Late game, there's not enough stations for people to use to contribute in a ship battle. Often I see people launch miners in a firefight for lack of anything else to do. Also, Kerm is way too abundant. Mining one kerm field will set that team for life. I typically end games with 500 kerm.
To solve this, I'd like to introduce the science station. It replaces the tractor beam station (gone now but whatever). It adds several abilities which synergize well with other team members.
Starting abilities:
- Power Transfer (300 energy, 45s CD): Fires an energy beam at a friendly ship, giving it an instant 150 energy. This ability can be upgraded once per game. Short range.
- Purge Core Plasma (30 kerm, 15s CD): Increases core stability by 10%. Gives off an obvious visual effect from the BC when used.
- Load Yamato: Moved from the construction terminal, because being on the con terminal solely to load the yamato isn't very fun.
- Longeye Sensors (upgrade costs 100 veld, 25 chal, 100 kerm): Activating this gives the BC a sight range of 20. This sight range is visible to the enemy on the minimap. While this is active, the radar ping is on cooldown. Having this active drains 20 energy per second.
- Tractor Beam: Exactly the same as the one in game.
- Flux Cannon: (upgrade costs 50 veld, 50 chal, 200 pyro, 100 kerm): Using this costs 35 kerm, 5 second cast time. Does 100 damage and 1% core stability damage to a target, plus an extra 100 damage and 1% stability damage for every 10% core stability missing from your BC. So a BC at 50% stability would do 600 damage and 6 stability loss with this ability.
- Ion Vortex: (Upgrade costs 250 kerm): Using this costs 95 kerm, on a 5m CD, with a 3 second cast time. Creates a 'charged vortex area' the same radius as the nuke from SC2, causing space to swirl around. Ships inside of this area lose 100 energy and 0.5% core stability per second, as well as halving shield regeneration. A yamato blast destroys this effect (also cancelling the yamato). Affects everyone. Lasts for 20 seconds.
- Ionic Transfer (50 chal, 50 pyro, 50 kerm): Power transfer gives 350 energy and a buff that increases engine speed by 50% for 30 seconds.
- Nanite Transfer (100 veld, 100 chal, 100 kerm): Power transfer gives 250 energy and a buff that repairs 50hp/s for 30 seconds.
- Plasma Transfer (200 veld, 200 pyro, 200 kerm): Power transfer gives 150 energy and a buff that causes the ship to explode violently on death, doing 800 damage to nearby ships. This buff wears off after 30 seconds.
The power transfer ability benefits an organized team, powering up miners lets them miner boost more, and powering up wraiths/corvettes gets them into the fight faster. You can't use this ability on your own, it requires teamwork, something which I think this game should encourage more of. The upgrades give a team choice of versatility, getting the engine upgrade early can really help out chompers, or give wraiths ridiculous mobility. Getting the repair upgrade gives your ships a huge edge on defense. Getting the explosion buff, well, I'm sure there's all sorts of creativity for such an ability, though it is expensive.
Purge Core Plasma turns kermiculite into BC power, but in an indirect, interesting way. You've got to work with the player on power to maximize extra power and minimize blackouts. Teamwork. And I'd like to see setting the core output above 130% to be a viable concept for a ship rather than a desparate gambit. This ability always rewards a team that mines out the kerm fields.
The sensor upgrade helps with late game fights where the BCs are using engine boosts and may have crazy power operators dumping a lot of power into engines, making a lot of weapon shots end up being blind fire (because holding fire means the enemy's shields recharge).
The flux cannon is intended to make running with low core stability a legitimate, viable strategy rather than the result of being yamatoed 5 times and not having a power operator. Each shot uses up kerm, and having low core stability means you're probably being disconnected from terminals a lot, but the damage output might make up for that, if you have kerm to burn.
The ion vortex is just one realization of 'spatial anomalies' that I think CC could use. It creates interesting terrain, and it forces your opponent to react or suffer. In addition, it makes the yamato a bit more interesting (which is otherwise just something you spam without thought). Even if this never happens I'd still like to see nebulas or some other terrain in CC beyond asteroid fields.
