Add the Heavy Armor slot to Cruisers (reducing Devices to 3).
Add the Heavy Armor slot to Battle Cruisers (reducing Devices to 2).
Add the Secondary Deflector slot to Science Vessels (reducing Devices to 2).
I would be so happy when I`d be able to slot my MVAM console into device slot, it`s empty anyway :mad:. I think oddy/bortas/vesta users would be veeery happy with this.
Ah and the crit consoles, and "cheese" consoles like grav pulse theta AA, AMS all other stuff shouldn`t be usable in dev slots. Cheese consoles should stayed in their factions anyway. But it too late for that...
I dont really think universal consoles should be put into the device slot, although, more devices would be nice, devices that do special stuff, like up yer crit chance/severity 1% for 30 seconds or something, or buff yer shield strength for 10 seconds. (i mean reusable, who really buys batteries all the time? ) this would not be unbalancing.
I assume there will be more content added to the game come legacy of romulus, it wont just be the new faction, so with that, make the STF's harder, make some new devices, give us something new to do and build, but for crying out loud, dont nerf everything we have built!
Instead you would end up with ships that are totally OP. The point of making someone sacrifice one console for another is to A: make that person think very carefully about what role they wish their ship to perform, and B: to get people to band together for various tasks.
Giving someone the ability to turn like a fighter, tank like an engi, heal like a sci and hit like an escort would drive down sales of any other ship type. In effect it would cause stagnation, and that my friend is a game killer.
EDIT: Instead of unbalancing the game further, it would be much simpler and much less destructive to the game to just re-balance the one class of ship that MIGHT be considered OP. Logical thinking seems to be lacking in this thread.
Cruisers would only have access to two more universal consoles/devices than escorts, one more than science ships, and science ships would have one more console/device available to them than escorts. That hardly creates an uber OP ship or ridiculously unbalances the game, and it sure as hell wouldn't make them suddenly "turn like a fighter, tank like an engi, heal like a sci and hit like an escort." I mean, seriously? Talk about hyperbole.
Additionally, universal consoles do not force people to work together. At all. Period. It's not set up so only one person on a team can have an aceton assimilator so that you "need" one person to carry that and another person to carry vent theta and another to carry AMS and another to carry tachyon detection grid.
Also, I strongly disagree with the concept of forcing people to work together by creating the typical MMO trinity. Rather than NEEDING a tank that can't do damage but can absorb it meat shield style while generating high threat, and a healer to restore meat to the meat shield, and damage dealers to take out the enemy that is idiotically distracted by the tank that is doing pretty much nothing to it, I find it far more enjoyable when everyone can generally take care of themselves and fight well. Besides, that mechanic just as much forces people to work together as it drives them apart. Most teams don't need more than one tank and one healer, so if there's already a tank, and you are a tank, you aren't needed, or if there's already a healer and you are a healer, you aren't needed. But if everyone can damage well and heal well and tank well in their own ways, then anyone can team with anyone. And if you make it so that the content requires 5 players to complete, then people will be forced to work together in that way.
Now lets pretend for a moment that cruisers are the benchmark by which everything is measured and they can do great damage and take great damage. If escorts could tank as well as a cruiser and do as much damage as a cruiser through evasion, maneuverability, and speed, while cruisers tank with thick hulls and thick armor and do high damage but lack maneuverability, and science ships could tank as well as a cruiser through their tough shields and do as much damage as cruisers and escorts through a combination of their standard weapons, maneuverability and their science powers, then it wouldn't eliminate choice or make the game less fun, it would make everyone equal but different.
A cruiser would lake the maneuverability to stay on an enemy's weak shield facing and wouldn't be able to quickly escape hairy situations, but it would be designed to do high damage and take high damage to compensate. Escorts wouldn't be able to stand toe to toe and take a beating, but their high evasion would protect them and their maneuverability would allow their lower fire power to do just as much damage as a cruiser because they could take advantage of an enemy's weak spot and they could stay out of the arcs of the enemies most powerful weapons. A science vessel would maneuver better than a cruiser but not as well as an escort, would have tough shields but low hull, and wouldn't have the outright weapons damage of an escort or a cruiser, but would make up for it by creating weaknesses with their control skills and doing damage through abilities like gravity well, feedback pulse, photonic shockwave, etc.
