Forums » Suggestions

Capital Ship Control Ideas + some stuff

«12
May 10, 2006 Phaserlight link
"Making things (anything) hard on purpose = just not fun."

I disagree completely. Whatever happened to challenging video/computer games?

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/387

Sure, in an MMO you gotta pander to the lowest common denominator to a certain extent, but every game needs its challenges.
May 10, 2006 Lord Q link
i'd say that cap ships should have a point and click navagation system, such that prety much anyone can get a cap ship from point a to point b. However that system should be slow to react, and not especially precise. so flying though an asteroid field or attempting evasive manuvers would be difficult if not imposable.

However there should also be a "manual" helm interface that allows for faster responce times, and more precise controle. this would of coarse be harder to use, but would allow the cap ship to perform higher risk manuvers provided the pilot was good enough.

TRS,

cap ships SHOUL be super transports. that's a no brainer. if i have a 300m long ship it's going to be able to carry a lot more cargo than a 20m fighter.

i'd say cap ships ahould have a maximuym number of dockable craft as well as a maximum cargo capacity (similar to what Person sayed), but that capacity should be extremely large (somweher around 10 docked ships and 1,000cu minimum for small ships like the Trident)
May 10, 2006 tumblemonster link
I agree with Q. Cap ships are HUGE. A HAC should be able to dock at least as many ships as it has turrets, full of cargo or not. I don't think docked ships should have to offload cargo to dock. It doesn't make much sense, as why would you want to dock a ship and take up more space than you have to? I think the massive cargo capacity would be offset by the expense and difficulty of aquiring a capital sized ship, and the speed they accelerate and travel.
May 10, 2006 Person link
Tumble. They wouldn't LITERALLY offload it every time, but it would help to keep people from abusing the use of transports as übertransports. I've always wanted something bigger than a moth, because I hate trading so much and the faster I get done with it the better. So having a cappy that can hold HUGE amounts of cargo, IE 480-1820 cu worth would be great, IMHO. But being able to abuse that by...

well, for example, let's say a capship can store 100 fighters inside it. k? And their cargo doesn't count for space. Now, what if you load that up with 100 full moths?
100moths*120cu/moth=12,000cu
That makes the 480-1820 cu limit COMPLETELY irrelavent, and having THAT much cargo is (IMHO again) way overwacked...

-Calder
May 10, 2006 TRS link
I am glad people like to chat, but some areas of the game are not really chat oriented. You can chat in the game from anywhere. I consider hanging out in B8 for any reason other than PVP (or bot bashing) to be extreamly rude, so save your sermon.

caps get point and click navigation? my vulture doesn't have point and click, my moth doesn't have point and click. if you can't properly man a cap I don't think you should drive one. next you'll be asking for a improbability drive...

and finnally: if you want a really big moth, why not just ask for a really big moth. caps are for combat, not transportation.
May 11, 2006 tumblemonster link
Calder - I understand your concern with uber transports, but your solution doesn't make any sense. Let's take a real world container ship as an example. Say the container ship loads a bunch of containers full of cars and a bunch of containers full of carbonic ore. Some of the cars trunks are also filled with carbonic ore, and some are empty. Regardless of whether they are full or empty, they don't take up any more space. They have more mass, but the sheer size of the ship makes it negligable.
May 11, 2006 Lord Q link
it would be best to simply include the cargo capacity of the ship being caryied (empty or full) in any calculations that determing how many ships can be caried. but come on 100 fighters? I was going to sugest the largest cariers only hold 40-50 fighters (that's 10-20 for turret operators/crew 10-20 for fighter screnes and the rest for replacing lost fighters) most ships of coarse should only cary a few over the number of turets they have.

>caps get point and click navigation? my vulture doesn't have point and click, my
>moth doesn't have point and click. if you can't properly man a cap I don't think you
>should drive one. next you'll be asking for a improbability drive...

and my sunfish doesn't have GPS, radar, or a depth finder. does that mean those things are unesesary on a comercial supertanker?

cap ships need a vastly different flight interface, and there is no reason the shouldn't have a "fly there", "shoot that" interface. As i recall players who have had the chance to fly tridents on the test server sayd thery were unmanagable witout fligh assist mode on and even then were unwieldy. and the Trident isn't that big a ship.

besides what i envision for the primary cap ship interface is basicly a movable vector to controle the direction and magnatude of your movnemt and a set of "compuses" that each controle the ship's attatude along a differeent axis. Then in "manual" mode you loos the vector and instead have to manupulate thrusters the way we use strafe and forward/reverse thrust with fighters.
May 11, 2006 TRS link
the moth is the commercial super tanker of vo.

I say give a cap 0cu cargo and you can only park whatever (one) ship your otherwize flying (per person). you can't buy (or get free) any other ship (from the cap), if the cap is destroyed your ship is destroyed, you can't home on a cap. etc...

Right now a player getting killed in combat already means teribly little. I certianly don't want to see them popping out of a cap every 30 seconds with a fresh missle rag 20 times in a row.

like i say, caps are for combat not transportation. if you want a bigger supertanker, ask for that, not "and make a cap a super dupper tanker too...".

Your vectored flight control sounds a lot like flight assist to me.
May 11, 2006 Zebidie link
Maybe just cost isn't the best way to limit cap ship ownership. Given time anyone will eventually make enough money to buy one. Eve online made the mistake of making capital ships just really expensive and skill heavy. The Devs thought it would limit the numbers...it didn't work. Players just worked harder and trained harder and now theres tons of them all over and its BAD. When they launched Eve they didn't think there would be more than 200 battleships in the entire universe ant any one time. 12 months later my corp had more than that just to themselves. They released capital ships that were even bigger and hopped they would fill the Elite and Expensive ship role but now they too are going the same way.

