My Next Addon: You Choose

[LV]

Will be a standalone command

The fluff (cost & wares needed and/or balancing) i'll decide once chosen

5 Day Poll

[Nicoman35]

The omega bomb please !! The omega bomb please !!

[Calgor Grim]

Something that goes "blammo"?

[Killjaeden]

I vote for the 7th option: Deploy Nuclear mine field.
Will there be shiny effects with it as well?

[Chobittsu]

No Nuclear Rocket?

[DrBullwinkle]

RRF that only attacks player (so that it does not ruin missions, cost CPU for no benefit, or reduce combat challenge)? (Ideally, rep-neutral with the main races because the vanilla rep reductions are already well-balanced?)

Marine Training Simulator?

Regarding weapons; the player does not need more of them because combat is already too easy. However, enemies need exotic weapons to use against the player. In that role:

• 1) Dirty Bomb
  
  2) Dirty Mine. Persistently damages hull of ships that get too close. Ideally "cloaked" so it does not show up on scanners.
  
  3) EMP that randomly and intermittently damages player shields, speed, and laser for a "wonky" and unpredictable effect.

[Calgor Grim]

Actually can I change my vote to something which instead does "all of the above"?

[Sorkvild]

EMP ((Enemy Engines Drain) sounds interesting and it would be awesome if the AI could use it as well.

[DarthVain]

EMP (Engine Drain) Please. Enough bombs around already

[Scoob]

Hi LV,

Off-Topic I know, but is there any way an effect can be applied that shuts down a ships ability to steer for a short time?

Energy drain effects are great, so both shield and weapon, however the "speed drain" effect is a bit daft as it usually means that most of a volly misses due to the insta-slow effect. Imagine if STEERING could be reduced for a few seconds on target? That'd be a devistating effect, don't you agree?

Anyway, sorry for the OT ramble, I will now proceed to vote for my choice of the given selection EMP Weapons Energy drain FYI

Cheers,

Scoob.

[Gazz]

Whatcha expect when you give poll options of Nuclear Big Bang... and some piddly stuff? =P

From a gameplay point of view, some sort of gravity "net" would be more interesting.
Not a one shot mine but something like a LT with a tractor beam instead of a pewpew laser.
Everything around it is slowed by some %, maybe depending on distance between the two objects.

A longer lasting effect because like Scoob already pointed out, a brief "sloth burst" is only beneficial to the target because it throws off bullets in flight.

[Killjaeden]

2) Dirty Mine. Persistently damages hull of ships that get too close. Ideally "cloaked" so it does not show up on scanners.

You could as well just kill the playership then because he has no idea where that thing is nor will he notice it when it happens.

[DrBullwinkle]

2) Dirty Mine. Persistently damages hull of ships that get too close. Ideally "cloaked" so it does not show up on scanners.

You could as well just kill the playership then because he has no idea where that thing is nor will he notice it when it happens.

I envisioned a sound and/or subtitle when damage occurs. And, as Gazz points out, more like a laser tower than a mine, in that it could repeat the action. So the hull damage could gradually increase if the ship stays too long in the denied area.

Sort of like the radiation zones in Freelancer, if that helps.

[Killjaeden]

I envisioned a sound and/or subtitle when damage occurs. And, as Gazz points out, more like a laser tower than a mine, in that it could repeat the action. So the hull damage could gradually increase if the ship stays too long in the denied area.

But why hulldamage? You would need a very good gameplay reason to damage hull directly. Even more so with an area of effect weapon. And even moremore so with a continuous effect. If you don't have effects for this you wouldn't even know where it comes from and what area is "denied".
AoE Lasertowerlike weapon - PSG Lasertower?

Continuous AoE direct-damage weapon sounds cheaty to me however, against the player it's silly because there is almost no place where you can put it without destroying NPC traffic. The player on the other hand can place it in the predicted AI path that is always the same and then never care about it again - if you have a mine that blows up you have to replace it. Thus it requires efford to maintain the area defence.

As for nuclear effect, the capital ship exlosion would be perfect for it. Don't know if it's possible to script only that effect without turning the addon into a mod though. For a mod i would use a new shipentry with small model (fightdrone) with the desired effect as explosion effect and blow that up.

[DrBullwinkle]

No, that's not at all what I envisioned, KJ.

I was thinking about a small number of mysterious and dangerous areas in the game. They would be good places to hide a tuning crate or nividium cluster or an abandoned ship (obviously would require limiting damage and/or not affecting neutral race ships at all).

