Straight Chillen
Gallente
Solar Wind
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Posted - 2008.10.03 18:39:00 -
[1]
A new form of Ship Modifications.
The other night I was playing with my little stealth bomber, having fun shooting stuffs. Bombers have gone through a lot of changes through their time. But I think the most profound change to them was an indirectly done through the HP Boost to all ships some time ago. As it stands the Stealth bombers are in the same position that many Minmatar ships are in, They've lost their main selling point, The Alpha Strike.
Now I was thinking how can the stealth bomber and other ships that rely on it, regain their alpha strike advantage, but with out giving them an increase in their overall damage. And I think I've found a proper solution that will usher in the the return of the alpha strike.
The Barrage Module.
Im personally not sure what kind of slot this should go in, but I was thinking of possibly an active rigging slot if that can be done within the restraints of the coding. Basically heres what it does. Every turret and launcher module has a attribute on it called ôCharge Rateö. This attribute from what I can tell is only used to determine the rate at which ammo is used, and the rate at which crystals are damaged(for lasers)
What this module will do is change that charge rate from 1, to 2; and the rate of fire for the launcher will double. For Example. If I was using a cruise launcher that had an ROF of 15 seconds. Activating this module will make it fire 2 missiles per launch, but the ROF is now 30 seconds. So essentially u would shoot the same 4 missiles per minute, except instead of 1 every 15 seconds you would shoot 2 every 30, Simple right?
Personally I would prefer this module to only be used with Artillery and Long range missile weapons. As I feel lasers and hybrids do their DPS role quite nicely, but the weapon systems based on volley damage are woe-fully lacking. This would return the powerful Alpha's once possessed by the Stealth bombers, the Munin, and Tempest.
Continued thinking along this line of active rig modules, that give no true benefit or penalty, but rather modify the way your ship works, gave me a bunch of other cool ideas that could work. For instance
Drone Repair Bay Modification
An active rig that diverts your active tanking (shield boost/armor rep) to your drone bay to fix your drones up. Even though it makes more sense to limit it to armor reppers or even hull reppers, I dont think that would necessarily be fair for all.
Boost Capacitor/Nanite Resivor.
This active rig would double armor rep/shield boost amount and cycle time. Example an armor repper that rep'd 200 armor every 20 seconds would rep 400 every 40 seconds.
Trickle Charge/Nanite shunt.
Exact opposite of the previous mod, this active rig would halve armor rep/shield boost amount and cycle time. EX. A repper doing 200 every 20 seconds would do 100 every 10 seconds.
Those are just a few that I have thought up, but it gives you the basic idea behind active rigging. Instead of something passive that gives you a boost in one area, and a nerf in another, these types of rigs are form specific. They give and take away from the same thing. Meaning the shield riggings wouldnt give u a sig radius penalty, The armor riggings wouldnt give you a velocity penalty.
So really in the end these rigs don't give you any true tangible bonus, its all about giving you more options on how to pilot your ship. I also think that having them designed like this will minimize the impact they would have on game balance, thus making them easier to implement and adjust.
For the most part, (with the exception of the drone repair bay), they would be using mechanics that are already in game, also facilitating the ease of implementation.
So its just a little food for thought, and I'd love to hear what you thoughts are on the subject. So feel free to flame away or share some love and ideas, as I'm sure many of you have had similar thoughts.
Please resize image to a maximum of 400 x 120, not exceeding 24000 bytes. If you would like further details please mail mods@ccpgames.com ~Saint |