5) This functionality should be extended to non-Hangar pets (such as Saucer Separation, MVAM, etc).
We have no intention of extending these features to non-Hangar pets. These hangar pet upgrades were specifically intended to be an exclusive feature for Carriers (and partial-Carriers), and extending it to these other pets has never been included in the functionality. These other types of pets have never accepted Carrier Commands, and allowing them to do so has never been a consideration in their overall functionality.
If the lack of these features (UI to monitor status, the ability to rank-up, AI commands) means that these non-Hangar pets are intrinsically lacking in some manner, then we may consider improving their functionality in other ways. For example, AI improvements, or giving them new Abilities... that sort of thing.
As someone who flew a MVAM for a long while, my main gripes were that the other two sections kept falling massively behind me, and often times this meant they got themselves blown up in warp core explosions on ships I had just killed and ran past. Not having a UI to see their health status and target them to try and heal them was also a problem.
Seems to me if these kind of pets had a UI element and better AI, maybe similar to the Intercept mode, that would address a lot of the problems, or at least problems I had.
The only effect this would have on my Elite slavers is maybe on the Quantum mines, but honestly I'm not sure as I don't really know how often they drop mines or what triggers them to do so.
Still will you also be looking at the loot tables for Slavers at the same time?
The only effect this would have on my Elite slavers is maybe on the Quantum mines, but honestly I'm not sure as I don't really know how often they drop mines or what triggers them to do so.
Still will you also be looking at the loot tables for Slavers at the same time?
Wait until you get the fleet slavers .... they also have photon torpedos but it is not listed on the description.
I don't know what kind of cool down the photons have, but they seem to fire often enough. I'd still love to know what the cds are for the pet projectiles and abilities?
As someone who flew a MVAM for a long while, my main gripes were that the other two sections kept falling massively behind me, and often times this meant they got themselves blown up in warp core explosions on ships I had just killed and ran past. Not having a UI to see their health status and target them to try and heal them was also a problem.
Seems to me if these kind of pets had a UI element and better AI, maybe similar to the Intercept mode, that would address a lot of the problems, or at least problems I had.
I agree with reximuz. While these new updates to carrier pets are in my opinion good (with the caveat of some technical hurdles being worked on), isn't it about time we re-visit the functionality of non-carrier pets as well? The main thing these pets are intrinsically lacking is user control. A simple UI element with simple controls would be a welcome addition.
We have purchasable vessels with these non-carrier pets represented in all factions now. Updating their functionality would definitely be a positive from a sales standpoint. Also, if there is still a long-term goal of introducing an 'Admiral entourage' of NPC vessels, this could be a good test bed for that implementation in some fashion.
Borticuscryptic, I hope that you will reconsider updating these at some point. I believe there is interest in this. I understand there are technical hurdles to re-coding older pet mechanics to the newer ones, and there may be some game balancing issues to address, but in the long game I see some great potential in this implementation, just as I see the potential in this newest update.
2) Length of time needed to reach Rank 5 is too high.
'Nuff said, really. We're reviewing the time needed, and doing some internal playtesting in addition to listening to your feedback. No guarantees that this will change, but it is under further review.
Ok, at least our little fighters suffer some survivability. An instant heal of 25% each time they rank-up might not be enough to give them a chance to reach Rank 5.
So, my idea to give every Hangarpet the ability to heal itself for a fixed Value every few seconds, would give us a reason to use fighters. They are lacking a large hull, but a wing of fighters could regenerate 3 times more hitpoints then a frigate, still 2 times more then Runabouts/Delta-Flyers.
Currently, the only Hangarpet that can (Shield-)heal itself, is the Romulan Droneship. It also doesn't have any problems with the arcs of its weapons, since it has got Beamarrays. These Hangarpets perform sometimes even better then the player piloting the Scimitar that spawned them.
How do these playtest look like? Do you create an empty map and let a wing of Peregrines fight a Fer'Jai, Droneship or a BoP? Frigate-types have much more Hitpoints and a lot of abilities compared to fighters, a Fer'Jai could easily whipe out many waves of Peregrines or Runabouts using all those (High-Yield-)Tricobalt-Devices it has got.
3) Ships that use Ramming Speed are actually penalized by this system.
