NPC Ship Weapons ? Diversity

jothan9092

This is mostly something for Cryptic to consider and is not a negative comment towards them. Just something that makes sense in my mind.

Shortly after the release of the playable Cardassian Galor, with its Spiral Wave Disruptors, all Cardassian NPC ships were given these beams for their singles (their dual beams are unknown if they are still Phasers or not).

There are other weapons I feel should also be given to NPC ships, such as the Phased Polaron weapons from the "Boldly They Rode" mission. These actually state in their info that they were salvaged from a Jem'Hadar ship and specifically mention the Jem'Hadar Attack Ship.

According to the STO Wiki, only the Jem'Hadar Fighter and Dreadnought use weapons not a Beam Array or Dual Cannon, these being a Pulse Cannon and a Turret. Not asking you to make these versions, especially if you didn't make Dual Spiral Wave Disruptor Beam Banks for Cardassians, but just to add what is made to Jem'Hadar NPC's. This would make them more unique to fight, distinguished from Breen ships, and slightly more difficult considering the new Fleet gear makes them easier.

And you have the Rapid Reload Transphasic Torpedo which is given from a Breen mission "Cold Comfort". The info on this weapon even describes it having "microfriction autoloaders and superconducting capacitors" that lets it fire more often. If you compare this to the terminology and technology of the "Absolute Zero" space set, it is clearly Breen designed. Give the Breen NPC ships these for their torpedoes--more shots means more damage, harder to beat.

Next, the Plasma-Disruptor Hybrid Beam Arrays and Dual Heavy Cannons. On the Federation side, you get these from the past, via the Guardian of Forever in the "Past Imperfect" mission. Being that they are in a sense a Romulan-Klingon Hybrid weapon, you could give them to all D7 Battlecruisers with the explanation being they are technology acquired during the alliance between these two governments in the past. Would make fighting them a bit more interesting, to see your ship catch fire from them. And put an interesting game question out there, why did they stop using them?

Then you have the Hirogen, who are hunters, and very face-to-face at that. They go out of their way to prolong a hunt and make it challenging and exciting. You can't very well transport onto an enemy ship with shields up (usually), so, Polarized Tetryon beams would be perfect for them. These you get from "The New Link" mission.

Now we move into a more recent development, Tholians and Phased Tetryon weapons, space only of course. These weapons come from Tholian Lock Boxes, and Tholians use Tetryon weapons, the Recluse Carrier and Orb Weaver actually come with generic Mark X's of them. Why not make Tholian NPC's have Phased Tetryon weapons?

Lastly, I was planning to write this for a while now, but only in the last 2 days could I suggest this to you at Cryptic. The Wells Class starship uses Chroniton torpedoes. From the mission "The New Link" you can get Chroniton Flux torpedoes. I have no idea what the real difference is here from normal?s, maybe you could clear it up for us? But give the Wells the Flux version, after all, that seems to fit a timeship--Flux--don't you agree?

Basically, make the NPC's we fight use weapons more customized to their race or time. This could mean make new ones, but why go through that effort since you're busy on other things. Just give them from the pool you already have. And perhaps some later commenter will think of some weapon ideas I have not thought of, which are already present in-game.

Also, some of the above you may have already done and players just have not caught on, which would be good news. If you implement any changes, it'd be nice if the release notes stated such, so the Wiki can be made up-to-date.

Thank you for your time reading this!