And you know... that would be a valid argument if I had said:
"They should completely remove the singularity mechanic entirely because I said so."
However, what I said (and I have said from the beginning) is:
"I want to fly a Romulan Warbird, but this singularity thing isnt for me. Can there be an option to not have to use it?"
Never said I was the only person playing this game. Never even insinuated it. Never said no one should be able to use the singularity system because I dont like it... but I did say that there should be an option for people who dont like it to be able to opt out of using it, without being penalized.
Not really. A gimmick is something (more often than not shoehorned) into an existing or new product that would not hamper the operation of said product if it wasnt there. (Having a special feature for the sake of having a special feature...) Examples:
Wii motion controls
the 3D function on the Nintendo 3DS.
Xbox Kinect
PlayStation Move
The WiiU's tablet controller
The rear touch pad on the PSVita
If none of those existed, the consoles they are related to would still function just fine* (and in the case of the 3DS, you can turn off the 3D and not have to use it).
*With the possible exception of the Wii, as with out motion control, it might not have ever existed in the first place. But the majority of games do use it for anything more than inputs that could have easily been handled by a button.
So while the above are gimmicks; player abilities, BOff/Companion abilities and gear are pretty essential to the function of an MMO (or even just an RPG in general). The DOff system could be considered one, yes. But if it is, its one that you dont have to use. Id even go so far to say most of the CStore consoles are gimmicks in some form (eg the Impulse Burst or Subspace Jump).
The Singularity system is definitely a gimmick. Its a special feature to make the Romulans stand out, just because having a special feature seemed like a good idea.
So, as virusdancer pointed out, EVERYTHING is a gimmick.
Fleet holdings? We got along fine without it before, gimmick, worthless, toss it out.
Reputation? We got along fine without it before, gimmick, worthless, toss it out.
DOff system? We got along fine without it before, gimmick, worthless, toss it out.
Hell, by your definition, the Romulan faction itself is a gimmick.
It never ends. Once you have a viable game, ANY new addition becomes a gimmick because taking it away gives us...a functional game, just like we had before. And that's why I find this attitude toxic, because you (and people like you) would have us stay at a standstill to prevent the game from becoming too gimmicky.
And the reason I'm opposed to there being the option of using a warp core instead is because new systems like this need intertia to survive. Without a critical mass of players using a system, it will not get properly developed or balanced, and it is in serious danger of being cut out entirely. If too many people just ignore the system and take the easy, bog-standard, everybody's-doing-it warp core route, they cannot justify putting resources and time into developing the singularity system properly, and could well abandon it. It's not even out yet, for crying out loud. And this is why I have to keep arguing against the "I don't wanna use it" people, precisely for the same reason you're arguing against singularity system. "The devs should hear my opinion." Great. Same here. I don't want the only thing the devs hear to be "I don't want to use it"; I want them also to hear "it looks good, I like it." I want them to keep it alive so I can try it and test it at level 50, properly geared, in eSTFs, so I can see how it REALLY shines or fails.
You have been given an out. You do not HAVE to use this system, but it will require you to invest something. If you are so vehemently opposed to using the singularity system, put your dilithium where your mouth is and fly an ally's ship, or a lockbox ship at tier 5.
Just recently got the D'Deridex and Its definetly no worse than ships of its mass, I do have a problem with the Singularity Jump that becomes available with it, you use it and jump onto your target, unfortunetly I don't think the D'Deridex is manouverable enough to utilise the skill probably.
I also think that is the one singularity skill I won't really use.
#1 - BOFF Seating finally appears to be at least somewhat fixed (they show up!!!)
#2 - I have NO, absolutely NO idea what these people are talking about with saying that this ship is the worst ship they have seen since the Galaxy. It is not an escort and should not be flown as such, but I think it is just as viable as a Vor'Cha battle cruiser...
#3 - Has anyone else noticed the following: Subterfuge has a "Button" for some reason, I thought it was a passive skill, not an ability. Also for some reason when you activate cloak all the singularity skills are put on 5 sec cooldown.
Admiral Jisil T'ror Admiral Sovak Does anyone remember when we used to be explorers...
Just recently got the D'Deridex and Its definetly no worse than ships of its mass, I do have a problem with the Singularity Jump that becomes available with it, you use it and jump onto your target, unfortunetly I don't think the D'Deridex is manouverable enough to utilise the skill probably.
I also think that is the one singularity skill I won't really use.
The movement in SJ is the side bonus; the real power is in the perception/accuracy debuff.
What you do is start dropping warp plasma and use evasive maneuvers to slather it over your enemy (bonus points if you can get an ally to drop a gravity well there too) and THEN jump away. The warp plasma keeps them from moving away from the singularity, and the singularity keeps them from moving away from the plasma. While they're stuck there, their perception is nerfed so hard they may not even be able to see you to target you, and even if they can their accuracy is shot. All the while they're getting chewed up by the plasma and singularity damage (although the latter is, tbh, rather insignificant).
You, on the other hand, are 5 km away taking advantage of their blindness to turn on your cloak, allowing you to spin around and get a strike-from-stealth bonus on your helpless opponent.
Even if you have multiple enemies or are in a ship that can't drop the plasma, if you drop it nearby, all but the lightest ships should be in range of the effect long enough for you to escape into cloak.
Hyouki's actually right on the meta-level if one stops to think about it.
Every Captain ability is a gimmick.
Every BOFF ability is a gimmick.
Every DOFF is a gimmick.
Every piece of gear is a gimmick.
Everything...is...a gimmick.
That's a matter of perspective, but its certainly not star trek canon design, but a game play design.
So if game mechanics = gimmicks then yes to you that is what they are but, not everyone wants a certain gimmick in hyouki's terms and yours, pushed on them and then penalized for., to a ships that they have wanted.
But I am fine with the current design, except I'd make power levels be based on singularity charge at max charge they would have normal 50 across the board, at least then people who don't want to use the powers don't have to and not be completely penalized for it.
That's a matter of perspective, but its certainly not star trek canon design, but a game play design.
So if game mechanics = gimmicks then yes to you that is what they are but, not everyone wants a certain gimmick in hyouki's terms and yours, pushed on them and then penalized for., to a ships that they have wanted.
But I am fine with the current design, except I'd make power levels be based on singularity charge at max charge they would have normal 50 across the board, at least then people who don't want to use the powers don't have to and not be completely penalized for it.
Not my terms, I'm quoting singularity opponents who are dismissing the singularity powers as "gimmicks".
And no, you will never see "let the fully charged singularity give full power levels" because then you would be the equivalent of a Fed or KDF captain PLUS a Battle Cloak PLUS the ability to unleash any of those singularity powers any time you felt like it would be useful, and that's not balanced in the slightest.
And no, you will never see "let the fully charged singularity give full power levels" because then you would be the equivalent of a Fed or KDF captain PLUS a Battle Cloak PLUS the ability to unleash any of those singularity powers any time you felt like it would be useful, and that's not balanced in the slightest.
Incorrect. Full singularity charge is (going to be) the equivalent of having 55 base power. The downside is that using a singularity power drops that down to 40 base power.
its absolutely imperative that the turn rate for the 2 big warbirds be increased though, no singularity power, battle cloak or station setup will save them from always on worst turn rate ever
Couldn't agree more...as I've reiterate several times since LoR was announced I was, was being the operative word, so very excited about flying the D'Deridex Warbird. But the fact that the ship has a carrier turn rate really bothers me. No change to RCS consoles or more maneuverability while cloaked solves this problem. It seems like all my favorite ships in this game, excluding maybe the Excel, have been made to be inferior to other ships. Really takes away from my game play experience when all my favorite ships are bad and I have to use something I don't care about/like which will be the case yet again if I choose to roll a romulan/reman character.
Not really relevant to the conversation, but more of a general thought about STO's space combat: The problem is that none of these things; the battlecloak; the singularity powers, and the tactics that may evolve around them, are necessary to our survival in 95% of the PvE combat, at any difficultly level.
You can just do the same old thing over and over with any ship in STO, and be successful. It's a shame that this has become the case, because back in STO's closed beta every space battle I took part in was a life and death struggle; where the outcome of success was dependent on what speed I was going, what my position was in relation to the enemy ship, and what abilities and batteries I clicked at exactly the right time. Now, I'm not a hardcore kind of gamer, but to me that was the most fun I'd had in an MMO up to that point.
Back then these things meant something, now these days I can literally park my ship at zero velocity, point in the direction of the enemy ship and mark time until they're dead. The only way new powers/abilities and gameplay styles in STO are going to be taken more seriously is if they are absolutely necessary to our survival in any given situation.
