Allegiance Subverter - works only during battle? |
I finally work my way up to getting an Allegiance Subverter. I rush an enemy crystal dreadnaught (because the subverter is short range!) - and it works, I get it! Then, battle ends. And it's no longer mine.
I would think the ship is yours forever, no? It's so short range that, otherwise, it's practically useless in an engagement.
Bugged
From this behavior, I'd say it's bugged. Giving it back to the enemy after the battle makes no sense.
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Give me atmopshperic manipulation cannons, or give me death!
I think it's better
It's not bugged. You only take over the minds of the crew during battle. IMO, it's actually better than the way it was in SE:IV where the allegiance subverter was too powerful. This way you can destroy a few extra of their ships by turning their own against them. Not completely useless, but not uber-effective as it could be in SE:IV.
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Then it's definitely underpowered...
Because it has an uber short range, you get ripped up just getting into range to use it. With it's current power, there's no reason for it to take lvl 20 in Psychic studies. It would be more akin to a lvl 1 weapon, since it's quite underpowered. I mean, seriously, with the technical requirements AND the size of the freaking thing, only temporarily capturing a ship has absolutely no value. I can put other weapons in the same space that will kill a ship.
With the size requirements for the weapon, it should be a permanent capture. Not that I like to use real world logic in these games, but by your own logic, "You only take over the minds of the crew during battle." If that's the case, I make them all jump out the nearest airlock. Or better - make it so that there's only a fraction of a chance that the capture is permanent, otherwise the ship explodes.
It seems to me - the HUGE size of the thing, the FIFTEEN second reload time, the extremely short range, and the enormous technical requirement that it was initially intended to be used as I expected it to, then it got nerfed. But the nerfing wasn't balanced. Hell, in all honesty, the subverter is the one and only reason I took Psychic to begin with.
Gravity... it's not just a good idea, it's the law!
In its present state, the
In its present state, the weapon is only useful in manually operated combats, as in auto-battle, you will never be able to kill anything on a ship that has it because you will take it over, the battle will end, and the opponent will be thus unharmed. You have to kinda manually crash it into a planet or a few enemy ships so that it will die.
Let's see...
The subverter works for the entire battle, so it seems logical that once combat ends, there would still be some time left before the crew would revert to their normal state. Assuming all enemy ships were destroyed, this is what I would do with such a ship, with the earlier items being more imporant:
- Have the crew sit there peacefully as I land my boarding parties on the ship to commandeer it.
- Have the crew jettison themselves out of the airlocks so that my other crews could commandeer it.
- Have the crew trigger the self-destruct device.
- Have the crew sit there peacefully as my other ships blow the ship to pieces.
- Have the crew jettison all supplies and themselves out of the airlocks.
It makes sense that at least one of these would happen automatically when combat ended because all remaining enemy vessels were under physic control.
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Give me atmopshperic manipulation cannons, or give me death!
Should be permanent capture...
In SEIV I think it was too powerful, but not because it was a permanent capture but because it was too easy to capture the ship. However, in SEIV you could only fire it once! I think (if this is not indeed a bug) we should go back to being permanent but make the range just a tad shorter than it is currently and make the reload time at least 30 seconds. I would think that would leave it balanced enough that it's not a game killer.
I agree that without the subverter, psychic is nearly useless; however, the telekentic projector is the most powerful beam weapon in the game. That kind of makes up for it, but 1000 racial points for one weapon? And one that could be replaced with a slightly less powerful organic weapon that comes with some pretty powerful population boosting facilities? I don't think I want to be able to read peoples minds anymore.
I agree - capture should be permanent
Either make the weapon a one shot deal, or make it take a long time to reload and have a mid to low level chance of success. Otherwise, it's useless.
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Gravity... it's not just a good idea, it's the law!
wait is normal ship capture
wait is normal ship capture still permenmet?? have not tested it yet.
Normal Capture Permanent
Normal ship captures via boarding party are permanent.
Never Cry Wolf
Nah, reasonable behavior: your fleet of 16 ships hits their fleet of 16 ships. Your subverter flips their flagship (a dreadnaught), which procedes to nuke the rest of their fleet. Battle ends with all of their fleet but their/your dreadnaught destroyed. Then start a battle with your 14 remaining ships versus their dreadnaught, which has recovered its senses. You've separated the wolf from the sheep. Or the termites from the bugs? Or the old and sick from the pack.
Doesn't seem to me it's "bugged," just a bit quirky. And not a bad use of a kamikaze frigate.
Or better yet - put it on a
Or better yet - put it on a drone with Point-Blank orders, launched from your flagship.
Balance
In my opinion, in its current state, the subverter is not balanced. It's too big and expensive to be a non-permanent capture. You might as well spend the money and space on boarding parties for a permanent capture. However, making it permanent will not balance the weapon, it would just make it more powerful than it should be...unless adjustments are made.
In the example above with the dreadnaught flagship a permanent capture would be a major swing in power. But, if the dreadnaught was a frigate instead then it would not be a big capture at all. Therefore, the more crew members a ship has, the more difficult it is to control them all and capture the ship. This in combination with the few adjustments I noted earlier in the thread, I think the weapon would be balanced enough to not kill the game and powerful enough to be useful.
Of course, none of this matters when the AI is currently too dumb to switch over to computers when you start using subverters. LOL
Nope. Useless weapon,
Nope. Useless weapon, really, since the battle ends and the enemy remains both non-yours and non-killed.