Official Perk Brainstorming Thread

[lamster]

Over the next few weeks I will be focusing on perks. The plan is to implement a bunch of new ideas, push them out so everyone can test them, and then use your feedback and suggestions to tweak and finalize the final perk set for the official release.

I need your help coming up with great ideas for new perks. But first, let me explain how I envision each of the perk categories shaking out:

Red Perks aka Alternate Forms
Each plane will have 3 forms that represent unique and different playstyles along that plane's general theme. The general formula I've been playing with is "Default Loadout", "Alternative Primary Weapon", "Alternative Secondary Weapon" -- but I am open to the possibility of modifying several aspects of the plane with a given perk. It's important, however, that the plane's core concept is not watered down, and perks must not transform one plane into another. Rather, red perks should accentuate or complement unique elements of the original plane in interesting ways that feel different to play. While perhaps a bit dry, I think Biplane's current red perks are a pretty good example. Biplane's default form has a long-range gun with steady damage and a short-range gun with insane burst damage and heavy recoil. What make him unique are his burst damage -- he's the only plane with 2 weapons pointing the same way, allowing absurd burst damage when firing both weapons simultaneously at close range -- and the recoil on his secondary, which provides him with unusual maneuverability options such as the ability to reverse out of a stall. Alternate form 1, recoilless gun, trades movement versatility for agility, allowing him to deliver his burst damage in constant hit and run attacks without having to regain speed between fights. An important bonus is that this perk opens up Biplane to players who find recoil frustrating at first, giving them a chance to learn his guns and experiment with the other forms when they are more comfortable. Alternate form 2, heavy cannon, amps his burst damage and recoil elements to the max, and opens up a new playstyle where rather than hunt down the enemy, the Biplane can sit back and fire pot shots until the enemy engages him in close combat.

Green and Blue perks add an additional layer of customization to the mix. The perks in the game right now are not a good example of where I'd like to see green/blue perks go -- I intend for the final perks to be more potent, balanced, and interesting than the current choices. As for organization, I’m not sure what exactly should constitute a Green versus Blue perk, but let’s go with this for now: Greens modify passive/reactive elements such as maneuverability, speed, or survivability, and Blues modify active elements such as energy, powerups, and bonuses.

Don’t worry about which category your perk belongs in, we can sort them out later. For now we’re looking for any great idea that could work on all planes, add interesting variation, and address personal play-style desires or game play annoyances.

To start things off, here are a few ideas I’ve come up with, collected from other forum threads, or adapted from others’ suggestions:

Red Perk – Explodet – Trip Lines -- Replaces mines with “trip-lines” that catch in enemy planes’ engines, temporarily stalling them out. They’d work like this: instead of mines, secondary drops a line-holder, and a trip-line connection is made for each line-holder that is within 200 pixels of the new holder. If an enemy flies through one of the trip lines, that line is severed and the plane goes into a stall for 2 seconds (can still turn, but can’t afterburn and can’t break the stall until the trip effect goes off). Perfect for setting up a 1-shot rocket kill.

Red Perk – Bomber – Flak Tailgun -- Replaces tracking tailgunner with a non-tracking, long cooldown, recoiling, explosive flak tailgun. Kind of a similar concept to Biplane’s Heavy Cannon, except here, since the gun faces backwards, you get a burst of forward momentum each time you fire.

Red Perk – Loopy – Acid Gas Bomb -- Replaces EMP with an acid bomb that explodes into a cloud of gas upon impact. The gas cloud has a similar AoE to EMP, lasts a few seconds, and places an “acid debuff” on any plane that flies through it. The acid debuff increases damage taken by the effected plane for the next couple seconds. Would probably need a higher cooldown/energy requirement than EMP to discourage spam.

Green Perk – Rubber Armor -- Slight modification to current Rubberized Hull. Still decreases damage from collisions with buildings, but now also distributes kinetic energy from weapons as well, reducing knockback from explosions such as Explo’s mines and Bomber’s grenades. The ultimate counter to concussive weapons, and a great helper perk for new players who find themselves flying into a lot of buildings. Perhaps a slight loss of speed or health to offset.

Green Perk – Supersized Frame -- Increases plane’s size and health, making you easier to hit but harder to kill
Green Perk – Miniature Frame -- Exact opposite.

Green Perk – Bumper Shield -- Looks like a bumper on the front of your plane. Absorbs 100 damage from the front only and then shatters. Regenerates after several seconds of full energy. Useful for escorting bombers, pushing through enemy defenses, and engaging the enemy head on.

Green Perk – Flexible Wings -- Increases turning but reduces health.

Green Perk – Aerodynamic Hull -- Increases top speed and afterburner effectiveness but reduces turning.

Blue Perk – Turbocharger – Reduces max energy but increases energy regeneration rate.

Blue Perk – Hidden Compartment – Allows plane to carry 2 powerups at once.

Blue Perk – Ace Instincts -- Doubles bonus turning/speed/damage/energy for kill streaks. For example, 3 bronze + ace instincts would be equivalent to 3 silver on a non-ace plane.

Blue Perk –Powerup Replacement – Replaces powerup slot with new ability to be determined--perhaps barrel roll ? Activate new ability with powerup key, can no longer carry powerups.

[Quote]

Originally Posted by lamster

Red Perk – Explodet – Trip Lines
*snip*

This sounds like a pretty cool perk, and would probably work well as long as the trip lines take up a decent amount of energy. If the player has enough energy to place 2 or 3 of the trip mines and *just* have enough energy to fire a rocket I think it's a perk I'd like to see, as long as the trip lines are timed. Having a trip line stay around for a couple seconds would probably work (I'm sure a decent amount of testing will go into fine tuning times etc.), but it would become quite frustrating to run around a map covered in a web created by people whoring the perk.

A similar perk might be one that fired a projectile which upon collision with a wall acts as a trip mine, which either kills a planes afterburner when "tripped" (pretty much the same behaviour as the above perk) or which explodes in a similar way as the existing mines upon a plane being "tripped". The biggest problem I see with this though, is that it might be overpowered in very tight maps, and almost useless in more open maps. It took me quite awhile to get used to dodging mines in tight corridors as it is, and adding a damaging tripwire to that could make it even harder.