In many ways, this is true. We're reviewing options for potentially improving this functionality.
...
I allready suggested a "recycle"-button that keeps the veteran-status and allows your hangar for an instant respawn. If you would extend that idea to keep also the veteran-status of Hangarpets that died to "kamikaze", then you would have less complaints here.
At least for those of us, who don't play KDF-only, it's not "a good day to die" honorable, destroying an enemy.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
Feedback for as it currently is, as tried on the Kar'fi with one hanagr of Advanced Slavers and one of Advanced Fer'jai Frigates:
-The little Star animation is amusing.
-The rate of the various fighters of a given wing gaining stars is not consistent or even, despite being in combat for the same amount of time and doing roughly the same damage some of the Slavers had one star or more, while others of the same wing did not (two in particular seemed to gain more than the other six), and the second launched Fer'jai got to four stars before the one launched before it, or they flipped locations in the UI.
-The pet's bubble blacking out as though it's dead when leaving your command area is annoying, particularly since it doesn't let you replace the ones missing from the UI.
-If one hangar is packed up with Recall, the other hangar doesn't let you launch more even if that hangar is set to Attack or Intercept. If you're using one wing of shield drones it wouldn't be possible to launch more as you skate by the Gate with your fighters tucked away.
Is there a fix coming for pets with cannons? example, elite bird of prey rapidfire3 ability account for roughly 3% of its total dps.
surely this is not by design?
Well, this Thread is for feedback on the new UI, not about the AI, we just got a little offtopic, because the "dumb AI" needs a few additional UI-Elements.
But even AI should be the wrong word, if there was really an Artificial Intelligence piloting your Hangarpets, someday it might learn to use the abilities it has got. The currently "AI" seems to be more some kind of "skripted behaviour". "If xyz happens, do abc", something like that.
There was once a "real AI" for Counterstrike Bots, they got better everytime they were used. The project was called "realbot". I think it will always be only a dream to get something like that into STO.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
3) Ships that use Ramming Speed are actually penalized by this system.
In many ways, this is true. We're reviewing options for potentially improving this functionality.
A few ideas:
- A pet with ramming speed could respawn with half the experience or give the player a buff so the next ship he launches gets some xp
- A pet dying due to ramming speed could give all other pets an xp boost
- A pet dying due to ramming speed could give the player a buff that increases pet xp gain for a short duration
Of course not all those things at thew same time. And I do not know if they are even possible. But if you can modify the xp gain through buffs that does open future possibilities. Like a doff that makes pets lvl faster. Or a trait.
On a side note: since eng captains are the ground pet class and people have been asking for a space buff you could give engs some synergies with pets. Maybe a special trait. Or make eps power transfer/nadion buff pets to some degree. Just a thought.
Here are some of my thoughts (I think most have already been said)...
The pets aren't skilled in their abilities
Carrier Captains are losing a ton of DPS because we have to wait for pet special abilities to come off CD. This is an even bigger nerf on the higher-end pets (that we paid Dilithium and/or up-leveled Rep/Fleets to get) with more abilities. This is currently overcome by respawning the pets, something we won't be able to do.
Pets do the craziest things
There are times pets will ignore commands, fly off to the wrong side of a map to aggro a different enemy set, or even occasionally get stuck in the scenery (I've seen pets lodge themselves in asteroids and gates). Sometimes it's just that the pets don't keep up when the battle/mission takes us to another point. Again, as it is now no problem, we can just refresh. With the new Carrier system, we'd be up a creek.
Personally, I think they should just give all the pets fully trained abilities (I mean, why are the ships piloted by such ****ty pilots?). If they could use their abilities as often as we can this wouldn't be much of a problem.
About pets not obeying orders, that's just something they need to fix. They shouldn't design stuff around bugs. Though maybe a pet that's too far away (+20km) should count as a casualty (die) so that we can replace it.
The blog stated that if I have a carrier OR WOULD LIKE TO FLY ONE, I can transfer a character over to Tribble. So does that mean carrier based ships are free at the moment on Tribble or something?
Do we still need to have the original Jem'Hadar Attack ship in order to get the hanger Jem'Hadar attack ship fighter pet for the Dreadnought?
Its very disappointing if this is true...being a 'lifer' it makes me feel like I spent money for little to no privileges.
