Convenience and other minor suggestions

[LeadHead]

You arrive at the beacon. A suspicious federation ship opens communication with you. "The space is kind of a jerk, don't you think? Sometimes it feels like it exists just to screw you over. Maybe I can help you on your mission... Pardon my sloppiness." The ship cuts communication and sends over a crate packed with things that should make your life easier.


1. Add option to pause the game instantly after a jump

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Would just be kinda nice, you know.

2. Beam weapons show starting point and direction
3. When targeting a beam weapon, rooms affected are lit up as if targeted by regular weapons

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Might not be immediately clear why would you want this, but let me explain. When using beam weapons, you generally have another weapon to break down shields (unless you start with something like The Glaive). In some cases, you have 1 laser weapon and a beam. If I shoot my laser and it hits just shield layer so my beam can hit, I want to start my beam at the shields system. If the shields system is hit first, this will prevent it from regenerating in time and my beam will hit other rooms. Sometimes I happen to accidentally start the beam at the wrong side, don't realize it's targeted incorrectly and waste a lot of potential firepower.
The outline is just a thing that would maybe clear up some confusion, as you pretty much play Tetris when firing beams - you want to hit as many rooms to maximize damage, but sometimes you can hit the very edges of rooms and just hope it counts. By adding the outline, the confusion would be removed.

POTENTIALLY RADICAL AND ABSURDLY OVERPOWERED
I have a feeling bombs are a little underused at one point. Never have I feared bombs, never have I wished I had bombs, never have I thanked that I received bombs (exception would of course be the healing bomb when playing with a teleporter). They are not that great, to be honest - there's a chance you'll miss, unless the crew is guaranteed to die you will not make a very large impact (no pun intended) in the later game with them, and generally feel a little weak. My suggestion? Ability to target bombs per square or in between tiles instead of per room. Bomb blast radius - 4 tiles.

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Bomb blast radius
Gray lines in rooms indicate tiles


Opinions? Ideas?

[Kieve]

All of these seem like very good, very practical improvements, and I love 'em.
Only thing I might point out is that multi-room "breach bomb" would be kinda OP, as you'd be opening holes all over the ship.

[LeadHead]

Thought of the same thing regarding the ion bomb - shutting down 4 systems with one bomb is no joke.

Hmm... I guess the intensity of the bomb should be reduced then, for example, breach bomb has 25% chance to cause a breach per tile or something like that. Ion bombs would deal 1/4th of ion damage per tile or something like that. I'm fairly sure you can balance it out somehow by altering cooldowns and stuff.

[The Captain]

Bombs aren't that great?!?! Are you kidding me?!

I prefer bombs to missiles, especially if we're talking ion bomb, breach bomb mk II or even a small bomb (though the last needs more help from other weapons). Sure they can miss, but they can't be shot down.

[obliviondoll]

As I discovered on my current playthrough, an Osprey with Fire Bombs is GLORIOUS.

Literally the only defenses against bombs are Zoltan Shields and a ship's Evade chance. EVERYTHING else is ignored. Missiles are countered by the same things, and also hard-countered by Defense Drones, and lasers are blocked by regular shields as well as Defense II.

If you can hit the helm or engines of the enemy ship, or hit enough systems to make them abandon the helm and try to put out fires, you literally can't miss, so at that point, you can set fires/destroy systems/create hull breaches wherever you want. The Osprey is really good at taking crew away from the helm of a ship like this with its Artillery Beam, so that pairs nicely with bombs. Dropping an Ion Bomb in an enemy ship's shield room is great for opening up a hole to exploit with a Burst Laser or Glaive Beam. Or you can plant it in their helm - a hit there gives you a good 20 seconds of free fire on the target before they can get their Evade chance back.

[masud12]

I prefer missiles to bombs.

[UltraMantis]

I agree with the anti-bomb sentiments, as i am simply never happy to receive one, nor would i ever buy one. However, bombs are the only weapon against which there is no defense (not counting artillery beam which is limited to the Fed cruiser). That is probably the reason there aren't any killer Bombs in the game with the exception of the Ion Bomb which is thankfully a support weapon and one the AI never can use wisely. (Or we'd all be dead )

A bomb is a very practical, but simply not very exciting weapon. Giving it AoE sounds like it would require lots of rebalancing.

[YumItsTasty]

Beam outlines would indeed be very much appreciated.

Personally I'm not a fan of bombs either, but I don't think they are that underpowered. Some bombs like the ion bomb are actually quite powerful. I dislike missiles even more because you have to rely on ammunition and enemy defense drones render them almost completely useless.

[Twinge]

I have a feeling bombs are a little underused at one point. Never have I wished I had bombs, never have I thanked that I received bombs. They are not that great, to be honest.

The Ion Bomb is the single most powerful weapon in the entire game - the only possible competitor is the Burst Laser II. Breach II isn't far behind at all and is also a fantastic weapon. Breach I (only available on a few ships to start) is fantastic. Small Bomb isn't as exciting as the rest, but still a wonderful utility weapon for quickly taking down shields, weapons, medbays, etc.

Missiles, on the other hand, try to be both a damage weapon and a utility weapon and suck at doing both. They can be shot down by defense drones, they don't do enough damage to justify using as a primary damage source for the resource cost, and they aren't nearly as good for utility as bombs are. (The one exception is the Artemis, which fills a similar role to the Small Bomb.)

Seriously, trust me on this - if you want to win more games, avoid using missiles and learn to use bombs.

[5thHorseman]

I have been playing the game for a year now (give or take) and I don't think I've ever seen a situation where I've come out of a jump and the game didn't pause. Unless you mean the game should pause before whatever dialog box comes up so you can do something to your ship?

I don't like that idea. The only time that would benefit you is when you're jumping away from something that would normally keep you from accessing your ship, and if you can do that, what's the point of having that thing keep you from accessing your ship?