Originally Posted by lamster

Red Perk – Bomber – Flak Tailgun --
*snip*

I don't have much to say about this perk, but I like the idea.

Originally Posted by lamster

Red Perk – Loopy – Acid Gas Bomb --
*snip*

I also like this idea to an extent, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to balance. As you said it would need to take more energy to avoid spamming, but then the loopy might not have enough energy to kill the affected player fast enough, and might just lead to giving other players kills.

Speaking of EMP's, I had the idea of giving Miranda a red perk which acts similar to loopy's EMP, except it would be used as the first trigger. The projectile itself would work similar to Mirandas Bouncy Shot perk, but when charged (which I'd think should only take two or three seconds, but it would take some testing) it would, upon hitting a plane, do a small amount of damage (none?) but act as an EMP. Miranda's uncharged shots would still just be the usual projectiles, but this way you could launch an EMP at a player, then fire a few uncharged shots. I'm not sure how you feel about having another EMP outside loopy's though, and this might be overpowered (depending on how strong mirandas uncharged shots are).

Green Perk – Rubber Armor -- Slight modification to current Rubberized Hull.
*snip*
Perhaps a slight loss of speed or health to offset.

I'm not sure if this is intended to be a replacement for rubberized hull, but I think it *might* work best that way - although I don't like the idea of any loss of health.

Green Perk – Supersized Frame
Green Perk – Miniature Frame

I can't say I really like either of these perks.

Green Perk – Bumper Shield
*snip*

I don't mind this idea, but it might work better as an alternate (or replaced) version of the shield powerup; it might be overpowered as a perk.

Green Perk – Flexible Wings -- Increases turning but reduces health.

Sounds good, maybe slightly reduce speed instead of health though, I just don't like the idea of taking away the players health.

Green Perk – Aerodynamic Hull -- Increases top speed and afterburner effectiveness but reduces turning.

I like this idea, especially for some of the slower planes.

Blue Perk – Turbocharger
Blue Perk – Hidden Compartment

I don't really like these two perks; mostly Hidden Compartment which seems overpowered... especially if it means you can carry the Bomb and a shield, although even without the ability to carry the bomb I'm not sure about it.

Blue Perk – Ace Instincts

Seems overpowered for better players.

Blue Perk –Powerup Replacement – Replaces powerup slot with new ability to be determined--perhaps barrel roll ? Activate new ability with powerup key, can no longer carry powerups.

Please, Please, Please, Please, PLEASE add this! Joking aside, I think a vertical barrel roll would be the best thing ever, seriously.

[nesnl]

First, I really like the idea of the red perks just changing the plane "mode" rather than giving the plane what is an obvious upgrade. I like the idea of having 3 separate but equal modes for each plane.

My reaction to the whole blue/green perk after reading the list is that in my opinion they should be considered upgrades as opposed to the red perks which are merely play style. I think that instead of trying to balance them with themselves that you should just make them purely upgrades and let them balance against each other. What I mean by that is I think you should make upgrades simple like "increase armor" or "increase turning speed." I don't think you should try to balance the upgrade with itself in the sense that you are downgrading one aspect when you upgrade another. So I don't like the idea of something like "increase armor at a cost of decreasing top speed."

I think one of the major aspects of trying to think about new upgrades is that they all seem to have to be "passive" in the sense that, currently, the are no additional keys available to "use" a new powerup. I think I like the idea of it staying that way in that powerups merely work in the background rather than using something that requires a new key.

So here are my thoughts on the list thus far:

Red Perk – Explodet – Trip Lines -- it sounds interesting but also sounds like you are giving the player the ability to "wall in" certain areas which seems like it could be abused. Seems like it would be hard to gauge how far you could place each node in order to get the trip line to appear. I think it would be frustrating for players to place down line-holders to have them not do anything because they are 201 pixels away from each other. A possibility could be to make it so if the player presses the D key, a line-holder comes out, if the player presses it again before traveling 200 pixels then a new line-holder comes out. However, if the player places the first line holder and travels 200 pixels without laying a new line-holder then you could have the game automatically drop another line-holder (assuming there is enough energy). However, this could create problems if the perk was designed to allow players to create "chains" of lines. Just like a player can lay down 4 mines, would you allow them to lay down 4 connected trip lines? Anyway, maybe it would be best to leave the entire process in the user control. That way it could balance it a bit if it didn't always work by placing down a line holder (in the case of it being more than 200 pixels away) I think it would also be cool if you could connect your lines with other teammates line-holders.

Red Perk – Bomber – Flak Tailgun -- I see this as a really nice idea for a perk for the secondary on the bomber. An idea that could work well with this is to have it shoot a shell similar in energy cost and cooldown to the biplane's heavy cannon but have the shot explode and do moderate damage but also give it moderate concussive explosion similar to the explodet rocket. You could make it user controlled so that the they first press the D key to fire and then press the D key again to detonate the explosive shell (similar in function to the explodet rocket).

Red Perk – Loopy – Acid Gas Bomb -- Sounds like a cool idea. It would need a significant change in graphical representation from the EMP so that players could easily distinguish between the two.

Green Perk – Rubber Armor -- I like the idea of this as just being added into the current rubberized hull perk. If you increased the current damage reduction from collision in the current perk and added the effect of also reduces knockback effect from weapons it would definitely be a nice perk.

Green Perk – Supersized Frame -- Don't like this idea

Green Perk – Miniature Frame -- Don't like this idea

Green Perk – Bumper Shield -- Don't like this idea

Green Perk – Flexible Wings -- I like this idea but not as it's currently stated. It think you should make it so the perk just increases turning speed with no cost.

Green Perk – Aerodynamic Hull -- This sounds like what I think the current Superburner perk should be. Increase top speed both with afterburner and without it.

