New Dreadnought PvE.

1

A Bit of a Disclaimer:

I’m going to start off my idea with a bit of a disclaimer: I am not a game developer, and I do not know about the limitations of Star Conflict’s game engine and servers. I am simply suggesting a game mode idea that, with time and a little bit of dedication and some tweaking, can be implemented and would definitely boost interest in this game worldwide.

 

This is by _no means _a small idea. This is potentially a huge project that may take a lot of work, should this idea be used.

 

Feel free to discuss any suggestions, critique my ideas, and discuss with me and amongst yourselves about this idea.

 

 

Introduction:

So we have dreadnoughts now. They’re big capital ships that fight other big capital ships for big swathes of Sector 1337. However, I have noticed that there is not yet a PvE mode that involves the dreadnoughts - especially a PvE mode that _involves __aliens. _And so I thought: how cool would it be to have a PvE of corporation dreadnoughts versus aliens?

 

The benefits of implementing this game mode would be a renewed interest in PvE, along with more interest in utilizing corporation dreadnoughts. In addition, this idea can attract a lot more people to Star Conflict, which will increase revenue for the developers _and _increase ingame activity levels and player population.

 

Thusly, I am offering an idea for two gamemodes (devs, you can work on one or both - your choice) that can kick off the start of Season 3 or Season 4:

  1. Dreadnought Survival
  2. Assault on the Alien Mothership (TO BE ADDED LATER)

 

Dreadnought Survival:

Story:

During a routine warp jump with your corporation’s dreadnought, your navigation system onboard failed and lost contact with the Astronomican (whatisthisreferencedoinghere), and your dreadnought has found itself stuck in Unknown Space. Aliens are descending on your location, and your corporation members have been scrambled to their fighters. Three Defiler signatures have been found closing in on the dreadnought, and the situation is grim. Without your help, your corporation dreadnought will not be able to escape the sector and back to safety.

 

There is only one objective:  SURVIVE.

 

Your dreadnought is preparing an emergency warp jump, which will take 40 minutes. During this time, you and your corpmates are to hold off the alien invaders from depleting the dreadnought’s fleet points.

To worsen things, you are stuck in Unknown Space without reinforcements. Whatever ships you bring with you are the only ones you have. Fortunately, your dreadnought has its guns to assist you in your fight, and will mow down aliens on a whim.

 

Gameplay:

There is no respawn with the same ship. Similar to Capture the Beacons, when your ship is destroyed it is lost forever in this gamemode. Choose your ships wisely, and survive.

 

Similar to Special Operations, this mission will require 12 people. Members of other corporations are welcome to join.

 

Countless biomorphs, hunters, and predators will assault your dreadnought ad infinitum, along with scripted Defiler spawns at the 10, 20, and 30 minute intervals. These defilers will spawn matter inverters. If one Defiler is not destroyed , the second (and even third) one will warp in regardless.

  • Fortunately, taking down these Defilers will not be as difficult as Spec Ops, simply because the combined powers of your dreadnought’s main calibers and your fleet will make short work of the defilers.
  • A daring corporation member can even plant the dreadnought bomb on a Defiler, significantly damaging it.
  • The Defiler’s missiles, Predator projectiles, matter inverters, and Defiler emitters will damage the dreadnought. If the dreadnought’s fleet points are depleted, you will lose the mission.

After 40 minutes, the dreadnought will successfully initiate the emergency warp jump. You will see a scripted cutscene of this, marking mission success.

 

Successful completion of this mission will grant your corporation 10,000 iridium. You will get 3 purple spots and ~1,000,000 credit payout. This mission can only be completed once every 7 days.

 

Please feel free to leave feedback on this idea, and to discuss it amongst yourselves and with me. Thank you!

2

POST IS RESERVED for the Assault on the Alien Mothership idea. Will be added later.

3

Dear God add this right now.

4

We need an Alien Dreadnought, 10 times more dangerous than Defiler!

Imagine their Top-End Dreadnought, which is the mother of all dreadnoughts or even a Mothership!

We would need a really big map for that!

5

Mercenaries, this is your dreadnought captain. I have grave news… Our interspacial warp-accelerator has catastrophically malfunctioned, landing us in what looks to be Alien Space.

 

6ZM8hCe.png

 

We’re working to correct this issue and warp back to normal space as soon as—!

 

Mercenaries! Alien signatures detected! Get to your ships immediately! There’s no time to set up the duplicator system, defend this dreadnought at all costs!

