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Topic: Better than banter: OUR single favorite ship (Read 68370 times)
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FalconMWC
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When you say, fires half as fast, do you mean recharge rate? (Since the lasers for the arlou fire constantly)
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Art
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Why not branch off this a bit?
If you had the options to create new ships for each race, what would they be like? What abilities, how powerful, special weapons etc?
I would shamelessly rip off Startrek, and have a Voyager like ship. Primary fire is similar to the Arilou, except that it has 2 times the range, does twice the damage, costs twice as much energy, and fires half as fast. Alternate fire would launch a photon torpedo, which is a lot like the Podship's attack, but fires straight at the enemy, and doesn't steer, It should also be much smaller, and cost less energy.
Crew would be about 30, and Energy would be enough 4 Torpedoes.
It should be about par with the Yehat, speed wise, and similar to the Mrnhnrhmm in Laser form turning wise.
Erm, there *is* a Star Trek Federation-inspired ship in the game. It's called the Earthling Cruiser.  Particularly fun when you have a captain named "Kirk".
Of course the Cruiser's look is based a lot more on the Enterprise from the original series, and doesn't have the warped, curvy look of the newer ST ships. I do feel like the digs in SC1 against the Cruiser for being based on mid-20th-century technology were a sly reference to the overall provinciality of the original Star Trek as seen from our era (things like the miniskirts, and Kirk passionately defending the Vietnam War, and such).
I do think the Cruiser's weapon systems give the feel of a Star Trek ship pretty well (pump out torpedoes, oh no they're too close to us, run away while wildly blasting with the beam weapons). Yes, the nukes seek, but they seek so wildly with such a wide turning arc that you actually do have to aim them, unlike BUTTs.
The relative suckiness of the weapons enhances this feeling. Before the ST fans jump on me, look, it's not natural for the Enterprise to ever be *winning* a fight, it always has to barely make it out, crippled, and have lots of drama and falling over and exploding consoles and the engineer shouting stuff about the ship being about to fall to pieces.
I haven't given much thought to ship design of my own, though plotwise two interesting ships to insert might be a Black Spathi Squadron fighter and the Mark II. The Mark II would be a souped-up Vindicator unsuitable for melee, of course; the main new ability I'd like it to have would be Arilou-like warping (since the saucer shape is reminiscent of a Skiff, and it'd be more mysteriousness around the Precursors -- a connection to the Arilou?) If it had Vindicator-style tracking Hellbores this would be ridiculously powerful -- but then that's the whole point of a flagship.
A BSS fighter would be smaller (lower crew complement) than an Eluder, but correspondingly have better weapon energy recharge rate. Would have missiles as good as BUTTs, though perhaps make them forward firing instead of rear firing. I'd love to hear these guys' dialogue -- they'd be kind of jittery and twitchy, the stereotypical result of a lifelong coward being pushed over the edge. (I always picture Fwiffo being this way by the end of the game, annihilating Dreadnoughts in screaming adrenaline bursts. As they say, "I set the thrusters to maximum, close my eye, and begin pressing the fire stud wildly.")
I remember reading a TFB interview where Paul Reiche recalled a proposal for a ship of time-travelers, perhaps appropriate for the Taalo in some sequel. The ship's special attack would be a "time reversal", a really cool but really hard-to-implement idea that would have the highly annoying ability to reset everything in the battle back to a saved snapshot taken about five seconds ago, allowing you to survive imminent death, repair damage, get back a promising tactical situation... Like I said, annoying.
I also remember Timewarp had a cool idea with a new generation of Probes, programmed to be actively hostile and therefore using their missiles (long-range BUTT-like trackers) against ships instead of their lightning weapons. I haven't tried it, but I imagine this would make Probes quite a bit more powerful.
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Mr._Jangles
Zebranky food
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Posts: 22
Ahhhhhhh the spyware!!!!!!!!