Blue Perk – Turbocharger -- Again, I think that this is a good idea but it should just give you a faster energy recharge rate but I don't think it should come with any cost such as reducing your energy pool.

Blue Perk – Hidden Compartment – I like this idea of this, however, after designing a few maps I find that power-up heavy maps tend to be bad. When I made my first map it had like 10 power-ups on the map and I think it just felt like there were way too many. I think that there are even too many on a map like asteroids. I think that ideally I like to stay between 4-6 on any map. This allows for competition for the power-ups instead of there being an endless supply. That being said, I don't see this perk being useful if it allowed you to carry two power-ups. This is because if the map is designed properly in my mind, there won't be many opportunities to acquire two power-ups. A better idea for this perk might be to allow a person to use a power-up twice before it is lost. Even give the person double health for getting a health power-up, but not the ones dropped by planes, only the ones that are generated in a power-up slot. However, the bomb should be special in that the player shouldn't be allowed to drop 2 bombs.

Blue Perk – Ace Instincts -- When I read this it confused me because I wasn't even aware there was a bonus for having the different bronze, silver, gold bars for killing people. It would be nice to have this explained in a post.

Blue Perk – Powerup Replacement - This could be a cool idea if the power-up was something unique and not too overpowered. The only way I see this working is the player doesn't acquire the power-up unless they pick up a power-up (other than the bomb). Basically you could have it so if the player picks up a power-up (missile, shield, or wall) then instead of gaining that power-up they gain the special ability. As far as a barrel-roll, I am not sure if I see that working, but I am not sure what it would do. Maybe an invisibility power-up? Like giving the user 3-5 seconds of invisibility when activated. I think you used to have something like this in game where people could turn invisible but it wouldn't allow them to shoot. I could see it working if you allowed them to shoot but also could take damage while invisible. Basically for this idea to work it would have to be a power-up that isn't too overpowered and not open for abuse.

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As for your comment that the current Blue/Green perks aren't good examples of where you would like to see them go, I think that they are good perks but they just aren't potent enough in their current form to create the kind of diversity that would make the game more interesting. I can see it being difficult to create perks that are interesting and diverse choices, but at the same time that don't drastically change the overall dynamic and feel for each plane.

Also, I have been thinking hard about how you could modify the current secondary "weapon" for Miranda. Considering it's not really a weapon but rather a maneuver, I don't see how you can change it without drastically changing how Miranda is played. I hope that either you or someone else can come up with a good idea for this.

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If I were going to try out a mock up of what I think you should try for the current Green/Blue perks, here is what I would go with: (The list is partially biased towards the ease of you being able to program them in the game. I mean this in the sense that you probably only have to change a few numbers rather than adding in whole new mechanics or graphics to accompany them.)

GREEN (modify passive/reactive elements such as maneuverability, speed, or survivability.)

1. Rubber Armor - Decrease collision damage (more than it does now) and reduce knockback from weapons.

2. Heavy Armor - Decrease damage taken from all sources (more so than it is now). I think currently it increases your total hit points, but I would rather see it reduce damage taken by a percentage so that health packs have the same effect as if you didn't have the perk.

3. Aerodynamic Hull - Increase top speed both with the use of afterburner and without it.

4. Flexible Wings - Increase turning speed.

5. Repair Drone - Modify the current version so that it constantly repairs your plane regardless of your energy level. This might need tweaking in that it either gives less health per tick or the duration between each tick is increased. (I am going to add an edit to this because I support Snowsickle's idea in that it shouldn't work while you are using after burner.)


BLUE (modify active elements such as energy, powerups, and bonuses.)

1. Ultracapacitor - I like the current version as it stands but maybe it needs have its value increased so that it gives slightly more energy.

2. Supercharger - Increase the energy recharge rate with no cost to total energy.

3. Hidden Compartment - Allow the user to carry two power-ups that must be used in the order they are picked up.

4. Efficient Engine - Reduce the energy cost of using afterburner with either overall reduced cost or making it so that if you are at max throttle you still have 25-50% energy left.

5. Power-up Master - Increase time duration of shield and wall (by maybe 2 seconds or so), increase the health gained from health packs (power-up spawns only, increase of maybe 50%), increase damage done by guided missile (maybe 25% or so).

[Kupac]

[Explodet Red Perk] Gravity Mine: This special type of mine pulls enemies towards it before it explodes. The closer it gets to it's detonation time, the stronger it pulls. (Takes more energy then regular mines)

I made this to replace the remote mines.

[Loopy Red Perk] Smart Rockets: The tracker technology is moved to your rockets allowing them to individually home in to enemies close by.

[Miranda Red Perk] Warp Shot: Your shots go through walls. (As a bonus ability you can make them appear some distance in front of the miranda and travel back towards it for cool points)

[Bomber Red Perk] Cluster Missle: You fire a missle forwards that explodes into several grenades.

[Biplane Red Perk] Afterburner Cannon: Your afterburner is replaced with a gun that has very high recoil. (but is weaker then the Heavy Cannon)

[Blue Perk] Taunt: Whenever you kill someone a sign saying "Looser" will point at the crashing ship. The ship also explode in flowers.

[Ferret]

Green perks, 4-5 different kinds of armor that give good damage reduction or effect reduction against certain plane attacks or attack types.

Something like;
"rocket proof hull, reduces damage from loopy rockets and explodet rockets"
"bullet proof hull, reduces damage from biplane primary shot and bomber tail gun"
"explosive proof hull, reduces damage from bomber grenades and bombs and explodet mines"
etc.

The point being that this makes perks more reactive to what's going on in the game and discourages something like an entire team of loopies or an entire team of bombers if they know that you can pick something like this. In order to make any of it valuable heavy armor would probably have to be removed as a perk and the protection these offer increased a little from what heavy armor currently offers.

[Snowsickle]

Expanding on Ferret's idea a bit, it might be worth breaking down the weapons into 2 or 3 subcatagories that encompass every weapon in the game.

