It is only true of those that chase meters as well as min/maxers, which are not actually as huge a percentage of the player-base, would use those top pets if they had the ability to slot them. Though it would be nice to see more done to make the pets more viable, whether that be improvements to the AI or abilities (even firing arcs). I mean I see alot of people running scims as they are one the best ship by many's view, but I also see just as many running other Romulan ships too, even some that are quite abit worse.
I can understand locking faction hanger-pets like the scorpions, and fed shuttles/fighters, and KFD fighters to the faction they are from, while making the lobi/lockbox/c-store hanger pets that are not tied to a faction able to be used on any hanger-capable ship. Just that than giving variants of the different faction hanger-pets that use different weapon/energy types that allow us to have that choice. An why should a player that payed out the money to get access to those pets, and ship, not have the ability to use them.
The AI needs work, some pets dock, some don't, same with keeping up with the carrier... the bug ships are (in my experience) the most consistent in that regard.... the other frigate pets? Not so much. The fighter types, they are hit or miss.. I may get all of them to dock, half of them or none at all, more time than not I'll have 2 or 3 weaving around trying to get in but never making it.
They could simply change the recall command to return transport. Like in nemesis how the transport the scorpion on board. Automatic return of all of that wings pets to the carrier, can only be done once every 30 sec. Wouldnt need to wait for them to get on board 1 by 1 that way.
And I dont think anyone is talking about unlocking faction pets to other factions just unlocking carrier pets to other carriers of same faction/lockbox/lobi. Would be very strange to be fed and launch bop's funny as that would be. I dont see an issue with a Jupiter launching jem bug ships considering you can get the Jem carrier/bug ship on that toon.
The Ai needs redone, and cleaned up to prevent them from suddenly going after targets across the map, simply make the AI only go after targets within set range of the host Carrier/Actual pets. The doffs need redone into something simple that works well.
My suggestion is if you use an intercept doff your pets get +20 acc +20% flight speed. If you use the attack doff your pets get +10% all damage +20% flight speed. If you use the defense doff your pets get +20 hull cap +20 to all healing received + 10% defense rating. Escort doff could be an easy +10% dmg +10% flight speed +20% turn rate. Limit them doffs so the bonus doesnt stack but you can use multiple flight deck officers. Alternate doffs could go about boosting power levels, so you could use Attack doff 1 +10% all damage +20% flight speed, and use Attack doff 2 that boosts +15 weapon power +15 engine power.
This way there would be some more useful doffs, and more then just 1 way to boost the pets. Could also make flight deck doffs that boost the host carrier depending on commands given, like set the carrier command to Attack and the carrier itself gets a buff to its dmg, or set it to defense and the carrier gets + to out going healing. Gives the carrier pilot a reason to switch between the commands as well as gives the carrier new builds to try.
Perhaps give carriers attack orders to go with our hanger commands. Similar to target subsystems/deflectors for sci ships. Each carrier would get a few clickable commands with 30sec-1min cooldowns that order the pets into example 'All out attack' the pets all focus the target of the carrier with a burst from all weapons. 'Scatter Scatter Scatter' - All carrier pets split up to cover a wide area and gain move speed and immunity for a short time, used to avoid things like incoming mega blast attacks. Remember your wing man - Your carrier pets pair up and gain increased dmg and defense for a short time as they go after diff targets together.
Small things like this would give carriers a really unique feel vs other ship types.
How about they bring carrier commands to console? I'd love to be able to complain about time delay for my carriers to have the frigates dock and heal
We have no carrier commands and the only doffs we have are carrier command ones like from the caitian diaspora chain.
As for unlockables, well think about technology. the Mobulai, why would a Fek'Ihr ship have equipment for a bunch of alien whales who live underwater. At least restricting it to xindi only makes sense. And i welcome anything that prevents stale clones of each other where it looks very assorted and diverse. Its nice warping into the sol system and seeing non-terran ships with non-terran pets
I like the ideas jtoney gave about doffs. Arc, make carriers viable for the xb1 and ps4, and while you're doing it throw a few nice doffs in to the game for making us wait over two years
I've wanted to comment on this, then forgot to do it
Anyway, I agree with the OP. It would be nice if the restrictions were removed, I've asked the same thing in the past and I still believe it would be a good thing.
I understand that there are cases where there are good reasons for not allowing frigate pets because some ships only have one hangar for good reasons - maybe to avoid power creep or something like that. But I doubt hangars are one of the main sources of power creep or will ever be.
Personally I don't use hangar pets much nowadays, my Vesta uses shield drones and my Aquatic carrier has the Aquatic frigate pets - but for those who want to use other things that are not possible right now, I believe they should get the option to use whatever pets they want. Assuming of course that they own the ship those pets are associated with.
