LTs and flagging levs in pub

[blackrazor]

I got to chatting with a player in pub that was playing a Lev, trying to flag, and not sitting on a Terr, nor contantly camping in FR. He was a joy to watch. We chatted about Lev settings, and I figured I could post what I got from it.

The basic idea was to make Levs more playable while not Terr-turreted and also outside of FR, while at the same time making sure that clusters of Levs hanging onto a Terr don't become too much of a problem.

1) Prizes, but not bounty, on team greens. Regardless of bounty.

Levs move and turn slowly, so they depend on portal, repel, and rocket to survive. Some radar cloak. I would add decoy, too. I recommend changing their prize awards so they gain 1 prize award per team-mate green (like a Terr), but they don't get the +1 bounty per team green (like most other non-Terr ships). This could keep them with a supply of ports, reps, rockets (and I would add decoys), in order to "cast" their way out of trouble that most other ships can just fly / maneuver / shift out of. These settings would persist at any bounty, so a Lev would keep getting prizes (casts) at every team green past 15. At the same time, Levs would no longer get bounty for team greens, only their own.

2) Drop energy recharge while turreted. A lot.

This would prevent LTs from swooping around unleashing waves of blue death at quite the same speed as they do currently, and would give them incentive to try killing while not turreted. Attaching to a Terr to escape trouble or get in position (either in, or near FR) would still work fine, Levs would just detach in order to recharge quickly for the bombing.

3) Keep the Lev attach bounty at 20 so Levs have to kill successfully in order to use a Terr for positional advantage.

[Liquid Blue]

correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Levs have the decoy ability a few years back?

[jord]

cool ideas, but i don't think any of them are possible
it isn't built into the programming of SS

[dads revenge]

Prize share can be changed but you can't liit the turret. You can on the other hand limit the terr with turret penalties.

[CaptainPoopface]

1) Prizes, but not bounty, on team greens. Regardless of bounty.

I don't think that's possible. Bounty and greens are inextricably linked. It could maybe be coded to de-prize the lev with a meaningless prize on every green (e.g., shrapnel), but it might be a load on the server for a bot to constantly watch all the levs and de-prize them.

2) Drop energy recharge while turreted. A lot.

Not possible either, unless implemented by bot. The closest thing is a speed reduction for the terr when carrying turrets, but that applies to any ship, not just the lev. This would actually be a good compromise for the LT if it could be done for levs only.

It would also be nice if the terr could not warp with levs attached, or if it left them behind when warping. Then the terr and levs would have to coordinate their portals and be more careful. Again, a bot solution, not available in game settings.

I'd rather drop the ridiculous blast radius on the bombs by downgrading to L2, and give the lev more thrust, top speed, and turning speed, so it is not such a helpless slug on its own. But that is probably too controversial to ever go over, especially because it would ultimately mean fewer easy kills for the people who play that ship. Ship 4 as it is now IS the TW lev, in the minds of the players.


Another idea, only distantly related, is that the map could be constructed so that the outer base is lined with choke points so that the roof circuit is more hazardous for speeding LTs (for an example, look at ?go fortbase, outside the flag room).

[Nockm]

correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Levs have the decoy ability a few years back?

I do not recall observing this ability.

[Liquid Blue]

might have been another zone, but i could have sworn levis had decoy and port back then

[dads revenge]

levs have had the ability to buy decoy in the past but never spawned with it

[Liquid Blue]

gotcha, that's what i must have remembered

[DankNuggets]

can't every ship buy a decoy?

[Maverick X+]

My take on the LT situations...

I'm finally able to post and now i can get my thoughts out there for everyone to see...

I'm pretty sure everyone who frequents Pub 0 has seen me or at least heard of me, the rare breed of Lev that does NOT LT. Anyways going onto topics...

I'm sure most people who actually base in pub 0 feels mostly the same way as i do, LT's are rather annoying and though they can be killed 99% of the time they are able to create a rather extreme havoc on any game play that is going on. Now granted i don't LT but I'm not about to up and say that there shouldn't be any LT's period, but i do feel that there should be a better system in place to help regulate how often LT's pop up and limit the damage that they deal while also increasing the survivablity of the lone levs like myself.

First and formost, 20 bounty to attach is entirely too low. Even though most levs get popped before hitting 20 when not in a safe, it only takes 2-3 kills after getting team greens for them to attach and be on their merry way to start causing mayhem. Most LT's nowadays also typically rush off to a safe where they will either buy up their bounty or have their actual Terr change freqs so they can bounty up. Most LT's do this all the time, including after they are taken down, it takes them less than a minute to get back up on their terr and continue which brings me to this point: 20 Bounty too low.

My suggestion is that they up the attach bounty to 50 while increasing team greenings from 15 to 40, which leads into my second point. Team-greening on lev blows. With the settings currently on lev typically after getting just one kill, that lev becomes a sitting duck as they almost always burn through all their items JUST to get 1 kill which leaves little room for more items from team greens. With that in mind, thats what I believe would help keep levs balanced without making them the havok producing LT's that most of them are while increasing their suvivablity on their own.

My next suggestion is limiting the ammount of lev's that can be attached to a terr at one moment. Blackrazor's suggestions were good but some of them are beyond the limits of the game. Mine suggestions for handling the actually LT's are as follows:

Attach limit: Give levs a rather large attachment size limit so that only 1 (MAYBE 2) levs can be on a Terr at any given time. All ships have that and by increasing levs, it would limit the ammount of Levs that can be on one Terr which in turn reduces the damage a LT can actually do. I can post a number chart for this if needbe.

The second would be to reduce the ammount of speed a Terr while carrying a lev. This would help prevent them from slipping in and out of base and bombing lines quickly. I'm not suggesting to make them turtle speed, but cut down on their top speed when loaded up with ships.

My last suggestion for now is a few changes in the greens themselfs... I can understand cutting down on rocket propelled bombs but greens should have rockets in them... lev's 1 rocket barely gets them anywhere as it has a rather short duration and instead of increasing it, allow it to be restored via greens.

I have a few more suggestions that I could make but I have work so I will be back later to see what everyone thinks of these few that i've suggested. Maybe and hopefully some of the sysops read this and reevaluates levs.