Poll: Bonus Ship Type ideas for the Vengeance expansion

[KDR_11k]

I wonder if I should abstain because I have 5 units on that list.

[keith.lamothe]

I wonder if I should abstain because I have 5 units on that list.

Nonsense, they'll try to kill you just as readily as they would any other player

[Martyn van Buren]

Very happy to see that someone finally came up with a ship to fit the name "Neinzul yoyo," which comes from a bug report I filed years ago. If we don't get that ship I hope we get something else with that name. Ideally wearing a child's propeller cap.

[MaxAstro]

My votes:

-Shadow Tunneler; I have a rule about always voting for my own ideas.  That said, I really do like this idea on its own merit.  It has obvious balance issues with the AI to work out, but I really like the kind of tactics it would open up for the player.  I like bonus ships that change your whole playstyle.

-Modular Assault Drone; I wasn't going to vote for this... then I noticed it was a swarm ship.  Hell yes.  Giant, beefy modular ships are done to death.  The standard spread of modular weapons are done to death.  A modular swarmship that actually has totally different abilities based on its modules?  Yes please.

-Neinzul Shadowling; Why don't the Neinzul already have a cloaked youngling?  Anyway, seems an oversight in need of correction.

-Human Artificial Projection Ship; I like this idea way too much.  The whole "illusory decoy" thing is just cool.

-Protector Starship; Another actually interesting take on modules, rather than what we've all seen before.  And again on "I like bonus ships that change your playstyle".  Having a ship that can provide a versatile defense against whatever the AI happens to throw at you today is cool.

-Zenith Battleship; Contrary to some above comments, I see the ability to pick off ships hiding out under a forcefield from out of engagement range as very useful.  Although that could just be my recent bad experience with an Enclave Guardian under glass...

[Kahuna]

-Modular Assault Drone; I wasn't going to vote for this... then I noticed it was a swarm ship.  Hell yes.  Giant, beefy modular ships are done to death.  The standard spread of modular weapons are done to death.  A modular swarmship that actually has totally different abilities based on its modules?  Yes please.

Exactly. In it's current form it might be overpowered as some people said in the Mantis comments.. but I'm sure it could be tweaked and made balanced. MAD would be unique and interesting ship. With small tweaks and balance changes I don't see any reason to not add it. Now that I've thought more about this I know how it could be made reasonable but meh.. w/e

Someone (no sarcasm or anything don't remember who) said MAD with 2 tractor modules would make EthetJets useless.. well EtherJets are already semi useless in player's hands. They're nasty in AI's hands though. w/e.

[KDR_11k]

The MAD strikes me as a UI nightmare though. Since its role changes depending on the modules you'd want to select them by loadout and at that point why not make the most useful loadouts units?

[Kahuna]

Well it wouldn't be any harder than equipping a Riot Starship. I don't think there's any problem with that. It's easy.

[keith.lamothe]

Some of the ships in the poll, like the MAD, I'm not 100% sure would work UI-wise or whatever.  But if people are excited enough about them for them to win the poll then we'll basically find a way to make them work   It's usually not a question of "literally impossible", just "how much time is it worth to make this happen?"

[Wingflier]

As I posted in the other thread: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,12952.msg147543.html#msg147543

Apparently I missed this entire discussion until it was too late. Just adding my ideas for posterity anyway.

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=11555

[TIE Viper]

Oh so much good to choose from...it was hard to narrow it down to six.  The protector and EW ships were tempting on the defensive side.  The retaliatory ship ideas were also good, most notably I really liked the frigate one.  The shadow tunneler and gravitic stabilizer sound excellent as well...

...but, I had to go with:

Lightning Torpedo Cruiser--Oh I can now fight waves of Neinzul Fireflies and be able to fling mass AOE damage back at those little glowy-butt jerks?  Yes please.

Modular Assault Drone--I agree with you 100% MaxAstro. 

Neinzul Combat Carrier--I want THIS so much more than any of the others! 

Neinzul Shadowling--They are like little cloaking starships that have guns!  Just imagine the sneaky sneaky of the invisible fleet!   >D

Powerslaver--Definitely one of the coolest ideas in here.  I gotta disagree with you Hearteater.  It shouldn't attrition its powersource.  It will be removed from max power from being destroyed in combat.  They should be robust enough to be able to get to max power often, but squishy enough to get killed if you don't pay some attention to them.  I'm not talking a whole heck of a lot of micro but you shouldn't be able to forget about them and still have them at max power with zero micro for extended combat/multiple rounds of combat.  The usual micro I do when I have Maws springs to mind.

Zenith Battleship--This strikes me as kinda creating a 'tortoise and the hare' scenario.  You have the quick squishy (relatively) raid starships and the Zenith Battleship would be their slower tougher hard hitting counterpart surviving to blast FF protected things raids wouldn't be able to take down.  I definitely want these too!

[TechSY730]

Shifted a vote to the laser pods.

However, it would be nice if their self damage wasn't so high that they oneshot themselves. Attack power could go down and/or cost could go up a bit in return.

[Bones]

Long time listener first time caller, I picked a group of units that I felt gave some amount of variety of high/low cap and support/fleet ships.

Lightning cruiser- we could use some aoe artillery, it would be great if these were made OP and gave +1AIP on death, that way they could be balanced around warheads.

MAD- just seems like a neat idea, might have to have a lower cap with how they've been described, or only give one hard point. Having them spawn with the modules would be handy.

Combat carrier- something is missing from the MSD, it might be durability. A toggle to have all units created start in frd would be sweet too. Neinzul are my favorite class of unit in the game, games with tigers are easy mode it seems like.

Cleanser - end game specific DPS fleet ship, sounds good.

Zenith G Stabilizer - So many gravity affects and not one counter? the everything AI wants this so bad. Give it some guns with decent range for kiting, awesome.

Hydra Flame Thrower - Bread/butter fleetship, with one of the better projectile animations.

Almost; Z battleship, N shadowing, but I already have choices that fill the same roll as those ships with MAD and L Cruiser.

[keith.lamothe]

Long time listener first time caller

Welcome to the forums

[Hearteater]

The Lightning Torpedo Cruiser just seems a lot like the Plasma Siege Starship.  But since it seems to be winning, maybe the Plasma Siege Starship needs to lose its Engine Damage so it isn't so useful against fleet blobs comparatively.  It has always felt a little out-of-place to me.

[ZaneWolfe]

For the powerslaver, why not give it some form of regen, with the specific point that while it is regening it will attrition its power source. Make it so that it can't regen unless it has at least one ship swallowed, and it makes things even more interesting. Fitting in with its existing theme that it gains power from the things it devours. It uses them to both power its weapons AND keep itself in full repair. (Suddenly Unicron comes to mind, and seeing these as little versions of that monster just makes it funnier) Probably go with a fairly rapid regen rate, and an even higher attrition rate. Maybe a 30 min regen rate with a percent based attrition. So that no matter what it eats, it will kill it off in no more than 15 min. (less would likely work better)