Xavius2007-04-01 23:53:54
Idea for an aethercraft module!
Aetherdock miniatures, either an expensive gold purchase or a low-moderate artifact purchase, would allow one ship that is both 1) at least one room smaller than the ship with the dock, and 2) no greater than five rooms in size, to be carried on the ship with the dock. You could enter the ship from the dock if the fulcrux permissions allow you to enter. The ship itself is protected from all attacks, does not lose power, but will implode if the mothership implodes. Module permissions would be for ships, not players. Multiple docks can be put on a ship, but total docked ship size must remain one room less than the mothership's size.
The idea is to allow small ships to launch surprise attacks, or possibly, give Deepnight and the cheap Deepnight imitations some more appeal.
Aetherdock miniatures, either an expensive gold purchase or a low-moderate artifact purchase, would allow one ship that is both 1) at least one room smaller than the ship with the dock, and 2) no greater than five rooms in size, to be carried on the ship with the dock. You could enter the ship from the dock if the fulcrux permissions allow you to enter. The ship itself is protected from all attacks, does not lose power, but will implode if the mothership implodes. Module permissions would be for ships, not players. Multiple docks can be put on a ship, but total docked ship size must remain one room less than the mothership's size.
The idea is to allow small ships to launch surprise attacks, or possibly, give Deepnight and the cheap Deepnight imitations some more appeal.
Daganev2007-04-02 00:22:23
nice idea.
Vaerhon2007-04-02 00:42:22
Why not go further?
Require fighters to be single room ships, one fighter per dock. Allow someone to lock into the dock, while the fighter is in dock, to repair it and rearm it. Allow the fighter to do a limited number of offensive actions using command balance. Fighters would have a different or altered command chair - probably by installing or removing some kind of diamonut. No shield, no grid, no cloak, no collector - nothing but the pilot.
ETA:(On reflection, it would be much simpler to have the fighter bay include the fighter, rather than permitting other aetherships to dock.)
Three types of offensive actions - locking onto a target, a turret equivalent, but much, much weaker and significantly faster which can only be conducted in the same room as the target, and a long range attack with limited ammunition comparable (ETA:in damage) to a turret attack. Alternatively, forget the ammunition and make it cost power.
Also, fighters would only have, say, 20 power. Limited range, and would have to return to the carrier to refuel. Let them survive destruction of the mothership... pick the fuel limitations right, and a fighter would require a fair bit of luck to ditch before destruction, which is just fine.
Mine damage would have to scale to maximum hull strength, or a minefield capable of deterring a ship would simply annihilate a fighter. Alternatively, fighters might be small enough to evade ruptures.
Downsides, potentially major.
Right now, aetherspace is a place where numbers matter much less than they do normally. Add in fighters and that could change.
ETA:
Integrating the specializations is worth doing.
So -
Empath. Passive screech gives a miss chance on the fighter 'missiles', which should have a delay between launch and impact with an alert to the target's empath on launch, active screech gives a bigger one. Empaths should have to decide between coordinating their own fighters/armada and working ECM, and between more effective jamming and healing.
Combateer - Flak. Put it relatively low in the specialization with balance half that of firing, and let it be a room attack doing roughly 125 damage to ships in that room or adjacent rooms. As I recall, single room ships have 350 health. No fighter should survive a full battery being committed to antifighter work, and this gives turrets a way to lock onto the carrier but still take on anti-fighter role. They can still lock onto the fighters, too, but that should be a wasteful distraction if you are engaging multiple fighters and a ship. Fighters would have to close to melee to use non-power attacks and attacks which cannot be evaded, so it should see some use.
Commander - Give spin and spiral chances to evade fighter fire, higher chances against 'missiles'.
