test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Small Craft Battle Zone - or at least more uses for Small Craft
caltair
Member Posts: 135 Arc User
Right now at least the potential uses for small craft are just depressingly small. They're not supposed to be able to compete with starships in combat and there's only a couple of small craft missions available - 2 Episode missions and 1 Queued PVE mission that I can think of. The Admiralty stats of the small craft make them largely useless there too.
I love having a Delta Flyer, Yellowstone, or other small craft - I just with there were more ways to actually use them.
Since the game has been in a Battle Zone trend for a few years now I think having one specifically designed for small craft would be fun. The Battle Zone could be set anywhere or at any spot in the timeline, it wouldn't affect the overall episodic story line to have a small craft Battle Zone facing the Elachi or the Klingons for example. Personally, I'd love changing Brea from a PVE Queue into a Battle Zone but there are plenty of other options. We could even set up a PVP version - over let's say Andoria - that would just be a war games battle zone.
The rewards wouldn't have to be complicated or reputation based. Rewards could just be a small number of Fleet Marks or Dilithium/Gear.
Thoughts?
I love having a Delta Flyer, Yellowstone, or other small craft - I just with there were more ways to actually use them.
Since the game has been in a Battle Zone trend for a few years now I think having one specifically designed for small craft would be fun. The Battle Zone could be set anywhere or at any spot in the timeline, it wouldn't affect the overall episodic story line to have a small craft Battle Zone facing the Elachi or the Klingons for example. Personally, I'd love changing Brea from a PVE Queue into a Battle Zone but there are plenty of other options. We could even set up a PVP version - over let's say Andoria - that would just be a war games battle zone.
The rewards wouldn't have to be complicated or reputation based. Rewards could just be a small number of Fleet Marks or Dilithium/Gear.
Thoughts?
Tagged:
0
Comments
Thinking about shuttles doing things a lot just makes me picture the Space Harrier game, with a shuttle instead of a dude w/ a jetpack.
Probably fell on deaf ears/blind eyes and they seem to have forgotten about that rep entirely anyway going by the fact there's still barely any variety in the play options.
"-Grind is good!" --Gordon Geko
Accolades checklist: https://bit.ly/FLUFFYS
On a similar note, I would have loved to start the game as a shuttle pilot. Early gameplay would have worked nicely I guess for just getting to know the first steps in the game. It just doesn't seem to work as an endgame concept at this point.
Also gives me a reason to blast Star Fox music.
I think the reason no body played the previous shuttle content was because, frankly, they weren't designed very well. I remember when Rhi came out it felt like it was an impossible to accomplish mission, and there were so many tasks going on at the same time that it got really confusing. Truth be told I'm not even 100% sure if the two queued Vault missions are small craft or not - and I have no idea where they fit into the larger storyline of the game so I avoid them, and didn't know about them for a long time. I think if the content is set up properly and players are actually informed about it, things might be different
In regards to resources, hopefully Cryptic will realize that by neglecting shuttle content they are also wasting resources. For example, I really want a Delta Flyer small craft but I'm not going to buy it because I literally have no ways to use it. Almost all the small craft are C-Store items so providing shuttle content that is functional would turn into more grind time for players and more C-Store purchases.
That said, I do agree that Cryptic loathes spending money on this game so we're not likely to see any content that is different from what has already been done 1000 times.
The Shuttle Weekend is pretty popular, especially when they give us the Shuttle Fleet Alert queue. I wouldn't mind having a regular thing like that available between the weekends.
Also... KDF does need more shuttles. Would be nice if they made playable versions of the Orion Interceptors and Slavers. Maybe throw in the Gorn and Nausicaan fighters as well as they are KDF species.
Views and Opinions May Not Reflect the Views and Opinions of Gearbox/Cryptic
Moderation Problems/Issues? Please contact the Community Manager
Terms of Service / Community Rules and Policies / FCT
Facebook / Twitter / Twitch
Great idea!
YES! Romulans too.
That would be pretty awesome to be honest!
