Subset Games Forum

I've been somewhat fascinated by the potential presented by the teleporter. Scenes like the beginning of Star Wars where the Empire boards a Rebel Alliance cruiser remained burned into my mind. Because of this, I think an additional bit of Metagame could be added to FTL surrounding the boarding and defense of ships.

As it stands, there is one sort of unit in FTL, Engineers. They exist to keep the ship running and to fix things. Of course they're broken down into different races with varying abilities, but they're all within a few tweaks of being the same as each other. I'm a former Engineer and many of my friends are Engineers; there's one thing we are definitely not: fighters. Why not have some dedicated fighters in the game (this was started somewhat by the Mantis race in the latest video, but I'm looking at a different beast)?

One of my favorite things about Homeworld 2 was the replacement of Salvage Corvettes by the Marine Frigate. Instead of having a couple of ships clamp on the sides of an enemy capital ship, you sent a squad of roughnecks on board to kick ass and take names (and the bridge). Space Pirates and Zombies had a similar system where you could literally shoot your crew onto an enemy ship to wreak havoc and weaken the ship's subsystems. My favorite FPS of all time, Battlefield 2142, featured a Titan mode where your objective was to invade another team's mothership, take out some consoles, blow it to kingdom come, and then get the hell outta there before it exploded (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x9m58Vol1c). Something along these lines could be added into the gameplay structure of FTL without destroying the current balance of things.

The Unit

Your basic marine would be a strictly combat oriented unit, therefor he's next to useless for repairing things, but he's damned good at breaking them. Armed with a gun and armor, he can take on two Engineers at once with little trouble and can disable subsystems far faster than other units via uses of charges (more on that later). However, due to his bulk, the Engineers are a fair amount quicker than he is. This allows for a player to prevent being slaughtered if a marine teleports into a room with an Engineer. By either killing off the enemy crew or forcing them to unman their stations, an unchecked squad can single handily secure a ship or make it a prime target.

Upgrades

Along with the implementation of the unit, the barracks/armory subsystem would be added onto a ship. Barracks house and heal marines as well as outfit them. By upgrading this system, marines become more resilient to damage, are able to dish out more, become able to handle multiple enemies at once (grenades), and gain charges for use on subsystems. For balance purposes, one could limit the amount of grenades and charges to a given amount and require a return to the barracks/armory to refit and rearm. (Additional or alternate means of upgrades are permitted, I'm just spit-balling here)

Charges

Marines are brutes when you get down to it, they're really only good for fighting (read: "They're antipersonnel only"). As with the real armed forces, if you want something blown up right you get the [Combat] Engineers to do it. However, the marine is able to compromise a system if he is upgraded to do so (Or maybe they can destroy systems manually, but slower than Engineers; that's up for debate). Satchel charges are timed explosives that are very versatile. The can be put on a subsystem to destroy it, on a sealed door to blow it open, or on the hull/wall to breach it. Marines can only carry X charge(s) before having to rearm at the Barracks/Armory. Marines and other units are susceptible to the blast, so evacuation of the area is highly encouraged.

Counters

Other marines of course. In lieu of that, sealing them in an area with your upgraded door subsystem while you destroy the enemy ship or vent them into space is a good option. Outnumbering them with your units is another. Antipersonnel subsystems would be worth looking into as well. Of course, you couldn't beam onto another ship if their shields are up (no idea if it works like that for Engineer boarding in the game right now).


By adding this unit, the game become FAR more complex than "Attack subsystem A to get rid of their B. Repair our C so we can get D back." (Nothing wrong with that mind you, I'm deliberately simplifying it) and requires a far larger amount of micromanagement. Justin's already mentioned something similar in the drone that breaches the enemy ship and rolls around attacking people (hella cool by the way). Plus, you could have a starting ship based around this system.

Thoughts? Tweaks?

I like that idea... really... but the thing about that is it would change the dynamics of the units in the game, I mean all the different races have different attributes, marines are generic so you could have different races with different marines, I'm not sure that it would really work?

Stelly

Just shooting from the hip here, but you could straight port over the advantages/disadvantages from a given race to the marines. Mantis ones have better attack, rockmen have more health/armor, humans have the ability for witty one liners...

I'll give it some thought and modify things as needed, but what I'd really need is a list of the races and their attributes from the devs.

I think its a cool idea. It could add a nice tradeoff in that your combat troops could suck at repair and vice/ versa. Just another level of depth and another play style.

Like this idea. But it's a bit heavy.

Think perhaps it could be that all your crew have slightly different talents and focuses. Being a marine in this case would simply be a matter of having more armor, lower speed, higher damage, lower repair, etc. perhaps crew level up in their various attributes as you use them for that task, a la Rebuild or Skyrim. This way the distinctions among your crew develop based on how you use them rather than a more discrete "unit type".

I'm all for equipping crew members as well. This seems like a big feature opportunity (and balancing nightmare). If you want a marine type character, give them plasma grenades / explosive mines / charges. If you want an engineer spec, give them a laser spanner or multitool. Doctor anyone? Grab a med pack / tricorder. The more the player feels like this is MY ship and MY crew and they're a unique combination every time, the cooler this game will get.

I had envisioned the marines as being their own units, but I'd be ok with them being alterations of vanilla crew members.

Its partly why I suggested the space suit idea. Just take the same crew member, put them in a different gear get up = marine or engineer or whatever. Done.

Right, that was one of the options I had considered. If we go down that route then the armory/barracks could serve as the conversion center.

How about this, what if the marines were combat designated droids?

I've been giving it some thought and I think the class would be better suited as a droid type. Justin, I know you lurk around these threads, can you beam bots onto other ships?

I like the idea of leveling up your crew.

So if you want a crew member to be your "Marine" then you just dump all his points into combat.

Large crew = more specialist
Small crew = more rounded skill sets