Regarding Consoles...

[WhyteDragon]

More and more recently I've been wondering about the utter lack of purchasable consoles. The only functioning one, Mass Replicator, feels severely underused due to the risk in its cost. Understandably, many consoles would likely impact the game feel heavily which is, in my opinion, probably why the implementation of them has been very tentative so far. So, with that in mind, I had a few ideas. Maybe they're good, maybe they're not, I just wanted to toss some concepts out there. Use them or critique them however you please.



Radar Console - Positioned Left of Science
The radar console can be left either on or off. While on, all enemy units on the map will appear on the mini map as red exclamation marks with no indication of size or type. However, the bounced frequencies also leak back to the enemy team the position of the detecting battlecruiser. Use of the radar function consumes 50GW so long as it remains active.

Notes - The entire map may be too large. However, the main purpose of this was to overcome the issue of the map border being used consistently to wrap. I personally find it to be a frustrating mechanic which, while useful, is rather abusive of the system when fleeing with the battlecruiser. Also, if there were still plans to include a 'Battlecruiser Scan' ability, I would recommend it for this console. A 'battlecruiser' exclusive ping may also work instead of the radar ability, but the purpose completely changes under that circumstance.



Countermeasure Console - Positioned Above Construction (Cannot Buy Vessel Support Station)
This console contains a variety of abilities that act as skill shot defensive measures. Possible ability concepts:

• Flare - Launches a single flare that attracts all missiles with any form of tracking. Moreover, the flare sends out a radio wave that will show up on as a ping. The flare will travel at the same speed as the battlecruiser an curve off to the side over the course of a few seconds. It will continue moving for fifteen seconds, slowing down as it travels.
• Shrapnel - Fires out debris behind the battlecruiser. The debris act as objects with collision, possessing minimal health but capable of taking the full impact of dangerous projectiles such as missiles or the yamato cannon.
• Kinetic Nullifier - Immediately sets the battlecruiser's speed to 0m/s. It will begin to accelerate immediately after usage.

... and such.

Notes: This wasn't so much an idea to 'boost defense' as it was to create a station that was 'skillfully dodging attacks'. Because of the switch to from broadsides to front, and the visual being the yamato cannon's preparation, I feel like it becomes quite possible to predict and react to these abilities given enough skill. Inertial Nullifier was thought of with the intention of being used in sinc with Inertial Nullifier (or whatever it's called) on the Navigation Console in order to create a more powerful juking concept, except that it requires two stations. My main concern, however, is how much use it would see.



Vessel Support Station - Positioned above Construction (Cannot Buy Countermeasure Console)
The vessel support station is a console designed to aid and boost nearby small ships by creating a link. Once the link is established, it will consume 30GW while active. A vessel with an active link will receive an additional 10GW of energy per seconds, as some energy is lost in the process. There are three branches for the Vessel Support Station:

• Ionic Link - While linked to the battlecruiser, the small ship gains an additional 50% movement speed and 50% turning rate. Furthermore, due to the high efficiency of Ionics, the link will fully transfer 30GW of energy instead.
• Nanite Link - While linked to the battlecruiser, the small ship will be restored for 20HP/s and will gain 100% shield regeneration should it possess shields. The nanobots carry over some additional energy, causing the link to transfer 20GW of energy instead.
• Plasma Link - While linked to the battlecruiser, the small ship will deal an additional 50% damage. However, the constant transfer of plasma causes instabilities within the ship and also damages it for 20HP/s. There is no alteration to the transfer of energy per second.

Notes - The intention behind this station is two fold - to give small ships in a battlecruiser on battlecruiser fight more potency, and to further enforce the 'branching tech' concept. I feel like branching tech can have such a huge effect on the game. The concept of oppertunity cost perfectly fits cruiser command. We should have more of it.

[Red-Rocket]

i like the ideas but compared to consoles and upgrades you shouldnt need to purchase one over the other because of disabling effects, those should be left to the upgrades, and more consoles = more fun but requires more people on board or more drones

[WhyteDragon]

i like the ideas but compared to consoles and upgrades you shouldn't need to purchase one over the other because of disabling effects, those should be left to the upgrades, and more consoles = more fun but requires more people on board or more drones

I disagree. The entire point between creating the opportunity cost there was setting it up such that you either had a station to support a defensive strategy or an offensive strategy. Moreover, there comes a certain point when there are too many consoles. How can you man Navigation, Power, Weapons, Radar/Science, Vessel Support Station, the Small Ship to go with it, and Countermeasure Station at the same time? Bots would cut some of the slack but then it creates a more static situation where you're coming to expect everybody on the BC. That is not my intention -- my intention is to create options, a way of pursuing a variety of strategies more solidly and reacting to that appropriately. I don't feel as if making a secondary console slot have an opportunity cost is limiting, rather it simply depends on what you want to do. BC heavy? Take Countermeasures. SS heavy? Take Vessel Support. Simple as that.

[Tempest]

i love all of these suggestions, however the 20 hull per second plasma should be % based so that destroyers are not made OP with no risk of losing large amounts of hull.


Furthermore i would enjoy seeing power or science gain the ability to put all power to forward or rear shielding. Like in those sci fi's when they say shields are up and the dudes like full power to forward shields! This would be a simple task with its own risks. forward shielding would reduce incoming damage from the front half of the cruiser by a percentage, same for rear when its powered up, it would scale in strength with hardened shielding upgrade. If hit in the rear when forward shields are receiving full power the damage should be increased substantially. This would be a complex mechanic to implement as far as i can see but i think it would be a cool one to have, would add a little depth to bc combat and would furthermore allow pincer attack strategies to have an effect rather than hiding behind your cruiser all fight.

[Crowbar]

I like the idea of a radar. Is it possible to make the radar ability be masked by astroids to make it posible for the enemy BC to hide. I think this would be fun and much like a submarine hiding from depth charges. Or do this for a ping but not radar.

[Red-Rocket]

kind of like in starfleet command where you had 6 different shields on your ship one in front one in back and 2 on each side, and you could have the ability to transfer shield power (naturally there are more in front and less in the back) ...hum transfer sheilds...kinda makes me want a...Captains console!!! =D

and anyways about consoles we always have more drones, the next ai could go to science and auto apply the hull boost thingy when sheilds go offline, and if checked, will purchase yamato, auto cast energy transfer, and purge core when it gets to 90% or below

[Degra]

You realize that the Sensor Console is already being worked on for quite some time?

[Siretu]

You realize that the Sensor Console is already being worked on for quite some time?

Heh, "being worked on". It's kind of been put on ice until I can figure out a way to get a circular ping model in an easy way.

[WhyteDragon]

You realize that the Sensor Console is already being worked on for quite some time?

The only thing I was aware of was that there was going to be a method to scan the other team's battlecruiser at some point. I also don't think there's necessarily any harm in bringing old ideas back up to attention, in case they've been forgotten. Doesn't take too much effort to say 'we remember' after a month or so.

Also, I'm unsure what you mean by a circular ping model but perhaps you could create two dummy units for it? One to act a the sensor tower with a radius of the map, and the second do the reverse and acts as a ping to the enemy team much like the boss icon in the campaigns? Again, just throwing out ideas.

[Siretu]

I wanted to use the same mechanic as the sensor tower but it has some stupid issues with updating the minimap range. Basically, I can't update the minimap circle in-game. Impossible. I basically sat for two days trying to find a way around the issue.

The only way I found to do it is to use a big static ping which looks like a circle. So imagine instead of the kerm ping, it was a circle that didn't pulse and such.