Ok, so we all have access to tactical remodulation. We also have access to races that give us abilities. But the way i see it, professions should be given some love so to speak. Now, what i was thinking is that this could be a mission chain to unlock your professional ability. I'm not sure about specifics, but i was thinking having it unlock around rank 150 (they rarely get 'new' missions added randomly at that level range). You would complete the mission chain once, and once youve completed it, you unlock the ability for your profession, and also other professions if you decide to change profession with a race/profession change arti or gp.

The abilities i would like to suggest are
*1.1 Biologist- Permanently increase the population on a planet by 200, once every 40 hours (similar to the resource races) up to 10k.

*1.2 Builder- Permanently increase the hull/shield of their ship by 100, once every 40 hours.
**EDIT: Capped at 500 per level. In other words, usable 5 times per level (200 hours remaining at their current level)

*1.3 Excavator- Can increase the artifact production on a planet by 50% for 4 hours. Usable once every 12 hours.

*1.4 Explorer- Discover one random planet once every 168 hours (once a week) much like the alien star charts which i missed out on...

*1.5 Fixer- Able to set a trap on their ship that restores their hull 50% when tripped. Usable once every 4 hours. Lasts 1 week. Does not stack.

*1.6 Governor- Able to tax a planet's population once every 2 hours. Gains credits based on the amount of population and resources of the planet. The same planet cannot be taxed in a period of 12 hours.
**EDIT: Extra resources are gained when taxing planets with temporary events.

*1.7 Hacker- Able to phase cloak for 4 hours, making all hacks performed in that time not show up on the enemy's news feed. Tripping a QF removes the effect and alerts them to the enemy. Usable once every 12 hours.

*1.8 Merchant- Able to receive 2 hours of resources once every 24 hours. (essentially making their production timer 55 minutes instead of 60)

*1.9 Miner- Can increase the mining production on a planet by 50% for 4 hours. Usable once every 12 hours.

*1.10 Physicist- Able to overcharge their shields 100%. Cannot be removed with cm. Lasts for 4 hours. Usable once every 8 hours. (Can be used in accordance with the Shield Amp)

*1.11 Raider- Able to send hackers in with the raiders for 4 hours. This will erase the enemy combat log making disables and raids not show up in their news feed. Usable once every 12 hours. If they trip traps it will still show up in the combat log. Only works if raid is successful.

*1.12 Saboteur- Already has an ability, so i would like to add that saboteurs are immune to the devastated landscape event.

*1.13 Spy- Reveal the amount of hull/shield left on a players ship. usable once every 4 hours.

+1 good thinking man

updated governor a bit. seemed to be a bit weak considering the profession itself is based on a random generator. hopefully thatll make it more worthwhile.

AWESOME +1. I love it man.

I can say now with the abilitys the way you put them out a BIG -1 the bios ability is way to over powered just seeing 1k defense on a planet makes me cringe and im a sab.
The builder also would be abused in a big time way at 100 per use maybe 5-10 per use but a slow ranker would really really abuse that and we would end up with a rank 50 sporting over 7k hulls without even putting any mods on.
The excavator and explorer are more or less fine same as the fixer but the fixer should only be able to use it maybe once a day at the very least.
The governor could be abused with ease as well get a very massive useless gas planet and put a ton of pop. buildings on it you wouldn't ever need to even mine if you get much more then a tiny bit of credits.
The hacker now that would be very useful and possibly put a bit more balance in hacking in pvp.
The physicist that would be also very useful and at 8 hours the timer would be about right.
The raider ability....well you just spam raids would be abused besides not the right kind of ability you would think one would have.
Sab's ability im a sab i can tell you right now that would be totally useless perhaps if you pull off a sab it would lower a planets atk/def by a little on the side like 5%?
The spy's ability i would say that's a very nice one and one that would work well with that job.

Long story short while yes i said -1 you still get a +1/2 for a possibly interesting set of ideas.

I like the ideas, but that said I believe Biologist is overpowered, though maybe if it was toned down it could work, and the Builder idea needs to be absolutely, completely redone. I've played for about 3.5 months, at an average of 30 days per month that would give me 6,300 BASE hull at this point in the game. I do not feel ANY race should grant permanent buffs to a ship.

That said, I also think that the main appeal for unlockable races are their abilities. Starter races have abilities - the ones they already grant (+30% hull, +20% attack, etc). Even better, they are permanent(so long as you keep the race) and have no need to be activated.

