Boiler Room in Skirmish Mode

[Captain Phil]

A while back, the idea of a boiler room was mentioned about being added onto the ships for adventure mode. The concept of the boiler room is that a player would be able to change the flow of power throughout the ship to give benefits to different parts of the ship while reducing the effectiveness of other parts. I liked this idea and decided to come up with my own interpretation of the boiler room and how we could get it into skirmish mode without breaking the game and still giving it a new dimension. In current meta, as soon as you get a gat/flak combo on you, or your balloon is being camped, your dead. My boiler room concept will allow pilots to be able to escape those hard to escape situations more easily without rendering current meta tactics useless.

On each ship there is a spot made for five valves that regulate the power throughout the ship and a reset button. Each valve will have 5 different settings; 1: almost no power, 2: power drained, 3: normal (this is what everyone is flying on right now), 4: added power, 5: power at full. When all valves are at 3 you will have no spare power to distribute. Using the same helm keys that you use on the throttle, a player can reduce the power from one part of the ship and then transfer it to another part. The reset button can be pushed to automatically set all the valves back to 3.

Now for the example: The captain calls out for more power to the engines to get to their ally faster. Since the balloon is not needed at this point, the engineer drops the power from the balloon to 1 and raises the main engine's power to 5. Once they meet up with their allies, the engineer presses the reset button to restore power back to the balloon.
Now as for the effects of reduce or increasing power to different parts of the ship.

Guns: First off, in no way should increasing power to the ship’s weapons should increase the d.p.s. of the gun (reload speed, fire speed, or damage.) The whole idea of my concept is to allow ships to get out and survive sticky situations, not make you kill things faster since that would negate the whole point of a boiler room.
1: -80% turn speed and -20% slower reload speed. 2: -40% turn speed and -10% reload speed. 3: normal. 4: 10% faster turn speed and 10% of the gun rebuilt automatically when it is destroyed. 5: 20% turn speed and 25% of the gun rebuilt automatically after it is destroyed.

Hull: Same concept with the guns in not trying to break the balance of the game by allowing one ship to become ridiculously OP when you stick the power on full, but still allows the pilot to survive longer.
1: Cool down time for repairs increased by 20% and 20% longer rebuild if the hull armor is destroyed. 2: cool down time increased by 10% along with the rebuild. 3: normal. 4: 10% more hull armor. 5: 15% more hull armor and hull is 20% rebuilt aromatically after it is destroyed.

Engines: Self explanatory, but there is a valve for both your turning engines and your main engine.
1: -80% engine output. 2:-40% engine output. 3: normal. 4: 10% engine output and 15% more health. 5: 15% engine output, 20% more health, and 25% rebuilt automatically after part is destroyed.

Balloon: once you get a very skilled balloon popper on you, you are basically doomed unless you get assistance from an ally. Adding power to the balloon should help make it less impossible to get out of that situation without making balloon popping tactics obsolete.
1: -80% vertical movement. 2: -40% vertical movement. 3: normal. 4: 15% vertical movement and 10% rebuilt after balloon is destroyed. 5: 20% vertical movement, 25% of the balloon automatically rebuilt after it is destroyed, and is rebuilt with 15% additional health.

*adding power to a broken part will not rebuild it by x%. Only when the part has the extra power to it before it is destroyed will it have that benefit.

And that is my concept on how a boiler room in skirmish mode will work. I personally would love to see what Muse themselves thought up on this subject and if they are still planning on trying to fit it in adventure mode. What do you all think about the concept of a boiler room in skirmish, my concept of the boiler room, what will it do to current meta, and perhaps your own concept on what a boiler room should do.
And thanks for reading this through!

[Ofiach]

Where would the valves be? Would you have to go running to different parts of the ship or would it be a centralized console?

[Enjix]

Balloon: once you get a very skilled balloon popper on you, you are basically doomed unless you get assistance from an ally. Adding power to the balloon should help make it less impossible to get out of that situation without making balloon popping tactics obsolete.
1: -80% vertical movement. 2: -40% vertical movement. 3: normal. 4: 15% vertical movement and 10% rebuilt after balloon is destroyed. 5: 20% vertical movement, 25% of the balloon automatically rebuilt after it is destroyed, and is rebuilt with 15% additional health.