How about they bring carrier commands to console?
I'd love to be able to complain about time delay for my carriers to have the frigates dock and heal
We have no carrier commands and the only doffs we have are carrier command ones like from the caitian diaspora chain.
As for unlockables, well think about technology. the Mobulai, why would a Fek'Ihr ship have equipment for a bunch of alien whales who live underwater. At least restricting it to xindi only makes sense. And i welcome anything that prevents stale clones of each other where it looks very assorted and diverse. Its nice warping into the sol system and seeing non-terran ships with non-terran pets
As an alternative they could maybe allow the "fancy" unlocked pets to be used on the more generic faction specific carriers like the jupiter and vo'quv although to do that they'd have to give the rommies a carrier option that isn't buried behind a lockbox.
Something I just realised and which might further explain my point of view:
In some cases I use ships that are, in my opinion, best combined with 'general' hangar pets. In the case of the Paradox, for instance, I prefer shield drones as hangar pets. Which means I'll never use the Temporal fighters that come with it, because they can't be used on anything else.
So in some cases the fighter pets are totally useless to me, unless they could be used on different ships. Another example would be the Vonph, which I don't fly that often but I really like the pets and would like it if I could use those on my other ships.
I was thinking, the game has come along way in removing arbitrary restrictions in the last year or so, does anyone else think they should do away with "x hanger pet is only for x ship"? If i've bought and own a herald cruiser, why can't i use the herald fighter on my Vesta? Or my Bulwark? If i've earned a Vengance for whatever means, i should be able to put the laser balls on my other ships!
Not counting the two reputation ones, the Jem Hadar fighter is universal, providing you own one of the Jem Hadar fighter ships. Why can't this be extended to all the others?
I still think frigates should be restricted to big boy carriers, but fighters should be equip-able to any carrier, once you've met the unlock requirement (But also universal, if you own a JHAS, you can equip the frigates onto a Jupiter or a Vo'quv if you want) You could argue that it would look silly, but out of all the carriers in the game now, there's like 4 that actually have visible bays for the fighters to come out of (atrox/jupiter/vo'quv/vesta's), most hanger ships in the game just materializing fighters out of the hull.
Thoughts?
No this would totally kill once and for all the unique things that each faction has. The only truely faction unique thing left besides the fighters is the Rom Sing Core. Time to draw a line and say to the Fed faction this far no further!
I was thinking, the game has come along way in removing arbitrary restrictions in the last year or so, does anyone else think they should do away with "x hanger pet is only for x ship"? If i've bought and own a herald cruiser, why can't i use the herald fighter on my Vesta? Or my Bulwark? If i've earned a Vengance for whatever means, i should be able to put the laser balls on my other ships!
Not counting the two reputation ones, the Jem Hadar fighter is universal, providing you own one of the Jem Hadar fighter ships. Why can't this be extended to all the others?
I still think frigates should be restricted to big boy carriers, but fighters should be equip-able to any carrier, once you've met the unlock requirement (But also universal, if you own a JHAS, you can equip the frigates onto a Jupiter or a Vo'quv if you want) You could argue that it would look silly, but out of all the carriers in the game now, there's like 4 that actually have visible bays for the fighters to come out of (atrox/jupiter/vo'quv/vesta's), most hanger ships in the game just materializing fighters out of the hull.
Thoughts?
No this would totally kill once and for all the unique things that each faction has. The only truely faction unique thing left besides the fighters is the Rom Sing Core. Time to draw a line and say to the Fed faction this far no further!
What?
This in no way is exclusive to Federation. If you've got a Vo'quv or a Kelvin Warbird it doesn't matter, your stuck using a select few fighters on it. In what way does this make "factions not unique" ?
I don't know how any of this would change the faction uniqueness at all really. Since the actual faction hanger-pets would still be locked to that specific faction. Hell even my own suggestion of adding to the hanger-pet tab variants of the faction-specific pets that use different energy an torpedo/mine types would merely expand the ability of the player to match their hanger-pet's weapon/energy type to their main-ship's energy/weapon type load outs.
How about they bring carrier commands to console?
I'd love to be able to complain about time delay for my carriers to have the frigates dock and heal
We have no carrier commands and the only doffs we have are carrier command ones like from the caitian diaspora chain.
