From the looks of our actual numbers testing, without a LOT of good healing and power expenditure and dodging an empath will have serious trouble keeping up with one turret (albeit with starburst), let alone 3.

(N.B Testing not being crap not guaranteed.)

Well, preliminary results indicate that a starburst turret does 600 damage to the hull when successful, and the shield is down. If combateers can disable the shield temporarily, or use a power skill to disable the module, the ship is nearly going to die instantly.

It also takes around 20 empath balances to heal a completely broken module back to full (although with a power skill to repair a module that may help).

Since there doesn't seem to be much interest in the Recovery skill for Empath, how about we ditch that idea and replace with:

Syntax: GRID LIFELINE
Ship Power: 10
As empath, you may establish a lifeline between a passenger or crewmember aboard the ship and with the ship itself. So long as the ship is docked on the same plane as the person with a lifeline (or that person is aboard the ship), that person will conglutinate at the ship's empathic grid (irregardless if he or she has the conglutination skill). Lifelines last until used or until the ship implodes (at which time all lifelines are cut).

(Yeah, I know I said I'd avoid the forums, but these ideas are too important.)

The only problem I see with that is the following. What is somebody raids the ship via a ram? Then you have an instant way to come right back to the fight. Even if it's only one time, that could make what I believe the players want--some mano-a-mano pirating, impossible. (Even without runed protections, it's already going to be hell with a demesne.

but I liked the idea of the recovery skill...

I like lifeline a lot more than recovery... but it seems to me that it will just enable conglut EVERYWHERE. My empath lifelines me to the ship.. we dock at Magnagora.. I go and raid on Prime, knowing that if I die, I won't have to pray... And I don't like that idea much.. perhaps a Lifeline that doesn't work on prime?

I like the idea that we conglut to our ship if we're docked somewhere in aetherspace, but if you die while on someone else's ship, you do not.

So far, I love all the Ideas. Recovery isn't too big a deal... And as for navigation, once you get a handle on what Aetherspace looks like, its not that hard to navigate through it.

A couple things on whats been said first:
The turret to empath/comander is going to be rough in SvS combat, but this will inherently give smaller ships an advantage because they'll be able to hit and run on bigger ships, basically harrasing them. The empath of the smaller ship would have to stay on the ball really well because of such low Hull strength, while the larger ship would only get a limited chance of shooting at the smaller vessel. I think the one empath is enough to keep a ship healed, its the commanders responsibility with their skills to give the empath enough unharrassed time to heal the ship back to full. (IE: Its a team effort, not just one crew member trying to save the ship.) At the same time all the healing is going on, you have to remember that your own turrets are letting loose on the enemy ship, causing them all forms of annoyance. So I think it balances out quite well.

I dislike the power costs for the skills, but I understand the reason behind it. Its just going to make captaining a rogue ship more complicated.

I don't think the ships need any navigation skill outside of maybe a captain ability to keep track of map coordinates on prime in relation to the ships home dock. all the skills for finding the nearest dock, in my oppinion are a waste, as an experienced captain will know their way around. Its just a matter of getting out and learning the land... Er... Space...

The lifeline I think is a very good idea. I don't like the idea of going to a bubble with my ship, getting off, hunting, dieing, and being stuck back on prime with my ship out in the aether.

I think in large scale SvS battles, it should not be a no-loss battle. Most professional crews are going to have conglute or vitae, the ship is going to loose all its power if its destroyed anyway. Hence, I think the SvS system looks about right.

Turrets desperately need ranged targetting.


Now for things I'd like to add:
I think either the Commander, or Empath need a skill to do a sweep of the surrounding area... about 20 marks out... to scan for Aetherships. In combat, that skill would help in reaquireing a target if they get out of map range. (Do ships your in combat with show up on the Nav map?)

I think there should be a Diamonut for Empath healing balance if theres one for turrets.

I like the idea of mines, but it should be more of a charged thing. For instance, each mine costs 5 power to make, and you can store like three in each turret. When you get to a position you want to drop them, you can cast them in a certain direction, with the mines targetting specific ships (So they don't hit just randomly passing vessels). The mines would then decay at a certain speed depending on what kind of Aetherspace they're in. Also, the mines could be made to cause certain ship afflictions, or act in a wider radius for an extra amount of power, this would aide larger ships in running from smaller faster ships.

I think the Admins don't like this idea, but I still think Aethership Carriers would be cool.

There should be a skill... Probably in combateer, or else empath to aide in siphoning from vortexes. Making it so they stay stable longer, or draw power faster.

The ship prompt needs a way of repeating the last message sent on Shipt. I have it set as a couple triggers right now, but its just a patch... I think everyone will need this if any communication is expected.

I think thats all...

How about adding a skill in either unspecialized or in all skills saying that if you own the ship, you can summon it to the aetherplex..? 15 ship power?

I thought it was ship power Suhnaye, not personal power. Ship power would be fine for you, since you can not only use your reserves, but you can drain a vortex as well.

Would it be possible to "Bamf" to a docked syncronized ship?

How about a skill in empathy that allows you to heal a module if you're in the same room as it, dont have to be locked into a empathic module and it would be like repairing the certain module. Just say the empathic grid or commanding module was blown up the/an empath could fix it in a certain amount of time using specialised skills. So it could be useful having more then 1 empath around on a ship but it wouldnt make a huge difference as you wouldnt be able to heal all afflictions given by the ship as some are technical and in the actual ships mainframe hence having to be fixed through a module linked to the ship. But some physical afflictions could be fixed by repairing the part of the ship away from the actual module.

