VIP / Generals Thread - Machinations

One idea we had is to have a game mode where the objective to kill the opponents VIP / General. This would be a special ship that can be moved around in a similar way to normal ships. The basic idea of the mechanic would be:

• The VIP / General would be moved in the same way a moving a normal squad. However, the VIP / General would be the last to leave. Meaning if there are 10 ships in a station, the % is at 50% and an attack is sent: 4 ships would leave in the first rank and the General would leave in the second rank.
• If they were a general they could possess an activatable or special ability. The starting ideas are; ship fly faster when with him, ships build faster in the station he is in, temporarily convert ships AOE style etc.
• The general could have multiple hits or be completely immune to turrets, otherwise the game could be over very quick :-)

Feedback on if people think the idea has potential would be great, as well as comments on the specifics of the mechaninc.

When I first read this, I misinterpreted the idea... I thought the VIP would be a particular *station* , not a particular ship.
Making it a ship introduces some more complexities.

There should probably be more control over the movement of the VIP. For example, I might not want the VIP to move when I send some ships from the station where the VIP is located.

I like the idea of the VIP having a special ability - it adds to the game mode and gives it more flexibility.

The VIP can't be completely immune to turrets... otherwise I'd just perpetually move my VIP between bases and it could never die.
The idea of multiple hits makes more sense to me, or to be more specific, the VIP is equivalent to N normal ships... no wait - the VIP is a ship, but has a capacity like a station (ie: if its capacity goes -ve, it dies ... it regenerates over time, and can still be attacked by turrets and possibly die en-route) .
Note that when I say it has a capacity like a station, I'm not saying it is a station that contains ships - just that it has a number associated with it having the same behaviour as a station.

The reason for this is, what happens if I send my VIP to an enemy station? If it was just a normal ship, it would die upon hitting the station and I would lose (similar situation if I'm sending it to another of my own bases, but en-route the base is taken over by an enemy) .
If the VIP was worth, say 10 ships, it could also be used as a powerful attack on a base... with the risk that it could severely damage itself in the process (and possibly die) . You'd have to be careful about what the value of N was - too high and the VIP becomes a sledgehammer.

(I had to focus really hard not to interchange between the terms "general" and "VIP" in this post.)