the idea of special short range variants of fighters has been brought up before, but what if instead there were a new battery for this perpus?

my thought is this:

Carrier Battery:
maximum capacity: 10,000
charge rate: 0

because this battery doesn't recharge the ship can't effectively travel without the aid of a carier, (at best it gets one jump and will have a dead battery afterwards) but it would be capable of signifigantly enhanced turbo and weapon endurance provided it could recharge at a station or on a capitle ship.

Eeeeenteresting... and I think I like it! It could also solve the lack of trader batteries: change the current batteries to trader batteries, and then have combat batteries like this, with very large capacities, but little or no charge....

if the disposable batteries adds some extra speed to the ship then it can be used not only as intersystem fighter but also as fast curier ships (pony express).

And let me add that carriers themselves should have some serious turbo power

A carrier should be fast, yes, capable of outracing all but the fastest fighters.

I like the idea of a 10,000, no recharge battery (tho the image of fitting a vult with a duracell comesto mind). However, they are not disposable, Darvud; docking recharges them. Having them enhance turbo(either speed, drain, or maybe even both) would make them a little more useful, but then again, you could move the capship closer to the objective before releasing the limited-range fighters.

Cool idea Lord Q, should be interesting to see where this one goes.

I like the idea, and I can see the tactical advantages such a short-range fighter would have.

However, there's one thing that doesn't add up for me, in terms of realism... if short-range fighters could carry one of these batteries, why wouldn't every normal ship be fitted with one too, in addition to their normal battery, to provide the possibility for enhanced weapon and turbo endurance?

I like this idea. I think i may need a safety on my warp key now. :D

How about normal batteries lose a lot of capacity because they need warp capable electronics management and recharging capability. This is like a super duracell and normal batteries would be more like little generators. (for the sake of RP)

I like the original idea. But I highly disagree with carriers being fast. That would make them relatively impossible to destroy. I agree with capships having high health, etc. But being fast enough that you can't even shoot them? (faster than ships means faster than homing missiles, and fast enough that hitting them with torpedoes would be hard) No thanks!

Yeah, I don't see why carriers should be fast... someone explain that one to me? o.0

I really like the original suggestion. It's an innovative way to create in-system fighters and a need for transport via carrier while staying within the current game parameters. Kudos, Lord Q! :D

On a practical note, do you think anyone would use them? An endless stream of dual gats would be pretty sweet, but losing all energy with a single jump is a pretty severe tradeoff.

You know, if you really wanted the AGT to have "ammo", this would be the perfect way to do it. AGT and any other ammoed weapon could have a weapons battery seperate from the ship's main battery (which could lose energy per shot as well) - once the battery goes to zero, the weapon is dead.

We know the devs can handle weapons draining battery while it recharges, so, hopefully, they can handle an extra battery that just drains.

Phaser: People might use them once carriers exist/have a purpose. For example, attacking a station or blockading a sector. In the case of the station attack, I don't need to jump, and in the case of the blockade, I need to be able to deal as much damage as possible for as long a time as possible.

Pirates wouldn't use it, nor would traders or roaming patrols. But for a carrier attack force, for the real bruiser ships that do most of the damage, this is perfect. You'd even get varied figher roles! Just like that! Scouts with FCs and assaults with 10k batteries.

edit:

Actually, setting up weapons like the above with seperate, one use batteries, would destroy the "turbo in a straight line HAHA I'm gone" move as a worthwhile tactice. Mr. Infini-turbo rag spammer can turbo into the sector spamming, and then I can get on his 6 in a fast fighter like an SVG. Then with my interceptor gauss of doom, I can fire off a rapid stream of gauss that drains that weapon till I can reload at a station.

I forget the exact energy usage of a gauss, but I think it's something like 30/shot. So you have a battery with 900 energy attached to it - 30 shots with a far faster refire. You could even show the shots remaining with simple math, giving the illusion of ammo.

Traders can still try to run with mines or escorts, but spam-a-rags and lone moths are not going to have a good time.

1. Isn't ordnance fired at its speed plus the speed of the ship firing it?

2. Apart from Avalons, in my opinion you oughta need a capship in order to destroy a capship.

Even so, my statement on capship speeds should have said I was speaking of normal speeds, not turbo. So, a fighter cannot stick close to a capship and fire at it continously (like we do now) because the ship will simply move off. You need to get in close by using a little bit of turbo (particularly since flying at a capship in a straight line is a BAD idea).