Not really relevant to the conversation, but more of a general thought about STO's space combat: The problem is that none of these things; the battlecloak; the singularity powers, and the tactics that may evolve around them, are necessary to our survival in 95% of the PvE combat, at any difficultly level.
You can just do the same old thing over and over with any ship in STO, and be successful. It's a shame that this has become the case, because back in STO's closed beta every space battle I took part in was a life and death struggle; where the outcome of success was dependent on what speed I was going, what my position was in relation to the enemy ship, and what abilities and batteries I clicked at exactly the right time. Now, I'm not a hardcore kind of gamer, but to me that was the most fun I'd had in an MMO up to that point.
Back then these things meant something, now these days I can literally park my ship at zero velocity, point in the direction of the enemy ship and mark time until they're dead. The only way new powers/abilities and gameplay styles in STO are going to be taken more seriously is if they are absolutely necessary to our survival in any given situation.
You actually remember a time when it wasn't like that? :eek:
Frankly, the fact that we are allowed to die 3 trillion times doesn't help at all.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Psst... ally ships are only viable from T1 to T4. There are No T5 ally ships for Romulans. Why do you insist on bringing it up. Also lockbox ships are expensive and shouldnt be a fix
So, as virusdancer pointed out, EVERYTHING is a gimmick.
Fleet holdings? We got along fine without it before, gimmick, worthless, toss it out.
Reputation? We got along fine without it before, gimmick, worthless, toss it out.
DOff system? We got along fine without it before, gimmick, worthless, toss it out.
Yes. They are. But NO ONE HAS SAID THE SINGULARITY SYSTEM SHOULD BE REMOVED COMPLETELY! (well... I certainly havent, someone else may have.)
If I so choose, I can avoid using every system you listed above. I dont have to have DOffs, I dont have to grind Reputation. I dont have to be in a fleet.
But if I want to fly a warbird, I have to use this system. I dont get a choice. Thats wrong. Especially for a new system such as this. Its a special feature for the sake of having a special feature, and its shoehorned in, especially because the Romulans never displayed anything similar to this in the shows. So... why are we making stuff up for them here?
And the reason I'm opposed to there being the option of using a warp core instead is because new systems like this need intertia to survive. Without a critical mass of players using a system, it will not get properly developed or balanced, and it is in serious danger of being cut out entirely. If too many people just ignore the system and take the easy, bog-standard, everybody's-doing-it warp core route, they cannot justify putting resources and time into developing the singularity system properly, and could well abandon it. It's not even out yet, for crying out loud. And this is why I have to keep arguing against the "I don't wanna use it" people, precisely for the same reason you're arguing against singularity system. "The devs should hear my opinion." Great. Same here. I don't want the only thing the devs hear to be "I don't want to use it"; I want them also to hear "it looks good, I like it." I want them to keep it alive so I can try it and test it at level 50, properly geared, in eSTFs, so I can see how it REALLY shines or fails.
Thats great. I'm not saying you shouldnt also provide your feedback.
You have been given an out. You do not HAVE to use this system, but it will require you to invest something. If you are so vehemently opposed to using the singularity system, put your dilithium where your mouth is and fly an ally's ship, or a lockbox ship at tier 5.
I shouldnt have to. Plain and simple. I should be able to roll a new Romulan character and opt out of the system and still be able to fly a warbird. (just like I can opt out of using the DOff system or the Fleet system or the Reputation system). And you know what... if Im able to do that its only good for Cryptic, because Im more likely to buy Romulan CStore items. As it is... Im not rolling a Romulan, and I'm not buying Romulan CStore stuff. Theyve effectively lost my money completely. And no... I'm not delusional enough to think that I'm going to hurt Cryptic but not buying things...
Saying: "Oh you can fly ally or lockbox ships." is not acceptable.
Lockbox ships are ludicrously expensive.
And ally ships only go so far. And they cost precious dilithium, which I have barely enough of on my main to do things I want to do on that character.
We're still testing possible ways of tweaking the Cloaking, power levels, singularity, etc. to ensure that the Romulans have a fun - and balanced - gameplay experience. None of the tuning points you're seeing in Beta are necessarily final.
The current iteration of Romulan Battle Cloak isn't intended to be a nerf to compensate for the Romulan racial trait. Rather, it comes from feedback from our internal testing, which indicated that Romulan ships were getting far too survivable compared to other factions when taking into account all their abilities.
Romulan Battle Cloak is, by default, harder to detect than Klingon Battle Cloaking - and only becomes easier to detect if you cloak at a high singularity level (roughly 60%) or higher. This is not taking into account the Romulan racial bonus to Cloaking, which makes it even harder to detect.
With these factors taken into consideration, as well as the added defensive capabilities of Singularity abilities, it was proving to be too easy to for Romulan ships to escape from combat without risk.
We still see Romulans as being experts at Cloaking technology, and that's why all their Warbirds have Battle Cloak and such a high base Stealth value. From a game mechanics standpoint, though, we still have to make sure they are properly balanced against other factions.
We are constantly discussing and testing different types of changes internally. Balance is an iterative process, and any time any type of ship has disadvantages when compared to another ship, *someone* is going to be disappointed.
If we give Romulans cloaking that is just better than Klingon cloaking in every way, there has to be a cost associated with that to maintain balance. As it stands, the base power level differences between Warbirds and other ships have not, in our testing, proven sufficient to compensate for both having a globally superior Cloak with no disadvantages and access to all of the Singularity powers. We may end up reverting to the 40 base power that all Warbirds used to have and giving the Romulans a globally superior cloak, or we might end up balancing these things in other ways - it's still an open discussion on the design team. We are paying close attention to player feedback and appreciate your comments.
I admit that a Warbird has to pay in some way for its cloak, no doubt, but the Singularity "Powers" are a joke. At least the ones up to T4. The powers are definetly not worth the price you have to pay for it. The only more or less usefull Power is the Heal.
Why is there no click option to prevent the Singularity Core from charging? I mean it stops charging also when it is full. Basically if i want a effective cloak (not that it would matter in pve anyways it is only a pvp issue).
With the latest patch we have to use the singularity power before cloaking to get a more effective cloak, but then we have to deal with a 5 sec global cd for the cloak.
And i just can repeat myslef here, the singularity skills + the cloak are not worht a permanent -10 to all subsystems.
Not to mention the Power bonus disadvantage of a Singularity core compared to a warpcore which gives the full core powerbonus basically all the time, cause you can be sure that ppl will choose the warpcore that way that the system on which the powerbonus is based is the subsystem that runs at max power at 99% of the time.
With the singularity core you only get the power bonus when the core is fully charged. so in total you have even more powerdifference then you already have from the subsystem power penalty.
I would really like to know how you guys testing ships and skillchanges. I am pretty sure that your aproach could use some heavy improvements, otherwise i can`t explain some of the changes you made. ((last big fail were the resistences you get with "Power Insulators").
But ok, if the romulan ships have to much drawbacks compared to their benefits i just won?t roll a romulan char.
Reynolds/Thokal
U.S.S. Helios -Vesta Class/R.R.W. Dark Science - Dyson Surveillance Science Destroyer U.S.S. Donut - Fleet Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit TheWiseGuys
We're still testing possible ways of tweaking the Cloaking, power levels, singularity, etc. to ensure that the Romulans have a fun - and balanced - gameplay experience. None of the tuning points you're seeing in Beta are necessarily final.
The current iteration of Romulan Battle Cloak isn't intended to be a nerf to compensate for the Romulan racial trait. Rather, it comes from feedback from our internal testing, which indicated that Romulan ships were getting far too survivable compared to other factions when taking into account all their abilities.
Romulan Battle Cloak is, by default, harder to detect than Klingon Battle Cloaking - and only becomes easier to detect if you cloak at a high singularity level (roughly 60%) or higher. This is not taking into account the Romulan racial bonus to Cloaking, which makes it even harder to detect.
With these factors taken into consideration, as well as the added defensive capabilities of Singularity abilities, it was proving to be too easy to for Romulan ships to escape from combat without risk.
We still see Romulans as being experts at Cloaking technology, and that's why all their Warbirds have Battle Cloak and such a high base Stealth value. From a game mechanics standpoint, though, we still have to make sure they are properly balanced against other factions.
We are constantly discussing and testing different types of changes internally. Balance is an iterative process, and any time any type of ship has disadvantages when compared to another ship, *someone* is going to be disappointed.
If we give Romulans cloaking that is just better than Klingon cloaking in every way, there has to be a cost associated with that to maintain balance. As it stands, the base power level differences between Warbirds and other ships have not, in our testing, proven sufficient to compensate for both having a globally superior Cloak with no disadvantages and access to all of the Singularity powers. We may end up reverting to the 40 base power that all Warbirds used to have and giving the Romulans a globally superior cloak, or we might end up balancing these things in other ways - it's still an open discussion on the design team. We are paying close attention to player feedback and appreciate your comments.
