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General FreeSpace => Multiplayer => Blue Planet Multi => Topic started by: Hades on March 27, 2011, 12:34:01 pm

Title: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Hades on March 27, 2011, 12:34:01 pm
Posting possible capital ship powers.

Aeolus: Beam overcharge, sgreens fire every 5-7 seconds, causing massive damages. This works for AAAF too, but the downside is it gradually damages hull.
            Repair like on the Karuna, though a bit faster.
            Countermeasures: Used as a power to basically disarm UEF torpedoes, including the ones fired from UEF capitals, can be used to help out larger ships as well.

Deimos: Beam overcharge: Turns the terslashes into a powerful direct fire weapon for a short time. Does some minor damage to the Deimos' hull.
             Repair
             Point Defense Overdrive: Causes all point defense turrets to fire much faster, useful for trying to take down more incoming bombs.

Sanctus: Cargo Utilization: The Sanctus uses the spare ammo in its cargo bay to, for a few seconds, greatly increase the reload rate of its kenetic weapons (Torpedoes, mass drivers, etc)
              Repair
              Not sure about the third power, I was thinking perhaps an engine overdrive, which makes it move much faster for about 5 seconds, which would be useful for getting into range with its mass drivers, etc.

Diomedes: Stikecraft Launch: Launches one wing of fighters and one wing of bombers that assist them.
                Repair
                PD Sentries: Launches 10-15 sentry guns around the ship (and perhaps friendly capitals) which terran turret 2 which are used to help shoot down torpedoes

Chimera:

Bellephron:

If anyone has anything to say about these or any ideas for these or the other capitals I didn't list, please do share.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Hades on June 03, 2011, 08:22:45 am
If anyone has anymore ideas, I'd be happy to hear them.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Lester on June 03, 2011, 08:34:28 am
I think we should add the Custos to the list of playable capships.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Hades on June 03, 2011, 08:37:36 am
I think we should add the Custos to the list of playable capships.
Yeah true, plus the Narayna (spellllling), Chimera, and Bellephron too
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: bigchunk1 on June 03, 2011, 02:44:25 pm
Right now the Narayana and the Sanctus models are in the bpmulti modpack.  I would like to brainstorm possible ideas for abilities with these ships first, since abilities for them will be easier to implement.

Sanctus: (Ideas Hades mentioned are good)
Active Sealent: Armor type gets a temporary buff
Long ranged ordinance: Sanctus' Warhammers get temporarily swapped with Apocalypse#Narayana which has 12000m range.
Signal lasers: disables all beam weaponry a given distance from the activating ship for a given amount of time.
Thruster coolent reserves: recharges afterburner energy instantly.

Narayana:
Fire mission: All gauss cannons and mass drivers fire instantly when this ability is used.
Jam their signal!: Makes the Narayana untargetable by enemies for a short duration.
Recalibrate Sensors: Repairs the Sensor subsystem.

Edit: Just thought of another ability.
Reactor Polarity: Overloads the reactor to cause a massive EMP shockwave which radiates outward from center of the activating ship. Scrambles the targeting of the activating ship as well as others around it. Useful for desperate situations.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Commander Zane on June 03, 2011, 03:22:32 pm
Long ranged ordinance: Sanctus' Warhammers get temporarily swapped with Apocalypse#Narayana which has 12000m range.
A missile that isn't a quarter the length of the ship itself would probably be a better choice. I think both the Karuna and Solaris use the same model which is smaller than the Narayana's.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: bigchunk1 on June 03, 2011, 05:04:08 pm
I just checked the tables and you are correct that the Solaris uses a MissileL.pof, Different from the Karuna and Narayana's MissileXL.pof. I'm not actually sure exactly how the MissileXL.pof sizes up compared to the Sanctus. If the ability gets put into the game, we'll test and make a decision then. Using a solaris missile might be a viable alternative though the range will be shorter, unless we retable new ones.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Commander Zane on June 03, 2011, 05:10:47 pm
The Karuna also uses MissileXL? I thought the Apocalypse#Karuna used MissileL along with the Apocalypse#Solaris.
I looked in the lab and the Karuna's missiles are MissileM, I was wrong there.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Qent on June 03, 2011, 06:03:13 pm
Signal lasers: disables all beam weaponry a given distance from the activating ship for a given amount of time.
Please no. You will cheapen one of the most dramatic moments of WiH.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: SypheDMar on June 03, 2011, 06:19:40 pm
Signal lasers: disables all beam weaponry a given distance from the activating ship for a given amount of time.
Please no. You will cheapen one of the most dramatic moments of WiH.
This is for PvP capship battles only. It's not canon. :p
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: KyadCK on June 03, 2011, 06:24:23 pm
We wouldn't be able to use this in a co-op mission like Blade Itself multi (cap/fighter combined)? Or hell, even a RTS mission? There's gotta be more ways to use this then just cap ship TvT.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: SypheDMar on June 03, 2011, 06:41:23 pm
Well, it probably could, but I'm just clarifying for him that it's not canon.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: KyadCK on June 03, 2011, 06:53:54 pm
fair enough.        really lookin forward to this, preferably as an option so it can be turned off when need be.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: bigchunk1 on June 03, 2011, 10:23:06 pm
fair enough.        really lookin forward to this, preferably as an option so it can be turned off when need be.
Well, here's what I was thinking of doing.