+1/-1

I somewhat like the idea of unlocking races by completing a mission chain, but agree with others here that you have the biologists and builder especially in my opinion a bit ridiculous. That kind of hull would become out of hand way too quickly.

you must be very low rank. when i see 1000 defense on a planet i breathe a sigh of relief as i take it without any buffs or defuffs.



i will agree that builder may need to be redone. ideas are welcome. but, they build things. they could easily build up their ship. besides, dan's looking for energy sinks. thisll add a big one to pvp since EVERYONE is builder for the most part. but again, this is unlocked around rank 150. so dont worry, rank 50s wont be sporting over 7k hull.


its a trap. and it lasts for a week. if youre at war with someone, then you cant continually set them. but if youre just putting it up to defend off the bt, its fine. trust me.


thats why i said population and resource level will be taken into consideration. i thought of that. you would have to sacrifice a top gas planet (as in a 15x megarich) to eliminate your mineral output. besides, theyre a governer. the government taxes people. it makes sense.


i had trouble thinking of the raiders ability. again ideas are welcome. but the raider is an exact copy off of the hackers ability.


sabs already have an ability. while i'm not opposed to them lowering the defense of a planet by 5%, i would think that with the way professions are, they would have something useless like being immune to the devistated landscape that they caused.


biologist is undoubtedly the worst possible profession in the game, and is only there to trick the logical players into thinking population does anything but say how much health a planet has. it needs a really good ability to outweigh the complete awfulness of the profession. and, once every 40 hours. thats two fully buffed planets in a year. a year. thats a long time. plus, its going to take energy. thats why i said "just like the resource races". but again, i will agree with you that builder is a bit op.

i have an idea for the change to builder that may be satisfactory. +100 hull/shield capped at 500 increase per level. this would prevent slow rankers from being completely overpowered.

+1 , but the hacker to powerfull

why does the builder have the ability to increase hull when it's the fixer is all about hull?

because builders build things. if you have an alternate idea thats good, i'll edit it in.



hacker and raider are the same abilities. but hacker is a bit weaker. if they trip a qft, then their ability is wiped. so its absolutely necessary to trap probe or analyze the situation beforehand.

but the main point of this post wasnt my ideas for specifics, it was that professions should include abilities. i'm more than open to someone going through and redoing the abilities for each profession. as long as some form of this idea gets implemented i'm happy. it sucks only having one ability. ships should have several abilities. outside of saboteur and racial abilities.

you must be very low rank. when i see 1000 defense on a planet i breathe a sigh of relief as i take it without any buffs or defuffs.
Lol i mean population i just put defense but i still stand by what i said when i see a planet with even half hearted defenses and a high pop. i tend to avoid them to much effort to smash down only to have the chance of them spotting it and tossing a cloneing pod on it....

Vek is no low rank, and Has Experience....

i'll agree with you on that. 1000 pop sucks to take down. especially at 20 points a shot. and i'll agree that perhaps 10k was too high. maybe something like 4k or 5k... i said 10k because it would be the equivalent of having a 15x production level. it would pretty much make the planet almost invincible to everyone but people over rank 400, simply because of the energy required. but if you can think of a really nice ability to give to biologists to counteract the sheer awfulness of their profession, i'll edit it in and give you the credit.

How about the enemy attacking the planet has 10% reduced attack. Biologist - 30% planet population - ability - 10% reduced enemy attack against planets.



U can't put pop buildings on gas planets.

I like your idea Vekno. Hopefully I will see this, or something like this, in the near future.

+1

Overpowered...
The rest is great

Did you read Builder? That's great? I would be less than Rank 75 and have over 6,000 base hull. Even with his edit to cap it to 500 per level, a Rank 75 who slow ranked enough to cash in his 500 per rank could get 37,500 hull/shields from that. 37,500 BASE hull/shields!

I still maintain that the starter races/professions DO have abilities - the permanent abilities that simply being them grants (although some of them - biologist - could be updated, many of the others are already good in themselves).

EDIT:
Oh, by the way, small ships would be absolutely invincible. By Rank 500 they could easily have hundreds of thousands of hull from this if they slow ranked - look at Ejjakai - in addition to having a damage cap of 260. Let's say Ejjakai got to rank 500 and ranked slowly enough to cash all of the possible uses per rank. That's 250,000 hull/shields, with a damage cap of 260. That is a minimum of 962 hits to kill him (IF I am reading this right and thinking that you can choose, if you get 500 of both you can double that amount). That's not even including all the Durtanium Brackets/X-Charge Cells he has! Hulls would also become absolutely obsolete and nobody would have any profession other than Builder, not to mention that then small ships could go all weaponry because they would have absolutely no worries about hull or shields again, ever. Having all weaponry would also give them the bonus that they would be on par, if not stronger, in attack then those around them (due to prisoners all going into tactical officers and/or energy), and having the same (or, more likely, even better researchable) weapons installed.

And may I reiterate, the starting professions do offer abilities: the passive ones they all grant. Yes, some of them should be upgraded (biologist, hacker), but most of them are absolutely, perfectly fine.

-1 would make certain proffesions overpowered like the +hull, shield one

The builders ability could be randomized between decks, cargo, shields, and hull and perhaps limit the ability to X number of uses per level.

Some possible numbers could be: +2 decks, +10 cargo, +50 shields or +50 hull with only 5 uses of the ability per level, usable every 24 hours.

That way builders still build, but not necessarily jacking one specific stat too high.