Please change it so that I can fly the Jem'Hadar Attack ship hanger pets for my dreadnought?
Kindly,
You're looking for solutions to symptoms of a larger issue. While maybe bandaids like a Dismiss Ripcord would be workable, they don't address the cause. That cause being inconsistent or faulty AI.
So part of the fix is to fix the pet AI in general? Cool.
FINALLY!!! Someone sees past the symptoms and realizes that the bug has deep roots.
The pet AI, if fixed, would allow for the pets to act intelligently when attacking AND maneuvering. That means utilizing cannons to their full potential as well as avoiding getting stuck and blown up by random warp core breeches...
Only they know. I'd just argue that until they can "address the cause", we stick with the existing "bandaids" and let us refresh our pets whether they are still alive or not.
And to further argue the point:
If we refresh we get new healthy pets with available abilities, but lose vet bonuses. If we don't refresh our pets, we may have to heal them and wait for their abilities to come off cooldown before using them again, but we the pets gain vet bonus. If you make the vet bonus worthy then the options become self-balancing.
Do I respawn my Elite Scorpions to get another HY Torp sooner, or do I keep them around because their 10s away from that 5th star that's gonna really pump their DPS?
That's a cool/interesting type of decision to make.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
I was not able to test this currently, but I do this today evening as I am hardcore Carrier player.
However I guess the CD changes will affect seriously the performance and that Fighter will get Rank 5 and keep this longer as a minute is unrealistic (mostly).
Also the Ramming Speed and go Boom with my JHAS Pets... Ranking up with suicide units?
However something I would more like to see is the ability to swap the type of Pets on the Fly.
As I can understand the reason to have only one of type pets per Hangar Bay, I can`t see a reason which makes sense to not start other pet types replacing the pets before, because of situation Change.
Waiting 10 seconds after red alert and then the very uncomfortable way changing pets makes carriers very unflexible. In RL Carriers are staring the pets they need at any given Time.
Example Kase:
You use Peregrins to attack cubes and stationary borg stuff, then a couple of seconds later you need to slow down the Probes and then you have some seconds with out enemy and you choose to start some Shield rep units and then spheres spawns and you want to replace your pets again with a more stable frigate pet. I think it would be nice to have a couple Hangarpets available.
Like 2 x 1 ON-Duty Hangar Slots and 2 x 3 ON-Hold Hangar Slots which you can switch at any time and new pets will replace the old ones.
Give the Hangar Duty Switch a CD of 2 seconds, which makes sense, because also in RL the Pets need be manned by a Crew.
So a Half and a Full Carrier can summon only 2 pets/Team per Hangar but can switch the Pets with a CD of 2 seconds to adapt to a new situation.
I guess this would reactivate a lot of pets from there stasis like Shield rep pets and other unflexible pets, because changing them is really uncomfortable and impossible during combat.
pets are destroyed so quickly in elite combat , What is the point to this anyway
The only winners i see to this are vesta's with fermilion field
and ships with detachabe pets
Real 2 hanger carriers get the shaft dont we ?
its hard enough healing yourself , now we have to use targeted heals to heal a fighter ?
looks like a way to only lower the dps of a true carrier to me
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
pets are destroyed so quickly in elite combat , What is the point to this anyway
The only winners i see to this are vesta's with fermilion field
and ships with detachabe pets
Real 2 hanger carriers get the shaft dont we ?
its hard enough healing yourself , now we have to use targeted heals to heal a fighter ?
looks like a way to only lower the dps of a true carrier to me
You don't have to use a heal on a fighter, you should be able to recall one Hangar-Bay for a short time (in which the fighters heal-up)... Currently you are just unable to launch those fighters again, since there is a bug (see the list of known issues).
The problem I see, is that ships with only one hangar-bay need to recall all their fighters to heal them up. A per-wing recall would be much better, even for 2 hangar-ships.
If you had the choice to recall 6 fighters, so 3 can heal-up, or recall 3 fighters, so 2 can heal-up, what would be your choice? Loosing more firepower (50%) or a working heal-up cycle that allows you to keep 75% of your fighters where they should be?
Armitage, Vesta, Orion Flightdeck-Cruisers and the Scimitar would still need to recall 50% of their pets, but it's less then 100%...