Asteroid field would be a perfect back drop for a small craft battlezone. I was also thinking an urban warfare set up too. I've posted before wishing that Rator III could be turned into a battlezone to expand on the episode battle where we killed Hakeev; using small craft over the city to complete bombing runs would be really fun.
besides i will never understand why can we even place ship components on shuttles in first place
also... breen fighter
IF the content we have for shuttles is the best Cryptic can do, and I honestly think that is the case, then the argument is moot that they only need to create better content for shuttles...obviously they can't under that assumption. Creating another mediocre shuttle queue won't change that.
Personally I never considered the shuttle content any worse than the normal content, so there definitely is something about the community that just doesn't engage them in that type of content. Shuttles are an oddity in the game...they have no real reason to exist, yet they do, even though they don't fit into the gameplay.
Really they are not wasting resources by neglecting shuttle content, since it is such a small part of the game, and most shuttles were free giveaways already multiple times, appart from costing practically nothing.
It is easy to shift the fault to the developer for "underfunding" certain aspects of the game, but they base their decissions on metrics, and shuttle content won't ever become the next hip thing, even if there was fantastic content suddenly. It is an oddity in the game, because it doesn't fit the space gameplay, and not because the devs don't care about it.
On the other hand, I have a non shuttle Wide-Angle Quantum Torpedo on my little Aeon. The only advantage a shuttle beam array has over a standard is that it is a 360 array that scales. Would be better to just use a crafted, mission reward, or lockbox 360 if you want better performance.
Only reason my Aeon is using a shuttle impulse engine and deflector is because they are the special ones ONLY found on shuttles, the deflector that came off the Aeon and the Tetryon-Plasma Impulse Engines off the Yellowstone.
Unlike ships, where you generally want less clickies, shuttles you generally try to stack as many clickies as you can for more abilities you can use. I got the Stalker's console on there for extra punch and technically a 3rd attack ability besides the beam array and torp.
Too powerful. They're supposed to be SMALL craft, generally with only 1-2 people on board in most cases. If we follow your suggestion, a shuttle would be comparable to something between Tier 3 and Tier 6 FULL SIZE starships depending on the player building it.
The way they are now... they are borderline T1 starships, as they SHOULD be as they aren't meant to take on battleships on their own. The only small craft I can think of in any franchise that can do that... is the frickin' Starfox Arwing. And that is STILL only a single seat fighter. Not a 4 man gunship/bomber with the weapons loadout of a B-17.
What do you guys think? Would a racing zone be better than a battle zone for small craft?
But a battlezone would be cool too. They should do both. Like the two areas of the Sphere, but for small craft.
Or, they could do both.
It would be a potential money maker for them because then they can start making C-Store shuttles. If the race and/or battlezone was actually fun (in other words, not the Tzenkethi zone) it would make small craft desirable.
It would be fun to have a method of expanding the amount of boff abilities you can use on your small-craft though. Maybe something like a boff-programming module slot/s feature on the ship, that depending on the small-craft type (fighter, shuttle, and such) you could slot a different amount (or even different types) of these boff-programing modules to give you more variety in the boff abilities you can use. These could also be something made thru crafting, and for special ones thru doing the small-craft content an zones even.
I would not mind if they created a small-craft zone that had shifting content to it, which could give different rewards based on that content. Something like the zone could at some points be a battle-zone, another might be a adventure/quest zone, and other times a racing zone, but it would switch between these types on a hourly or bi-hourly basis. I am not sure we would want to tie them to a rep, or groups of reps, as we see how bad that affects the other forms of content that give such rewards.
"-Grind is good!" --Gordon Geko
Accolades checklist: https://bit.ly/FLUFFYS
I would love to have a situation where purchasing a small craft unlocks an Epic Quality hanger pet that you can modify through the various equipment and officer slots on the small craft. Can you imagine having a Delta Flyer hangar pet that fires plasma weapons and has access to two BOFF abilities? I'd be ok having the price of small craft increase to counter the modification benefits you get.
Do you get to race in this DQ patrol? If no, then there's still the opportunity.