radical ship ideas

[Betelgeuse]

from irc with digdug
the basic idea is that ships are boring if you can make any ship like any ship so lets think of some ships that will never be like each other. (you can even mix to cut down on the gimmicky factor)

weapons take one less slot to equip
stackable armor (as many as you want)
multiple reactors
dodging ship (in the z)
planet dodging (your weapons don't hit planets)
eating ship (feed it stuff and watch it grow new parts)
deviceless ship (you don't equip your ship)
"energy" ship (get hit with energy weapons to refuel)
disintegrating ship (feed off of empty wrecks to get parts for your ship that is falling apart)
time limited ship (you have so much time in this ship to complete the game)
gateless ship (must do X in each system before going on to the next)
backward firing (you fire in the direction you thrust)
tethered ship (ie two ships that orbit each other)


we really need more ideas please post yours

[Arisaya]

ship that spawns more ships (like smaller ships or a self-replicating ship)
ship w/ multiple modules (ie, less modules allows it to move faster, but it has less armor, weapons, storage, extras etc... you can dock w/ your jettisoned modules to re-connect them)
kamikaze ships (though obviously not meant for player use)


on the note of the energy-from-certain damage type shields, I made a shield that gets more HP from weapons fire (only temporary HP though)

[Sheltem]

is this about your own ship or enemy ships ?

[Betelgeuse]

well more for your own ship but I don't see a reason why the enemy couldn't use them too

[Arisaya]

I was thinking more about the NPC ships
the modular ship idea is for the player though

[FAD]

kamikaze ships (though obviously not meant for player use)

I like this. Set them with stealth armor so you can't detect them until they're right on you, then...boom! Would be interesting.

[digdug]

dynamic slotless weapons, stackable armors and reactors.

it means you can install any number of weapons, layered armors or reactors, but any excess in one of items will limit the other 2 categories.

Moreover more limitations can be introduced, like reduced efficiency for reactors if player has 3+ installed; cumulative reduced weapon damage if the player has too many weapons installed.

Also an exponential factor to weapon cosumption can be introduced, like a laser uses 2MW (as an example), but when you install more than 3 total weapons the laser uses 3MW, if you install another weapon the laser uses 4MW, and so on.
This can be used to limit the maximum number of installable weapons, without using fixed slots. (that I don't like)

Another way can be to use a large amount of slots for fine tuning the size of devices. A ship can have 100 slots, a reactor will use 20 of them, a laser will use 3 slots, and an IM90 16 slots for example.

[Arisaya]

I made a kamikaze "ship" (it was technically a ship, but functioned like a homing missile that would gate in when it's launcher was used via the "use" menu)