Different play styles, all capable of doing the same damage and taking the same damage, but going about it in different ways. One might enjoy playing each one, or really find their niche in a certain role. In this trifecta, the cruiser logically holds agro because it is constantly doing the most damage and doesn't need 'threat control', the escort freely maneuvers the field of battle to take advantage of the enemy's weak shields because they have diverted all power to one shield facing to counter the cruiser's constant high damage, and the science vessel wrecks their day by reducing their accuracy, making it more difficult to move, and coralling their support craft so that they can easily be more easily taken out while also contributing damage to the deadly mix.
Either way, few enjoy being crippled at doing damage while being an excellent healer, or being crippled at damage while being able to take a beating, or being crippled at taking a beating or healing while being able to do damage. Most people prefer to be versatile and competent, not disabled and dependent.
I also disagree that more well-rounded ships would lower sales. Most ship sales are probably from collectors who want to catch'em all-pokemon style. If cryptic sold ships more a-la-carte, I think they would sell more. If the functionality of the ship was separated the cosmetics of the ship, people could buy several "functionality builds" to choose between and then several skins. For example, one could purchase the boff layout of the fleet advanced escort, the console layout of the fleet tactical escort retrofit and the skin of the fleet heavy escort carrier because they prefer the appearance of the akira, the console layout of the tactical escort retrofit and the boff layout of the advanced escort. And if pricing was 500 zen for a boff layout and 500 zen for a console layout and 1000 zen for the ship skin, one might purchase the 1000 zen for the functionality they want and layout another 3000 zen to get all three skins they like. If they also separated the consoles from the ship, and priced them from 500-1000 zen, instead of buying a ship you don't want for 2000 zen and getting the console they want with a ship they don't want, one might lay out 4000 zen to get all four consoles they want. So all around, happier customers, and more likely to have more purchases because there is less "down side" like getting a TRIBBLE ship and a good console or getting a good ship and a TRIBBLE console. Plus by having smaller price points of 10 bucks here and 5 bucks there, you are more likely to have players justify their purchases to themselves as little treats to themselves rather that 50 bucks for this and 20 bucks for that, particularly when one often feels like they are buying the whole ranch just to get that one horse.
But I digress... back to the topic of the thread. This is really quite a small 'advantage' for cruisers and science vessels as they would each gain 2 and 1 additional universal consoles respectively, and most universal consoles have such long cools and limited/situational functionality that it would not greatly impact balance but would give a little boost the two ship classes that are arguably in need of the most love right now.
And yes, it might be easiest to nerf escorts, but rather than do that, I think it would be more "positive" to buff cruisers/engineers and science ships/captains rather than take away from the tacs/escorts.
I would be so happy when I`d be able to slot my MVAM console into device slot, it`s empty anyway :mad:. I think oddy/bortas/vesta users would be veeery happy with this.
Ah and the crit consoles, and "cheese" consoles like grav pulse theta AA, AMS all other stuff shouldn`t be usable in dev slots. Cheese consoles should stayed in their factions anyway. But it too late for that...
I don't particularly care for "cheese" myself, but I feel that theta is generally fine and wouldn't have a problem with it being a device if the insta-crew wipe were reduced to a steady crew death that could be countered by hazard emitters. If you get stuck without hazards, then you get stuck, if you have hazards, then your crew lives. I don't like that it's basically guaranteed crew death.
The function in game of AMS doesn't even make sense, in the show it was a fancy light show, I.E. a shiny object, to distract the borg. It didn't jam their sensors or anything, it just made the shuttle difficult to target. So I would be in favor of a longer lasting AMS effect, and while active, any enemy in range wouldn't be able to see heavy torpedoes, mines, fighters, boarding parties, etc. So rather than the absolute "HAHA! now you're healing the enemy that's trying to kill you!" bs that ams is currently, it would still be quite valuable and not so infuriating.
I would rather aceton assimilators not be targetable. If you are in range of one, it drains power from your ship and damages your ship and crew (like how they worked in the show), instead of the current system where a klink drops an aceton, their KHG shield or romulan crit placate or random game glich causes you to lose target for a second and suddenly you're in epic battle... with a itty bitty little metal TRIBBLE that's totally kicking your TRIBBLE. The counter to the aceton assimilator is to move out of range, again, like in the show.
