New Component Brainstorming

[havokhead]

Since there's no updates in the foreseeable future and since the Infiltrator class ships are cancelled/delayed indefinitely; I thought maybe we could come together as a community and suggest some new components for existing ships we'd like to see in-game. I'm no developer or theory crafter so I'm sure some (all) of these suggestions will be shot down but I thought these components could add new tricks to some old dogs.

 

1) Pulse-Wave: much like the commando's/smuggler's/consular's ability. You would trigger it when foes are in super close like EMP pulse but it would act like running into an asteroid, damage would be dealt and ships would be re-directed in another direction. Of course, all ships would be affected not just foes.

 

2) Shield-Wall Drone: again, taking inspiration from smugglers, the shield-wall drone would be launched like any other drone but projects an indestructible shield wall for a limited time, these walls cannot be penetrated by any weapons on either side. This would mostly be used in defence against gunships. The drones can be destroyed by going around the wall, thus ending the projection. Also, when the timer expires the drone would blow up like a mine dealing damage to anyone too close.

 

3) Phantom Gunship Projector: yet another drone, which , to opponents would appear like a genuine gunship complete with railgun power-up glow and can be locked-on/targeted and even fired upon, the hits will destroy the drone and the phantom gunship but the decoy will attract attention and distract foes. I think this would be ideal on scouts who would drop the decoy drones like sensor probes on the outskirts of a battlefield.

[Altheran]

I have to say I hate the first proposition.

Near from an object ? Instant kill. Yuck.

In addition, being a friendly fire ability would open a Pandora Box : why mine are not similar ?

 

The wall thing is similar, it could be used a way to kill anyone following at a set distance. But the at least the concept of a deployable shield can be used... Even though I don't think it would actually be good to put even more emphasis into building a bunker.

 

The last one is simply not viable as long as player names are displayed. Any decoy would have its nature revealed right away.

Edited September 15, 2014 by Altheran

[Gavin_Kelvar]

hmmm I'd add a few new sensor components tailored for the T3 Striker to try to make the sensor component more worthwhile.

 

Targeting sensors: small-moderate reduction in missile lock time (a proton using both this and it's inherent lock reduction talent would have a lock time of an unupgraded conc); or an firing arc increase. This would only be available on ships that don't have missiles with 3 second or less default lock times. It would be a buff to both T3 strikers and T2 gunships that utilize missiles that have very long lock on times.

 

IFF: provides shield/hull information on allies within comm sensor range. This would buff both the T3 striker and T3 scout by making their support abilities (repair probe/drone and shield projector) more user friendly.

Edited September 15, 2014 by Gavin_Kelvar

[Verain]

1) Pulse-Wave: much like the commando's/smuggler's/consular's ability. You would trigger it when foes are in super close like EMP pulse but it would act like running into an asteroid, damage would be dealt and ships would be re-directed in another direction. Of course, all ships would be affected not just foes.

 

This is the worst answer, and your only legit bad idea. Anything with friendly fire is a ludicrously bad idea, and would be used to grief. We already have people roll same faction as better players to scream at them for playing correctly, frequently, and well, and they already take temp and even perma (I haven't seen it escalate to perma, but presumably it can) bans just to queue WITH their enemies and launch themselves into asteroids, trying to lose the game. If they are willing to lose their whole accounts in a fit of rage, you can bet that they would pulse wave people into things.

 

Even without that, the ability is far too good at running enemies into rocks, and makes orbiting sats too dangerous.

 

2) Shield-Wall Drone: again, taking inspiration from smugglers, the shield-wall drone would be launched like any other drone but projects an indestructible shield wall for a limited time, these walls cannot be penetrated by any weapons on either side. This would mostly be used in defence against gunships. The drones can be destroyed by going around the wall, thus ending the projection. Also, when the timer expires the drone would blow up like a mine dealing damage to anyone too close.

 

I really like this idea. This is basically like the Halo bubble, not anything the smugglers have. In fact, this is essentially the same thing as the WoW rogue smoke-bomb effect. I have campaigned for a similar-ish component, but your take on it is pretty great. If the effect is anything but spherical or counter-plane to the shot it could be too hard to aim, and you presumably mean a reasonably large flat disk that can be flown through trivially.

 

I think the exploding part would need to go, only because it could be too hard to actually kill it if placed correctly, all but forcing you to eat the mine part. Or it could be replaced with a lesser effect, such as the ion mine drain effect.

 

3) Phantom Gunship Projector: yet another drone, which , to opponents would appear like a genuine gunship complete with railgun power-up glow and can be locked-on/targeted and even fired upon, the hits will destroy the drone and the phantom gunship but the decoy will attract attention and distract foes. I think this would be ideal on scouts who would drop the decoy drones like sensor probes on the outskirts of a battlefield.

 

This is a good start to an idea, but incomplete. Duplicants have issues because they can't normally be totally convincing to a canny opponent, even if the game makes them look identical- and this is a big deal, because you pretty much are wanting to balance the item like it can fool any enemy, but now it totally fools noobs and is meaningless to veterans. I think a different take would be appropriate- the game already has an objectively high skill cap and decently long acclimation time, and a wildly high skill cap given much of the audience. I'd suggest a different execution would be better.