As for unlockables, well think about technology. the Mobulai, why would a Fek'Ihr ship have equipment for a bunch of alien whales who live underwater. At least restricting it to xindi only makes sense. And i welcome anything that prevents stale clones of each other where it looks very assorted and diverse. Its nice warping into the sol system and seeing non-terran ships with non-terran pets
This is your fault for playing on console! *hits you with a rolled up newpaper*
Joking aside. Discussion for pc/console should be kept apart since they run on completely diff versions of the game. They are infact 2 diff games, the console version is just built to look like the pc version. Otherwise they would have all the same content, and run events at the same time, Cryptic has failed to unify the two versions in my book. Any positive changes made to PC carriers will of course go to consoles but like i said they are diff versions so it takes time.
Now back to the topic at hand, unlocking carrier pets to work on another carrier that the player already owns in no way breaks faction uniqueness and you should feel dumber for having suggested that.
KDF needs the T6 Voque and T6 catfish updated. Romulans could use a true T6 carrier in the Cstore as well, with new frigate nondrone pets. Feds would be fine if they just made the callistos actually fast instead of being basicly nonmoving turrets.
The AI for mine using pets needs to be updated to be similar to the Tzen AI on locked on blasts that targets your predicted flight path or having them fly in front of the targets flight path and drop mines, or having them fly over the targets and drop quick activation mines. Id like to see a pet that uses the tachyon mines since those are basicly unused in the entire game and shield strip for pets is really useful. Romulans could also use tractor mines.
The reason for why would a KDF ship carry Tholian pets? Who gives a sh*t, we already can mount scorpion fights on everything so its not even an issue. This is purely to increase the number of player options, if you dont like mix matching on your ships dont do it, the rest of us would like to have the option to use the various pets we spent tons of time and credits to unlock.
Immersion died in this game the day everyone could fly tons of lockbox ships, so saying the carriers must stick to it,... really? Time to be fair to carriers, update the old ones, fix the AI, add some new pets/doffs and give them some serious love like Sci has gotten lately. Throw in a 31st Temporal cross faction carrier to help fill out all 3 factions carriers a bit more and to finish the set of temporal ships.
This is a good idea. There should be some restrictions, but combat pets should definitely get a re-look by Cryptic for some updating of some sort.
The per Reputation type of Fighter, or even Frigate, combat pets would add some more value to the aging Reputations & a bit more coolness in theme. Cryptic could expand upon the Fleet catalog of combat pets too as a method.
I can understand Cryptic's wanting to maintain the exclusiveness of certain pets that come from Store bought ships & gamble ships.
Another approach that Cryptic could adopt, & would be their probable approach, is add some Universal Combat Pets to the gambling mechanisms.
It's a real shame that there are so many really good frigates but almost all of them are locked to one or maybe two specific ships. As the recent Tzen-tar doff promo demonstared it's just a matter of $ again. If you want useful stuff get ready to pay an arm and a leg.
Sure, having an Akira HEC with a frigate just as big as itself (Shuk-din Frigate) is beyond silly but that's the state of the game and it's a shame that it can't pair up with a Callisto.
I'd say that hangers should be universal. Except maybe frigates. Restrict frigates to ships that actually have 'carrier' in their name. It'd just seem weird to have some non-carrier ship launching frigates. Don't need the Galaxy w/ 1 hanger popping out 2 Calistos, for example. And move the Oddy's pet console to be a real hanger of 1 pet.
And make all the pet AIs be less stupid and more useful. I miss the old pet mechanic where launching new fighters would despawn the old ones. Since half the time my pets are 20km away doing squat. It'd be nice to launch some fresh ones and have the ones 20km away just disappear.
Sometimes I think I play STO just to have something to complain about on the forums.
I can see the idea of implementing a restriction on frigate pets that they can only be equipped on carriers, specifically true carriers like the Jupiter, or maybe even escort carrier. Even adding some more frigates to the game would be nice with some different styles to them, we have enough bop/escort/destroyers in the game that could be adapted into many different styles of frigate pets.
They could merely change it that the range at which the pets de-spawn a bit might help, as than you would not need to wait to long before they would de-spawn an you could re-launch them most of all if you are traveling between fights at full-impulse. Though I would want to see something done with the rank/star system that the hanger pets use, as it is annoying to re-launch pets at a rank/star level lower than what they had been because of them not keeping up.
I do agree that something needs to be done both to improve the AI of the hanger pets, but also in my opinion just to make the carrier play style more active or engaging compared to the fire an forget style we have for hanger pets now. Whether that is adding an option to use a more manual based UI (kinda like the boff UI in ground content), or having a mechanic like the inspiration or intel gathering mechanic of the Command or Intel ships that is instead of linked to the main ship is tied tot he pets instead, maybe with the different pets type (shuttle, fighter, frigate, and drone) having different sets of abilities you can activate via using/spending different amounts/portions of the gauge that you build up via such a mechanic.