My initial idea would be along the lines of: Explosive, Piercing, Laser

This might use up a few too many green perk slots but I do like the fact that there would be a good incentive to not stack an entire team of one plane. The problem that may or may not arise from this is that you take a plane like the loopy, which in my experience only has problems with a couple of planes, and toss on damage reduction against those 1-2 planes and you have a death machine. However, I don't know that there are/will be planes that are able to beat 4/5 other planes reliably after some balancing is done, so it may be a non-issue. If it is a problem, it can probably be easily solved by making it a rock/paper/scissors system where each set of armor would make you weaker to another damage type.

I've posted the ideas before but I'm not sure anyone remembers them:
Blue Perks:

• Item specialty. Adds a slight boost to every item a plane can use. 1 second to shield (or greater range), removes arming time from missile (or increased homing/damage), adds some length to walls (or longer emp effect).
• Climbing buff. Simple but self explanatory. This is mainly if afterburner-with-bomb gets rolled back. Would help make certain paths more viable on maps without giving the maneuverability of an afterburner.

Green Perks:

• Not so much a new perk suggestion but I'd like to see the repair drone functionality change. The main gripe is it not working with the miranda. My suggested change would be to allow the repair drone to work if A) the plane is not firing and B) the plane is not afterburning. Remove the current requirement of max energy. I'd probably suggest adding a 2 or 3 second period in which you can't shoot or afterburn for it to begin repairing as well.

Red Perks:

• Said before but, I support a number of the original biplanes abilities returning in some form or another as red perks. Woodstock and miranda phasing to be specific.

[nesnl]

The biggest issue I see with the idea of giving perks that give reduction of damage for certain plane types is that in general most players don't want to think about the game in that type of depth. If you start adding in debuffs in the form of taking more damage from other types of damage then in my opinion you are making things too complex.

I understand from some of your view points that you have played this game for years (ie ferret, snowsickle). I am sure you know more details about this game than most people do. I think the important part about this process is to look at it with the idea that this game is going to ship and be played by a wide variety of people. Assuming most of these people are casual gamers, they aren't going to be making the types of analysis in the game like you guys are doing (or that I do as well). I think they want to see something like "Increase Plane Health" and not "Decrease damage taken from loopy rockets and explodet rockets while increasing damage taken from biplane primary shot and bomber tail gun." And I don't say this to try to say that I don't like your ideas, but I think that even though it may not be ideal for our specific play styles, that on the whole it is better to keep things simple.

Just consider how a lot of the games go now. There are a ton of new players and they all play loopy. There isn't anything wrong with that but if you put a perk in that said "reduce damage from loopy" most new or casual players aren't going to recognize that. I just don't see the average player saying to themselves "the other team is probably stacking anti-loopy perks so I better diversify my team make-up." I think they just want to pick a plane, play it, and have fun.

In my opinion the perks should be two things: simple (easy to understand buff) and all encompassing (in that they aren't perks that only apply to certain situations like fighting certain planes or while you are carrying the bomb)

[Blank]

I'm pretty against plane-specific perks because I don't think people should have to use the "edit" button to reconfigure perks during the game (unless they just happen to unlock something).

It's sad that so many new people refuse to branch past loopy but not surprising.


I'll toss another vote behind giving miranda/loopy their old abilities. It works out well because their both secondary fire changes.

Some ideas for bomber/explodet:

Bomber- machine gun rear turret. Basically acts just like biplanes secondary except from the rear. I honestly have no idea how effective this'll be, it could end up being completely worthless but I've been in a few situations where I wish the rear turret had more punch at close range.

Explodet- For starters, mine ejector should be in the default config. I'm also not crazy in love with the explodet main weapon change. So a few suggestions here:

EMP missile- Basically an explodet version of loopies EMP. Damage and amount of "EMP-ness" will probably need tweaking. No knockaround though. If loopy isn't going to get the ability to detonate an EMP, seems like a good choice for explodet.

Heavy missile- Functions like a normal explodet missile (maybe a touch faster) except there's no knock around effect and less area effect damage. Instead, it'll detonate on collision with targets for greater damage (can still be manually detonated).

Reverser mines- any plane it detonates against (your own not included) gets turned around 180 degrees. No or very little damage.

Sticky mines- Instead of detonating, it attaches itself to any plane it collides with. Prevents afterburning and does damage over time. Might need to chase faster since it'd deal no detonating damage.

[Kupac]

Just thought of a new one.

[Blue Perk] Kamikaze: You make a giant explosion whenever you die.

[Quote]

Okay, my ideas at the moment for Mirandas red perks:

1. Bouncy shot

Same as it is now.

2. Laser

Same as it is now, but the second attack teleports miranda out of play briefly before teleporting back into the same spot with no loss of speed.

3. Dual Shot

Without charging fires two weaker energy shots, one from the front and one from the back. After charging, fires a stream of forward shots for two or three seconds.
Second attack is the same as it is with bouncy shot now; it quickly reverses mirandas direction.

[Kupac]

Here's some more hi-tech perks.

[Blue Perk] Halt Boosters: Makes it so when you press down all the way it completely halts your position so you're suspended in the air. Drains energy much like the afterburner.

[Miranda Red Perk] Gravity Gun: Charging pulls plains towards you. Releasing the shot pushes planes away from you.

Also I think Miranda's teleport afterburner thing should be removed. Instead make teleport a red perk that replaces quick direction switching.

[nesnl]

I would be interested in hearing what Snowsickle is referring to when he says "Woodstock and miranda phasing."

Anyway, someone posted this idea earlier but I am not sure who it was. I like the idea for the second Red Perk for Miranda to change its reverse ability to the ability to "disappear" for a certain length of time. Maybe something like 0.5 to 1.0 seconds. Basically, the idea is that if someone is chasing you, you can disappear and then reappear in the same spot with the same speed and, the way I am picturing it, you may end up being behind the person who was chasing you (as long as they were close enough).