My question is: How exactly do you know warbirds are too survivable? Do you have some metric that's showing players dying less in space combat in a warbird than they seem to in other ships? And have you compared the survival of these ships vs their combat efficiency? Sure, you can battle cloak and thus avoid the respawn timer, but you have to wait around cloaked for your ship to passively heal (heal abilities aren't available while cloaked) or you have to run out of range, decloak, heal up, and come back in. And if that is the case, I don't really see a problem with the ships technically dying less. Unless, of course, you are concerned that all that work you did making their special singularity breach animation when they blow up won't be getting as much screen time as you had hoped. :P
Additionally, are you taking into consideration the skill level of the players you've allowed into closed beta? The people in the closed beta might be more skilled on average than the majority of players who will be popping into warbirds on may 21st, if that's the case, if you make it hard for the skilled players to stay alive in a warbird, your average players may toss LoR right out the airlock because warbirds blow up too easily. So... just hoping whatever data you're using to make these assessments takes context into consideration.
You wanted Romulan ships to revolve around the singularity and the cloaking device. You keep promoting the cloaking device as a way to counteract the low turn rates of larger ships. And then you nerf the cloaking cooldown to 40 seconds. 30 with the trait to reduce cooldown. I'll put it as nicely as I can: This is stupid. I dont know where the idea that a cloak would have a cooldown at all, but I've been accepting of that because its an MMO, and EVERYTHING in an MMO has a cooldown, even if it shouldnt. You say that cloaking is helping people survive. In case you've forgotten, Cloaking lowers your shields. Yes it helps you survive IF you dont explode during those few seconds where you have no defense. Cloaking in combat is actually dangerous, not something that enhances survivability. But now we cant even play that high risk, high reward playstyle you've been touting so much with the Romulans because we can only cloak every 40 seconds! Thats so long its useless. Might as well just take battle cloak away if you're going to do that, because it amounts to the same thing as having a standard cloak. You say you're still tweaking, Devs? I hope so, because not only is this useless, but it destroys the play style you've been trying to sell us.
If I'm not mistaken, they already posted saying that they have restored the cloak to 20 seconds and instead are bringing the warbird power levels back down to a base of 40 instead of the 45 they buffed it to. It may not have been patched into tribble yet, but it's supposed to be on the way.
If I'm not mistaken, they already posted saying that they have restored the cloak to 20 seconds and instead are bringing the warbird power levels back down to a base of 40 instead of the 45 they buffed it to. It may not have been patched into tribble yet, but it's supposed to be on the way.
Incorrect. Full singularity charge is (going to be) the equivalent of having 55 base power. The downside is that using a singularity power drops that down to 40 base power.
Ok I think some people miss understood what he meant singularity cores have a +___ power to one subsystem based on what type of singularity core you have. So you can get singularity core that give aux +15 at max power. Before it was only 7.5 and 0 at no singularity power.
I disagree on it being OP to having 50 normalize power at full singularity charge. Becuase you have to remember it take awhile to charge to 5 and it drains quickly after going into cloak becuase you drop out of combat pretty quickly, and once you use the power for the situation you loose all that gain.
I disagree on it being OP to having 50 normalize power at full singularity charge. Becuase you have to remember it take awhile to charge to 5 and it drains quickly after going into cloak becuase you drop out of combat pretty quickly, and once you use the power for the situation you loose all that gain.
It is COMPLETELY overpowered, because at that point you are equal to any Klingon or Fed captain, except for having a Battle Cloak and all five singularity powers available at full charge. How on earth is that fair that Romulan captains can spend as long as they like at "full charge", with six powers that are not available at all to Fed captains? So WHAT if they take a hit after they use the singularity, or drop a bit when they use their cloak? This is not balanced. This is OP.
klingon fleet ships for launch of LoR would be great, all those raptors and some bops still could be made. a fleet tkonco with an excelsior setup and a c store negvar with the underslung cannons gowron's ship had with a disruptor version of the wing guns the andorian ship had. 5 forward weapons too!
for the vet ships, just a fleet version for us life timers i would like as soon as possible now. if its so much trouble to let only life timers use fleet vet ships, i wouldn't mind everyone having access at this point, but only we should get the transform console, from the tier 5 version. charge people 4 mods for the fleet version, and have it not come with the unique transform console, charge us life timers 1 mod for them. so the ship isnt unique for vets anymore, but the transform mode is.
ugg, theres no canon saying romulan ships have to have a crappy turn rate, only that their warp speed is slightly sub par at certain points! the original romulan bop did not have a warp core, or singularity core. it had only a impulse reactor, witch means a fusion reactor. proboly cant generate as much power as a M/AM reactor, and is not nearly as fuel efficient, running on only deuterium. in balance of terror fuel was a big concern for the romulans.
in the episode tin man a d'deridex couldn't not keep up with a galaxy class easily. thats just a warp nacelle coil tech issue, the feds just had more advanced warp speed tech.
none of this has anything to do with turn rate! the d'deridex, though large, is mostly a hollow shell. depending on how thick the wings are, if they are like a single deck or 3, the ships volume would ether be about the same as a galaxy or negvar, or 5 times higher. regardless, a ship cant be an effective cloak and daggers style ship, which it absolutely was, with less then a turn rate of 9 or 10.
how can such a large ship justify turning well enough? well, you guys just have to raise the lowest a ship can turn, which is 5, to about 8. bump every cruiser and carrier by 1 to 3 turn rate, and the d'deridex can still be the worst turner, but be used like it should be used.
as far as its current station and console setup goes, that should be swapped with the ha'apax. that ships got no established history, yet it has the tac heavy station setup the d'deridex deserves. the ambassador class station setup is nice, for a large fed style support cruisers, thats a better fit to that much thicker and larger ha'apax. the d'deridex should not be limited to 2 tac consoles, just because the galaxy class is.
It is COMPLETELY overpowered, because at that point you are equal to any Klingon or Fed captain, except for having a Battle Cloak and all five singularity powers available at full charge. How on earth is that fair that Romulan captains can spend as long as they like at "full charge", with six powers that are not available at all to Fed captains? So WHAT if they take a hit after they use the singularity, or drop a bit when they use their cloak? This is not balanced. This is OP.
So being equal to fed and klingon captains is over powered ? Your spending your time at full charge without using a power.... I would even say the system should loose power faster then it does now while out of combat if they were to implement it though...
Plus you forget romulans have to gain those charges so while they are warming up fed and Klingon will still have the advantage...
second their battle cloak is worse then kdf's battle cloak or even cloak at full charge.. so there are disadvantages...
And the powers have situation uses and are not I repeat not game changers i would even have to go as to far as to say a lot of consoles are better power wise then the romulan singularity core ones. The only one I have seen that does infact change the course of battle at least if we were speaking pvp is quantum absorption and maybe the overload thing but I have yet to test that one.
Here's also another thing warp core's have over singularity cores they have a max power bonus giving fed klingon ships possible better shield resistances and aux powers and Regen then romulan war birds ever can have.
They also have the power gain from one system to another say you have 130 to shields 7.5% goes to blank system or even weapon to shields, they are really powerful when it comes to power.
Singularity cores only increase power to one system and its based on singularity power, other then that rare ones at least have nothing that increases power.
While I do concede that we really need to test everything with top level gear in good skilled pvp. To truly say what I'm saying is OP or not I have no reason currently to think that it would be.
klingon fleet ships for launch of LoR would be great, all those raptors and some bops still could be made. a fleet tkonco with an excelsior setup and a c store negvar with the underslung cannons gowron's ship had with a disruptor version of the wing guns the andorian ship had. 5 forward weapons too!
for the vet ships, just a fleet version for us life timers i would like as soon as possible now. if its so much trouble to let only life timers use fleet vet ships, i wouldn't mind everyone having access at this point, but only we should get the transform console, from the tier 5 version. charge people 4 mods for the fleet version, and have it not come with the unique transform console, charge us life timers 1 mod for them. so the ship isnt unique for vets anymore, but the transform mode is.
ugg, theres no canon saying romulan ships have to have a crappy turn rate, only that their warp speed is slightly sub par at certain points! the original romulan bop did not have a warp core, or singularity core. it had only a impulse reactor, witch means a fusion reactor. proboly cant generate as much power as a M/AM reactor, and is not nearly as fuel efficient, running on only deuterium. in balance of terror fuel was a big concern for the romulans.
in the episode tin man a d'deridex couldn't not keep up with a galaxy class easily. thats just a warp nacelle coil tech issue, the feds just had more advanced warp speed tech.
none of this has anything to do with turn rate! the d'deridex, though large, is mostly a hollow shell. depending on how thick the wings are, if they are like a single deck or 3, the ships volume would ether be about the same as a galaxy or negvar, or 5 times higher. regardless, a ship cant be an effective cloak and daggers style ship, which it absolutely was, with less then a turn rate of 9 or 10.
how can such a large ship justify turning well enough? well, you guys just have to raise the lowest a ship can turn, which is 5, to about 8. bump every cruiser and carrier by 1 to 3 turn rate, and the d'deridex can still be the worst turner, but be used like it should be used.
as far as its current station and console setup goes, that should be swapped with the ha'apax. that ships got no established history, yet it has the tac heavy station setup the d'deridex deserves. the ambassador class station setup is nice, for a large fed style support cruisers, thats a better fit to that much thicker and larger ha'apax. the d'deridex should not be limited to 2 tac consoles, just because the galaxy class is.
