dcell
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Posted - 2005.03.18 11:55:00 -
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I would like to suggest the addition combat teams to EVE.
Basically the idea of this suggestion, is that more can be done in combat and out of combat than just FLY ships! Please Read on and please let me know if you think it is a good idea or a bad idea. Any suggestions or comments are welcome.
-Each team requires a special troop transport that would fly from a Cruiser/Battlecruiser/Battleship.
-The troop transports would be launched from the drone bay, and told to move in a similar manner and could in fact look exactly like a drone.
-The troop transports would make their way (slowly) to the station or whatever is to be stormed, dock with it, and the combat team inside it begins to assault the target.
-Conquerable stations and ships could be loaded up with a certain number of defense teams as well. These defense teams would need to be overcome by the attacking combat teams.
-Different classes of Combat Teams could be created/bought each with particular strengths and weaknesses. A few possible catagories would be Conscripts, Mercenaries, Marines, Commandos, Shock Troopers, Black-Ops etc. Commandos would be capable of the black operations (see below), Shock Troopers would hit hard at first but their attack power would weaken after a certain amount of time, Conscripts would just suck, Marines are reasonably good at everything, Mercenaries are good only if they are overwhelmingly superior, etc.
-Combat Teams would be retained and would gain combat experience over time, making them more powerful. They would be equipped with weaponry of various types and quality and the character could spend time training their Combat Teams with agent missions, skills, etc. The combat team would be whatever can fit on the transport. Perhaps that team could be mix and match from the classes above?
-Combat Teams could be used to take over enemy ships. I would suggest only after the shield has been knocked down. But I would suggest these troop transports be very vulnerable. In addition, the targeted ship could potentially be carrying a cargohold full of marines!
-How do you pilot the commandeered ship? You don't. When you send your teams on a boarding mission, you have to choose from options such as destroy the ship, empty the cargo of something(s), or take it over along with a destination, and the combat team forms a skeleton crew for a ship that cannot attack or anything else besides move and simply makes its way as fast and as directly as it can to the stated destination, out of your control, and vulnerable of couse to anyone who might wish to blow it up. Obviously in high security systems, this would be illegal and no doubt it would be piracy.
-In addition, you might be able to add black ops to this feature, in other words, with high skills in black ops, you could dock with a station (potentially in empire space) with your commandos (or whatever) in the cargohold and you could send them on a black operation against another person or a corp. Some operations would be generally benign, others would have serious implications.
-For example, lets say you want to know what kind of stuff is in the rival corporation's hangers in system X. You send in a black ops team and (if successful) they give a full report to their commander about what they saw. If they fail, various things could happen. With the above example, lets say they were unsuccessful, nothing happens. Or they were arrested by concord trying to break into the other corps hangers (team is lost). Or they are arrested AND pointed the finger at you and your corporation (team is lost and you and corp lose standings with Concord and whoever owns the station). Also, the victim corporation would be know exactly who was attempting to spy on them (justification for war).
-You could send them on a not so benign mission. Lets say you know they have a nice Raven in the corp (or the poor individual's) hanger, you could send your commandos in to blow the sucker up! Success could mean the team pulls it off and comes back, or pulls it off but still gets caught by concord or killed by the security forces that the corp keeps at that office. Or they could steal that Tech 2 BPO you have always wanted! Of course you would need to know exactly what station and what hanger or labslot that BPO is actually occupying.
-Remember these black operations would take anywhere from several hours (harmless spying) to several days or even weeks (trying to steal a BPO or sabotage something important). (The hours or days would be the "prep work").
These could be implemented without any or without significant additional graphics, it could simply be a series of commands kind of thing but I'm sure the possibilities are significant beyond these. This would add a newer and dirtier element to the equation.
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