Another version of this could be that instead of disappearing for a certain amount of time the ability could be to have the plane 'step back' a certain interval. Basically the plane would move instantly on the screen to somewhere behind where it was. (Again, the amount of space travelled would have to be worked out) This could be instantaneous and be accomplished in two ways: Either have the plane just move to a point backwards from where it was (kind of the opposite of the current 'warp' move) or you could have it kind of be a time reversal. Like pressing the D button could make the plane take on the location of exactly where it was a certain time interval in the past (like 0.5 to 1.0 seconds previous). The second way might be harder to program I imagine because you would in a sense have to "record" the movement of the plane in some kind of 1 second buffer. But I don't know much about programming, so I could be wrong on that. It would be nice though to be able to "reverse" a bad mistake without having to worry about teleporting backwards into a wall.

[Blank]

Originally Posted by nesnl

I would be interested in hearing what Snowsickle is referring to when he says "Woodstock and miranda phasing."

Since I'm bored. In old biplanes loopy (Snoopy) had Woodstock for secondary fire instead of EMP. Hitting secondary fire once shot out an egg that would detonate on target or would travel a set distance than explode (like current EMP), hitting it again recalled woodstock. You could only have 1 out at a time so if you shot it through a screen wrap around and didn't hit anyone with it, you'd have to wait until it flew all the way back to you before you can use it again.

Woodstock would cause minor damage over time and cause random knockaround for I want to say 5 or so seconds. Like you could be flying straight and it'd just smack your plane up or stall you... generally the faster you were going the less "hits" woodstock would get in and the less noticeable it's effects were. If you were going slow or stalled though, woodstock would send you all over the ****ing place. It also had a fairly large AoE so you could often shoot it at walls and have it go through the wall and stick to a target (EDIT: I should point out that woodstock only could attack 1 plane at a time despite having an area of effect). It was also capable of jumping from multiple targets, so it might hit one plane once then jump to another plane that got near it.

It was pretty damn powerful all things considered but the entire game played so much differently back then. I have no idea how useful/useless woodstock would be in an afterburner environment (it didn't exist back then).

Miranda's secondary instead of quick turn was about 3 seconds of "phasing" where it was invulnerable to damage (lag not withstanding) and could go through walls. I think it also reset your speed back to "normal" so you could get out of stalls but that might just be my imagination. Phasing was disabled while carrying the big bomb. This ability was also insanely powerful, but that was back when people cared about 1on1's.

[Kupac]

Originally Posted by Blank

back when people cared about 1on1's.

Im a newbie and came after the big patches, so I'm not sure how it was back then, but I think 1 on 1 is still kinda important still. I think that's why so many people like The Core. The map design really encourages 1 on 1 battles. Maybe that's just my imagination though.

Also this is completely random, but I think turrets feel just like a cheap way of elongating the playtime of a map. I think they'd be better off if they did less damage, but was invincible to anything except nukes, much like the base. (Maybe instead shooting at them normally would overheat them for a while.)

Edit: I say this because, currently the only strategy on maps with turrets in them are to kill all the ones in mid map first and then continue with the actual battle. Making them tougher would encourage some more strategy. "Ok we can't waste our nukes on the turrets so just disable them whenever we need to.")

[DiogenesDog]

I agree with most of what nesnl is saying. In particular, I agree strongly that the green/blue perks should be straight up upgrades and should only be given a downside if absolutely necessary to balance them. (Or, in the case of something like Heavy Armor, I could see it being more fun to have a very exaggerated upgrade that comes with a downside. But I think this should be the exception.)

Also, comment about the Acid Bomb: I like this idea, but I think it needs something else, maybe DoT? In the current incarnation, I don't think it would really change your playstyle much from EMP... it's still something you want to use when you can to set up enemies for your main attack. Making it affect enemies directly instead of being another pure debuff would help mix things up a bit I think. (Actually, on a second read it seems like you're doing a persistent cloud, which DOES change things a bit. I like it.)

Oh, and regarding the barrel roll... I know it was a joke and all, but I agree that it'd be interesting to experiment with. A move that let you quickly move laterally (in this case, in the direction of your plane's belly) could be pretty useful/fun.

Also, here's an old perk thread from back when they were first implemented: http://vapor.nimblygames.com/forums/...read.php?t=133 Actually, taking a look now it seems like you were already keeping tabs on it, but there's probably at least 1-2 good suggestions left in there.

And here's some brainstorming... did a quick readthrough of both threads, but I wouldn't be surprised if I accidentally duped something. Sorry if so!


_BLUE/GREEN PERKS_

- Powerup Expert: Increases effectiveness (generally duration) of all powerups.

- Improved Optics: Draws an outline around every plane that is visible even when enemies are behind clouds, etc.

- Medic: Gives the player a small aura that heals nearby allies (but not himself).

- I don't know, I keep writing down ideas that I already suggested in the other thread. :P



_RED PERKS_

Loopy:
- One more vote for bringing back Woody. Although it does crack me up how much people miss him now when all they did was bitch when he was there.
- Rocket Slinger: Replaces his guided missiles with non-guided but more powerful mini-rockets.
- Artful Dodger: Both weapons are weakened, but speed and turning are increased beyond even normal levels.
- Gooball or Nets: Very similar functionally to EMP, but requires a direct hit and has no AoE. The upside is they can be fired much more quickly & cost less energy.


Miranda:
- Advanced Warp Technology: "Afterburner" no longer does damage, but goes much further and activates immediately (and can possibly go through walls?)
- Lightning Pods: Increased "afterburner" damage and adds DoT lightning crackling crap to main shot when fully charged. No idea what would be a good downside to work with this, but it should be something that makes it defensively weaker... maybe increase the cost / cooldown of the secondary fire? Or maybe the secondary fire could be a charge-up PBAoE thing instead of an evasive maneuver?
- Disrupter Shot: Reduces damage of main shot but adds a small debuff effect of some kind.
- Quickfire: Main shot is changed to a non-charging standard projectile. Basically, this always fires a half-charged shot... the good news is you need less preparation, but the bad news is that you never have one high damage blast.
- Teleport Anchor: Bring back the semi-old teleport anchor secondary fire. Probably too powerful in chase situations, though.
- Time Shifter: Causes the Miranda to travel backwards on the exact same path it just flew on while the button is held. You're still vulnerable and can fire normally in this mode, but it essentially lets you move backwards at will.
- Lateral Shift: Instead of reversing direction, the secondary fire teleports you either up or down slightly. Might be cool to make this NOT relative to the plane's facing, so you have different incentives to use it depending on your position.
- If you really wanted to be crazy, you could make it so the afterburner ability doesn't do damage by default (new players never realize this anyway) and make it part of a red perk.


