Cruiser Command

The weapons console was mentioned recently in a thread on the forums and you guys mentioned my thought on the matter. I am conflicted when it comes to the weapons console because it is a nice console for beginner's to start out with because it is very easy to understand but it also feels very boring.

The skill cap for the weapons console is VERY low. It is slightly higher earlier in the game when you are aiming for smaller and faster ships. You rarely have kinetics as a choice and even when you do, it doesn't raise the skill cap that much. In the end game, your role as the weapons guy is to right-click on the enemy (rather immobile) Battlecruiser every second. Sometimes you might want to stop because you see the enemy is running insane shields and will run out of energy soon, but it's not hard. You need to be there because you need the dps, but it's not fun.

Some of you might say: Well, you could always just put a drone on it, they're just as good anyway.

That's not the reason I made the AI. I dont want the AI to replace more and more roles in 6v6 games, I just want them to make it possible to play with lesser players. This is different from the refining because the core of refining is very obviously a boring and tedious task. Firing lasers should NOT be boring. Firing weapons and dealing damage should be FUN. Not given to the AI players.

So that is the problem I see. How do we fix it?

We need to make the weaposn console more interesting. We need to give the guy on weapons more to think about than just right-click-spamming.

What I've been thinking about is adding a lot of abilities and stuff that boosts the weapon in different ways. However I'd like them to work in some kind of synergy that makes it non-obvious in what the best way to use it is. Different effects and different abilities. Maybe not just boosts for the weapon, maybe some other special weapons (think EMP compared to the wraith's plasma cannon). Having a targeted slow bomb? A slowing field?

I'd like to get ideas from you on this. What do you suggest?

The most boring situations occur when both Battlecruisers don't move at all, so I suggest we need strong+slow weapons and AoE skills to make movement more important.
I already proposed slow bombs in the Skype chat, with a projectile speed as high or even slower as the Destroyer's projectiles.

An AoE skill would be a "Blackhole device"(I don't really care about the name) for example, forming a few seconds after you cast it, giving the enemy the chance to get out of range and slowly damaging everything in its range.

Making movement in BC vs BC battles more important will make the weapon console less tedious by having more position prediction and actually requires a bit of thinking which weapons best to use/dynamically switch between them.
It would also make power console less tedious, as it usually is "lower engines til they reach 0 and spam raise shields for the entire battle" while in a case with those changes you would need to adapt to the situations with also having to consider engine speed and finding a balance between engines/shields/weapons/power loss/stability loss, while you can currently neglect engines.

The power battle currently boils down to mostly mathematics, with core ups, shield ups and powerdock giving you an edge. Adding a dodge element / not all of dps happening will make it less predictable.

Another thing is that static BC battles also lead to static destroyer launches, which become tedious as well.

I think the possible skill cap for weapon is quite high.
a good weapon officer should know when to fire in a fight and when to conserve energy. AI's can't do that.
Also, the current metagame doesn't allow a spare newb to sit on weapon early game. making it super fun would force us to use kick much more often.


The game is complex enough already. Newbs don't need more things to think about.

Caladbolg wrote:The game is complex enough already. Newbs don't need more things to think about.

I agree with this. However, I also don't think it's impossible to make it more engaging without making it more complex.

I think a very large issue about why Kinetics aren't used is that they're only useful when fully upgraded, which is well over a thousand required resources. It's absurdly, silly expensive. Yeah, sometimes you'll still get it, but the opportunity cost of getting to the second level alone (first level is worthless, to be honest) is 120Y, 120B, 200R, which could buy you a corvette, two damage upgrades, and photon condenser -- and I feel as if it would have more use. I think if you want to offer Kinetics more use, some numbers need to be changed.

But of course, that isn't the main issue here - kinetics certainly make weapons more interesting, but it's still a very dull 'click on the giant BC' fest.

Missiles are a fun little tool for weapons, but they're expensive and take time to set up. They also force you to stop broadsiding, so you likely won't use them in direct combat with another BC. However, for the potential damage output they add, they're well worth it when they are used. So it's difficult to say what you can do to change that and make it better. Potential to shoot from the side? Seems a bit too powerful since it's supposed to have an opportunity cost of broadsides. Ultimately, I don't know what could be done here. Maybe looking at missiles just isn't the right call either.

