Tarquin Markel
The Synenose Accord
Celestial Imperative
85
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Posted - 2013.02.11 19:21:00 -
[1] - Quote
This is gonna be one of those "for the future" posts.
So, at the moment, Dust ops take place in (apparently) shut down industrial (and industry-related) facilities that mostly just provide different shapes and sizes of buildings for us to fight over and through.
Fair enough. It's reasonable that these structures would be shut down while there are battles raging around and through them.
In Eve, though, planetary facilities are far from passive: they do everything from basic resource extraction to high-tech construction. The buildings seem to have different configurations for different purposes, though the same basic facility can do several different things (refining biomass and refining helium, for example, would seem to require much different processes).
So ... what if we could turn them back on?
As a thought, activating on-site resources could allow a controlling team access to resources, the ability to strategically reconfigure machinery, marginally faster null cannon fire, etc. Doing so, however, would also subject systems to damage, and possibly even to catastrophic failure. Damage at the right points could result in spreading fires, explosions, plasma venting, corrosive biohazards, rooms flooded with liquid carbon-- the possibilities are nearly endless.
What's more, configuration-specific chain reactions could result in accidents (or intentional sabotage) spreading out of control, spreading chaos throughout the facility.
Each facility would have multiple "critical points," all related to one another in a pattern based either on current configuration (is it processing silicates or bacteria?) or on a randomized set of relationships (based on the NPC crew's most recent doings) in non-configurable structures such as launch facilities. These critical points can be damaged, intentionally or accidentally, by weapons fire, explosives, etc., to create either temporary advantages (blowing out a tank of volatiles as the equivalent of shooting an explosive barrel in many FPS games) or strategically-exploitable crises (blowing out a critical system to create a predictable chain reaction).
Naturally, any system currently suffering failure would become unconfigurable, and any system currently in the throes of a chain reaction could not be modified at all-- except, perhaps, to slow the chain reaction enough to allow for on-site repairs.
To this end, a couple new roles (undoubtedly with a pile of variations) would be useful / necessary:
Engineer (logistics variant)
The engineer role's primary responsibility is the deployment, maintenance, monitoring, and tactical handling of environmental machinery. Special skills and/or modules might include:
* Facility Interfacing (hacking specialization) - the engineer can activate and reconfigure facility resources.
* System Analysis - the engineer can access technical data to identify what specific locations in an activated facility are vulnerable to sabotage (particularly for determining what location or locations would cause chain reactions if sufficiently damaged).
* Environmental Resistance (shield or armor module) - the engineer's suit has much stronger resistance against environmental hazards than most, allowing the logi suit to wade through the aforementioned pool of liquid carbon to put out fires, plug leaks, and stop chain reactions before they spread further.
* Industrial Repair Tool (non-expendable item) - all-purpose diagnostic and repair device, used to put out fires, stop leaks, rewire electronics, and otherwise get that which is kerbusted back in working order.
* Disarm (demolitions variant skill + module) - allows jamming and/or disarming of remote explosives. Jamming must be active-- it's a stop-gap measure until someone who can actually disarm the damn thing turns up. Jamming is always active while disarming, but can also be done on explosives a little too tough to disarm. Basic level allows jamming of basic and advanced explosives and disarming of basic explosives with a disarming kit. Advanced allows jamming of all explosives, disarming up through advanced with a kit, and disarming basic explosives without a kit (but also without jamming!). Level 5 allows all explosives to be jammed and disarmed with a kit, and basic and advanced without (again, with no jamming).
Saboteur (scout variant)
The saboteur is essentially a stealth-oriented, offensive engineer, focused on proactively activating, manipulating, and damaging or destroying facilities held by the opposition. Most capabilities are identical, but focused on causing damage and on inhibiting repairs. The saboteur, for instance, would use System Analysis to work out the best place to leave the remote explosives. A more combat-oriented saboteur might have Environmental Resistance installed so as to stick around and gun down any engineers trying to repair the stricken facility. Additional skills and/or modules might include:
* Critical System Hacking - ever want to personally upload your own Stuxnet virus into somebody's centrifuges? This is the subtler method of sabotage, for the hacker who doesn't really want to leave explosive packs lying about. Typical use is to set a timed failure of a system flagged as the first "link" in a chain reaction.
* Attack Mask - interferes with attempts to track how far a chain reaction has gotten by putting a variable time delay on diagnostics. Opposed by System Analysis skill + modules, which narrow the time estimate. Perfect Mask against rudimentary Analysis yields as much as a 30 second delay in reporting on the actual state of the system, severely hampering recovery efforts.
* Offensive Reconfiguration - doesn't allow large-scale manipulation of a system the saboteur doesn't fully control, but does allow a few individual modifications to be made-- such as to change the system A chains to from B and C to B and E. Mask would apply to modifications made here. |