Ship Battles Suggestion to Improve Gameplay, Combat Macros and Maybe Increase Revenue
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Let's be honest, ship battles aren't great. If skirmishes didn't offer so many goodies they'd be a PITA, and the grind not only inspires activities like macros, but makes them fairly easy to implement.
So, my suggestion. Make weapons and shields upgradeable slots.
If any aspect of Timelines should have something of a rock/papers/scissors mechanic, ship battles appear to be it.
The various factions have differing weapons tech (phasers, disruptors, polaron beams, yadda, yadda, yadda) and it can be extended that they have different shield tech.
So, say, Klingon shields are especially weak to Federation phasers, but pretty much impermeable to Romulan disruptors. Dominion polaron beams shred through Romulan shields like they weren't there, but bounce off Hirogen shields like a squash ball.
Create some rulesets around that concept and suddenly you have to use slightly more strategy in skirmishes than load up a 5* ship and tappity-tap, and the entry barrier for macros is raised considerably.
And to make things tastier, have ships that have weapons slot that are swappable and upgradable.
Example:
Ships come with CEILING(star-level/2) beam weapon slots (so 1* one slot, 5* 3 slots) , FLOOR(star-level/2) torpedo slots (so 1*, no slots, 5*, 2 slots) and with default for that powers weapons at level 1 and one shield generator and one 'extra' slot.
So my 5* Shenzou comes with three level 1 phasers and two level 1 photon torpedo bays.
For an increasing cost and currency type I can them level up.
For another cost, I can change the weapon types I have, so I could maybe swap out one or both of my photon torpedo bays for quantum or chroniton torpedo bays, or in the future completelymadeup-on torpedo bays.
For yet another cost, I can upgrade my level 1 shields or change the shield generator to another type.
The 'extra' slot can be used for new technologies - say a shield harmonic shifter, that after the first three hits reduces damage by 50%, or maybe a phaser frequency changer that every fourth shot doubles damage.
This provides a new route for tactics in the game, and offers a new item type for user to build and/or buy and makes ships first class citizens in the game.
DB can add in more and more weapon types, canon (ha! can now have canon cannons!) or otherwise, as time goes on.
And it makes life a lot more difficult for the macro writers as you need to select the right ship as well as the right crew for each battle.
Anybody else like this suggestion? I'm not saying it'll be easy to implement, but IMO it'd be worth it.
So, my suggestion. Make weapons and shields upgradeable slots.
If any aspect of Timelines should have something of a rock/papers/scissors mechanic, ship battles appear to be it.
The various factions have differing weapons tech (phasers, disruptors, polaron beams, yadda, yadda, yadda) and it can be extended that they have different shield tech.
So, say, Klingon shields are especially weak to Federation phasers, but pretty much impermeable to Romulan disruptors. Dominion polaron beams shred through Romulan shields like they weren't there, but bounce off Hirogen shields like a squash ball.
Create some rulesets around that concept and suddenly you have to use slightly more strategy in skirmishes than load up a 5* ship and tappity-tap, and the entry barrier for macros is raised considerably.
And to make things tastier, have ships that have weapons slot that are swappable and upgradable.
Example:
Ships come with CEILING(star-level/2) beam weapon slots (so 1* one slot, 5* 3 slots) , FLOOR(star-level/2) torpedo slots (so 1*, no slots, 5*, 2 slots) and with default for that powers weapons at level 1 and one shield generator and one 'extra' slot.
So my 5* Shenzou comes with three level 1 phasers and two level 1 photon torpedo bays.
For an increasing cost and currency type I can them level up.
For another cost, I can change the weapon types I have, so I could maybe swap out one or both of my photon torpedo bays for quantum or chroniton torpedo bays, or in the future completelymadeup-on torpedo bays.
For yet another cost, I can upgrade my level 1 shields or change the shield generator to another type.
The 'extra' slot can be used for new technologies - say a shield harmonic shifter, that after the first three hits reduces damage by 50%, or maybe a phaser frequency changer that every fourth shot doubles damage.
This provides a new route for tactics in the game, and offers a new item type for user to build and/or buy and makes ships first class citizens in the game.
DB can add in more and more weapon types, canon (ha! can now have canon cannons!) or otherwise, as time goes on.
And it makes life a lot more difficult for the macro writers as you need to select the right ship as well as the right crew for each battle.
Anybody else like this suggestion? I'm not saying it'll be easy to implement, but IMO it'd be worth it.
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