Orokin Lab, Solar Rail, and Specter Regiment Repurposing Concept

[(XBOX)Nebula SYS]

Idea: repurpose old Orokin lab research for use with railjack

so, as we know, the Orokin lab used to have solar rail research, and specter regiment research in it, until they removed it, and a lot of players miss the old raids, or at very least are annoyed because their clan made the research, but then it's functionality was removed, and so i have an idea to repurpose it with railjack.

 

so, to start, bring back solar rails, but also add different classes, other than just tower class, and bring back the specter regiments, but have them be fighter regiments, where you build specter pilots (quality of pilot), and fighters (types of fighters), and then build solar rails to each proxima region in railjack. i think you see where i'm going with this

 

New Rooms For Dojo

add a new room to the dojo similar to the Dry Dock called the Hangar (have it be one large area similar to the Drydock, and sized so it could be easily placed next to the Drydock), and this will allow for storage, management, upgrading, and building of fighters that specter regiments that are researched in the Orokin Lab will pilot (Orokin lab will have regiment research, and solar rail research, and be used for building and managing Solar Rails, while the hangar will have Fighter research and be where you queue up building of Specter regiments, weapons, and fighters).

 

in the Hangar, anyone with the permission (add new Fighter Management permission in clan permissions menu, or compound it with another permission) can change fighter, specter, and weapon settings, and weapons will be available upon completion of their respective research in the drydock. with this you could choose to have this weapon on these fighters, and these specters on these fighters, etc, and have it be broken into Squadrons, one for each Solar Rail Class

 

Reworking & Deploying Solar Rails

now, of course, Solar Rails will need a rework, and there will need to be 5 classes. class 1 will allow for 1 fighter to accompany railjacks in mission, class 2 will allow for 4, class 3 will allow for 5, class 4 will allow for 10, and class 5 will allow for 15 fighters to accompany railjacks in mission. now, upon building a solar rail to a proxima, that will open up bringing fighters to that proxima, and that proxima will be marked with an icon to denote that fighter support is available to anyone in the clan. now, as for deploying, Solar Rails will have very high resource costs for higher tiers, with lower tiers being relatively affordable, and partly costing railjack resources to build, but higher tiers will need rarer resources, and more of them, and will also take time to deploy, which can be rushed with "Appreciation Points", or intrinsics (further explained in benefits for clans, alliances, etc section)

 

Entering Missions as a Clan Member

when you open up the star chart in your railjack, if your clan has built a solar rail, that proxima, and any others with a solar constructed will be marked with an icon to denote that fighter support is available to anyone in the clan, and the icon will change depending on the class of Solar Rail, and upon joining a squad with someone who is not from your alliance/clan, fighters from your clan/alliance will come to that proxima (up to the highest amount, perhaps 20 maximum).

 

Entering Missions Without a Clan

now, of course, not everyone is lucky enough to have a clan, however, there will be a feature that allows you to "hire" air support from a clan that has a solar rail built to that Proxima, and each clan can set their own prices, or disable their forces being used. these prices will be set by setting what items they want (maximum of 3 different items), and how much of each item (these prices will be capped, so clans can't set it to 1 million salvage, for example) will be needed to send support, and there will also be an option to set prices based on quality of support, so lower levels can be offered for a lower price, and these levels will be fighter squadron levels, so say a clan has a level 5 Solar Rail to the earth proxima, and a low level is hiring air support, they can choose level 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 air support, up to the highest level Squadron the clan can deploy, and lower levels will be cheaper, and higher ones will be more expensive.

 

Benefits for Clans, Alliances, etc

the benefit to players directly is that this would allow lower level players to get some support if they wanted it, or needed it. now, as for the benefit to clans, the resources paid for hiring of that clan's fighter squads will go directly to the vault, along with special points called "Appreciation Tokens", now these tokens can be spent on upgrades for fighters that relate to them being available for hire, for example, if the fighters die in a mission while hired, that fighter isn't lost from the fleet (this could be a high level perk), and another benefit that these points could be spent on is rushing the construction of fighters in the hangar. now, for Clans that don't want to allow their fleet to be hired, rushing fighters, and buying perks, can be bought with Intrinsics from Members instead, if the clan is more "private" shall we say, or too small to be able to afford it's fleet being hired out, and the resource costs to hire that Clan's Squadrons will also help the clan get resources it needs. now, for the benefits to Alliances, only one clan in the alliance has to build a Solar Rail, then every clan in the Alliance can use it to deploy it's fleet (Hangar fleets will be clan-specific, and solar rails will be shared among the alliance)

 

In Mission Functionality

in the mission fighters will behave identical to the enemy fighters, and can be told to attack or defend the railjack (this will be done via the tactical menu, similar to how crew have roles). the better the specter pilots, the better the performance.

 

Conclusion

to conclude, i think this would be a great feature to add, and be very helpful, and another concept that could be added similar to this would be in-mission support (similar to specters), but that's another concept i might talk about in another post. i think it's a pretty good idea, just as long as they find a way to balance it (that's the dev's job if they decide they want to add this), and it would also add a new reason to be in an alliance again, thus bringing back their use, and making them a great thing again. let me know what you think : )