I see no objections. Take the Elite bug ship pets, for instance: once you made the 'insane' investment to unlock those, Cryptic already has their money. It's silly to lock them behind a ship. It's like saying Polarons can only be used on ships of those races that use them.
I mentioned in another thread that I'd like to see pets have both beam and cannon variants.
Granted it was mainly due to the fact that pets relationship to cannons is being fodder rather than aggressor.
Likewise I'd quite like for escorts in the store to unlock a frigate pet for use on that factions frigate capable ships, although again the rommies would need a carrier that isnt buried behind a gamblebox drop.
Comments
I can understand locking faction hanger-pets like the scorpions, and fed shuttles/fighters, and KFD fighters to the faction they are from, while making the lobi/lockbox/c-store hanger pets that are not tied to a faction able to be used on any hanger-capable ship. Just that than giving variants of the different faction hanger-pets that use different weapon/energy types that allow us to have that choice. An why should a player that payed out the money to get access to those pets, and ship, not have the ability to use them.
The fighter types, they are hit or miss.. I may get all of them to dock, half of them or none at all, more time than not I'll have 2 or 3 weaving around trying to get in but never making it.
And I dont think anyone is talking about unlocking faction pets to other factions just unlocking carrier pets to other carriers of same faction/lockbox/lobi. Would be very strange to be fed and launch bop's funny as that would be. I dont see an issue with a Jupiter launching jem bug ships considering you can get the Jem carrier/bug ship on that toon.
The Ai needs redone, and cleaned up to prevent them from suddenly going after targets across the map, simply make the AI only go after targets within set range of the host Carrier/Actual pets. The doffs need redone into something simple that works well.
My suggestion is if you use an intercept doff your pets get +20 acc +20% flight speed. If you use the attack doff your pets get +10% all damage +20% flight speed. If you use the defense doff your pets get +20 hull cap +20 to all healing received + 10% defense rating. Escort doff could be an easy +10% dmg +10% flight speed +20% turn rate. Limit them doffs so the bonus doesnt stack but you can use multiple flight deck officers. Alternate doffs could go about boosting power levels, so you could use Attack doff 1 +10% all damage +20% flight speed, and use Attack doff 2 that boosts +15 weapon power +15 engine power.
This way there would be some more useful doffs, and more then just 1 way to boost the pets. Could also make flight deck doffs that boost the host carrier depending on commands given, like set the carrier command to Attack and the carrier itself gets a buff to its dmg, or set it to defense and the carrier gets + to out going healing. Gives the carrier pilot a reason to switch between the commands as well as gives the carrier new builds to try.
Perhaps give carriers attack orders to go with our hanger commands. Similar to target subsystems/deflectors for sci ships. Each carrier would get a few clickable commands with 30sec-1min cooldowns that order the pets into example 'All out attack' the pets all focus the target of the carrier with a burst from all weapons. 'Scatter Scatter Scatter' - All carrier pets split up to cover a wide area and gain move speed and immunity for a short time, used to avoid things like incoming mega blast attacks. Remember your wing man - Your carrier pets pair up and gain increased dmg and defense for a short time as they go after diff targets together.
Small things like this would give carriers a really unique feel vs other ship types.
I'd love to be able to complain about time delay for my carriers to have the frigates dock and heal
We have no carrier commands and the only doffs we have are carrier command ones like from the caitian diaspora chain.
As for unlockables, well think about technology. the Mobulai, why would a Fek'Ihr ship have equipment for a bunch of alien whales who live underwater. At least restricting it to xindi only makes sense. And i welcome anything that prevents stale clones of each other where it looks very assorted and diverse. Its nice warping into the sol system and seeing non-terran ships with non-terran pets
Anyway, I agree with the OP. It would be nice if the restrictions were removed, I've asked the same thing in the past and I still believe it would be a good thing.
I understand that there are cases where there are good reasons for not allowing frigate pets because some ships only have one hangar for good reasons - maybe to avoid power creep or something like that. But I doubt hangars are one of the main sources of power creep or will ever be.
Personally I don't use hangar pets much nowadays, my Vesta uses shield drones and my Aquatic carrier has the Aquatic frigate pets - but for those who want to use other things that are not possible right now, I believe they should get the option to use whatever pets they want. Assuming of course that they own the ship those pets are associated with.
As an alternative they could maybe allow the "fancy" unlocked pets to be used on the more generic faction specific carriers like the jupiter and vo'quv although to do that they'd have to give the rommies a carrier option that isn't buried behind a lockbox.
