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Separate the ships from the powers

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
The new ships all have some special power that sets them apart from the tier 5 ships we flew previously, which is a shame because of all the new skins designed for ships that apparently wont be seen much pretty soon. Some of them have game affecting powers that for now at least will only be available on the C-Store. So I say separate out the powers from the ship; sell the powers both on the C-Store and in game and let people upgrade the ship of their choice with that power. Some powers might not fit every ship; saucer separation would probably be one of them. But why not be able to buy or earn a cloaking device for your prometheus instead of only flying a refit Defiant or Galaxy X? Why not be able to outfit a ship with transwarp drive instead of only the Excelsior getting it? Why not get ablative armor for other models besides the Intrepid? The new Nebula ability, if it involves more powerful cloak detection as I now assume it does, why not let any science ship upgrade to that?

The new ships will be largely non-customizable compared to the ships we already have. I fear that people will be locked into cookie cutter ships because of the special abilities they have rather than their actual preference of ship. So put a new device slot on a ship, let people decide what device to put there, and you could limit the number of possible powers a ship can gain by the number of slots available. Choose between transwarp and cloak. Make them hard but not impossible to change out; we don't want people device swapping as part of combat but we should be able to upgrade our ships. Maybe some powers only go with one type of ship, like awacs only for science vessels.

This would greatly increase the number of ships players would actually play. It would involve some strategy about picking out the right power. It would allow surprises on the battlefield when someone does something unexpected.

I hope the game moves in this direction; right now the idea that there will be a steady stream of C-Store ships with powers unavailable anywhere else or on any other model leaves me cold.
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