Tier 5 Thoughts

[Archived Post]

People seem to like retrofits.
I can't blame you guys, special abilities = cool
Iconic ships = cool
Together = very cool, in theory

The trouble is that there are still several ships that have been 'left behind'
The Klingons have so far been left totally out, and some of us like the idea of special abilities on the newer ships.

So This is just a general thought/proposal for what tier 5 could become.
No flamezorz if you please, its just some thoughts.

Before we begin, let us define (*) to mean a regular ship and <*> to mean a retrofit.
Let us define retrofit to be either;
1; An older tier ship upgraded to T5 by being given a special ability and expanded capabilities.
2; A T5 ship where some capabilities have been subtracted in order to substitute a special ability.

FEDERATION TIER 5;

<*>Galaxy-R; As now
<*>Defiant-R; As now
<*>Intrepid-R; As now
<*>Excelsior-R; as now, maybe with tweaks

(*)Advanced Escort; As now
<*>Advanced Escort-R; Decreased Sci capabilities (Boffs and/or consoles) but added MVAM

(*)Fleet Escort; As now
<*>Fleet Escort-R; Minus some Eng capabilities (Boffs and/or consoles) but added deployable armor

(*)Star Cruiser; As now
<*>Star Cruiser-R; Decreased Sci capabilities (Boffs and/or consoles) but added a spinal lance phaser (higher refire rate, less powerful than the Gal-X one.)

(*)Assault Cruiser; As now
<*>Assault Cruiser-R; Minus some Eng capabilities (Boffs and/or consoles) but added Corbomite Refractor
(Corbomite refractor reflects all incoming energy fire as a scattered random volley. Does not repel torpedos, decreased shields to 50% during duration)

(*)DSSV; As now
<*>DSSV-R; Decreased Sci capabilities (Boffs and/or consoles) but added Phase Cloak.
(Phase Cloak is a power draining limited time period cloak with a CD.
Phase Cloaked ships are immune to fire while cloaking or decloaking, and may battle cloak, but their subsystems power is extensively drained after a de-activation. CD is 5 minutes)

(*)Recon Sci; As now
<*>Recon Sci-R; decreased Tac capabilities (Boffs and/or consoles) but added gemini effect.
(Makes an exact duplicate of a targeted friendly ship but with -50% resistance, lasts 25 seconds. long CD
duplicate has any of the same damages or debuffs the duplicated ship had at the time, but then becomes independant.)

<*>Nebula-Eng; Decreased agility, but added durability. Has point defense phasers
(shoots down up to 70% of all incoming torpedos to friendlies inside 4k. chance to have less accuracy against HYT or torp spreads.
<*>Nebula-Sci; Increased agility but decreased durability. Has Tachyon Grid.
(works as described in the nebula draft thread)

<*>Akira-R-Esc; Escort Retrofit with chain-reaction pulsar.
(A 'bouncing' torpedo that goes from target to target (up to 5) doing increasing damage each time)
<*>Akira-R-Carr; Light Carrier, carries 1 fighter wing or one repair-pods wing.
(Repair pods go to work on yours and up to 4 nearby friendly ships doing repairs. Repairs double in speed for ships not in combat)

(*)Rhode Island Class; New Sci class ship based on Nova-Stylings, roughly equivalent to Recon sci with a mild tactical specialization

ADDED;
(*)Federation flagship Enterprise Class; Special ship with half universal Boff and console slots.
Meant to fall between escort and cruiser for durability and damage.

KLINGONS TIER 5;

(*)Negh'Var; As now
<*>Negh'Var-Voodieh Variant; Sacrifices durability for mild agility increase and a special in-built cannon sustained fire.
(A CRF like ability, lower fire rate but longer lasting)

(*)Raptor; As now
<*>Raptor-R; Sacrifices some tactical slots, has phase cloak.
(see above for description)

(*)BoP; As now
<*>Chang BoP; can use ALL BoP costumes, has fire-torpedos-while-cloaked ability.
Boff slots not universal to compensate, also 1 less eng console

(*)Carrier; As now
(*)Fehkiri Carrier; As now
ADDED;
<*>Carrier-R; A 'fleet support carrier' that can only equip turrets and torpedoes. Same Boffs, or possibly fewer tac.
Has special ability; 'Rallying Cry' or something of that nature.
Continuously slowly drains Aux, then other subsystem powers.
In exchange all vessels in range receive 2 to 5% buffs to 2 systems at random for the whole time the ability is maintained.

(*)Gorn Cruiser; Like a raptor, but more durable less destructive
(*)Orion Raider; Like a raptor, but more destructive less durable
(*) Naussican Science Ship; True Klingon Sci ship

<*>Vorcha-R; Sacrifices some consoles or Boffs, gains Polaron Torpedo
(disables one random subsystem for 25 seconds. partly countered by eng team)
(*)Stolen Fehkiri Frigate; Akin to the nebula with one universal boff slot. Has point defense as described above.