 

 

These are creative ideas man, nice thread.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

This is a good start to an idea, but incomplete. Duplicants have issues because they can't normally be totally convincing to a canny opponent, even if the game makes them look identical- and this is a big deal, because you pretty much are wanting to balance the item like it can fool any enemy, but now it totally fools noobs and is meaningless to veterans. I think a different take would be appropriate- the game already has an objectively high skill cap and decently long acclimation time, and a wildly high skill cap given much of the audience. I'd suggest a different execution would be better.

 

Thinking of BF2142 where they had a sniper decoy that created a false radar ping that hid your own location so long as you stayed within 50 meters of the decoy maybe the decoy could do something similar? It could be something that respects LOS so against enemies beyond visual range or without LOS it would give a false radar ping (naturally once you shot someone they'd be able to target you which would reveal your actual location).

 

Maybe instead of a drone make it function like a rocket pod (with an 11 second delay between shots or something)? It'd have a lot of use when being pursued since you could break LOS and launch a decoy in a different direction or trick people into thinking you were going to attack from a different direction.

[havokhead]

Hhhmmm, verain likes my thread, wasn't expecting that...I'll take it!!

 

Anyway, to clarify a little, when I said like a smuggler I meant like how the gunslinger has scrambling field to help in ranged defence but it would look like the take cover ability with a force-field wall. Also, the reason I stated the drones should blow up was to prevent bombers from "turtleing" between these shields and the satellite in domination. When the timer was up and you had these shields around you against a satellite it would be enough to kill you. I picture these things used more in the open to block LOS from gunships like between mesas or asteroids.

 

I agree, the pulse-wave is a stretch but you have to remember it would replace a component or weapon so if you did take this option then you'd miss out on range or defence or mobility. I was honestly thinking of T1 strikes for this, hit pulse-wave as a pesky scout is zipping by. I don't think it would go well on scouts as they're too fast and if you had 3 or 4 pulse-wave scouts playing ping-pong with you that'd be horrendous lol. I had an electric eel in mind, nothing messes with those things it suits the T1 strike most I think. Scouts would learn to keep their distance quick enough.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

Anyway, to clarify a little, when I said like a smuggler I meant like how the gunslinger has scrambling field to help in ranged defence but it would look like the take cover ability with a force-field wall. Also, the reason I stated the drones should blow up was to prevent bombers from "turtleing" between these shields and the satellite in domination. When the timer was up and you had these shields around you against a satellite it would be enough to kill you. I picture these things used more in the open to block LOS from gunships like between mesas or asteroids.

 

For balance I'd recommend making it "ray shielding" that can be pierced by missile weapons. This would make it so it would protect against GS railguns and BLC scouts but wouldn't make it an impenetrable wall. It would play well for strikers that pack torps and thermites (especially T2 & T3s) and might give some value to T2 GS since they'd be the only GS with weaponry that could pierce a shield wall.

[Pujaradactyl]

How about a radar scramble or something? It would be a field similar to emp field, but instead of hitting shields, it makes the enemies around you lose radar functionality for a set period of time. This would also effect the little tick marks around the reticule Edited September 16, 2014 by Pujaradactyl

[tommmsunb]

Take your pick.

 

1) A taunt button that flips off your target so that they can't see and run into a rock. (Think like a screen full of just a middle finger.)

2) A nuclear weapon that destroys the node and turns the match into TDM.

3) A shield that has no shield power but increases your DPS to apocalypse levels.

4) A fuuuuuuusion HA! component that allows the elitists who think you need to fly every ship to be able to fly every ship at once. http://i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww51/daniel970315/Fusion-HA.gif

5) An automatic alert that tells you who the people are who have the lowest KDR on your team are so you can flame them easier. Why wait for the score screen?

6) A magic button that disables all evasion in the map for 6 seconds on a 12 second cooldown. So that the people who think that evasion is what makes a good pilot good can shut their mouths.

7) A magic button that replays your recent kill to the person you just killed in triplicate.

8) LSD sensors, that let you know that the purple elephant isn't just in your room it's in your game too.

9) C4 charges in your friendly ships that let you kill them when they're being stupid without risking losing score.

10) The legendary iWin button that I've been told on so many occasions that I run.

 

I think these would help balancing the game pretty well.

[Verain]

How about a radar scramble or something? It would be a field similar to emp field, but instead of hitting shields, it makes the enemies around you lose radar functionality for a set period of time. This would also effect the little tick marks around the reticule

 

I think anything that garbles the UI is a bad plan, BUT I think something that dramatically reduces sensor range is a fine idea.

 

 

5) An automatic alert that tells you who the people are who have the lowest KDR on your team are so you can flame them easier. Why wait for the score screen?

 

This totally. I'd also like to add:

 

> Replace the copilot ability on all bombers with a button that brings up a small Tetris screen, so you have something to do whilst waiting for newb scouts and strikes to huff and puff all the way over to pad damage on your mines and drones. The game should automatically pause should you take fire, unless it's just like light lasers and clusters while you have charged plating up, you don't need to stop playing for that.

 

7) A magic button that replays your recent kill to the person you just killed in triplicate.

 

When mastered, this should make it so that the player sees in when they log in for like, three months. Ideally you could dynamically adjust the text, edit the framing (maybe with a talent point), and add a voiceover to represent their presumed death scream.

 

 

 

 

Also, it would be really good if, when you get three kills in less than like 10 seconds, you started just flashing and the Mario Starman music just started going. Maybe replace that stupid lingering effect so we could actually listen to Jaesa for a change.