Multiplayer clients can't use the Keypress sexp, so input for an ability has to be triggered by some other means. #Player Capital ships have no primary weapons so how bout making the player fire dummy weapons to trigger the abilities? The weapon energy of the capital ship can be used as the 'cooldown factor' with each ability consuming a different amount of weapon energy depending on how valuable it is.

For this to work, weapon points need to be added to the .pof file of whatever capital ship is being used. This is why I suggest implementing the Sanctus and the Narayana first, because we have their .pof files in the svn already and are able to customise them.

Once a dummy weapon is triggered, FRED code will read that the weapon has fired and do whatever it needs to do in order to get the ability to work. For example, the armor ability will involve the set-armor-type sexp. and will be set back via sexp after a certain amount of time has expired.

This is doable without a custom HUD, but a little someting extra would be nice.

Because Fred code is creating the actual ability effects, we can set the abilities on a mission by mission basis, meaning we have complete control over when a ship has abilities and when it does not.

Signal lasers: disables all beam weaponry a given distance from the activating ship for a given amount of time.
Please no. You will cheapen one of the most dramatic moments of WiH.

I would not want to do that if that's truly the case. These are just off the cuff ideas to get people thinking. Any other ideas for abilities or any other ideas related to capship PvP are certainly welcome. Would you like to see some other kind of ability in the game instead?
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Trivial Psychic on June 04, 2011, 08:29:41 am
I don't play Multi, and I haven't played "The Blade Itself" yet, but I had a thought (that perhaps someone else has had already, so humor me please), thought it could be somewhat difficult to implement.  Although we've never seen this in any canon FS2 mission, it has been seen more than a few times in fan campaigns... Inferno R1 comes to mind... its subspace nano-jumping.  It would certainly be useful and would definitely be an ability that at least some ships might be expected to have, but the trick is implementing it.  What I was thinking (again, I'm in unknown territory here) is when you select the ability, you are prompted to provide a set of numbered key presses that correspond to direction and distance.  The first figure (0-9 or perhaps 1-8 of you'd rather have 45 degree increments) would correspond to lateral direction, another figure (same numeric system) corresponding to vertical inclination, similar to Star Trek's blah-blah,-mark-blah-blah system.  A third figure would correspond to distance in kilometers.  All figures would be in relation to the ship's own perspective, rather than the the environment.  Another option but a potentially more tricky one, could be a set of figures for ship orientation.  The clincher would be that you'll only be able to nano-jump either so many times per mission, and/or within a certain interval, or risk overheating.  It would also disable end-of-mission jump-out during the wait interval.  Then it's just a matter of simulated effects and ship moving via sexps.
There are many obvious uses for this, such as the obvious of moving yourself into a more favorable attack vector against an opponent, protect a target of importance, or perhaps reaching a jumpnode.  However, in a mission where your enemy can't nano-jump, it would also be useful to briefly move yourself out of range of enemy weapons while you conduct repairs.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: MatthTheGeek on June 04, 2011, 08:33:31 am
Well, if you want to know, nanojumping is more or less what the RTS script is all about.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Hades on June 04, 2011, 10:31:45 am
Gonna use red for responding to each individual point, but remember, each ship can have 3-4, depending on how many available buttons we can find.
Sanctus: (Ideas Hades mentioned are good)
Active Sealent: Armor type gets a temporary buff
Eh, I dunno. Could overpower it even more than it already is to TEV cruisers, and cruisers were meant to be support ships to corvettes or frigates, honestly.
Long ranged ordinance: Sanctus' Warhammers get temporarily swapped with Apocalypse#Narayana which has 12000m range.
Basically what cargo utilization is. Makes the weapons
Signal lasers: disables all beam weaponry a given distance from the activating ship for a given amount of time.
Ugh, I dunno, if it's a TVT like 1 corvetee + 2 cruisers against 1 frigate + 2 cruisers this could be a bit overpowering.
Thruster coolent reserves: recharges afterburner energy instantly.
I like this one. It's really a lot more useful than just armor or weapon upgrades, since the Sanctus, with my balancing, is meant to be slow, as the Aeolus and Hyperion cruisers are mincemeat for it, even with its weakish weaponry. Although I think something more like infinite afterburner capacity for, maybe, eight seconds could work better.