If I had my druthers I'd also change scramble sensors skill into a massive accuracy debuff and sensor range reduction rather than the current "HAHA! healing your enemy!" skill it currently is... which also doesn't make sense... you accidentally beam a tactical team over to your enemy, who has apparently lowered shields to allow transport, and then forced them at gunpoint to redistribute their shields for ten seconds before finally shooting them in the head... wha? Yeah, no.
I'd also make it so tac team doesn't completely negate boarding parties. Right now, boarding parties are next to useless as everyone with the remotest clue as to what they are doing have back to back tac teams. So curtail the number of crew killed and reduce the number of subsystems disabled? yes. Absolutely make boarding party useless? no.
But yeah... back to the topic... If they "fixed" cheese consoles to be less infuriatingly, perhaps 'brokenly' cheesy, then I don't think anyone should have a problem with them being equipped as devices.
Well theta is not that much of a problem for me, if i`m in my recluse healer i probably won`t use HE just to get out of it (unless i relly relly need to) But if i`m flyin my tac well thets whole diferent story, bye bye to my crew and bye bye bonus defense..
I`ve noticed that lot of ppl stoped using AMS in pvp, most likely bcs they finnaly relised that AMS`ing peeps is big no no in pvp. SS is ok, IMO although new doff can create quite bit of a trouble in matches. Here`s how; SS+doff, snb, temporal inversion field.
AA should remain targetable bcs there are counters to it, u can throw graw well, or use torps and mines to clear them up. Any problem w/ AA can be solved with kinetic dmg. BUT, it takes quite bit to tke them down w/ only torps. Let`s 3 out of 5 players carrying them in match, that can create huge mess in the map due to a short cooldown, also combining that w/ PL. leech.
Well theta is not that much of a problem for me, if i`m in my recluse healer i probably won`t use HE just to get out of it (unless i relly relly need to) But if i`m flyin my tac well thets whole diferent story, bye bye to my crew and bye bye bonus defense..
I`ve noticed that lot of ppl stoped using AMS in pvp, most likely bcs they finnaly relised that AMS`ing peeps is big no no in pvp. SS is ok, IMO although new doff can create quite bit of a trouble in matches. Here`s how; SS+doff, snb, temporal inversion field.
AA should remain targetable bcs there are counters to it, u can throw graw well, or use torps and mines to clear them up. Any problem w/ AA can be solved with kinetic dmg. BUT, it takes quite bit to tke them down w/ only torps. Let`s 3 out of 5 players carrying them in match, that can create huge mess in the map due to a short cooldown, also combining that w/ PL. leech.
For me the issue with aceton assimilators is losing my target and inevitably locking an aceton instead of a player when I hit spacebar, that plus they take out heavy torps and mines, so there's lots of kinetic damage they are essentially immune to while under energy fire. So they can only really be hit by non-destructible projectiles and yeah, or something like grav well, but that seems like a waste of a grav well to me. So, all things considered, I'd rather them be rebalanced to drain power and do constant damage to the crew/ship over time as long as you are in range and have a limited like 3-5 km range. Preferably they would simply do damage to the crew like in the show, but that would require them fixing the crew/ship repair mechanic to make that meaningful.
Add the Heavy Armor slot to Cruisers (reducing Devices to 3).
Add the Heavy Armor slot to Battle Cruisers (reducing Devices to 2).
Add the Secondary Deflector slot to Science Vessels (reducing Devices to 2).
I'm not fond of the 2nd deflector slot, particulary because it would allow one ship class to have 2x 2set bonuses.
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I'm not fond of the 2nd deflector slot, particulary because it would allow one ship class to have 2x 2set bonuses.
When he talked about it, I didn't take it as being able to slot a second primary deflector as much as them offering a secondary deflector - ie - no fudging set bonuses. Given what they've shown with the Warp Cores, etc - it'd probably be a weaker version of the standard loot deflector, eh?
I'm not fond of the 2nd deflector slot, particulary because it would allow one ship class to have 2x 2set bonuses.
I believe the proposed "armor slot" and "heavy armor for cruisers" that has been proposed by the devs involves the creation of a new slot and a new item separate and apart from the engineering slots and engineering armor consoles. I also believe that the second deflector slot was suggested and intended to only accept a "secondary deflector," a new item separate and apart from normal or "primary" deflectors that are part of sets. So the 2x2set bonuses wouldn't be a problem.
