Outdated. please see the revised version further down the topic.
Revised Version of the Parasite Ship. Please give constructive criticism.
Ship Description:
It is half the size of an interceptor with two weapon turrets. It has no shield but has the same hull strength as an interceptor. It has slightly better maneuverability and top speed than an interceptor.
Edit #1. Has same hull and shield strength as an average interceptor.
Special Module:
It’s special module allows it to attach to an allied ship that is within 100 meters. Once attached the host ship’s shield and hull strength now become the Companion’s. Only one Companion is allowed on one ship and the host ship will have a small indicator an the top stating that a companion is attached. Revised change: Can no longer attach to enemy ships.
Active Modules:
Tier 1:
Speed Assistor - Increases fighter host acceleration by 5% and top speed by 3%.
Increases interceptor host acceleration by 3% and top speed by 2%.
Increases frigate host acceleration by 7% and top speed by 4%.
Energy Amplifier - Increases energy regeneration speed by 10% (host only)
Tier 2:
Module Recharger - Decreases all module recharge time of the host by 20% (host and Companion)
Tier 3:
Weapon Assistor - Increases host main weapon firing rate and damage while decreasing cooldown time.
Gunships and LRFs have a decreased advantage. (host only)
Tier 4:
Second Shield - Adds another shield layer 1/4 the strength of the host shield. Does not regenerate. After shield is depleted you turn it back on after the cooldown. If the Companion ship is not attached the shield layer still applies but to 1/2 the hull strength.
Advantages:
An extra set of turrets for defense or offense
Better stats
Disadvantages:
Only one target. It makes yourself a bigger target.
Please only constructive criticism. Please no negative or positive comments without reasons.
I am sorry but the whole concept is wrong and absolutely not fitting, all you do is buffing one ship, practically becoming a turret, all modules are boring buffs, ship on its own is useless.
First and foremost, what role does this ship fulfill?
The companion’s role is to boost any allied ship. It by itself is also a much harder target to attack since it is smaller than the regular interceptor and more agile. The companion can still hold it’s own because of that. The only thing that would seriously dampen the companion would be an AOE weapon or a missile and even then you could outfit missile flares.
I kinda see this as rip off of “Insert game that I hold dearly here”
I don’t know what “game” you would be talking about. This is my brain child but that isn’t saying much. XD
The companion’s role is to boost any allied ship. It by itself is also a much harder target to attack since it is smaller than the regular interceptor and more agile. The companion can still hold it’s own because of that.
We have plenty of tools that ignore agility, homing missiles, plasma web, pulsars, mines, particle purge, Tackler and ECM, Mass Engine inhibitor, Slow MIssile fields. It will pop like a pesky fly as soon as it attempts to come close to anything.
Concept of becoming a turret, sacrificing controls is terrible imho:
a) It is underpowered - no one flies it, because why? Boring, useless, dies in an instant, no benefits for a team
b) it is efficient/op, now you are forcing players to fly this boring concept because your team needs it to have a chance vs enemy.
We have plenty of tools that ignore agility, homing missiles, plasma web, pulsars, mines, particle purge, Tackler and ECM, Mass Engine inhibitor, Slow MIssile fields. It will pop like a pesky fly as soon as it attempts to come close to anything
Dude read edit. There is also personal skill and strategy. Particle purge only works on shields. Avoid minefields. Stay away from a covop. Passive mods also help to get rid of controlling affects faster.
All ships have disadvantages. If you wanted it to be perfect it would be extremely OP.
Dude read edit. There is also personal skill and strategy. Particle purge only works on shields. Avoid minefields. Stay away from a covop. Passive mods also help to get rid of controlling affects faster.
you are making a ship that is unable to fight. Even best of the best run into minefields and proximity mines, you can not hide from web, because you have to stay away 2000 out form any covop, there are missiles that you can not dodge on ship physical properties alone, any average tackler with gauss will one shot you, ECM will not even need full duration of stasis to kill it. Particle Purge works on everything, pulsars, etc.
Your ship is wrong on a concept level, absolutely ignoring what this game is and what it is all about. Mechanics that you are introducing here are more suited for Dota like games (they already have such things anyways) but not here.
After all, i suggest you learn this game first before you come up with some “smart” ideas to introduce.
An interceptor won’t die in one shot with just hull left. So why would that be the same for a Companion ship? The only thing that could really one shot it is, an unguided missile like you said, or a sniper. Even then to snipe something so small would be hard and to use an unguided missile on something constantly changing directions would be next to impossible.
Fundamentally flawed, frustrating to fly with, worse than LRF if spammed and offers little in the way of interesting counter-play. This is an unworkable premise without massive redesigning.
