Forums » Suggestions

Nation exclusive ships & weapons variants

Sep 08, 2008 bojansplash link
Some new weapons and ships suggestions were recently approved by devs and implemented ingame. I do not see a valid reason why we should not continue with similar suggestions.
So... here it is.

Itani Centurion Reaver (Centurion)

Variant: Advanced Itani military assault variant

Requirements: Only Itani nationals with Faction level +900 & 100 PK badge

Level: 6/6/0/0/0
Armor: 7800
Cargo 4
Weapons: 2S
Mass: 2900 kg
Length: 10 m
Thrust: 220 N
Max speed: 72
Spin torque: 7.1 Nm
Turbo speed: 220
Turbo energy: 57/s

New Itani design made to counter Serco Guardian vulture.
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Itani Valkyrie Raider (Valkyrie)

Variant: Advanced military armored assault variant

Requirements: Only Itani nationals with Faction level +900 & 100 PK badge

Level: 10/10/0/0/0
Armor: 13600
Cargo: 2
Weapons: 3S
Mass: 3200 kg
Length: 12 m
Thrust: 230 N
Max speed: 70
Spin torque: 7.1 Nm
Turbo speed: 225
Turbo energy: 55/s

New valkyrie design with improved armor and maneuverability.
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Military grade Itani positron blaster

Requirements: Only Itani nationals with Faction level +900 & 100 PK badge
Level: 6/6/0/0/0
Port: S
Damage: 700
Velocity: 209
Energy: 16/blast
Delay: 0.20
Mass: 450 kg
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Hellraiser rocket (Advanced Iceflare variant)

Requirements: Only Itani nationals with Faction level +900 & 100 PK badge
Level: 6/6/0/0/0
Port: S
Damage: 850
Speed: 85 m/s
Energy: 0/blast
Delay: 0,5 s
Mass: 450 kg
Splash Radius: 60 m
Detonation: Proximity (30 m)
Ammo: 20

New flare design with improved speed and ammo.
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Important note:

This advanced military assault ship variants are available only to Itani veteran military pilots (sufficient standing + 100 PK badge).

Q&A

1. Why are these ships and weapons available only to Itani nationals?
Well, since we still do not have a realistic faction system in VO and just about anyone can have Itani POS (Serco, UIT, pirates) and buy any ship he wants, this will be the only way to ensure that Advanced Itani military assault ships are used exclusively by Itani military veteran pilots.

2. Why is there a 100 PK badge requirement?
Itani military has to uphold some standards. Only experienced pilots/veterans can be entrusted to use advanced military grade ships and weapons.

Endnote:
According to backstory, Itani technology is the most advanced in VO. UIT are trying to steal it and sell it to Serco. Serco are trying to obtain Itani tech at any cost, etc, etc.
Lets have some immersion here and start by creating some really nation specific and EXCLUSIVE designs.
This can serve as a template for other factions in VO in order to create their exclusive ships and weapons variants based on existing nation specific ships and commonly used and produced weapons.
Sep 08, 2008 ryan reign link
I like these...I dont know about the 100 pk though...

"Itani military has to uphold some standards. Only experienced pilots/veterans can be entrusted to use advanced military grade ships and weapons."

I understand the reasoning, but its not a good way to keep it out of pirate hands. there are pilots who are Itani and have PoS with Itan but prey on UIT/Serco, as well as Itani traders/convoys in grey space.

what if they required the pilot to have 900+ or PoS as well as have completed X amount of winning border skirmishes and X amount of border patrols? or to show even more loyalty, the player must be Serco KoS/UIT positive/Itani PoS? I think that would filter out most pirates right there.
Sep 08, 2008 zamzx zik link
Traders shouldn't have this.

I suggest more of 200-300pks however.
Sep 08, 2008 bojansplash link
@Ryan
I understand your concern about this kind of ships and weapons getting in the hands of pirates but until we get a real faction system in which pirates will be an UNALIGNED faction, setting requirements like I did was the best I could think of .
BS and BP are not a valid solution, Itani char pirates with Itani admire can do it too.
Maybe Inc can come up with another solution if he wants to think about implementing this, i'll leave it at that.

