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25 consoles for ALL ships
skollulfr
Member Posts: 5,407 Arc User
now that you tldrs need to change your underwear, try reading before just responding to the 'headline'.
yes, i do mean that all ships should have 25 consoles, but not all 25 are customisable
some slots would be taken up by integrated systmes, an intrepid could get a core that gives a boost to decompiler, things like viral matrix, scramble sensors, any ability that would be called ecm.
a bop could be given a console called EPS weapons crossfeed that causes it to spread weapon energy drain over other subsystems rather than just weapons
not even all bops, could be a way of having many models of them.
if done correctly this would be a far superior way to actually balance ships and give them 'focus' towards a given set of abilities, rather than that stupid class system thats not fit for perpose.
now, what would these consoles be?
armor
engineering
operations
auxillary
weapons
*batteries would become consoles with x number of charges needing to be refilled at a starbase.
**some consoles would become multi-category where it would make sense
armor
is obvious anything you slap on the hull for more "armor", but would add weight as trade off for that
engineering
power routing cnsoles(yes rerouting, you want +8 x to weapons, you take it from another system),
hull/shield regen boosters(nanite systems/field emmitters),
batteries, sif(hull cap boost)
-all of which may well give you a boost to hp, regen etc, but would -x some power
opperations,
not sure about this one yet.
any navy people want to explain irl ops responsabilities to me for some ideas?
guessing flow caps, shield distribution & subsystem repair would be the direction here
auxilliary systems
consoles that boost efficiency of abilities associated with aux systems
part/grav gens, field emmitters, sensor enhancments, things you would call ecm,
weapons
consoles that boost your weapons, could be the current set boost consoles could also be the plasma distribution +weapon power console
-which you might prefer to the dps boosters if cryptic pull the finger out & link power drain to damage potential rather that these 'firing cycles'.
sensors(you use these for targetting, or sould be.)
though a lot of this would rely on things like the crew gravyard being solved, viral matrix being resisted by subsystem repair rather than inertial dampers etc
should also provide a way of fixing the older ships ingame against the increasingly borked playing field caused by power creep.
seriously need to knock this on the head before the game stops being functional for one group who cant keep up with the content and the other who are posting 3 minute hive estf by cheesing the dilapidated game mechanics.
now, im just goig to sit here & wait for the first tldr fool to cry zomg just buffs X class, just nerfs X class... when they wont even exist anymore.
now, as much as this would allow for extremes in given builds, the losses to get to that point, would also be extreme.
this way it becomes a game where you can actually choose a wide range of effective tactics, rather than just "a2blolfaw" & "decloak alpha lol run".
yes, i do mean that all ships should have 25 consoles, but not all 25 are customisable
some slots would be taken up by integrated systmes, an intrepid could get a core that gives a boost to decompiler, things like viral matrix, scramble sensors, any ability that would be called ecm.
a bop could be given a console called EPS weapons crossfeed that causes it to spread weapon energy drain over other subsystems rather than just weapons
not even all bops, could be a way of having many models of them.
if done correctly this would be a far superior way to actually balance ships and give them 'focus' towards a given set of abilities, rather than that stupid class system thats not fit for perpose.
now, what would these consoles be?
armor
engineering
operations
auxillary
weapons
*batteries would become consoles with x number of charges needing to be refilled at a starbase.
**some consoles would become multi-category where it would make sense
armor
is obvious anything you slap on the hull for more "armor", but would add weight as trade off for that
engineering
power routing cnsoles(yes rerouting, you want +8 x to weapons, you take it from another system),
hull/shield regen boosters(nanite systems/field emmitters),
batteries, sif(hull cap boost)
-all of which may well give you a boost to hp, regen etc, but would -x some power
opperations,
not sure about this one yet.
any navy people want to explain irl ops responsabilities to me for some ideas?
guessing flow caps, shield distribution & subsystem repair would be the direction here
auxilliary systems
consoles that boost efficiency of abilities associated with aux systems
part/grav gens, field emmitters, sensor enhancments, things you would call ecm,
weapons
consoles that boost your weapons, could be the current set boost consoles could also be the plasma distribution +weapon power console
-which you might prefer to the dps boosters if cryptic pull the finger out & link power drain to damage potential rather that these 'firing cycles'.
sensors(you use these for targetting, or sould be.)
though a lot of this would rely on things like the crew gravyard being solved, viral matrix being resisted by subsystem repair rather than inertial dampers etc
should also provide a way of fixing the older ships ingame against the increasingly borked playing field caused by power creep.
seriously need to knock this on the head before the game stops being functional for one group who cant keep up with the content and the other who are posting 3 minute hive estf by cheesing the dilapidated game mechanics.
now, im just goig to sit here & wait for the first tldr fool to cry zomg just buffs X class, just nerfs X class... when they wont even exist anymore.
now, as much as this would allow for extremes in given builds, the losses to get to that point, would also be extreme.
this way it becomes a game where you can actually choose a wide range of effective tactics, rather than just "a2blolfaw" & "decloak alpha lol run".
