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Powercells (from a gameplay perspective)
There's an elegance to having weapons and turbo all drain from the same pool and having powercell regeneration be constant, but it's also restrictive when it comes to adding new variations because there's only three parameters to a cell; capacity, charge rate, and grid.
I'd like to see some cells with more exotic/specialist use cases.
The ideas;
1) Variable charge cells. For instance, one that charges *much faster* (like 80/s) BUT the charge rate deteriorates significantly under sustained use, and recovers while not in use. Excellent for pursuit and burst fire, but much worse for long hauls.
2) Overcharge cells. Slightly better than a normal cell, but using up the full capacity would cause it to become unstable and require a full recharge before it becomes usable again. High risk, high reward.
3) Cells that give explicit bonuses to ship systems at grid cost. Not as powerful as addons (like storm radar), but a fun way to customize your ship with a little extra targeting range, for example. This one I'm sure has a bunch of creative applications that I'm too uncreative to think of. I'm not sure if this is lore-compatible, I don't know if powercells are meant to be 'smarter' than generic energy reactors in this respect, but I reckon it could be fun.
4) Unstable cells. You kill ship, ship go boom? No. Ship go BIG boom. These would need to be pricey for obvious reasons, though, and probably black market only...
5) Reserve? cells. An extra pool of energy that can be used for either turbo or weaponry (not both) but charges only when the main pool of the cell is full.
6) Ion-charged cells. Just... a bit better while flying in/through ion storms.
Thoughts on this kind of stuff?
I'd like to see some cells with more exotic/specialist use cases.
The ideas;
1) Variable charge cells. For instance, one that charges *much faster* (like 80/s) BUT the charge rate deteriorates significantly under sustained use, and recovers while not in use. Excellent for pursuit and burst fire, but much worse for long hauls.
2) Overcharge cells. Slightly better than a normal cell, but using up the full capacity would cause it to become unstable and require a full recharge before it becomes usable again. High risk, high reward.
3) Cells that give explicit bonuses to ship systems at grid cost. Not as powerful as addons (like storm radar), but a fun way to customize your ship with a little extra targeting range, for example. This one I'm sure has a bunch of creative applications that I'm too uncreative to think of. I'm not sure if this is lore-compatible, I don't know if powercells are meant to be 'smarter' than generic energy reactors in this respect, but I reckon it could be fun.
4) Unstable cells. You kill ship, ship go boom? No. Ship go BIG boom. These would need to be pricey for obvious reasons, though, and probably black market only...
5) Reserve? cells. An extra pool of energy that can be used for either turbo or weaponry (not both) but charges only when the main pool of the cell is full.
6) Ion-charged cells. Just... a bit better while flying in/through ion storms.
Thoughts on this kind of stuff?
More unique things is always cool to ponder, at least. In the grand scheme of things, I'm not sure how much *actual* difference to gameplay this would provide, and it might be confusing to explain to newer/non-english players the more complex mechanics, but i'm not against the premise itself.
When I saw the variable charge cell, first thing I thought of was a "quick recovery" cell, where its charge rate was fast when empty and slow when near full. Great for sector hopping when undamaged or powering hungry weapons, but less useful when the pilot needs to traverse whole systems. In the current VO, where every system that gets traversed has its own stations... probably unnecessary, but imagine a world where the border skirmish was fought across multiple systems emptied due to warfare. Or if the outer region were multiple systems deep and pirates were chasing you across the whole of it. This kind of power cell would benefit you while you're on the offensive side (harvesting local hive or planning an attack on a localized enemy stronghold), but should the tables get turned and you decide to flee...
Lots of fun *possible* counterplay (for all of your suggested categories), if not probably unreasonable in the current game.
When I saw the variable charge cell, first thing I thought of was a "quick recovery" cell, where its charge rate was fast when empty and slow when near full. Great for sector hopping when undamaged or powering hungry weapons, but less useful when the pilot needs to traverse whole systems. In the current VO, where every system that gets traversed has its own stations... probably unnecessary, but imagine a world where the border skirmish was fought across multiple systems emptied due to warfare. Or if the outer region were multiple systems deep and pirates were chasing you across the whole of it. This kind of power cell would benefit you while you're on the offensive side (harvesting local hive or planning an attack on a localized enemy stronghold), but should the tables get turned and you decide to flee...
Lots of fun *possible* counterplay (for all of your suggested categories), if not probably unreasonable in the current game.
Unstable cells... yes!
+1 1) Variable charge cells
I just want my light fighters to explode like skyproms/centaurs do!