Mal Nina
The Red Circle Inc.
Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
49
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Posted - 2014.07.27 12:23:00 -
[1] - Quote
concept for rorqual - very quick before work.
I think the real issue is how to make the rorqual work without making it a PVP ship of choice or ratter... something it was not in concept designed to be. With that in mind I propose something a little out of the box that makes it the industrial ship for new regions of exploration or usable just in null, low, or frankly HS. 
The rorq could be a hybrid between the new deployable structures and a ship. A sort of movable POS that gives CCP a chance to work with development of pos of the future and the future construction of star gates. After all what ships would you send through a one way star gate so that the other side might be built?
Concept: the rorqual as a ship would fit modular, but the modulars (at least the highs) would be unique to it. You could have the mining mod that allows some sort of capital mining apparatus to get those ores you will need to build with in your brave new world. You could have a command modular that would have some slots for command boosting. You could have a "POS" shield modular that would allow you to put up a shield (more on mechanics latter). There could be a manufacturing modular so you could build deployables for your operation. mids and lows could support the same ship modules are be given all new industrial command ship modulars.
Command ship modular:
1. POS shield. would put a shield bubble around the ship once the ship was anchored that would have to be fueled with some fuel block of choice. It could be reinforced with stront during combat just like current mechanics. However, the more damage it takes the more stront is used resulting in no "set" timer. 100 titans firing on it would deplete the stront at an alarming rate verses a frig pricking it. It could be refueled with stront so the attacker has no idea how long the shield will last, while the defender has an indicator or how fast his stront is being consumed providing a nice set of circumstances whereby attackers have to "siege" the ship and have to keep up fire, but the defender can roughly calculate how long he has.
2. Manufacturing arrays: you should be able to add one or more of these and when the ship is deployed use them to manufacture the necessary items to begin the process of creating what mankind will need on the other side of the gate you just went through until such time as your side of the gate can construct the other side. Until gates can be built this gives the rorqual the ability to serve as a deployable manufacturing hub.
3. compression array, refining array, polymer reaction array, Moon harvesting array, any thing that requires a POS today could be done with the correct array mounted on your rorqual. You move to that moon, set up, mine, process and move on. Again things that could become used in the pos of the future as deployables themselves.
4. Mooring point modular replace fleet hanger: ability to attach X ships to the hull and jump them with the rorq either piloted or not (leads to getting rid of the whole jump clone mess) These would be visible when you looked at the rorq.
The idea here is to give the players something they can use currently and give CCP something they can begin experimenting with for the deployable POS of the future as well as the start of the ship that may very well be the critical component of a fleet to be the first ever through a player controlled star gate.
Now having run out of time before work I will go. Feel free to continue to flesh out, I hope the vision is communicate |