On the Subject of Mirror Invasion...

shadowfirefly00

This TFO in particular is subject to repeated criticism by many because of the perceived lack of incentive to put in any real effort - no matter what you do, you still have to slog through fifteen minutes. "So how," arises the reasonable question, "can the TFO be redesigned so as to encourage - and reward - effort?" Supposedly those fifteen minutes are how long it take to collect sufficient power for the anti-tachyon pulse... so why not change the collectors so that each and every interaction offers a choice of directing power to the defense grid or the pulse capacitors? Each time the latter option is chosen, x seconds would be shaved off of the timer - a team fully on the ball would not only get the defenses fully powered up, but reduce that timer by a respectable amount. This gives an obvious incentive for folks to close portals (and others to provide the covering fire they will need to do so in peace) and could also open up another avenue for bonus marks - hypothetically, for each minute removed from the timer, the total mark payout would be increased by 10% (rounding up).

On another note, why not have some possible occurrences which could complicate things while at the same time offering more opportunities for bonus marks? Two come readily to mind:

• 'boomer': while at least one full-sized portal is open (the ones which allow command cruisers into the fray), there is the possibility (checked every thirty seconds, for example) for a, well, boomer to enter the fray. This is in fact an old-school Typhoon which cloaks occasionally and fires enhanced tricobalt devices at Vauthil Station while cloaked (and yes, they can be shot down). Like the Unimatrices from the Borg RA, there are multiple possible 'boomers', and destroying them all at least once would award an accolade ('Krasny Oktyabr'); ensuring Vauthil Station receives zero damage from the boomer's missiles would be the requisite for 'Goalkeeper'.
• 'Mobius': destroying a certain number of Terran ships in a short interval can trigger the arrival of this pack boss - a quartet of Mobiuses and a Klein as squadron lead - who focus solely on the players. Several squadron designators are possible (Rot, Grun, Schwarze, Weib, Magier, Jaeger); destroying all of these gives you 'TFW-156' as an accolade.

Note that while both optionals can be active simultaneously, each can show up once and only once in a given run.

Vaguely related: the fact that certain ship types have faster interactions with particular object types is a good idea which should be consistent across all TFOs.