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JMHO... Gameplay mechanics flaws and Obsolete ships feedback
eizen745
Member Posts: 23 Arc User
So, Delta Rising has been out for a while, and there is lots of great new content. But a few things have been bugging me...
Space Projectile Weapons - These deserve to have their own mounting slots. Doing so would allow for greater diversity in ship builds, discourage torpedo boating, and likely address some Cruiser vs. Escort balancing issues. Dreadnaughts/Carriers - 2 fore, 2 aft, 1 ventral 360 degree; Cruisers - 2 fore, 2 aft; Escorts - 2 fore, 1 aft; Science and Raider Ships - 1 fore, 1 aft. Fighters and runabouts should have a single forward launcher, and shuttles should not launch projectiles. Further, mines could also have a separate slot on larger ships (Cruisers, Dreadnaughts, Carriers), medium sized ships could mount a mine or a launcher in a single universal aft projectile mount, fighters could have a mine slot only, and shuttles no aft projectiles.
Assign Tactical bridge officer space skills to specific weapons - For example Beam Overload. With a right click menu off the bridge tray icon, a player can (or should be able to) assign a special attack to a specific weapons array. This eliminates the chance of say a beam array firing the overload instead of the dual beam bank you want the overload shot to come from. You could "order your bridge officer" (select from the menu) to trigger the special attack for the selected weapon array whenever it is available. This could also be effective with cannon and torpedo attacks, and would significantly improve space combat.
Cannon fire follows ships like they are locked on torpedoes - This was always one of my pet peeves with this game. In the simplification of the game mechanics, the developers decided to calculate beam and cannon hits the same way. Since cannons fire several pulses which should appear to have a slower velocity than an instantaneous beam firing in a straight line connecting two ships, the net result is the cannon pulses look like torpedoes tracking a target.
So here is the easiest way I can think of to fix this visual error. Instead of calculating and drawing cannon fire in an arc that follows the target, calculate and draw the cannon fire on an inverse arc that looks like it leads the target into the cannon blast. Might still look like the projectiles are homing, but they will look "predictive" rather then "reactive".
<OR>
Increase the cannon blast velocity significantly to compensate for the disparity. Energy weapons in principle fire at the speed of light, but in this game they are not much faster then a torpedo. Keep the same fire rate and damage per shot, just increase the projectile velocity so it follows the same straight line the beams make.
With T6 ships, every ship before now is obsolete - Talk about a slap in the face! Say what you will, T5U is not equal to T6. Why is PWE only allowing this half-arsed upgrade when they could allow players to fully upgrade their T5 ships? I would willingly give dilithium (not ZEN) to upgrade a ship. I would much rather bump an existing ship I already acquired or paid ZEN for up to a full T6 ship than be forced to buy or acquire a T6 ship. Better yet, allow any ship to be upgraded up to TWO FULL TEIRS and watch the players line up to hand over their dilithium. The key is to make these upgrades accessible to ALL players by charging dilithium instead of ZEN. It may also help stabilize the Dilithium exchange by creating more demand for dilithium per character.
Ship Visual Design - in a word: SLIDERS! Add some sliders in the ship designer to allow adjustment of saucer width/thickness/ellipse, neck length, nacelle size, wing span/sweep, pylon span/sweep, overall length, and secondary hull dimension(s) as applicable. Also allow all faction nacelle/wing types to be scaled to fit all ships of their faction, i.e. Galaxy Nacelles on a Luna Science vessel, or B'Rel wings on a Norgh BOP
Ship Scaling - Galaxy Class starships are 641 meters long, Sovereign Class is 750m, Defiant is ~50m, DS9 should be 3km across, and ESD should be large enough to fit DOZENS of ships into it's internal moorings.
And why can we not fly inside ESD and manually dock? If you reward some dilithium for it and make it a challenge, people would do it.
More complicated changes....
Energy weapon arcs - forward and aft weapon slots could be assigned specific firing arcs, especially for beam weapons, taking into account ship design <OR> Some or all Beam weapon firing arcs should be adjustable, at least with an offset (up to 30 degrees) from the ship centerline, and/or with some kind of slider to trade some damage for some extra arc width, and vice versa, say +/- 10%
<OR>
Energy weapons should be treated as a system i.e you have a Mk XII phaser beam system, with all the appropriate emitter arrays mounted around the ship, which provides 360 deg fire, pulse-fire mode (similar to cannon fire), normal beam mode, dual or multi-beam mode, and can be upgraded/modified. The system could be configured to fill all the weapon slots of the ship it is installed on, and/or to require a certain number or configuration of energy weapons slots, i.e. 6 available energy weapon slots, of which at least 2 are aft slots, for a Mk X Phaser
Power Management - Long story short, multiply the available power by 10, and reduce the power RECHARGE rate to 10% of current. Power CONSUMPTION & TRANSFER rates should remain exactly the same.