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This is why CHMMR OWNS!!!  :
CHMMR AVATAR
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o Combat value is 30. Starts with 42 crew, 42 energy points.
o The Chmmr Avatar will arrive in the combat zone with 3 Zapsats. The Zapsats
are in a fixed orbit, moving clockwise around the ship at 120-degree
intervals, and at a speed synchronized to the Chmmr's turning rate. The
Zapsats will maintain this orbit indefinitely unless they are destroyed, or
the host Chmmr is physically separated from them.
o Laser weapon detail: Activated with the B button. Costs 2 energy points to
fire. Can fire 21 times in a row at the highest repeat rate (continuous
fire) if energy is at maximum. Minimal, flash-use of the laser does 2 points
of damage.
o The Chmmr main laser beam is a non-homing projectile.
o Tractor field detail: Activated with the C button. Costs 1 energy point to
use. Can be used 42 times in a row at the highest repeat rate if energy is
at maximum.
o The tractor field originates in front of the Chmmr ship, at a point which
overlaps the outer edge of the Zapsat orbital path, and can instantly affect
an enemy ship at any range in any direction.
o The tractor field can only affect an uncloaked enemy ship; it has no effect
on asteroids, the planet, DOGIs, Zapsats, marines, hypnotized crew, fighters
or projectiles.
o The tractor field cannot affect a cloaked Ilwrath Avenger.
o Under normal circumstances, the Chmmr tractor field cannot move an
Ariloulaleelay Skiff or a Slylandro Probe. However, if either
of those
target ships have acquired VUX limpet parasites, they can be affected. The
more parasites on the target ship, the greater the effect of the tractor
field. Note, however, that the Arilou can only be affected while it is
thrusting.
o On occasion, use of the tractor field may cause a reduction in a target
ship's drive capacity. (This is an effect that lasts even after the field is
deactivated.) The target ship can recover by thrusting in a different
direction.
o The shields of the Utwig Jugger and Yehat Terminator cannot protect those
ships from the effects of the tractor field.
o Chmmr captain names: Bzztrm, Chzrmn, Frnkzk, Kztztz, Kzzrn, Mnzgk, Mrnkzt,
Prmtzz, Qrntz, Rmnzk, Szmrnz, Tzrtzn, Tzzqrn, Vzrzn, Zbzzn, Zrnzrk.
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Mr. Jangles....
Zelnick: "Surrender or die"
Kohr-Ah: "Our counter to your statement is simpler,
just 'die'."
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Culture20
Enlightened
Offline
Posts: 917
Thraddash Flower Child
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This is why CHMMR OWNS!!! : o Chmmr captain names: Bzztrm, Chzrmn, Frnkzk, Kztztz, Kzzrn, Mnzgk, Mrnkzt, Prmtzz, Qrntz, Rmnzk, Szmrnz, Tzrtzn, Tzzqrn, Vzrzn, Zbzzn, Zrnzrk.
By far the most compeling reason.
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Art
Guest
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All right, here's the theoretical question:
As we all know, a souped-up Precursor tug owns. It especially owns against most of the ships you actually have to use it against in single-player. And it doesn't take that much to soup it up to the point where it begins to own.
Question: If you were in the position of piloting a regular ship against the Precursor tug, which one would you pick? The most interesting answers to this question will probably involve different configurations (that is, one for a one-shot-killer with many Hellbores, one for a rapid-fire killer with one Hellbore and many PDF lasers, etc.) My feeling is that shield ships -- the Jugger and the Terminator -- are the ones with the best chance, but I want to hear other opinions.
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FalconMWC
Enlightened
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Avatar Courtesy of Slyrendro
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I would try the Druuge.
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Captain Smith
Guest
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Uhmm...good choices....
Let's see...I've beat Chmmr very easily before with:
Orz, Chmmr, Mycon, Androsynth, Pkunk, Kohr-Ah, Druuge, Supox, Spathi, Utwig, Zoq-Fot-Pik, Yehat, Thraddash, Melnorme.
Ur-Quan, Ilwrath, Chenjesu, Mmrnmhrm I even get them on a very lucky day :-)
Hardly awesome.
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