My personal opinion is that this is, again, a very weak trans skill, and that there are more than enough skills in the game already to prevent experience loss.

I'm open to new ideas! Bring them on!

What about something like..

Syntax: GRID PARASITE
Ship Power: 10
An empath has the ability to alter their usual ability to channel, creating a short-term parasitic link with an enemy ship. For a certain period of time, the targeted ship is forcibly synchronized with the empath's ship, and there is a 50% chance that empathic repairs/cures used by the target ship will intead effect your own hull and modules rather than theirs.

Update including some new skills (in all caps).

I'm still up in the air with the trans empath skill. I think we can use another 1-2 commander skills.

CODE

Commander Skill List

You have gained the following abilities in Commander:
Command            Decrease balance of command module
Distribution       Distribute extra power to modules
Trail              Follow a ship without its permission
Spinning           Spin the ship to help prevent ramming (POWER 3)
Shadow             Prevent a ship from moving away
WIDESCREEN         Increase range of display at cost of speed
Maneuver           Maneuver past a shadowing ship
SLUICE             Quickly slip away  on the aetherways (POWER 2/room)
Bamf               Teleport ship to buoy or synchronized ship (POWER 10)
Rolling            Roll your ship to decrease chance to be hit (POWER 3)
Block              Block entrance to a dock or rift
Evade              Break away from a trailing ship (POWER 1)
Spiral             Prevent all hits for a limited time (POWER 10)

Combateer Skill List

You have gained the following abilities in Combateer:
Turret             Decrease balance of battle turret
Strip              Temporarily strip a shield (POWER 3)
Repulse            Push away a ship or aetherbeast
FARTARGET          Target a ship or beast from afar
Murkle             Disrupt one module on an enemy ship (POWER 1)
Sludge             Temporarily slow movement of a ship
POWERMINE          Lay a mine that damages a ship or beast (POWER 3)
Worble             Cause aeon-like effect on one module (POWER 1)
Siphon             Siphon energy from a shieldless enemy ship
Marmuckle          Disrupt all modules on enemy ship (POWER 5)
Shock              Briefly paralyze ship or aetherbeast
SHOCKMINE          Lay a mine that shocks a ship or beast (POWER 8)
Marwurble          Cause aeon-like effect on all modules (POWER 5)
Ultraviolet        Blow up modules on enemy ship (POWER 10)

Empath Skill List

You have gained the following abilities in Empath:
Grid               Decrease balance of empathic grid
Analyze            Analyze other ships or aetherbeasts
Channel            Hail another ship and open a channel
AWAYTEAM           Form a channel that expands to aetherbubbles
Clarity            Unfreeze any module or clear an ailment
Scan               Find all non-cloaked ships in same environment
Flare              Send a signal to all nearby empaths (POWER 3)
Static             Block communication in a 9 room radius (POWER 3)
Buoy               Drop a temporary buoy in aetherspace (POWER 10)
Feedback           Damage ships who try to hail you
PARASITE           Synchronize with a ship against their will (POWER 10)
Synchronize        Synchronize two ships to always stay in touch
Regenerate         Regenerate blown up modules (POWER 5)
Powersurge         Clear all ship ailments (POWER 10)
LIFELINE           Conglutinate those on same non-prime plane (POWER 10)

As a non-specialized skill in Aethercraft, could we have hide, or something similar? So that if the ship is undamaged and drifting in empty space, you can camouflage it... meaning that monsters won't attack it, but other ships still can?

The reason is that there are times when I need to quickly go afk for a minute or so (the phone rings, someone is at the door, etc), and you can't do this AT ALL while piloting. It takes an average of 15 min to return to a dock, and if you sit for longer than around 6 or so seconds, you are swarmed. I get that its meant to be an intense experience while you're doing it, but its really tough as a player.

Yay! Estarra liked my idea!

The reason I had added the chance to steal healing was because I was offering it as a replacement for the trans less-xp skills that people don't seem to like. But just the forced Synchronize is awesome.

That's one thing I was worried about - people just being able to bamf away and the fight being over.

This makes for a happy lady.

Estarra

Woo, my ideas were liked!

Awayteam seems like a useful skill, but I have one worry - who can be linked? Can you link, say, your entire commune on Prime while docked there? And then move to an aetherbubble and link everyone there? In essence, use the ship as a global channel? During group efforts, like village influencing, can you link, say, all Celestians and all Serenwilders on prime so they have a shared channel?

I'm not sure if this is a bad thing, come to think of it, but it might not be what you had intended...

---------

Possible Commander skills:

Syntax: PILOT ORBIT (ship) TO GUARD (module)
Ship Power: 3
By circling around an enemy vessel you are able to keep the same side of the hull facing their weaponry, shielding one module from attack for a short time. Note that blasts which are dissipated by your shield will still damage the orb, even if it cannot be targetted directly.

Syntax: PILOT TRACK (target)
After an empath has been able to lock on to a desired ship, creature or dock in the same plane, you will be able to steer slowly in that direction. Each tracking movement that you make is twice as slow as normal ship travel.