[Commander Zane]

Here's an idea for the short-range ship warping: make it a pulsed STL-maneuvering jump, by rapidly turning the drive on and off a few hundred times per second, and teleporting the ship a few inches per jump.

Sounds like Independence War's Linear Displacement System.

[bigchunk1]

Gah, clients not being able to see a warphole kind of crushes the nanojump idea unless there is another way.

Here's an idea for the short-range ship warping: make it a pulsed STL-maneuvering jump, by rapidly turning the drive on and off a few hundred times per second, and teleporting the ship a few inches per jump. This way, you don't need the normal subspace effect. You don't need to worry about spawning inside the warping ship. And most importantly, it could be done just by amping up afterburner fuel consumption, afterburner acceleration, and afterburner top speed...

Like a Star-Trek warp? Ignoring canonical ramifications for a bit, that sounds like a supercharged turbo mode. I have been trying to implement a kind of more powerful afterburner effect on and off over the past few days. I don't think there is a way to change the maximum speed of a ship dynamically in the game without switching out ship classes, which could be cumbersome, let alone how multiplayer handles such a thing.

 

[bigchunk1]

The capship ability idea has been put on hold in favor of potential code based functionality to come out in the distant future. This (Ideally) will allow us to use the keypress feature for any player allowing them to select abilities, something which currently cannot be done in multiplayer. Capship abilities would have been possible with time, patience, and a little sexp love, but this decision frees us to focus on other avenues of the project which hold more interest such as coop missions etc. Thank you all for your inspiring ideas, and perhaps we may revisit capship abilities when it fits more comfortably with FSO code.   

[Trivial Psychic]

Well, given the success of Cap-Ship combat in WiH (be it only one mission), and this announcement that further development of it will be suspended awaiting code upgrades, I suspect that there will be a lot of pressure on the SCP team from the masses to make such upgrades a reality, so perhaps we'll see this possible sooner than you might think. 

[Hades]

Coming back to this even if most others have left it alone for a while, going to do more reworkings with the powers:

Posting possible capital ship powers.

Aeolus:
            Beam overcharge, sgreens fire every 5-7 seconds as opposed to every 60. This works for AAAF too, but the downside is it gradually damages hull while this power is active. (15 second duration)
            Repair like on the Karuna, though a bit faster.
            Accelerated Loading: Flak fires slightly faster. (duration 10 seconds)

Deimos:
             Beam overcharge: Turns the terslashes into a powerful direct fire weapon for a short time. Does some minor damage to the Deimos' hull, but increases effective DPS and damage per pulse. (Duration, 20 seconds)
             Repair
             Point Defense Overdrive: Causes all point defense turrets to fire much faster, useful for trying to take down more incoming bombs.

Sanctus:
              Cargo Utilization: The Sanctus uses the spare ammo in its cargo bay to, for a few seconds, greatly increase the reload rate of its kenetic weapons (Torpedoes, mass drivers, etc)
              Repair
              MAXIMUM ARMOR: The Sanctus' armor becomes more effective due to the nanosuit's ability to magic. (Duration, 15 seconds) (probably a placeholder power)

Diomedes:
               Stikecraft Launch: Launches one wing of fighters and one wing of bombers that can be commanded by the player.
               Repair
               PD Sentries: Launches 10-15 sentry guns around the ship (and perhaps friendly capitals) which terran turret 2 which are used to help shoot down torpedoes

Chimera:

Bellephron:

Cretheus:
               Countermeasure Burst: Throws out countermeasures to render torpedoes around their area ineffective. Very useful when being attacked by missiles and to also provide screen for larger ships.
               Repair
               Sensor Disruption: Makes it untargettable by fighters and capitals alike for 15 seconds.

Custos:
               Countermeasure Burst
               Repair
               Accelerated loading


Currently, I had most of these ships tabled in BP:M with #player versions and differing stats, currently:
The Karuna is a hard hitter from the front, with its railguns and torpedoes, but turns slowly and can be flanked.
The Deimos is an all-rounder which does everything, but not particularly well. Upped its PD sliiightly (TT2s instead of TTs) to make it a bit more fair.
The Diomedes is a bit less good at shooting down torpedoes and fighters than the Deimos, but has better health and anti capital firepower.
The Sanctus is basically a cruiser hunter and can harass corvettes, good for supporting a Karuna.
The Aeolus is basically a corvette support to help against torpedos, and is a bit faster so it can flank Karunas.
The Cretheus is a torpedo killer, countermeasure support for larger ships, and snub killer.
The Custos is somewhat similar to the Cretheus, but geared more towards harassing larger ships.


Basically, the idea was for TvTs or possibly even co-ops. TvTs would have been about team cooperation and there would be cover and obstacles consisting of asteroids, derelict spacestations and ships, and such.


Sadly, I probably won't ever get around to finishing everything that I need to. and BP:M seems to be mostly quiet. I still felt like I should at least coherently catalogue my ideas with the whole system, balance-wise, in case this project gets more life into it.

