Parasitical Sleds

[mrwigggles (OP)]

I think it would be neat if you could construct in a word, mutli stage ships or in a sense of reverse parasite.

A unit latches onto the mothership and uses the latched ship special ability or components. An example of what I am talking about is the warp sleds from star trek, or the hyperdrive ring for the jedi star fighters. Or the mission profile hub of the nebula class ships in star trek, on how they can load in different parasitical mission profile components.

These parasitical sleds are not complete ships in their own right, they are just ejectable, and reachable components. They won't be moveable when detached, or operation when detached.

http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Warp_sled

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperdrive_docking_ring

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Nebula_class

Ideally, the parasitical sled could contain numerous components, and not just propulsion systems.

I personally like the idea of having FAC ships be on a conventional drive sled, and detached when it about to enter in combat.  Or jump sleds. Or a heavy weapon platform sled or a drop pod sled.

We also see this with aircraft in reality, carrying light cargo pods, or extra fuel, misc. sensor equipment.

[Paul]

That would be pretty cool. You could have things like detachable jump drives or extra fuel tanks that you could drop off for extra speed during combat. With the way the game works now some things would be kinda funky though.

Like every component requires crew, so your jump sled would have to have crew quarters and such. Having a detachable jump sled or fuel storage with a bunch of people onboard just seems silly, especially if you're going to leave them behind while you go fight.

"The enemy is gaining on us, sir!"
"Detach the fuel tanks! That'll buy us enough speed to outrun them!"

A few seconds later, on the fuel tank section... "Hey Bob, did we stop moving? Uh oh..."

[Steve Walmsley]

You can do quite a lot of what you want by using tractors to attach a 'pod' to a ship.

Steve

[Paul]

I didn't think about that. That would probably work well for fuel. Still kinda weird to have a flying fuel pod with crew quarters onboard, and you'd probably be better off just adding the fuel storage in place of the tractor beams.

Jump engines wouldn't work though, unless you made the "pod" as massive as the ship you're attaching it to. Although, having a heavily armored "jump pod" full of fuel tanks and one big military jump engine might be nice to stick on ships for them to make jumps then toss aside for the battle. Maybe even extra ammo on it for rearming.

Although you'd lose 1 squadron size since it would count as a separate ship, and a defenseless immobile chunk of metal floating in space with a bunch of crew onboard in a war zone doesn't sit right with me, heh.

[waresky]

all those ideas r welcome,but am hope Steve work around on better improve "interupt" performance and coding for them.

This game had so many micromanagement now,so we r better to "focus" on "REAL" thing we need for "Easy Play,click and go"

[mrwigggles (OP)]

I didn't think about that. That would probably work well for fuel. Still kinda weird to have a flying fuel pod with crew quarters onboard, and you'd probably be better off just adding the fuel storage in place of the tractor beams.

Jump engines wouldn't work though, unless you made the "pod" as massive as the ship you're attaching it to. Although, having a heavily armored "jump pod" full of fuel tanks and one big military jump engine might be nice to stick on ships for them to make jumps then toss aside for the battle. Maybe even extra ammo on it for rearming.

Although you'd lose 1 squadron size since it would count as a separate ship, and a defenseless immobile chunk of metal floating in space with a bunch of crew onboard in a war zone doesn't sit right with me, heh.

Well for jump engines, the mass of the drive itself isnt as large as the mass its able to carry.

As for the crew issue, I would imagine that there would be extra automation which could translate to larger HS or material component, or the ability to overstock a crew. I think it would probably need a new type class, as I dont think a component check would work, as I see needing a component similar to a hangar for the mothership and the sled to be on both. I dont know, maybe having crew quarters or bridge though not a flag bridge, and this sled component would make it count as a parasitical sled.

I also dont see an issue with it being dead in the water, that would be part of its balance in a sense, and offering its own form of peril.

In many way, this would be redundant in what can be done in the game as of now, just another mode to do to add more diversity to ship creation, which I dont consider a bad thing.

Steve does have a point, about using tractor beams to carry along things like this but the speed penality for that be very prohibited. There would also be several components that woulnt work in this method.