A mini-boss encounter for each Homeworld Sector; Mega-class ships.
It would require a /lot/ of scripting, as they would be absolutely huge events, which is why it's restricted to one ship per race with a homeworld (No Civ/Rebel/Pirate/Fed/Auto variants, and probably no Crystal since it'd be out-of-character. Lanius is debatable.)
Right now, I'm just writing this as concept, because I'd love to see it. I'd love to contribute to it, too, but I'm still going to focus on my Crew Diversity mod until I finish it. This is an open idea. Do with it as you wish.
A Clash of Titans
Upon hearing of the Rebel's flagship, independent factions from the many races of the universe have sought to build logic-defyingly large ships as a defence. Ships so large that individual parts of the ship require sub-captains. Ships so vast that not even the flagship could target it all in one go.
However, with such powerful weapons owned by fearful races, a full-scale war between the species seems a terrifyingly real possibility. Taking down their mega-ships in the name of the Federation seems like the only way to ensure a safe future.
Take on a Behemoth
When you first encounter the event, you get a distant view of giant ship looming ahead. The ship is too big to render in your viewport, so you have to choose a smaller chunk of the ship to focus on. You attempt to identify any weak-points, and draw up a plan of attack.
Ship sections
The ship is divided into 5 'sections' to fly between; the Bridge, the Weapon Centre, the Shield Centre, The Engines, and a race-specific section.
The Ship Sections act as individual ship encounters, each has a full range of system rooms; Pilot/shield/engine/weapons which 'relay' to their main section.
The main difference is that each section has its relevant 'System' under-charged (because it has to power the entire ship), but the other systems hyper-charged. You choose whichever point you feel happiest attacking.
1) Target The Shields
So, for example, you've chosen to take out the shields. Decent plan. You maneuver the ship around to the shield's weak point, where they only have two shield layers. But the enemy isn't stupid. You're faced with a full set of artillery, and a highly-powered engine/pilot.
If you were to choose the weapons as your first point of call, they may just have the one weapon system with a few lasers, but the shields will be full.
The Shields are Compromised!
So you've destroyed the shield-section of the ship, and see a small portion of this Goliath slowly drifting off into space. You now have a choice to fly around to any of the remaining four sections.
When you get there, you notice that the crew of that area are managing to keep some reserve power functioning their personal shields, but they can muster no more than one layer. This will make the second battle a fair bit easier.
Difference between 'the bridge' and 'the engines'
Since the two systems have similar uses, I propose that they have different support systems and alternate effects when destroyed.
As an example; the Engines are heavily protected, but have low engine power and no auto-pilot. Destroying it will reduce the dodge rate drastically across the whole ship by leaving them with a maximum of one engine.
The Bridge, however, has no weaknesses. Destroying it reduces coordination between the remaining sections, meaning that all their 'overcharged' systems now run at half capacity.
The Bridge could, alternatively, be used to control other common systems such as Drones (reskinned as small fighters?) depending on the race.
End game
I'm not sure how this would play out, but depending on which systems you take out, I'd say that after the second battle you'd get option to negotiate with the remaining crew, or out-right destroy the ship with a final shot.
I would be tempted to keep the battle limited to 2 'sections', as that alone requires 20 variant battles to be written per ship (having a 3rd battle triples that number).
Possibly there would be a post-script that your crew goes on to spread the word of unity, or something similar.
Depending on which sections you destroy, there could be optional 'bad karma' endings (I envisage Bridgeless ships crashing into planets, or weapon-and-shieldless ships being left to the mercy of pirates/meteors) or 'good karma' (Remind the Zoltans that their fear led them to act against their own philosophy, etc)
Additional systems
The 'race specific' sections, in my mind, basically act as a 'hazard type' for the encounter.
Concepts for the race specific systems;
- Mantis
Army Transporter; sends a mantis boarding party through to your ship at the start and mid-point of each battle unless destroyed. - Slug
Nebula generator; As it says on the tin, creates an artificial nebula hazard, which doesn't affect the boss-ship, to the encounters unless destroyed. Maybe adds stealth to the ship? - Rock
Planet Burner: a planet-grade weapon that periodically ignites fires across your ship - Engi
Something Ion/Drone based. Maybe Pulsar based. - Zoltan
Zoltan Shields + shield rechargers as a start?
Summary
Like I said, this is a beast of a mod, but I recon it's do-able. I'm not scripter (I’m an animator by trade), and i want to focus on the CrewD mod until it's done, so I'm offering this up to you guys (I’ll help where I can).
Anyone have input? Anyone wanna actually try it? Does it already exist and I’m an idiot?
Let me know!
