Dev News: April

[Highland Laddie]

- Healing guns for the repair ship. While the items will be in the files, they will be released when the FLHook code for it is ready.

I think Carriers should use these healing guns too but more powerfull only for battleship repairs.

Carriers have their own defined role. With bot trading now gone, the Repair Ship has no role. So, giving the healing guns only to the repair ship helps make it unique and useful again. You give that option to other ships (especially capships) and nobody is going to use the Repair Ship.

[Lythrilux]

Personally I don't see why both a cloak disruption ability and a jumping disruption ability can't just be placed into the cruise disruptor.

Because that kinda makes the CD an OP tool. I'd personally rather have people actually have to make tactical decisions about what load outs they bring to the table instead of just having a 1-weapon-beats-all option.

The big problem is though is that Jump Drives and Cloaks can be used in any combat situation. They have the universal purpose of allowing the user to escape from fights and there's no real harm in equipping them as a backup plan to escape. Whereas because cloaks and jump drives are expensive (and god forbid if these disruptors become expensive) these disruptors are going to have very niche use. Think about it. How many cloaked ships or ships with jump drives do you see on an average raid? Not many.

People are going to be needlessly sacrificing aspects of their loadouts for items which will only have a use 1/10 of the time, whereas cloakers and jumpers don't really have to sacrifice anything meaningful.

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[Mao]

My two cents

Issue #1 - Usage of cloaking devices and what a cloaking disruptor would do.

A. Snub craft (fighters, bombers, GBs - yes, I included them here)

1. Offensive uses: No influence.
a) Cloaked pirate follows a target for a short time and uncloaks when the surroundings are clear for the piracy act and the target can't escape;
b) Ship or group of ships cloaks prior to engaging an enemy force revealing themselves when it is too late for the enemy to escape;
c) Trap setting. A ships lures the enemy into a zone where a group of cloaked allies awaits.
d) A cloaked scout is observing the enemy forces.

2. Defensive uses:
a) A ship cloaks when engaged by a superior enemy; Unable to cloak, rendering the cloaking device useless.
b) A ship cloaks from a fight because it lost all its bots/bats; Unable to cloak, rendering the cloaking device useless.
c) A ship cloaks before jumping to avoid possible enemies on the other side (no idea if this one works) No influence.

B. Capital ships (Cruisers, Destroyers, Battleships, Carriers, Dreadnoughts)

1. Offensive uses: No influence.
a) Ship or group of cloaked ships engages the unaware enemy ship/s gaining the element of surprise;
b) Ship cloaks prior to launching its fighter wing.

2. Defensive uses:
a) A ship cloaks when engaged by a superior enemy; Unable to cloak, rendering the cloaking device useless.
b) A ship cloaks before jumping to avoid possible enemies on the other side (no idea if this one works) No influence.

As you can see, the defensive capabilities of the cloaking devices are close to none if the cloaking disruptor will become a part of the game.

Issue #2 - Balancing

Plan A
1. Cloak Disruptor should use ammo.
2. The amount of ammo should be very limited (5 to 10 pieces).
3. Both the disruptor and the ammo for it should be created on POBs.
4. Allow the Cloak Disruptor to be mounted only on the CD slot. (That way, this device will only be viable in groups or on ships that can mount 2 CDs)
5. Cooldown between shots should be long enough, granting only one chance at disrupting. (Considering that the target already has its shields down, you should have the time to finish it before it attempts to cloak again)
6. Cooldown of the cloaking device after being shot by a disruptor should be 15 seconds max.

Plan B - I favor this one
1. Cloak Disruptor should be a type of mine launcher.
2. Both the disruptor and the ammo for it should be created on POBs.
3. Should work like the Nuke Mine, for example.
4. Cooldown of the cloaking device after being hit by a disruptor mine should be 15 seconds max.

[Highland Laddie]

People are going to be needlessly sacrificing aspects of their loadouts for items which will only have a use 1/10 of the time, whereas cloakers and jumpers don't really have to sacrifice anything meaningful.

Well, aside from money, which you've already pointed out. I've always been an advocate or making the ammo for these more expensive.

Back when Cloaks used Mox for fuel, it was nice because the loadout was limited by armor usage, so you could never have the BEST armor, or else you would sacrifice how much cloak fuel you could carry and would thus be limited there.

With the ammo system, the sacrifice is now limited, as you point out. So, making the ammo more expensive would be nice compensation, imo.

But I still don't like the idea of making CDs just the "kill all" weapon for equipment AND cruise as well.

[Stoner_Steve]

- Healing guns for the repair ship. While the items will be in the files, they will be released when the FLHook code for it is ready.

Will the Sirius Repair Ship get a few more gun slots for these guns? Given it only has 3 turrets and only two can fire forward.

[t0l]

Could just make a multi-purpose CD that disrupts JDs, Cloaks, and Cruise but has god awful range.

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[HighHopes]

How about a cloak scanner or something, also manufactured by a base. And first you have to scan for cloaked ships (only visible for the ship with that scanner and not for others) and then you can shoot them with that cloak disruptor or something like that and then the cloaking process will end. Also these scanners can be mounted or unmounted and they use some fuel when you activate it. After you started scanning the area near you (2-4K) you see on your radar the cloaked ships, let's say with a different color. So you can select them and use the disruptor.

[Lythrilux]

You know that equipment slot most/all cruisers have?
How about we have some sort of anti-cloak EMP device sort of thing that can be mounted to that slot, and cruisers can active it to forcefully uncloak any vessel within a 2k range?

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[Fluffyball]

- Healing guns for the repair ship. While the items will be in the files, they will be released when the FLHook code for it is ready.

Will the Sirius Repair Ship get a few more gun slots for these guns? Given it only has 3 turrets and only two can fire forward.

Why not to give caps an ability to heal other units (Cap Healing Turrets)? It would be kinda neat, if we had some vessels that would act as Support Corvettes/Frigates.

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[jammi]

You know that equipment slot most/all cruisers have?
How about we have some sort of anti-cloak EMP device sort of thing that can be mounted to that slot, and cruisers can active it to forcefully uncloak any vessel within a 2k range?

If the disruptor is going into the CM slot, a capital variant (limited to capital ships by prohibitive energy usage) that acted as a depth charge would work really well. Mount the equipment so the munition fires upwards into the model and give it a 2k blast, and it'd be set itself off as soon as it was launched. Give it a cool EMP-blasty looking effect, and that'd be awesome.

I guess fighters would get a normal homing CD type weapon, but I'm not sure how that'd work when you consider the placement of CM slots. Weird tracking issues abound!