Tempt the player to enter the danger zone, but make it dangerous to stay long.

Why hull damage? Because it is more immediately dangerous, and does not matter what class of ship. If the amount of hull damage were calculated in percent of hull per minute, then the area would be dangerous to any class ship. (Also because LV suggested the hull damage idea. I just suggested something different than a bomb.)

Why hidden? So that the player cannot simply destroy the device.

What about NPC's? Well, since this is all in a script anyway, there is no reason that it has to be as dangerous to non-player ships as it is to the player ships. Player AI's would want to be directed away from the area, of course, so it would not be appropriate to use it in a normal trade lane. Better to place the area in a remote section of an asteroid field or in a nebula (away from stations).

[TouchMyNipple]

After Gazz's post i'd say i changed my mind a bit... Put that nuclear bomb in a copper-rich asteroid and get a natural EMP, but it should affect everyone. And a space-designed stasys totem looks definetly better. Coul as well be limited to several tragets (e.g. mk1 - 5tgs, mk2 - 10, mk3 - 15). Should be limited in life-time or destoyable.
Just like and idea:
tractor beam turret - a small object with a fixed lifetime that is deployed as soon as dropped (or via hotkey) that targets nearest target in range (close range of, say, 1.5 km) pulls itself towards it (with a tractor beam), keeps itself sticked close and starts drilling the target with a mass driver After target is lost - search for another target.

[scylla0v2]

why not all??
in order to use the "emp device" the ship will require massive amount of energy that can be obtain from a nuclear reactor if the reactor dont have enough water it would explode destroying everything in the sector and in that sector it would be radiation that will damage the hull for like 30minutes or so..

LE:maybe in the explosion not all ships will be destroyed but the pilots will be so u can have a reason to go back and claim some

[Killjaeden]

No, that's not at all what I envisioned, KJ.

I was thinking about a small number of mysterious and dangerous areas in the game. They would be good places to hide a tuning crate or nividium cluster or an abandoned ship (obviously would require limiting damage and/or not affecting neutral race ships at all).

Ok that makes more sense, but to me it seemed LV wanted to create something combat-related, that you (or maybe AI) can use actively. As a plot device that's an excuse to use direct hulldamage, but not for day-to-day combat imo.

Why hull damage? Because it is more immediately dangerous, and does not matter what class of ship. If the amount of hull damage were calculated in percent of hull per minute, then the area would be dangerous to any class ship.

Only problem is that if you lose 20% of your M5 hull that's about 10k credits, peanuts. If you lose 20% of your M2 that's about 20million credits. If you can't see the area it affects you can't order your ships around/ avoid it. You just stumble in there, lose hull and think "wth is happening? where to escape?". If your AI loses hull you will only see it if you monitor it at that time, or you accidentally see it losing hull or if it is already destroyed. Unless you have the visual effects (and therefore feedback) i would refrain from using such things.

[DrBullwinkle]

it seemed LV wanted ...

It is hard to tell what LV wants, other than feedback. Combat is too easy in the game, so I tossed out some ideas. He can use them or not.

Only problem is that if you lose 20% of your M5 hull that's about 10k credits, peanuts. If you lose 20% of your M2 that's about 20million credits.

It is not a problem; it is the way that it should work. If you have an M2, then you probably also have the credits to repair it.

You just stumble in there, lose hull and think "wth is happening? where to escape?".

The sound and subtitle (that we discussed previously) will tell the player what is happening.

As for the surprise and the need to figure out how to get away, yes. Exactly that.

It would give the player a reason to launch buoys or a warning satellite.



Personally, I would rather see LV polish the rough edges on RRF before adding new weapons (since he has already invested so much time into RRF, and because RRF's current state takes away some of the fun of missions and combat).

[Killjaeden]

It is not a problem; it is the way that it should work. If you have an M2, then you probably also have the credits to repair it.

Not really, because you could just switch to a M5 if you need it. Getting the same damage % no matter how thick your hull isn't really credible.

As for the surprise and the need to figure out how to get away, yes. Exactly that.

Oh i can imagine how much fun it is when you realise that one of your M2 has lost 50% hull and once you order it back it loses another 40% because it dances the elephant dance. Provided you figure out where "back" is. Punishing the player is very very easy, making it a worthwhile and fun experience is the hard part.