I would really like to see some customization improvements to ships. Armor and warp core slots are a step in the right direction. Next separate sensors from the deflector and give us more options there and add a tractor to each ship, have the BO abilities buff tractor super awesome.
Also I wish balance was not obtained by nerfing, but instead by making better weapons or shields etc to counter the unfair balance, like an arms race. It could justify more loot and give us multimillionaires some new gear to strive for.
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Before all universal consoles were swapped to slots-only, I used to have grappler (yeah, the NX one :P) on all my ships, just for the lulz and as a additional tractor beam (even more lulz in PvP).
I am pretty sure it would be a true balance breaker having it back in device slot.
Before all universal consoles were swapped to slots-only, I used to have grappler (yeah, the NX one :P) on all my ships, just for the lulz and as a additional tractor beam (even more lulz in PvP).
I am pretty sure it would be a true balance breaker having it back in device slot.
Considering the ships that would be most affected by tractor beam are escorts which typically have back to back attack pattern omega nulling all movement debuffs, I don't think it would break the game.
Considering the ships that would be most affected by tractor beam are escorts which typically have back to back attack pattern omega nulling all movement debuffs, I don't think it would break the game.
Agree, the whole balance reason argument is kinda weird, considering its already unbalanced in favor of high DPS escorts/DHC-s
Considering the ships that would be most affected by tractor beam are escorts which typically have back to back attack pattern omega nulling all movement debuffs, I don't think it would break the game.
I would really love to know how you get back to back pattern Omegas.
I would really love to know how you get back to back pattern Omegas.
It can be achieved through certain conn officer doffs that reduce the cool of attack patterns, I think that route requires three purple quality, or you can take two copies of attack pattern omega. It basically gives you a 50% uptime 15 seconds on, 15 seconds off.
For me the issue with aceton assimilators is losing my target and inevitably locking an aceton instead of a player when I hit spacebar, that plus they take out heavy torps and mines, so there's lots of kinetic damage they are essentially immune to while under energy fire. So they can only really be hit by non-destructible projectiles and yeah, or something like grav well, but that seems like a waste of a grav well to me. So, all things considered, I'd rather them be rebalanced to drain power and do constant damage to the crew/ship over time as long as you are in range and have a limited like 3-5 km range. Preferably they would simply do damage to the crew like in the show, but that would require them fixing the crew/ship repair mechanic to make that meaningful.
There is very simple solution to this problem, u have to do only 2 things in order to get rid of targeting spam. Go to your options and disable "target enemy`s pets" and "target enemy player created objects" (i don`t know how is it correctly in-game but you should find it easily) By doing this, while pressing tab, u will cycle only between enemy`s ships and not their spam creations like AA`s or pets.
Note that this won`t work if u are SS-ed or AMS-ed, and if u get "blinded" and u need to use heals on yourself / ally u need to click anywhere on screen, and use heals (on yourself) or simply just click on a teammate and send him a heal. Remember, by disabeling spam targeting u will have to manually select Donatra`s tractor probes in order to fire on them.
I recently encountered the Universal Console issue- just had to get rid of them.
It's a real shame too since I really wanted to keep the Tholian Web Generator!
Definitely agree with the Original Poster's sourced concept to use the consoles as devices.
I could see the need for a new set of slots for universal consoles, like the Odyssey class, if you bought the 3 pack to get all 3 versions of it maybe you did because you want to get the most out of that ship by putting all three consoles on 1 ship but to do that you have to sacrifice something since those consoles only go in either a tactical, engineering, or science slot.
My suggestion would be instead of universal slots just designate consoles like that as miscellaneous and add 3 miscellaneous console slots to each ship that uses those special ability consoles. It wouldn't have to make the game unbalanced because they could do something similar to what they did with the Odyssey, just let you use 1 special skill at a time. With that ship if you have all 3 consoles you can sepperate the saucer but you can't launch the Aquarius escort or worker bees until you dock the saucer with the drive section.
When it comes to universal consoles, I would say the Assimilated Module or ZPM actually work rather well as 'universal' because they have passive, always on bonuses that you are trading for other passive, always on bonuses. it gets mucked up when you have the standard Universal consoles that are really just additional spells, that many have a very long cooldown.