ADDED;
(*)Klingon Styled Science ship A Sci ship in Klingon styling.
Sacrifices some sci ability for tactical with respect to the Naussican science ship.
<*>Klingon Science Ship-R; Sacrifices some of its tactical punch for the special ability 'Ion Storm'
(fires a torpedo at a target, the torpedo does very little damage but it begins to spew a huge red plasma field around it that applies plasma damage to all ships (friend or foe) inside it.
Less damage to friends however)

ADDED;
(*)Klingon Flagship Class; A Klingon Counterpart to the new Enterprise Class


NOTES:

*All captains would get, once these were all live, the option to turn in any retrofit '<*>' ship they posses already for a special "Retrofit Token" that could be used to purchase any of the new or old retrofits.

*The C-Store would no longer offer individual retrofit purchases but a simple "Purchase Retrofit Token" option, this token could be used to purchase any <*> ship.

*All ships shown here would be purchasable by 500 Emblems or the traditional EC.
(Emblems for <*> EC for (*) )

*Deployable armor for the Intrepid-R and Fleet Escort-R would now have no active time limit, but same or greater CD and same major weapons limitations.
Could also incur some other detriment if absolutely necessary, I just see it as unfair that cloak and saucer sep can last as long as you like, but armor has a silly up-time-to-CD ratio.

[Archived Post]

I like almost all of your suggestions, except the armor on the Intrepid-R. I believe it needs a limited duration, as well as a decnt cooldown.

[Archived Post]

I like almost all of your suggestions, except the armor on the Intrepid-R. I believe it needs a limited duration, as well as a decnt cooldown.

Well, as I stated my thinking is that the armor provides no greater benefit than the other retrofit abilities (possibly less actually than the cloak) yet all the other abilities have an unlimited up-time.

Besides, the armor can be worn down under focus-fire, its not as if someone could sit there forever invincible.
Even if you could, theres no point since you can only fire torpedoes.

If it helps, I was also thinking it could severely debuff Boff recharge time on tactical and sci abilities while its active.
This prevents the fleet Escort-R from spamming too many HYT, and prevents the Intrepid-R from over-spamming sci abilities while under the armor.

EDIT;

As a note, the other nifty thing about this proposal is that it requires minimal model creation or revamp.
The devs would only have to create;
*The Fleet Escort Armored models
*The Naussican Science ship
*Add Spinal Phaser equipped Saucers to the Star Cruiser-R (a visual addition to only one component)
*The Rhode Island, textures mainly as the model itself 'exists' as a combination of components. It just has to be scaled.

*The Nebula is already in development, and the Gorn/Orion ship models already exist.

*Everything else is based on an existing model set.

[Archived Post]

Actually, if you can only fire torps and lose your shields I'd say "why not?". Whats the reason they said they have the limit on it? I know the armor is supposed to have 100% or almost that resistance to all weapons.

[Archived Post]

Actually, if you can only fire torps and lose your shields I'd say "why not?". Whats the reason they said they have the limit on it? I know the armor is supposed to have 100% or almost that resistance to all weapons.

I've never personally seen a stated reason.... :confused:

I know the resistance is actually more like 90%, but I also think I've seen certain debuffs lower it, and certain buffs raise it.
Sufficed to say, I tested the Intrepid retrofit once and have been blown up while under armor due to heavy focus fire, and have participated in blowing one up :rolleyes:

With the right armor consoles and abilities you might manage near invulnerability, or super high resistance for long periods, but its still not an 'iCan't bKilled' button and the 'invulnerability' can't last forever even if the armor can last quite a while.

[Archived Post]

I've never personally seen a stated reason.... :confused:

I know the resistance is actually more like 90%, but I also think I've seen certain debuffs lower it, and certain buffs raise it.
Sufficed to say, I tested the Intrepid retrofit once and have been blown up while under armor due to heavy focus fire, and have participated in blowing one up :rolleyes:

With the right armor consoles and abilities you might manage near invulnerability, or super high resistance for long periods, but its still not an 'iCan't bKilled' button and the 'invulnerability' can't last forever even if the armor can last quite a while.

I think you'd get pretty close to 100% resist if you have a few neutronium armor consoles, lol.

Kinda surprised no one else is in here commenting.

[Archived Post]

I think you'd get pretty close to 100% resist if you have a few neutronium armor consoles, lol.

Kinda surprised no one else is in here commenting.