Explodet:
- Dirty Burners: Adds a thick black smoke cloud that spews out when the player uses his afterburners. Obscures enemy vision, making mines more effective.


Biplane:
- Dual Machine Guns: Primary has slightly shorter range, costs less energy, and has a slightly random firing angle. Compared to the default primary, this weapon is more effective at short range but weaker at long range.
- Shotgunner: Replace machine gun with shotgun. Very high damage on a direct hit, would likely cost ~66% of a full energy bar to fire. Essentially a less versatile but more powerful version of the existing machinegun. (Alternatively, you could use this as a simple no-recoil version of the machine gun instead of the current setup. This might help add a little variety and provide visual feedback about your perk loadout to other players.)
- Railgun: Replaces primary with a higher damage, higher energy cost single shot that does a ****load of damage. This shot can penetrate enemies and keep going to damage other enemies behind them.

Bomber:
- Short fuse: Grenades explode in midair at a relatively short range (probably about Loopy EMP range), but get increased AoE. Could also be used for bombs.
- Chaingunner: Replaces tailgun with a non-tracking weapon that fires extremely rapidly. Projectile speed would also be cranked. Essentially, for all practically purposes this would be a long range "laser"... instead of relying on trackng, players would lean on the button and adjust the "beam" as necessary.
- I dunno, I like your flak idea tho.

[Kupac]

If we're doing 3 red perks each plane, I think they should really alter the way each plane is played.

Here's some suggestions for what the planes should have and why.

Loopy
Fighting style: Outmaneuver, and outfly. Less need for precision.
Standard:
-Guided Missles [Strategy: Fire missles and then tilt plane so that your target is locked on.]
-Emp Charge [Strategy: Fire when you dont want the plane to turn in your direction, or you don't want the plane to run away. Usually just fire at start of encounter.]

Primary Weapon Change:
- Twin DumbRocket Fire: No tracker, same energy cost. [Strategy: Aim each shot, but don't have to worry about as much precision as Biplanes.] {The Standard Twin Rockets doesn't change the default strategy at all.}

Secondary Weapon Change:
- I'm at a loss here. Acid bomb I think wouldn't change the default strategy of just firing at start of encounter, and I can't think of anything that would fit the fighting style.

Explodet
Fighting Style: Knock enemies into walls. Explosives.
Standard:
-Rocket [Strategy: Fire into enemies either for instakill or to knock them into whatever direction you like.]
-Mines [Strategy: Barricade pathway or launch at trailing plane.]

Primary Weapon Change:
Once again, no idea.

Secondary Weapon Change:
- Gravity Mine: Pulls enemies towards it. Press again to detonate. [Strategy: Place near walls or areas you want enemies to speed by.] {The current alternative isn't really weapon specific, and I feel doesn't match the Explodets fighting style as much as this does.}

Bomber <-- Over powered!
Fighting Style: Long Range Aoe Damage, Close range precise damage. Explosives. {Currently it's the same except it has close range guided damage, which imo is op.}

I think this plane is kind of a mess. Grenades are completely overpowered, tailgun is really strong as well. Bombs might be a perfect match for standard if they had the bounce of the grenades. Also, tracking should be removed from the tailgun.

Biplane
Fighting Style: Long range precise damage, Close range AoE damage. Manage stalls.
Standard:
-Bullets [Strategy: Aim, burstfire, and kill.]
-Machine Gun [Strategy: Fire, stall, decimate.]

Primary Weapon Replacement:
-Heavy Cannon [Strategy: Aim, fire, conserve shots, kill.]

Secondary Weapon Replacement:
-Downward Fire: A machine gun that always fires downwards. Just enough knockback to get out of a stall. [Strategy: Hover over enemy and fire downward, also easier to navigate out of stalls.] {I thought this would be fitting since you could either choose to use stalls to your advantage or choose to avoid them.}

Miranda
Fighting Style: Ranged Precision, Outmaneuvering.
Standard:
-Bouncing Shots [Strategy: Aim, fire. Bounce off stuff and hit.]
-Directional Shift [Strategy: Face the enemy. Prevent from crashing into walls.]

Primary Weapon Replacement:
-Laser [Strategy: Aim, keep fire on target.]

Secondary Weapon Replacement:
-Warp: The afterburner warp. [Strategy: Stay behind enemy and deal damage at same time. Go through small walls.] {I think the afterburner warp should be moved to a perk instead. It's just more fitting, and a perfect match.}

[protest boy]

Explodet:

-A perk that makes the mines move faster when they are tracking someone. Seems obvious, but I didn't see it mentioned.

Miranda:

-Penetrating fire: Weapons go through other player's shields.
-Wide beam: Increase the width of the laser.

Biplane or Loopy:

Barrel roll: makes plane dodge all incoming fire for one second. Lag might make this a hard perk to use.

Bomber:

Bouncy grenades: I think the bomber's grenades do too much damage as is, so I would make bouncy grenades a perk and 'explode on impact' grenades the default.

Extra bomb capacity: Maybe this is too similar to the energy upgrade, or maybe you could stack the two effects, but it would help with improving the viability of the regular bombs. It would be fun to unleash a ton of bombs at once.

[Spirtz]

how about for the biplane a shot that keeps going after hitting someone. or for the miranda a wave that pulses and stops the ablilty of other planes to shoot for x seconds.

[Blank]

Originally Posted by Spirtz

how about for the biplane a shot that keeps going after hitting someone.

Exactly what heavy cannon does.

