Since Titans just dropped in latest update and we can now see what are they about, just wanted to use this opportunity to voice my suggestions regarding upcoming Vasari factions once more, as they are presumably the next ones to be added. VL were my fav faction in Rebellion, cause of their mobility theme and their Titan the most fav one in both looks and function. I used to role-play as sort of aliens from ID4, "going from planet to planet", so more nuances conductive to that particular playstyle would be awesome.
as already said on Discord, my biggest gripe with Rebellion was, that despite the fact VL titan was supposed to be the mobile homeworld, once you researched Mobile Rulership, it was reflected very poorly in the actual gameplay. I mean, there was nothing special about it, that would suggest this function, aside maybe the ability to drop phase stabilizers and bring additional ships that way. Anyway, since there was limit to the number of abilities, it was kinda understandable. But with the addition of components in Sins II, this can be finally improved upon.
Thus i would suggest consider following components:
- colony pods (for titan to have its own population producing credits, in other words the effect on civilian evacuation research from rebellion, except this time on titan as well, not just capships - but this particular component could be shared with capships)
- shipboard labs
- something related to broadcasting culture
- retrofit bay (titan to upgrade components on nearby capships)
- Orkulus drop
- construction facility (to produce ships instead, like Argonev, instead of pulling them from the void via phasegates)
- built in phase-beacon as passive ability (same thing as Antorak Marauder ultimate ability, but without any limitation)
last 2 components would replace the deploy phase-stabilizer and the whole mechanic of reinforcing that way, as it would be the titan constructing the ships itself (including capships) and functioning as phase stabilizer itself. Alternatively, aesthetically speaking, the constructing of new ships could still work as pulling them out of the void like before, except you would not need separate structure, it would be done straight from the titan itself.
Regarding abilities, MicroPhase Jump, Desperation and Maw are absolutely fine, and since the phase stabilizer thing would be resolved as suggested above, i think one of the following abilities would be great:
- the coolest thing would be the titan making a part of STTC mechanic, in other words it would initiate the process leading to planetary consumption. Does not need to be by literally sucking the planet same way the Maw works, it could just launch some orbital platforms that would position in orbit above targeted world and do the process. For that, the planet would or wouldnt not need to be in players possesion. Titan could then move away, while the process would commence without the need for its presence in the gravity well.
- alternatively, it would do the same thing, basically, but those platforms would not kill the targeted planet, but suck the resources from it indefinitely. So instead of colonizing the planet, you would deploy some orbital harvesting platforms in its orbit. Think Oblivion movie. This would be applicable even to worlds in enemy possesion. The planet would remain in enemy hands but all the resources it can produce would go to VL player instead of its owner. This would IMO fit nicely with the theme of VL ruling from the orbit. Place a "parasitic" structure like this in the orbit, Orkulus with its own phasenode and move to another world. Or bomb the world, take over it and commence with STTC as an alternative.
- or finally, just a glorified version of Vulkoras´es planet bombing ability, i mean dropping bunch of those planet razing platforms to increase planetary bombardment speed to faster get to use STTC on it.
Visually, i loved the Titan as it was, though maybe slightly less spikey and organic would be great, most importantly its underside was fairly meh, i would envision here lots of lots of windows and the underside of the wings would be great place for multiple hangars producing and retroffiting ships and launching those various platforms (see above). Think Homeworld mothership with its hangars, or underside of ID4 mothership launching the city destroyers. Top of those being fairly compact surfaces and bottom rather complex with lot of windows, openings, structures and overall detail.
That would be all, thanks for your attention.
