More The Last Federation Info Coming Up! Plus Combat Teaser #1

[x4000]

Yep, I think right now it's too speculative for most folks to really comment much, honestly.

I will say this: your flagship does gain more squadrons as time goes on, and like I said you can swap in other enemy flagships for yours in some cases.

But overall, having every ship be "interesting" is not really a goal here.  I mean, there are the ships you use, and then the thing you protect.  In the traditional RTS sense, your flagship here is just a mobile town center that has some better weaponry than usual, and rechargeable personal shields.  Your actual units are something else, and you get to customize those via pilots, deployment order, and actual tactics of using them, etc.

You never know what we might do, and particularly if this takes off and becomes expansion-worthy then I'm sure we will be adding all sorts of cool things.  Ground combat and possibly ship-boarding combat are at the top of my list for a first expansion if we get to that point here.  Adding more long-term depth in terms of getting 100s of hours out of the game is one of those things that comes with time and expansions. 

Right now I think you will find that there is already a huge amount of variety, but I suppose we'll see what you think when you have your hands on it.  I'm open to dissenting opinions on it, but right now it's just so speculative.

[Tridus]

I'd really love an RPG style flagship upgrade element. Here's some ideas for upgrade lines, bearing in mind that I haven't played the game and thus some of it may not be relevant (the idea is that you wouldn't be able to get everything in a game, so you'd have to choose upgrades):

1. Carrier
- Increase ship deployment speed 10/20/30%
- Increase fleet repair speed between battles (by some amount)
- After battle, automatially replace 1 destroyed ship up to (fighter/small ship/medium ship) size
- Increase maximum fleet size

2. Diplomats
- Add propaganda specialist to your flagship, increasing bargaining points gained from combat victory
- Mercenary Contact - Can spend BP to add bonus merceary ships to your next combat
- Special Envoy - Create quarters on your flagship for an envoy from (1/2/3) races, granting a permanent relations boost. Once selected, the envoy choice cannot be changed

3. Combat (for those who want a more active flagship)
- Add long range missile launchers to your flagship, allowing it to deal direct damage in combat
- Add extra shield generators to your flagship, increasing its defense
- Convert 10/20/30% of hangar space on your flagship to combat quarters, greatly increasing offense and defense but reducing fleet size
- Fleet Shields - Once per combat, negates all damage against your fleet for 10 seconds

I have no idea if any of that fits at all, but general idea is one I find pretty exciting. Maybe it's totally unnecessary, I guess we'll see in testing.

[x4000]

A lot of that stuff is already done in various ways.

1.
- Deployment speeds are improved on some flagship models.
- Fleet size goes up with your fleet tech level.
- Ship repairs don't really work like that.

2.
- Bargaining Power gains are a flat sort of thing, but based on the pilots you hire, you wind up having to pay them a commission on that.  So it's kind of the opposite of the same idea you have.
- Mercenary contact could be interesting, but it seems like it would be extremely exploitable if not balanced really carefully.  If it were to work, that would be expansion material just because of the testing time.
- Boosting relations with a race permanently would be pretty odd to do in this way, once you get more familiar with the metagame aspects.  There are loads and loads of ways to impact that elsewhere.

3.
- The various types of flagships have all sorts of varied weaponry, so you can indeed choose which you want.
- Same deal in terms of shielding power.
- That's an interesting idea, although the fleet size is based on fleet level, so that would be a challenge to shoehorn in.  But having some different squadron types of "onboard guns" or something might make that sort of thing possible in the future.
- Given the speed of combat, fleet shields would be absolutely devastating.  You could wipe out half the enemy forces in that time if you timed it right.


Anyway, I think a lot of what you are already looking for is there.

[KDR_11k]

Couldn't Thoraxians have hive princesses (young queens that haven't found a planet to build their hive on) that could take on merc or pirate jobs? Could perhaps even have mechanisms like charging a flat fee regardless of how many squadrons are under her control.

[x4000]

They could, I'm sure, but that just pushes them back toward genericness, I think.  Having differences between the races versus trying to invent ways to make them the same is my preference. 

[nas1m]

They could, I'm sure, but that just pushes them back toward genericness, I think.  Having differences between the races versus trying to invent ways to make them the same is my preference. 

Hear, hear! Seconded .