[Spirtz]

....o lol i didn't realize i never use it (to slow of a shot) sry

[Triped]

Faster throttle change would be a nice blue.

[Sky_Paladin]

Apologies if my suggestions have already been posted; but the thread is long and wall of text crits for 9000~

Loopy Red Perks:
Multilauncher: Your aircraft naturally locks on to every available target, and a single rocket will be launched at all targets when you fire for the same ammunition cost as a single shot.

Micromissiles: Greatly increase the rate of fire, greatly reduce the amount of damage, slightly reduce the ammunition cost.

Flak Cannon: Switch out the EMP shot for a manually detonated, long range explosive shot with minor damage but large concussion.

Play Possum: Sends your aircraft tumbling and looks as if it had just been shot down. Activate again to fly normally.

Dumbfire Rockets: Sacrifice your missiles tracking for greatly increased firepower.

Explodet Red Perks:
Exocet Missile: Missiles explode when they contact an enemy target, cannot be manually detonated.

Tactical Nuke: Exploding missiles have a minor EMP effect on targets hit but not destroyed.

Guided Missile: If you hold the button down when firing, you can steer the rocket. Release the button to explode.

Seeking Missile: Your missiles will veer slightly towards targets.

Apocalypse Rocket: Guaranteed to annihilate all but the most resistant of opponents, an apocolypse rocket is slower, requires more ammunition, has a larger explosion radius, and hits for a lot more, too.

Air Lancet: Replace your mines with an oversized vacuum cleaner, which can be used to blast away enemies close on your tail. Does no damage, but gives you a boost while thrusting enemies away.

Stealth Mines: Just like regular mines, only camoflaged. Only their flashing light gives them away!

Bomber Red Perks:
Anti-Grav bombs: Your bombs now fly upwards and explode on the sky.

Para-bombs: Your bombs are deployed with parachutes, greatly increasing the time for them to land, and also greatly increasing the time for opponents to blunder in to them.

Gun Crew: Fill your compartments with trigger-happy US Marines, who will snipe with 90mm chain guns anybody who gets too close to you.

Howitzer: Switch out your tail gunner for a short range, high explosive cannon with great concussion capability.

Thundercannon: Fill your bomb compartment with 105 mm shells, and strap four cannons on each wing - gives the bomber a medium range cannon with great rate of fire and mad ammunition consumption.

Dive Bomber: At any dive greater than 50 degrees, your bombs use 25% of their normal ammunition.

Smart Bombs: After dropping away from you, your bombs will ignite their thrusters and try to seek out targets on their own.

Stealth Bomber: Temporarily makes your aircraft invisible to human eyes. Stealth mode slowly depletes your ammunition, and firing terminates it.

I have not much experience with the Miranda or Biplane yet, so I only have some red perk suggestions for the Miranda.

Wave Cannon: Replace your bouncy shot with a short range, wide arcing wave cannon, that pushes and damages enemies.

Phase Cannon: Your primary laser burns through multiple units and is not stopped by walls.

Ghost Fighter: Enemies will see a fake, ghost fighter, a dozen yards away from your true position, confusing and confounding their attempts to down you.

Phase Out: While active, you cannot shoot, but you can move through terrain without taking damage. Your aircraft appears transparent, and takes half damage from attacks. Phasing Out slowly dwindles your ammunition.

Shields: Deploy a force field on the Miranda, deflecting attacks. The force field slowly recharges at full energy.

Miscellaneous green and blue power ups:

Fake power up: You can deploy fake power ups that explode when an enemy flies over them for minor damage, minor concussion, and major hilarity. Takes a second to activate after deployment, and all fakes explode when you die.

Countermeasures: Your tail gunner now fires chaff and flares, preventing you from firing for a second, but also making you immune to all attacks for one second.

Shake Stick: If your aircraft stalls, resets your throttle to 50% - can only occur if you have atleast 25% energy left.

Barrel Roll: Pull your aircraft into a tight roll around its z axis, causing otherwise lethal projectiles to zoom safely by. Buys you a precious two seconds of invulnerability to direct attacks (explosions still hurt) but naturally consumes energy.

Nemesis Engine: Any objects owned by enemies (projectiles, mines, etc) explode once you kill their owner, preventing the situation where you will kill somebody only to be die half a second later to their expired attack.

Killing Frenzy: You get +25% damage for five seconds after you shoot somebody down. The bonus stacks!

Aces High: You gain a +25% damage soak from attacks against you for five seconds after you shoot somebody down. The bonus stacks!

Electric Hull: You can charge up your aircraft with a dangerous lightning attack that hits enemies who get too near.

Point Defense Laser: A small laser that shoots incoming projectiles, causing them to detonate away from your aircraft. Uses up ammunition.

Ablative Armor: Layers of extra metal criss-cross over your aircraft, giving it temporarily increased hit points. Once the armor is shot off, it can be replaced by flying over a full-health recharge.

Transformer: Activating your secondary fire button will switch your aircraft out with another, random aircraft (with random perks!). It will continue to switch every time you use your secondary.

Strangelove Device: If you're shot down, a single rocket is launched that you can guide and manually detonate. If the rocket crashes or is attacked, it will explode anyway. Must have had enough ammunition to fire the rocket before you died!

Glory Device: You can activate your self destruct by pressing your power-up button three times - the explosion size and damage is the sum of your current throttle, ammunition, and health.

VTOL: Makes your aircraft Vertical Take Off and Landing. While you are not carrying a power up, the power up button gives you a small vertical boost.

I may add more later but for now I go - to tennis~

[Ajplagge]

Mapmaker request: Be able to set a plane type limit for each team. Example max 2 bombers on a team. I think this is really important to encourage teamwork and be able to enjoy each planes abilities.

Instead of planes being able to perpetually heal through health regen/pickups have part of the planes health be shields and the other structural. If the structural segment of the plane is damaged only way to get fully healed is landing.

Bomb torpedo: Gives speed boost to big bomb when released. Makes it harder to block, there is a lot of throwing yourself in front of the bomb right now.

