Transfer upgrades worth it?

[Tempest]

There are 3 upgrades on the terminal for science console energy transfer upgrades, some offering movement speed and additional energy some restoring the ship etc, do you all find the cost of this one time purchase to be too high?

[Caladbolg]

never got them, not worth the cash for the little they give... well atleast for the plasma one. the others are also worth way too much and would be situational. then again, no idea in what situation.

[Red-Rocket]

ok the amount of green is rediuculas to buy, i would get the one where the ship explodes but for 150G? not worth it, they should all be 50 50 (colors) and 25 green, and the ability to have all 3 where u can switch between eachother like weps does.

[Tempest]

Yeah i agree the prices are high, was just wondering if other players felt the same. What about the upgrade buff that makes ships explode in a radius on death? i havent tested it personally but in chat i did hear somebody say it did not work, id imagine they docked and reset it or something though

[DumbMarine]

Well, the speed boosting one doesn't appear to work at all, which makes it not very useful to get ATM.

Also, the power given is kinda minor, and I think the buffs could last longer. 90 seconds is my guess for a good buff duration.

[DumbMarine]

I'm gonna put together a proper post with my thoughts:

First off, everything on the science console is intended to be kermiculite heavy to encourage teams to fight for the kerm fields that spawn. If you rely on the flying asteroids for your kerm supply, of course everything is going to seem expensive. These upgrades haven't been getting a lot of use because kerm fields were broken-- however they're fixed now. Try it out.

And the beams are mutually exclusive for two reasons: 1) It gives the opportunity for a team to differentiate itself, similar to how the kinetics works. Having every BC on both teams with the same upgrades every game all the time forever gets boring. 2) It's meant to address the '30 minutes of sitting still and then the game ends suddenly' syndrome that afflicts the newbie games. The reason games take so long is because newbies sit around and wait till they have literally every upgrade researched (even neosteel frames) before they bother attacking. Having exclusive upgrade choices forces more intelligent thought into upgrading.

That said, the transfer upgrades probably need tweaking. I'll start with the bad:

The duration is too short. I completely underestimated how short 30 seconds is. You can't get very far from the BC without the buff expiring. It needs to be raised for sure. I think 3 minutes is more in the ballpark for how long these should last, it gives your ship enough time to get to any point on the map and have at least a few seconds of buff time to exploit. 90 seconds is probably too short, though it would still be an improvement.

The power levels late game don't matter. Late game, you've got vessel energy upgrades which mean you don't have to worry about power at all (except for the minelayer), so the energy level given by the buffs don't affect balance at all. Given this, the plasma transfer probably needs buffed.

But here's the good I think people are missing:

The speed boosting (ionic) transfer literally makes any small ship better, you guys need more imagination. Miners moving over 90 m/s? You could get some impressive scouting with that, or mining, or hell just ram it into whatever. Superfast wraith? Imagine fighting a wraith that can fly faster than your lasers, I think that's pretty scary. Fast destroyer? Super easy hit and run on a BC. The fact that this upgrade doesn't work at all is a real damper, otherwise I would recommend getting this with any competent team. Also, this upgrade is probably cheap enough to get without going to the kerm fields at all.

The repairing (nanite) transfer makes a small ship extremely tough. You heal faster than a wraith can do damage. Put this on your wraith before it attacks, go kill all the enemy miners by ramming into them, come back to the BC with full health. What more do you want?

The explodey (plasma) transfer, the idea I had with that was to exclusively put it on miners. It turns a miner into a missile. You don't usually need miners anymore when you're in the final battle with the enemy BC. Admittedly, the cost may be too high-- the reason it's as high as it is is because it's basically a player-guided missile. You put it on a miner then drive it into the enemy BC, or corvette or whatever, during a fight. The miner can be used to block BC weapon fire too since its goal is to die. I have not been able to successfully use this, I have no idea if it works. I think the damage might be too low to make this worthwhile, if it were increased to 1200 it might be more worthwhile to get.

[Tempest]

Alright thats the kinda feedback i was looking for. The healing upgrade is perfect, the blow on up death upgrade however doesnt seem to work, the speed boost does not take effect in wraiths moving at 50m/s with and without the buff. The cost makes sense and should be heavy on greens do to its scientific nature it follows the coloration of the minerals, but the number is much too high compared to anything else purchasable.

[Caladbolg]

Hmph.

[Siretu]

I didn't know that the speed upgrade and explosion transfer didn't work. I'll look into fixing it and possibly modifying the prices/duration to balance it further.

When it comes to reducing the price, would it be fine if I just reduced the kermiculite price or is the other costs also a problem?

[Corinthian]

I really like the ideas for the transfers, but each should actually be useful for a different game strategy. I propose The Hornet, The Tank, and The Powder Keg.

Currently:

• Power Transfer:
  Costs: Comes Standard. Energy 300, Cool-down 45sec
  Benefits: 150 Energy

• Ionic Transfer:
  Costs: 50y 50r 50g 10sec. Energy 300, Cool-down 45sec
  Benefits: 350 Energy, Eng Speed +50% for 30sec

• Nanite Transfer:
  Costs: 100y 100b 100g 13sec. Energy 300, Cool-down 45sec
  Benefits: 250 Energy, 25hp/s for 30sec

• Plasma Transfer:
  Costs: 150y 150r 150g 15sec. Energy 300, Cool-down 45sec
  Benefits: 150 Energy, 800 damage at death

Proposed:

• Power Transfer: (for early game Miner, Wraith, & Corvette)
  Costs: Comes Standard. Energy 400, Cool-down 20sec
  Benefits: 200 Energy

• Ionic Transfer: (Scouting & Harassment)
  Costs: 50b 50r 100g 12sec. Energy 600, Cool-down 5sec
  Benefits: 100 Energy, Eng Speed +50% for 4min

• Nanite Transfer: (Minelayer Sprays & Chomper Tanking)
  Costs: 50y 50b 100g 12sec. Energy 800, Cool-down 30sec
  Benefits: 500 Energy, Eng Speed -50% for 1 min, 60 hp/s for 1min

• Plasma Transfer: (Kamikaze runs against Wraiths, Destroyers, & Battle-Cruisers)
  Costs: 50y 50r 100g 12sec. Energy 1000, Cool-down 50sec
  Benefits: 0 Energy, 2000 very small radius explosion at death

Thoughts:

• 60 hp/s is probably still a little too low for tanking purposes. It is less than 1/5 of the common damage output of a Battle Cruiser.

• 2000 damage at death will probably still not make kamikaze strategies viable. Also Kamikaze ships should not get an 'Explode Now' button. Make them have to keep ramming and being shot by their opponent.