I know this is a very minor point, but in the current game state, wouldn't reducing vertical movement by 80% help ships with no balloon, equivalent to how people use the negative effects of moonshine when they are ramming to protect their rotational momentum? It won't help with mitigating the damage to the hull, but it would cause the ship to not hit the ground so fast, all while freeing up resources to actually put toward the hull itself. I know it's just semantics but I felt the need to point that out.

As for the core of the idea itself, I really like it. Having someone in a semi-permanent position, similar to the pilot, who delegates power resources in the same way the captain delegates human resources is really interesting. I think it could be made to fit to skirmish mode in time and all of the suggestions you made seem pretty reasonable to me. I like that it's more about pushing your ship to the limit depending on what you are doing rather than of just boosting meta-offense or excessive-hull-tanking. May require some tweaking, but most of it is there. The only real issue I see with it is who exactly is going to be in charge of the boiler room out of the four people on the ship... the real balancing is going to involve whether the crew is going to be sprinting to the hull to rebuild it faster, or sprinting to the boiler room to rebuild it better. It's effectiveness as a tool is going to directly effect how much time is spent there, and therefore, how much the ability to tweak the smaller systems will be used, compared to setting it at the beginning of the match and forgetting about it.

[Captain Phil]

Where would the valves be? Would you have to go running to different parts of the ship or would it be a centralized console?

Valves should all be in one area for easy access, and they should not be that large so they can fit in on some of the smaller ships.

Looked at every ship and this is what I came up with,

Junker: The valves would between the ramp going down and the lower guns on one of the walls down there. Also there could be a spot on the side of the ship where you stand on the net. I would go for the interior location to give the gunner something else to do down there.

Goldfish: Two good spots on this ship. First spot is the wall you are facing when you spawn inside of the cabin. The second is on the wall right before you head down the ramp to the maneuvering engines.

Spire: Best place I saw was on the wall right behind the heavy gun. Also down by the hull a spot could be made for them.

Pyra: On one of the four walls in the center of the ship. Though probably not on the wall with the ramp heading up to the top port gun.

Galleon: On a wall in the main engine room, or on a wall between the maneuvering engines and the guns.

Squid: on the other side of the balloon next to the stairs heading to the upper engines, and there are two spots by the hull that I thought was a good spot for them. First one is the wall in front of you when you go down the stairs to the hull. The second spot is when you look at the hull, there is a nice empty space to the left that could be reworked to fit someone and a few valves down there.

[Captain Phil]

Balloon: once you get a very skilled balloon popper on you, you are basically doomed unless you get assistance from an ally. Adding power to the balloon should help make it less impossible to get out of that situation without making balloon popping tactics obsolete.
1: -80% vertical movement. 2: -40% vertical movement. 3: normal. 4: 15% vertical movement and 10% rebuilt after balloon is destroyed. 5: 20% vertical movement, 25% of the balloon automatically rebuilt after it is destroyed, and is rebuilt with 15% additional health.

I know this is a very minor point, but in the current game state, wouldn't reducing vertical movement by 80% help ships with no balloon, equivalent to how people use the negative effects of moonshine when they are ramming to protect their rotational momentum? It won't help with mitigating the damage to the hull, but it would cause the ship to not hit the ground so fast, all while freeing up resources to actually put toward the hull itself. I know it's just semantics but I felt the need to point that out.

As for the core of the idea itself, I really like it. Having someone in a semi-permanent position, similar to the pilot, who delegates power resources in the same way the captain delegates human resources is really interesting. I think it could be made to fit to skirmish mode in time and all of the suggestions you made seem pretty reasonable to me. I like that it's more about pushing your ship to the limit depending on what you are doing rather than of just boosting meta-offense or excessive-hull-tanking. May require some tweaking, but most of it is there. The only real issue I see with it is who exactly is going to be in charge of the boiler room out of the four people on the ship... the real balancing is going to involve whether the crew is going to be sprinting to the hull to rebuild it faster, or sprinting to the boiler room to rebuild it better. It's effectiveness as a tool is going to directly effect how much time is spent there, and therefore, how much the ability to tweak the smaller systems will be used, compared to setting it at the beginning of the match and forgetting about it.

For the balloon question, it reducing power to it will not slow down how fast a ship drops from the sky. The idea is a slower response and movement for vertical movement when the pilot is trying to go up or down. In no way can I see this being helpful.

As for the question on who is in charge of the power. A good player should be able so quickly reduce and increase power to parts within seconds, and the reset button I added will also help a ship get back on normal operations once the pilot of the ship no longer needs a particular part powered anymore. Also, you can just say, "do not even touch the boiler valves guys," since I am trying to make them not needed, but very helpful if used properly.