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/history-romulan.htm <=this discusses romulan warp history and suggests that the romulans did have warp technology back at that time and that the episode in which scotty says the warbird just has impulse power could have been because the enterprise didn't recognize what romulans use as a warp core as being such, or that perhaps they had used up all their warp power to use their uber weapon... or whatever. But yeah, it makes many good points as to how it wouldn't really make sense for romulans not to have warp drive.
When you say the D'deridex has the boff seating of the ambassador, do you mean ensign tac, lt. tac, commander engineer, lt. engineer, lt.com sci? Or do you mean ensign tac, lt. tac, commander engineer, lt.com sci, lt. universal?
If the z-store/fleet D'deridex had the ambassador layout with the universal lt, I would like that very much. It should be quite versatile.
Is the console layout the same as the galaxy class? Yes, it is stated that a D'deridex has comparable firepower to a galaxy, but that does not mean identical. A D'deridex could have more firepower but not so much so that it's considered blatantly superior, which I think it would be likely for a D'deridex to have more firepower, what with the romulans being imperialistic, and the federation arming their vessels more as a matter of keeping pace with potential enemy threats and self defense rather than conquering. So a romulan ship being the more aggressive of the two makes sense.
I know I'm not terribly fond of the low turn rate, but I've gotten the bortas to move relatively well, so I'm trying not to be overly concerned with it, especially since battle cloak will kick it up even further. Also, they could give it a poor turn rate but a really good inertia rating so at least it wouldn't be fighting against itself too much. The justification could be that to compensate for the gravitational anchor (the black hole) at the heart of their singularity drives, romulan vessels have advanced inertial dampers/antigravity fields/technobable that serves to reduce the weight of not only the core, but the ship as well.
Plus, if they give the fleet D'deridex the console layout of the fleet galaxy, it would have plenty of engineering consoles to help compensate for the turn with an rcs or two... Though I do think that since damage is essentially king in this game, and tactical consoles don't suffer diminishing returns, and since eng and sci damage/control powers are so weak, tactical boff stations and consoles are understandably what everyone's screaming for. Hopefully the devs will be rolling out some tweaks to eng/sci damage/crowd control powers/debuffs to make them more competitive with tac's pure damage potential. And buffing the eng consoles so that rcs and armor aren't the only two things people use would make those engineering slots far more appealing... +10 power consoles instead of +4, emergency forcefields that clearly keep your crew alive much more effectively...
Which reminds me, is the crew death/disable mechanic really working as intended? It seems like the crew doesn't do anything once injured, and they all get a paper cut within a few seconds of entering combat, so one of the big advantages one is supposed to have for having a big crew goes flying out the proverbial airlock. Also, ships with large crews (which are also large ships) one would think would have large/multiple medical facilities to get the crew back on their feet faster, but as it stands, you get out of combat in a defiant and your 50 crew pop right back up, but a carrier or cruiser will be sitting around for several minutes waiting for their crew to come back. So not only does it seem that the large crew doesn't provide a significant bonus to repair/surviveability, but they also take forever to come back up to provide that supposed benefit... so it ultimately seems that a large crew is a negative, not a positive feature of a ship. Which is relevant to this romulan ship feedback thing as I presume the D'deridex will have a 1000+crew and that massive Ha'apax will likely have several thousand... so yeah.
ugg, theres no canon saying romulan ships have to have a crappy turn rate, only that their warp speed is slightly sub par at certain points! the original romulan bop did not have a warp core, or singularity core. it had only a impulse reactor, witch means a fusion reactor. proboly cant generate as much power as a M/AM reactor, and is not nearly as fuel efficient, running on only deuterium. in balance of terror fuel was a big concern for the romulans.
in the episode tin man a d'deridex couldn't not keep up with a galaxy class easily. thats just a warp nacelle coil tech issue, the feds just had more advanced warp speed tech.
none of this has anything to do with turn rate! the d'deridex, though large, is mostly a hollow shell. depending on how thick the wings are, if they are like a single deck or 3, the ships volume would ether be about the same as a galaxy or negvar, or 5 times higher. regardless, a ship cant be an effective cloak and daggers style ship, which it absolutely was, with less then a turn rate of 9 or 10.
how can such a large ship justify turning well enough? well, you guys just have to raise the lowest a ship can turn, which is 5, to about 8. bump every cruiser and carrier by 1 to 3 turn rate, and the d'deridex can still be the worst turner, but be used like it should be used.
as far as its current station and console setup goes, that should be swapped with the ha'apax. that ships got no established history, yet it has the tac heavy station setup the d'deridex deserves. the ambassador class station setup is nice, for a large fed style support cruisers, thats a better fit to that much thicker and larger ha'apax. the d'deridex should not be limited to 2 tac consoles, just because the galaxy class is.
I agree with you on alot of things on this board, but the D'Deridex is supposed to be sluggish as hell in its handling.
Canon? Practically EVERY Star Trek scene that the D'Deridex is shown. At NO instance have we ever, *ever* seen the D'Deridex do any notable maneuvering in combat or to save its own self in combat. Not in any TNG episode where this Warbird has been shown many, many times. Not in any of the DS9 episdoes, to include the Romulans' entry into the Dominion War. Not when the combined Obsidian Order - Tal Shiar fleet went to the Founder homeworld for a surprise attack... and when the Dominion's trap was sprung, absolutely NONE of the D'Deridexes that made the entirety of that fleet were able to maneuver of note to escape. In none of the Dominion War battle scenes have the D'Deridexes shown any inclination of notable maneuvering.
At least the Galaxy Class users have a valid complaint about its turning because the shows and movies have repeatedly shown the class to be able to do it.
But the D'Deridex? No. It's like a brick in the beach.
My only problem is a lack of dedicated Tac, Sci, and Eng ships for the Romulans for the lower levels, and even the higher Tiers as well. As I've said in other topics, a somewhat easy fix would be to pull a Vesta/Odyssey with the Warbirds, same ship just different layouts and boff setups. It will fix a few problems first the lack of ships, and two it'll give each class a fair start and path to go down when leveling up. I can't be the only one that doesn't want to fly a Tactical based ship when leveling up a Sci, or Eng toon? Now the problems with going that route would be pretty clear, basically we'd have new content that would need to get tested and balanced. I just want a Sci Based D'Deridex
My only problem is a lack of dedicated Tac, Sci, and Eng ships for the Romulans for the lower levels, and even the higher Tiers as well. As I've said in other topics, a somewhat easy fix would be to pull a Vesta/Odyssey with the Warbirds, same ship just different layouts and boff setups. It will fix a few problems first the lack of ships, and two it'll give each class a fair start and path to go down when leveling up. I can't be the only one that doesn't want to fly a Tactical based ship when leveling up a Sci, or Eng toon? Now the problems with going that route would be pretty clear, basically we'd have new content that would need to get tested and balanced. I just want a Sci Based D'Deridex
My suspicion has always been that the Scimitar will be the three-ship Odyssey / Bortasque equivalent.
So being equal to fed and klingon captains is over powered ? Your spending your time at full charge without using a power.... I would even say the system should loose power faster then it does now while out of combat if they were to implement it though...
Plus you forget romulans have to gain those charges so while they are warming up fed and Klingon will still have the advantage...
second their battle cloak is worse then kdf's battle cloak or even cloak at full charge.. so there are disadvantages...
And the powers have situation uses and are not I repeat not game changers i would even have to go as to far as to say a lot of consoles are better power wise then the romulan singularity core ones. The only one I have seen that does infact change the course of battle at least if we were speaking pvp is quantum absorption and maybe the overload thing but I have yet to test that one.
Here's also another thing warp core's have over singularity cores they have a max power bonus giving fed klingon ships possible better shield resistances and aux powers and Regen then romulan war birds ever can have.