Imagine say, the Red Matter Capacitor, which is a very popular device, imagine how many would use it if it was a console instead? The CD is too long, the effect is nice, but the CD means it is not always on. In the cast of most uni consoles having to trade a possibly useful CD for an always on bonus is a hard thing to deal with, and generally feels bad. Making the CD uni's into devices would be nice, especially since they provide no passive stats.
Comments
Add the Heavy Armor slot to Battle Cruisers (reducing Devices to 2).
Add the Secondary Deflector slot to Science Vessels (reducing Devices to 2).
Ah and the crit consoles, and "cheese" consoles like grav pulse theta AA, AMS all other stuff shouldn`t be usable in dev slots. Cheese consoles should stayed in their factions anyway. But it too late for that...
I assume there will be more content added to the game come legacy of romulus, it wont just be the new faction, so with that, make the STF's harder, make some new devices, give us something new to do and build, but for crying out loud, dont nerf everything we have built!
Cruisers would only have access to two more universal consoles/devices than escorts, one more than science ships, and science ships would have one more console/device available to them than escorts. That hardly creates an uber OP ship or ridiculously unbalances the game, and it sure as hell wouldn't make them suddenly "turn like a fighter, tank like an engi, heal like a sci and hit like an escort." I mean, seriously? Talk about hyperbole.
Additionally, universal consoles do not force people to work together. At all. Period. It's not set up so only one person on a team can have an aceton assimilator so that you "need" one person to carry that and another person to carry vent theta and another to carry AMS and another to carry tachyon detection grid.
Also, I strongly disagree with the concept of forcing people to work together by creating the typical MMO trinity. Rather than NEEDING a tank that can't do damage but can absorb it meat shield style while generating high threat, and a healer to restore meat to the meat shield, and damage dealers to take out the enemy that is idiotically distracted by the tank that is doing pretty much nothing to it, I find it far more enjoyable when everyone can generally take care of themselves and fight well. Besides, that mechanic just as much forces people to work together as it drives them apart. Most teams don't need more than one tank and one healer, so if there's already a tank, and you are a tank, you aren't needed, or if there's already a healer and you are a healer, you aren't needed. But if everyone can damage well and heal well and tank well in their own ways, then anyone can team with anyone. And if you make it so that the content requires 5 players to complete, then people will be forced to work together in that way.
Now lets pretend for a moment that cruisers are the benchmark by which everything is measured and they can do great damage and take great damage. If escorts could tank as well as a cruiser and do as much damage as a cruiser through evasion, maneuverability, and speed, while cruisers tank with thick hulls and thick armor and do high damage but lack maneuverability, and science ships could tank as well as a cruiser through their tough shields and do as much damage as cruisers and escorts through a combination of their standard weapons, maneuverability and their science powers, then it wouldn't eliminate choice or make the game less fun, it would make everyone equal but different.
A cruiser would lake the maneuverability to stay on an enemy's weak shield facing and wouldn't be able to quickly escape hairy situations, but it would be designed to do high damage and take high damage to compensate. Escorts wouldn't be able to stand toe to toe and take a beating, but their high evasion would protect them and their maneuverability would allow their lower fire power to do just as much damage as a cruiser because they could take advantage of an enemy's weak spot and they could stay out of the arcs of the enemies most powerful weapons. A science vessel would maneuver better than a cruiser but not as well as an escort, would have tough shields but low hull, and wouldn't have the outright weapons damage of an escort or a cruiser, but would make up for it by creating weaknesses with their control skills and doing damage through abilities like gravity well, feedback pulse, photonic shockwave, etc.
Different play styles, all capable of doing the same damage and taking the same damage, but going about it in different ways. One might enjoy playing each one, or really find their niche in a certain role. In this trifecta, the cruiser logically holds agro because it is constantly doing the most damage and doesn't need 'threat control', the escort freely maneuvers the field of battle to take advantage of the enemy's weak shields because they have diverted all power to one shield facing to counter the cruiser's constant high damage, and the science vessel wrecks their day by reducing their accuracy, making it more difficult to move, and coralling their support craft so that they can easily be more easily taken out while also contributing damage to the deadly mix.
Either way, few enjoy being crippled at doing damage while being an excellent healer, or being crippled at damage while being able to take a beating, or being crippled at taking a beating or healing while being able to do damage. Most people prefer to be versatile and competent, not disabled and dependent.
