Honestly, that bit of this proposal is the top Question Mark in all of this. We don't yet have a solid technical solution. What is mentioned above is what we would like to happen: If you have Dispersal III in a Commander slot, it will become Torpedo III in a Lt Comm slot.

What happens to the existing Lt Comm power? That's something we haven't actually addressed yet internally. Ideally, no player will lose anything with this transition.

@borticuscryptic


TBH its not the updated effects its more of how your proposing to remove the dispersal patterns. Where as I have b'rel setups that use HY's and Disperal Patterns where as if you merge those skills it'll be frustrating having to fix something that isn't broken.

In retrospect it has to deal with how a player goes out and "Plays it smart" but they are not horrible its just people do not proactively seek out how to make them work properly. Myself in a brel with plasma mines I can handle probes in elite so that can tell you right now that they work fine...

Also the rolling you speak of will just destroy a lot of my boffs in the action of it which was something you might not have considered along with it crippling my brel setups.

Anything going to happen to my ferengi mines? Or does that energy type stay the same?

I would like to see nothing happen to the existing Lt. Comm. power but you get your BOFF XP back from the loss of the Commander skill. I would find it very aggravating if I had to go through all my tactical BOFFs and re-choose the Lt. Comm. skill I had, then re-level it.

I know for many of us at endgame we have plenty of BOFF points but we would need to think of those level toons.

Ah, I see. You're concerned that linking the two means you have to choose to launch EITHER an enhanced Mine -or- an enhanced Torpedo, while under the existing system you can launch both back-to-back. Is that what I'm understanding?

I'll definitely keep that in mind. As I said previously, we want to try and ensure that existing players only gain from this, not lose. That includes tactical options like you are describing.

Yeah its not the changes in effect its the ability where I can fire a TSP3/HY3 and Dispersal Pattern 3 at once where as proposed changes make it where it nullifies that and converts boffs into where I need to redo them all again just to adapt and weaken the setup.

The one difference I would explain in how the disperal alpha isn't really good though. It just creates a little diamond behind you and if you do 3 it makes 2 of them but isn't as good as Beta.

TBH though to make the mines cooler and more canon is the effects do not bother me that were proposed but some of them need to have specific fed or kdf touches to them like the self replicating ones from DS9 and something specific for Klingon that doesn't make a gaudy purple look like a hargh peng lol.

The other thing though is for people who do not know how to use mines that cd is very excessive on the mines usually because they have nothing powering the offense of the mines they wouldn't do much but for my brel setups my mines do more damage than most peoples torpedoes.

Edit: The thing I was still wondering about setups where if it were merged what would we do with out Commander Ranked skills when it comes to all projectile setups where there would be none at all to use?

As someone who uses mines on 2 out of 8 characters, I welcome these changes, especially streamlining the powers into a combined Torpedo/Mine skill.

As noted previously, the concern about not being able to use an enhanced torpedo and an enhanced mine back to back is valid.

I'm not sure what could be an effective solution - make it give you two buffs, one for mines, one for torpedoes, so you could use an enhanced torpedo and mine off the same activation? Would that be too powerful though? It doesn't seem like an ideal solution, but I'm not sure what would be a better one if it's keyed off a single ability.

Another minor one would be that by dropping the tier, you can actually fit less related powers - for example, I currently use a commander dispersal pattern, as well as 3 torpedo skills (1 spread, 2 high yields). With them being the same skills, I would potentially lose out on one use. On the other hand, freeing up my commander slot for something else makes me pretty happy, so this is something I'd be willing to 'lose out' on in the trade.

As for the increased effects, I'm happy with those. Some people brought up concerns about their power and potential unfun-ness in PVP but unlike Chroniton Torpedos, and certain BO abilities, it's a lot easier to deal with mines proactively, either by avoiding them, or shooting them first, that I doubt it will really be that much of an issue for skilled players.

Overall, I feel that this general direction for mines is a good one, and I'm looking forward to seeing these changes on the servers at some point.

I tried using Tricobalt Mines ages ago, so I apologize if the following is outdated and wrong:

Tricobalt mine launchers only launch a single mine. I mean, if you drop a mine then come back to the same location 60 seconds later to drop another, there's a chance of multiple spawning... but I doubt that would happen.

While we're talking Tricobalt, could you remove the shared cooldown that Tricobalt Mines have with Tricobalt Torpedoes? In addition to being annoying, it is internally inconsistent with other mine/torp interactions. With the long activation time on TricoMines, there is really no reason at all to use one over a TricoTorp.


Could you grant Torp skills with a lesser version of Dispersal skills but buff and keep the Dispersal skills?

For example-

Currently:
Dispersal Pattern Alpha upgrades attack to launch two clusters of mines

Revamp:
High Yield upgrades attack to launch two clusters of mines
Dispersal Pattern Alpha launches two clusters of mines and increases threat generation
Spread upgrades to launch a big net
Dispersal Beta launches a big net and increases mine damage

This would allow use of both as well as make Dispersal patterns more worthwhile for taking up a higher ranked BrO slot.