Production of Stolen Ships

[Batusai]

It came to me and my friends about the discussion on Zik Ships, they usually come back with the stolen ships after a combat - we were thinking that the zik pilots hi-jacked the new shippies and no one was left to control their own ships , maybe that's why there's a suicide issue.

Well, we've been thinking about letting the Zik produce the ships that they've stolen. A zik player could steal at least 1 ship of any race, then that player would be able to produce that kind of ship. It would be a cool idea!

I just don't know if most ppl would agree to that idea, but anyway, it would be a good additional special ability for ziks, or after stealing the ship, they must research that ship's features in order to be able to build that kind of ship, or a modified version.

Just a simple idea I thought that might be cool

[Tietäjä]

If such an option was made, it should be made severely restricted to avoid overpowering. There's very obvious downsides to it. To produce the ships should cost significantly more than the original copies (up to 100% more), and they should probably be restricted in amount (no more produced than was originally stolen). Otherwise you'll end up with a too powerful ability to tailor fleets (see the thread regarding eitrades being able to choose their ships). Generally, self-tailoring fleets out of an expanded selection is a massive threat to already feeble game balance.

Research times are just a minor setback, and definately insufficient. Just pumpu up research.

[Allfather]

If this would happen, i hope they change the production aspect a little.
Instead of using your normal light/medium/heavy factories you would have to build new types of factories (heavy/medium/light) of this and that race.

The building costs would be 2-5times higher per facility & effectiveness (amount of ships produced) should be 25-50% of the original.

[furball]

Sorry but that'd be incredibly overpowered - a fact that there's no way around whatsoever.

[Monroe]

I concur with furball, this would be incredibly over powered, even if severe restrictions are placed on it. Ziks are already quite strong, just by the nature of their race, this would only further increase the imbalance in their favor.

[Batusai]

Hmm, i've never thought about it for the other races

It does show a great imbalance for the other races.

I think that other races should also be given additional special abilities as well to balance this feature.

Though atm, i can't think of features to add to them

[Tietäjä]

Adding new features just to balance a new feature is inherently a bad idea.

[SpookyVince]

Originally Posted by Batusai

It came to me and my friends about the discussion on Zik Ships, they usually come back with the stolen ships after a combat - we were thinking that the zik pilots hi-jacked the new shippies and no one was left to control their own ships , maybe that's why there's a suicide issue.

What if the zik stealers could be kept by the other planet? Or at least a part of them? That could be interesting...

[The Wanderer]

I tryed to make a picture in my mind, what it means ingame, to be able to produce stolen ships.

To produce 100% accurate shiptypes would unblance to game, as some said, I am sure.
To produce lesser variants would be much work of coding to implement them proberly. And is it necessary?

But the idea from SpookyVince IS interessting to me.
What, if I am able to "salvage" the Zik ships? The crew is gone to fly away with one of my ships, and I just pick them out of space.

But even with this abilitie a Zik should not be able to build an entire foreign army.
If a zikplayer can do this, then I want, that every race have the abilitie to steal a certain ammount of zik "thieveryships" too. Perhaps with changed cargoships, so hat they are able pick them out of space.
The weapon of this ship could be a tractorbeam with no damage and low initiative.

But thats only my opinion.