hehe... with all the talk about EMP "weapons"... why not have a naturally occurring event that happens say, once every hour or so in the non-aligned sectors (5,7,8,9,10,11,13,14,15,16,17,18) causing any ship hit by it to lose battery power for 30 seconds.

The effect could just be a simple wall effect coming from one side of the sector and going to the other. To escape it, you would dock, warp out, or use up your battery power ahead of time. (hint: use of multiple charge cannons here)

If you got hit by the wall, you would lose weapons and boost for 30 seconds. no big deal. Then batt would recharge... so it's fair to anyone in the sector. and I assume the bots could be affected by this too.

That would r0x0r my b0x0rs. Perhaps Sector 15 or 9 is a good site for this, as they lack much of a distinguishing feature.

Id love a comet that hurtles through a sector every hour or so at 800 m/s

ha HA! I have your flag and there's nothing you can do about it! AH HAH HA HA HA HA *thwack*

/me laughs...

another idea for the emp part of the ion storm is that the time before your batt starts to recharge is related to the capacity of the battery, say 3/4 of a second per 10 units of juice... that would knock a heavy batt out for 41.25 seconds and an efficient/free batt out for 18.75 seconds.

Of course we could use the rate as .5 seconds per 10 units of juice... giving 12.5 seconds on the free/efficient batt and 27.5 on the heavy.

I like this idea a lot, but maybe instead of a wall througth the entire sector, maybe it should be a slower moving patch of disruption, or even a field that doesn't move at all, just appears small, grows larger, then stays there for 10-15 minutes, (maybe much longer, 1 hour or so?) then gradually disapears. This couldn't be near a station or wormhole, of course. That would be no fun.

And maybe the effect could be triggered if there is a lot of weapons fire in that sector recently, especially/only ions? After all, it IS an ION storm. ;)

And as for the duration, it should probably last equally long for all types of batteries, anything else wouldn't be fair.

The largest it should be if it is a localized field is maybe, 500m for stationary and 1000m for it moving at 30m/sec or so? Not sure 'bought this. Would depend on duration. Longer the duration, smaller the field, to a point.

Anyway, my (one, two, three, aha!;)) four pence.

Sandworms in space!

Well, Subspace worms, kind of like the ones in the Final Fantasy movie. They go at 250kph, and pass through you, taking your energy.

Ooh... It'd be cool if occasionally your shots backfired on you while within this field of yours RJT. /me watches someone fire an adv gatling and have an arc of energy fly back at them. Mmm.

Hey, anyone read the Star Wars: New Jedi Order books? I recall that the Yuuzhan Vong had the capability of forming wormholes at will to intercept shots. Given that players have the ability to trigger wormhole jumps, perhaps micro-wormholes would take the place of shielding, if only as an experimental technology.

Hmm. An energy draining field would be kind of cool, particularly if it was associated with the present-day idea of an ion storm. Can you imagine, say, flying through Odia when you're pulled out of warp into a sector with "gravametric disturbances" through it- random pockets of space where your battery doesn't work. :P