53 replies to this topic

[Defender0]

After a lot of playing and suggesting ideas for new abilities in several threads, i decided to make a thread where we could all post ideas about abilities in one place, as well as feedback for these ideas

Now, to start off with, this morning i had an idea for an ability for the prowler. Here is what i wrote down when i came up with this idea:

Prowler ability: severun overseer phase jump dectection ability, unlocked through PSIDAR array research, active ability, high AM cost/long cooldown for balance if needed

The reasoning behind this is that, in sins, if you send any ship to a gravity well, you effectively know everything about that gravity well in terms of what is there. With this ability, prowlers will be able to know what is in the gravity well as well as what is headed toward the gravity well. I feel that this ability will give the prowler more of the feel of an intelligence gathering vessel rather than a simple scout.

[MasterOfShips]

Nice. I also had an idea where prowlers should get a stealth ability, making them temporarily invulnerable for a few seconds. That way they can get through a lightly/moderately defended gravity well without being so easily destroyed.

[Defender0]

i like the concept of prowlers having stealth, its just that it is impossible to have true "stealth" in sins, because the enemy will always know the ship is there. the closest thing to stealth in sins is the "phase cloaking" of the vasari scout frigate

[TheOtherXtremeRoflcopter]

I'm still sorta on the fence about it man, I see the benefits but still I don't know

[MasterOfShips]

i like the concept of prowlers having stealth, its just that it is impossible to have true "stealth" in sins, because the enemy will always know the ship is there. the closest thing to stealth in sins is the "phase cloaking" of the vasari scout frigate

True, that's why I envision the stealth ability to be similar to the Diplomatic Immunity ability for the Neruda Envoy Cruiser. Basically once the ability is activated, the ship becomes invulnerable for a few seconds and any hostile forces act as if it's not there.

[Defender0]

any hostile forces act as if it's not there.

thats the problem, they still know its there, they just cant shoot

[MasterOfShips]

thats the problem, they still know its there, they just cant shoot

Really? When I play they just fly away in the opposite direction like it just disappeared.

[sloosecannon]

Really? When I play they just fly away in the opposite direction like it just disappeared.

If you play as the other guy, you can still see it. Just can't shoot it. So the AI ignores it

[MasterOfShips]

If you play as the other guy, you can still see it. Just can't shoot it. So the AI ignores it

Ah. I'm guessing Defender was talking about playing against people, while I was talking about the AI. My mistake. Either way, even if you're playing against another person, having a stealth/diplomatic immunity ability will help out a lot. Your prowlers will be able to better survive against the AI militia when scouting out neutral gravity wells, and of course it can help your prowler escape from a human player too, even if the human can still see it.

[Defender0]

Ok, i had another idea for an ability for the supercarrier. It is a fleet buff, but hear me out.

So, from what ive been thinking, the Supercarrier is usually going to be the flagship of your fleet, or at least the fleet centerpiece. Therefore, wouldnt it make sense to give it a buff that improves the overall effectiveness of all of the ships in the fleet?

Here is what im proposing: a non stackable buff that gives a few improvements to all allied ships in the gravity well, such as improved turning rate, weapon damage/weapon cooldown (one or the other), or hull point restoration (maybe 1 or 2 points per second). Again, this would be a non stacking buff, so it would not work to make 16 supercarriers and expect this buff to be multiplied. Also, the numbers i am talking about for these buffs would be small, around 10% to 15%.

Now for the canon explanation as to why this would make sense. UNSC Supercarriers could have been like the spartans in a sense that they brought morale to the UNSC when they were around. These ships could have made the rest of the UNSC fleet believe they might have a fighting chance (im assuming this, i dont have actual solid proof). So, it makes sense that a supercarrier would bring a lot of help to its fleet, hence this buff, which could fittingly be called "Morale Boost".

This is more or less me rambling about an idea i came up with in 10 minutes, any thoughts/suggestions are welcome, as well as ways to balance this ability if it is considered to be used.

Oh, and one more thing. THIS IS OBVIOUSLY MEANT TO REPLACE THE ION BOLT ABILITY lol

[MasterOfShips]

I like the Supercarrier idea, but doesn't the Valiant serve that role already?

[Wikia]

Is it possible to make Finest Hour an ability that can be used on other friendly ships the same way that the command cruiser from vanilla sins had the Embolden ability or would that be too overpowered and fuck the balance up too much?

[Defender0]

I like the Supercarrier idea, but doesn't the Valiant serve that role already?

Not exactly, the valiant CLASS is not a flagship, the Valiant Cruiser known to everyone as the UNSC Everest IS a flagship. I doubt that a fleet with a super carrier and a valiant will have the valiant as the flagship, which is where this idea came from for the supercarrier. On top of this, the Valiant currently has a fleet buff ability, while the supercarrier has Ion Bolt, which fucks with logic!

[CommanderP26647]

I have an idea for a Covenant ability. A boost which makes a special shipclass or capital ship more powerful the more they´re outnumbered by the UNSC, like 1% more attack each 5 enemy ships

[Dhoulmegus]

I have an idea for a Covenant ability. A boost which makes a special shipclass or capital ship more powerful the more they´re outnumbered by the UNSC, like 1% more attack each 5 enemy ships

I feel that it's impossible to make that idea work.

[Defender0]

I have an idea for a Covenant ability. A boost which makes a special shipclass or capital ship more powerful the more they´re outnumbered by the UNSC, like 1% more attack each 5 enemy ships

considering that there is already a fleet buff that gives 45% weapon cooldown, on top of the fact that this kind of ability would be pretty useless considering the power of each covenant ship vs each UNSC ship, i think that this ability would be... unused lol

[CommanderP26647]

considering that there is already a fleet buff that gives 45% weapon cooldown, on top of the fact that this kind of ability would be pretty useless considering the power of each covenant ship vs each UNSC ship, i think that this ability would be... unused lol

In case of this cooldown ability, my ability would be useless.

[Defender0]

In case of this cooldown ability, my ability would be useless.

lol yeah, its a pretty good cooldown buff, but its an expensive item to research, and only one very expensive ship gets it

[sloosecannon]

I have an idea for a Covenant ability. A boost which makes a special shipclass or capital ship more powerful the more they´re outnumbered by the UNSC, like 1% more attack each 5 enemy ships

I feel that it's impossible to make that idea work.

Actually, if we want to, I can see how we could do that... but not sure if we want to...

(coding jargon follows)
Make a buff that targets enemy ships and spawns a buff that gives friendly ships a % boost...

[Unikraken]

Actually, if we want to, I can see how we could do that... but not sure if we want to...

(coding jargon follows)
Make a buff that targets enemy ships and spawns a buff that gives friendly ships a % boost...

That's pretty clever. Now that I think about it...it's not a completely terrible idea. We'll talk about it.