I was thinking one neat thing for GSF would be if players could pick a single ship on their account as a "Signature" ship. Basically, players could pick their favorite ship and be able to give it some kind of special boost.

 

This could be something as simple as a small stat boost. Maybe your signature ship has higher shields or more engine power.

 

Or it could be something more interesting (though admittedly potentially unbalancing) like special components only available for a ship designated as a player's signature ship.

 

For example, a pilot's Clarion designated as his/her signature ship would gain the option to use Cluster Missiles and Rocket Pods for a secondary weapon.

 

A Flashfire designated as a player's signature ship might have an option to equip Heavy Lasers and Thermite Torpedos.

 

and so on.

 

Maybe even add a special border so that players targeting an enemy flying his signature ship would have warning to expect something unusual.

Doesn't this just make it harder to balance? "FOTM" ships would get buffed by everyone, causing an even larger gap with the underperforming ships.

 

A few % of anything is pretty trivial, but it seems to be against the spirit of keeping things balanced.

I dislike this idea greatly.

 

1)-

One of the big draws for me is the ability to play multiple ships. This would absolutely devastate that. In particular, I'm a huge fan of how the game rewards different flying styles.

2)-

We don't get a lot of balance passes around here, and having every ship have two different variations to be concerned with is a big deal. For instance, assume that the Flashfire has a rather poor signature power, such that you feel bad for playing it as yours when another ship gains a LOT from its signature power. Now you must make a choice that feels bad: either a meaningless boost for your flashfire, which you actually play and like, or a VERY meaningful boost for another ship.

3)-

IMO too many players tunnel a single ship already. The game should not encourage this, especially with its generally lackluster approach to build diversity anyway.

With 12 ships that are poorly balanced, it's a terrible idea.

 

If anything, players should be encouraged to have more diverse hangars, rather than only ever flying a single ship.

Hmmm, well I think the idea of giving pilots a "bonus" for flying a specific ship isn't a good idea for reasons already stated, but I don't want to shoot the idea down completely.

 

What if instead we tried tweaking it? For example have ships called "Hero ships." These would be unique versions of the existing ships, that were "flown" by characters from the game. For example you could have "Darth Marr's Shuttle" which would be a special Mailoc/Redeemer. Then each Hero Ship would have its own unique components, cosmetic features, and crew selection that were fully unlocked/mastered For example a Torpedo Dustmaker/Cometbreaker armed with Quads instead of Heavies or Laser cannons.

 

The twist would be that you can't change anything about the ship. Components, crew selection, and cosmetic features would be locked in place. That way in a fight, someone would see the ship, recognize it as "Darth Marr's Shuttle" and then know, "okay it's similar to a Mailoc but it can only do X, Y, Z, instead of what a normal Mailoc can do."

 

Now, I kinda feel like this idea would be difficult to implement and challenging to balance, but I feel that it might be less game breaking than giving each ship a new "signature" ability, especially since it would just be using current components, just moving them around on some ships that don't have them. It would also allow bioware just to put in some really crazy combinations and allow some us to answer those questions we have like, "Well what if you put BLCs on a Strike? (please note that's an example, not actually asking for them) Would strikes compete with scouts?"

 

Good idea, bad idea? Feel free to tear it apart.

 

 

 

Wait a friggin minute.

 

So you want, say novadives and blackbolts to have an ability like exploding a pulse of electromagnetic static that kills mines and probes? Or you want Stings and flashfires to get a gun that at short range utterly decimates armored ships? Or Clarion and Imperious to have the ability to rip the shields off of their target and drain their other systems as well?

 

What a novel idea.

Edited October 26, 2014 by zaskar

Doesn't this just make it harder to balance? "FOTM" ships would get buffed by everyone, causing an even larger gap with the underperforming ships.

 

A few % of anything is pretty trivial, but it seems to be against the spirit of keeping things balanced.

 

I agree. In an ideal world where every ship is equally balanced this MIGHT work but when you have FOTM (really FOTY) ships unless their signature ability was absurdly weak (as Verain said) you'd have everyone just picking their favorite FOTY ship causing the gap between those ships and everyone else to be even worse.

 

I especially dislike the idea of adding components not already available to the ship. Components are in essence what define a ship's role and you'd further destabilize it (a Flashfire with HLC + some type of torpedo would effectively remove the small offensive niche strikers have; really adding any component that isn't already on the RFL grade of awful to a Flashfire would just make it even more powerful compared to most other ships).

 

Likewise a buff to stats would be terrible. For Flashfires any buff to mobility, agility, defense, or offense would just put them even further ahead of the competition. The only ones that would benefit from this in a balanced way are the ships that are underperforming and need the buff as part of a balance pass (but no one would take it over making a FOTY ship even more superior).

 

Now I wouldn't mind if it unlocked special cosmetic only items, that could be cool. But I'm totally against any sort of stat buff or addition of new components since there's no way for either option to help the game's balance.

If you made the changes purely cosmetic, I'd be in total support of it Edited October 26, 2014 by DerGevatterTod

If cosmetic then sure but otherwise not in a million years.

Because, really, there aren't enough Stings/Flashfires/Manglers/Quarrels around. This would just make those 5-shippers that actually switch around settle down on one far more than they already do (which IMO, is too much as it is). Edited October 26, 2014 by TrinityLyre

Hmm, did not expect such an overwhelmingly negative reaction. Oh well, I guess the world is not yet ready for my wisdom.

 

 

Don't worry, I'm being sarcastic...

So? Make them fit the class's role, and make them a lot stronger on weaker ships.

 

Like: T1 GS gets... yay, 10% bigger weapon power pool!

T1 striker can fit LC or LLC, and gets passive +5% accuracy or 20% damage reduction.