STO should meaningless stupid changes get pushed through.
Where are you reading "nerf" in there??! I think you're overreacting.
I don't see nerfing. I see Devs considering adding a second bay to the Kar'fi. \m/ Go devs, give my favorite ship some lovins'!