Shooting Out Engines

[Tenebrous Pirate]

Jun 15, 2011 11:27:04 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

I actually really like the OP concept. I just worry everyone who's Captains are built around engine blasting will be annoyed at me

Actually, I would love it, and I am perhaps the biggest proponent of the engine blasting, pilot/stealth build. I would love to see more diversity in how you play the game. It gives the players more room to create strategies.

[absimiliard]

I've often thought bounty hunters are the hardest kind of captain to play. They need so many different skills, and their chosen path is one that involves lots and lots of combat.

Now I'm wondering if I couldn't play a bounty hunter with no investment in STR/Warrior and CHA/Intimidate if I was more diligent about surveiling my target first. I am pretty sure a successful surveillance of the target allows you to re-acquire the target if you fail the contract in any fashion. So if I went Pilot/Stealth (like a pirate) and blew up a capture contract target I would be able to retry again, provided I'd surveilled correctly beforehand. This would probably mean I couldn't stack as many contracts into one "run", but should (hypothetically) pay off in having my bounty hunters survive past level 10-15. (which is usually where I die because I'm not specialized and enemy captains at 170% of my captain's level are damn tough {I play on Insane}) I think there's some testing needed, I guess my newest bounty hunter "LS-546 CS of the Steel Song" has its work cut out for itself. (and after it dies, as all my captains do, the job will pass on to the next bounty hunter)

If I'm right, this is good news for my bounty hunter. But it probably implies that Pilot/Stealth alone IS too powerful. Changing combat as much as fixing that would require might be more disruptive than we'd like though.

Much to ponder here.

-abs

[Tenebrous Pirate]

My pirate on impossible does really well with his bounties, and uses the engine shooting plan pretty much exclusively. The big thing I am having trouble with is figuring out how to use surveilance with this predator tracking array, so that if the target is on the wrong type of faction ship, I can track them down again and not lose the rep.

[absimiliard]

If you have it, I think it just basically gives you what Bounty Hunters and Military Officers get doesn't it?

So if you surveil in the sector where a target is you should get the message about finding information on your target. I think you should also get the "Surveillance" button while over Indep sectors if you've a contract for a target there. Then after failing, for any reason, a contract you should get a toast saying something about "we can re-acquire the target at will". Provided the contract hasn't expired you should then be able to do the same thing (go to the Spice Hall, Explore, visit the Palace, whatever) and again get the chance to take on your target.

Important tip: If time remains after a failed run at a target, redo your surveillance again. You can stack these things up one "failure" after another, provided you re-surveil.

Another tip: Be aware that if your target is on a civilized planet and not in deep space or in the wilds, you can run the clock out retrying runs on your target. If you do this the contract CAN expire, in which case you will fail it. (since once it runs out the option to make a run at your target goes away, which is to say the button un-bolds and when "pushed" doesn't offer the opportunity to make a run on your target anymore)

Last tip: Just because you have a special surveillance ability doesn't mean you won't create records and lose rep if you surveil Faction Space. So be careful about such things. I like to take contracts mostly on Indeps, but I'm kind of a rep-whore so YMMV.

-abs

[Tenebrous Pirate]

So, do the recon before starting the mission...

[absimiliard]

*LOL*!!!

Yes, before the mission is when you try to learn new things about your target and the ship he/she/it is on.

Sorry.

(and I really shouldn't laugh, before I figured it out I tried the recon afterwards as well, it's just been a while and is quite ingrained in me by now)

-abs

[gearheadwhat]

How about a middle road gents?

Take out engines -> X turns before defeat, instead of auto-loss.


Gives those who get their engines shot out a chance to 'take them down with us' or to counter board, etc. Gray out any sort of movement options though, just like if you don't have torps/guns.

This would add some depth. I could see it being interesting, since all of a sudden the whole crew is up for fighting (no engines need to be manned afterall) so it COULD be a dangerous thing to get up close, take out the engines, on a 100+ crewed vessel, since if you're not ready for a counter-charge, you might be in for a doozy of a close quarters fight. Of course if you knock out their engines, your first course of action should be to get some distance first. Any captain who stays up close might just deserve that counter-attack (at lower morale/efficiency perhaps? Or higher due to desperation? Both? )

[slayernz]

The point is that if you take out engines, you effectively take out life support, weapons, scanners, coffee machines ... everything.

