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How about an Empath skill that healed much more than normal, but costed power? A tripleheal for 6-8 power? A full heal for 10 power?

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An Empath skill that costs more than normal balance to restore balance to all other modules?

hm.. Commander skill..

Syntax: PILOT IMMERSE
Ship Power: 0
By immersing the ship within a vortex, the ship is able to siphon more power per use of an energy collection. Being within the maelstrom also protects from aether beasts, however being in the midst of it will slowly damage all modules and increases the chances of being drawn in and ejected somewhere else in aetherspace.

I'd like an empath skill that gives them something more to do in PvE than GRID REPAIR HULL.

(Assuming analyze is just assess against a creature)

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Hmm, a trans empath skill.... How about a skill to make your ship appear to be an aetherbeast for a period of time? It appears as a ! on the map, and when you're in the same room, and when it moves, but it is targetted as per normal, and shows up on either SCAN or SHIP LOOK INFO?



How about instead of the chance you're drawn in, you have to PILOT EMERGE before you can move, and it takes relatively long balance to both immerse and emerge? Something to encourage people to sit at vortexes and kill the stuff that emerges from linking instead of linking, running, waiting for stuff to follow, running back and linking more, etc?



Like restoring balance to other modules

(Ship): You say, "Engage the doomsday device!"
(Ship): Gunner says, "Disabling shields!"
(Ship): Gunna says, "Firing!"
(Ship): Gunmanner says, "Firing!"
(Ship): Empath says, "Restoring balance!"
(Ship): Gunner says, "Firing again!"
(Ship): Gunna says, "Firing again!"
(Ship): Gunmanner says, "Target destroyed."

Do we really need TrueHeal for ships?

I might be missing something, but what is the intent of feedback? Will channels go through without permission from the target empath, and this is to discourage spamming? Or would it be used to indicate that a ship passing through an area has hostile intent?

It could work as a pre-emptive strike. You set it up, knowing that you're aggresive. They open a channel to be friendly and tell you they mean no harm, and wham, they're hit and you start off with an advantage in the fight

But assuming that eventually you'll be able to tell which ships are which from a distance (ie, SCAN), you're going to know if they are an enemy vessel anyway.

Even if you didn't, why not just open a channel from a good enough distance so that you can be healed up before they arrive?

I guess that's the thing... I don't automatically assume people from opposing orgs are going to attack me for no reason when i'm strolling on the highways. Even if they are from an enemy city, I don't automatically assume they're going to attack. I wonder, and I act friendly and polite to gague the situation. Now imagine of there was a skill that did damage to anyone who inclined their head towards you That would be the equivilent of what I see feedback as.

A better analogy would be a skill that did damage to anyone sending you a tell. I might not expect other organization ships (although I said enemies) to attack randomly, but I'm not going to start up a conversation with them for the sake of it either.

In effect, I suspect it will be more like snubbing than anything else.

Edit: Actually it sounds as if hailing was meant to have more of a tangible effect in combat in one draft, so that blocking those attempts would be worthwhile. But I don't think any of the specialization skills use channels other than for communication.

Imagine using it in group combat... you'd be a liability to your own armada.

Armadas don't use the "Channel" ability. They use shipat, which is different.

True, so at least you wouldn't be a liability. I still don't really understand what its purpose is.

Maybe Feedback could prevent Parasite?

A couple suggestions, other than adding to Sidra's previous suggestion on feedback I don't -think- any of these have been mentioned yet.

Empath - Feedback could give return damage on parasite and trail attempts as well as make the attempt fail, maybe give a (50%?) chance of fartarget failing as well as any other distance attacks that may come in. Or maybe that'd be better as a separate trans/close to trans skill.

Empath - In addition to being able to do one-time scans of the area... SCANNING ON/OFF: Maintain a continuous scan over adjacent rooms for ship movement. Not prevented by the cloaking arti but is prevented by static (?).

Commander or Empath - a way to give an alert when the ship is targetted (either with fartarget or regular target). Prevented by static maybe.

Commander - some kind of temporary cloaking ability? Just to last 20 seconds or so, enough for you to activate it and zip out of a suspicious ship's scan radius.

Having this would completely negate the ship sync & remote buoy skills combined with the ship teleport skill. They use power, and get the job done instantly. This way would just be a slow auto-pilot, not costing power, so the other skills would hardly be used at all.

Heh, I'm not so sure.

It takes me around 15min to get to most bubbles, 20min to get to a planar gate. I'd happily pay power to return home instantly, rather than a slow 30-40min cruise back.

I suppose it won't be necessary soon anyway, because it will be harder to get lost.

Ok, so why put in a skill you just admited you'd never use?


Edit:oh and on a 30-40 minute cruise, you'd end up draining 5-7 power just from the normal operation drain.(Bamf takes 10p)

Unless this auto-pilot was placed right after Command and before Distribution (to afford lower skill rank people who might not have Bamf some form of directional travel) It wouldn't be practical.

Another empath skill:

Syntax: GRID SIREN (creature)
Ship Power: 0
The alluring call of an algontherine's song can temporarily induce a hostile entity to begin defending the aethercraft from other attacks. The siren's song is not always effective, and is dependant on the empath's proficiency and the inherent will of the creature targetted, often taking many attempts to complete the seduction. If successful, the creature will begin trailing the ship for a short time, and strike at any entity which harms your algontherine. It can be used from adjacent locations.

I'm not giving up!

Edit: As in, if the empath hits it enough times with the ability (with the amount dependent on the strength of the creature), it can become 'loyal'. For say, 10 minutes, every time another creature hits the hull, the loyal creature will strike it, dealing the same damage it would normally deal to a ship.

Ok, its not great... but I really, really want empaths having something strategic to do other than repeating a single command over, and over, and over again in PvE.

That sounds a bit strong. I could easily see a skill that just pacifies a creature, though, like nymph.