Saucer Separation as a Last Resort

posted on October 29th, 2013, 6:53 pm

Hey! This thread will be dedicated to discussing saucer separation (and similar phenomenon in different factions) and why it should/shouldn't be in fleetops.

What if saucer separation was used as a last resort option for some federation cruisers and capital ships?

So, for example, if the hull integrity of your Galaxy or Excelsior goes below, say, 25%, a button appears that gives you the option to eject the engineering section of your craft. There would be positive and negative advantages to this:

Positives:

-The resulting saucer section vessel would be at full health/shield. This would give it a better chance of surviving a skirmish with a few other ships.

- Canonically, an emergency saucer separation would be done to save personnel and supplies. To reflect this gameplaywise, a saucer that survived a battle and was repaired at a shipyard would be repaired into a complete ship at no cost.

Negatives:

- The saucer would be very slow and have extremely low stats. This means that saucer separation in the middle of a large battle or against overwhelming odds would be negligible.

- Saucers would be armed with a single phaser, making them next to ineffective in combat. This means that a saucer separation would greatly decrease the effective attack of a vessel.

- Saucers cannot separate if the weapons systems on a vessel are destroyed.


Different ships would obviously have different variations of saucer. Galaxies would have a more sturdy saucer then a Excelsior or Sovereign, since the Galaxies were built with frequent saucer separation in mind while Excelsiors and Sovereigns had separation protocols built in for emergency scenarios such as warp core breaches.

This 'escape' tactic would not be limited to the Federation. Klingons could attempt to board a nearby ship, mini-spheres could come out of Borg cubes, etc.

One more thought: Saucer separation of this type would also be useful in the event of an engine failure...

Thoughts?

posted on October 29th, 2013, 7:10 pm

Spoiler Alert:

in the next version, the federation galaxy ship has the ability to saucer separate but has a very highly likely chance of destroying the entire fleet if the stardrive is destroyed.

posted on October 29th, 2013, 10:36 pm

As per Generations -- have Saucer separate, then immediately crash into the nearest planet.

posted on October 29th, 2013, 11:48 pm

it is a very fed thing to do to try save the lives of crew by abandoning ship, if not saucer separation then pods for the other ships could be good.

perhaps it could be for ships that have at lest 1 promotion.

0 promotion = cant
1 promotion = small amount of pods
2 promotions = medium amount of pods
3 promotions = large amount of pods
4 promotions = pods and shuttle craft
5 promotions = saucer and pods and shuttles?

each pod = like a fighter for the enemy to hit
shuttles have low shields that take 2 hits

the launch pods button would have to have 4 seconds (or so) before launch so they have time to get to pods and the ship can still be destroyed.this means not every ship can spam the ability. if the ship is technically destroyed but animating drifting before it blows up that still counts for abandon ship time.

the pods work like a cluster as if one 'unit'
by getting atleast 1 pod to a star base means the officers can be reassigned to another ship of your choice

edit.

perhaps after the launch button has been pressed the pods will launch continuously, rather than in 1 go, slowly increasing the rank of the group. then they can hit the thrusts back to base

posted on October 30th, 2013, 1:57 am

I like that idea but I don't think the pods should really do anything. For all ranks sans Veteran, escape pods could be purely visual, but for the vet galaxy, it could separate to save the saucer section.

posted on October 30th, 2013, 9:27 am

RTS wise: how would Pods work targeting wise? Will they get targeted first? Then you can basically abuse this feature or they're next to useless. Targeted somewhere in between or last, and you might be able to save ranks all the time.

If there would be multiple Pods, it should be just some animation without any real purpose. For a real "rank saving" feature i would recommend an implementation as "Conquest Frontier Wars" did - one "admirals yacht", maybe even just for capital ships.



Saucer separation... oh come on.

As per Generations -- have Saucer separate, then immediately crash into the nearest planet.

^ This.

posted on October 31st, 2013, 11:54 pm

As per Generations -- have Saucer separate, then immediately crash into the nearest planet.

I think the escape pods sound really cool. They'd be true to the Federation's character and they would add some personality to the ships.

posted on November 1st, 2013, 1:29 am

There could be a positive and negative to this.

The saucer separation should be strictly for the Galaxy as there is no canon reference for other ships having it. However escape pods would be an alternative for other ships.

Restrictions:
Saucer Separation can be implemented at any time. However the saucer section inherits all system loses of the original ship. So if your engines were KOed. Then forget it. If a saucer is recovered successfully. You can rebuild the complete ship at the shipyard keeping the rank status and name.

Escape pods can only be ejected if the ship's hull integrity is below 3% of capacity. While these are harder to hit. They are just as slow and having only a partial quantity could cost some crew experience. For example. If you had escape pods from a Veteran Defiant Class (with say... a total of 16 pods). Loosing 20% looses one rank, 40% two ranks, 60% three, 75% four, 85% you lose 5.

When the escape pods are recovered you need to build a whole new ship from it. And you get a supply reduction depending on the percentage of pods from the original amount survived.

For the enemy. They can capture the pods and get supply from retrieving them as a bonus. Or they could destroy them to prevent you from retrieving your veteran crew.