I will elaborate: Make the maximum system power setting 1000, and x10 every ship's total power, i.e a power setting of W100-S40-E30-A30 becomes a power setting of W1000-S400-E300-A300.
Power consumption should stay the same; -12 power points for a DHC blast, -6 for a turret blast and so on. Power costs would need to be figured for abilities like Transfer Shields, Hazard Emitters, Tactical/Science/Engineer special attacks, and Captain and Ship abilities. Effectiveness of attacks and abilities should not be affected by the power level of a system, but rather how much power is spent on an attack or ability. i.e. for a Gravity Well, with the above power setting, I could create 3 Gravity Wells using 100 power for each, or one massive Gravity Well for 300 power. Chained events like concurrent wells/rifts from gravimetric scientist doffs should NOT cost extra power after the initial well/rift. Any massive (75+ pts) power expendature should carry a proc chance of taking the related power system offline for 10 seconds, with a critical proc for a double duration offline.
Power replenishment should be reduced to 10% of current value; With 10 times as much total power to start out the fight, initial combat effectiveness will be awesome for just about every captain, and short fights shouldn't be any different then they are now. As the battle drags on, captains will have to think more about long-term power management. This will force a greater strategic and tactical consideration for every long engagement; do I hit that beam overload or shunt the power to AUX for a gravity well? Will I have enough power to run the hazard emitters after that? It adds a new endurance dynamic to the gameplay.
Space Projectile Weapons - These deserve to have their own mounting slots. Doing so would allow for greater diversity in ship builds, discourage torpedo boating, and likely address some Cruiser vs. Escort balancing issues. Dreadnaughts/Carriers - 2 fore, 2 aft, 1 ventral 360 degree; Cruisers - 2 fore, 2 aft; Escorts - 2 fore, 1 aft; Science and Raider Ships - 1 fore, 1 aft. Fighters and runabouts should have a single forward launcher, and shuttles should not launch projectiles. Further, mines could also have a separate slot on larger ships (Cruisers, Dreadnaughts, Carriers), medium sized ships could mount a mine or a launcher in a single universal aft projectile mount, fighters could have a mine slot only, and shuttles no aft projectiles.
Assign Tactical bridge officer space skills to specific weapons - For example Beam Overload. With a right click menu off the bridge tray icon, a player can (or should be able to) assign a special attack to a specific weapons array. This eliminates the chance of say a beam array firing the overload instead of the dual beam bank you want the overload shot to come from. You could "order your bridge officer" (select from the menu) to trigger the special attack for the selected weapon array whenever it is available. This could also be effective with cannon and torpedo attacks, and would significantly improve space combat.
Cannon fire follows ships like they are locked on torpedoes - This was always one of my pet peeves with this game. In the simplification of the game mechanics, the developers decided to calculate beam and cannon hits the same way. Since cannons fire several pulses which should appear to have a slower velocity than an instantaneous beam firing in a straight line connecting two ships, the net result is the cannon pulses look like torpedoes tracking a target.
So here is the easiest way I can think of to fix this visual error. Instead of calculating and drawing cannon fire in an arc that follows the target, calculate and draw the cannon fire on an inverse arc that looks like it leads the target into the cannon blast. Might still look like the projectiles are homing, but they will look "predictive" rather then "reactive".
<OR>
Increase the cannon blast velocity significantly to compensate for the disparity. Energy weapons in principle fire at the speed of light, but in this game they are not much faster then a torpedo. Keep the same fire rate and damage per shot, just increase the projectile velocity so it follows the same straight line the beams make.
With T6 ships, every ship before now is obsolete - Talk about a slap in the face! Say what you will, T5U is not equal to T6. Why is PWE only allowing this half-arsed upgrade when they could allow players to fully upgrade their T5 ships? I would willingly give dilithium (not ZEN) to upgrade a ship. I would much rather bump an existing ship I already acquired or paid ZEN for up to a full T6 ship than be forced to buy or acquire a T6 ship. Better yet, allow any ship to be upgraded up to TWO FULL TEIRS and watch the players line up to hand over their dilithium. The key is to make these upgrades accessible to ALL players by charging dilithium instead of ZEN. It may also help stabilize the Dilithium exchange by creating more demand for dilithium per character.