Narayana:
Fire mission: All gauss cannons and mass drivers fire instantly when this ability is used.
Hrm. Could be tricky to use.
Jam their signal!: Makes the Narayana untargetable by enemies for a short duration.
Really has no gameplay effect unless you make it so turrets can't target nor fire upon the Narayana.
Recalibrate Sensors: Repairs the Sensor subsystem.
...What's this for? Just have it be an overall generic repair, like for all of the ships, that repairs everything.

Edit: Just thought of another ability.
Reactor Polarity: Overloads the reactor to cause a massive EMP shockwave which radiates outward from center of the activating ship. Scrambles the targeting of the activating ship as well as others around it. Useful for desperate situations.
Again, scrambling targeting is useless without making it so turrets can't target nor fire on other ships.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Darius on June 04, 2011, 11:40:38 am
Not sure how setting kamikaze to a player ship would work, but a Ramming Speed power would be useful for cruisers on their last legs.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: NGTM-1R on June 04, 2011, 12:04:24 pm
Chimera and Bellerophon both scream for a "kill movement, main guns go rapid fire" ability
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: MatthTheGeek on June 04, 2011, 12:32:39 pm
They don't - they're way too overkill as-is.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: NGTM-1R on June 04, 2011, 12:54:15 pm
They don't - they're way too overkill as-is.

On the other hand, it would be completely consistent with how they're designed and force their cruiser escorts to defend their flanks more diligently.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: X3N0-Life-Form on June 05, 2011, 06:33:48 am
*talking about a player controlled in-mission short jump*

Do want. I've been wanting to try to implement that in one way or another via SEXPs, but haven't had much time to think it through. If BP-Multi manages to do, it is definitively something that I (and probably a lot of other people) could use.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: FSW on June 07, 2011, 07:08:30 am
I'd like to see a player-controlled AWACS vessel that relies exclusively on these special abilities to support other ships.

Example brainstorm:

Increase range of friendly ship weapons
Decrease cooldown of friendly ship special abilities
Enable tactical jumps for friendly ships
Increase friendly ship turret AI

Jam enemy ship main weapons (vs capships)
Jam enemy ship turrets and flak (vs bombs and fighters)
Disable enemy ship engines
Jam enemy ship special abilities
Create friendly decoy targets

Call in subspace missiles
Call in heavy fighters
Call in a transport to repair friendly ships
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Destiny on June 07, 2011, 08:41:21 am
The AWACS thing is pretty good. I'd actually like to fly a Charybdis...but the most important feature of the AWACS is jamming non-subspace comms and denying the enemy the ability to C-4-1.


Maybe signal/tag a target for turrets to shoot at, i.e. targeting the weapons subsystem of the enemy ship so the turrets concentrate on it.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: bigchunk1 on June 07, 2011, 12:51:43 pm
I like this idea, it would be something to do further down the road if we use it. Calling in subspace missiles and heavy fighters isn't too difficult using the ability system I have in mind.

For now, getting abilities for the ships we have in the game would be a nice start.

Sanctus
Karuna (Same as TBI?)
Narayana
Diomedes
Deimos
Aeolus
 
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: PsychoLandlord on June 07, 2011, 12:58:48 pm
Not sure how easy it would be to FRED, but the Nara could certainly use an ability that allows it's guns to fire from far beyond normal maximum range, maybe even finding a way to have another ship feed it targeting data?
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: MatthTheGeek on June 07, 2011, 01:06:41 pm
... it already has an awesome range. What's with your ideas of improving ships at what they're already best at ?
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Lester on June 07, 2011, 02:19:59 pm
I'd like to see a player-controlled AWACS vessel that relies exclusively on these special abilities to support other ships.