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
Feedback for as it currently is, as tried on the Kar'fi with one hanagr of Advanced Slavers and one of Advanced Fer'jai Frigates:
-The little Star animation is amusing.
-The rate of the various fighters of a given wing gaining stars is not consistent or even, despite being in combat for the same amount of time and doing roughly the same damage some of the Slavers had one star or more, while others of the same wing did not (two in particular seemed to gain more than the other six), and the second launched Fer'jai got to four stars before the one launched before it, or they flipped locations in the UI.
-The pet's bubble blacking out as though it's dead when leaving your command area is annoying, particularly since it doesn't let you replace the ones missing from the UI.
-If one hangar is packed up with Recall, the other hangar doesn't let you launch more even if that hangar is set to Attack or Intercept. If you're using one wing of shield drones it wouldn't be possible to launch more as you skate by the Gate with your fighters tucked away.
pets in space are really companions in the same way that BOFFs and pets/summons on the ground are companions. It would be a good time to normalize some of their behaviors. [...] This is what I would like to see as common behaviors
1) Attack the selected target and return to rally point when finished (this is limited to targets in range of the captain)
2) Aggressively defend the rally point
3) Follow the target passively (selected ally or myself as default)
4) Dock (not useful for current ground pets but maybe useful later)
Another thing here is it would be useful to be able to set a rally point in space. Then I could telll my pets to defend an area, as in C&H, instead of forcing an ally to sit there and have the pets defend him. Hard to do this in space, but maybe add a "drop rallypoint marker" button that lets me mark my current location, then I have the ships defend it and I can move on to my next objective
Bort, any thoughts on this? Seems like it would simplify things consideraly to have a single set of behaviors
Well, this Thread is for feedback on the new UI, not about the AI, we just got a little offtopic, because the "dumb AI" needs a few additional UI-Elements.
But even AI should be the wrong word, if there was really an Artificial Intelligence piloting your Hangarpets, someday it might learn to use the abilities it has got. The currently "AI" seems to be more some kind of "skripted behaviour". "If xyz happens, do abc", something like that.
There was once a "real AI" for Counterstrike Bots, they got better everytime they were used. The project was called "realbot". I think it will always be only a dream to get something like that into STO.
The entire point to interjecting about the AI is because the AI is the biggest thing that is dragging the project down right now. It is the AI that is causing the current docking bug on Tribble, and it is the AI that makes people believe that spamming pets constantly is the only way to play a carrier. This Carrier UI project NEEDS to be a UI / AI overhaul due to the fact that the UI they are developing just does not play well with the current AI.
pets are destroyed so quickly in elite combat , What is the point to this anyway
The only winners i see to this are vesta's with fermilion field
and ships with detachabe pets
Real 2 hanger carriers get the shaft dont we ?
its hard enough healing yourself , now we have to use targeted heals to heal a fighter ?
looks like a way to only lower the dps of a true carrier to me
This system is supposed to be a decent fix to the AI as well as an addition to the GUI for carriers.
Personally, I HAVE played this content on my Atrox. It was extremely easy to see when I lost a fighter and replace it, and the fighters actually had a little more intelligence when attacking.
Borticus, I again stress that the pet's initial rank should be tied to its quality:
Commons - Rank 0 (These are the pets provided with the ship)
Uncommon - Rank 1
Rares - Rank 2
Very Rares - Rank 3 (Most Dilithium Pets)
Elite / Ultra Rare - Rank 4 (Fleet Elites and the T5 Rep pets)
With this system, it is an even greater reason to invest in the more expensive pets. Also, increasing their initial rank when launched makes logical sense, as these pets are supposed to be much better than their lower quality versions.
another run at traelus in my kar'fai gave me all rank 2 Slavers, with one killed.
also seemed a bit more lethal.
first time I assume was a bad run/pilot error.
I would like to suggest we get some new AOE abilties as well, because we will need to heal these things.
maybe all true carriers should get an innate fermion field In the same fashion as the science vessels get an innate Beam targeting set.
Hybrids should not get such an ability. could also be added as another set of engi abilities starting at ensign.
I wouldn't make it an innate power, I'd make it a console. Science heavy ships or those in tight groups with a dedicated heal boat wouldn't really require the ability. Also, a second carrier running a pure support build and heal pets would negate the usefulness of the ability.