Ship Visual Design - in a word: SLIDERS! Add some sliders in the ship designer to allow adjustment of saucer width/thickness/ellipse, neck length, nacelle size, wing span/sweep, pylon span/sweep, overall length, and secondary hull dimension(s) as applicable. Also allow all faction nacelle/wing types to be scaled to fit all ships of their faction, i.e. Galaxy Nacelles on a Luna Science vessel, or B'Rel wings on a Norgh BOP
Ship Scaling - Galaxy Class starships are 641 meters long, Sovereign Class is 750m, Defiant is ~50m, DS9 should be 3km across, and ESD should be large enough to fit DOZENS of ships into it's internal moorings.
And why can we not fly inside ESD and manually dock? If you reward some dilithium for it and make it a challenge, people would do it.
More complicated changes....
Energy weapon arcs - forward and aft weapon slots could be assigned specific firing arcs, especially for beam weapons, taking into account ship design <OR> Some or all Beam weapon firing arcs should be adjustable, at least with an offset (up to 30 degrees) from the ship centerline, and/or with some kind of slider to trade some damage for some extra arc width, and vice versa, say +/- 10%
<OR>
Energy weapons should be treated as a system i.e you have a Mk XII phaser beam system, with all the appropriate emitter arrays mounted around the ship, which provides 360 deg fire, pulse-fire mode (similar to cannon fire), normal beam mode, dual or multi-beam mode, and can be upgraded/modified. The system could be configured to fill all the weapon slots of the ship it is installed on, and/or to require a certain number or configuration of energy weapons slots, i.e. 6 available energy weapon slots, of which at least 2 are aft slots, for a Mk X Phaser
Power Management - Long story short, multiply the available power by 10, and reduce the power RECHARGE rate to 10% of current. Power CONSUMPTION & TRANSFER rates should remain exactly the same.
I will elaborate: Make the maximum system power setting 1000, and x10 every ship's total power, i.e a power setting of W100-S40-E30-A30 becomes a power setting of W1000-S400-E300-A300.
Power consumption should stay the same; -12 power points for a DHC blast, -6 for a turret blast and so on. Power costs would need to be figured for abilities like Transfer Shields, Hazard Emitters, Tactical/Science/Engineer special attacks, and Captain and Ship abilities. Effectiveness of attacks and abilities should not be affected by the power level of a system, but rather how much power is spent on an attack or ability. i.e. for a Gravity Well, with the above power setting, I could create 3 Gravity Wells using 100 power for each, or one massive Gravity Well for 300 power. Chained events like concurrent wells/rifts from gravimetric scientist doffs should NOT cost extra power after the initial well/rift. Any massive (75+ pts) power expendature should carry a proc chance of taking the related power system offline for 10 seconds, with a critical proc for a double duration offline.
Power replenishment should be reduced to 10% of current value; With 10 times as much total power to start out the fight, initial combat effectiveness will be awesome for just about every captain, and short fights shouldn't be any different then they are now. As the battle drags on, captains will have to think more about long-term power management. This will force a greater strategic and tactical consideration for every long engagement; do I hit that beam overload or shunt the power to AUX for a gravity well? Will I have enough power to run the hazard emitters after that? It adds a new endurance dynamic to the gameplay.
Post edited by eizen745 on
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Interesting write up.
Sounds like an awful lot of work for the Dev's to create though.
The BIG question is..., How can They get Profit out of doing this?
(cause that's the only way it will happen)
Also, you have to remember that all space weapons are drawn From the Enemy BACK to your ship.
Not sure how they could adapt your cannon idea.
I Was A Trekkie Before It Was Cool ... Sept. 8th, 1966 ... Not To Mention Before Most Folks Around Here Were Born!
Forever a STO Veteran-Minion
On your dilithium upgrade, you do know about the dilithium exchange right?
They come equipped with a scaling micro-torp launcher, yes. You can also mount any other torp launcher instead. In the canon of Star Trek, I don't believe a shuttle has ever fired a torpedo. Runabouts do have Mk.V mini-torps in canon, but for the game, simplification demands they be allowed any launcher.
Shuttles should really be equipped with 2 ship-bound scaling shuttle beams. Other then RP, They are really only a stop gap so people too frugal to buy a runabout or fighter can still complete the small-craft based story missions any way. And who uses a shuttle when a runabout is only 36000ec?
"On your dilithium upgrade, you do know about the dilithium exchange right?"