More general thoughts -
Let fighters only be able to use their 'melee' attack on ships that were in the room when they entered. I know the system keeps track of it to permit hunters to keep on doing kick gorgog and not accidentally hit the one who just walked in, and this (hopefully) simple fix would force dogfights to be twisting chases instead of slugfests, while giving pilots another anti-fighter tactic (leave and come back. Incidentally, this would be why I conceived of flack as hitting adjacent rooms - to let the crew work together, instead of at cross purposes.)
Targeting. This is an existing problem which would be exacerbated by adding fighters. Proposed solution: take a leaf from the modern military's book and implement IFF. Pilots set IFF to a word, phrase, number, or some such for a moderate command balance. Thereafter, let turret target ship or turret target fighter (and the fighter equivalents) target a nearby ship or fighter with different IFF. Targeting friendlies by name would still be possible for training or innovative counter-boarding tactics, and if a spy got ahold of the IFF in time, confusion should ensue.
Require fighters to be single room ships, one fighter per dock. Allow someone to lock into the dock, while the fighter is in dock, to repair it and rearm it. Allow the fighter to do a limited number of offensive actions using command balance. Fighters would have a different or altered command chair - probably by installing or removing some kind of diamonut. No shield, no grid, no cloak, no collector - nothing but the pilot.
ETA:(On reflection, it would be much simpler to have the fighter bay include the fighter, rather than permitting other aetherships to dock.)
Three types of offensive actions - locking onto a target, a turret equivalent, but much, much weaker and significantly faster which can only be conducted in the same room as the target, and a long range attack with limited ammunition comparable (ETA:in damage) to a turret attack. Alternatively, forget the ammunition and make it cost power.
Also, fighters would only have, say, 20 power. Limited range, and would have to return to the carrier to refuel. Let them survive destruction of the mothership... pick the fuel limitations right, and a fighter would require a fair bit of luck to ditch before destruction, which is just fine.
Mine damage would have to scale to maximum hull strength, or a minefield capable of deterring a ship would simply annihilate a fighter. Alternatively, fighters might be small enough to evade ruptures.
Downsides, potentially major.
Right now, aetherspace is a place where numbers matter much less than they do normally. Add in fighters and that could change.
ETA:
Integrating the specializations is worth doing.
So -
Empath. Passive screech gives a miss chance on the fighter 'missiles', which should have a delay between launch and impact with an alert to the target's empath on launch, active screech gives a bigger one. Empaths should have to decide between coordinating their own fighters/armada and working ECM, and between more effective jamming and healing.
Combateer - Flak. Put it relatively low in the specialization with balance half that of firing, and let it be a room attack doing roughly 125 damage to ships in that room or adjacent rooms. As I recall, single room ships have 350 health. No fighter should survive a full battery being committed to antifighter work, and this gives turrets a way to lock onto the carrier but still take on anti-fighter role. They can still lock onto the fighters, too, but that should be a wasteful distraction if you are engaging multiple fighters and a ship. Fighters would have to close to melee to use non-power attacks and attacks which cannot be evaded, so it should see some use.
Commander - Give spin and spiral chances to evade fighter fire, higher chances against 'missiles'.
More general thoughts -
Let fighters only be able to use their 'melee' attack on ships that were in the room when they entered. I know the system keeps track of it to permit hunters to keep on doing kick gorgog and not accidentally hit the one who just walked in, and this (hopefully) simple fix would force dogfights to be twisting chases instead of slugfests, while giving pilots another anti-fighter tactic (leave and come back. Incidentally, this would be why I conceived of flack as hitting adjacent rooms - to let the crew work together, instead of at cross purposes.)
Targeting. This is an existing problem which would be exacerbated by adding fighters. Proposed solution: take a leaf from the modern military's book and implement IFF. Pilots set IFF to a word, phrase, number, or some such for a moderate command balance. Thereafter, let turret target ship or turret target fighter (and the fighter equivalents) target a nearby ship or fighter with different IFF. Targeting friendlies by name would still be possible for training or innovative counter-boarding tactics, and if a spy got ahold of the IFF in time, confusion should ensue.