[Enjix]

Yeah, the balloon thing is just wording, it should just affect what the pilot wants the balloon to do, not how the ship acts when the balloon is completely out.

Doesn't sound like the boiler room would be AS critical as I hoped, haha, but if you can get it down to a few seconds to make adjustments, it would definitely still be a part of strategy... similar to buffing, only anyone can change them and you have a limited amount of resources available.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

As much fun as this would be, it would be doable in a simpler way by just adding more customization options to captains. Trading off one for the other. Like say swapping out the small squid drive engines for big ones found on the Goldfish/etc. Couldn't just be fit easily so the captain would have to trade some survivability to use it. Or say you wanted a balloon that is a bit more responsive. Lets say yeah you get it but you get a weight increase and it affects the aerodynamics so turn rate would decrease. Also add powered up variants of the current guns. Cost of which being a large hit to the ship weight. Similar can be done with armor addition where extra armor slows the ship down.

Another factor a boiler room would bring, which is unfortunate, is it would be quickly nicknamed the troller room. Crews who don't like their captain or just people who want to troll would go into it and do whatever they could to hurt the ship.

[Captain Phil]

As much fun as this would be, it would be doable in a simpler way by just adding more customization options to captains. Trading off one for the other. Like say swapping out the small squid drive engines for big ones found on the Goldfish/etc. Couldn't just be fit easily so the captain would have to trade some survivability to use it. Or say you wanted a balloon that is a bit more responsive. Lets say yeah you get it but you get a weight increase and it affects the aerodynamics so turn rate would decrease. Also add powered up variants of the current guns. Cost of which being a large hit to the ship weight. Similar can be done with armor addition where extra armor slows the ship down.

Another factor a boiler room would bring, which is unfortunate, is it would be quickly nicknamed the troller room. Crews who don't like their captain or just people who want to troll would go into it and do whatever they could to hurt the ship.

For the first concern, Muse has already axed out customization, such as the one you described, from skirmish mode to reduce the amount of time needed to prepare before a match. Also, this allows for quick in-game changes that will allow you to quickly change tactics if needed. And second, trolls do not need to mess with a boiler room to mess up your ship, and if they do, report them like any other player who jumps on your ship and shoots at nothing to give your position away, or just sits in front of your face to block your view and does nothing.

But to address this troll issue, the captain of the ship should be able to have a lever by the helm to pull to lock down the boiler room if you do not trust your crew not listening to you.

[HamsterIV]

Between captain items, flying the ship, and bossing the crew about I have no further capacity to deal with a new mechanic.

If there was a boiler mechanic added i would like to function similar to the power distribution on Xwing. shields/engines/weapons. Shields in this case could be rebuild rate, engines are self explanatory, and weapons could decrease reload times. Granted this would increase the tankyness or dps of some ships, but I don't see a loss in vertical lift to be that great a sacrifice for faster engines.

Ultimately I am happy with the game's current mechanics, and would rather not see another layer of game mechanics.

[Phores]

For the first concern, Muse has already axed out customization, such as the one you described, from skirmish mode to reduce the amount of time needed to prepare before a match. Also, this allows for quick in-game changes that will allow you to quickly change tactics if needed. And second, trolls do not need to mess with a boiler room to mess up your ship, and if they do, report them like any other player who jumps on your ship and shoots at nothing to give your position away, or just sits in front of your face to block your view and does nothing.

But to address this troll issue, the captain of the ship should be able to have a lever by the helm to pull to lock down the boiler room if you do not trust your crew not listening to you.

First concern immediately from my perspective is how awful a justification for axing customisation that is. I'd rather have it set so you couldn't preview opponent ship setup until yours is locked for the match (if at all) or ships being formed in a separate lobby before joining as a whole into matches to speed things up. That aside however:
The system, while great, sounds convoluted and too time consuming for current 4 man ships to handle effectively in combat, simplification akin to Hamster's suggestion would be a solution. As is however it would be great for the larger ships people are asking for (bigger crews etc.) and allow for them to have limited "modes": rather than just an unstoppable carnage they could have to choose between moving around the map or shooting.

Re: Trolls, the current system to deal with them isn't amazingly efficient. Also the other methods require time from a troll to maintain rather than this allowing a "join in progress">turn all power to minumum>leave match and repeat; takes actual time to be undone (rather than the effect wearing off), can easily cost a battle/the match and can't even be looked around.