Temporary Power-Ups?

from StarControl Forums

Ships in Star Control are fun arcade space ships.  They are not serious warships in space with 4 primary weapons, 8 secondaries, mines, missiles, tractor beams and transporters.  A ship in Star Control has 1 or 2 weapons/devices and those systems generally launch a single projectile or missile.  They are very simple, and defined mostly by the weapon/device they have.  They mentioned that so far all ships have 2 systems, and that sounds promising.  That's how ships in Star Control should be.  However, this also means that certain weapons and devices common to the genre are too powerful for a ship to have.  Systems like these could be brought into the game through temporary power-ups.  This of course means more programming, art, animations, and sound for each so may not be feasible for that reason, but if it is a possiblity this could allow for some fun weapons/devices that would otherwise be too powerful to balance within these very simple ships.

Some examples of "power-ups" that must be earned in some way, and then you have it until you use it or that fight ends would be...

Gravitic Pulse - Subspace calls it "Repel".  A shockwave that does no damage flings enemy ships within range away from the repelling ship.

Rocket Boosters - This might actually be possible as a balanced permenant system on a ship, but if none of the ships have them this would also make a good powerup.

Multi-fire - An extra projectile is fired for every push of the button.

You get the idea.  There are things that are too powerful to balance among ships with so few capabilities and these could be put into the game as temporary power ups and would add tactical variety to the combat.

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Reply #1 from StarControl Forums Top

There are two counter arguments I'd like to make here:

1. Temporary power-ups are not established in the gameplay of StarControl. Especially not in the form of a little floating blue ball in the middle of combat that if you fly over it grants you multi-fire for a minute until battle ends.

2. I do not believe there is a type of weapon that is inherently "too powerful" to be balanced. The game already has VUX limpids that make the enemy ship immobile. That's pretty overpowered. In fact, pretty much most abilities in the game are rather overpowered and balanced by everybody else having overpowered abilities too. There are already ships with powers of multi-fire and some that (arguably) manipulate gravity.

Now I understand where you're coming from - where I am going with this is that there is no need to make these power-ups "temporary". Much rather I'd like to see them hard-earned but persistent. They'd be "temporary" only in the sense that your Gravity Gargle Blaster that you found is only equipped onto one ship in your fleet - and if that ship is destroyed, the GGB is lost with it.

 

 

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

I am just throwing out ideas I think could be useful, I'm not really advocating except maybe in the case of having the basic scenarios of the genre as multiplayer zones (Base Defense, Capture the Flag, and Hockey).  I can definitely see not having temporary power ups in the game.

But there are some things that will be too powerful to really be balanced with the "normal" ships.  The "repel" I mentioned is one, a ship that can repeatedly use that ability would be too powerful against ships that didn't have that ability no matter what you tried to do to fix it (other than making it repel for such a short distance that it becomes irrelevant and useless).  A weapon that grabbed you like a tractor beam and then pulsed damage into you would be another example of something that would be too powerful to balance among ships with only 2 systems each.

 

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Reply #3 from StarControl Forums Top

Quoting Kavik_Kang, reply 2
But there are some things that will be too powerful to really be balanced with the "normal" ships.  The "repel" I mentioned is one, a ship that can repeatedly use that ability would be too powerful against ships that didn't have that ability no matter what you tried to do to fix it (other than making it repel for such a short distance that it becomes irrelevant and useless).  A weapon that grabbed you like a tractor beam and then pulsed damage into you would be another example of something that would be too powerful to balance among ships with only 2 systems each.

Still balance-able, I think. A repel that isn't instant but is fired like a projectile takes skill to land. A tractor beam that can pulse damage into target indefinitely would be a problem - but what if it had a very high energy consumption while dealing damage? You could deal grievous damage, but not too much (say 30% hp); on a sluggish ship that would definitely be possible to balance.

However, this does not take into consideration balance in a game where ship duels are not 1v1 - many things that would be not viable in 1v1 scenarios become merely very strong in 5v5 situations. The devs did mention that they are actively looking into multi-ship combat - but to my knowledge there has been no word yet if it will be present in the solo player adventure mode.

 I can entirely envision a slightly simpler form of StarControl "DotA" or similar moba becoming very popular.