Making this a console, however, would serve a dual purpose. Adding it as a device, perhaps labelling it as "Hangar - Restorative" would allow for the future release of specialized "Hangar Bay Modules" that could provide certain perks to the pets themselves.
I wouldn't make it an innate power, I'd make it a console. Science heavy ships or those in tight groups with a dedicated heal boat wouldn't really require the ability. Also, a second carrier running a pure support build and heal pets would negate the usefulness of the ability.
Making this a console, however, would serve a dual purpose. Adding it as a device, perhaps labelling it as "Hangar - Restorative" would allow for the future release of specialized "Hangar Bay Modules" that could provide certain perks to the pets themselves.
if it's to be a console, then might as well just use the fermion field, and Make the vesta's slightly better.
and you could say the exact same for the beam target subsystems Innate.
Just because the usefulness is negated in some circumstances, doesn't mean its negated 100% of the time.
fact is, the innate is meant to heal pets, and not the ship itself.
You seem to be speaking from a pvp/premade perspective, and from my usual Play style, which is Pugged pve, this would be useful there as no one ever has a dedicated heal boat.
in pvp, I'd rather use those abilities on my teammates then on those silly little craft. the current system allows for not needing to heal, but the new one will need it. as such, we need more aoe heals, or one that can be applied to hangers.
I am not opposed to an additional slot on all 2 hanger carriers, that would allow a Hanger utility console to be placed. which is what I assume you were going with. if this were added, the innate I propose could be placed in as a console. as long as it is not needed to be placed in the main console slots.
The UI and AI are not seperate issue and the whole carrier system is being altered as part of this carrier up date. After all this isn't just appearences that are being changed, the AI is being changed in such areas as the Warpcore explosion aviodence, Cannon Using Pets aiming, Recalls AI and functionality is under going a radical change, Feklhri pets AI settings have been fixed, escort appears to be working period, the AI has to change to allow seperate hangars to follow seperate commands, and who knows what else.
So AI, UI, Pet abilities, and settings and so on are all apart of this whole thing and interact with each other so I don't believe discussing pet AI is off topic as there is major interaction and changing the UI without fixing and changing the AI will not work.
I think we need to look at the issues in a holistic way.
The pets themselves do have a progressively more powerful heal themselves, when they earn a star they regain 25 percent of thier health back which since they also gain more health with each star grants more health with each star. The problem is A once you have five stars this stops, and secondly this healing may not occur when the pet actually needs it.
You do have a healing power, recall it just doesn't work right now and come with the downside that your pets are of no use when recalled. I still argee an AOE heal would be nice, even if its a one time use device slot item.
One idea I have is when your pets are docked any power you use on yourself you use on your pets too, so if your pets are docked and you use enigeering team I, you heal with it, but so do your pets. But only when recalled, as in a sense your pets are apart of your ship at the moment.
This would help with the healing issue and makes sense from an in game perpective.
Just tossing an idea out here, but what about a ship console that shortens your pet cds and the time it takes to rank up, call it a Flight Simulator Console. Makes it universal.
This way if you want to boost your pets you have to sacrifice something.
Maybe in time have more advanced verisons like Fleet Flight Simulator Consoles and give a minor extra boost of some sort to your pets.
Additional comment:
The rank-up system does seem meaningless if the ranks are lost upon changing maps. If a player is in a mission involving multiple space engagements on different maps then the ranked-up fighters are continuously lost. If a player is doing multiple STFs or FAs during a gameplay period, then the fighter rank-up is constantly being repeated and has no real benefit from one STF/FA to next.
A better rank up would be a Carrier Fighter Control abilitiy/modifier that when ranking up gives the crafts better accuracy, survivability, repair ability that is on the ship (Flight Ops on the carrier). This modifier would last for 24-hours and can be increased or decreased by how well the player manages the fighters. Upon making 5-star, the Fighter Group would gain some kind of special bonus that will last a set period of time. Right now, the rank up is just a novelty that has no real impact on gameplay.
With the romulan advanced drones After recall, when I set them back to attack or escort or anything for that matter, they fail to relaunch like they are supposed to.
