Hello all,
This probably belongs in general community feedback (Branflakes, if you feel it should be moved feel free) but since it involved players ships and such, I thought I'd start here.
Also, I might not be the first one to think of this exactly, so let me know if there is another thread somewhere that screams "same idea!"
So I've been playing since February, and I first thought of this as I was leveling up. What if there was a feature that would allow you to pick a personal "escort" (as in companion, not ship class) out of your own ships, while in sector/system space? After all, we use our bridge officers on the ground, and they use the skills and equipment we have taken the time to give them to help the team on the ground. That's what I'm talking about here: Pick ONE ship out of the ones we own, to escort our main vessel. It would act as sort of a combat pet, but we could issue fighter style orders to it. Maybe something like "defend me", "attack my target", cease fire", and "protect my target". The difference from a simple combat pet would be that it would use whatever weapons or console abilities we have stocked it with, and we could even staff it with other bridge officers, and it would use those skills.
Now, I know some folks might say "overpowered" but maybe the ship pet could have all it's abilities reduced a bit. Also, remember it'll be controlled by AI so it wouldn't be quite as smart as the player anyway. Also, maybe this option could be added to a future Starfleet Command reputation track or something. Make it a universal "personal fleet expansion" console or something. Or maybe a passive or even the tier V clickable ability: that way you could choose your ship to assign, but it wouldn't even be available all the time, only for a short period when clicking the button or something. Either way, it would be an option we should work for.
I was thinking this idea would add a fun angle for a couple reasons: It would allow the use of not just a random combat pet but a ship we already own, that we have put TLC and time into building, and use weapons and Boff abilities we have taken the time to put into it. It would occationally add an "Oh TRIBBLE" effect to an enemy

, and finally it would give us yet another thing to work towards, if we start finishing our Omega or Romulan tracks.
Hopefully this will be a stress free thread, I just thought it was a fun idea. What do you guys think about this? What would make this hypothetical idea even more awesome? Would you support a feature like this? Just looking for a friendly discussion, thanks!
Comments
From what i gathered if/when the level cap increases we might see something to this effect, when we are 'admirals'/'dahar masters' we can effectively have our own entourage of ships, commanded by boffs,
but the implementation would be a biggy to be sure
And just like away teams, it would go away during certain missions.