5 replies to this topic

[johnchm.10]

so i just remembered that there may be a way to implement method of capturing space units. in vanilla FoC, your main man Tyber Zann, as well as his second in command Urai Fen i think, had a power, either called bribe or corrupt, that could take over just about any non-hero land unit from stormtroopers up to AT-AT's.
this power could be bound to the TIE Boarding Craft, which is little more than a modified Bomber, for use by the Empire and the Remnant. if i recall, the Alliance had a fighter sized boarder similar in size to a B-wing, i think it was called the Spiral class shuttle or something like that. alternately, the power could be bound to the ATR-6. I recall more than once in X-Wing Alliance, having to escort an ATR with the callsign Storm so it could capture some objective

[evilbobthebob]

That's an interesting suggestion. The bribe ability is probably what would be used if such a function was implemented. The issue is that the ability is instant, which obviously causes problems with balancing it. It might be possible to create a complex version of the ability using Lua scripting but to fit with the style of PR it would require, at the very least, a minimum time required to take control of the vessel and a chance for it to fail. That chance would probably have to be on a class-by-class basis and exclude ships that it makes no sense to board i.e. transports or smaller. It would also need to be either a one-shot ability (which would be easiest to accomplish by destroying the boarding ship after it completes the action) or have an extremely long cooldown. Failure of the boarding action would occur if the boarding ship was destroyed while the action was in progress. Then you would need to account for the effect of multiple boarding ships assaulting a target. One boarding vessel can't take a cruiser, but a number of them might be able to. I am not sure how scripting could accomplish that, but I think it may be possible.

Then there is the issue of what happens to the unit after it's been boarded. Does it remain with the faction that took it, assuming it survived the battle? I am not sure if the bribe ability handles that.

Finally, the AI has to be scripted to respond to boarding ships and use them itself. That is no simple thing and would probably double or triple the scripting required.

[Henry X]

suggestion for 1.3 then?

[Kitkun]

Even if it does prove possible, (We don't even know at this point as Evil noted.) I personally doubt it could really be implemented in a fun way. Similar to hardpoints in PR. Could be done, but would not in a fun way.

[johnchm.10]

good points. i guess if campaigns like the vanilla EAW/FOC campaigns are ever implimented, it might make for a one shot, one mission affair, or various side missions

[Phoenix Rising]

There's no ability in EaW that would allow you to take a captured ship from tactical to galactic, and I'm skeptical that it could be done (or done efficiently) with scripting.