I also disagree that more well-rounded ships would lower sales. Most ship sales are probably from collectors who want to catch'em all-pokemon style. If cryptic sold ships more a-la-carte, I think they would sell more. If the functionality of the ship was separated the cosmetics of the ship, people could buy several "functionality builds" to choose between and then several skins. For example, one could purchase the boff layout of the fleet advanced escort, the console layout of the fleet tactical escort retrofit and the skin of the fleet heavy escort carrier because they prefer the appearance of the akira, the console layout of the tactical escort retrofit and the boff layout of the advanced escort. And if pricing was 500 zen for a boff layout and 500 zen for a console layout and 1000 zen for the ship skin, one might purchase the 1000 zen for the functionality they want and layout another 3000 zen to get all three skins they like. If they also separated the consoles from the ship, and priced them from 500-1000 zen, instead of buying a ship you don't want for 2000 zen and getting the console they want with a ship they don't want, one might lay out 4000 zen to get all four consoles they want. So all around, happier customers, and more likely to have more purchases because there is less "down side" like getting a TRIBBLE ship and a good console or getting a good ship and a TRIBBLE console. Plus by having smaller price points of 10 bucks here and 5 bucks there, you are more likely to have players justify their purchases to themselves as little treats to themselves rather that 50 bucks for this and 20 bucks for that, particularly when one often feels like they are buying the whole ranch just to get that one horse.
But I digress... back to the topic of the thread. This is really quite a small 'advantage' for cruisers and science vessels as they would each gain 2 and 1 additional universal consoles respectively, and most universal consoles have such long cools and limited/situational functionality that it would not greatly impact balance but would give a little boost the two ship classes that are arguably in need of the most love right now.
And yes, it might be easiest to nerf escorts, but rather than do that, I think it would be more "positive" to buff cruisers/engineers and science ships/captains rather than take away from the tacs/escorts.
I don't particularly care for "cheese" myself, but I feel that theta is generally fine and wouldn't have a problem with it being a device if the insta-crew wipe were reduced to a steady crew death that could be countered by hazard emitters. If you get stuck without hazards, then you get stuck, if you have hazards, then your crew lives. I don't like that it's basically guaranteed crew death.
The function in game of AMS doesn't even make sense, in the show it was a fancy light show, I.E. a shiny object, to distract the borg. It didn't jam their sensors or anything, it just made the shuttle difficult to target. So I would be in favor of a longer lasting AMS effect, and while active, any enemy in range wouldn't be able to see heavy torpedoes, mines, fighters, boarding parties, etc. So rather than the absolute "HAHA! now you're healing the enemy that's trying to kill you!" bs that ams is currently, it would still be quite valuable and not so infuriating.
I would rather aceton assimilators not be targetable. If you are in range of one, it drains power from your ship and damages your ship and crew (like how they worked in the show), instead of the current system where a klink drops an aceton, their KHG shield or romulan crit placate or random game glich causes you to lose target for a second and suddenly you're in epic battle... with a itty bitty little metal TRIBBLE that's totally kicking your TRIBBLE. The counter to the aceton assimilator is to move out of range, again, like in the show.
If I had my druthers I'd also change scramble sensors skill into a massive accuracy debuff and sensor range reduction rather than the current "HAHA! healing your enemy!" skill it currently is... which also doesn't make sense... you accidentally beam a tactical team over to your enemy, who has apparently lowered shields to allow transport, and then forced them at gunpoint to redistribute their shields for ten seconds before finally shooting them in the head... wha? Yeah, no.
I'd also make it so tac team doesn't completely negate boarding parties. Right now, boarding parties are next to useless as everyone with the remotest clue as to what they are doing have back to back tac teams. So curtail the number of crew killed and reduce the number of subsystems disabled? yes. Absolutely make boarding party useless? no.
But yeah... back to the topic... If they "fixed" cheese consoles to be less infuriatingly, perhaps 'brokenly' cheesy, then I don't think anyone should have a problem with them being equipped as devices.
I`ve noticed that lot of ppl stoped using AMS in pvp, most likely bcs they finnaly relised that AMS`ing peeps is big no no in pvp. SS is ok, IMO although new doff can create quite bit of a trouble in matches. Here`s how; SS+doff, snb, temporal inversion field.
