Small ship autoheal / docked heal rates
Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 4:50 pm
The way healing works feels a little odd: docking is an instant heal to 100%, but there's no way to heal out in space. I propose changing both.
First, out in space:
It's no good pulling off a brilliant escape, with only 2HP left, only to be smacked by an asteroid. Particularly annoying: When you wrap around the map, only to smack into an asteroid you could never have seen coming. Ouch!
It would play much better if small ships had a very slow auto-heal, maybe 1HP per second. It could be increased via a Small Ships upgrade as well. Heal rate could increase by 1HP per second per upgrade.
The psychology here is that, when combat is over and adrenaline is fading down, you're still vulnerable, but you still WON. And the longer it's been since combat happened, the less relevant that combat should be to your current status.
Neatly solves the problem where everyone launches at once in the start of the game and crashes into each other. That initial damage will just heal away. Likewise, new players in miners will not be punished quite so hard for smacking into every asteroid before they figure out where the X button is.
A fully upgraded auto-heal might make for some interesting strategies, too. For example, a team of destroyers could use their auto-heal to continually harass the enemy BC, making them much more viable as an end-game choice.
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Now docking:
On the other side of it, dock = insta heal would benefit from a change too.
When docking a damaged ship, it should take some time before you can jump back out in it. Maybe 30 seconds to heal 100% of the ship's max HP (15 seconds to heal 50% of the max HP, etc). That will give small ship pilots a bit of time-out: they can go refine, build missiles, do a nav ping, etc. It would help break down the boundary between "bridge people" and "small ship pilots" that is especially present in early game.
This could really help newer players who have gotten used to running miners and are looking to grow into the more advanced roles on the ship. If you get damaged, go in for a bit, and see what needs doing on the BC.
First, out in space:
It's no good pulling off a brilliant escape, with only 2HP left, only to be smacked by an asteroid. Particularly annoying: When you wrap around the map, only to smack into an asteroid you could never have seen coming. Ouch!
It would play much better if small ships had a very slow auto-heal, maybe 1HP per second. It could be increased via a Small Ships upgrade as well. Heal rate could increase by 1HP per second per upgrade.
The psychology here is that, when combat is over and adrenaline is fading down, you're still vulnerable, but you still WON. And the longer it's been since combat happened, the less relevant that combat should be to your current status.
Neatly solves the problem where everyone launches at once in the start of the game and crashes into each other. That initial damage will just heal away. Likewise, new players in miners will not be punished quite so hard for smacking into every asteroid before they figure out where the X button is.
A fully upgraded auto-heal might make for some interesting strategies, too. For example, a team of destroyers could use their auto-heal to continually harass the enemy BC, making them much more viable as an end-game choice.
====
Now docking:
On the other side of it, dock = insta heal would benefit from a change too.
When docking a damaged ship, it should take some time before you can jump back out in it. Maybe 30 seconds to heal 100% of the ship's max HP (15 seconds to heal 50% of the max HP, etc). That will give small ship pilots a bit of time-out: they can go refine, build missiles, do a nav ping, etc. It would help break down the boundary between "bridge people" and "small ship pilots" that is especially present in early game.
This could really help newer players who have gotten used to running miners and are looking to grow into the more advanced roles on the ship. If you get damaged, go in for a bit, and see what needs doing on the BC.