 

92AKbu5.png

 

Music from the soundtrack to fight to:
https://soundcloud.com/star-conflict-1/a-romanov-produced-by-12?in=star-conflict-1/sets/raid-theme

 

First wave approaching! Helmsman, evasive manuvers!!

 

*The dreadnought moves through alien space much the same way that dreadnought battles function, though the fighting is far too intense for the mercenaries to glance at the ominous and awesome landscape around them. Pillars, matter inverters, and strange alien stone carvings float eerily by as aliens swarm in from all sides*

 

Good work mercenaries, we’ve fought them off… for now. It looks like they’re regrouping, take this time to repair what you can and prepare yourselves for the next wave…

 

*Players receive full shields and hull to their ships, and have but a short reprieve to recharge their modules. A 30 minute countdown begins to complete the mission*

 

New music begins to play: https://soundcloud.com/star-conflict-1/sets/raid-theme

 

Oh no… We’ve detected several alien high-tonnage ships on approach. They look like Defilers… Prepare the Main Caliber guns! FIRE!!

 

*The players scramble to damage what they can on the mighty Defilers and alien swarms before they can close in on the Dreadnought, its major calibers battering away at them with massive blasts. Miraculously, the Defilers only manage to do minimal damage as the players fight them off with ferocious strength.*

 

Pilots, our warp-accelerator is almost back online! One final push! Give them everything you’ve got!!

*The players bash the last Defiler’s systems into pulp, and a well-placed major caliber blast tears the Defiler apart* 

 

The accelerator’s back online! All pilots, retreat into the dreadnought! We’re getting the hell out of here!!

 

*The surviving players scramble to the docking port, and must redock with the dreadnought to complete the escape. Once they’re docked, the dreadnought warps out and the players win!*

 

(Please forgive my terrible photoshop skills.)

6

YAAAAAAAASSSSSSS. The photoshops (photoships?) make it look possible!

 

 

We need an Alien Dreadnought, 10 times more dangerous than Defiler!

Imagine their Top-End Dreadnought, which is the mother of all dreadnoughts or even a Mothership!

We would need a really big map for that!

That’s what my upcoming suggestion for Assault on the Alien Mothership will be  :fed_cool:

7

You know what? I was going to propose something really similar to this! Well, I was going to post a Dreadnought themed PvE / Special Operations scenario, so kind of the same…

 

So let’s see what we’ve got here.

 

Introduction:

So we have dreadnoughts now. They’re big capital ships that fight other big capital ships for big swathes of Sector 1337. However, I have noticed that there is not yet a PvE mode that involves the dreadnoughts - especially a PvE mode that _involves __aliens. _And so I thought: how cool would it be to have a PvE of corporation dreadnoughts versus aliens?

 

The benefits of implementing this game mode would be a renewed interest in PvE, along with more interest in utilizing corporation dreadnoughts. In addition, this idea can attract a lot more people to Star Conflict, which will increase revenue for the developers _and _increase ingame activity levels and player population.

 

Thusly, I am offering an idea for two gamemodes (devs, you can work on one or both - your choice) that can kick off the start of Season 3 or Season 4:

  1. Dreadnought Survival
  2. Assault on the Alien Mothership (TO BE ADDED LATER)

So you’re pitching this as a sort of ongoing narrative? Interesting take on it. Actually, that could fit in really well with the existing Spec Ops… maybe have 3-4 Spec Ops scenarios on a rotation? So you have Iridium Mines (Defiler mission), Dreadnought Survival, then x and y. Could be interesting…

 

 

Dreadnought Survival:

Story:

During a routine warp jump with your corporation’s dreadnought, your navigation system onboard failed and lost contact with the Astronomican (whatisthisreferencedoinghere), and your dreadnought has found itself stuck in Unknown Space. Aliens are descending on your location, and your corporation members have been scrambled to their fighters. Three Defiler signatures have been found closing in on the dreadnought, and the situation is grim. Without your help, your corporation dreadnought will not be able to escape the sector and back to safety.

 

There is only one objective:  SURVIVE.

So it’s “our” dreadnought? Does this have to be done as a corp? Do they have to supply their own Dreadnought?

 

Your dreadnought is preparing an emergency warp jump, which will take 40 minutes. During this time, you and your corpmates are to hold off the alien invaders from depleting the dreadnought’s fleet points.

To worsen things, you are stuck in Unknown Space without reinforcements. Whatever ships you bring with you are the only ones you have. Fortunately, your dreadnought has its guns to assist you in your fight, and will mow down aliens on a whim.