@zik
I agree. I put 100 PK badge in because next badge is 500PK and i think it would just be too much. Maybe Incarnate can make a new 250 PK badge?
Sep 08, 2008 Surbius link
PK badges could go 25, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000, 2000, 5000, and 10000.
Sep 08, 2008 toshiro link
Hmm... okay. I'll borrow your formatting, bojan. It irked me that there was only Itani stuff. Someone else should perhaps draw up some UIT specials.

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Serco Vulture Protector

Variant: Serco convoy guard/heavy interceptor type vessel

Requirements: Only Serco nationals with Faction level +900 & 100 PK badge

Level: (cbt 6/lw 6/hw -/trd -/min -)
Armor: 9500
Cargo: 2
Weapons: 2S
Mass: 3850 kg
Length: 12 m
Thrust: 235 N
Max Speed: 65 m/s
Spin Torque: 7.8 Nm
Turbo Speed: 220 m/s
Turbo Energy: 53/s

I intentionally gave it very large lungs. It is intended to be a convoy protector/interceptor ship, able to go all-out for longer stretches of time.

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Serco Prometheus Cambrian

Variant: High-speed cargo transport type vessel

Requirements: Only Serco nationals with Faction level +900, 25 PK badge and Basic Trader II badge

Levels: (cbt 9/lw 5/hw 9/trd 8/min 4)
Armor: 17000
Cargo: 42
Weapons: 2S, 1L
Mass: 10250 kg
Length: 21 m
Thrust: 480 N, 525 N turbo
Max Speed: 60 m/s
Spin Torque: 10.5 Nm
Turbo Speed: 205 m/s
Turbo Energy: 50/s

The aim here was to give back the Serco their infiniboost Prom and beef it up a bit with regards to cargo hauling.

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I might come up with other stuff for the Serco Dominion.
Sep 08, 2008 bojansplash link
Thanks Tosh, that was exactly what I was aiming for with my post.:)
Ship specs look fine except maybe that 525 N turbo on a prom.
It could be too much since it has infiniturbo capability.
Sep 08, 2008 toshiro link
That is a good possibility, but then the SCP has 525 N of thrust regardless of propulsion mode, at even lower mass. But perhaps something in the range of 505-515 N would be more reasonable.

I'll refrain from posting new equipment, since gadgets have not become a reality yet and there are already a great many suggestion for weapons as well as a pretty good palette (at least in my opinion).
Sep 08, 2008 Aleksey link
Idea behind your designs is "Let's throw in some overpowered stuff", did I understand it correctly?

Let's look at what's recently added. Sidegrades. Something that is not too much stronger than previous high end stuff.

* That started with valk X-1: that has slimmer profile, but stats are not as good as IDF.

* Centurion Light: superagile, but has only 1 weapon.

* Corvus Widowmaker: stronger than other neutrons, but high grid usage.

* Ineubis Raven: lighter than neut2, but deals less damage.

So adding this gear didn't switch a balance, but added variety. But the ships proposed in the first post are just overall better versions of existing high end ships.

You can bring me any RP reason why national armies should have more advanced gear, but game mechanics comes first: if we break the current balance, VO would not become a better game.
Sep 08, 2008 iry link
Odd it seems the reply I made this morning never went through...

What if some "low tech" ammo based weapons were introduced?

Chain guns and canon's would be easy to make as well as cheap and would be employed by the Serco to counter Itani energy weapons.

This is what I imagine the Serco using in place of the gauss cannon

Light Cannon
Level: 6/6/4/0/0
Port: S
Damage: 1000
Velocity: 190m/s
Ammo : 100
Proximity : 2m
Splash : 4m
Delay: 0.30
Mass: 1500 kg (I'd say 1000 kg but ammo still has no mass)
Auto Aim : Rail gun range

Turreted Light Cannon
Level: 5/8/8/0/0
Port: L
Damage: 1000
Velocity: 190m/s
Ammo : 100
Proximity : 2m
Splash : 4m
Delay: 0.30
Mass: 3500 kg (3000 kg if ammo had additional mass)
Auto Aim : Similar to the Plasma Devastator

This is what I see them using in place of the Neutron blaster

Chain Gun
Level: 4/4/0/0/0
Port: S
Damage: 400
Velocity: 195
Ammo : 1000-1500 rounds
Delay: 0.10
Mass: 800 kg (600 kg if full belts brought the mass up to 800-900 kg)
Auto Aim : Similar Neutron Blaster