Force field: Basically like the shield except it lasts until a sufficient amount of damage has been dealt to it.

Smoke screen :when you hit boosters your plane leaves a smoke trail making it hard for the enemy tailing you to see.

Item ejecter: Have an item and someone following you? Release your item as shraptmetal behind you.

Turret pickup item, sure its been mentioned.

Bing back woody for sure.

-bob

[Spirtz]

Originally Posted by Ajplagge

Mapmaker request: Be able to set a plane type limit for each team. Example max 2 bombers on a team. I think this is really important to encourage teamwork and be able to enjoy each planes abilities.

love this idea no more of the endless loopys/bombers

[Blank]

I think the obvious problem with that idea is it limits new players (and in the future, people who didn't buy?) since they'll only have access to a select few planes. And as much as I wish players would branch out and try new ****, I can't help but think how incredibly unfun it would be to force them out of their favorite ship.

Not sure how I feel about health/shield idea. It's a incredibly huge nerf to Ace and repair drone perks, makes health packs much less useful, but would increase the use of landing.

[Ferret]

Don't limit the number of loopy and bombers. Balance the planes. And ever wonder why you can play for a day and not see a miranda?

[Blank]

meh, new players just gravitate to what's easiest to play/get kills with. That just happens to be bombers and loopies.

Bombers (grenades anyway) might be a little front loaded though. Can you put some firing delay between nades at least? Not sure if that'll help or not.

[Ferret]

Yea bomber needs a delay and some reduction in the tail gun tracking or damage or something. I guess there's really nothing too unbalanced about loopy and it's popularity might come from having it as the first and only plane when you start playing.

[Ajplagge]

As far as plane limits, I think the option should at least be available as it could spawn some interesting maps/senarios. Not avacating that all maps have plane limits....

[BEWBTUBE]

Just a quick one

Miranda Red Perk:

Stealth - the ability to become camouflaged (think halo cloaking device) for as long as you have energy by holding down the D button. The after burner and "phasing" of the ship are visible as is the "suggestion" of the ship itself but invisible/camouflaged enough that the player won't recognize it at first glance unless he's actively searching for the ship.

This perk would give it an added chance to deliver the nuke onto the enemy base as well as offer a new play style I think would fit the miranda's profile.

[Triped]

How about some perks good for team play only?

-replenish energy/health
-nearby planes do more damage/move faster
-repair turrets/increase turret damage/rate of fire
-arbiter-style cloak for allied units only - could balance by really slowing down the casting plane

[tmm3k]

Originally Posted by Triped

-replenish energy/health
-repair turrets

I think this would be a good perk to replace secondary fire for team games. It could be kinda like the medic in TF2, just have him fly alongside someone carrying the bomb while doing his little medic thingy. And it could repair damaged (but not destroyed) turrets.

[protest boy]

Originally Posted by Ferret

Yea bomber needs a delay and some reduction in the tail gun tracking or damage or something. I guess there's really nothing too unbalanced about loopy and it's popularity might come from having it as the first and only plane when you start playing.

EMP is strong. I think it could use a very slight nerf. Other than that very minor adjustment, I don't think that Loopy is too unbalanced.

[tmm3k]

Tracking shots shouldn't be the default for Loopy, but instead one of the first perks it gets. It's frustrating playing a game where 10 of the 12 people are playing as Loopy because most of the Loopies aren't even bothering to aim, but rather just blindly shooting while bouncing off rocks. Also it seems like no one realizes that new planes are open to them, so there needs to be some sort of incentive for them to stop playing Loopy.

Alternatively, make the Biplane the starting plane.

[tmm3k]

Also Loopy's acid bomb needs to be turned down a little. Maybe only allow one out at a time like the EMP?

[Blank]

I think loopy is the first plane for the exact reason you mentioned. It's easy to use and still get (some) kills/be effective without being super skillful.

I think they try out the new planes, find them harder to play, and stick with the easier loopy. No amount of incentives will fix this (well, other than making another/other planes insanely easy to kill with... sort of the direction bomber is going :P).

Making it a later plane unlock would likely just frustrate newbies/beginners and turn them off to the game.

[Sky_Paladin]

I personally enjoy the loopy because it is the fastest and most agile. It's missiles feel like they have some weight. The plane behaves as you expect and the weapons are intuitive.

Compare to:
Explodet - slow and unforgiving on errors, easy to crash. Incredible firepower that (in unskilled hands) will often miss entirely.

Bomber - fast but less agile and no conventional forward firing attack.

Biplane - Near the comfort of the Loopy, it has a recoil shot that counter-intuitively stalls the aircraft. Not advised for beginners - I'm still using the recoil-less gun.

Miranda - Clunky and uncontrollable warp jump that makes navigating tight air spaces a nightmare.

All other things being equal, the Loopy feels like a great 'all arounder'. I cut my teeth playing the Loopy up until around level 35, whereupon I started playing with the Explodet and Biplane more. I use the Miranda when my opponents have gone with bombers and explodets as its charged laser seems to be their natural predator, and I try not to use the bomber because it is total cheese. Make those grenade explosions at point blank damage the bomber already!

[Phelanpt]

Demolition - Shots can damage the base, but do half damage on planes. Also, plane has less health(or takes increased damage).

I know you removed base damage from normal weapons, but I think it could still make sense if it was offset somehow. If damage from normal weapons is too much, maybe allow a collision with the base to make damage. A plane wanting to do it still has to get past all the players and turrets, and with increased damage that would be hard.

Originally Posted by Sky_Paladin

Make those grenade explosions at point blank damage the bomber already!

Doesn't this happen already? I could swear I've exploded myself a ton of times while trying to do close dogfights with the bomber.

[Karl]

Originally Posted by Phelanpt

Doesn't this happen already? I could swear I've exploded myself a ton of times while trying to do close dogfights with the bomber.

yes but the damage to self is reduced by 45%. So say the grenade does 100 dmg, it will only damage you for 55 instead of 100.

[Triped]

Not sure which planes still need red perks, but a boomerang would be pretty awesome as an alt.