Nominations for new Bonus Ships for the "Vengeance of the Machine" expansion

[chemical_art]

The advantage over the Leech Starship being?

That was what I was debating. Whether if it instead made zombies, or if it could somehow reclaim only starships, or something.

I like the idea, but don't know where to go with it.

[Hearteater]

Well, if they don't do a lot of damage despite putting out a lot of reclamation, that's different than the Leech already.  I'm not sure short-ranged is ideal, since that's the range the Leech operates in really.  I'd be inclined to say go fragile but with faster drones that can range out and tag stuff for reclamation.  The drones shouldn't be too long ranged themselves, just have the speed to get into range.  You could pair this unit with the Enclave to do all-drones at range, killing with the Enclave drones, and reclaiming the kills thanks to this unit's drones.  That's something a Leech can't really safely do.

[LordSloth]

Spec for handling zombards and sentinels and so forth, perhaps? Anti-Kiter.

Combine low rate of fire single target reclamation with paralysis?

[TechSY730]

Spec for handling zombards and sentinels and so forth, perhaps? Anti-Kiter.

Combine low rate of fire single target reclamation with paralysis?

It would need to have a pretty good speed as well.

[Hearteater]

Teleporting paralyzer immune to Antimatter Bombs and Sniper Shots?

[PokerChen]

Teleporting paralyzer immune to Antimatter Bombs and Sniper Shots?

Woah. What if in the AI hands...? Suggest new teleportation AI (RED), with all teleportation unlocks!

[Fluffiest]

Teleporting paralyzer immune to Antimatter Bombs and Sniper Shots?

Doesn't need the immunity; teleportation and paralysis shots would be plenty.

[TechSY730]

How about something that is weak to high ROF stuff (like high cap ships) but can resist low cap, high damage single shots with a mechanic that caps normal damage taken in a single shot. Like takes no more than 10k damage in a single bullet, for some or possibly all of its HP "span" no matter the bonuses or attack boosts of the attacker.

What's that? Blatant Immortal clone? Why yes it is.
However, this mechanic works very well, gives something to finally counter high single damage stuff at the expense of its mechanic not aiding high rof stuff, but it very intuitive about how t works.

EDIT: will "flesh out" this idea more and make a mantis post about this idea later.

[keith.lamothe]

How about something that is weak to high ROF stuff (like high cap ships) but can resist low cap, high damage single shots with a mechanic that caps normal damage taken in a single shot. Like takes no more than 10k damage in a single bullet, for some or possibly all of its HP "span" no matter the bonuses or attack boosts of the attacker.

What's that? Blatant Immortal clone? Why yes it is.
However, this mechanic works very well, gives something to finally counter high single damage stuff at the expense of its mechanic not aiding high rof stuff, but it very intuitive about how t works.

I don't know what the Immortal is (SC2 unit? never played that game), but I think the concept of a passive defense which doesn't react to low-velocity/low-power stuff but is extremely effective against high-power stuff is well atested in sci-fi.  Like shields that won't stop an 1000 km/s asteroid but will stop a kinetic-energy-weapon traveling at a significant fraction of c.  The asteroid will probably still wreck the ship if it hits, but that's not what the defense was designed to stop.  The idea's also been applied to armor, like a magi-tech cloth that's pretty normal (and ineffective) against an arrow but instantly hardens to stop bullets.

Anyway, this unit could basically have infinite armor (with a 5% minimum let-through instead of 20%) that only applies when the individual shot power is over a certain threshold.  Though that may be a bit too "stepwise" a function for a non-micro-oriented game in that one ship that does 1 more than that damage per shot gets nailed, where the one that does 1 less damage does awesome against it.  So maybe the armor only applies to damage over the threshold, not the whole shot.

[TechSY730]

The immortal is indeed a SC2 unit.

Likr all protoss units, some of their durability comes from shields. Some background mechanics info: Shields recharge automatically out of battle, while HP does not. Most protoss units (as opposed to structures) have about 33 to 50% of their durability into shields.

The immortal though has a special mechanic such that for any normal source of damage, that "bullet" will not do any more than N damage (currently, N is at 10), provided their shields was >0 a at the time of impact. This is applied at the last step* of the damage calculation, so it even helps to mitigate bonus multipliers. It also itself has a decently strong but low rof attack.
(Note that I said normal damage. Spell damage or damage that uses non-standard damage calculation can bypass it.)

This makes it great against the slow heavy hitters, but struggles against the high rof or easily "spammable in high number" units.

I must admit, this is a very clever idea from Blizzard to help give an answer to the "heavy hitting dominating all" phenomenon that can easily crop up in games of this nature.

*OK, third to last if you factor in hallucination damage taken penalty and guardian shields, but the point is it comes after standard bonuses of the attacker.

[keith.lamothe]

That does sound clever, and I think a modular-ff that has a damage-taken cap would emulate it well and would be interesting to put on "boss" ships (avenger, mothership, etc) to add a "use high-rof stuff against this" "stage" to the fight.  Though it would feel like I was just copying someone else's mechanic... because that's what I'd be doing

[TechSY730]

That does sound clever, and I think a modular-ff that has a damage-taken cap would emulate it well and would be interesting to put on "boss" ships (avenger, mothership, etc) to add a "use high-rof stuff against this" "stage" to the fight.  Though it would feel like I was just copying someone else's mechanic... because that's what I'd be doing

Not saying you should copy it directly of course. It doesn't have to be tied to shields of some sort, and it could be a percentage reduction as long as that reduced value is > some number, or something less "hard capped" as the above. It also doesn't have to apply to only part of the "effective HP", possibly all of it.

We can take the core of the idea, but add some modifications to fit this game better and make it "your own".

Again, I hope to flesh this idea out more later tonight.

I do think that if this sort of mechanic is pursued, "backporting" it to the more durability focused superweapons (armored golems and mothership are the only two that come to mind) may be appropriate.

[keith.lamothe]

It doesn't have to be tied to shields of some sort

It doesn't have to be, but I think it's the best fit if we were to put it in the game because it's the way the game already supports a ship having "two health bars": just stick a modular ff on it.  That way as a player it's visually obvious when the unit has moved past the "shielded" stage.

[TechSY730]

It doesn't have to be tied to shields of some sort

It doesn't have to be, but I think it's the best fit if we were to put it in the game because it's the way the game already supports a ship having "two health bars": just stick a modular ff on it.  That way as a player it's visually obvious when the unit has moved past the "shielded" stage.

Sorry, I guess what I meant is that this sort of mechanic could be a attribute of the ship itself, thus applying this to the fullrange of the normal HP. (It would have to be balanced accordingly of course)

[Radiant Phoenix]

reclaim [...] starships

No. Just... no.

How about something that is weak to high ROF stuff (like high cap ships) but can resist low cap, high damage single shots with a mechanic that caps normal damage taken in a single shot. Like takes no more than 10k damage in a single bullet, for some or possibly all of its HP "span" no matter the bonuses or attack boosts of the attacker.

I think the closest existing mechanic would be to have, like, ten tiny shield modules each with 10k health each.