New Defensive Buff tool

[Captain Phil]

Disable is the meta at the moment, and as an engineer there is nothing you can do except bring a mallet and hope your gunner has better aim then theirs. To help remedy this I have decided to try to come up with a new buff tool that focuses more on defense then offence, basically the opposite of the current buff hammer. The whole concept for this is to allow an engineer to have another item to choose from to bring into battle. The design for the tool can be anything, maybe Muse can bring back the very old buff tool model that was in before it got changed to a hammer. So, what does it do?

The tool will be able to reduce the damage a part of the ship takes. However, it will not protect components from fire damage and impact damage. Also, it will just apply the same armor increasing buff to the hull as the last one does. Don't want to be messing with that.

Other notes to consider: will it be a good idea to have it stack with the current buff tool, or as soon as you start buffing a part with a different tool it resets. (yellow bar for Productivity buff and blue bar for Defense buff) Will giving this buff the ability to pre-buff or even buff a part even when it is broken a good idea? (I think so, pointless to have a defensive buff if you cannot even keep a part up long enough to buff it.) Damage reduction: What will parts get for reduction bonuses and duration, Example: Guns 30-50% reduction for 60 seconds, Balloon 20% 30 seconds, Engines 30-50% 60 seconds. And whether or not it can be used to reduce damage taken from pilot tools.
***All numbers are placeholders and are not to be taken seriously***


Alright, Discuss, Is this a good idea, what are pros and cons you can see, and compared to the standard buff kit when would you take this over it, if you would. If this is not what you would envision for a defensive buff tool, what is?

[Squidslinger Gilder]

So it would be a Reinforce tool.

I like it. If not that, bring the functionality into the buff tool so that it reinforces the component along with buff.

[Captain Phil]

Thought of having the two in one, but that would almost make the buff a necessity. Also, current gun buffs do not last long, the idea for this one is that buffs on the gun would last as long as current engine/hull buffs. 120 seconds I think?

[Mod Josie]

A defensive buff would be an excellent addition to the game. In general I always feel that buffing isn't used as much as it could be. Not all crew and captains can feel its effects working and so sometimes they feel it's a waste of time and resources. This would add a new level to that and bring it more into the strategic mainstream.

[Richard LeMoon]

I was just talking about a similar tool yesterday. My thought is a little different, though. Rather than acting like an Engineer tool with impact usage, it would be more like a Pilot tool with select to activate. In order to 'protect' a component, you would have to be looking at it with the tool selected. Think of it more like bracing against a door.

Bonus: When the captain yells "Brace for impact!" a crew member with this tool could actually do something.

I do not like the thought of combining it with the buff hammer. Then you would end up with a super disabling gun that is hard to disable.

[Saull]

How about an ammo type that works like heat sink. Makes the gun mostly unusable, maybe locking it into place, in exchange for extra health and/or damage reduction

[Crafeksterty]

How about an ammo type that works like heat sink. Makes the gun mostly unusable, maybe locking it into place, in exchange for extra health and/or damage reduction

This! Extra health weapon ammo type! Or protection. Or whatever.

[Captain Phil]

How about an ammo type that works like heat sink. Makes the gun mostly unusable, maybe locking it into place, in exchange for extra health and/or damage reduction

This! Extra health weapon ammo type! Or protection. Or whatever.

The idea was to protect other parts too such as engines. And we don't want to end up with a situation like the one before fire was nerfed hard. Where heatsink was a necessity if they had any flame weapons.

[Saull]

And I can appreciate the need to further protect the engines. The squid and goldfish certainly could use it but this secondary buff kit looks to me like another reason to bring that third or even fourth engineer. Using an ammo type would probably be more situational, like for a charge, and have more give and take then an engie tool. Also, as far as engine vulnerability goes, with reduced damage coming in on those fortified guns a gunner would be better equipped to handle any repairs by himself thus freeing the secondary engineer to address other components. That was at least the idea.

I would also think that if a fortifying ammo type or engie tool were to exist the goldfish would probably get the most mileage out of their use.

[Spud Nick]

I like the idea of a ammo type that would give the gun more HP. This could be very useful for ships like the Galleon and Goldfish were gun disables are very common. However, disabling is a big part of the game and I don't want to see it nerfed to much.

[Richard LeMoon]

Perhaps impact bumpers should also protect the engines from shatter to some extent while being used, since they do reduce your output. Another thought is to allow the use of the impact bumpers off the helm on individual components. Use on a gun would reduce damage substantially, but would also slow the turning speed.