Off the Wall Crazy Ideas for Capital Ships

[alterintel]

Hey Guys,

I was reviewing Ithirahad 's awesome idea for Jump Drive overhaul, and it got the gears turning in my head with regards to Capital Ships. So I thought it may be good idea to see what kind of ideas you guys might have as well. So I'll start this off by explaining my ideas, and you guys can follow up with your ideas as well.

Maybe we can then inspire the devs with our cool Capital Ship Ideas.

So here's mine: Turn your Home Base into a Capital Ship.
I think it's a pretty universal idea that there only be one Capital Ship per faction. Much like it is with Home base invulnerability. But then I thought it would be cool if they were more related. So my idea would be from the Faction Block where you can assign your station Home Base invulnerability, there's another option to convert your Home-base into a Capital Ship.

These would be the rules of Capital Ships:

1. Only Invulnerable Home-Bases can be converted to Capital Ships.
2. Once you convert to Capital, you lose your Home-Base, and your Invulnerability.
3. Have a one hour cool down timer to convert back to an Home-Base.
4. Can't convert back to Home-Base in territory that's claimed by another faction.
5. Converting back to Home-Base should cost the same as creating a new station. (5000 in vanilla right?)
6. No thrust, Only Jump Drives
7. When a Capital Ship Jumps, it resets the 1 hour cool down timer.
8. When a Capital Ship Jumps, all ships in fleet jump as well. (not sure about this one?)
9. Capital Ship jump range should be much longer than normal jump drives. (not sure about this one either)
10. When a Capitol Ship takes damage it resets the 1 hour cool down timer.
11. A Capitol Ship can't be docked to another entity. (it will always be the parent-entity)

That's it, that's my idea.
What are your ideas?

 

[PLIX]

how about a capital ship cannot convert to homebase for 1/2 hour after taking hull damage itcan have thrust ( otherwise youre stuck where you jumped and cant actually do much combat)

 

[alterintel]

I like the cool down timer being triggered by damage.
I'll add it to my original idea. Nice :D

I still don't like thrust though. A Capitol ship should be able to do damage with long range weapons in the same sector without much issue.

 

[Ithirahad]

If a 'capital ship' can't actually fly then we're talking about a mobile battle station, not a ship... Also, I'm fairly certain that you're supposed to deploy capitals from homebases to lead fleets, not take your entire homebase with you. That would be kinda cool but IDK if it thematically fits the empire-building design that StarMade seems to be going towards.

 

[alterintel]

If a 'capital ship' can't actually fly then we're talking about a mobile battle station, not a ship... Also, I'm fairly certain that you're supposed to deploy capitals from homebases to lead fleets, not take your entire homebase with you. That would be kinda cool but IDK if it thematically fits the empire-building design that StarMade seems to be going towards.

Yeah, it was just a crazy Idea that I had and I wanted to get it out there to see how much traction it got.

 

[Who am I?]

I do like much of the ideas on here, however there are somethings I'd like to point out.

1. On suggestions 1 & 2, it states that you effectively remove home base invulnerability. Other than the larger jump capacity, would Capital Ships receive a buff like, say, 1.5x shield or weapons output?

2. On suggestions 4 & 5, it states that Capital Ships cannot reform in faction claimed space and costs another station fee to reform. Why would they not be able to reform? We can already have multiple faction home bases in even enemy territory, so why change it? And as for the cost, why cost money as opposed to large amount s of energy or temporary disablement of docked entities for a very brief while?

3. On suggestion 6 it states that the Capital Ship cannot have thrust, would that not add a large amount of problem s? Like, say, an enemy ship or even another capital ship that has sufficient jump inhibitors finds a place where your turrets couldn't target them well, what then?

Otherwise, I like your idea. Though, I'm not sure I'd be willing to lose a homebase.

 

[alterintel]

I do like much of the ideas on here, however there are somethings I'd like to point out.

1. On suggestions 1 & 2, it states that you effectively remove home base invulnerability. Other than the larger jump capacity, would Capital Ships receive a buff like, say, 1.5x shield or weapons output?

