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Stations, the HMA, and being immune to dictors. |
BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
|  Posted: 2006-06-15 08:56
It just ocured to me that in 1.484, stations will not be able to swap out wormholes and HMA's on the fly. So once you're in a system, you're going to have to continue using wormholes if you choose to use them or the HMA..
The trouble being that if you prefer the HMA, you have to spend quite some time jumping about to get where you want to go because if dictors and planets in the way, plus the fact that HMA's can't really jump far, and they move slowly. In 1.484, I can't think of any reason to use a HMA over a WH generator, other than accuracy, but you'll need a SY in that system to get there quickly anyway.
My proposal?
Make HMA's work like a teleport. Instead of working like a normal jump drive (wherein you select a target/object initiate the jump sequence), it would have no jump speed. Instead it'd open a 'tear' of some kind in space, a 'tear' would open at the other end, and you'd apear as if by magic. Obviously, there'd be some wait time for the graphic (1-2 seconds, nothing hugely disadvantagious). No one else would be able to use the 'tear', just you - it would close as you go/come through it.
Range would have to be debated about. In my mind, it has to be able to reach other systems, just like a wormhole. I'd think something like... Take the average distance between systems, and use that. You wouldn't be able to jump miles and miles away, like with a wormhole. You'd just be able to jump to the next system. Which would be fine, as the HMA would recharge quicker than the WH generator, and so you should arive just a few minutes after everyone else (and not hours like currently).
Only problem I can see with this is the recharge time.
Lets say the maximum wormhole range is 3 million gu, and the average distance between systems is 750,000 gu (set the HMA maximum jump range to this).
That works out as 750k goes into 3 million 4 times.
Now, say the WH generator has a recharge time of 4 minutes. Simply divide that by 4, and you get the HMA recharge time of 1 minute. This seems fair. Since you're more at risk going alone with the HMA, and should you need it, you have a fairly quick recharge time for the HMA and with that, an escape. Any capable fleet of taking out a station should be able to take one out in 1 minute.
Remember that the HMA would still work the same as a jump drive, just without the jump sequence of actually flying through space (I think this looks rediculous anyway). It was just bypass all the planets/stars and such inbetween.
Wormhole generators should also be immune to interdictors, since the recharge time of a wormhole is already gigantic, and the risk of losing a station should be pretty low in my opinion, since they're end-game content.
(This should NOT effect the ICC wormhole gen cruiser, and it should probably be removed from the game anyway, to give balance to the other factions (they dont have one, and there's no need for a wormhole cruiser))
[ This Message was edited by: BackSlash *SL3* on 2006-06-15 09:03 ]
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GothThug {C?}
Fleet Admiral
Joined: June 29, 2005
Posts: 2932
| Posted: 2006-06-15 09:00
i completely agree with this ^^ also i was thinkin that um you could make the WH cruiser if you do decide to keep it into a combat ship like say a PD Ship ^^ just a thought 
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2006-06-15 09:06
Thanks Goth.
On the WH crusier thing, they've already 7 cruisers (far too many), and the wormhole cruiser doesn't fit in with the game, and just makes it unballanced, since none of the other factions have one.
Keep them on stations, and just rid the game of that ship. I see little use for the border cruiser too, so that's in need of a re-design.
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Drafell
Grand Admiral
Mythica
Joined: May 30, 2003
Posts: 2449
From: United Kingdom
| Posted: 2006-06-15 09:12
IMO there are so many things wrong with this suggestion that I dont know where to start.
I'll post a full breakdown soon.
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Eledore Massis [R33]
Grand Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: May 26, 2002
Posts: 2694
From: tsohlacoLocalhost
| Posted: 2006-06-15 10:03
I agree a part what you say.
The stations capability to swap a HMA for a WHG
As long as the reload time already spend on the swaped drive gets a reset. (just like weapons)
Your times you sugested seems acceptable.
However a HMA is what it says a Hyper Mass Accalerator
if you want to live up to its name than i would say,
It acceparates a large mass using hyper drive technology
So i say stay just let it be the way it currently is and wil not open some soft of tear/teleport to your destination.
Becous this can resolt in the station out running the fleet.
And i don't think anny station would like to be alone in enemy territory when his escort is stil jumping to the destination.
Normaly you would have first the ships to secure the area than there comes the station.
About the station no longer be able to get blocked by dictors.
If you look again at the name. Hyper Mass Accelarator.
This form of jump drive uses Hyperspace to accelerate the craft, But it wil not generate a stable Tachyon field. aka it is not in hyperspace.
this would render the Tachyon distruption field AKA a dictor useless against this form of transportation so my idea.
Yes you would not be blocked by a dictor field. but
No you would be unable to jump when you are in a dictor field.
I hope this can be usefull.
but if you are going with the teleport idea. plz change the HMA to a more suiting name.
