Alternative weapon selections for ships

They're planning on expanding the roster with dlc and expansions, iirc.

I quite like cwrightc84 idea about being able to customise ships.  For example, you could by weapon systems from allies after completing a series of missions or if you down enough enemies you might be able to salvage a weapon system.  Get enough of these and the starbase can make them.

In the Crux Multiverse they had a function where you found Precursor artefacts that could be used to upgrade ships.  It was rudimentary at best but was one of the few things i thought was an improvement to the game.

I think the idea of ship customization with different loadouts for primary and secondary weapons will help Hyper Melee diversity.  Right now if the ships are too rigid in design and hyper melee is a 1v1 match up then you will get into situation where it simply becomes a rock paper and scissor match.

As great as SC2 was, it did have this issue in fleet battles.  You could lose a hyper melee 100% simply because the enemy picked the proper ship to hardcounter you (e.g. a slow ship with no point defenses vs. Ur Quan fighters, or something like the VUX Intruder vs. a Chmmr Avatar).

If you variate loadouts between ships, it brings a sense of deeper strategy that allows someone to pick a ship like an earthling cruiser, but the enemy still won't know 100% what your capabilities are because you might be laser built vs. missile built.  It will be harder for an opponent to pick a ship that simply hardcounters all my abilities because they don't know if I'm Cruiser A or Cruiser B.

Going along with this system, I do advocate allowing players to switch loadouts or perhaps even entire ships between hyper melee duels to prevent Rock Paper Scissors gameplay.  In this case, it may also be a good idea to hide which ships players are selecting from each other between rounds.  The enemy should still be able to see my entire fleet composition though so they can have some level of strategy as to what they might expect.

When they finish the game, they will think about making additional ships and races

I don't think it is required in the base game. But I think the ability to do that (for custom game purposes) would be great.

No no no no - the point is to change SHIP if you need a different tactic. Not change weapons for each ship. That's the whole point! And, of course, make your OWN ships!

But that's the whole point. It IS Rock Paper Scissors! If your enemy brings out an Urquan Dreadnaught, which ship will you use? That's the point!

How did I miss that gem of a quote? I agree. Melee needs to be lopsided.

While I do like the original sc2 hypermelee, I don't think the systems rigidness will work well with modern gamers who are used to being showered with options and tactical depth.

An example is the urquan dreadnought vs the earthling cruiser.  In this scenario the cruiser is given and edge over the dreadnought because it's point defense naturally kills fighters and its mssiles outrange the dreadnought plasma cannon.  This turns marched into contests of picking the right ship over skill.

in single player, each alien race only has 1 ship type so you can trivialize the game by warping to their sector with a fleet of counter-ships because you know the enemy only has one set of capabilities.  This leads to flat gameplay.

by adding individual ship options you solve some of these issues and prevent battles from degrading into ship vs. Counter ship.  This leads to better gameplay and forces single players to variate their fleet due to thresf of a single enemy race having multiple combat abilities.

A less rigid system will give you players who "main" a given class character ship. Having hard counters will mix the gameplay up more and will force me to be skilled at using all ships rather than a subsection.

I don't care about SP. SP was fine in SC2. You ended up using your main ship for combat anyway once you leveled it up. It would trash anything.

I disagree - the rigidity of the ships' capabilities is what CREATES tactical depth. Know thine enemy. Learn how to counteract it. If you've got the Dreadnaught in your repertoire and you go up against the Cruiser - pick a different one, maybe a Spathi to outrun those missiles? Or an Ilwrath to cloak and lose the missiles. And if you see you're going up against a Dreadnaught, choose the Cruiser! This is the point. It's not like there are 3 ships to choose from, so Rock Paper Scissors in an invalid comparison.

It's more like Rock, Paper, Scissors, Sand, Fan, Vacuum, Magnifying Glass, Beer Bottle, Glove, Needle, Pickaxe, Spoon, Tape Dispenser, Ball Point Pen, Rubber Band and Shotgun. There's no need to switch weapons on a single ship when you just have a bunch of ships to choose from! Why grab a different gun, when you could grab a different ship entirely?

It needlessly convolutes a very clean system, and makes it nearly impossible to, like I said, "Know thine enemy." 

You don't like or care about SP in SC? Wow, this is shocking news!!

And btw cwright, you already have an interchangeable weapon that makes ships more adaptable to the ships coming their way - it's called their alt-fire.

To be fair, though, some ships were effective against a number of other types, and other ships were only effective against one or two. Costs were also often disproportionate to the effectiveness of the ship. That was a result of the lack of balancing. SC2 needed a rebalancing patch. (And there was a UQM rebalance mod to partially address this.)