[Aesaar]

PD Sentries: Launches 10-15 sentry guns around the ship (and perhaps friendly capitals) which terran turret 2 which are used to help shoot down torpedoes

I don't like this.  Might I suggest an AAA overcharge instead?  Say, turn them (or maybe the slashers) into ULTRAs for 10-15 seconds.

[MatthTheGeek]

You may or may not know but using cruisers as sentry minelayers was already suggested by the devs, and is actually currently used in some WiH2 missions. This is just an extension to corvettes here.

Maybe it would be better moved to the Aeolus or the Hyperion for consistency's sake, but there is nothing wrong with the concept, you can even consider it canon.

EDIT: recently mentioned (although not necessarily very clearly) here, and also here a tad longer ago.

[Aesaar]

Maybe I should have elaborated.  I don't think it fits with the role of the Diomedes.  Dropping sentries around just doesn't seem like a good use of the ship's capabilities.  A dedicated combat ability would fit better, IMO.

Boosting AAA isn't the only option, though.  Some form of active armor, which could do something like giving it Heavy Armor 40 for a few second.  Or shutters for the beams, preventing them from firing but giving them Heavy Armor 5 while closed.

Also, a way to toggle its missile launcher between Supernovas (or Eos) and Piranhas would be nice.

Oh, and if the Cretheus is meant to be a torpedo killer, replacing its STerPulses with PDTerPulses would be a good idea.

Just throwings ideas out there.

[MatthTheGeek]

Or shutters for the beams, preventing them from firing but giving them Heavy Armor 5 while closed.

Also, a way to toggle its missile launcher between Supernovas (or Eos) and Piranhas would be nice.

I like those two ones, especially the beam shutters. We can put those on the Chimera and Bellerophon too, given how dependant they are on their beams.

Sanctus:
              Cargo Utilization: The Sanctus uses the spare ammo in its cargo bay to, for a few seconds, greatly increase the reload rate of its kenetic weapons (Torpedoes, mass drivers, etc)

Or switch Warhammers to something more powerful like Apocalypses or Hydras. Probably Hydras, they're underused and their firepower is more suited to something the size of a Sanctus, while staying true to the saturation/support role of the Sanctus in capship fights.

Custos:
               Countermeasure Burst
               Repair
               Accelerated loading

Tech descr says the Custos has electronic warfare capabilities. Throw in some beam jamming in there.

[Hades]

A single ship that can stop all of the anti-capital capabilities of one side in TvT would be fairly imbalanced and silly. Co-op? Sure, could possibly adapt something like that for there. So no to beam jamming in a TvT scenario.

PD Sentries: Launches 10-15 sentry guns around the ship (and perhaps friendly capitals) which terran turret 2 which are used to help shoot down torpedoes

I don't like this.  Might I suggest an AAA overcharge instead?  Say, turn them (or maybe the slashers) into ULTRAs for 10-15 seconds.

Maybe I should have elaborated.  I don't think it fits with the role of the Diomedes.  Dropping sentries around just doesn't seem like a good use of the ship's capabilities.  A dedicated combat ability would fit better, IMO.

Boosting AAA isn't the only option, though.  Some form of active armor, which could do something like giving it Heavy Armor 40 for a few second.  Or shutters for the beams, preventing them from firing but giving them Heavy Armor 5 while closed.

Also, a way to toggle its missile launcher between Supernovas (or Eos) and Piranhas would be nice.

Oh, and if the Cretheus is meant to be a torpedo killer, replacing its STerPulses with PDTerPulses would be a good idea.

Just throwings ideas out there.

The thing about the sentries is it's a leftover from when I was first thinking up this stuff ages ago, I just copied and pasted it from the first page. Reason for it was the old Diomedes, to me, looked like a command type ship. ULTRA AAA as an ability may be a bit much.

Also beam shutters would probably be made redundant if turrets are made invulnerable (which I'd prefer, honestly, so respawning players can't easily stomp the guy who just offed them)

[General Battuta]

Just allow the Custos to protect itself. They have an intermittently effective jamming system that provides rolling protection.

[Hades]

Of course. Plus you wouldn't want for someone to draw anticap beam fire away from an enemy corvette with such a small and hard-to-hit ship. I'm thinking making it so anticapital beams (and perhaps, weapons) won't target the Custos.

The Cretheus may need to get this too, though, unless I can think of something else to give it to balance it out in that regard.

[bigchunk1]

Do whatever you want Hades, just make sure it's fun and don't break anything.

[MatthTheGeek]

The Cretheus may need to get this too, though, unless I can think of something else to give it to balance it out in that regard.

Capship CMs ?

[An4ximandros]

Sanctus:
              MAXIMUM ARMOR: The Sanctus' armor becomes more effective due to the nanosuit's ability to magic. (Duration, 15 seconds) (probably a placeholder power)

                                                                                                                                    Warning
                                                                                                                         Incoming Shivan Threat.

Would it possible to give some ships NANOVISION as an ability?
                                                            Heat-Vision

On a more serious note, a basic UEF ability, that makes canon sense, should be Extra Dakka (for all ships.)
The Nara/Karu could get a "hotload" Mass Driver and ammunition change (Sabot and Vanilla, for example) ability.