If you're in this unfortunate situation of drifting in space with engines out, living quarters growing colder, and oxygen levels falling, then your opponent has a number of choices:
1) They can threaten to shoot a hole in your hull until you surrender. You're a sitting target so any half-decent pilot should be able to hit with reasonable accuracy.

2) They can just sit and wait until you are blue with cold and dizzy with oxygen deprivation. After all, if you're fighting just to breathe, you're in no state to repel boarders.

3) They can wait until you die.

4) They can board you immediately and have a firefight.

Options 1 - 3 involve doing nothing, risking nothing. Option 4 is higher risk. I'd only do option 4 if I were running really late for a friend's wedding or if I was a week away from some contract expiry.

[gearheadwhat]

Even so:

If you're on a nuclear powered ship, and you take out the nuclear power source for whatever reason, there ARE backups.

There's a diesel engine (not as powerful though), and there are batteries the sub runs off as well.


A starship would probably be built very similarly to a submarine. I don't see why not allowing 2-3 more rounds AFTER engines are out before the ship loses.

[kuzkula]

My idea is sill awesome. A ups upgrade.

[Cory Trese]

this thread is so full of win i'm not sure what to do.

* Backup Reactors (awesome!)
* Count Down to Defeat (Engines Are Out!)
* New Boarding Play

Also, I totally agree with ABS on this -- don't Bounty Hunt a hard target. Cherry pick shuttles =)

[kuzkula]

Do it all, man. You can do it!

[HateSolstice]

I say there should be a Jack Sparrow maneuver, where you trick the enemy into swapping ships a couple times, until you end up with a shiny new ship that doesn't have failing systems and red lights all across the board.

[absimiliard]

There is!

(or at least boarding, transferring cargo, and taking the ship has the same mechanical effect, albeit without any humor value added by the brillian Mr. Depp)

-abs

[phantum]

A delay after taking out Engines would be interesting, applied to both player and enemy. There could be a chance to repair ship each turn also. I disagree with the comparison of OP using old sailing ships, where the guns, oxygen (and water) was not dependent on sails... In a modern warship loosing the power and electronics is the biggest risk, which is why the ops room is deep and protected in the ship (and darned hard to find even when on board). You have no way to detect enemy, or damage them, or evade them with countermeasures and you can be destroyed at any time.

So if the enemy had their engines taken out, they would be at your mercy, you could shoot with impunity, but boarding should maybe not be quite so easy - they could still put up a fight with the hope they could repair the engines at any time. This could be where an option to surrender and survive could be implemented ...

So when engines are destroyed and no power, you could have a surrender option, or fight on to boarding, but with the powerless ship at a disadvantage. The idea would be such that boarding still has a small element of risk or cost, although the enemy could surrender too if they are like a merchant with few crew and no weapons. However, another pirate or mercenary could put up a substantial fight (and you could too). It should not be such that you need to invest heavily in strength and warrior, you are still relying on pilot and guns to take down the enemy. Just keep a bit of risk there or a small cost so it is not so easy to blow up engines and loot with zero damage or cost.

I also wonder if it is not too easy to destroy a ship by 'blowing it up' in a few shots. In a modern warship, the outer hull is designed to be as light as possible, relying on inner bulkheads to protect sensitive areas and stop the complete loss of air (i.e. sinking). You can not prevent a hull penetration, I have seen the result of an old russian man portable anti armour rocket penetrating a 1M thick reinforced steel plate (all be it with only a minor ordinance transfer inside) The last thing you want is a reinforced hull containing the ordinance explosion inside your ship, so all the energy results in internal damage. ooops sorry getting carried away here...

The point is, engines have always been stable, cars don't blow up when you riddle them with bullets, ships don't usually blow up any more now even if you hit their ordnance store, most ordinance is surprisingly stable. Your fuel here is water ... Sure you could riddle the hull with holes so it leaks, but there will be inner bulk heads too... A ship could be effectively 'destroyed' when it is damaged beyond economic repair. Crew could still find a way to survive on restoring backup life support systems (they must have them or you would loose your crew each time you stall the ship leaving orbit)!