With all the engineering slots full of Neutronium, it can take the pain down to about 1-3pts per hit, but you're still taking damage. The only thing the armor is good for right now is getting yourself out of the way of trouble...I went in toe-to-toe against a cube, two spheres and six probes and was able to run away when things got tough. Took a lot of damage though... I think the arbitrary limits on things like the armor are just tedious and annoying and do nothing for game balance.

[Archived Post]

I wish each tier had a pool of special abilities.. like perks.. that you could select on your ship.. you could goto ESD any time you wanted and change them up.. new accolades could unlock special abilities..

Hell.. could you imagine a science vessel with an AWAC ability.. it'd give lots of flavour and customization to everyone's ships..

[Archived Post]

I like how it puts the current list of refits into an effort to organize it into a system that is universal. Its a good concept.

I heard some talk about Cryptic letting you pick your desired class from the start of the game and then just getting internal mods to that in-space model through out your leveling process. I'm actually not a fan of that so much, I actually like the ability to try out other designs, models and classes and as long as they have variety, then that is the best of both worlds. (no pun intended) :D

[Archived Post]

Kinda surprised no one else is in here commenting.

You know what I am slowing realizing with that?

If your thread isn't a flame/troll bomb then it doesn't get a hundred replies which doesn't necessarily get a response from a Dev.

It's the like the Dev team have been so pre-conditioned to doing reactive damage control of the forums that the combing that they do in someway doesn't promote or propogate the threads that have more rational discussion with less people responding in that thread rationally, its not fun for the MANY MANY trolls to come to the thread and throw in their flames which again works the thread under the dev radar.

Don't get me wrong, the devs respond to perfectly rational posts and calm discussions at times, but they have to do so much reactive damage control with flaming posts that it seems like these threads don't get the due attention. (Maybe they do but don't necessarily respond - again busy dealing with flames instead)

I rather them be proactive with good ideas that reactive with stupid flame threads.

[Archived Post]

I dunno, I think the Devs are getting increasingly better about being involved in non-damage-control threads.

They could of course be much more involved if they had dedicated forum modding personnel, but thats another issue entirely.

On the topic, I added one more Klingon Ship. :)

[Archived Post]

Keep them coming, and I am here to help keep your thread on Page 1 when I can ;)

[Archived Post]

Added another one.

I've been thinking alot about support ships.
The Klingon Carrier-R and Nebulas are kind of experiments in that dept.

This idea of a ship thats actually geared to enhancing other ships and depends on them for its survival in anything besides a 1v1.
Not just like Sci ships which can be that way if they choose, but dedicated support ships.

Inspiration came from Armada-II Fleetops where support ships can have a huge effect.

The other thing is special abilities.
I like them. Alot. Also an Armada-I and II influence there.

In the Armada games ships are more unique due to their special powers.
I want that feel in this list too... this idea that you can have a basic ship that you can kit-out however you like, or you can sacrifice some options to gain this unique class-only ability.

Nothing would quite top the experience of deploying armor on an escort, or firing Gemini-effect at an ally and duplicating him, or the satisfaction of successfully rigging a tachyon grid with your team-mates....

Imagine being in a Fleet Escort-R with a Recon-Sci-R ally.
The two of us could become, for 25 seconds a pop, 3 ships 2 with deployable armor.
SURPRISE!!! Fun factor incoming.

[Archived Post]

Certainly not a bad way to go. While I'm not a real fan of the current mention of bringing in more really old ships as T5s (and I LOVE the Excelsior, but it shouldn't be T5), bringing up SOME lower tier modern ships to T5 and adding new features is certainly something I'm for. Especially when I hear that the T5 Excelsior is better than a Sovereign, which is just plain silly no matter how you look at it.

I'd like to see how MVAM would work since they would have to add more model data to what we currently have. I don't know if they could really pull it off with all the different Assault Escorts, but it could be cool. Especially since I mainly fly a Prometheus and don't want it to be outdated by older ships. :P

[Archived Post]

I added flagship classes to both sides in lieu of the recent discussion regarding possibly having a new Enterprise.

I do not envision flagships as overpowered or anything, I just envision them as a stab at hybridizing cruiser/escort with the partly universal console/Boff twist.

EG a 'jack of all trades master of none' ship.

[Archived Post]

Dont take this as a troll, but as a read, i started thinking of ST Armada II,

List of ST Armada Abilities listed w/ships they were given
Gemini Effect (Nebula),
Phaser Cloak(Shrike),
Poloron Torpedo(Vor'cha),
Point Defense(Nebula),
Carbonite Reflector(Soverign),
Chain Torpedo(Akira)
Ion Storm(I think?)

Basically, i love the idea, expecially the MVAM, which we all want. I like the Akira Carrier idea, but the Akira Carrier should have 2 Front 2 Back Weapon slots to compensate for its High Manueverability.

