Engineering frigates

Suggestions Balance
#1

A thread about Capitol ships brought up this idea as a means to make engineers more versatile and more of an actual support class.

The rework would include changing the main module to this:

Name: Drone Swarm

Type: Engineer Special Module

Energy: 500

Cool down: 90s

Tooltip: Deploys a horde of advanced combat drones to attack your enemies. Lock on to an enemy to sick three of them on to it.

Function: Releases 9 heavy drones from the ship that automatically start attacking enemy ships on the battlefield. Locking on to an enemy will only make three of them target it, to prevent OPness. Upon use after a previous activation, it will only release more drones under the 9 drone cap. Example: If you have 6 drones active, using the module only releases 3.

With this change, attack drones would be unaffected, as they are a different type of drone. You might say “but this means that maps will be flooded with gunfire and drones now!!” Well to fix this, Engineering frigates will only have 2 turrets. They are a support class, not a combat class. Let the drones do the dirty work.

Along with the weapon changes, the following modules will also be changed to suit it better:

From: Mass Shield Generator & Nanodrone Cloud & Autonomous Charging Station & Autonomous Repair Station

To:

Name: Mass Repair Unit

Type: Engineer Active Module

Energy: 500

Cooldown: 60s

Tooltip: Passively repairs 200 shield and hull pt/s in a 2500m radius of the ship. Upon activation, deploys a static device that repairs 360 shield and hull points per second for 25 seconds for the most damaged ship in a 2500m radius.

With this addition, engineers won’t be forced to choose either shield or hull repairs, and will be more of a help to their teams. The passive repair can be changed as needed. The current system is just annoying.

Warp Gate and Static Barrier remain the same.

Energy emitter remains the same, but with slightly higher energy output.

Engineer main weapon:

From: Eclipse Launcher

To:

Name: Eclipse Beam

Type: Engineer Main Weapon

Damage: 3500EM per shot

Rate of fire: about that of the Flux Phaser, maybe slower.

Range: 4000m

Tooltip: Once charged, releases a large beam of energy from each cannon. When they converge a large explosion is started that deals damage in a 450m radius. If an ally is caught in the explosion, the excess eclipse material will be attached to their hull, repairing it by 750 hull points.

Function: Charges for .25 seconds, then releases a blue bolt from each turret. When they converge, either at the target’s location, or upon impact with an entity, they cause a large explosion. It heals allies like the previous eclipse launcher.

Any tweaks you want to see? Something seem a bit OP? Feel free to leave a well thought-out comment below. I’ll edit the post as I get them. ^^

#2

No - stop trying to make game playing for you instead of you playing the game.

No - It already has great healing, that can turn the tide of the battle.

No - It wasn’t made as healing beam for a reason.

#3

It’s not an instant beam. Thats just its name.

Also, I’ve come across too many useless engineers to count. Even ones from big corps like NASA. It’s annoying af. Having a single module to do it all would also allow the engineer to, well, engineer. It builds structures and facilities for ally use. Warp-gates especially. You can either heal, or be an engineer in the current way. This fixes that.

#4

no, it will make more problems than you can even imagine

#5

no, it will make more problems than you can even imagine

Throw some of them at me. I wanna know exactly what it would do.

The engineer would still be doing exactly what it does now, just a bit more idiot-proof.

#6

They don’t teach rocket science in kindergarten for a reason

#7

The world would be a whole lot smarter if they did though.

#8

Throw some of them at me. I wanna know exactly what it would do.

The engineer would still be doing exactly what it does now, just a bit more idiot-proof.

I don’t really want it idiot proof. I want it to be obvious when there is a true engineer on the field making a difference.

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Engineering frigates will only have 2 turrets. They are a support class, not a combat class. Let the drones do the dirty work.

 

 

And if you take my gunz I would no longer fly it.

#9

Engies already can heal things fast. They don;t need to be healing ships faster than you can damage them which already can happen with Octopus or Naga etc vs low dps interceptors. If 4 modules were turned into 1, then you would have OP engineers with to many things to keep them alive.

#10

This would make Engineers too OP. Other ship classes also have to choose which modules they use.