[UI] An idea for more ship diversity

I highly encourage more ship diversity in the game, not just because it adds some strategy rather than: just pick the Cyborg because it is the best overall ship but also because it encourages experimenting with different play styles and outfits.

While ship balance can be a complicated subject I do believe there are some easy adjustments that can be made, both for NPC and PVP combat. This idea is based on the concept from another Bigpoint game: Xblaster: damage bonus based on ship types.

For example:

Cyborgs deal 15% less laser damage against Hammerclaws
Hammerclaws deal 15% less laser damage against Mimesis
Mimesis deals 15% less laser damage against Cyborgs.

The idea is that these three keep each other in balance, the more Cyborgs there are, the more attractive it becomes to use the Hammerclaw and the more Hammerclaws there are the more attractive it becomes to use the Mimesis.

One may argue that this ruins the game play as it will give an unfair advantage to players using a ship that you deal less damage to. The question is however if this matters: apart from UBA (where you can be sure that most have full boosters and what not) in standard fights you never know if someone has more boosters and therefore an advantage over you. In addition, these damage bonuses could be removed for UBA. The main goal is to create more diversity in the regular maps and to stop one ship type from ruling the maps.

Apart from PVP we could also focus on NPCs, granting ships with fewer laser slots additional damage against NPCs.

As always you need to take into account that Bigpoint likes to earn 'some' money so you could implement NPC laser slots which can be openend by various ores / missions.

And when it comes to the damage penalties, there could be special armor that provides protection against a specified ship type which could be earned in a similar way as the extra laser slots.

 

@Bakjam I share your disappointment with Dark Orbit's absolute lack of ship diversity--but you're a little late to post this aren't you? The cyborg has been spammed by by sweaty try-hard players now for two years and counting.

BP has done a good deal to mitigate this problem recently; they've released the Hectate within the last year (which can match against a Cyborg player easily) and now they're revitalizing the Tart with three brand new designs that will hopefully also do the same. They've released the Centurion, and with a good design, it can easily match against the Cyborg too. And finally, they're also coming out with a new three-ability ship that looks OP (check the DO speaker's corner for more info. on that).

 

Hecate can indeed hold its own vs A Cyborg - Sadly 1v1 is dead and gone for the most part so a mute point.
Centurian - Well the ONLY time i have ever beaten the number one player on my server was Centurian vs Hecate - He was in the Cent and simply melted.
As for the new Disruptor, I'm not commenting until its specs are available - Spearhead is OP as, if you can survive long enough to use its abilities - Disruptor with no way to defend itself, other than abilities is just a bit Meh.