[Suggestion] New ship type: Starbase

cmdrskyfaller · August 2012

Devs,

I'm taking the idea of having a playable starbase from the free online game Netrek.

In that game, Starbases are super-slow, very high shield and armor ships equipped with rapid fire beams and rapid fire torpedoes. They also have long range tractor/repulsor capability.

In that game, the starbase acts as an ultimate team support ship. Its super slow speed makes it useless in an attack role since anything can stay out of its range.. but if anything gets in range its in big trouble.

In STO, the starbase would be introduced as something similar.

Imagine this:

Starbase (tier 5):

Hull: Equivalent to five VoQuv's in hull.
Max Speed: Thrusters only speed. No Full Impulse.
Turn Rate: 2
Defense rating: 0 (no matter what skills you have..its a station. its not dodging anything).

Bonuses:

- Torpedo and Energy weapons fire twice as fast.
- High resist shields (native 40% resists before shield type additional resist and capt/boff skills/power settings)
- 8km range repulsor & tractor beams.
Can equip cannons (not dual nor heavy no quads) and turrets.
Cannot equip mines.

Setup:
Weapons: 10 weapon slots surrounding station (2 fore, 2 to each side, 2 aft).
Shields: Any
Engines: None. This slot is greyed out.
Deflectors: Any

Consoles:

5 Device Slots
5 Engineering
5 Science
2 Tactical

4 Hangar Bays

Can deploy ANY pet, even zstore ship pets as long as they are of player's faction. Limitation: 4 deployed wings active at any one time (aka each bay if launched can only have 1 active wing).

Can use combat escort pet from flagship cruisers if player owns one. Does not count towards pet max limit. Reward for owning a flagship!

Power bonuses: NONE. Starbase does not get any 'class' power bonuses. Its bonuses are all in weapn refire rate, tractor beam/repulsor range and pets.

Bridge Officer slots:

3x Cmdr Universal
2x Lt Universal

This boff setup allows starbases to be able to be costumized as full science support or full engineer support or mix of each.

lostmoony · August 2012

ROFL

i vote for a flying turttle with 20 beams.:D

no seriously dont open threats if you have drunken.;)

rrincy · August 2012

the hell ? lol

veruler · August 2012

O_o

Umm.. Please god no. Do you realize how much of a train wreck this would be?

starkaos · August 2012

I suggest that we pilot a Dyson Sphere. I think a price of 1 million zen or $10,000 is a suitable price for it.

latinumbar · August 2012

Oh I LOVED netrek. Was an awesome game. Although I can't really see it being adapted to STO. There were a lot things about the ships in that game that don't apply to STO. Ships actually had to keep track of fuel, and you could 'run out' if you weren't careful. Ships could 'dock' at the starbase and refuel. All ships could cloak, including the starbase. Tractors actually pulled ships in instead of just slowing or holding them. Weapons could overheat if you used them too much (which happened frequently with the starbases).

kermit1013 · August 2012

actually, the idea of the "Starbase assault" is a time honored large scale scenario in Star Fleet Battles, one of my all time favorite games, and with so many elements of SFB existing (by coincidence or design) in STO, I'd love to see a starbase assault scenario playable here in STO...

however, individually pilotable Starbase "starships" is not the way, I think, to go about it - for a wide variety of reasons, not the least of which would be the difficulties in individual coding/balance of various ship type stuffs being assigned to starbase "ships"

let me offer this counter-proposal...

every player has assigned a generic "Starbase" template character - a "ship" effectively that everyone has - that "ship" can be outfitted with whatever appropriate gear applies to the Starbase (we can go over that part later)

the point being that the Starbase itself isn't tied to any particular person, therefore doesn't have to be coded to track with someones ship inventory or whatever - it's just a template that populates the gear of the starbase when the appropriate instance is opened

we have a Starbase Assault PVP mission (I think it'd HAVE to be pvp - besides making tons of enemy ships or overpowered enemy ships, assaulting a starbase *ought* to require a certain degree of tactical coordination) - enemy team gets populated in groups of 5, defending team gets populated...differently

It'll be hard to balance initially - Starbases should be at least a 10:1 ratio, I feel - starships to starbase - The starbase should probably have fixed values for outgoing damage but have varying weapons types (i.e. it still does a fixed amount of damage from a beam array, cannon array - but you can alter it between phaser, tetryon, etc by equipping that type of weapon in the slot)