They also have the power gain from one system to another say you have 130 to shields 7.5% goes to blank system or even weapon to shields, they are really powerful when it comes to power.
Singularity cores only increase power to one system and its based on singularity power, other then that rare ones at least have nothing that increases power.
While I do concede that we really need to test everything with top level gear in good skilled pvp. To truly say what I'm saying is OP or not I have no reason currently to think that it would be.
The more I use the Singularity Powers, the more uses and value I've found for them. Just this morning, I found out that I can shut down a Unimatrix for 30 seconds with Singularity Jump; rush in, drop it, and you're 5 km away, outside the reduced range that it can see to attack. It just sat there for the full 30 sec while we hammered away at it...and that can be applied to gateways and tac cubes in eSTFs as well.
Your premise that the singularity powers are not worth the power reduction is flawed; they are too powerful to give to a ship full power levels (even temporarily, much less when the singularity is also at its most powerful) AND the singularity powers. You need to work with them more and learn their real value.
As for the warp core bonus, I'm fairly certain that will be like efficiency and calculate based off the power level assigned, not the final result; so a ship with 100 power allocated to shields can get 7.5 points elsewhere, even if their final power level is 130 shields.
The more I use the Singularity Powers, the more uses and value I've found for them. Just this morning, I found out that I can shut down a Unimatrix for 30 seconds with Singularity Jump; rush in, drop it, and you're 5 km away, outside the reduced range that it can see to attack. It just sat there for the full 30 sec while we hammered away at it...and that can be applied to gateways and tac cubes in eSTFs as well.
Your premise that the singularity powers are not worth the power reduction is flawed; they are too powerful to give to a ship full power levels (even temporarily, much less when the singularity is also at its most powerful) AND the singularity powers. You need to work with them more and learn their real value.
As for the warp core bonus, I'm fairly certain that will be like efficiency and calculate based off the power level assigned, not the final result; so a ship with 100 power allocated to shields can get 7.5 points elsewhere, even if their final power level is 130 shields.
You assume too much especially that i think the powers aren't worth a power reduction, I meant none the slightest. I just don't agree with their current design as far as how forced they are, and how people have no choose in the matter. Even if i do like the singularity powers and have nothing personally to hate about them.
Temporarily increase in power won't mean they would be overpowered becuase its only at that power for as long as you decide not to use the power, and if you really want to make it hard to maintain it could increase exponentially rather then linearly. So that even loosing one power level will take a big chunk of the gained power out. But only granting a flat bonus of +10 to all systems at the end.
But lol the unimatrix is easy already.... 30 second disable isn't that great considering how long it takes to kill it. I've knock out the weapons on unimatrix quite a
bit granted only for 5 seconds but I've seen good science vessels do it for much longer.
This console layout suggests that this ship is THE escort for the Romulans and as such has the 5 Tactical consoles so it can go toe to toe against the JHAS or the 5 Tac console Federation escorts.
One problem with that theory is why does it have the enhanced battle cloak as well if it's supposed to be doing so much fighting outside of cloak?
I think an enhanced battle cloak equipped ship would be better suited to hiding and striking with mines, torpedoes and sci magic skills.
Also, with a Lt. Commander engineering boff station instead of science, it has out of cloak survivability as its priority over sci magic shenanigans which again is what enhanced battle cloaks should be for.
A more proper arrangement of boffs would allow for a Lt. Commander Science station as well as a 4 Tac, 2 Eng, 4 Sci console layout which would allow for the traditional enhanced battle cloak kind of ship.
So Cryptic, which is it going to be; an out and out dog-fighting escort that can hang with the best of em or an almost always cloaked stealth bomber.
If it's the former then the enhanced battle cloak should be moved to a different ship and if it's the latter then fix the boff and console arrangements accordingly.
Fleet Dhelan Retrofit:
What is this ship supposed to be?
Is it:
(A) A terribly underpowered escort of some kind.
With only 5 Tactical Boff powers and 3 Tactical consoles this escorts "firepower" is right up there with Federation science ships.
(B) The first Commander Tactical boff light cruiser with an amazing turn rate and lousy hull for a cruiser.
It could be the first cruiser with a Tactical Commander boff station but with a 3 Tac console allottment and only 3 rear weapons, firepower will be kept in check.
With only a Lt. Comm Eng station and 34,500 hull it will be the most frail cruiser in game but at least with its 16 turn rate it may be able to have a higher defence rating than most cruisers.
(C) The T'varo layout given to the wrong ship and vice versa.
With its limited, by escort standards, 5 tactical stations and the identical console layout to the Fleet B'rel Retrofit maybe there was a copy and paste error with this and the Fleet T'varo Retrofit.
By the way; the Fleet B'rel really should have gotten a 4th Sci console and not eng.
As it stands now, it's a rather bleh excuse for a cruiser or escort.
What this ship could be instead:
(A) Give it a Commander and Lt. Commander Tac station with 4 Tac consoles to match the 6 Fed escorts with that layout, 2 of which have 5 forward weapons.
(B) Give it a Commander and Lt. Commander Tac station with 5 Tac Consoles to match the 3 Fed escorts with that layout, 1 of which has 5 forward weapons.
This should be done only if the Fleet T'varo Retrofit loses the 5th Tac console.
(C) Totally re-invent this ship from the ground up.
Make this the games first science escort hybrid, if you don't count the quite powerful Vesta of course.
(1) Lt. Comm Tac, Commander Sci, Ens. Sci, Lt. Eng, Lt. Uni
(2) 3 Tac, 2 Eng, 5 Sci consoles
(3) 4 Fore weapons, 2 Aft weapons
(4) Only if the Fleet T'varo stays with its out of cloak build as it has now and loses its enhanced battle cloak, then give the enhanced battle cloak to the Dhelan so it can be the cloaked torpedo bomber, mine layer sci magic show specialist.
If and only if the enhanced battle cloak and ship repositioning happens then also swap the special consoles for the retrofit versions of the T'varo and Dhelan as that Plasma Destabilizer belongs with an enhanced battle cloak ship.
(5) If the Dhelan does not get the enhanced battle cloak then it should have the Sensor Analysis and Subsystem Targeting abilities added.
Fleet D'deridex Retrofit:
It can't possibly be the same or near same size as the Ha'apax so why is its turn rate so close?
Make the turn rate at least 6 as it can't be slower than an Odyssey can it; and give it a 3rd Tac console instead of the 5th Eng console.
I still prefer my earlier suggested Lt. Comm Tac, Comm Eng, Lt. Eng, Lt. Comm Sci 4 Boff suggestion for the Retrofit and a Lt. Uni on the Fleet Retrofit.
The Refit or D'ridthau has 3 Tac consoles so why does the Retrofit and Fleet Retrofit lose one?
As a heads up; is the D'ridthau supposed to have the lvl 40 ship console allotment of 9 instead of the proper +1 for a lvl 30 ship of 8?
just tested the singularity overcharge for a good while. Not impressed, it is a damage bonus yes, but less then a rapid fire 1. Should be of value to a ship with not enough tac slots to chain rapid fire/scatter volley/faw, but for ships that can, it is wasted.
Now, if one could overcharge on top of rapid, that would be good, but it doesn't seems to be the case.
Temporarily increase in power won't mean they would be overpowered becuase its only at that power for as long as you decide not to use the power, and if you really want to make it hard to maintain it could increase exponentially rather then linearly. So that even loosing one power level will take a big chunk of the gained power out. But only granting a flat bonus of +10 to all systems at the end.
You have the power, but you also have the OPTIONS to do something with it that no federation or klingon vessel can even attempt, and that's why it's not balanced.
But lol the unimatrix is easy already.... 30 second disable isn't that great considering how long it takes to kill it. I've knock out the weapons on unimatrix quite a
bit granted only for 5 seconds but I've seen good science vessels do it for much longer.
And I'll grant that; on my science ship, even Target Weapons Subsystem 1 seems to knock out Gateway weapons 100% of the time. However, think for a second. "Good science vessels do it for much longer." Once LoR is released properly, that becomes "Good science vessels and every warbird regardless of build or flavor." eSTFs become a lot easier the more time the borg aren't able to invisitorp you. You can use the cover of the singularity to get into cloak safely, to slow pursuers or probes, to blind enemies pounding your tank (even if they can still see the tank, their accuracy will be nerfed), clear a minefield (timing's a bit tricky, but), escape from gravity wells and warp plasma, and on and on and on. That's just one power. And in a warbird, you don't have to devote a thing to it; it will work the same whether you're spec'd for tanking,assault, cloak-'n-strike, or whatever. Its effect doesn't care whether you've sunk your power into weapons, shields, engines, or aux.
