Durable Ships & Docking

[Karl913]

l got to thinking.. Is it realistic that in cruiser command you can destroy another* ship so easily? Most likely they would have extremely tough armor, considering they're battlecruisers.
This should be especially true for things such as the reactor and life support, so the ship wouldn't go down easily.
This is just a thought formed over 5 minutes, but what about docking the enemy ship and having to board them and either kill everyone on board or sabotage something? This would give the team with the less superior weapons and armor a better fighting chance than null if they are skilled, and could even open up some strategical options, such as preparing for getting boarded and such. Most likely to board you would have to blow a couple holes in the hull, which also opens the possibility of "no healthbars" and instead real damage, but that's another topic.. Anyway, rambling. Thoughts.

[WhyteDragon]

... I find this incredibly confusing... 'weaker ships' have 'extremely tough armor' considering they're 'battlecruisers'?

It's to my understanding that infiltration will be expanded as time goes on, but I honestly don't think that small ships are 'weak.' Imagine, if you will, that an object a hundred times your own size throws something at you. Being able to survive a barrage of that is already a feat.

[Karl913]

Sorry, let me clarify. A ship as strong as a battlecruiser shouldn't be able to be taken out so easily. Typed that in about 10 seconds and never bothered to read it over.
l'm not suggesting anything for small ships, btw.
l would also be assuming that projectiles would be smaller in ratio to the battlecruiser compared to what it is now, also meaning weaker.

[Red-Rocket]

well ships dont necessarily be much smaller then the BC
We could have ships that have to be constructed out in space (Space-Dock) and we can get a much bigger size for them but that would also mean they loose the ability to dock

*remember when the destroyer was as big as the Battlecruiser? lol*

however i do think that small ships later in the game should scale with the BC later in the game

[Karl913]

What? No, no! The battlecruiser would have much higher health than it does now, and while you could finish it off the normal way, docking the enemy ship would be a lot faster.. *sigh*, is there something wrong with my text?

If the enemy battlecruiser had, say, 10x health but after going through, say, 20% of it you could dock/board it with your own battlecruiser. (Or maybe after you punch a hole through it, maybe disable the turret AI core.)
Then the fight would mostly take place on the enemy BC after the initial fight.
This would open up some strategical options on both teams and add a little more choice than the game does right now. It would also mean some small arms combat on the decks of the BC's.
(Note: This has nothing to do with any small ships, including the infiltrator, or boarding as it currently is, or having additional ship types..)

[WhyteDragon]

What? No, no! The battlecruiser would have much higher health than it does now, and while you could finish it off the normal way, docking the enemy ship would be a lot faster.. *sigh*, is there something wrong with my text?

If the enemy battlecruiser had, say, 10x health but after going through, say, 20% of it you could dock/board it with your own battlecruiser. (Or maybe after you punch a hole through it, maybe disable the turret AI core.)
Then the fight would mostly take place on the enemy BC after the initial fight.
This would open up some strategical options on both teams and add a little more choice than the game does right now. It would also mean some small arms combat on the decks of the BC's.
(Note: This has nothing to do with any small ships, including the infiltrator, or boarding as it currently is, or having additional ship types..)

Dear god, I would prefer to avoid giving the battlecruiser more health. Fights can already go on for quite a long time, thank you! I don't know what sort of games you've been playing, but between shields, hull upgrades, small ship tanking, ETC, I would very much not like to see the battlecruiser's health rise excessively. Giving it the potential to be fragile is a very important aspect in retaining the value of 'surprise attacks' and 'rushes.' If the battlecruiser's health is so incredibly high that, if you can leave it be for 6 whole minutes while the enemy team wails upon it endlessly and still not kill you, I think something is quite wrong.

I also heavily dislike the idea of gearing everything excessively towards the idea of 'boarding' the enemy team. The moment you do that, it takes away from the main thing about cruiser command that actually makes cruiser command -- controlling the battle cruiser. Believe me, I like infiltration and all, but the moment that just becomes a 6v6 brawl of marines firing at one another...
... I think it losses its charm, personally. Somehow, it feels a lot more anti-climactic to have six marines tackle six marines with very straightforward, automated firing mechanisms when you have a pair of battlecruisers equipped with their own personal fleets. Of all things, why do you want to pull away from that and go to something a lot more... well, pardon me, but primitive?