[Archived Post]

Dont take this as a troll, but as a read, i started thinking of ST Armada II,


Yes, I was inspired by Armada and am very gung-ho to see those abilities in-game. :)

I realized that trying to just disseminate armor cloak and saucer-sep across a bunch fo ships over and over was silly, so I drew on what is (to my mind) the best database of special abilities in the Star Trek Universe....

Armada :D

PS, Ion Storm was the Klingon Fehklar and the point defense I mentioned was nebula as well.

The phase cloak was actually not shrike inspired, but good catch,
I was thinking of the TNG episode Pegasus, and how that phase cloak was on an Oberth, and how the DSSV is the spiritual successor to the Oberth.

[Archived Post]

Yes, I was inspired by Armada and am very gung-ho to see those abilities in-game. :)

I realized that trying to just disseminate armor cloak and saucer-sep across a bunch fo ships over and over was silly, so I drew on what is (to my mind) the best database of special abilities in the Star Trek Universe....

Armada :D

PS, Ion Storm was the Klingon Fehklar and the point defense I mentioned was nebula as well.

The phase cloak was actually not shrike inspired, but good catch,
I was thinking of the TNG episode Pegasus, and how that phase cloak was on an Oberth, and how the DSSV is the spiritual successor to the Oberth.

I had That episode in mind, but then i remembered the Shrike, might as well.

ST Armada II is what i have, its a great Game, i love building 4 billion Sovvies and killing my enemies

Not. I wish it was more balenced instead, i mean, the best race was the borg, just build 4 or 5 of those super cubes and you pretty much win.

Could there be the Steamrunner's Engine Overload Ability? I liked the ability to screw borg cubes and blast the crap out of them. Then, the game would have more use of the Engines that have Thrusters.

I still want MVAM.

[Archived Post]

Heh some one played armada

[Archived Post]

I love several of these and the prospect of a decent ship with MVAM just might get me out of my Fleet Escort.

[Archived Post]

There are a lot of great Star Trek starship combat games out there. Lots of good material to draw from.

[Archived Post]

Heh some one played armada

Played.... loved.... adored.....
It was an addiction. :p

I'm still trying to figure out how to work in the Premonition class somehow :rolleyes:
Dauntless too.

[Archived Post]

(*)Assault Cruiser; As now
<*>Assault Cruiser-R; Minus some Eng capabilities (Boffs and/or consoles) but added Corbomite Refractor
(Corbomite refractor reflects all incoming energy fire as a scattered random volley. Does not repel torpedos, decreased shields to 50% during duration)

Don't much care for this idea. Your just making this ship a joke. It should keep all its slots and add another eng.Bo slot for a total of 8 eng.powers. And upgrade the ensign tac slot. Give it a total of 5 eng. mod.slots. Make it the VA ship instead of that Galaxy refit. Most of you will hate this but i don't care. The Sovereign ship gets no respect in this game. Specially after the t5 Excelsior was added. And they can never downgrade it because its bought with real money. I don't want anymore ships in the c-store.

[Archived Post]

(*)Assault Cruiser; As now
<*>Assault Cruiser-R; Minus some Eng capabilities (Boffs and/or consoles) but added Corbomite Refractor
(Corbomite refractor reflects all incoming energy fire as a scattered random volley. Does not repel torpedos, decreased shields to 50% during duration)

Don't much care for this idea. Your just making this ship a joke. It should keep all its slots and add another eng.Bo slot for a total of 8 eng.powers. And upgrade the ensign tac slot. Give it a total of 5 eng. mod.slots. Make it the VA ship instead of that Galaxy refit. Most of you will hate this but i don't care. The Sovereign ship gets no respect in this game. Specially after the t5 Excelsior was added. And they can never downgrade it because its bought with real money. I don't want anymore ships in the c-store.

With respect to the idea, its very unlikely this sort of thing will happen without major reorganization of *all* or at least all T5 ship Boff arrangements.

To be fair, thats been hinted at after the excelsior so who knows....
We may be in for a large-scale rework period. But thats not the point here.

But just for the Sov or its R alone?
Sorry but I strongly disagree.
Sovereign is a solid respectable ship. I know, I have fought them plenty of times.

Also, tell me how the ability to directly relfect 100% of incoming energy fire is a 'joke'?
Activating this puppy would cause any un-attentive escort to snuff itself out in seconds.
With its own fire.

That doesn't seem funny to me.

Although it might to the Sov's captain. :rolleyes:

All other points aside, the R's I'm suggesting are meant to have special abilities.
They are, in theory, not supposed to be better in any way than their non-R counterpart... merely they are supposed to accomplish their goals and roles in a different fashion via a special ability.

The idea is to create variety both in opponents and in your own arsenal choices.

Also, to look cool.