You know what I mean. I will strive to make SuperMelee be the best it can be, and as a side effect, will improve the SP combat.

I honestly liked that part of SC:III back when I played it but always wondered if the Precursors had obtained a method of seeing the future to seed that area with upgrade items for various races.

I believe instead of finding a single magical artifact that'll upgrade ships near instantly, how about an event based R&D upgrade path.

For Example:

Step 1)  Locate an artifact of unknown use & origin randomly or via a quest.  -- Note this artifact could be on/around a planet/asteroid/sun

Step 2)  Take it to your base & offload it for the R&D lab to research it

Step 3)  Event happens after X time period stating a breakthrough had been made, but essentially it was incomplete and incompatible with our current tech requiring repeat of steps 1&2 a set number of times.  Upon completion of device...

Step 4)  Notification that the device from above could benefit 1 or more known race ships, or Starbases, but would require every ship in Fleet X to be rebuilt with said tech to utilize it for massive upgrade items & Starbases would take Y period of time.

Step 4a) In the event of the device not directly helping any species/fleet/starbase the commander would state "We have a fully functioning X but have no clue how to use it or for who to use it" upon finding the right Species needed, after a period of time the commander would start a new event stating the R&D team dusted off "spilled coffee on" the device and realized it would work for said new species.

Now this could work for the ships if they're modular and/or open up new parts for custom ships at a certain point in time.

Possible upgrades

Weapons:
Damage Output

Accuracy

Firing Distance

Energy Consumption

Engines:

Thrust output

Fuel Consumption

Energy output to the rest of the ship

Hull:

Strength

Allowed size(s)

Increased efficiency in energy transfer from engine/reactor to devices

Etc the list could go on & on.

Edit:  I believe possibly each completed research could effect different ships in different ways.  Say R&D Project 1 upon completion would increase the speed/range of the Human's Missiles, where as for Race 2 it would increase their ship turn rate, and Race 3 would get a minor thrust increase from it.

I will say that I am highly against any type of stat based upgrade, alt loadouts should completely change the functionality of a ship and perhaps give a visual indicator that it is altered allow for counterplay.

Absolutely, 100%. I've said this so many times, I've lost count. ZERO INCREMENTAL UPGRADES EVER.

Ever. +karma to you sir.

I swear, in the name of Our Lady of Guadalupe, if I have an Ion Cannon that does 10 crew damage, and I find an Ion Cannon v2 that does 13 damage, I will f-ing crack some skulls.

Tsk tsk tsk, Geordi and Scotty would be ashamed of you two!  :) j/k

Sorry maybe I should have been more specific, in the single player Living Universe I'm all for the upgrades.

Edit: Expansion on "Living Universe" if we could get a "Living Universe" where spheres of influence change, and possibly even harder difficulties where enemy factions actually do their own R&D & Upgrade ships as well either keeping the playing field level or making things tougher at some point.  -- This could add a fun challenging dynamic especially if you're say 1-5 years behind on the R&D/Outfitting front.

In PvP...

I would MUCH rather have the option for the vs match to require base ship load outs only.  I hate to jump into a casual 1v1 match & get waffle stomped by higher quality gear by someone able to put in far more time & be far luckier than I am in just a casual match.

Now the option for upgraded fleets in the 1v1 could be interesting but leave it up to the players to chose if they want base or attempt to outgun their opponents.

What about 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 damage upgrades for the main ship?

Since enemy health is likely to be fixed, doubling the damage with each upgrade would be very noticeable in how many shots it took to kill an enemy.

Alternatively, doubling the rate of fire would have the same effect, but it would reduce the level of skill needed to get kills.

The concept is just soooo boring.

You know what would be more exciting? Adding effects to attacks. For example (let's use the Earthling Cruiser), say baseline missiles have no tracking capability, or abysmally bad tracking. Then 2nd level, you get slightly better tracking, 3rd level you get increased ranged, and 4th level you get more damage (up from like 2).

It is only boring if it is overused and/or if the increments are meaningless. A 10% boost is meaningless. A 100% boost is noticeable. And if there were only two 100% boosts in the game, they would be infrequent enough to be special.

Think about it in terms of crew capacity upgrades. How special will the necessary +20 crew module be? 

I'm not precluding this idea either.

It's all about the point system and choosing a lineup of ships.  That's what the game is.  If you take away the BPV system you literally have nothing.  The BPV system is SVC simulation design work, one of the only savant simulation designers to ever live.  It is unfathomably deep because that is his special talent.  It is difficult to see on paper, but as with all SVC systems it is deceptively deep and intricate... even though it appears to be almost nothing at all.

Anyone who has played SC2 supermelee a lot probably understands what I am saying.

that's fucked up, if Sc2 can do 25 ships why can't SC:O?