Comments
As someone who flew a MVAM for a long while, my main gripes were that the other two sections kept falling massively behind me, and often times this meant they got themselves blown up in warp core explosions on ships I had just killed and ran past. Not having a UI to see their health status and target them to try and heal them was also a problem.
Seems to me if these kind of pets had a UI element and better AI, maybe similar to the Intercept mode, that would address a lot of the problems, or at least problems I had.
Still will you also be looking at the loot tables for Slavers at the same time?
Wait until you get the fleet slavers .... they also have photon torpedos but it is not listed on the description.
I don't know what kind of cool down the photons have, but they seem to fire often enough. I'd still love to know what the cds are for the pet projectiles and abilities?
We have purchasable vessels with these non-carrier pets represented in all factions now. Updating their functionality would definitely be a positive from a sales standpoint. Also, if there is still a long-term goal of introducing an 'Admiral entourage' of NPC vessels, this could be a good test bed for that implementation in some fashion.
Borticuscryptic, I hope that you will reconsider updating these at some point. I believe there is interest in this. I understand there are technical hurdles to re-coding older pet mechanics to the newer ones, and there may be some game balancing issues to address, but in the long game I see some great potential in this implementation, just as I see the potential in this newest update.
Ok, at least our little fighters suffer some survivability. An instant heal of 25% each time they rank-up might not be enough to give them a chance to reach Rank 5.
So, my idea to give every Hangarpet the ability to heal itself for a fixed Value every few seconds, would give us a reason to use fighters. They are lacking a large hull, but a wing of fighters could regenerate 3 times more hitpoints then a frigate, still 2 times more then Runabouts/Delta-Flyers.
Currently, the only Hangarpet that can (Shield-)heal itself, is the Romulan Droneship. It also doesn't have any problems with the arcs of its weapons, since it has got Beamarrays. These Hangarpets perform sometimes even better then the player piloting the Scimitar that spawned them.
How do these playtest look like? Do you create an empty map and let a wing of Peregrines fight a Fer'Jai, Droneship or a BoP? Frigate-types have much more Hitpoints and a lot of abilities compared to fighters, a Fer'Jai could easily whipe out many waves of Peregrines or Runabouts using all those (High-Yield-)Tricobalt-Devices it has got.
I allready suggested a "recycle"-button that keeps the veteran-status and allows your hangar for an instant respawn. If you would extend that idea to keep also the veteran-status of Hangarpets that died to "kamikaze", then you would have less complaints here.
At least for those of us, who don't play KDF-only, it's not "a good day to die" honorable, destroying an enemy.
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
-The little Star animation is amusing.
-The rate of the various fighters of a given wing gaining stars is not consistent or even, despite being in combat for the same amount of time and doing roughly the same damage some of the Slavers had one star or more, while others of the same wing did not (two in particular seemed to gain more than the other six), and the second launched Fer'jai got to four stars before the one launched before it, or they flipped locations in the UI.
-The pet's bubble blacking out as though it's dead when leaving your command area is annoying, particularly since it doesn't let you replace the ones missing from the UI.
-If one hangar is packed up with Recall, the other hangar doesn't let you launch more even if that hangar is set to Attack or Intercept. If you're using one wing of shield drones it wouldn't be possible to launch more as you skate by the Gate with your fighters tucked away.
surely this is not by design?
Well, this Thread is for feedback on the new UI, not about the AI, we just got a little offtopic, because the "dumb AI" needs a few additional UI-Elements.
But even AI should be the wrong word, if there was really an Artificial Intelligence piloting your Hangarpets, someday it might learn to use the abilities it has got. The currently "AI" seems to be more some kind of "skripted behaviour". "If xyz happens, do abc", something like that.
There was once a "real AI" for Counterstrike Bots, they got better everytime they were used. The project was called "realbot". I think it will always be only a dream to get something like that into STO.
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
A few ideas:
- A pet with ramming speed could respawn with half the experience or give the player a buff so the next ship he launches gets some xp
- A pet dying due to ramming speed could give all other pets an xp boost
- A pet dying due to ramming speed could give the player a buff that increases pet xp gain for a short duration
Of course not all those things at thew same time. And I do not know if they are even possible. But if you can modify the xp gain through buffs that does open future possibilities. Like a doff that makes pets lvl faster. Or a trait.