And this just cause Serco seem like they'd go by the bigger is better philosophy

Fixed Cannon
Level: 10/0/10/0/0
Port: L
Damage: 2000
Velocity: 200m/s
Ammo : 100
Proximity : 5m
Splash : 10m
Delay: 0.50
Mass: 3000 kg (2000 kg if ammo had mass)
Auto Aim : Rail gun range

Mass of Ammo
Light Cannon : ~5 kg
Cannon : ~10 kg
Chain gun round : ~0.2 kg

[EDIT] All of these projectile weapons would have some sort of concussion effect with the chain gun at the low end of the scale.

Ammo Based weapons could even have variants by having different types of ammo. Say "solid" shells that inflicted high damage with no proximity or high proximity shells that sacrificed damage. Possibly even lower damage lower mass ammo.

I think the license req would likely need some tweaking but I'd imagine a badge requirement would be best suited for these
Sep 08, 2008 bojansplash link
@Aleksey
I do not think those ships are overpowered and that they will influence balance of things in VO. Lets look at the stats:

Itani Reaver stats were tweaked just a little bit from the base IBG model, 600 more armor, 2 N thrust, 0.1 more spin torque and 3 less energy drain.
Serco Vulture Guardian is still superior to proposed Reaver centurion variant.

When setting Valkyrie Raider stats I also thought about balance so its 200 kg heavier but packs 2000 more armor then Vengeance. To compensate for weight i upped its thrust with 5 N and spin with 0.1. Those are just minor tweaks.
Valkyrie is still a big potato target so extra armor on this variant should help a little in dealing with overpowered proms.

Also, regarding proposed weapons...
Itani military grade positron fills the niche between neutrons MK2 and axia positrons. Nothing special really, just more variety.
Same thing with hellraiser rockets. Nobody uses iceflares in Vo, this kind of rockets with stats I proposed could be used effectively. Overpowered compared to starflares & sunflares? I think not.

This suggestion is all about adding more variety in ships and weapons and still keep things in balance.
At the end just tell me this: how many times have you fought SCP in a valk thinking... if only I had just a bit more armor, I could have won that fight?
For gods sake SCP has 21000 armor, better thrust & spin torque than any ship in VO. If you think any of the proposed Itani variants pawns SCP, I will shut up and never mention this again.

I hope Incarnate will give his opinion about this.

@Iry
Ammo based guns. I loved EV Nova. :)
Sep 08, 2008 Lord~spidey link
i want a manticore with QLB and Ion cannons.
Sep 08, 2008 ryan reign link
I think its safe to say we all want a Manticore.
Sep 08, 2008 Ghost link
I like these ideas. More nation specific ships is a good thing. I would actually argue that they should be post 500 PKs though. The game severely lacks end game material. This could work to fill a small portion of that gap. As growing incentives, I'd even say add ships/equipment available at 1000pks. It could give people something to shoot for even at higher levels.
Sep 08, 2008 Rejected link
I third the Manticore suggestion! Fire zee lazers!!one!1!
Sep 09, 2008 Aleksey link
All right, that was my mistake then.

But, if we start balancing things just around SCP, which clearly stands out, maybe we'd better tune down SCP? Though devs rejected this idea for years...
Sep 09, 2008 spacewolf900 link
i like this idea and all but you could get rid of the 100+ PK
also a good idea is that they should only be available to there own nation regardless of standing
Sep 09, 2008 Dr. Lecter link
Eh, ya'll can have the the Manticore: I want Iuso's Raven or Arando's Arach.

Aleksey: pay attention to history--the SCP has been thwacked, hard, with the Nerf-Bat at least twice in the past years.
Sep 09, 2008 toshiro link
Thunderforge.

Or Starbridge E.

And I purposely did not aim for the SCP, at least not as I see it. I wanted the Serco to have their own, proprietary, blockade runner craft (SPC), complete with fighter escorts (SVP).

Edit: SPC (Serco Prometheus Cambrian) might be too close to the SCP (SkyCommand Prometheus), not to mention it's a rip-off off EVN's Polaran hauler. Suggestions are welcome... maybe Hercules?