It was touched on in a couple of threads that making different models of ship have different lateral/vertical/turbo capabilities, and this is a great idea, so why not extend it?

What I propose is a... well, lets call it a desperation bar.

When a shot from an enemy ship misses you by a small amount, say 2m, it starts to fill up. When its full, you get to use the cool feature of whatever ship you're using.

Eg. the prometheus class would disable lock-on for 10 seconds (basic cloaking device), the IBG would get a vast speed boost for a short period of time, the SVG would increase in weapon power/autoaim for a short time, the Valkyries would get a large damage/knockback reduction (basic energy focus shielding.) Easily shown by the old CTF aura, colored differently depending on the ability used.

If engineered correctly (much balancing later) it would certainly provide the counter to ship X or ship Y without having to juggle the stats too much, since naturally a valk with 30k effective hull for 10 seconds is fecking lethal against a prom but useless against a lighter fighter craft, for instance. And it would add a new aspect to combat, being more strategic and deliberate in execution than it is now...

If that idea sucks, then special properties could be given to certain ships depending on their place of manufacture. If you buy an IDF in the Itan capital, it should be slightly better than one bought in Jallik, for instance. Or be able to cart ores around to upgrade your current ship slightly in thrust or hull- not too many, but enough to become a chore if you have to do it every time.

And by giving the nation/faction special ships the nation/faction logo on the side in lovely r-glowy goodness, you get ships that look cool. Free eye-candy, almost. :P

I'm done. For now...

Of course, use of this special ability would have to drain the player's energy bar to zero . . .

Overall, I like it.

i don't like the ability trigoring off near misses on attacks. i would prefre to havve avy special abilities be player activated, but have some consequence such as extreem energy drain.

I dont see how this makes too much sense. Very very final fantasy. Might be fun, but it takes so much realism out of MMORPGness that I really dont think its worth it. Desperation things in general model psychology, and that is completely irrelevant given its the ships fighting, not the people themselves.

It might make sense backstory wise if this was something the itanis possessed, due to their mental connection to their ships, but it would be a strange thing for the serco and UIT.

Itani connection to the world around them is based on meditative practices. Feeling stress or desperation in a fight would decrease their performance rather than increase it. You have no zen if you're stressed.

I do like the idea of special ship abilities.

Perhaps being triggered by near misses is a little strange. But if it would add a large number of interesting new tactics.

Because its only a near miss and not a direct hit, some of the weapons energy is taken away from it and transfered to your ships accessory battery perhaps?

Or as more shots miss the Itani pilots awareness becomes more astute and they are able to unleash a short burst of the mind thingy, and the Serco's/UIT's combat detection programs become more fine tuned to the current fight and are able to (in the case of cloak) predict where the other ships radar will be pointed at and "cloak" for a short time.

Great idea Dave:)

I really like that idea. It should be put on buses too. And they should get a more *Speacil* Bonus. Cause youd have to be good to dodge shots in a bus.