AA should remain targetable bcs there are counters to it, u can throw graw well, or use torps and mines to clear them up. Any problem w/ AA can be solved with kinetic dmg. BUT, it takes quite bit to tke them down w/ only torps. Let`s 3 out of 5 players carrying them in match, that can create huge mess in the map due to a short cooldown, also combining that w/ PL. leech.
For me the issue with aceton assimilators is losing my target and inevitably locking an aceton instead of a player when I hit spacebar, that plus they take out heavy torps and mines, so there's lots of kinetic damage they are essentially immune to while under energy fire. So they can only really be hit by non-destructible projectiles and yeah, or something like grav well, but that seems like a waste of a grav well to me. So, all things considered, I'd rather them be rebalanced to drain power and do constant damage to the crew/ship over time as long as you are in range and have a limited like 3-5 km range. Preferably they would simply do damage to the crew like in the show, but that would require them fixing the crew/ship repair mechanic to make that meaningful.
I'm not fond of the 2nd deflector slot, particulary because it would allow one ship class to have 2x 2set bonuses.
When he talked about it, I didn't take it as being able to slot a second primary deflector as much as them offering a secondary deflector - ie - no fudging set bonuses. Given what they've shown with the Warp Cores, etc - it'd probably be a weaker version of the standard loot deflector, eh?
I believe the proposed "armor slot" and "heavy armor for cruisers" that has been proposed by the devs involves the creation of a new slot and a new item separate and apart from the engineering slots and engineering armor consoles. I also believe that the second deflector slot was suggested and intended to only accept a "secondary deflector," a new item separate and apart from normal or "primary" deflectors that are part of sets. So the 2x2set bonuses wouldn't be a problem.
Also I wish balance was not obtained by nerfing, but instead by making better weapons or shields etc to counter the unfair balance, like an arms race. It could justify more loot and give us multimillionaires some new gear to strive for.
Before all universal consoles were swapped to slots-only, I used to have grappler (yeah, the NX one :P) on all my ships, just for the lulz and as a additional tractor beam (even more lulz in PvP).
I am pretty sure it would be a true balance breaker having it back in device slot.
Considering the ships that would be most affected by tractor beam are escorts which typically have back to back attack pattern omega nulling all movement debuffs, I don't think it would break the game.
Agree, the whole balance reason argument is kinda weird, considering its already unbalanced in favor of high DPS escorts/DHC-s
P.S. forgot to add /sarcasm after that last line
I would really love to know how you get back to back pattern Omegas.
It can be achieved through certain conn officer doffs that reduce the cool of attack patterns, I think that route requires three purple quality, or you can take two copies of attack pattern omega. It basically gives you a 50% uptime 15 seconds on, 15 seconds off.
There is very simple solution to this problem, u have to do only 2 things in order to get rid of targeting spam. Go to your options and disable "target enemy`s pets" and "target enemy player created objects" (i don`t know how is it correctly in-game but you should find it easily) By doing this, while pressing tab, u will cycle only between enemy`s ships and not their spam creations like AA`s or pets.
Note that this won`t work if u are SS-ed or AMS-ed, and if u get "blinded" and u need to use heals on yourself / ally u need to click anywhere on screen, and use heals (on yourself) or simply just click on a teammate and send him a heal. Remember, by disabeling spam targeting u will have to manually select Donatra`s tractor probes in order to fire on them.
Hope this will help you, i know it helped me alot
Cheers
It's a real shame too since I really wanted to keep the Tholian Web Generator!
Definitely agree with the Original Poster's sourced concept to use the consoles as devices.
My suggestion would be instead of universal slots just designate consoles like that as miscellaneous and add 3 miscellaneous console slots to each ship that uses those special ability consoles. It wouldn't have to make the game unbalanced because they could do something similar to what they did with the Odyssey, just let you use 1 special skill at a time. With that ship if you have all 3 consoles you can sepperate the saucer but you can't launch the Aquarius escort or worker bees until you dock the saucer with the drive section.
Imagine say, the Red Matter Capacitor, which is a very popular device, imagine how many would use it if it was a console instead? The CD is too long, the effect is nice, but the CD means it is not always on. In the cast of most uni consoles having to trade a possibly useful CD for an always on bonus is a hard thing to deal with, and generally feels bad. Making the CD uni's into devices would be nice, especially since they provide no passive stats.