[Karl913]

No, it doesn't have to be that extreme, you're right. Trying to think of ways to make the team with less resources have more ways to win, and make the combat aspect of the game more skill based. (Units with an automatic firing mechanism.. Why would you want that? The game is being remade anyway, why not make marines have firing mechanisms similar to the small ships..?) As l said in the OP, this is just thoughts. l'd personally like to see BC vs. BC be more skill based (Not saying it isn't, it takes skill.) in a way that gives the weaker ship a fighting chance. Docking is the first thing that came to mind. Other than docking, going towards an entirely different approach for BC vs. BC combat would be my other suggestion. Or maybe making upgrades in general less effective, meaning the "superior" ship wouldn't be so far as to completely obliterate the other ship.

[Red-Rocket]

Dear god, I would prefer to avoid giving the battlecruiser more health. Fights can already go on for quite a long time, thank you! I don't know what sort of games you've been playing, but between shields, hull upgrades, small ship tanking, ETC, I would very much not like to see the battlecruiser's health rise excessively. Giving it the potential to be fragile is a very important aspect in retaining the value of 'surprise attacks' and 'rushes.' If the battlecruiser's health is so incredibly high that, if you can leave it be for 6 whole minutes while the enemy team wails upon it endlessly and still not kill you, I think something is quite wrong.

I also heavily dislike the idea of gearing everything excessively towards the idea of 'boarding' the enemy team. The moment you do that, it takes away from the main thing about cruiser command that actually makes cruiser command -- controlling the battle cruiser. Believe me, I like infiltration and all, but the moment that just becomes a 6v6 brawl of marines firing at one another...
... I think it losses its charm, personally. Somehow, it feels a lot more anti-climactic to have six marines tackle six marines with very straightforward, automated firing mechanisms when you have a pair of battlecruisers equipped with their own personal fleets. Of all things, why do you want to pull away from that and go to something a lot more... well, pardon me, but primitive?

-Ok, excessive fights may be out, but fights lasting only 6 seconds was a real fun killer that people complained about in the beta
-boarding is fun, many people love the idea of boarding, im suprised at you most of all whyte-dragon for not liking boarding, your the one who does it the best. I would say flesh it out, and make killing marines harder (more health, less weapon damage and actual defense items and armor besides nano gloves)

[WhyteDragon]

-Ok, excessive fights may be out, but fights lasting only 6 seconds was a real fun killer that people complained about in the beta
-boarding is fun, many people love the idea of boarding, im suprised at you most of all whyte-dragon for not liking boarding, your the one who does it the best. I would say flesh it out, and make killing marines harder (more health, less weapon damage and actual defense items and armor besides nano gloves)

Firstly, I know a lot of this talk may not necessarily pertain more to the SC2 game than the standalone, but that's more because we don't have too many details regarding the standalone ATM. So, with that in mind...

I have never seen fights last 6 seconds.

I think you misunderstand what I see in infiltration then. Tossing marines on the enemy battlecruiser and saying 'everybody fight' is not what I think is interesting about infiltration -- it's about subterfuge, sneaking around, and avoiding a head on fight. And, personally, I don't any none of that carrying over properly the moment we push for this boarding concept that's been suggested. Moreover, this also causes a lot of issues with marine death and respawning -- not to mention balancing infiltration vs. boarding, and generally in my opinion just creates a lot of potentially messy issues in terms of evening out the two concepts to be individualistic.

It just seems weird to me that you'd essentially create a necessity for boarding via this method. I understand you're trying to create allow a team to come back from lower resources, but I don't think this is it -- what this creates is a 'fall back' for a losing team to work with, but... if it's clearly designed just to give the losing team a chance by giving the opportunity for the enemy to board, I see no reason why the winning side should even attempt to do so in the first place. They've dealt significant damage to the enemy, showing their upgrade superiority -- why would they bother to dock, potentially risking their lead, when they're already clearly winning? And if you create the inverse situation where the losing side attempts to invade, they're in an inferior position due to the resources available -- hence you're only putting them further at a disadvantage in that case.

I think what you should be more looking for is to directly create a way to more effectively utilize weapons to obtain a higher damage output. This has been touched upon slightly in the broadsides topic, where it's more difficult to fully utilize all of the broadsides due to the fan shape. Rather than introducing all these new concepts, I think it's more important to look more closely at the existing concepts and refine them first. Solid content over lots of content.

[Siretu]

I mostly agree with the stuff Whyte has been saying. I would also like to add that forcing the "winning" team to board the enemy ship to actually win the game will just reduce the amount of options, not increase it.