Example brainstorm:

Increase range of friendly ship weapons
Decrease cooldown of friendly ship special abilities
Enable tactical jumps for friendly ships
Increase friendly ship turret AI

Jam enemy ship main weapons (vs capships)
Jam enemy ship turrets and flak (vs bombs and fighters)
Disable enemy ship engines
Jam enemy ship special abilities
Create friendly decoy targets

Call in subspace missiles
Call in heavy fighters
Call in a transport to repair friendly ships
An excellent idea. Maybe we could use the recently converted heavy AWACS model for this. The best about the idea that everything that you listed can be done without any new code.

I do have doubts about increasing friendly turret rate of fire, though. Currently, we're using BALLS OF STEELE as the AI class if you direct all of your energy to weapons, and the current AI .tbl cannot supply us with a higher rate of fire.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: bigchunk1 on June 07, 2011, 05:19:59 pm
Not sure how easy it would be to FRED, but the Nara could certainly use an ability that allows it's guns to fire from far beyond normal maximum range, maybe even finding a way to have another ship feed it targeting data?

Those are both absolutely possible to do. The second part takes a bit more work, involving a distance check on every friendly ship to every hostile ship and some kind of argument list, so it might be too complex for a first ability. Max range on a Nara is about 12 Kilometers, which is quite far. The ability can be made to be less powerful by limiting the duration or limiting the range upgraded.   
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: PsychoLandlord on June 07, 2011, 06:22:07 pm
... it already has an awesome range. What's with your ideas of improving ships at what they're already best at ?

Because the Nara is the only UEF ship in it's tactical niche, and if it's possible to make it better at it's job then why wouldn't you? Making ships capable of doing all things well is, at best, going to doom them to mediocrity, or at worst make them OP. Why not give the different ships in the multiplayer project defined roles that they can be even better at through cooperation, thereby encouraging such in gameplay, hmm?

In any case, it's only an idea, and ideas were what we were asked for.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: bigchunk1 on June 07, 2011, 06:31:34 pm
Yes ideas here are good, especially ones we haven't thought of before.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Trivial Psychic on June 07, 2011, 09:17:49 pm
I'd like to see a player-controlled AWACS vessel that relies exclusively on these special abilities to support other ships.

Disable enemy ship engines
I'm not sure if this is what you meant, but how about jamming your enemy's subspace jump plotting system?  Storywise, it would force an enemy to crash-jump to escape a battlefield, but that doesn't translate well into multiplayer, so I would suggest that it only jams their ability to plot short-range nanojumps, corresponding to my rundown further back in the thread.  So basically it would prevent any ship capable of nanojumps, from being able to use them.  And perhaps as FSW suggested, allowing friendly ships that can't do nanojumps on their own, to perform said jumps when a friendly AWACS is present.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Hades on June 07, 2011, 09:22:19 pm
I could also see AWACs doing stuff like heavy ECM stuff, disrupting sensors, reducing turret accuracy, jamming torpedoes, that kind of stuff.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: PsychoLandlord on June 07, 2011, 09:25:43 pm
If this ends up turning into a capship TvT, would it be possible for AWACS to prevent respawns for a period of time, thereby allowing freindly ships an easier time wailing on a few remaining ships on a team? It would have to be heavily balanced, and have a relatively short duration, but it could be used to simulate Com jamming and such.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: General Battuta on June 07, 2011, 09:27:50 pm
Guys, a lot of these ideas just sound like they aren't much fun. Think of what it's like to be on the receiving end of them. Unable to respawn? Unable to move?

Take a cue from good multiplayer game designers - don't overly restrict player action. Classes that do stuff like that are annoying.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: PsychoLandlord on June 07, 2011, 09:43:21 pm
Actually, he's right any sort of meaningful respawn delay would probably just end up being annoying. Still, a good way to simulate E-war without actively ****ing the balance too much would be cool, so the small accuracy debuffs and whatnot posted above are likely still worth a look.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: bigchunk1 on June 08, 2011, 12:48:17 am
I'm starting to like the idea of a Nanojump ability. It would be a nice way to give smaller, short ranged ships a leg up on larger vessels. I however can't see how you would do it by actually warping out the ship, it would have to involve using the open-warphole sexp and moving the ship with set-object-position. It might look a little goofy unless movement is perfectly timed when the capship hits the warphole. The Nanojump destination would probably work best in a hardcoded distance and a hardcoded direction from the jumping ship. I'm thinking maybe 2-3 kilometers forward? 
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Lester on June 08, 2011, 01:08:08 am
If this ends up turning into a capship TvT, would it be possible for AWACS to prevent respawns for a period of time, thereby allowing freindly ships an easier time wailing on a few remaining ships on a team? It would have to be heavily balanced, and have a relatively short duration, but it could be used to simulate Com jamming and such.
It wouldn't only be annoying as hell, it's also impossible to FRED.