I suppose it would be possible to create a whole new population of starbase gear to drop, but I'd rather not encourage that

in previous versions of SFB, Starbases have massive advantages over any single ship - many of the suggestions you made were excellent - far more powerful and effective weapons (could easily justify increasing outgoing damage and possibly even effective range, allowing starbase to engage targets outside 10k, although that may run into coding problems) massive damage reduction, much higher value shields (although if we're going to allow boff powers, I would recommend AGAINST giving a native dmg resist to shields, unless coding really high shield numbers is a problem, or balancing them vs shield draining powers proves to be a problem)

making them mobile of any kind I feel would be a disaster, however - Starbases shouldn't move...at all...as far as I'm concerned. However, allowing the firing player to control rotation direction (and perhaps speed) could be fun

using boff powers inside a starbase presents a variety of conceptual problems - how many stations should a starbase have - given the baseline upgrades in starbase weaponry, would boff abilities unbalance the encounter? I think we'd have to think long and hard about starbase boff abilities, and perhaps just go with the template idea - rather than be able to assign *your* boffs to starbase station positions (which is what the current system would have to do) have starbases built more like shuttles - with certain fixed powers

now, we'd want the starbases to have MORE powers than a shuttle, obviously - so, give it multiple officer positions (say, 5) and a fixed power layout by type (i.e. theres a fixed ENGI layout, a fixed SCI layout, and a fixed TAC layout)

with your starbase *template*, you'd take 3, 4 or 5 boff positions, and select the engi layout, the tac layout, or the sci layout - and fill out your positions like that - in short, we take some of the weirdness of customizable boff powers out of the equation, while still allowing a fair degree of customization

I'd like to include defender starships as well, but balancing starbase vs enemy ships, and starbase PLUS ships vs enemy ships, seems *especially* hard, especially given the wide variety of skill present in current PVP - however, balancing vs bots usually just involves increasing dmg, health and or numbers...which may be equally ineffective

still, I like the idea overall - but, I think to be even somewhere close to the neighborhood of effective, it'd have to be streamlined a bit (e.g. genericized, which is unfortunate, but I think using the current design of ships/boffs/captains and such would be terribly overcomplicated) and probably balanced more around pvp

anyway, those are some initial ideas...we'll see what else we can come up with

wotertool · August 2012

It's a ****ing starbase! It can has every weapon! even 20-Heavy-Canons. 4 on each side so they have a 360? arc.

Firing Phaser & Torpedos twice as fast ... are you kidding me? It's a Starbase
It has enough torpedoramps to fire bursts every second. Even the Phaserdamage would be too high.

And for the Bridge Officer layout, it would have 5 Universal slots since the fleet is able to say where they are going first (science, eng, tac).

And come on, 2 tac console slots? It's a starbase (again)! It has enough space for 10 tac/eng/sci slots!

tacofangs · August 2012

Technically, they are set up as ship costumes. When I was building them, I would fly them around in various maps. On the larger bases, you can't zoom out far enough to see yourself.

latinumbar · August 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V_tp5C27TQ

icegavel · August 2012

Love the idea, but one problem:

When did we start sticking Warp engines on our bases? That WOULD be a requirement. Max speed would have to be Warp 3, cause it's so big. The Krenim weapon ship was half a starbase in size, and it could only do Warp 6.

ssargon · August 2012

tacofangs wrote: »

Technically, they are set up as ship costumes. When I was building them, I would fly them around in various maps. On the larger bases, you can't zoom out far enough to see yourself.

Please tell me you shot video of this.

elandarksky · August 2012

*sees giant sphere in distance*

Thats no moon..

Its a space..*ahem* Starbase!

leviathan99 · August 2012

tacofangs wrote: »

Technically, they are set up as ship costumes. When I was building them, I would fly them around in various maps. On the larger bases, you can't zoom out far enough to see yourself.

They have weapon hardpoints?

One of the things I've said for awhile is that I think Klingons could be brought up to speed if you made the first 20 levels "outpost command."

The Federation goes places more than it HOLDS them. However, an empire rooted in conquest would probably have more emphasis on holding a place.

Imagine two tiers of gameplay with a zero turnrate carrier or defending a base in a small ship and a handful of ground maps that are versatile by design enough to have 20 missions set on them.