Reply #4 from StarControl Forums Top

"Repel" is too powerful of an ability to have with such simple ships if nobody else has it.  But would be OK as a one-time use thing.  A tractor beam that pulses damage is an easier to understand example though.  A tractor beam that pulses damage is a god-like weapon within this combat environment.  Speed is everything, and a tractor beam brings you to a stop and locks you in place.  If there is any type of terrain feature that inst-kills you if you run into it like a planet or black hole or a map edge that will force you to disengage the tractor alone becomes a very powerful thing that is not fun at all and players would hate.  Being killed by getting pushed into a planet or forced to disengage by being pushed off the map edge is not fun.  Then, if there are multiple ships there is the "death drag", where you just drag them past your allies who kill them for you.

Tractor beams are very complicated within this genre and there are many more uses for them than you might expect.  Most of them result in very un-fun situations, like pushing you into an asteroid.  The ships in this game will not have ability to deal with a tractor beam, they have no means of breaking it.  If you make it such a short duration that it is "balanced", then it is not a tractor beam anymore and not really relevant that it grabs the ship for 2 seconds while the weapon fires.  So, I guess you are correct that even that could be "balanced" but in doing so it would fundamentally not really be a tractor beam anymore... it would just briefly drag the target while firing which would almost always be irrelevant.

 

Reply #5 from StarControl Forums Top

Surely if the tractor beam were extremely short range rather than time limited, this would work to balance it? It works making it this way in 'realistic' terms, as the power required to hold something in place I believe would instinctively feel much greater than to just fire a more conventional weapon, hence the attenuated range.

The balance of looking at it this way works in two ways... Firstly, you would have to get into knife-fighting range to activate it, meaning unless you have a dramatic speed advantage, you would have to employ greater skill in getting into range. Secondly, whilst you're holding them stationary (relative to you), technically you're also stationary relative to them... and at point blank range. Better have some good defenses to go with that tractor beam...

There's loads of ways to balance pretty much everything. Generally the most complexity comes when trying to balance one particular unit for both 1V1 and xVx (different, but similar difficulty in balancing gear for both PVE and PVP in an MMO), but most things are possible with enough lateral thinking.

And time. Lots of time. But that's why we're discussing things now, and not this time next year ;)

Reply #6 from StarControl Forums Top

Yes, I said it the wrong way when I said they could not be balanced at all.  But some systems are inherently powerful within this type of combat.  Star Control's ships are very simple with only 1-3 systems each.  So certain weapons and devices will be inherently too powerful to have them on a ship with their full capabilities that actually make them fun.  Those systems would be good candidates to be temporary power ups if the game is going to have temporary power ups, because they can exist at their full power and in all their glory as single use systems where to put them on a ship permanently would require nerfing them to the point of being nearly useless and/or not fun anymore.  That was what I was trying to say.

Tractor beams are a different issue.  A ship could have a tractor beam, but unless there is a real reason for it like someone just has a really awesome idea for a ship with a tractor beam, it's probably best to avoid having a tractor beam in the game.  There really are a lot of issues with tractor beams.  They cause a lot of un-fun situations such as pushing people into things, or off the map.  I could definitely see a ship with a short duration tractor beam but that is really just to create a "feel" and isn't really tactically relevant.  It's just a good thing to avoid if you want to avoid difficult balance issues.  Tractor beams wind up being very complex and really do cause lots and lots of problems.

I should add that a system that may seem to powerful with such simple ships, but actually isn't, is a cloaking device.  I was the Romulan staff member when I was on the SFB staff, I understand the cloaking device very well.  If the devs want a ship with a cloaking device I know several different ways of how to do that and make it work well in this type of game, which is necessarily actually very different than the way it works in SFB.  Once upon a time I was wanting to make an MMO top down space combat game that I went very far into designing, so I have actually given years of thought to some of these subjects already.

 

 

Reply #7 from StarControl Forums Top

I am not in favor of chasing down a power-up capsule in combat. That changes the dynamic of combat way too much. Out-of-combat power-ups are okay (within limits), but the focus should remain ship-to-ship.

Reply #8 from StarControl Forums Top

It doesn't necessarily have to be like that.  For example, you could earn a "Uber Powerul Single Use Power-Up" whenever you kill an enemy.  So even in 1v1 SuperMelee, if I kill you I still get it against your next ship.  The next ship you pick is probably my nemesis and hard for my ship to kill... but now I have one use of some better-than-normal weapon/device.  Earning it for a kill would actually work pretty well for SC.  But again, I am not advocating for this.  I like it, and it works, but the game may not be going in this direction and that would be just fine too.