I love command boffs; the abilities are not OP, but Reroute Power from Life Support at all ranks is a joke. The power gain/drawback is too negative, especially when compared to Override from Intel.
Override I, II, III
+30/+40/+50 current and maximum subsystem power (breaks the cap)
doesn't restore damaged subsystems
random subsystem offline for 6/4/2 seconds.
- Countered with Engineering Team, reduced through subsystem repair skill. -
Reroute Power from Life Support I, II, III
+20/+30/+40 current subsystem power (does not break the cap)
immunity to subsystem offline status
crew gradually disabled (lower and lower passive hull repair), increased cooldowns to all abilities.
- Cannot be countered in any way. -
RPLS loses in everything except disabled status. The power gain doesn't even break subsystem cap, making it somewhat meaningful for the other 3 that are not maxed, at best. The cooldown debuff is comparable to subnucleonic beam:
what's the point of having more power, if the ability you want to use just went up to 2 min recharge?
Way too little gain for way too many drawbacks. At this point it's better to run Enhanced Plasma Manifold and be immune to subsys disable, power is applied instantly and can be kept running for longer periods by skilling Starship Batteries.
My proposed change would be to remove the cooldown debuff, it's too much and makes the ship potentially useless while RPLS is active. Cut in half the rate at which the crew gets disabled, give at every rank +20 power bonus to compensate the fact that it won't break the hardcap on the maxed subsystem.
Comments
slowly losing crew has virtually no real effect at all
if they tweeked the CD debuff so it could be countered like OSS, like you said, then it would at least have some value
OP? It would still stay behind Override, as you won't push a subsystem up to 160/170/180. Weapons will not overcap with damage, shield won't increase in regeneration, engines won't give more throttle and auxiliary-based abilities won't go beyond their usual effect.
I can even accept the CD thing if it was counterable with Science Team, which even clears Overwhelm Emitters or the EPTX cleanse doff. The current ability cooldown increase is extreme and impossible to deal with.
Sounds like RPfLS needs to have the crew disable mechanic removed. For starters, there's plenty of crew disabling going on, and the opportunity cost of protecting your crew is extremely high.
But, even worse is that the developers have already said crew is a broken mechanic, and here they went and added more functionality to it without touching the underlying broken mechanic.
The second one is a power boost no one would want to ever use over energy siphon. I wonder if the space nurse and Jem Hadar shields would counter the crew disable somehow. But again, a drawback should always stick, even if it was a badly designed ability all around.
exactly. Underpowered enough that running it is debilitating for you, useless gimp of the ship. I can deal with the crew thing, it makes sense, but not the cooldowns.
borticuscryptic
Cryptic Studios Team
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 1,529# 22
02-16-2015, 03:23 PMReply With Quote Multi-Quote This Message Quick reply to this message
Reroute Power From Life Support causes you to suffer a temporary Cooldown Penalty - it's definitely not a buff. As to whether or not that trade-off is currently worth the cost... well, that's matter we're open to hearing more feedback on. We can definitely consider improving the ability if it's seen as unanimously inferior to other Bridge Officer Ability choices.
On a more generic "FYI" sort of note, I figured I'd pop into this thread and tell all concerned parties about some upcoming changes we're making to Command Bridge Officer Abilities. Hopefully all of these will end up appearing in a patch either this week or next.
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