Kill counter upgrades and effects

[Astyanax]

As a way to reduce equipment stagnation, why not implement the kill counter found in parasite/shell into other items? Some examples of the concept (pardon the unimaginative names):

 

Parasitic equipment

a pea shooter that morphs into lvl 2 gun after X kills

a gimped SOP with 2 bombs that increases the number of bombs every X kills (to a preset maximum)

a pathetic sublight that increases thrust/max speed every X deaths (to a preset maximum)

armor that increases damage taken, but slowly improves its defensive capabilities when deaths and kills both pass X

a certain addon that allows a ship to morph into ship 8 (unbuyable) after X kills

 

If the idea is popular enough, items might have multiple upgrade options, and players could influence the "upgrade path" of an item by having different addons (that impart various penalties) equipped when the kill/death threshold is reached.

 

For example, say a pea shooter might typically upgrade to a plasma gun after 1000 kills, but if the ship is equipped with a "speed" addon, the item would morph into a shredder. If the same ship was equipped with a sublight after 1000 kills, the engine's top speed might also increase (as opposed to the default balanced upgrade) Other addons might be "power", "capacity", or "mass" (to change the handling of a ship, upgrades might allow increased or decreased mass)

 

Temporary effects

This is the opposite of parasite/shell. After X kills/deaths, an item disappears or morphs into another item.

For example, once shell or nano is achieved, the bonuses stay active only for X kills or deaths, after which the item morphs further and loses the bonus, but can be sold for even more money, or exchanged for a modest amount of experience. Or, the item might continue to morph into rarer forms with different temporary bonuses.

 

"Overdrive mode": a weapon that goes into overdrive and increases rate of fire after 50 kills, but only lasts for 20 kills, after which the kill counter resets

 

"Starburst mode": a state that is achieved every 10000 deaths for a particular mount, but allows a ship to release unlimited bursts for 5 seconds.

 

 

In actuality, there are many, many alternate ways to implement this idea. Frankly, I'm not sure how the presence of so many kill/death counters might affect the game, but it's a fun idea to think about.

Edited August 19, 2011 by Astyanax

[spidernl]

I've been considering adding another parasite-like item. But I think adding 'a lot' would just start to get boring, unoriginal, etc.

[Unix]

Would like to see the "rushers" version of a parasite.

 

Right now there's the original - Well rounded can die, but still need to kill. Then we have nano, the "stay safe" version.

 

Rushers version would have to be... Need X amount of deaths, obviously the biggest drawback to this is the just running into things in center to die.

 

Best solution would be to combine kills needed as well, but at the same time region it off to bases, not center (other than minibase). Also, I think regioning nano so any kills accumulated in center dont count, however, deaths do would make people want to base more.

 

Penalties for the rusher parasite version could include, a lot more penalties for maneuverability than nano, increased bombdelay and also no thor. Simply even worse than nano, but since you need to kill as well, you wouldnt be able to kill as easily, so that's the hard part. Even if you couldnt do kills AND deaths, increasing the deaths an insane amount would do fine, or even combining a secondary thing, if you cant do kills and deaths. I dont see why you couldnt have two conditions for a parasite like thing to be finished.

 

Also, I would like to see "evolution" items as well. Especially ones that you can start off with at the reset and it grows/evolves as you kill/die/etc.