Subjugators/Give em more!

[Dreadnought]

Subjugators are at the moment...kinda dull and a bit underpowered for what they cost. GIVE US MORE FUN STUFF!
but first, basic balance changes i suggest, 1 make it bigger, so it has a bigger hit-box, second, slower, third, more hull, that way the subjugators will have more *weight* to them, and simply makes them look more scary, like destroyers =D

ok now on to abilities, the idea is that the subjugator will be able to upgrade 10 different abilities but each ability is pretty energy inefficient so the subjugator has to *choose* what abilities it can deploy through energy management.

Explosive Munitions - Buffs an allied ship, that ships attacks now do 20% more damage, and are explosive
Fleet Tactics (Passive AoE) - Any nearby allied ship will get an increase of 5% energy regeneration, hull regeneration, damage, speed boost for any nearby subjugator, this affect can stack, but does not apply to any nearby subjugator

Heres a Duo
Mine-Sweeper - when toggled on, pulls mines from far away (just outside vision range i suggest) to the subjugator
Mine Countermeasures - When toggled on, will destroy any mines within 2 range of subjugator
(better have both abilities on, lol, and dont let any allied ships be near you, because a range of 2 isnt much, and they might be accidently hit by Mine-Sweeper)

[slapshot]

At the risk of being ignored due to the dread-post effect, how about a minor tweak to the subjugator: allow it to detect cloaked ships (wraiths) - we can slowly work on it rather than adding 10 abilities and then finding out that they don't work well together at all.

this should be a passive ability so that it doesn't get in the way with the other ones.

[DinoChicken]

I would not mind more abilities, or further improve the current ones (there are many things you can do with an automaton) since the subjugator costs green, and needs more power to legitimize the cost.

I'm not sure there should be two minesweeper abilities, just combine the two, but it would be a god-send as it is difficult to deal with mine-layers.

Also for fun, ill throw in an idea for an ability (Please don't judge me lol)
- Places a debuff on an enemy ship, any enemy allied ships that get near that ships will get *zapped* every second, dealing 10 damage until they move out of range. (does not effect enemy BC)
That way a subjugator can break enemy formations and potentially isolate specific ships.
A fun little upgrade for the ability is that any ship hit by the debuff will also chain on to even more ships.
Call it "Static Lightning" or "Electric Instability", I don't know, but it sounded fun. =)

[Degra]

I think 2 different abilities for Minesweeping is one too much.
The "Mine Countermeasures" skill you described would be enough, although I would call it "Minesweeping", as that's the correct military term.

Furthermore, the Subjugators are not underpowered anymore as of recent patch.
10 abilities would be pure feature creep, not even to mention the nightmare it would be to balance them.
Another thing is Destroyers having only 1-2 abilities, depending on whether you got leech or chroniton, so I would reserve some ideas for the Destroyer.

One idea to keep the Subjugator balanced while adding new abilities:
Make the initial minimap vision small but upgrade-able, up to the current one we have now. (The Subjugator is the only ship without upgrades currently).

[bbot]

I feel subjugator should have something to add to the fight against each type of unit it encounters.

What about a toggleable ability nullifier field? It's simple and multi purpose. All enemy units within range are silenced. This counters cloak, boost, miner jump, emp, heal spray, tractor beam, chomper pull, yamato, cruiser shield boost (maybe?), power transfer, deploy automaton, infiltrator phase, etc.

And, for my secondary idea, at the risk of suggesting too many things - subjugator seems odd that it doesn't have a basic weapon, considering its cost. I know it has automaton, but that is really energy cost prohibitive. Every other utility unit (except infiltrator) can make basic damage (chomper eats, miner lasers, minelayer has a always available supply of mines). In a "real world" scenario, an expensive support vessel would still have some very basic defenses (science vessels in star trek still had phasers). we don't have anything but the battlecruiser with an automated turret. What if the subjugator had an automatically targeting turret that shot the equivalent to one (of the two) wraith projectiles at the nearest enemy in range?. (DPS 1/3 of wraith) Then, the subjugator could attack while running from people, and provide light support in a fight.

It would also be great for the kind of person who prefers to play support units in an action strategy game, like myself. (I played warlock and priest back in the day when I played WoW)

I feel its other properties (hull, speed, size) are appropriate for the type of unit it is.

[slapshot]

(The Subjugator is the only ship without upgrades currently).

what upgrades does the infiltrator have? rather, isn't t2 utility a subjugator upgrade?

anyways, the lack of a main weapon is part of what makes the subjugator unique - it also is a good excuse for not costing any red

how about instead of the minelayer sweeping abilities, just make it's quantum surge pulse disable/destroy mines?