As for, "would anyone use it?" starfisher has described it perfectly.

And of course, these batts wouldn't come out until the capships themselves enter the game.

Yea, but in World War II, a majority of the aircraft carriers destroyed were sunk due to damage from carrier or land based aircraft, not from battleship cannons.

And yes, guns and rockets are fired at their speed plus the speed of the ship firing... but not homing missiles. Homing missiles only act like rockets if they're not targeted at anything. Otherwise, they travel at a set speed.

I really like this idea... as LONG as you can "Home" in the capship.

I like it, it makes perfect sense for carrier-based fighters. Small, fast, and limited range and 0 recharge makes everything ammo based. A whole new can of worms opens up in regards to tactics.

As for the cap ship damage thing, I just had a thought that might make sense:

Currently the 'hull' of the ship is a single entity... you can poke at the rear, and you can poke at the front, and the 'hull' slowly degrades altogether.

How about this: The hull is divided up into many hull sections, each one taking its own individual damage, and each section having its own criticality towards the whole integrity of the ship.

Now, I'm not saying we get into detachable parts getting blown off or whatever (but that would be pretty damn cool), but shooting the crap out of a wing shouldn't make the entire cap ship explode. Taking out the entire back of the ship, which would destroy the engine and its reactor would be considered a weaker spot as a reactor explosion WOULD vaporize the entire thing.

It would make sense that the weak points are heavily armored, and the non-essential portions of the ship are lightly armored.

Two tactics could come about here:

A group of players could either take out lots of non-essential points to reduce the overall integrity of the ship to nothing, thus destroying it.

Or, they could all heavily bombard one heavily shielded critical part of the ship to destroy it. The nice part about this one is that the squadrons would be encouraged to communicate with one another in order to plan an effective operation.

Yes? No?

- T.K.

Back on topic;
I think this is an awesome idea!



High-damage gun or High-lifetime gun?
Choose a fast-turboing ship or a ship you could turbo for longer in?

I simply love this idea!

One problem: What if someone accedentally jumped from the sector?
They'd have to wait UNARMED in the next sector for the carrier to come pick them up?

I say a small modification should be done to the "Activate" code, checking for battery jump capability.

--- YOU DO NOT HAVE A JUMP-CAPABLE POWER SYSTEM ONBOARD ---

This could be a really good addition. It would force ships to return to the Carrier to rearm, repair, and recharge, etc.

It'll be interesting to see where this one goes.

I haven't read everyone's comments yet, but I strongly agree with the original post.
This covers the Scout ship we all wanted way back when.

I think that when the battery discharged, you should still be able to fly at a slow speed in order to get to a station if you are lucky enough to be in the right sector. If they take the /explode command out, this could be an issue.

Maybe the battery, once drained of the 10k, will only recharge to 25% (SLOWLY) so that you can at least make it to a station to purchase another battery, but not jump through a wormhole.

"Maybe the battery, once drained of the 10k, will only recharge to 25% (SLOWLY) so that you can at least make it to a station to purchase another battery, but not jump through a wormhole."

i think the batery once drained should not recharge, the point is to create a fighter loadout that is ONLY usable when you have a station or carier to operate from. The jump capabilities should be left intaced for this scenario:

The carier Atlantia is attacking a Leviathin, but begins loosing fighters and is eventauly destroied itself. However several fighters (equipped with this battery) were still in the sector desteratly trying to save the Atlantia. now those fighters are staranded, however as long as they have 25% of thjeir battery left the could jump to a nearby station and have a chance of survival.

perhaps a warning could be added so that when the battery drains below 30% it says something like "Danger, battery supply low" to inform the pilot that he is jeperdising his escape option.

otherwise players who use this battery a lot would have to learn new tactics, and posably create saftey bindes to prevent themselves from making posably fatal errors.

Also i want to be clear about one thing, the ship fighter will still work if it has a dead battery, it just wouln't be able to turbo, jump, or use energy requiring weapons. engins and non energy weapons would still function.

Here's a thought to go with this:

Energy Replacement Cannon

Just like the repair gun, but it transfers energy from your battery to the other player's (at a 10% loss rate). Say you run your Valk's 5000e carrier battery dry and there's no carriers handy to pick you up? Well, it's only 1250e to jump, so that's only a little over 2 heavy batteries. Bug somebody to come save you. :P

Now, my problem with this: ion storms. Hit an ion storm in one of these and you've lost massive amounts of operable energy...