I'm starting to like the idea of a Nanojump ability. It would be a nice way to give smaller, short ranged ships a leg up on larger vessels. I however can't see how you would do it by actually warping out the ship, it would have to involve using the open-warphole sexp and moving the ship with set-object-position. It might look a little goofy unless movement is perfectly timed when the capship hits the warphole. The Nanojump destination would probably work best in a hardcoded distance and a hardcoded direction from the jumping ship. I'm thinking maybe 2-3 kilometers forward? 
Currently, warp effects only work for the host, and I'm not sure how ship-maneouver would work in multi. You'd also need something to prevent players spawning in other ships during warping.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: StargateSpankyHam on June 12, 2011, 01:14:23 pm
Here's an idea for the short-range ship warping: make it a pulsed STL-maneuvering jump, by rapidly turning the drive on and off a few hundred times per second, and teleporting the ship a few inches per jump. This way, you don't need the normal subspace effect. You don't need to worry about spawning inside the warping ship. And most importantly, it could be done just by amping up afterburner fuel consumption, afterburner acceleration, and afterburner top speed. While the warp ability is active, stop the afterburner recharge - that way, when you run out of juice and stop, you can't readily afterburner back up to speed.

I'd suggest a cool looking bubble or trail effect with this. Maybe even superimpose the virtually blinding bomb-flash or sun glare in for the warping ship, and make it glow really, really brightly?

And let's not forget one of my favorite moments from retail FS2: "Dive dive dive, hit your burners pilot!"
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Destiny on June 12, 2011, 01:59:14 pm
Unless you're Steele or the GTVA Combat Evaluation Unit, your subspace drive'll blow up or something, plus the warp effect is so cool.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Commander Zane on June 12, 2011, 02:03:21 pm
Here's an idea for the short-range ship warping: make it a pulsed STL-maneuvering jump, by rapidly turning the drive on and off a few hundred times per second, and teleporting the ship a few inches per jump.
Sounds like Independence War's Linear Displacement System.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: bigchunk1 on June 12, 2011, 05:30:16 pm
Gah, clients not being able to see a warphole kind of crushes the nanojump idea unless there is another way.

Here's an idea for the short-range ship warping: make it a pulsed STL-maneuvering jump, by rapidly turning the drive on and off a few hundred times per second, and teleporting the ship a few inches per jump. This way, you don't need the normal subspace effect. You don't need to worry about spawning inside the warping ship. And most importantly, it could be done just by amping up afterburner fuel consumption, afterburner acceleration, and afterburner top speed...


Like a Star-Trek warp? Ignoring canonical ramifications for a bit, that sounds like a supercharged turbo mode. I have been trying to implement a kind of more powerful afterburner effect on and off over the past few days. I don't think there is a way to change the maximum speed of a ship dynamically in the game without switching out ship classes, which could be cumbersome, let alone how multiplayer handles such a thing.

 
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: bigchunk1 on July 03, 2011, 11:54:16 pm
The capship ability idea has been put on hold in favor of potential code based functionality to come out in the distant future. This (Ideally) will allow us to use the keypress feature for any player allowing them to select abilities, something which currently cannot be done in multiplayer. Capship abilities would have been possible with time, patience, and a little sexp love, but this decision frees us to focus on other avenues of the project which hold more interest such as coop missions etc. Thank you all for your inspiring ideas, and perhaps we may revisit capship abilities when it fits more comfortably with FSO code.   
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Trivial Psychic on July 04, 2011, 10:35:25 pm
Well, given the success of Cap-Ship combat in WiH (be it only one mission), and this announcement that further development of it will be suspended awaiting code upgrades, I suspect that there will be a lot of pressure on the SCP team from the masses to make such upgrades a reality, so perhaps we'll see this possible sooner than you might think.  :)
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Hades on October 01, 2012, 06:21:30 pm
Coming back to this even if most others have left it alone for a while, going to do more reworkings with the powers:

Posting possible capital ship powers.