40 minute game with permadeath? No, I don’t see that being popular at all. I think 20 minutes AT MOST is all you could get out of that. Realistically, it’d probably have to be no more than 15.

 

Gameplay:

There is no respawn with the same ship. Similar to Capture the Beacons, when your ship is destroyed it is lost forever in this gamemode. Choose your ships wisely, and survive.

 

Similar to Special Operations, this mission will require 12 people. Members of other corporations are welcome to join.

Okay, so it is a Spec Ops mission? Again, Spec Ops can be pretty harsh, and with no ability to respawn things would turn seriously ugly very, very fast. No way you could hold out for 40 minutes if the game is meant to challenge 12 T5 elite pilots.

 

Countless biomorphs, hunters, and predators will assault your dreadnought ad infinitum, along with scripted Defiler spawns at the 10, 20, and 30 minute intervals. These defilers will spawn matter inverters. If one Defiler is not destroyed , the second (and even third) one will warp in regardless.

  • Fortunately, taking down these Defilers will not be as difficult as Spec Ops, simply because the combined powers of your dreadnought’s main calibers and your fleet will make short work of the defilers.
  • A daring corporation member can even plant the dreadnought bomb on a Defiler, significantly damaging it.
  • The Defiler’s missiles, Predator projectiles, matter inverters, and Defiler emitters will damage the dreadnought. If the dreadnought’s fleet points are depleted, you will lose the mission.

After 40 minutes, the dreadnought will successfully initiate the emergency warp jump. You will see a scripted cutscene of this, marking mission success.

Based on my own estimates, a Defiler wouldn’t last very long against a Dreadnought’s main batteries. That said, the fact a Dreadnought can drop them quite quickly is part of the potential wow factor - players would still have to go for matter inverters, or other alien super-weapons, but the Defilers could be handled by the OMFGWTFBBQ guns.

 

Successful completion of this mission will grant your corporation 10,000 iridium. You will get 3 purple spots and ~1,000,000 credit payout. This mission can only be completed once every 7 days.

 

Please feel free to leave feedback on this idea, and to discuss it amongst yourselves and with me. Thank you!

 

So

Ah, so it IS Corp based. Thing is, the entry requirements to this make it an absurdly niche concept - you need a Dreadnought, 12 really good pilots with amazing ship lineups, and 40 minutes of your life to give up to a single attempt.

 

And what if you fail? Is the Dreadnought lost? I’m not sure most corps would consider it worth the risk to be honest.

 

I really like the core idea, but it’s certainly not how I would personally approach it. I won’t hijack your thread with my own version, however, so instead I’ll leave a little list of where I think the main concerns are:

 

  • Risk/Reward ratio. 10,000 iridium vs losing a Dreadnought that costs 10x that and a week to build? Not a good return on investment.
  • Duration. 40 mins is a long time for a single battle, especially in a game where the focus is on arcade style matchmaking and quick play.
  • Accessibility - Once per week is a bit harsh, and will make practicing and learning strats very difficult.
  • Return on Investment - this would be a lot of time and effort for the Devs to add to the game. As such, from their perspective, they would probably want the content to get plenty of use by the community. As it stands, this is a very, very niche idea.
8

I really like the core idea, but it’s certainly not how I would personally approach it. I won’t hijack your thread with my own version, however, so instead I’ll leave a little list of where I think the main concerns are:

 

  • Risk/Reward ratio. 10,000 iridium vs losing a Dreadnought that costs 10x that and a week to build? Not a good return on investment.
  • Duration. 40 mins is a long time for a single battle, especially in a game where the focus is on arcade style matchmaking and quick play.
  • Accessibility - Once per week is a bit harsh, and will make practicing and learning strats very difficult.
  • Return on Investment - this would be a lot of time and effort for the Devs to add to the game. As such, from their perspective, they would probably want the content to get plenty of use by the community. As it stands, this is a very, very niche idea.

 

More or less the same complaints from me. Spec ops takes 20 minutes, max (in a roundabout way), so a mission double that length is a bit odd.

 

On top of that, why the heck would it take 40 minutes for a warp to charge? This isn’t League or DOTA, 40 minutes is a long time.

 

Also, there would need to be serious balance for dreads against defilers.

9

Numbers and rewards can be tweaked. Perhaps allowing a player to use a duplicator to restore one of their ships would be a good idea, but I don’t see anything wrong with a lengthy Spec Ops mission. If you’re getting 12 people together, you should have something epic to do.

