Warp Engine

[Siretu]

So, for the first suggestion in the new forums, we have Warp Engines.

Now, I know Syndrome is going to tell me lots of reasons why this is a good thing. Question is, how's it going to work?

* Is it just a huge speed boost in the target direction or does it teleport you to a random place on the map?
* Does it have to charge?(probably)
* Are you vulnerable while charging the warp? (Probably, but in what way? No shields or weapons?)
* How far does it go?
* Is there another downside after having warped? Maybe the shield is turned off for a minute after warping and the ship takes a lot of hull damage?
* Should it require an upgrade?
* Will you still collide with asteroids while warping?
* Should it have a cooldown?

Now, what prevents the enemy from just warping after them in the same direction?

I think it should require an upgrade and give a huge speed boost(like the turbo jump with a longer duration). I think you shouldn't collide with asteroids while warping and that the the shields should go down when you start charging the warp until 1-2 minutes afterwards.

The ship should take massive hull damage down to a certain point(like 15%). So let's say it deals 20% hull damage. If you have 100% when you warp, you go down to 80%, if you have 30%, you only go down to 15%. If you have 15% or less, you don't take hull damage. I don't know, maybe it should always deal the same amount of damage.

I'm not sure how far it should go, probably a lot. Enough for you to escape the enemy for more than a couple of minutes. I think it should have a huge cooldown like 10-15 minutes.

The enemy might not follow because if they misjudge the angle by a little bit, they'll end up far away anyway. At least if the warp warps you far enough. It's a risk which may end up hurting them.

What are your thoughts on this? Also, if you have any other suggestions, please post them here on the suggestions forum.

[Roflcopter]

Should take a 15-30 second charge time, in which shields, weapons, and engines go offline, then a non-collision teleportation to the chosen destination with a kerm + other ores cost. After teleportation engines should be offline for 30 seconds or so, and shields for 5-10 seconds.

EDIT: Similar to yamato, you buy it but its not an upgrade

[Targaryen]

Hi!! about ththis new upgrade, i realy don't see this very usefull for the cruiser for this reasons:
- First, it let's you completly disarmed, so if you want to escape, you'l ve receiveng a lot of damage until the engine activates; also, if it hurts you, then after being damaged, you'll be even more damaged when you warp-out; it's a big risk, just for a few minutes to restore/repair/resurrect/create missils...
- Second, for almost the same as above, you can't use this to chase the enemy, because when you warp out, you're without shields/energy and other stuff.. you can launch missiles, but you have to be so lucky to kill just with missiles.
- Third, with the size of the map, the radar ping, and the actual skill to power up the engines... the enemy's cruiser will be able to catch you in just a minute or two later.. and then just if you're extremly skillfull/lucky or you have and awesome team, you could crush the enemy.

It's a good idea, but i think it can be implemented better as an item for the vessels, as a way to make a quick scape (better than turbo-jump) also, this item would have only 1 use.

[DestinyAtlantis]

Actually,Targaryen, i think it's better to be an upgrade that might come with a battery(each use requires you to buy new batteries, beacuse to make the warp jump you need a lot of special power(1 battery is used up when you activate the engine)).

[Roflcopter]

Maybe this would be more beneficial when/if map size increases

[Targaryen]

Maybe this would be more beneficial when/if map size increases

Totally agree with this, in fact i've also to check if the WIII map is bigger than this one... All the times i played, i could find the enemy's cruiser really soon. Nad i think that make a little bigger the map will be better.

Also, I've a doubt, right now when i'm at full speed with the cruiser (like 120 or more), did the cruiser gets damaged when u are at that high speed?? I think it's really realistic, if your cruiser starts to get damage when goes to really fast speeds, and that makes to scape really dangerous.

[Siretu]

I would love to increase the map size, but right now it's impossible. We are already using the maximum size(256x256). If Blizzard at one point increases this, we'll not only have a bigger space, we can also have different ship types(instead of the battlecruiser, we can have a carrier as well or something like that)¨

I am going to fix so you take damage while going fast... some time in the future.

[Targaryen]

Yeah.. i've played with the map editor, and i know there's a max size, so to make things bigger; what about use the trick to make the items smaller?, if the cruiser and meteors are smaller, and the max speed it's slower, then the space will look more infinte and empty... like in real life xD.

Anyway we can hope that in the expansion, they include some new feature like that :D.

[Siretu]

If we skip the obvious issues with having to scale down EVERYTHING(all the units, effects, effect offsets, coordinates and stuff), there will still be problems with the ship movement system. We can't move it slow enough since the precision is bad.

[Chevronn]

I might know away to increase the map size by a very high amount but that would require a heavy rebuild of the game. Idea is complicated but I think I can relate it somewhat to games like Fallout 1/2 or Mount&Blade. Don't be affected by these thoughts too much. It's still RTS. It's Thing is:

The things which are relevant are: the ships, battlecruisers and smaller; possibly some important stations or stuff. The asteroids and the mines are not quite that important but their positions being constant could come useful. Main idea is to build up the fraction of the map which is in the immediate vicinity of the player. The objects which are player-free would be stored in the memory an then rebuild in his location. You could save the positions of asteroids,mines e.t.c. in an array in which you can transfigure without these fake barriers.

You probably don't get a lot from what I'm performing so I'll put It differently. The idea is to make a coordinate system in coordinate system (floatception :D) with which you could extend the barriers given by the producer not breaking any code apart but adding only new one. This will work only in this kind of map but also require a lot of work translating the input of functions which you already have. It's likely to cause rain of bugs which will need to be fixed but I think that it can be puled off.