To understand all the singularity powers can do for the warbird, you need to quit thinking "how do I shoehorn them in to my current playstyle?" This is why keep thinking your power levels need to be raised. You need to be thinking instead "how can I change my playstyle to exploit these abilities to their best effect?" Flying a warbird is as proactive as setting up an alpha strike on an escort; you should be planning ahead and executing your powers to create a devastating strike more often than waiting til something unexpected to happen and thinking "will my singularity powers help with this situation?"
You should not get a bonus for keeping your singularity core "in reserve" any more than you should get a bonus for NOT using Tac Team because you need it to be ready in case of Borg boarding parties.
Comments
Psst...ally ships...lockboxes.
So, as virusdancer pointed out, EVERYTHING is a gimmick.
Fleet holdings? We got along fine without it before, gimmick, worthless, toss it out.
Reputation? We got along fine without it before, gimmick, worthless, toss it out.
DOff system? We got along fine without it before, gimmick, worthless, toss it out.
Hell, by your definition, the Romulan faction itself is a gimmick.
It never ends. Once you have a viable game, ANY new addition becomes a gimmick because taking it away gives us...a functional game, just like we had before. And that's why I find this attitude toxic, because you (and people like you) would have us stay at a standstill to prevent the game from becoming too gimmicky.
And the reason I'm opposed to there being the option of using a warp core instead is because new systems like this need intertia to survive. Without a critical mass of players using a system, it will not get properly developed or balanced, and it is in serious danger of being cut out entirely. If too many people just ignore the system and take the easy, bog-standard, everybody's-doing-it warp core route, they cannot justify putting resources and time into developing the singularity system properly, and could well abandon it. It's not even out yet, for crying out loud. And this is why I have to keep arguing against the "I don't wanna use it" people, precisely for the same reason you're arguing against singularity system. "The devs should hear my opinion." Great. Same here. I don't want the only thing the devs hear to be "I don't want to use it"; I want them also to hear "it looks good, I like it." I want them to keep it alive so I can try it and test it at level 50, properly geared, in eSTFs, so I can see how it REALLY shines or fails.
You have been given an out. You do not HAVE to use this system, but it will require you to invest something. If you are so vehemently opposed to using the singularity system, put your dilithium where your mouth is and fly an ally's ship, or a lockbox ship at tier 5.
I also think that is the one singularity skill I won't really use.
#1 - BOFF Seating finally appears to be at least somewhat fixed (they show up!!!)
#2 - I have NO, absolutely NO idea what these people are talking about with saying that this ship is the worst ship they have seen since the Galaxy. It is not an escort and should not be flown as such, but I think it is just as viable as a Vor'Cha battle cruiser...
#3 - Has anyone else noticed the following: Subterfuge has a "Button" for some reason, I thought it was a passive skill, not an ability. Also for some reason when you activate cloak all the singularity skills are put on 5 sec cooldown.
Admiral Sovak
Does anyone remember when we used to be explorers...
The movement in SJ is the side bonus; the real power is in the perception/accuracy debuff.
What you do is start dropping warp plasma and use evasive maneuvers to slather it over your enemy (bonus points if you can get an ally to drop a gravity well there too) and THEN jump away. The warp plasma keeps them from moving away from the singularity, and the singularity keeps them from moving away from the plasma. While they're stuck there, their perception is nerfed so hard they may not even be able to see you to target you, and even if they can their accuracy is shot. All the while they're getting chewed up by the plasma and singularity damage (although the latter is, tbh, rather insignificant).
You, on the other hand, are 5 km away taking advantage of their blindness to turn on your cloak, allowing you to spin around and get a strike-from-stealth bonus on your helpless opponent.
Even if you have multiple enemies or are in a ship that can't drop the plasma, if you drop it nearby, all but the lightest ships should be in range of the effect long enough for you to escape into cloak.
That's a matter of perspective, but its certainly not star trek canon design, but a game play design.
So if game mechanics = gimmicks then yes to you that is what they are but, not everyone wants a certain gimmick in hyouki's terms and yours, pushed on them and then penalized for., to a ships that they have wanted.
But I am fine with the current design, except I'd make power levels be based on singularity charge at max charge they would have normal 50 across the board, at least then people who don't want to use the powers don't have to and not be completely penalized for it.
Not my terms, I'm quoting singularity opponents who are dismissing the singularity powers as "gimmicks".
And no, you will never see "let the fully charged singularity give full power levels" because then you would be the equivalent of a Fed or KDF captain PLUS a Battle Cloak PLUS the ability to unleash any of those singularity powers any time you felt like it would be useful, and that's not balanced in the slightest.
Incorrect. Full singularity charge is (going to be) the equivalent of having 55 base power. The downside is that using a singularity power drops that down to 40 base power.
Couldn't agree more...as I've reiterate several times since LoR was announced I was, was being the operative word, so very excited about flying the D'Deridex Warbird. But the fact that the ship has a carrier turn rate really bothers me. No change to RCS consoles or more maneuverability while cloaked solves this problem. It seems like all my favorite ships in this game, excluding maybe the Excel, have been made to be inferior to other ships. Really takes away from my game play experience when all my favorite ships are bad and I have to use something I don't care about/like which will be the case yet again if I choose to roll a romulan/reman character.
You can just do the same old thing over and over with any ship in STO, and be successful. It's a shame that this has become the case, because back in STO's closed beta every space battle I took part in was a life and death struggle; where the outcome of success was dependent on what speed I was going, what my position was in relation to the enemy ship, and what abilities and batteries I clicked at exactly the right time. Now, I'm not a hardcore kind of gamer, but to me that was the most fun I'd had in an MMO up to that point.
Back then these things meant something, now these days I can literally park my ship at zero velocity, point in the direction of the enemy ship and mark time until they're dead. The only way new powers/abilities and gameplay styles in STO are going to be taken more seriously is if they are absolutely necessary to our survival in any given situation.
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
You actually remember a time when it wasn't like that? :eek:
Frankly, the fact that we are allowed to die 3 trillion times doesn't help at all.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
Psst... ally ships are only viable from T1 to T4. There are No T5 ally ships for Romulans. Why do you insist on bringing it up. Also lockbox ships are expensive and shouldnt be a fix
Yes. They are. But NO ONE HAS SAID THE SINGULARITY SYSTEM SHOULD BE REMOVED COMPLETELY! (well... I certainly havent, someone else may have.)
If I so choose, I can avoid using every system you listed above. I dont have to have DOffs, I dont have to grind Reputation. I dont have to be in a fleet.
But if I want to fly a warbird, I have to use this system. I dont get a choice. Thats wrong. Especially for a new system such as this. Its a special feature for the sake of having a special feature, and its shoehorned in, especially because the Romulans never displayed anything similar to this in the shows. So... why are we making stuff up for them here?
Thats great. I'm not saying you shouldnt also provide your feedback.
I shouldnt have to. Plain and simple. I should be able to roll a new Romulan character and opt out of the system and still be able to fly a warbird. (just like I can opt out of using the DOff system or the Fleet system or the Reputation system). And you know what... if Im able to do that its only good for Cryptic, because Im more likely to buy Romulan CStore items. As it is... Im not rolling a Romulan, and I'm not buying Romulan CStore stuff. Theyve effectively lost my money completely. And no... I'm not delusional enough to think that I'm going to hurt Cryptic but not buying things...
Saying: "Oh you can fly ally or lockbox ships." is not acceptable.
Lockbox ships are ludicrously expensive.
And ally ships only go so far. And they cost precious dilithium, which I have barely enough of on my main to do things I want to do on that character.
I admit that a Warbird has to pay in some way for its cloak, no doubt, but the Singularity "Powers" are a joke. At least the ones up to T4. The powers are definetly not worth the price you have to pay for it. The only more or less usefull Power is the Heal.
Why is there no click option to prevent the Singularity Core from charging? I mean it stops charging also when it is full. Basically if i want a effective cloak (not that it would matter in pve anyways it is only a pvp issue).
With the latest patch we have to use the singularity power before cloaking to get a more effective cloak, but then we have to deal with a 5 sec global cd for the cloak.
And i just can repeat myslef here, the singularity skills + the cloak are not worht a permanent -10 to all subsystems.
Not to mention the Power bonus disadvantage of a Singularity core compared to a warpcore which gives the full core powerbonus basically all the time, cause you can be sure that ppl will choose the warpcore that way that the system on which the powerbonus is based is the subsystem that runs at max power at 99% of the time.
With the singularity core you only get the power bonus when the core is fully charged. so in total you have even more powerdifference then you already have from the subsystem power penalty.