 

I think the idea is very, very good in concept.

10

Jasan, the dreadnought isn’t lost in the process if we lose - that’s why it’s a PvE. It’s simply a contextual mission that integrates aliens with dreadnoughts in some plausible manner. If we were to stake our dreads in this, the rewards would have to be upped a lot.

 

I also like the idea of no respawns because it makes PvEs that much more challenging. It’s possible to do a SpecOps without dying - it just requires a team of elite t5 pilots with a high degree of coordination.

However, we can integrate Nuke’s suggestion of using a duplicator to respawn destroyed ships. That actually would promote teamwork more.

 

This mission can be done during the weekends where people have more free time. Hence the 7 day cooldown. ALSO the point of this PvE is to strengthen corporate rapport by having lots of corpmates fly together in a challenging yet relaxed scenario.

 

Statue, it takes 40 minutes because I said so :wink: of course the mission length could be tweaked. I do like having at least 3 defilers spawning in though - it makes things much more deadly. 1 Defiler at first and then 2 at a time? Possibly. Maybe even a few Destroyers from the Dev Notes could be integrated too… Goodness that would be something to behold.

11

I think we can all agree there is a lot of potential here, especially with the Destroyers described in the patch notes, and the probable eventual implementation of an alien mothership (like the background in Leviathan).

 

Imo, I think a good option for such a dreadnought-centered PvE mission would be best to be implemented alongside Destroyers, maybe have a Destroyer and several Defilers warp in at the same time, giving a challenge for the pilots. Heck, maybe even pilot-controlled dreadnought major calibers could be implemented. Where 1 pilot (or 3) could take control of the major calibers and have to shoot at critical spots on the Defilers/Destroyers when the pilots in their regular ships destroy a critical object or open up a window of downed shields.

12

I was talking to my corp mates a while ago about something like this. Basically COD zombies except with dreadnoughts and there’s missions away from the dreadnought to repair it and stuff. every 20 stages is a dreadnought battle, biomorphs vs u. 

13

Idea seems really awesome, i support it strongly, however there are many things to tweak. I’ll input my suggestions:
As some sayed: respawn aint cool; Nuclear talked about duplicators, wich doesnt sound bad, but instead i would preffer an important drop in fleet points (just like dread battles do, but in a much higher amount), so loosing a ship would be critical but you would still have the option to get back to the field an help your team (having the option to choose the same or another ship from your 4 slots).

Another important point is accesibility: its some hard work to get 12 competent players with enough equipment to get spec ops going, doing a similar type would mean casual players wont get this. I propose instead opening the option to random players to get into the game; being able of selecting a variety of difficulty levels (therefore different rewards) will make this interesting and accesible for all players. Also, the dread ship idea could be some option to pick: if you are in a corp you can choose your dreadnought. If you are not (or dislike your corp dread), you can use a default dreadnought (as lore lets imagine you are a hired merc to defend the dread), maybe even choose wich of all faction. The 1 week seems way too much to me, i would love to be able to do it more than once in a day, but maybe 1 try per day limit will be good (you can do spec ops over and over, just have to be on the time window), simply leave the great reward only once per day (purple loot atempts and maybe some credit bonus).

About long: 30 mins is enough as time limit. Personally i think 20 minutes is the optimal time for a game, specially a hard one. The idea of completing key objectives to finish the mission is ok and just as valid as a mission that always lasts the same amount of time; i like both options.

 

"I think we can all agree there is a lot of potential here, especially with the Destroyers described in the patch notes, and the probable eventual implementation of an alien mothership (like the background in Leviathan).

 

Imo, I think a good option for such a dreadnought-centered PvE mission would be best to be implemented alongside Destroyers, maybe have a Destroyer and several Defilers warp in at the same time, giving a challenge for the pilots. Heck, maybe even pilot-controlled dreadnought major calibers could be implemented. Where 1 pilot (or 3) could take control of the major calibers and have to shoot at critical spots on the Defilers/Destroyers when the pilots in their regular ships destroy a critical object or open up a window of downed shields." (Darthdirk).
Awesome ideas.

I also think there could be more PVEs in the same theme, like leading an assault against some alien world (as counter attack). We could also use several dreadnoughts and tons of players…but performance requirements would go reaaaaaaaally high, but would be fun if you could run it xD.

14

Thanks for the suggestion, forwarded to the Devs.

15

Good day! We had idea of the survivial mode before. Maybe we will come back to it in the future, but for now we are working on new concept for PvE and you might see some aspects of your idea there.