In some cases I use ships that are, in my opinion, best combined with 'general' hangar pets. In the case of the Paradox, for instance, I prefer shield drones as hangar pets. Which means I'll never use the Temporal fighters that come with it, because they can't be used on anything else.
So in some cases the fighter pets are totally useless to me, unless they could be used on different ships. Another example would be the Vonph, which I don't fly that often but I really like the pets and would like it if I could use those on my other ships.
No this would totally kill once and for all the unique things that each faction has. The only truely faction unique thing left besides the fighters is the Rom Sing Core. Time to draw a line and say to the Fed faction this far no further!
What?
This in no way is exclusive to Federation. If you've got a Vo'quv or a Kelvin Warbird it doesn't matter, your stuck using a select few fighters on it. In what way does this make "factions not unique" ?
This is your fault for playing on console! *hits you with a rolled up newpaper*
Joking aside. Discussion for pc/console should be kept apart since they run on completely diff versions of the game. They are infact 2 diff games, the console version is just built to look like the pc version. Otherwise they would have all the same content, and run events at the same time, Cryptic has failed to unify the two versions in my book. Any positive changes made to PC carriers will of course go to consoles but like i said they are diff versions so it takes time.
Now back to the topic at hand, unlocking carrier pets to work on another carrier that the player already owns in no way breaks faction uniqueness and you should feel dumber for having suggested that.
KDF needs the T6 Voque and T6 catfish updated. Romulans could use a true T6 carrier in the Cstore as well, with new frigate nondrone pets. Feds would be fine if they just made the callistos actually fast instead of being basicly nonmoving turrets.
The AI for mine using pets needs to be updated to be similar to the Tzen AI on locked on blasts that targets your predicted flight path or having them fly in front of the targets flight path and drop mines, or having them fly over the targets and drop quick activation mines. Id like to see a pet that uses the tachyon mines since those are basicly unused in the entire game and shield strip for pets is really useful. Romulans could also use tractor mines.
The reason for why would a KDF ship carry Tholian pets? Who gives a sh*t, we already can mount scorpion fights on everything so its not even an issue. This is purely to increase the number of player options, if you dont like mix matching on your ships dont do it, the rest of us would like to have the option to use the various pets we spent tons of time and credits to unlock.
Immersion died in this game the day everyone could fly tons of lockbox ships, so saying the carriers must stick to it,... really? Time to be fair to carriers, update the old ones, fix the AI, add some new pets/doffs and give them some serious love like Sci has gotten lately. Throw in a 31st Temporal cross faction carrier to help fill out all 3 factions carriers a bit more and to finish the set of temporal ships.
The per Reputation type of Fighter, or even Frigate, combat pets would add some more value to the aging Reputations & a bit more coolness in theme. Cryptic could expand upon the Fleet catalog of combat pets too as a method.
I can understand Cryptic's wanting to maintain the exclusiveness of certain pets that come from Store bought ships & gamble ships.
Another approach that Cryptic could adopt, & would be their probable approach, is add some Universal Combat Pets to the gambling mechanisms.
I'd say that hangers should be universal. Except maybe frigates. Restrict frigates to ships that actually have 'carrier' in their name. It'd just seem weird to have some non-carrier ship launching frigates. Don't need the Galaxy w/ 1 hanger popping out 2 Calistos, for example. And move the Oddy's pet console to be a real hanger of 1 pet.
And make all the pet AIs be less stupid and more useful.
They could merely change it that the range at which the pets de-spawn a bit might help, as than you would not need to wait to long before they would de-spawn an you could re-launch them most of all if you are traveling between fights at full-impulse. Though I would want to see something done with the rank/star system that the hanger pets use, as it is annoying to re-launch pets at a rank/star level lower than what they had been because of them not keeping up.
I do agree that something needs to be done both to improve the AI of the hanger pets, but also in my opinion just to make the carrier play style more active or engaging compared to the fire an forget style we have for hanger pets now. Whether that is adding an option to use a more manual based UI (kinda like the boff UI in ground content), or having a mechanic like the inspiration or intel gathering mechanic of the Command or Intel ships that is instead of linked to the main ship is tied tot he pets instead, maybe with the different pets type (shuttle, fighter, frigate, and drone) having different sets of abilities you can activate via using/spending different amounts/portions of the gauge that you build up via such a mechanic.
+1
Granted it was mainly due to the fact that pets relationship to cannons is being fodder rather than aggressor.
Likewise I'd quite like for escorts in the store to unlock a frigate pet for use on that factions frigate capable ships, although again the rommies would need a carrier that isnt buried behind a gamblebox drop.