Aeolus:
            Beam overcharge, sgreens fire every 5-7 seconds as opposed to every 60. This works for AAAF too, but the downside is it gradually damages hull while this power is active. (15 second duration)
            Repair like on the Karuna, though a bit faster.
            Accelerated Loading: Flak fires slightly faster. (duration 10 seconds)

Deimos:
             Beam overcharge: Turns the terslashes into a powerful direct fire weapon for a short time. Does some minor damage to the Deimos' hull, but increases effective DPS and damage per pulse. (Duration, 20 seconds)
             Repair
             Point Defense Overdrive: Causes all point defense turrets to fire much faster, useful for trying to take down more incoming bombs.

Sanctus:
              Cargo Utilization: The Sanctus uses the spare ammo in its cargo bay to, for a few seconds, greatly increase the reload rate of its kenetic weapons (Torpedoes, mass drivers, etc)
              Repair
              MAXIMUM ARMOR: The Sanctus' armor becomes more effective due to the nanosuit's ability to magic. (Duration, 15 seconds) (probably a placeholder power)

Diomedes:
               Stikecraft Launch: Launches one wing of fighters and one wing of bombers that can be commanded by the player.
               Repair
               PD Sentries: Launches 10-15 sentry guns around the ship (and perhaps friendly capitals) which terran turret 2 which are used to help shoot down torpedoes

Chimera:

Bellephron:

Cretheus:
               Countermeasure Burst: Throws out countermeasures to render torpedoes around their area ineffective. Very useful when being attacked by missiles and to also provide screen for larger ships.
               Repair
               Sensor Disruption: Makes it untargettable by fighters and capitals alike for 15 seconds.

Custos:
               Countermeasure Burst
               Repair
               Accelerated loading


Currently, I had most of these ships tabled in BP:M with #player versions and differing stats, currently:
The Karuna is a hard hitter from the front, with its railguns and torpedoes, but turns slowly and can be flanked.
The Deimos is an all-rounder which does everything, but not particularly well. Upped its PD sliiightly (TT2s instead of TTs) to make it a bit more fair.
The Diomedes is a bit less good at shooting down torpedoes and fighters than the Deimos, but has better health and anti capital firepower.
The Sanctus is basically a cruiser hunter and can harass corvettes, good for supporting a Karuna.
The Aeolus is basically a corvette support to help against torpedos, and is a bit faster so it can flank Karunas.
The Cretheus is a torpedo killer, countermeasure support for larger ships, and snub killer.
The Custos is somewhat similar to the Cretheus, but geared more towards harassing larger ships.


Basically, the idea was for TvTs or possibly even co-ops. TvTs would have been about team cooperation and there would be cover and obstacles consisting of asteroids, derelict spacestations and ships, and such.


Sadly, I probably won't ever get around to finishing everything that I need to. and BP:M seems to be mostly quiet. :( I still felt like I should at least coherently catalogue my ideas with the whole system, balance-wise, in case this project gets more life into it.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Aesaar on October 03, 2012, 08:12:57 am
Quote
PD Sentries: Launches 10-15 sentry guns around the ship (and perhaps friendly capitals) which terran turret 2 which are used to help shoot down torpedoes
I don't like this.  Might I suggest an AAA overcharge instead?  Say, turn them (or maybe the slashers) into ULTRAs for 10-15 seconds.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: MatthTheGeek on October 03, 2012, 11:04:07 am
You may or may not know but using cruisers as sentry minelayers was already suggested by the devs, and is actually currently used in some WiH2 missions. This is just an extension to corvettes here.

Maybe it would be better moved to the Aeolus or the Hyperion for consistency's sake, but there is nothing wrong with the concept, you can even consider it canon.

EDIT: recently mentioned (although not necessarily very clearly) here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=81899.msg1644045#msg1644045), and also here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=70746.msg1425648#msg1425648) a tad longer ago.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Aesaar on October 03, 2012, 01:51:52 pm
Maybe I should have elaborated.  I don't think it fits with the role of the Diomedes.  Dropping sentries around just doesn't seem like a good use of the ship's capabilities.  A dedicated combat ability would fit better, IMO.

Boosting AAA isn't the only option, though.  Some form of active armor, which could do something like giving it Heavy Armor 40 for a few second.  Or shutters for the beams, preventing them from firing but giving them Heavy Armor 5 while closed.