2. On suggestions 4 & 5, it states that Capital Ships cannot reform in faction claimed space and costs another station fee to reform. Why would they not be able to reform? We can already have multiple faction home bases in even enemy territory, so why change it? And as for the cost, why cost money as opposed to large amount s of energy or temporary disablement of docked entities for a very brief while?

3. On suggestion 6 it states that the Capital Ship cannot have thrust, would that not add a large amount of problem s? Like, say, an enemy ship or even another capital ship that has sufficient jump inhibitors finds a place where your turrets couldn't target them well, what then?

Otherwise, I like your idea. Though, I'm not sure I'd be willing to lose a homebase.

1. I don't really see that they need a buff. being able to turn a defensive station into an offensive station should be buff enough, but we're just brains storming here... no idea will be discounted.
2. I think there's a bit of confusion on this part. Currently factions can only have one "Home-Base", and this is what I was referring to. I don't think there would be much of an advantage to converting to a station, without the invulnerability.
3. My original idea was that the Capitol Ship wouldn't have thrust. but this doesn't seem to be getting much traction. I wouldn't be apposed to letting Capitol Ships have thrust. But my original idea, was that they should have turrets that cover all areas so there wouldn't be any blind spots.

And also I wouldn't be apposed to Capitol Ships having a buff to jumping and a resistance to Jump Inhibitors.

 

[MeRobo]

So this was brought up befor in the above mentioned JD thread but what about push, pull and stop effect on capital ships to circumvent the inabillity to install thrust?

 

[alterintel]

Initially I was thinking more along the lines of a station that could only jump from sector to sector. So Push Pull, Stup, or anything that doesn't work on a station wouldn't work on a Capitol Ship. But this doesn't seem to be very popular. So I'm open to anything. However I'm guessing anything as big as a Capitol ship would take quite a bit of thrust/push/pull/stop to have any affect.

 

[MacThule]

My question would be "why?" What am I gaining by turning my HB into a capital ship that is worth sacrificing total invulnerability for? What is so great about a capital ship that it's worth giving up the most powerful buff in the game - HB invulnerability? The concept seems good, I just don't see that I would ever feel compelled to do that in-game (unless Ithirahad's generator field came about).

 

[Shaker]

Capital ships should have thrust lol, otherwise its a glorified station.

Making/giving it the option to homebase is bad, its a ship not a station.

Having it not being able to dock is good, maybe still able to connect to shipyards. could modify it so its a flagship which enables faction point growth giving other factions a target.

Flagship gains infamy for player piloted ships destroyed, higher infamy gains bonuses.

Fleet wide jump is a good idea, uses the caps jumpdrive to charge, resets if in battlemode/takes damage

Caps stats modified to x0.5 thrust and x1.5 shields

 

[MacThule]

My question would be "why?" What am I gaining by turning my HB into a capital ship that is worth sacrificing total invulnerability for? What is so great about a capital ship that it's worth giving up the most powerful buff in the game - HB invulnerability? The concept seems good, I just don't see that I would ever feel compelled to do that in-game (unless Ithirahad's generator field came about).

Ooo - unless such a capital ship could bypass HB protection when attacking other HBs...

As in - "I'm going to make myself vulnerable in order to make someone else vulnerable"

 

[Spartan4845]

I might be cool with a Capital ship not moving too much, but it should be able to turn. I mean even if it's a way to just move home base it'd suck if we couldn't turn them. My main design is meant to have an observation deck that overlooks planets. Which would suck if I jumped in upside down.

 

[AssIn9]

Nomadic Base =/= Capital ship.

While this would be great for nomadic factions, I would think a capitol ship would have its own type of mechanics and gameplay.

 

[Nickizzy]

Ooo - unless such a capital ship could bypass HB protection when attacking other HBs...

As in - "I'm going to make myself vulnerable in order to make someone else vulnerable"

This is the only real suggested reason to have a cap ship, the 1.5 jump range isn't really that much at all. There's no advantage to doing that rather than just building a ship and keeping a HB.

 

[alterintel]

Ooo - unless such a capital ship could bypass HB protection when attacking other HBs...

As in - "I'm going to make myself vulnerable in order to make someone else vulnerable"

I like this idea as well. But I think it needs balancing. What would stop you from taking out somebodies home base while they are offline. Or whats to protect a new players just starting home base?