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Smartin
Grand Admiral
Joined: August 04, 2005
Posts: 1107
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2006-06-15 10:15
I really like that idea Jack but it sounds like a lot of work. Maybe something to work on down the road OR just change recharge rate of a HMA in a station.
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Drafell
Grand Admiral
Mythica
Joined: May 30, 2003
Posts: 2449
From: United Kingdom
| Posted: 2006-06-15 10:20
The first flawed assumption: You are supposed to be able to swap out HMA and WHD on the fly.
Something that was an unintentional byproduct of the current method for shipmodding was on the fly device swapping. In past versions it was generaly accepted as devices did not remember charge or ammo levels. In 1.483 it introduced a whole series of problems with bypassing timers and recharge states. The primary reason that is has not been deemed illegal is that it would cause the Staff ar too much work in policing it. We are volunteers and we want to play the game ourselves, not have all our time taken with dealing with issues like this.
Second assumption: HMA concept is wrong.
The HMA idea works. We know this because stations orginally had Jumpdrives like every other ship in the game. I agree that it could do with haveing the recharge/hull size modifier adjusted so that it works faster on a station, but I certainly do not think that we need another type of FTL travel. Keep in mind that Stations were never design as a ship for solo play. There are supposed to require a team or a fleet in support. Adding an new type of FTL drive that gives them an instant way out of any battle makes them into a ship that goes against this concept, which also happens to be one of the core foundations of the DS gameplay. It might sound like a nice suggestion, I dont deny it and would love it myself, but it would break the game in so many ways.
The most powerful ships in the game, also being invulnerable to interdiction? I don't think so...
As it is, we already have the WHD which allows just this. The drawbacks are that it can only be used to escape(even then you can be followed) and that it is very slow to recharge. You still require suport even if you can use it to get to a safeish location, the goal of teamwork remains intact.
The HMA, on the other hand, allows you a greater ammount of tactical control, and is probably more suited to combat stations, but it has the drawback of being easily countered by interdiction - you still require a support fleet to use it effectively.
The only outcome I can see of such a device would be turning DS into StationSpace. Everyone would fly one and there woudl be no drawbacks to it.
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2006-06-15 10:24
Drafell's right.
HMA still needs work though. It needs a much, much faster recharge time for it to actually work as it is intended too.
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Drafell
Grand Admiral
Mythica
Joined: May 30, 2003
Posts: 2449
From: United Kingdom
| Posted: 2006-06-15 10:25
What was the recharge time in 1.480? 2.5mins?
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Eledore Massis [R33]
Grand Admiral
Templar Knights
Joined: May 26, 2002
Posts: 2694
From: tsohlacoLocalhost
| Posted: 2006-06-15 12:16
1.480 recharge time varried a bit.
if you stould stil than yes 2,5 minutes.
but if you moved at flank speed firing weapons it could take up to 4 min. becous of the drain.
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Smartin
Grand Admiral
Joined: August 04, 2005
Posts: 1107
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2006-06-15 12:17
I think something like 2 mins. to 2.5mins would be a good recharge time for a stations HMA. That way you still are going to need a fleet to put down enough damage to kill the station yet quick enough that no one or maybe even no 2 ships can just destroy the station.
In my experience in beta so far stations are no longer easy kills so somewhere in the 2 min margrin sounds respectable IMO.
This will encourage people to fly in fleets and a station to never be left alone.
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2006-06-15 17:01
It'll need testing at any rate
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Maskerade
Grand Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 21, 2002
Posts: 638
From: Canada
| Posted: 2006-06-16 11:53
IMO the power generated by a station to initiate the HMA should be to overpower the power of a cruiser bourne interdiction field. In a slight alteration of Jack's idea, why not allow Stations equipped with HMA to jump OUT of a ship bourne interdictor. However planets should be able to lock down any vessel given that planetary dictors have no structure level associated with them and we can assume that most planets could generate more power than a station.
Keep the recharge the same for the HMA as we wouldn't want the ability to be too one-sided. That being said, any dictor - ship or planet, should be able to disrupt a jump in progress. Just allow the HMA to initate a jump out of the ship dictors, give it a ~1500gu "super jump" ability.
IMHO the power requirements for running a ship bourne dictor are extremely low anyways and like other special abilities (such as cloak) the ships shouldn't be able to jump with interdictor active. Admittedly I have done a whole lot of combat testing running interdictors in beta yet though.
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2006-06-16 12:41
Dictors can't equip extra reactors in 1.484, so that should fix that. But Mask's proposal seems pretty good. Allow stations to be stopped by dictors, but not be kept in them. So if you hit one, you're JD stops, but after recharging it, you can jump out. If you just make it so that this affects ship bourne interdictors, it should balance itself out.
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Drafell
Grand Admiral
Mythica
Joined: May 30, 2003
Posts: 2449
From: United Kingdom
| Posted: 2006-06-16 16:17
Why? There is no point to making a ship immune to the Interdictor, other than making that ship far too overpowered.
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