Redesign BFG 2
You know I get the feeling tindalos does not know what to do and >redacted< so i was writing some kind of redesign document. Maybe we will see a much improved game. Most likly not...
At the very least maybe we get some good discussions going.
Also dont be to hard on the editing i tryd to make it as readable as possible, also also english is not my first language. And in know that my spelling is realy bad.
At first let me say that numbers can and will have to be adjusted so try not to be to sensative about any numbers given.
Basic
A Fleet restriction like the tt will be introduced.
Infinite escort
2 LC => 1 C
2 C => 1 GC
2 GC => 1 BS
Not only is this for balance reasons. Also this is for lore and common sense. Extremly valuble GC and BS would only every in the worst/extrem of circumstances fielded without an escort of less valuble ships and not just litteral escort ships. Or lesser orc ships would naturaly accompany bigger ships.
Tyranids get this in reverse starting at 1BS for 2 GC excluding the infinite scouts. It makes sense for Tyranids to operate in reverse except if you are faceing a pure scout/escort fleet.
Health, Moral and Crew.
At the end of the day you can make a crew count mechanic work but it adds a ton of information without adding much fun without heavy investment.
So doing away with Crew values and using the original tt mechanics.
A ships crew strength(Cstr) will be based on the health of the ship with some adjustments for race.
Cooldowns and Abilitys
All ships lose there extra abilitys like for example rally or recrew teleport. Also i find this design of creating a problem and fixing it with a specific hard counter ability silly and not much fun.
Commander
Commander skills. Some Abilitys like for example rally will be reintroduced in much improved form as commander abilitys.
Because commanders become extrem high valved target they get extra protection, not making them invurnable but making it so that they are not that easy to fokus down.
Stances
There should not be a need for a "scout stance" (running silent) again there is this need of creating a problem and then a hard counter.
In the tt every order (now the stances) was perfectly balanced because they had major and unique impact in what they did. In general I personaly would redesign every stance to have major drawbacks in one or more arrears but at the same time buff there primary roll.
So
"lock on" should be the primary choice if you want pure damage output. And it should be THE choice if it is not a ordnance carrier or commander ship that are or can be based more on abilitys. Not like it is now where reload gives a considerable attack speed boost. Not that it makes no sense but somewhere we have to draw the line with redundancy.
"reload stance" needs to change just giving a flat cooldown reduction is a bad idea. It forces the player to use abilitys as soon as they come of cooldown to have maximum impact and i am not a person how considers the game of how can better spam there abilitys fun. And it just compeds with "lock on" atm with the higher fire rate. My idea for Redesigned "reload stance"
Reload Stance will "bank" cooldown reduction. Lets say you were long enough in reload stance to have 20sec of cd reduction "banked" and you have an ability that has still 30cd. If you click the ability again at this point your "bank" goes to zero and the ability as only 10sec left.
This may even be able to reload charges. Yes this ability may let you use the same abilitys one after the other if you have enough reduction "banked".
You can keep the "bank" in other stances but you have to be in reload stance to use it. Not sure if there should be an upper limit but if, it should be generous.
"brace for impact" stance to a degree is already your primary choice if you expect a lot of damage or if the ship is fokust. Also it should be the only stance you can activate at any time but still it incures a cooldown on the other stances.
"running silent" there was no such stance in the tt but personaly i find this redundant.
This stance is only used for escorts and light light cruisers. I feel that you can easly make this a passive of what the stance is basicly doing if you realy need to. Just get ride of complete stealth (map effect like gas clouds are enough for that) and yes the community sayd less randomness but i find escorts and light light cruisers a good target for something like a dodge chance that lets them specificaly survive ranged abilitys like nova cannons and fokus fire.
Torpedoes
Bfg 1 was a close range brawler with very few ships so it was reasonable to make the perfect torpedo shot.
The tt had basicaly 2 typs of torps the straight flying kind and the kind that can change there direction at set intervals.
With a lot more ships flying around we need to change. The tt lets you shot torpedoes in any direction within a frontal 90 degree arc and less then the maximum amount. This would be a very good idea in combination with my redesign (explained later).
At first i would intruduce torps that basicaly behave like boarding craft because they are (except for ignoreing any kind of aircraft) maybe let them have wider turning arc but make them guided. And let us be able to autofire them on the same target as they should be weaker then the manual/normal torps. (later explained)
And second i would completly change the way how ordnance work more in line with the tt.
Example
We have a ship that can fire 6 torps at a time. We have a load icon, fire icon and a slot bar.(6free slots)
If we click the load icon we load more torps(manual and guided are mutaly exlusive) in the slot bar (min/standart 1) we did not slot/click more so the bar says 1 and when we click shot we fire 1 torpedo.
Know if we do this quick we can get a fan pattern like it is standart know OR we could slot all torpedos and when fired they fly as one and if hitting will potentialy do massive damage.
Or something in between.
If we have all 6 filled and we click again we start with 1 again.
The the cooldown/reload is for 1 torp at a time.
You know this is just a very detailed example of 1 way to do it, you can of course can make it look better. But at least it hopefully makes sure what i am trying to do here.
So enough for now this is just the first part, there is still a lot coming.
Tldr: If you dont bother reading i have nothing to say to you.