Suggestion: vary the weapons and drone slots

[Lestibournes]

You can have a carrier-class ship with 8 drones and no weapons, or a destroyer-class ship with 6 weapons and no drones, or a cruiser with the current configuration, or a troop carrier that can carry an extraordinarily large crew and has a remarkable transporter that can beam them through any attempt to block it, making it's combat methods rely heavily on boarding parties, a medical vessel that has few weapons and no probes, but a remarkable healing capability and decent shields and engines, a freighter that is similar in capabilities to a medical ship but has mediocre healing capabilities and great storage capacity, a scout ship that has top of the line engines and sensors but little in the way of shields or weapons, police/security vessels that specialize in disabling and capturing their targets rather than destroying them, bombers which specialize in high-impact weapons, fighters that specialize in rapid-fire weapons, and so on.

If you play as a science vessel, for instance, the game will be much harder, not only because you will start with lower combat capabilities, but because your potential for improving those capabilities will be severely limited. Starting off as a cruiser-class battle-ship is probably the most sensible since it is well-rounded in all areas, but that makes the game mush easier compared to a civilian ship. The only real modification necessary is to make the number of weapon and drone slots variable.

It may also be useful to classify battleships according to the level of strength they are built with, such as light, medium, and heavy. Medium and heavy would get an extra weapon, possibly an extra weapon slot, 1 extra level in all default weapons and shields, and 1 extra maximum level for weapons and shields, all compared to the version below them.

[Warbird]

You might be onto something.

[Snake Plissken]

Agreed. Well thought out. Wouldn't mind seeing much of this.

[Paul]

I like the idea a lot, however, from what I have heard already, it could be very difficult to balance- after all, imagine taking on a rebel heavy cruiser with just drones. The first thing they'd do would be put a couple of missiles in your drone control and you'd be stuck. Otherwise, if it can work, good idea.

[Paul]

http://tom-jubert.blogspot.co.uk/2012/0 ... t-ftl.html on the hangar screen picture on this, it shows a new ship, the osprey, with 4 weapon slots. therefore, the balancing may be done, in which case i'm all behind this....

[Lestibournes]

I like the idea a lot, however, from what I have heard already, it could be very difficult to balance- after all, imagine taking on a rebel heavy cruiser with just drones. The first thing they'd do would be put a couple of missiles in your drone control and you'd be stuck. Otherwise, if it can work, good idea.

Then maybe a drone carrier should have 1 or 2 weapons and 6 or 7 drones (it really depends on what fits in the user interface). Also, a carrier could have heavy shields which could help and a crew to conduct repairs.

Aside from that, I just figure that the ship class you choose to play will factor in heavily not only in play style but difficulty level. If a carrier is much harder than a cruiser that should still be just fine - that just makes it more challenging.

I would also like each faction/race/species to have several different models of each ship classification, each balanced a little differently, but somehow I don't think that's going to happen. What I would think is doable is making every ship playable so that I can play all ships, or at least all ships that support having a crew.

[ThePsuedoMonkey]

YES! This way I get to build the Galactica!