Vaygr ideas Thread - R.E.A.R.M. - The Unofficial Classic HW 2 Expansion mod for Homeworld 2

i think Vaygr were a bit forgottrn bouth in the original game and in th R.E.A.R.M mod so i going to give some ideas for them:

Utility ships: Advance repair ship (name might be changed): the idea of this is that i am sick of lossing10 recourse collectores to try to save a battle cruise in battle... and i had this idea of a heavily defesed repair ship about the size of a mobile rifinery or just a bit bigger... that is specialized in repairing quickly ship (figates, destroyers and BC) in the middle of a battle. it only haves defensive wepons like a mobile refinery so it is not a offencive ship (you can give it a wepon but i just have to say that i deidn't realy liked the idea of an armed mobile refinery :/ if i was you id thake out the wepons of the refinerys but that is just me)

Research: anti-defense shild weaponry: it doesn't need to be to all ships but i just think Hiiagarans have too much defenses to vaygr forces... while vaygr don't much to them... so has i know hiis are more defesive then vaygr... this research came to my mind... so its not a defense and more of a attack... i don't want to make the defense field frigates unusefull... but i would like to see a ship/research that might help vaygr defeat those ships.

so what do you think?

Danarogon wrote: i think Vaygr were a bit forgottrn bouth in the original game and in th R.E.A.R.M mod so i going to give some ideas for them:

Ehm... Are you really sure you're talking about REARM, where Vaygr got so far way way more attention than Hiigaran? No I know you're here for a while, but somehow I'm not sure we share the same reality, because my Vaygr have MBC, 3 times more frigates, three artillery frigates with targeting upgrades, mine traps, a new destroyer, some new corvettes, two detailed allies factions (one upcoming) and an ability to still build a bunch of marine frigates with HS-beacon when all you have left is a single artillery frigate (assuming you set the game the way that losing an MS won't end it). When Hiigarans have for now just the Supercarrier, Modular Destroyer, Cloaked Fighter and Bomber, one new corvette and one new upcoming frigate, Drones, Research Station and some new upgrades from it, one ally race without their own carrier and a bunch of enlarged or modular platforms. They can still be interesting, but Vaygr are definitelly ahead, so Hiigarans are the ones that need to get my attention in the future.
(I surely forgot something, hopefully nothing big.)

-Well ok, maybe, but only after the Vaygr Research ship and some special second level research brach I'm planning. Probably only then.

-That's basically the point, Hiigaran have a lot of defensive weapons, while Vaygr have special attacks. Their artillery strikes have and always will have umatcheable ranges, the MBC cluster salvo is pretty effective against all kinds of ships. In the future they'll also have a chance to get more cloaking and some other things I have prepared.
But anti-shields weapons are pretty brilliant idea. Definitelly. But how to execute it? Those are the ways:
- Weapon upgrades. That would work perfectly, except for one pretty huge problem. Take a BC. You give it another weapon that will fire only after research upgrade and you switch the original weapon to "normal only" (that's the way you make upgradeable weapons in HW2). So you have the BC with not one, but two trinity cannons. In every moment it can deliver only maximum of 5 000 damage, when one weapon shoots the other can't, but the ship's stats will show 10 000 damage now, because you have two main weapons now.
- Special attack. Since the special attack may have let's say a 3 minutes reload time, while the normal trinity cannon have much higher rate of fire, the ship's stats would be affected as well, but by far not that much. I don't know, about just 15% increase or so. In this case both weapons can fire, so after upgrade that ship's damage indicator would be accurate (but only after the upgrade), but the much bigger problem is timing and usefulness. You don't want to trigger that manually, you want it to penetrate the shield automatically. And mostly you don't have a time for it. If we're still taking the BC example, the enemy will switch on the shield and now you have to manually select the special attack and retarget the shielded ship again? And make it all in time before the shield depletes? I don't think so. If it would be like that, you would basically never had the practical chance to use it.
- Unlock another version of the existing ship. You have a BC, you do the research and it unlock another pretty same BC, except its trinity can penetrate the shield. Two problems, what about the BCs you already have, they can't do it and they never will. And it also means another ship in the build menu.
- A weapon subsystem. Let's say a module on a side that would allow you to penetrate shields. The ship's indicated damage would be fine before building of the boost module, it would dramatically increase only after building it. So people should understand that that's the module that's causing it and they'll also hopefully find out that after building the module it still has the same damage, just different penetration (even it says 10 000). The way it would be done is that the module would have its own trinity cannon which would have muzzles in front of the old trinity, and the original trinity would have blocked view, so it couldn't shoot. Otherwise it would have double damage plus increased penetration.
- Make it upgradeable, but only for ships like frigates and maybe Destroyers, where it doesn't matter that much. My artillery frigates should have damage around 250 (or something), but their indicated damage is now double, because the upgraded missile with targeting systems is another weapon. But it doesn't matter, no one pays that much attention to frigate damages, basically it's not as huge shock as BC doing 10 000 damage all of a sudden. Problem is that small ships are insignificant, that doesn't really matter if some tiny frigate can get througth the shield or not. It won't do much difference.
- Just forget about the default BCs. Give it as innate ability to some Light BC or something. Some new heavy ship, not as heavy as BC but at least a Destroyer. It would have this ability from the start and it would be unlockeable by research for penetrating shields. So it would be the ship's purpose, to be good in general, but it would mostly shine when it's the only ship that continue doing the damage even after the shield is up. Since this is the only option that don't cause serious problems, I would go for this one.

I'm very tired ATM and I need sleep, so I hope all my sentences make sense.

Well istead of a frigate or a bc that have either too strong or too weak attack... could'nt you make a upgrade that make the new vaygr destroyer's missles pass trough the defense shilds? its not like all its attcks could pass trough the shild... only the missiles... witch are not super overwelming but not exactly a weak attack... i have seen that the new vaygr bc have some upgrades to the missiles... and they work preaty well... can't you just do the same thing or similar to the destroyer?

"sorry if i didn't understand 100% what you said but i just think it doesn't need to be so complicated has you said "

Here's a question, you think missiles are the best candidates? In my opinion if something could pass thought that defence field, it has to be the trinity cannon and the weapons similar to it. Missiles are too slow and don't have the punch the trinity has. It just don't feel right at all to let the missile through, but let the trinity splat on the shield's surface. Plus trinity is an energy pulse (ok, likely a plasma pulse), but according to all the sci-fi series and movies, even those I don't like, it is mostly the energy weapons that can be tuned to override the shield. All the missile could do is some sort of jamming, but I can't imagine missile to prepare a hole in the spherical field, rather than shutting down the whole field. It could also have a small field itself, but I don't believe that might work, nor it is something Vaygr would be able to do.
In fact, Vaygr may not even tune the trinity cannon, they just overload the weapon to be strong enough to pierce it.

Ok, honestly, none of it would probably work, but the energy weapons are still the ones that seem by far as the most logical choice.

I thought superweapons already penetrated the defense field? I distinctly remember battlecruiser ion cannons and the trinity cannon ignoring defense field arrays. And if this isn't the case, then why the hell not? Just give shield penetration to those two weapons, and forget about upgrades, modules, and any other tricks. Just make shield penetration a characteristic of destroyer class (and larger) ion cannons and pulse cannons... and EMP weapons. Then keep shield penetration benefit (or lack thereof) in mind when designing a new ship.