I would really like to know how you guys testing ships and skillchanges. I am pretty sure that your aproach could use some heavy improvements, otherwise i can`t explain some of the changes you made. ((last big fail were the resistences you get with "Power Insulators").
But ok, if the romulan ships have to much drawbacks compared to their benefits i just won?t roll a romulan char.
U.S.S. Helios -Vesta Class / R.R.W. Dark Science - Dyson Surveillance Science Destroyer
U.S.S. Donut - Fleet Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit
TheWiseGuys
My question is: How exactly do you know warbirds are too survivable? Do you have some metric that's showing players dying less in space combat in a warbird than they seem to in other ships? And have you compared the survival of these ships vs their combat efficiency? Sure, you can battle cloak and thus avoid the respawn timer, but you have to wait around cloaked for your ship to passively heal (heal abilities aren't available while cloaked) or you have to run out of range, decloak, heal up, and come back in. And if that is the case, I don't really see a problem with the ships technically dying less. Unless, of course, you are concerned that all that work you did making their special singularity breach animation when they blow up won't be getting as much screen time as you had hoped. :P
Additionally, are you taking into consideration the skill level of the players you've allowed into closed beta? The people in the closed beta might be more skilled on average than the majority of players who will be popping into warbirds on may 21st, if that's the case, if you make it hard for the skilled players to stay alive in a warbird, your average players may toss LoR right out the airlock because warbirds blow up too easily. So... just hoping whatever data you're using to make these assessments takes context into consideration.
If I'm not mistaken, they already posted saying that they have restored the cloak to 20 seconds and instead are bringing the warbird power levels back down to a base of 40 instead of the 45 they buffed it to. It may not have been patched into tribble yet, but it's supposed to be on the way.
That patch is going live right now, actually.
I disagree on it being OP to having 50 normalize power at full singularity charge. Becuase you have to remember it take awhile to charge to 5 and it drains quickly after going into cloak becuase you drop out of combat pretty quickly, and once you use the power for the situation you loose all that gain.
It is COMPLETELY overpowered, because at that point you are equal to any Klingon or Fed captain, except for having a Battle Cloak and all five singularity powers available at full charge. How on earth is that fair that Romulan captains can spend as long as they like at "full charge", with six powers that are not available at all to Fed captains? So WHAT if they take a hit after they use the singularity, or drop a bit when they use their cloak? This is not balanced. This is OP.
http://priorityonepodcast.com/priority-one-podcast-episode-125-supplemental-romulan-rivera/
klingon fleet ships for launch of LoR would be great, all those raptors and some bops still could be made. a fleet tkonco with an excelsior setup and a c store negvar with the underslung cannons gowron's ship had with a disruptor version of the wing guns the andorian ship had. 5 forward weapons too!
for the vet ships, just a fleet version for us life timers i would like as soon as possible now. if its so much trouble to let only life timers use fleet vet ships, i wouldn't mind everyone having access at this point, but only we should get the transform console, from the tier 5 version. charge people 4 mods for the fleet version, and have it not come with the unique transform console, charge us life timers 1 mod for them. so the ship isnt unique for vets anymore, but the transform mode is.
ugg, theres no canon saying romulan ships have to have a crappy turn rate, only that their warp speed is slightly sub par at certain points! the original romulan bop did not have a warp core, or singularity core. it had only a impulse reactor, witch means a fusion reactor. proboly cant generate as much power as a M/AM reactor, and is not nearly as fuel efficient, running on only deuterium. in balance of terror fuel was a big concern for the romulans.
in the episode tin man a d'deridex couldn't not keep up with a galaxy class easily. thats just a warp nacelle coil tech issue, the feds just had more advanced warp speed tech.
none of this has anything to do with turn rate! the d'deridex, though large, is mostly a hollow shell. depending on how thick the wings are, if they are like a single deck or 3, the ships volume would ether be about the same as a galaxy or negvar, or 5 times higher. regardless, a ship cant be an effective cloak and daggers style ship, which it absolutely was, with less then a turn rate of 9 or 10.
how can such a large ship justify turning well enough? well, you guys just have to raise the lowest a ship can turn, which is 5, to about 8. bump every cruiser and carrier by 1 to 3 turn rate, and the d'deridex can still be the worst turner, but be used like it should be used.
as far as its current station and console setup goes, that should be swapped with the ha'apax. that ships got no established history, yet it has the tac heavy station setup the d'deridex deserves. the ambassador class station setup is nice, for a large fed style support cruisers, thats a better fit to that much thicker and larger ha'apax. the d'deridex should not be limited to 2 tac consoles, just because the galaxy class is.
So being equal to fed and klingon captains is over powered ? Your spending your time at full charge without using a power.... I would even say the system should loose power faster then it does now while out of combat if they were to implement it though...
Plus you forget romulans have to gain those charges so while they are warming up fed and Klingon will still have the advantage...
second their battle cloak is worse then kdf's battle cloak or even cloak at full charge.. so there are disadvantages...
And the powers have situation uses and are not I repeat not game changers i would even have to go as to far as to say a lot of consoles are better power wise then the romulan singularity core ones. The only one I have seen that does infact change the course of battle at least if we were speaking pvp is quantum absorption and maybe the overload thing but I have yet to test that one.
Here's also another thing warp core's have over singularity cores they have a max power bonus giving fed klingon ships possible better shield resistances and aux powers and Regen then romulan war birds ever can have.
They also have the power gain from one system to another say you have 130 to shields 7.5% goes to blank system or even weapon to shields, they are really powerful when it comes to power.
Singularity cores only increase power to one system and its based on singularity power, other then that rare ones at least have nothing that increases power.
While I do concede that we really need to test everything with top level gear in good skilled pvp. To truly say what I'm saying is OP or not I have no reason currently to think that it would be.
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/history-romulan.htm <=this discusses romulan warp history and suggests that the romulans did have warp technology back at that time and that the episode in which scotty says the warbird just has impulse power could have been because the enterprise didn't recognize what romulans use as a warp core as being such, or that perhaps they had used up all their warp power to use their uber weapon... or whatever. But yeah, it makes many good points as to how it wouldn't really make sense for romulans not to have warp drive.
When you say the D'deridex has the boff seating of the ambassador, do you mean ensign tac, lt. tac, commander engineer, lt. engineer, lt.com sci? Or do you mean ensign tac, lt. tac, commander engineer, lt.com sci, lt. universal?
If the z-store/fleet D'deridex had the ambassador layout with the universal lt, I would like that very much. It should be quite versatile.
Is the console layout the same as the galaxy class? Yes, it is stated that a D'deridex has comparable firepower to a galaxy, but that does not mean identical. A D'deridex could have more firepower but not so much so that it's considered blatantly superior, which I think it would be likely for a D'deridex to have more firepower, what with the romulans being imperialistic, and the federation arming their vessels more as a matter of keeping pace with potential enemy threats and self defense rather than conquering. So a romulan ship being the more aggressive of the two makes sense.
I know I'm not terribly fond of the low turn rate, but I've gotten the bortas to move relatively well, so I'm trying not to be overly concerned with it, especially since battle cloak will kick it up even further. Also, they could give it a poor turn rate but a really good inertia rating so at least it wouldn't be fighting against itself too much. The justification could be that to compensate for the gravitational anchor (the black hole) at the heart of their singularity drives, romulan vessels have advanced inertial dampers/antigravity fields/technobable that serves to reduce the weight of not only the core, but the ship as well.
Plus, if they give the fleet D'deridex the console layout of the fleet galaxy, it would have plenty of engineering consoles to help compensate for the turn with an rcs or two... Though I do think that since damage is essentially king in this game, and tactical consoles don't suffer diminishing returns, and since eng and sci damage/control powers are so weak, tactical boff stations and consoles are understandably what everyone's screaming for. Hopefully the devs will be rolling out some tweaks to eng/sci damage/crowd control powers/debuffs to make them more competitive with tac's pure damage potential. And buffing the eng consoles so that rcs and armor aren't the only two things people use would make those engineering slots far more appealing... +10 power consoles instead of +4, emergency forcefields that clearly keep your crew alive much more effectively...
Which reminds me, is the crew death/disable mechanic really working as intended? It seems like the crew doesn't do anything once injured, and they all get a paper cut within a few seconds of entering combat, so one of the big advantages one is supposed to have for having a big crew goes flying out the proverbial airlock. Also, ships with large crews (which are also large ships) one would think would have large/multiple medical facilities to get the crew back on their feet faster, but as it stands, you get out of combat in a defiant and your 50 crew pop right back up, but a carrier or cruiser will be sitting around for several minutes waiting for their crew to come back. So not only does it seem that the large crew doesn't provide a significant bonus to repair/surviveability, but they also take forever to come back up to provide that supposed benefit... so it ultimately seems that a large crew is a negative, not a positive feature of a ship. Which is relevant to this romulan ship feedback thing as I presume the D'deridex will have a 1000+crew and that massive Ha'apax will likely have several thousand... so yeah.