On a side note: since eng captains are the ground pet class and people have been asking for a space buff you could give engs some synergies with pets. Maybe a special trait. Or make eps power transfer/nadion buff pets to some degree. Just a thought.
My stomach is clear and my mind is full of bacon!
Personally, I think they should just give all the pets fully trained abilities (I mean, why are the ships piloted by such ****ty pilots?). If they could use their abilities as often as we can this wouldn't be much of a problem.
About pets not obeying orders, that's just something they need to fix. They shouldn't design stuff around bugs. Though maybe a pet that's too far away (+20km) should count as a casualty (die) so that we can replace it.
Its very disappointing if this is true...being a 'lifer' it makes me feel like I spent money for little to no privileges.
Please change it so that I can fly the Jem'Hadar Attack ship hanger pets for my dreadnought?
Kindly,
Neil
Only they know. I'd just argue that until they can "address the cause", we stick with the existing "bandaids" and let us refresh our pets whether they are still alive or not.
And to further argue the point:
If we refresh we get new healthy pets with available abilities, but lose vet bonuses. If we don't refresh our pets, we may have to heal them and wait for their abilities to come off cooldown before using them again, but we the pets gain vet bonus. If you make the vet bonus worthy then the options become self-balancing.
Do I respawn my Elite Scorpions to get another HY Torp sooner, or do I keep them around because their 10s away from that 5th star that's gonna really pump their DPS?
That's a cool/interesting type of decision to make.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
However I guess the CD changes will affect seriously the performance and that Fighter will get Rank 5 and keep this longer as a minute is unrealistic (mostly).
Also the Ramming Speed and go Boom with my JHAS Pets... Ranking up with suicide units?
However something I would more like to see is the ability to swap the type of Pets on the Fly.
As I can understand the reason to have only one of type pets per Hangar Bay, I can`t see a reason which makes sense to not start other pet types replacing the pets before, because of situation Change.
Waiting 10 seconds after red alert and then the very uncomfortable way changing pets makes carriers very unflexible. In RL Carriers are staring the pets they need at any given Time.
Example Kase:
You use Peregrins to attack cubes and stationary borg stuff, then a couple of seconds later you need to slow down the Probes and then you have some seconds with out enemy and you choose to start some Shield rep units and then spheres spawns and you want to replace your pets again with a more stable frigate pet. I think it would be nice to have a couple Hangarpets available.
Like 2 x 1 ON-Duty Hangar Slots and 2 x 3 ON-Hold Hangar Slots which you can switch at any time and new pets will replace the old ones.
Give the Hangar Duty Switch a CD of 2 seconds, which makes sense, because also in RL the Pets need be manned by a Crew.
So a Half and a Full Carrier can summon only 2 pets/Team per Hangar but can switch the Pets with a CD of 2 seconds to adapt to a new situation.
I guess this would reactivate a lot of pets from there stasis like Shield rep pets and other unflexible pets, because changing them is really uncomfortable and impossible during combat.
The only winners i see to this are vesta's with fermilion field
and ships with detachabe pets
Real 2 hanger carriers get the shaft dont we ?
its hard enough healing yourself , now we have to use targeted heals to heal a fighter ?
looks like a way to only lower the dps of a true carrier to me
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
You don't have to use a heal on a fighter, you should be able to recall one Hangar-Bay for a short time (in which the fighters heal-up)... Currently you are just unable to launch those fighters again, since there is a bug (see the list of known issues).
The problem I see, is that ships with only one hangar-bay need to recall all their fighters to heal them up. A per-wing recall would be much better, even for 2 hangar-ships.
If you had the choice to recall 6 fighters, so 3 can heal-up, or recall 3 fighters, so 2 can heal-up, what would be your choice? Loosing more firepower (50%) or a working heal-up cycle that allows you to keep 75% of your fighters where they should be?
Armitage, Vesta, Orion Flightdeck-Cruisers and the Scimitar would still need to recall 50% of their pets, but it's less then 100%...
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
Unlike on holodeck escort works on tribble on this new system,;so grab a trio of escort purple FDO's.
The entire point to interjecting about the AI is because the AI is the biggest thing that is dragging the project down right now. It is the AI that is causing the current docking bug on Tribble, and it is the AI that makes people believe that spamming pets constantly is the only way to play a carrier. This Carrier UI project NEEDS to be a UI / AI overhaul due to the fact that the UI they are developing just does not play well with the current AI.
