Pilot Archive
Thread: POB: Bridge Stations!
What I'd like to see is more focus on bridge station functionality. We've currently got pilot and ops..which is good, but shouldn't the bridge stations also have stations that allow for marginal engineering control? Instead of all the conduits around?
I still think POB ships should have the conduits...for direct access emergency repairs. But couldn't there be an engineering station on the bridge with its own GUI that allowed an engineering player to further tweak already tweak astromech ship performance by balancing systems power and maintaining the overall power output of the ship in an active fashion? Also the Engineering interface should have repair droid controls to handle the conduits in normal situations.
And how about a weapons station for the missiles? This would require a small upgrade to all POB ships...and what I'd propose is leaving the two main guns on each ship as directly mannable, then give the pilot of the ship control of two Heavy Fighter class front mounted blasters..increasing the POB ships total guns to four,..and giving missile control to the weapons control station...and allowing the weapons control station to reload missile packs as needed from its own interface.
Just a couple of ideas to make the bridges of all POB combat ships even more fun than they already are. I personally think POB ships are the best thing ever added to this game...and they're currently the most fun thing to do in the game for me.
I'd like to see the bridge stations become more functional on them...so everyone can more or less do their team jobs from the bridge stations.
Basic Breakdown:
Pilot Station handles manuevering, hyperspace, two front mounted heavy fighter class blasters, Starbase communication.
Ops Station handles Shields, Emergency System Procedures, Docking and Undocking, Target Analysis/Priority, Starbase communication.
Engineering Station handles, Emergency Systems Maintenance, Systems Balancing, Repair Droid control, and last line damage control via direct conduit access.
Weapons Station handles three missile launchers, ordinance reloads, autonomous 360 degree targeting..and maybe someday...droid mines?
Gunnery Stations more or less do what they currently do...but could use a tiny tiny manueverability tweak.
I love these ships. Once I'm up in them I never want to come down again. I'd love to see the bridge stations become more teamwork focused and realistic.
Thank you very much for an incredibly fun addition to the game...I can't wait to see more!
It would be no fun without others.
Diva_The_Boomerang_Girl wrote:
I wouldn't want to solo in the POB..its about teamwork!
It would be no fun without others.
Message Edited by Cookie-Eater on 10-01-2005 08:49 AM
Lots of positive things could come of doing something like this.
Though I did say give the weapons station a 360 degree autonomous targeting system..I've thought that over a little and I think it would be too powerful...so maybe setting them up as two launchers for the top section of the ship, and giving them both a cone of range to the fore and aft of the ship...and then the bottom of the ship would have the other one position there, and that one would have a 360 degree targetting mobility.
That would leave some workable blind spots and not make the POBs auto-aiming space bomb platforms..and integrate the missile systems into the overall ship design to be an independantly controlled set of weapons systems..without overpowering them.
Message Edited by Diva_The_Boomerang_Girl on 10-01-2005 11:32 AM
Diva_The_Boomerang_Girl wrote:
I didn't think of the mining applications of it. Yes that would be very nice indeed really.
Lots of positive things could come of doing something like this.
Though I did say give the weapons station a 360 degree autonomous targeting system..I've thought that over a little and I think it would be too powerful...so maybe setting them up as two launchers for the top section of the ship, and giving them both a cone of range to the fore and aft of the ship...and then the bottom of the ship would have the other one position there, and that one would have a 360 degree targetting mobility.
That would leave some workable blind spots and not make the POBs auto-aiming space bomb platforms..and integrate the missile systems into the overall ship design to be an independantly controlled set of weapons systems..without overpowering them.
Message Edited by Diva_The_Boomerang_Girl on 10-01-2005 11:32 AM
Quick fix and we miners get a hands up.. can only have 360 on Tractor beams/Mining Lasers
I like the concept, but I have my own ideas.
On engineering...however.
Give the engineering a screen derived from the experimentation window. This should be a pop-up, and need not force a different POV on the player. In this window, give them 0 "experimentation" points, and several rows, (shields, weapons, engines, booster, capacitor,) with 20 boxes, and 10 already filled. Free up a box, and deposit it in another area, at about 60% efficiency. So, you launch with all 5 lines showing 10 boxes full. Take a little damage? Well, now weapons is down to 19 available boxes, and only 9 filled, (as if you hadn't used 1000 quality resources for that stat.) But you NEED guns. You're not moving around much right now, so you thin engines down to 9 boxes, (out of an available 20,) and drop that back into guns. You're slower, but you're almost as powerful as you were at launch. Hmm....need more power to guns, and you're basically sitting still and letting them come to you, (or hammering on a very slow ship, like, oh, say the corvette.) Drop engines to 6, freeing up another 3 boxes, and pull boosters down to 8, (why did you bother installing them?) 5 boxes gets thrown into weapons making for some VERY hot guns. (14 out of 19 available boxes, with the last 4 really counting as about 3 of the first 10.)
