Teleport is OP

[greetingsfromoslo]

We all know that teleporter is OP, especially if it's fully upgraded and two or four mantis/rock ready to kick some butts. I think the developers idea behind the teleports strength is that the main weakness of the strategy is that you must be careful not to shoot at the enemy while your crew is wrecking havoc on the ship, effectively making you a sitting duck for their ordnance. However, this is easy to counter, as you are able to direct most of your scrap earnings to defensive measures rather than armament, not to mention the scrap gain you receive by not destroying the enemy ship in the first place. Who needs weapons anyway? A defence drone or two, shields and engines goes a long way. You only pick up weapons along the way in order to fight the big boss, and you probably get them all for free as loot.

I love the teleport, but I don't find it risky enough to live up to the rogue game experience. For me, getting a teleport is equal to being dealt a "I Win" card. Anyone with thoughts on how teleport might become a more risky endeavour?

[UltraMantis]

Anyone with thoughts on how teleport might become a more risky endeavour?

Are there any artillery beams around?

The only risk is relying on it too much. An enemy with Rocks, a lvl3 medbay and a repair drone is not going to go down easily no matter how many Mantis you throw at it.

[Satonakaja]

Are there any artillery beams around?

I still hear it. The cheering of my crew about to slay the last crew member, followed by pained screaming as their moment of glory was cut short by one of the most powerful weapons in the game and an inattentive captain.

*shudder*

[BKT]

Telepad is not OP! ... I mean, you can't use it on an automate ship!

... oh wait, you can.


Seriously though... Buying Telepad just for the blue options is well worth the scraps already— It's that good!

[xdiesp]

That is nothing, my medic keeps bickering with my scientific officer about not wanting to be teleported. -__-

[UltraMantis]

That is nothing, my medic keeps bickering with my scientific officer about not wanting to be teleported. -__-

It's your fault Captain, you included Galaxy Quest in the ship's video library and now the crew is uneasy about being teleported.

[greetingsfromoslo]

Anyone with thoughts on how teleport might become a more risky endeavour?

Are there any artillery beams around?

Who left that beam on???

The only risk is relying on it too much. An enemy with Rocks, a lvl3 medbay and a repair drone is not going to go down easily no matter how many Mantis you throw at it.

999 out of a 1000 ships doesn't have that kind of combo, so I don't find it risky at all. Some pause planning, combined firepower and good micro should be enough to take down that last ship. Or just flee and jump away.

A suggestion for a nerf would be that shields could inhibit teleportation both partially and totally, and/or that more "advanced" ships (later sectors) all had improved blast doors level 2 or 3 as default equipment.

[BKT]

I doubt blast door would do anything for the most part since the AI is simply not sophisticated enough to handle with all the human's shenanigans;— I mean, the Flagship has it, plus the 4 men lv3 medbay too, and yet I, like many people, have no problem boarding it— for instance, I could kill the whole crew (7 men) within 2 trips using just 2 non-elite mantis + a few well timed & placed laser shots from my lousy weapon set and the under-appreciated ATK drone ...  A missile (Hermes is great for this) or Bomb would be much easier, but I couldn't find any.


My suggestion would be to simply +10 seconds to telepad cooldown— just to slow things down a bit.

[MC3craze]

The only risk is relying on it too much. An enemy with Rocks, a lvl3 medbay and a repair drone is not going to go down easily no matter how many Mantis you throw at it.

In that case you can easily jump away since your engines are likely high level.

Boarding still does have serious risks if you put a lot of emphasis on it. Especially the Mantis cruiser type B.

Like fighting that bastard flagship, the thing has so much health I completely ignored it while trying to kill off the crew with my 3 mantis + crystal. It looked like they were trying to repair their previously crippled cloak, and I couldn't let them retake the medbay. So I took a careful shot with the hull laser, leaving the flagship with 1 health. My sensors were out, so I had no idea I started a fire somewhere onboard, and the flagship jumped away with my boarding party.

I wasn't about to give up, so I chased the flagship down. I had lost my boarding party due to my own inattention, so I couldn't take their shields down from the inside. (They still had 3 rebel crew left onboard the main body of the ship.) So I took my human engineer and gunner off their stations and sent them to smash the triple missile launcher (thank you RNG for not giving me any more engi or zoltan.) The boarding drone smashed into the O2 room, luckily it was max level so I could ignore the drone at least until the missile launcher was down. The battle took a long time and ended up with a lot hull damage taken, but I managed to kill all crew except their pilot by damaging the dronebay and when their crew ran to repair, take down those last few hull points and break off that wing.

Third stage went a lot better, only one boarder to deal with and then I could send crew aboard to destroy the shields. Smooth sailing from that point.

999 out of a 1000 ships doesn't have that kind of combo, so I don't find it risky at all. Some pause planning, combined firepower and good micro should be enough to take down that last ship. Or just flee and jump away.

A suggestion for a nerf would be that shields could inhibit teleportation both partially and totally, and/or that more "advanced" ships (later sectors) all had improved blast doors level 2 or 3 as default equipment.

I doubt blast doors would really help balance the teleporter, the door control would become just another target. I already premptively destroy the door system before boarding just in case I need to have my crew run until the 20 second cooldown is over.

[greetingsfromoslo]

Honestly, a simple fix could be to have more ships do a FTL jump. That would put the boarding party at serious risk if you leave them for too long. That would also prompt the need for weapons to quickly bring down fleeing enemies, which I think would balance out the gameplay a bit better.

There could be blue options provided for such instances. With a long range scanner installed or an upgraded teleport you could lock on to your abducted crew and hope to save them, though no happy ending is of course guaranteed.