This system is supposed to be a decent fix to the AI as well as an addition to the GUI for carriers.
Personally, I HAVE played this content on my Atrox. It was extremely easy to see when I lost a fighter and replace it, and the fighters actually had a little more intelligence when attacking.
Borticus, I again stress that the pet's initial rank should be tied to its quality:
Commons - Rank 0 (These are the pets provided with the ship)
Uncommon - Rank 1
Rares - Rank 2
Very Rares - Rank 3 (Most Dilithium Pets)
Elite / Ultra Rare - Rank 4 (Fleet Elites and the T5 Rep pets)
With this system, it is an even greater reason to invest in the more expensive pets. Also, increasing their initial rank when launched makes logical sense, as these pets are supposed to be much better than their lower quality versions.
also seemed a bit more lethal.
first time I assume was a bad run/pilot error.
I would like to suggest we get some new AOE abilties as well, because we will need to heal these things.
maybe all true carriers should get an innate fermion field In the same fashion as the science vessels get an innate Beam targeting set.
Hybrids should not get such an ability. could also be added as another set of engi abilities starting at ensign.
I wouldn't make it an innate power, I'd make it a console. Science heavy ships or those in tight groups with a dedicated heal boat wouldn't really require the ability. Also, a second carrier running a pure support build and heal pets would negate the usefulness of the ability.
Making this a console, however, would serve a dual purpose. Adding it as a device, perhaps labelling it as "Hangar - Restorative" would allow for the future release of specialized "Hangar Bay Modules" that could provide certain perks to the pets themselves.
and you could say the exact same for the beam target subsystems Innate.
Just because the usefulness is negated in some circumstances, doesn't mean its negated 100% of the time.
fact is, the innate is meant to heal pets, and not the ship itself.
You seem to be speaking from a pvp/premade perspective, and from my usual Play style, which is Pugged pve, this would be useful there as no one ever has a dedicated heal boat.
in pvp, I'd rather use those abilities on my teammates then on those silly little craft. the current system allows for not needing to heal, but the new one will need it. as such, we need more aoe heals, or one that can be applied to hangers.
I am not opposed to an additional slot on all 2 hanger carriers, that would allow a Hanger utility console to be placed. which is what I assume you were going with. if this were added, the innate I propose could be placed in as a console. as long as it is not needed to be placed in the main console slots.
So AI, UI, Pet abilities, and settings and so on are all apart of this whole thing and interact with each other so I don't believe discussing pet AI is off topic as there is major interaction and changing the UI without fixing and changing the AI will not work.
I think we need to look at the issues in a holistic way.
You do have a healing power, recall it just doesn't work right now and come with the downside that your pets are of no use when recalled. I still argee an AOE heal would be nice, even if its a one time use device slot item.
One idea I have is when your pets are docked any power you use on yourself you use on your pets too, so if your pets are docked and you use enigeering team I, you heal with it, but so do your pets. But only when recalled, as in a sense your pets are apart of your ship at the moment.
This would help with the healing issue and makes sense from an in game perpective.
Why do we "need" ranks. Can't we just make do without them? I don't see the benefit or why we should be having them at all.
This way if you want to boost your pets you have to sacrifice something.
Maybe in time have more advanced verisons like Fleet Flight Simulator Consoles and give a minor extra boost of some sort to your pets.
Additional comment:
The rank-up system does seem meaningless if the ranks are lost upon changing maps. If a player is in a mission involving multiple space engagements on different maps then the ranked-up fighters are continuously lost. If a player is doing multiple STFs or FAs during a gameplay period, then the fighter rank-up is constantly being repeated and has no real benefit from one STF/FA to next.
A better rank up would be a Carrier Fighter Control abilitiy/modifier that when ranking up gives the crafts better accuracy, survivability, repair ability that is on the ship (Flight Ops on the carrier). This modifier would last for 24-hours and can be increased or decreased by how well the player manages the fighters. Upon making 5-star, the Fighter Group would gain some kind of special bonus that will last a set period of time. Right now, the rank up is just a novelty that has no real impact on gameplay.
Other then that I LOVE the new system.