Yes, but the price of ZEN on the exchange is out of control... or more aptly, is IN the control of relatively few people. If PWE charges dilithium instead of ZEN for ship upgrades, they can set a reasonable price which is directly relatable in gameplay-hours: You can refine 8000 dil/day, and a new player starting off will have to play roughly X hours to earn/refine enough dil to upgrade a ship from T1 up to T6. This way, all you have to do is play the game to upgrade your ship, and eventually -<even if you never focus on dilithium farming>- you will have enough dil to upgrade your ship. If it is a dilithium cost instead of ZEN, players will not see it as a money-grab. If it was a reasonable goal, like 500k dil (15k for T1 upgraded to T2, 35k for T2-3, 75k for T3-4, 125k for T4-5, and 250k for T5-6; or alternatively 100k/tier), Even players with established captains would spring for it if it meant we could use intel abilities on a Chel Grett or the LTS Battleships, or if we could build an 8 weapon Constitution refit, or if we could put a secondary deflector on an Oberth. They would sell more T1-T5 ships if this were possible, people will want to keep older ships which will result in more ship slots purchased, and people will want to keep more Boffs to crew them (more boff slots purchased), which is ALL directly a profit for PWE. Additionally, it will not add a new grind or reputation system, but will still allow for Pay-to-winners to dump out their pockets for a pile of ZEN to convert into dilithium. LTS and Gold players can sell their stipends for the dil on the exchange if they are short, and the exchange rate is good for that right now. Finally, they could incorporate it into the levelling system as an alternate to a new ship every 10 levels, by giving the option for the character to refit their existing ship instead of getting a new one. AND if they do this, established players will want to start new Captains to take advantage of the free upgrades when their captains are promoted, so they will buy more character slots, and each new captain will need more ship slots and boff slots, which is even MORE profit for PWE.
An extra console is almost equivalent to the active starship traits of T6 ships, but not quite. Instead of a T6 ship trait, it should be an extra console slot unlock, and the T6 abilities should be offered as consoles.
"Intel powers are good, but none of them are game breaking" - Then any ship with a "Universal" boff seat should allow Intel abilites in that boff seat, or better yet, the Intel seat should be done away with all together, and they should allow Intel abilities to interchange with any boff ability
"Also, you have to remember that all space weapons are drawn From the Enemy BACK to your ship." - In that case, The cannon animation should be sped up. Or, If the line is drawn back to the player ship, simply inverting the curve they are drawn on by putting a "-" on the appropriate element of the calculation should suffice. A combination of both would probably yield the best result.
And a couple other things I wanted to post originally...
Shield Diversification vs Damage Types - There are 7 base energy damage types; Phaser, Disruptor, Plasma, Polaron, Tetryon, Anti-Proton and Exotic (arguably Proton could be classified as Exotic since it is not widely used). There should be 7 Shield types to oppose these damage types, with relative strengths and weaknesses vs other damage types. Each Shield type is especially resistant (say +20%) to its opposed damage type, somewhat resistant (+10%) vs 2, neutral vs 1 type, slightly weak (-10%) vs 2 types, and especially weak (-20%) against a damage type which could be considered similar to the shield's energy. This could be applied over the existing Normal/Resilient/Covariant/Regenerative shield types
Selectable Bridge Officer ship abilities - On the ground, a Boff has access to all their abilities their rank grants. I understand the need to diversify and differentiate ships in their bridge officer seating; Tactical oriented escorts and Dreads, Engineer oriented cruisers and carriers, and of course Science ships should be heavy on science abilities. But if I have an "Ensign" grade bridge seat with one ability slot, doesn't it make more sense to PICK one of the Boff's space abilities to use? An engineer could still vent warp plasma on any ship if he were at an ensign's station, but he may not have the ability to transfer emergency power to shields at the same time. Given enough Power, a science officer could create a gravity well with any ship, but he wouldn't be able to run hazard emitters at the same time. So, yes if you put a Commander in an Ensign's seat, they will only be able to use one ability, but the player could select their Ensign ability or their Commander ability, and only change them in social zones. The same principle could be applied across all bridge seats, A Lieutenant seat can have two abilities, but may select any two of a Commander's four abilities. If you wanted it put a limit on it, I'd suggest a "2 rank" limit, i.e. an Ensign slot (as in the first slot on a seat) could use up to a Lt. Cdr. ability, and a Lt. (2nd) slot could use up to a Cdr. ability. This would truly be an example of "Infinite Diversity in Infinte Combinations" and could revolutionize shipbuilding as we know it.
Would you mind sharing your Fleet Patrol Escort Refit stats and build info? I love this ship and looking at others builds for ideas. Thanks!!!
That really depends on the console vs the boff skill, say an extra bfaw as an example, can probably outclass 90% of any consoles, that could possibly be equipped on a ship!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Yes, I do realize the complexity of some of what I suggest; I even broke it up between less complex and more complex suggestions. The game is flawed, and this is the forum for providing feedback about the game. Christ almighty, There are still DAY 1 bugs in this game, so I don't need you talking down to me about "do you realize". With proper feedback, development, and testing, every bug can be fixed, and every new feature should be released bug free. It's not my fault PWE has not realized this.