It would speed development of other factions considerably if they spent 20+ levels in one place. (Heck, the Cardassians could reasonably spend 40 levels in one place.)

mimey2 · August 2012

I actually had an idea like yours a few weeks ago when Starbases were newer. I was thinking more about a different Star Trek game, specifically Star Trek: Conquest.

I don't think that it should move, at all. It would be nice to have an ability to move your shields around, or have some kind of innate tactical team thing.

I like your idea, and I REALLY want this myself, because I'd personally like controlling a starbase.

kylesal24 · August 2012

tacofangs that is AWESOME!!
Please tell us that you have a video of it. Or one from someone else looking at your "ship." If it is a ship costume, then which ship did you use?
Thanks!

Kyle

dma1986 · August 2012

tacofangs wrote: »

Technically, they are set up as ship costumes. When I was building them, I would fly them around in various maps. On the larger bases, you can't zoom out far enough to see yourself.

I did a similar thing in Vega Strike, except in that you could not only do it with the stations, but even with moons and planets.

There's something incredibly satisfying about dropping into the middle of an enemy formation and opening up with more weapons on your vessel than the enemy fleet has combined.

suprcheeze · August 2012

dma1986 wrote: »

There's something incredibly satisfying about dropping into the middle of an enemy formation and opening up with more weapons on your vessel than the enemy fleet has combined.

In STO, the power drain would be so massive your entire weapons system would go offline...

carmenara · August 2012

So... what happens if we see not one but FIVE starbases in a PvP match or Fleet action?

Or, 10 vs 10 Fleet Starbase only PvP?

Rome: Total War elephant-only battle?

dradym · August 2012

how bout just an interaction with an ally starbase? say, you get close and "dock" with it and get to pick targets, use some abilities, etc.? but no actual "flying" the thing, just a temporary thing...oh and no movement, but many tractors, and defensive weapons, shields, power levels-maybe multiple weapons pools and auxillaries, for specific firing arcs or subsystems. "all power to ..."north" phaser banks" "...to deflectors" "...to emitters" like that. also might be interesting as a post level 50 perk, with captain skills to enhance these.

carmenara · August 2012

dradym wrote: »

how bout just an interaction with an ally starbase? say, you get close and "dock" with it and get to pick targets, use some abilities, etc.? but no actual "flying" the thing, just a temporary thing...oh and no movement, but many tractors, and defensive weapons, shields, power levels-maybe multiple weapons pools and auxillaries, for specific firing arcs or subsystems. "all power to ..."north" phaser banks" "...to deflectors" "...to emitters" like that. also might be interesting as a post level 50 perk, with captain skills to enhance these.

Ah, this is like the Starfleet Command manual piloting mode in starbase defence missions. You get to manage shields and weapons (and the awesome Class IV heavy phaser banks) but the thing doesn't move at all.

It would be nice if the camera issues could be worked around by allowing player to "enter Command Mode" which transforms the game into some sort of real time strategy top down interface that allows long range SB targeting, target designation for teammates, etc.

It's something like the Command Interface from the Tribes 2 multiplayer shooter in concept.

Here's a small pic for illustration:
http://www.deafgamers.com/oldreviews/oldscreens/tribes4.jpg

Back when we were still debating if there should be Federation Carriers I sort of proposed a 'task force command' game mode where a carrier "Air Boss" player can vector in off-map fighters and fleet support.

Today we have that functionality in the form of Operational Assets which is great

hatepwe · August 2012

Imagine a mission where you take on the role of a starbase commander to repel enemy ships while your boffs take command of other ships.

360 weapons and 10 boff slots open on the starbase with 5 minute countdown before the action starts to giev you time to slot everything...

carmenara · August 2012

That would be a nice single player 'take command and save the base' scenario too.

A perfect example would be "The Second Wave" where instead of spawning in ownship, player would take command of DS9's defences personally.

kylesal24 · August 2012

carmenara, those were nuts in Rome: Total War. You ever do chariot only battle?

I like the idea of the starbase. Kind of like EVE and their super fleet ship.

Kyle

dariusmajere · August 2012

elandarksky wrote: »

*sees giant sphere in distance*

Thats no moon..

Its a space..*ahem* Starbase!

Can it be Blown up by a lone well skilled pilot in a To'duj or peregrin or similiar vessel with a lone torpedo shot down a shaft that could of been sealed by some wood from Space Depot?

[Suggestion] New ship type: Starbase

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