Mission's over. You're debating between everyone ejecting and the pilot /quitting outor just hyperspacing to a point closer to the starport when you remember to just put everything in engines. Suddenly, you're flying a ship with 20 in engines and 20 in boosters. Of course, it has no functional weapons, and the capacitor has been shut down, oh and shields were scaled back by one box, (remember, you lost a box in weapons, and lost a dot to distribute too,) but you're flying along at about 160% the speed you'd normally go.
Other ideas/gripes.
I'd like for the pilot to quit receiving updates on the co-pilots commands to the droid, and the co-pilot to start receiving that feedback...for starters.
Right now, to use missiles, both the pilot and co-pilot have to have the EXACT SAME MOB targeted. Of course, if this was the guy who just shot at you, that works, otherwise you may have slightly different mobs targeted.
I'd like to be able to load two separate droid interfaces, (and assign two separate flight computers,) to a POB ship. Let the pilot control one, and let the co-pilot control the other...both on their own timers.
I think both pilot and co-pilot should be able to issue pilot commands...possibly on the same timer. (This would give extra incentive to runa mixed ship.)
Oh...missiles.
If you're out of missiles in tube one, WHY doesn't the thing default to tube two, instead of informing you that you are OUT OF AMMO? Fire or error, the missile tubes turn is up. Fire with tube one? Get informed you don't have lock on tube two? Fire successfully for each further round? Well, assuming balanced loads, you now find yourself with 0 missiles on tube one, and one apiece in tubes two and three, and you're informed you're out of ammo.
Heck, just let us treat tubes as separate weapons, and not merely part of the same weapons system. Let us throw them around in ctrl-g. Three tubes? Two of general purpose knock down missilesand one of spacebombs? Great. Lock in the two tubes to alternate in your ordinance shot, and isolate the spacebombs until you're ready to take out the corvette. Then, a quick visit to ctrl-g and only spacebombs would be usable from ordinance.
Hmmm....a turret wrapper for missile tubes makes compelling sense.
How about a turret wrapper for multiple weapons? Two weapons? Drop them in a turret wrapper and throw them in one turret.
Why do I have to have an flight computer if I'm anything but an X-Wing pilot?
Seriously astromechs should not only be availible to anyone..especially POB ships crew members, to perform as flight computer, and/or to be able to respond to damage alarms...travel to the correct conduit..and start the repairs. Its what droids in space were for after all.
And building on that, why not let a the engineering station direct droids to boost parts of the ship. The engineer could send some to "micromanage" the shield for a slight boost in power and recharge rate. if they was not needed for repair. Each droid could have a reactor drain like components do.
And why not have extra missiles stored in a cargo hold of some sort, that the owner could stock up before a flight, and then when a missile or countermeasures tubes were empty, the engineer could assign a droid to reload it.
As for giving forward facing guns to the pilot, I like that. It will not be that usefully against fighters (unless they joust), but against a Gunboat or similar targets it could be very useful, and it would certainly be more fun. However I think all the current co-pilot functions should pass over to the pilot as well.
Then the co-pilots seat/possession could be used for the control of missiles. And giving it a cone for targeting would be a nice touch. Yes it would be easier to get target lock from long range, but as POB's cannot really chance fighter around that easily, it would not be that unbalancing. It could further be helped by only letting the station fire one missile at the time (not allow linked tubes), and thus with the reload option encourage a POB to carry different types of tubes instead on 2 or 3 identical ones. And counter measures could be controlled by the same station.
Tarnak_Archvold wrote:
If memory serves me right R2D2 Started as one of many repair droids on the Queen's ship in EP1. So using "droids", to run around and repair the ship would look more starwarsy. And The job of sitting around whiting for part of the ship to take damage and the run over and repair it is not that fun, I tried it once and that was enough for me. And having droids controlled from an engineering station on the bridge just makes sense. And if having the droids actuarially physically running around is to though to implement, thy can just pop up where ever needed.
And building on that, why not let a the engineering station direct droids to boost parts of the ship. The engineer could send some to "micromanage" the shield for a slight boost in power and recharge rate. if they was not needed for repair. Each droid could have a reactor drain like components do.
And why not have extra missiles stored in a cargo hold of some sort, that the owner could stock up before a flight, and then when a missile or countermeasures tubes were empty, the engineer could assign a droid to reload it.
As for giving forward facing guns to the pilot, I like that. It will not be that usefully against fighters (unless they joust), but against a Gunboat or similar targets it could be very useful, and it would certainly be more fun. However I think all the current co-pilot functions should pass over to the pilot as well.
Then the co-pilots seat/possession could be used for the control of missiles. And giving it a cone for targeting would be a nice touch. Yes it would be easier to get target lock from long range, but as POB's cannot really chance fighter around that easily, it would not be that unbalancing. It could further be helped by only letting the station fire one missile at the time (not allow linked tubes), and thus with the reload option encourage a POB to carry different types of tubes instead on 2 or 3 identical ones. And counter measures could be controlled by the same station.
Wheres is the pilot correspondant?!
WE WANT REPAIR DROIDS! YAY! ETC ETC ETC?