Post edited by skollulfr on
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Comments
I had a similar thought a while ago, but do it with DOFFs. Basic idea would be you have departments (eg, damage control, sensors, conn officer, etc), and you fill those stations with duty officers. Then I ran out of gas on the idea.
I do not like systems that are time-cost, because they are inherently unbalanced (just as rep passives)
Because I'd be up for that, to be honest. Makes sense to have boff skill quality depend on ship parts more than captain training, considering there'd be people on board to operate these systems.
Question: Since when does adding additional levels of complexity to a something make it easier to balance? Isn't that kind of the problem we're facing now? All the additional levels of complexity that have been added to the system...?
1) It would completely overhaul the game. Not sure that's realistic.
2) It would be REALLY susceptible to abuse. A person could make almost literal 'glass cannons' that not only broke the mechanics, but the spirit of many of these ships and the game in general. As much as I love to customize my stuff, the balance issues are WAY too out of control with this kind of setup.
Maybe it's workable, but the cross-pollination and synergy abuse possibilities seem to make this setup beyond implementation.
It seems the vast majority of your most active players (forum regulars) hate the idea... and while that's a small subset of the playerbase, I think it's an important constituency.
THE PLAYERS DO NOT WANT THIS.
The innate ship bonuses used to actually be innate to the ship (at the cost of a console for balance), but people wanted to be able do stuff like buy the MVAE for the MVAM and use it on the standard Advanced Escort instead because of the slightly different specs, and also they wanted to have the option of ditching the special ability all together in favor of another console slot for something else. Keep in mind, in most ships they added a console slot back in when they moved the innate power to a console, so you didn't loose anything if you wanted to keep your ship's ability.
The exception to this was the Excelsior, because it's special ability has nothing to do with combat (and also they tried to nerf it when they made it into the console).
Complexity is the hardest balance problem. The more complex and less rigid the system, the more difficult it is to define a cost/benefit system to achieve the desired equilibrium.
You want to strip all ships down to a "base" set of stats, and give 25 "console" slots to fill with systems that add the various abilities to the ships?
For example, take Defense: A cruiser might have 1 speed, 2 shield, and 2 armor modules. An escort gets 3 speed 1 armor 1 shield, and a Sci gets 2 speed 3 shield and no armor...
And this is what gives the heavy cruiser it's tremendous hull points, the sci it's hyper shield mod with no hull, and the escort it's maneuverability/impulse modifier/etc.
Then you add an extra armor console to cruisers, a "beam subsystem targetting" console for sci, and a "Cannon" mount console to the escorts...
Round out with a handful of other consoles / balance the maths better than my example and "poof" - a starship construction set...
Then, I could, for example, take the Soverign, load it out with the Defiant's "console kit", and have the Enterprise from First Contact swooping around at high speed levelling anything that I look at while I could build a plodding defiant with my Recluse's frigate-level hangar bays... :P (Defiant dropping Mesh Weavers, almost as fun as a bug ship spawning more bug ships...)
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
But you do have to be very careful when adding complexity that you don't create balanced problems. For example:
Suppose the devs made STO far more complex and customizable than it currently is. And suppose that, in this new system, I spend $100 in the C-store and 500 mil EC and 1,000,000 fleet credits and 1,000,000 dilithium and manage to create a build with no weapons, no tac abilities, no heals except one EPtS, but that can, once a minute, create a Gravity Well that has a radius of 20 km, a repel of -200, and does 100,000 damage on every pulse. I don't think anyone would argue that that isn't OP. But the average player can't afford that kind of investment into maxing out one thing. They can come up with maybe 200,000 dilithium and 10 mil ec, so they can't come close to what I just did. Their Gravity Well might have a 2.9 km radius, a -0.55 repel, and do 1,500 damage per pulse. Now how do you balance that? Only one way really: reduce the complexity and customizability so that I can't stack so much stuff into making that Gravity Well OP.
This idea seems less likely to lead to that than to simply be a whole lot of work for little benefit, but virusdancer does have a valid point.