Starbase One

alfanx01

After playing through the anniversary, I realised something really odd about Defense of Starbase One STF.

Why in the world is Starbase One (SB1) selectable? It's hard to select a target (via mouse click) if the enemy is within SB1's bounding box.

AFAIK, none of the enemy target SB1, and I would like to add that some of the enemies can get stuck at the SB1 wedges (looks like someone failed to clip.

iamynaught

That's a good question, one I've asked many times. Never heard a real answer. As far as I can tell, it's simply clickable to annoy players.

eladonwarps

It's targetable by Enemy Vessels, and they often do. Try going to a side with no other players, cloaking or dying and staying that way, target an enemy Klingon ship, and watch the Target-of-Target. If there's no other targets, the Klingon ships start shooting the Base instead of other players. It has its own Shields and Hull HP, and in theory, enemies could damage it with enough fire. Therefore, our ability to select it is likely so that it can be attacked by the enemy Klingon ships, and targetable by us players to use Support and Healing abilities on.

On its surface, this logic should be enough of a reason to be targetable. The Problem is that the Starbase itself can't possibly take enough damage from enemy ships for this to be a consequence, even on Elite difficulty.

We know from Discovery that sometime after our evacuation efforts, House D'Ghor attacks again and destroys the station. Keeping it pristine and beautiful is not a realistic consideration. It should probably be weakened so that it can take some damage, and I wouldn't mind keeping the targeting in if they made a potential fail/optional condition out of this.

But since they probably won't at this point, I must also conclude that there's no reason we should be targeting the Starbase. Turning it into an environment object might reduce the possibility of an enemy clipping into or bugging out inside the base.

alfanx01

eladonwarps#6040 wrote: »

It's targetable by Enemy Vessels, and they often do. Try going to a side with no other players, cloaking or dying and staying that way, target an enemy Klingon ship, and watch the Target-of-Target. If there's no other targets, the Klingon ships start shooting the Base instead of other players. It has its own Shields and Hull HP, and in theory, enemies could damage it with enough fire. Therefore, our ability to select it is likely so that it can be attacked by the enemy Klingon ships, and targetable by us players to use Support and Healing abilities on.

On its surface, this logic should be enough of a reason to be targetable. The Problem is that the Starbase itself can't possibly take enough damage from enemy ships for this to be a consequence, even on Elite difficulty.

We know from Discovery that sometime after our evacuation efforts, House D'Ghor attacks again and destroys the station. Keeping it pristine and beautiful is not a realistic consideration. It should probably be weakened so that it can take some damage, and I wouldn't mind keeping the targeting in if they made a potential fail/optional condition out of this.

But since they probably won't at this point, I must also conclude that there's no reason we should be targeting the Starbase. Turning it into an environment object might reduce the possibility of an enemy clipping into or bugging out inside the base.

I only played up to Advanced, and, the AIs are more interested in taking down players and/or the evac ships (if no one is there).

And, I agree, there's no Optional objective for SB1's health, it should be non-selectable. Even if there's a script to reduce the health of SB1, it should still be non-selectable.

spiritborn

It could also be the case that in the mission they do target the station and they didn't want to make another object for the TFO.

garaffe

Speaking of things with GIANT targeting boxes, the S31 battlercruiser on Xbox still has a huge targeting box.

alfanx01

garaffe wrote: »

Speaking of things with GIANT targeting boxes, the S31 battlercruiser on Xbox still has a huge targeting box.

It's also on PC.