Also, a way to toggle its missile launcher between Supernovas (or Eos) and Piranhas would be nice.

Oh, and if the Cretheus is meant to be a torpedo killer, replacing its STerPulses with PDTerPulses would be a good idea.

Just throwings ideas out there.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: MatthTheGeek on October 03, 2012, 02:15:16 pm
Or shutters for the beams, preventing them from firing but giving them Heavy Armor 5 while closed.

Also, a way to toggle its missile launcher between Supernovas (or Eos) and Piranhas would be nice.
I like those two ones, especially the beam shutters. We can put those on the Chimera and Bellerophon too, given how dependant they are on their beams.

Sanctus:
              Cargo Utilization: The Sanctus uses the spare ammo in its cargo bay to, for a few seconds, greatly increase the reload rate of its kenetic weapons (Torpedoes, mass drivers, etc)
Or switch Warhammers to something more powerful like Apocalypses or Hydras. Probably Hydras, they're underused and their firepower is more suited to something the size of a Sanctus, while staying true to the saturation/support role of the Sanctus in capship fights.

Custos:
               Countermeasure Burst
               Repair
               Accelerated loading
Tech descr says the Custos has electronic warfare capabilities. Throw in some beam jamming in there.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Hades on October 05, 2012, 03:30:37 pm
A single ship that can stop all of the anti-capital capabilities of one side in TvT would be fairly imbalanced and silly. Co-op? Sure, could possibly adapt something like that for there. So no to beam jamming in a TvT scenario.

Quote
PD Sentries: Launches 10-15 sentry guns around the ship (and perhaps friendly capitals) which terran turret 2 which are used to help shoot down torpedoes
I don't like this.  Might I suggest an AAA overcharge instead?  Say, turn them (or maybe the slashers) into ULTRAs for 10-15 seconds.
Maybe I should have elaborated.  I don't think it fits with the role of the Diomedes.  Dropping sentries around just doesn't seem like a good use of the ship's capabilities.  A dedicated combat ability would fit better, IMO.

Boosting AAA isn't the only option, though.  Some form of active armor, which could do something like giving it Heavy Armor 40 for a few second.  Or shutters for the beams, preventing them from firing but giving them Heavy Armor 5 while closed.

Also, a way to toggle its missile launcher between Supernovas (or Eos) and Piranhas would be nice.

Oh, and if the Cretheus is meant to be a torpedo killer, replacing its STerPulses with PDTerPulses would be a good idea.

Just throwings ideas out there.
The thing about the sentries is it's a leftover from when I was first thinking up this stuff ages ago, I just copied and pasted it from the first page. Reason for it was the old Diomedes, to me, looked like a command type ship. ULTRA AAA as an ability may be a bit much.

Also beam shutters would probably be made redundant if turrets are made invulnerable (which I'd prefer, honestly, so respawning players can't easily stomp the guy who just offed them)
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: General Battuta on October 05, 2012, 04:27:01 pm
Just allow the Custos to protect itself. They have an intermittently effective jamming system that provides rolling protection.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: Hades on October 05, 2012, 09:25:31 pm
Of course. Plus you wouldn't want for someone to draw anticap beam fire away from an enemy corvette with such a small and hard-to-hit ship. I'm thinking making it so anticapital beams (and perhaps, weapons) won't target the Custos.

The Cretheus may need to get this too, though, unless I can think of something else to give it to balance it out in that regard.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: bigchunk1 on October 09, 2012, 07:54:20 pm
Do whatever you want Hades, just make sure it's fun and don't break anything.
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: MatthTheGeek on October 10, 2012, 01:21:02 am
The Cretheus may need to get this too, though, unless I can think of something else to give it to balance it out in that regard.
Capship CMs ?
Title: Re: Player Capship Gameplay and Mechanics
Post by: An4ximandros on October 11, 2012, 03:56:27 pm
Sanctus:
              MAXIMUM ARMOR: The Sanctus' armor becomes more effective due to the nanosuit's ability to magic. (Duration, 15 seconds) (probably a placeholder power)

                                                                                                                                    Warning
                                                                                                                         Incoming Shivan Threat.

Would it possible to give some ships NANOVISION as an ability?
                                                            Heat-Vision

On a more serious note, a basic UEF ability, that makes canon sense, should be Extra Dakka (for all ships.)
The Nara/Karu could get a "hotload" Mass Driver and ammunition change (Sabot and Vanilla, for example) ability.