A couple thoughts on Rom Cap Ships

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I have only recently started helping here (starting w/ the current
beta-test), so I don't want to step on any toes, but I had a couple
thoughts for some tweaks to the Rom cap ships, and Justin encouraged me to
share, so here is some fodder for consideration:

The Rom cruisers play quite a bit differently than other races, despite not
having any abilities besides cloaks right now.  Due to their low supply,
the Roms are a wonderful race for maps with lots of phase lanes (i.e., maps
where starbases are of limited use b/c you would need so many), and you can
pull of strategies that no other race can like solid, two-front attacks.  I
think it's kind of a shame that the Rom cap ships currently play so
similarly to their Fed counterparts aside from the cloak and lack of
abilities, so I had the following thoughts:

1--> The D'Derivex Warbird is supposed to be a big badass, so roll with it.
 It was supposed to outgun the Galaxy class, so its DPS is appropriate,
being on a par with the Sovereign.  However, the ship should be a little
bit of a tank IMO.  It was supposed to be huge, so go ahead and give it
some more HP, say, 5000 vice the current base 3500, and some more armor
since it's big enough to carry it (the Rom colonizer cap ship has 58, which
seems a good number).  That comes at a price, so up the supply cost
accordingly (prolly around 90).  If necessary, go ahead and slow down its
max speed/acceleration a little.

2--> The Noraxan Warbird was played up in Nemisis as a state-of-the-art
warbird built for strategies focused on cloaking.  It should pack a hell of
a punch (probably even 5-10% greater DPS than a Sovy), but at a cost: a
little less shielding (probably about right as-is, being set up as
equivalent to a Galaxy at 8700) and a lot less HP/armor (currently 3045 -
crank that down to about 2200 and take the armor down to about 28).  Being
based on a cloak, the current balance of weapons (over 3/4 forward firing)
is perfect.  In the hands of a good player, it should make mincemeat of a
good enemy cap ship by making attack runs, cloaking, coming around, and
decloaking for another run (actually, due to passive regen disabling during
cloak, this may not be the case), which is how the Romulans presumably
intended it to be used.  Oh, and the speed stats (including linear and
angular acceleration/deceleration) should be higher than any other cap ship
I can think of.

3--> From a game balancing perspective, I agree that most cloaked ships
should have their passive regen (both HP and SP) disabled to prevent
players from sitting around grav wells with cloaked fleets, waiting for
them to repair themselves.  However, it seems like the cap ships could be
an exception to this rule to allow the strategy listed in the previous
bullet point to work and to recognize cap ship crews have better ships and
can accomplish amazing feats.  Granted, cloaked Rom cap ships shouldn't get
100% regen, but consider this: instead of disabling regeneration, you could
add a couple of buff Over Time Actions that limit the regen.  For instance,
a cap ship cloak could instead drain about half of the HP and SP that are
being naturally restored each second, resulting in a 50% regen rate -
higher levels of the cloak could reduce the penalty (for instance, yielding
25%/50%/75% of normal uncloaked regen for levels 1,2,&3 of the cloak).  The
HP can easily be done, since dodamage is a buffOverTimeAction, and I think
you can enter a negative number for the restore shield buffOverTimeAction
to get the same effect for the shields.  In fact, I intend to code this up
so that the team can consider it.

Overall, I like the efforts being made to make the races play uniquely,
which I see being one of the best parts of this mod.  The Fed are a robust
fleet with useful support ships, but at high development/build cost.  The
Klingons are fighters with few special abilities aside from Cap Ships, and
the Roms are space predators that strike in number.  (Not sure about the
Dominion other than uber-Klingons, but I never liked them much as a "bad
guy" anyway.)  I think tweaking the cap ships to suit these roles is
another way to enhance the mod's appeal.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by thomas.s...@gmail.com on 20 Jan 2010 at 2:11

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We've already discussed this via IM, but I wanted to give two thumbs way up 
publicly,
too.

I'm totally in line with you on the D'deridex and Norexan.

Original comment by aaron...@hotmail.com on 20 Jan 2010 at 6:21

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I've submitted some proposed changes for evaluation in the ready-for-import/Beta
Tester folder, with a .txt file explaining the what and why

Also, the Rom Cap Ship Cloak is complete and in the same place.

Original comment by thomas.s...@gmail.com on 21 Jan 2010 at 1:04

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P.S. - I created a new spell that gives Rom Cap Ships (particularly intended 
for the
Noraxan Warbird) a less-powerful version of the Frontal Shield spell.  It's in 
the
same place.

It seemed appropriate for the Noraxan Warbird to have extra shields in front 
based on
the vision outlined above.

Original comment by thomas.s...@gmail.com on 22 Jan 2010 at 12:31

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agreed

Original comment by jtaylor...@gmail.com on 23 Jan 2010 at 4:41

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merged into soa2

Original comment by jtaylor...@gmail.com on 27 Jan 2010 at 3:11

• Changed state: Fixed