Forums » Suggestions

Capturing ships. *Me hides after posting this to avoid flames*

12»
May 22, 2005 pirate_n00b link
What if we could damage NPCs & PCs and board the ship. And do:

1. Take cargo.

2. Take 25%-50% of thier money.

3. Swap equipment with them if theirs is better.

4. And put a homing beacon on.

Also why the hell do we have these big ass ships with 1 person? WTF is up? a Wraith aint no 1 man fighter. Niether is a Behemoth.
Why cant we hire crew? And like if you hired a technician *VERY EXPENSIVE* you can get repaired IN FLIGHT. Want some rantss before i post anymore.

*After posting me thinks about it and decides to hide in Shapes Pirate ship."Shape will protect me from flames. He'll probably like this idea." me hopes.*
May 22, 2005 Tyrdium link
Erm... The Wraith is 13 meters long. For comparison, an F/A-22 is about 19 meters long. Even the Behemoth is only about 30 meters.

Oh, and taking 25%-50% of their money is insane. That's an absolutely massive amount. Swapping equipment doesn't work too well, either.
May 22, 2005 Pixelcat link
However, it would only be insane once or twice. After that, the NPC would have a whole lot less cash.
May 22, 2005 Cpt. Overkill link
[APPROVED]

There should be a Prometheus and Behemoth turret variant only.

All other ships are way too small.

Maybe Crippled's gunship if the devs put it in production.
http://www.evula.org/virtualgoo/vendetta/assault_craft_mosaic.jpg

~Cpt. Overkill~
May 22, 2005 pirate_n00b link
Tyrdium: IT'S THE FUTURE [d00d! -Edit courtesy of Forum Mod.] In the future dont you know that we will have designed *smaller* engines and other things? Also i think it should be:

1. Atlas
2. Wraith
3. Behemoth
4. Prometheus
5. Centaur

just my 2c.
May 22, 2005 Beolach link
O.o, be nice! And it's the future, what makes you think we'd need more than one person to crew these ships?

Anyway, word is that within the next few patches we will see a mini-cap ship that players will be able to purchase & pilot, and will be able house more than one player. So maybe once we see more of that type of ship, there would be more reason to be able to hire NPC crew.

Also, the argument against disabling ships that I've seen & rather agree with is that floating helplessly in space for any length of time is boring, so allowing player ships to be disabled would actually remove more fun from the game than it would add. If only NPC ships could be disabled, that would solve the boredom problem, but has its own problems with realism (which may not be enough of a problem to worry about).

And I'd agree w/ Tyrdium, 25%-50% of their total cash would be too much. But I could see 5%-10% being workable (in fact, I've suggested that when ships get destroyed, they drop a cargo crate w/ about that much of their credits).
May 22, 2005 Moofed link
pirate_n00b: You'd do everyone a favor by reading the 'Be Nice' page.

On-topic: Dropping a % of your current credits would make banks like Services very popular.
May 22, 2005 ctishman link
Why not work it this way: You capture a ship by doing enough damage to kill it with a certain weapon. This weapon does a very, very low amount of damage, so even if you were at 0% health, it'd take 4 or so shots to disable your target. Once the disabling is completed, the disabled player goes back to the station just like he'd been killed. Easy as pie.

Your ships then float in space together, equally defenseless, whilst the raiding takes place. You are presented with a message window:

1) Raid Cargo (cargo jettison-like window pops, choose what and how much to transfer). This is the only "sure thing" as the goods are actually there, on the ship.

2) Raid "safe". The "safe" is nothing more than a computer with a secure connection to the Intergalactic Bank. The sector daemon rolls D6 (actually numbered 0-5 so there's a chance of total failure) and gives you that percentage of the captured ship's cash. 5% total isn't too bad, and that's worst-case scenario for the trader. Want more cash? Raid richer targets. A pirate may raid the safe once only.

3) Attempt Capture.
The sector daemon rolls 0-100. 50% or greater, you succeed.

If you succeed, the ship is immediately moved to your current home sector for repairs, and you return to your ship. If you fail, the target ship's self-destruct goes off without warning, most likely taking you and your ship with it.

More wary pirates may wish to avoid this third step entirely and back out. Doing this sets a 5-second countdown timer, after which the ship explodes.
May 22, 2005 Suicidal Lemming link
Perhaps it would be a percentage of the ships worth you're able to take, anywhere from 0% to 200%
May 23, 2005 Ghost link
What if instead of being completly disabled the ship was just disabled for a small period of time, like 30 seconds, in which if no action is taken (pirating, looting, etc.) then the ship returns to operating status with a low hull percentage. Also, to compensate for some players having large ammounts of money, instead of being able to loot a percentage of credits, what about a set ammount. Something like 20 or 30k.
May 23, 2005 Beolach link
@Ghost: That leaves the problem of players spending 30 seconds sitting on their hands, being bored. And a percentage of money punishes those w/ large fortunes more than poorer players, yes, but a set amount ~25k punishes the poorer players more than the wealthier. And the wealthier can afford it better. So I'd rather it be a percentage.
May 23, 2005 ctishman link
That still leaves the problem of the pirated player sitting there stewing for 30 seconds (or more realistically, typing horrible obscenities and yelling about how you're on their sh*t list now in all available channels). I believe it's best to let them get at planning their revenge sooner than later. How about a cap on the amount a player can take? So even if you rob a luxury yacht and roll for 5% looting, the bank's safeties will kick in after a withdrawal of 100k.
May 23, 2005 ctishman link
Jinx!
May 23, 2005 pirate_n00b link
how about 10 seconds? thats long enough for the pirate to escape and short enough for the pirated to not get bored.
May 23, 2005 Beolach link
I'd still say 10 seconds, or 5 seconds, or 3 seconds, or 1 second would be long enough for the pirated to get bored and/or overly angry. Any time spent helpless, especially watching other players do something to you, is not fun.

Treating a disabled ship almost exactly like a destroyed ship (player returns to home station) might work, especially if the pirate cannot loot all the cargo from it, and the pirated player can return to pick the rest of it up.
May 23, 2005 pirate_n00b link
yeah. Whew im glad i didnt get flamed.
May 23, 2005 Pixelcat link
On the other hand, you could leave the disabled player with a working /explode command. However, to keep them from always using it they would be repairable by some friendly soul.
May 23, 2005 ctishman link
That'd be one way to do it. Of course, you know every player'd just /explode as soon as he was disabled out of spite, which leads us to the linked problem of ships being way, way, way too cheap.
May 23, 2005 Chimaera link
Come on, 10 seconds? no one is going to get THAT angry over having to wait 10 seconds when the average travel time is 10 minutes
May 23, 2005 ctishman link
Ever been dunked in a swimming pool and held under for ten seconds?

How about gotten your ass whupped by someone and had to sit there while they took your lunch money?

Ten seconds of utter powerlessness are an eternity, and are not fun, which is the primary problem. We're not looking for how much suffering they can take, but how much fun they can have. Me? I'd be loading out a ship with rockets and heading back to get my revenge.