I agree with you on alot of things on this board, but the D'Deridex is supposed to be sluggish as hell in its handling.
Canon? Practically EVERY Star Trek scene that the D'Deridex is shown. At NO instance have we ever, *ever* seen the D'Deridex do any notable maneuvering in combat or to save its own self in combat. Not in any TNG episode where this Warbird has been shown many, many times. Not in any of the DS9 episdoes, to include the Romulans' entry into the Dominion War. Not when the combined Obsidian Order - Tal Shiar fleet went to the Founder homeworld for a surprise attack... and when the Dominion's trap was sprung, absolutely NONE of the D'Deridexes that made the entirety of that fleet were able to maneuver of note to escape. In none of the Dominion War battle scenes have the D'Deridexes shown any inclination of notable maneuvering.
At least the Galaxy Class users have a valid complaint about its turning because the shows and movies have repeatedly shown the class to be able to do it.
But the D'Deridex? No. It's like a brick in the beach.
My suspicion has always been that the Scimitar will be the three-ship Odyssey / Bortasque equivalent.
The more I use the Singularity Powers, the more uses and value I've found for them. Just this morning, I found out that I can shut down a Unimatrix for 30 seconds with Singularity Jump; rush in, drop it, and you're 5 km away, outside the reduced range that it can see to attack. It just sat there for the full 30 sec while we hammered away at it...and that can be applied to gateways and tac cubes in eSTFs as well.
Your premise that the singularity powers are not worth the power reduction is flawed; they are too powerful to give to a ship full power levels (even temporarily, much less when the singularity is also at its most powerful) AND the singularity powers. You need to work with them more and learn their real value.
As for the warp core bonus, I'm fairly certain that will be like efficiency and calculate based off the power level assigned, not the final result; so a ship with 100 power allocated to shields can get 7.5 points elsewhere, even if their final power level is 130 shields.
You assume too much especially that i think the powers aren't worth a power reduction, I meant none the slightest. I just don't agree with their current design as far as how forced they are, and how people have no choose in the matter. Even if i do like the singularity powers and have nothing personally to hate about them.
Temporarily increase in power won't mean they would be overpowered becuase its only at that power for as long as you decide not to use the power, and if you really want to make it hard to maintain it could increase exponentially rather then linearly. So that even loosing one power level will take a big chunk of the gained power out. But only granting a flat bonus of +10 to all systems at the end.
But lol the unimatrix is easy already.... 30 second disable isn't that great considering how long it takes to kill it. I've knock out the weapons on unimatrix quite a
bit granted only for 5 seconds but I've seen good science vessels do it for much longer.
This console layout suggests that this ship is THE escort for the Romulans and as such has the 5 Tactical consoles so it can go toe to toe against the JHAS or the 5 Tac console Federation escorts.
One problem with that theory is why does it have the enhanced battle cloak as well if it's supposed to be doing so much fighting outside of cloak?
I think an enhanced battle cloak equipped ship would be better suited to hiding and striking with mines, torpedoes and sci magic skills.
Also, with a Lt. Commander engineering boff station instead of science, it has out of cloak survivability as its priority over sci magic shenanigans which again is what enhanced battle cloaks should be for.
A more proper arrangement of boffs would allow for a Lt. Commander Science station as well as a 4 Tac, 2 Eng, 4 Sci console layout which would allow for the traditional enhanced battle cloak kind of ship.
So Cryptic, which is it going to be; an out and out dog-fighting escort that can hang with the best of em or an almost always cloaked stealth bomber.
If it's the former then the enhanced battle cloak should be moved to a different ship and if it's the latter then fix the boff and console arrangements accordingly.
Fleet Dhelan Retrofit:
What is this ship supposed to be?
Is it:
(A) A terribly underpowered escort of some kind.
With only 5 Tactical Boff powers and 3 Tactical consoles this escorts "firepower" is right up there with Federation science ships.
(B) The first Commander Tactical boff light cruiser with an amazing turn rate and lousy hull for a cruiser.
It could be the first cruiser with a Tactical Commander boff station but with a 3 Tac console allottment and only 3 rear weapons, firepower will be kept in check.
With only a Lt. Comm Eng station and 34,500 hull it will be the most frail cruiser in game but at least with its 16 turn rate it may be able to have a higher defence rating than most cruisers.
(C) The T'varo layout given to the wrong ship and vice versa.
With its limited, by escort standards, 5 tactical stations and the identical console layout to the Fleet B'rel Retrofit maybe there was a copy and paste error with this and the Fleet T'varo Retrofit.
By the way; the Fleet B'rel really should have gotten a 4th Sci console and not eng.
As it stands now, it's a rather bleh excuse for a cruiser or escort.
What this ship could be instead:
(A) Give it a Commander and Lt. Commander Tac station with 4 Tac consoles to match the 6 Fed escorts with that layout, 2 of which have 5 forward weapons.
(B) Give it a Commander and Lt. Commander Tac station with 5 Tac Consoles to match the 3 Fed escorts with that layout, 1 of which has 5 forward weapons.
This should be done only if the Fleet T'varo Retrofit loses the 5th Tac console.
(C) Totally re-invent this ship from the ground up.
Make this the games first science escort hybrid, if you don't count the quite powerful Vesta of course.
(1) Lt. Comm Tac, Commander Sci, Ens. Sci, Lt. Eng, Lt. Uni
(2) 3 Tac, 2 Eng, 5 Sci consoles
(3) 4 Fore weapons, 2 Aft weapons
(4) Only if the Fleet T'varo stays with its out of cloak build as it has now and loses its enhanced battle cloak, then give the enhanced battle cloak to the Dhelan so it can be the cloaked torpedo bomber, mine layer sci magic show specialist.
If and only if the enhanced battle cloak and ship repositioning happens then also swap the special consoles for the retrofit versions of the T'varo and Dhelan as that Plasma Destabilizer belongs with an enhanced battle cloak ship.
(5) If the Dhelan does not get the enhanced battle cloak then it should have the Sensor Analysis and Subsystem Targeting abilities added.
Fleet D'deridex Retrofit:
It can't possibly be the same or near same size as the Ha'apax so why is its turn rate so close?
Make the turn rate at least 6 as it can't be slower than an Odyssey can it; and give it a 3rd Tac console instead of the 5th Eng console.
I still prefer my earlier suggested Lt. Comm Tac, Comm Eng, Lt. Eng, Lt. Comm Sci 4 Boff suggestion for the Retrofit and a Lt. Uni on the Fleet Retrofit.
The Refit or D'ridthau has 3 Tac consoles so why does the Retrofit and Fleet Retrofit lose one?
As a heads up; is the D'ridthau supposed to have the lvl 40 ship console allotment of 9 instead of the proper +1 for a lvl 30 ship of 8?
Now, if one could overcharge on top of rapid, that would be good, but it doesn't seems to be the case.
You have the power, but you also have the OPTIONS to do something with it that no federation or klingon vessel can even attempt, and that's why it's not balanced.
And I'll grant that; on my science ship, even Target Weapons Subsystem 1 seems to knock out Gateway weapons 100% of the time. However, think for a second. "Good science vessels do it for much longer." Once LoR is released properly, that becomes "Good science vessels and every warbird regardless of build or flavor." eSTFs become a lot easier the more time the borg aren't able to invisitorp you. You can use the cover of the singularity to get into cloak safely, to slow pursuers or probes, to blind enemies pounding your tank (even if they can still see the tank, their accuracy will be nerfed), clear a minefield (timing's a bit tricky, but), escape from gravity wells and warp plasma, and on and on and on. That's just one power. And in a warbird, you don't have to devote a thing to it; it will work the same whether you're spec'd for tanking,assault, cloak-'n-strike, or whatever. Its effect doesn't care whether you've sunk your power into weapons, shields, engines, or aux.
To understand all the singularity powers can do for the warbird, you need to quit thinking "how do I shoehorn them in to my current playstyle?" This is why keep thinking your power levels need to be raised. You need to be thinking instead "how can I change my playstyle to exploit these abilities to their best effect?" Flying a warbird is as proactive as setting up an alpha strike on an escort; you should be planning ahead and executing your powers to create a devastating strike more often than waiting til something unexpected to happen and thinking "will my singularity powers help with this situation?"
You should not get a bonus for keeping your singularity core "in reserve" any more than you should get a bonus for NOT using Tac Team because you need it to be ready in case of Borg boarding parties.