Alright, I'm going to go back to something I said in the wraith topic. What if weapon fire actually possessed some form of momentum? We aren't shooting lasers, these projectiles do possess mass. Have shields negate plasma/kinetic knockback in order to make chasing still viable. Have kinetics knock objects back further due to much higher momentum. Obviously there wouldn't be too much movement because of the battlecruiser's mass, actually knocking the battlecruiser around means movement, which means the weapon's console can actually have some influence on 'pushing' the enemy battlecruiser, so long as some damage reaches hull, while simultaneously having to move his fire since a sit down fight becomes less and less plausible.

One alternative solution to making weapons more fun is to give it more targets to shoot at, because focus firing the broad side of a barn for an entire fight is too simple.

But in the spirit of the thread, here's some ideas:

Laser ability ideas:

Superheat Emitters - Toggleable - While active, lasers do more shield damage, but the lasers spray around very inaccurately (similar to kinetics).
Irradiate Emitters - Toggleable - While active, lasers do more damage and are invisible. Lasers cost more energy to fire.
Align Collimators - 5 second cast - Increases laser damage for 15 seconds.

Kinetic ability ideas:

Core Driver - Toggleable - Kinetic projectiles move faster and do more hull damage. The BC experiences recoil from kinetics shooting. Kinetics cost way more energy to fire.
Chroniton Blast - 2000 energy - Fires a special kinetic projectile (it's purple or something) that bypasses shields. It does 150 hull damage and generates extra debris when it hits.

Going to pitch in my ideas..

The first one is overheating. Add a little bar on the side where the speed would normally be. The more you fire, the hotter the weapon gets. Fire until the cap gets filled then you can't fire anymore until it goes down to ~half. Possibility of Kinetics not having this feature.

The second is missile speed.. As the missile goes along, the faster it gets. Acceleration. The faster it gets the more damage it does on contact. Possibility of lasers not having this feature.

This would mean that kinetics should be used at a range, and the further away the better. It would also mean that lasers should be used at close range, although slightly sparingly. It puts more thought into weapons, and more communication between the navigator.

Something else to consider would be adding a third weapon with an even more unique feature, although l don't know what that would actually be.

Perhaps a weapon for a sniper, that hits instantly or has far greater speed at the drawback of more energy cost and less dps? Or perhaps something harder to manage.. Such as a giant laser beam that fires out the front without stopping (Light a voidray or sentry) hitting whatever lands in front of it.. But consuming a lot of energy.. This would require a lot of skill on the navigators part.. But not much on the weaponmans part.. Gotta be something strategic, though.

Edit: Thought of something.. A laser that moves with the weapon. No, would not move in response to mouse moves, but instead it would work like the big laser on the Eternity in Warships, where it's creating new lasers every time it fires, the laser starting at the battlecruiser and firing to (Position of mouse of player (PlayerOnWeaponsConsole)), dealing more damage to stationary targets.. Or perhaps a laser that when fired works the same way but does not turn with the players mouse, but instead turns with the ship and moves with the ship, unmoving could be unique, as that would require some communication and skill.

It might be fun to have the ability to place a barrier of some type or have an ability that nerfs the opposing BC firepower, making smallships and mobility more important.

I like that idea of a wall. A physical wall that is enacted between the two battlecruisers where no firepower can get through. you either have to destroy the wall or go around it. I'm against physical nerfs against BC's and smallships, but an ability that creates a line-like barrier large enough to block a bc's line of fire for both teams can be put into tactical use, both for fleeing bc's and bc's trying to camp a kerm spawn. The wall either can have a cooldown with or without invulnerability or high hp, but is imobile. I'm not talking about a massive wall that streches the screen though, just one large enough to block bc/bc fire and/or used to bounce bc's off course in a fleeing situation.

And instead of using it through the weapons console, it could be used from the science console. Sorry, off topic for weapons console but thought it could be a good idea.

i agree with meanme that the wall can go through science, it should be HP so that kinetics can be viable as a source to take them out.

i'll move this over to a new thread, so we can talk about it more on topic.