You claim this thing would be hard to kill. I know for a fact that good Gunship builds could insta-kill it with Particle Purge. Recons could fly-by mine for easy frags. Engineers just need to float into drone range, and one good Pulsar from a Guard is gg. If all else fails, Tacklers and ECM can both stop it dodging long enough for a good volley to kill it.
Speed and agility don’t make a ship survivable; pilot skill does.
No. You don’t fix this by tweaking modules. It is fundamentally flawed and needs to be redesigned from the ground up to the point of being a totally different class.
For me, there are a set of fundamental questions that have to be answered when creating a class:
Is it fun to play?
Is it fun to play against?
Is it fun to play alongside?
Is it fun to play alongside if the guy using it is terrible with the class?
What happens if half your team brings this class?
What happens if half the enemy team brings this class?
Using this model we can actually see that existing classes raise red flags. Take the Long Range Frigate:
Yes, if you like its style of play.
Rarely. Usually, Long Range are camping in their spawn point, which is frustrating to counter.
Yes, so long as the Long Range Frigate is active in the game.
No. The class is dead weight in the hands of an idiot.
You lose.
They lose.
Conclusion: Long Range Frigate is fundamentally flawed and needs a total overhaul. The fact so many threads get made about how bad the LRF class is supports this conclusion.
even more fundamental - how would this fit into the ship tree / role / class ?
will it replace an interceptor out (good luck selling this one to the community)
or do you propose adding 2 new roles on top of the parasite for fighter and frigate class ? (devs might be interested later on to prolong longevity)
since the original post didn’t explain the intent well enough I can only assume you wanted to add more depth to team play ?
creating a new role is not the only way to achieve that. nor is it the easier path to take.
It would fit into an interceptor slot but as a premium ship. It would not replace any other ship. I suppose you could be it with a large amount of artifacts or with a moderate to low amount of GS. Maybe this ship should only be for T4 or T5 so only skilled players would use it. As a novelty many people would like to try it increasing the sales of the DEVs. so if they looked into it, it will probably be another source of income.
I don’t understand this question "do you propose adding 2 new roles on top of the parasite for fighter and frigate class ? (devs might be interested later on to prolong longevity)".
To Jasan: you are saying it needs to be redesigned from the ground up. Does that mean that you think making a ship attach to another would be to hard? if so, enough programming would fix all that.
This proposal just doesn’t fit with the rest of the game mechanics/philosophy at the moment.
It would fit into an interceptor slot but as a premium ship.
I read everything, but i could have stopped here. You propose to make an entire new ship role with new mechanics, but available only as a paid option, denied to F2P customers. With no symmetry for the other classes, fighters/frigates. I could continue with the lack of fun this class seems to be, or with the weird things that could happen. Like all the team spawning with this thing. LRF spam all over again, but with tiny useless (on their own) interceptors. Etc etc etc.
This proposal just doesn’t fit with the rest of the game mechanics/philosophy at the moment.
I read everything, but i could have stopped here. You propose to make an entire new ship role with new mechanics, but available only as a paid option, denied to F2P customers. With no symmetry for the other classes, fighters/frigates. I could continue with the lack of fun this class seems to be, or with the weird things that could happen. Like all the team spawning with this thing. LRF spam all over again, but with tiny useless (on their own) interceptors. Etc etc etc.
It’s not denied to F2P players. You can buy it with artifacts.
I don’t understand this question “do you propose adding 2 new roles on top of the parasite for fighter and frigate class ?”
3 factions, 3 classes, 3 roles per class. Each factional class has access to only 2 of the 3 roles. for eg:
Jericho Interceptor = ECM, Cov Ops
Federation Interceptor = Cov Ops, Recon
Empire Interceptor = Recon, ECM
Another way to look at it is - Each role has 2 factions related to it.
Parasite is a role. It is an Interceptor class. This would add a 4th role to the class.
so question was:
How would you balance it out relative to the other two classes the fighter and frigates which still have only 3 roles each. Would you propose adding a new role to each of them ? And how would the roles relate to Factions now that there are 4 roles but only 3 factions / class.
simple math; 1 role will appear in all factions while all other roles will appear in 2 factions, missing in the other.
a b c
b c d
c d a
but lets sidestep that issue for the time being to accommodate for the simple pleasure of forum idea crafting. how about filling out Jasan’s form and post the answer for us to see how it might look like in a general gameplay context.
For me, there are a set of fundamental questions that have to be answered when creating a class:
Is it fun to play?
Is it fun to play against?
Is it fun to play alongside?
Is it fun to play alongside if the guy using it is terrible with the class?
What happens if half your team brings this class?
What happens if half the enemy team brings this class?