Maybe cap ship ownership should be limited in another way, maybe ownership of a capital ship requires registration with the ruling authorities and is tied to the guild, guilds are only allowed to field so many cap ships between them. The number of ships being adjusted by number of members in the guild or some other sort of gauge.

Alternatively maybe cap ships could come from a limited pool. Players or guild would have to do tasks or somehow prove themselves worthy to their government. When the ship is blown up another ship would become available to be won to take its place. This would allow the Devs to keep control of the number of cap ships in circulation at any one time.

Even if that's a useless idea, I don't think it should just come down to time and money or were going to end up with a ton of them floating around.
Also if the cost is too high in time/money then it becomes too much of a pain to loose and folks either wont fight with them or they'll get really pissed when they loose them and that could taint the community spirit.
May 11, 2006 Lord Q link
Zebidie,

i believe the plan is to make cap ship purchasing something of a quest. in that you will have to complete mission trees and/or procure resorces for it's construction. additionaly with VO the limiting factor on cap ships can be operational manpower (jusnt like in real life). so the idea is operating and repairing cap ships while possable with one person, would be tedious and not fun. thus guilds and player groups will tend to work together to operate cap ships more efficently, thus reducing the number of cap ships in the game.

TRS,

1. the moth is at BEST as U-haul, not a supertanker.

2. added storage space in inevitable with larger size. i use the term "cap ship" somwat inacurately to refer to military and civilian ships of sufficent size to require the special cap ship interfacees and docking sytems the devs are developing/have developed for the tridents and teradons. as such i think there should be capital class transportships as well as military vessils.

But every ship that can dock fighters should have at least 1,000cu of space if for nothing other than to hold support systems for it's docked fighters.

3. I do think you should be able to home to cap ships. that way destroying a cap ship in a large scale battle is more signifigant than just destroying all it's turrets, as a cap ship is a potential spawn point for enemy fighters with or without it's turrets.

4. Cap ships should either be able to dock and take on supplys (including ships), or you should be able to hire NPCs to bring you supplys (including ships). Then if you homed and respawned onboard a cap ship, you could choose from the ships that are already onboard. that way the "dying and comming back with a spam rag every 30 seconds" issue would quickely become a moot one as you'd eventualy run out of rags. remember i don't support non carier class ships having signifigantly more fighter slots than they have crew positions.
May 11, 2006 TRS link
If you make a cap stricktly a combat ship, with no significant storage, and only the most currently available interfaces/features, how soon can we have them in the game?

Spin your super tanker issues into a different issue/thread, and that way you are more likly to get the tanker you really want, with out delaying the caps intoduction. In a seperate thread, I suggested the cargo beam, which in effect, would allow a rag to move 5 moth loads (albet with a certian cost/handicap associated with it). I would much rather see a rag torqueing it's poor engines to push 600cu down to the worm hole than see caps hogging docking space left and right. That thread has as of yet recieved zero (0) responses. go figure.

While I would like to see a super tanker, or some kind of cargo ship worth escorting and capable of being defended, I would much rather it be a seperate ship from the caps (even if it steals the caps graphics). Imagine a 1200cu barge, it can't dock and it can't be destroyed. It can only be loaded/unloaded (by smaller ships) and pushed around. Wouldn't that be a lot more fun and give pirates something to fight for and escorts something to defend?

If you make a uber cap now, what will there be to make next? and how long will it take to get introduced into the game?

I think we should ask the devs what options are available, and which way they are leaning now.
May 11, 2006 moldyman link
My thoughts on this:

A) Tridents are rumored to have anywhere from 360 to 680cus of cargo. Random things flung about, most baseless. It is being used as a trading superhauler, so the point you have TRS is moot. It's out there, it'll be available to players eventually, get used to it.

B) It's also been rumored that (like Lord Q said) resources will need to be gathered for this. Alot alot of resources... Including samoflange, the previously useless substance. This, on top of the immense dough someone will need, will be enough to stop most people from buying them willy nilly. Oh, and level requirements. Maybe 12/12/12/15/8

C) Again (Like Lord Q said) cap ships won't be bought by individuals much. There is no need to limit it in any way because the nature of the capship will be enough of a joyriding deterrent. Imagine you re sitting in an Abrams tank. They have four personnel: Driver, Gunner, Reloader, Commander. One can drive the tank around but who will fire the turret? And reload it once it's fired? It'll be a sitting duck if you stop driving. While AI makes this les of an issue, AI should cost moneys! Lots and lots of moneys! Computers always cost alot. Hell, on some missiles, the guidance system costs more than the rest of it. So, except for the 900 million credit bank accounters, You get to have one of these ships if you're uber rich. Once you lose it... you're screwed, basically.

D) Ah, yes. The dilema of cargo space. Tumble put it well. There are containers on a ship, some with carbonic ore, some with cars, some with cars with carbonic ore in them. The only problem with this is that on the scifi movies and shows we all see, there are seperate docking bays. It's like the runway on an aircraft carrier being littered with MREs and other necesities for the ship. It just doesn't work that way. So, one should be limited to how many they can take. My thoughts:

Trident - 3 ships (compare a valk to one and then try to account for cargo AND ship components ie engines)

Teradon - n/a (Duh, no docking port >.< )

HAC - 24 ships ( two decks, 12 on each two rows of six, if you visualize like me)

Now, some would cry out and say "My Centurion shouldn't take as much space as a Moth!" My response is this: A ship berth is a ship berth. It is a certain area designated for ships to land in and must accodmodate the biggest ships to the littlest ships. Unless you want to start designating "four heavies five mediums and fifteen lights can fit here" you have a problem with that line of thinking. Plus, it'll add more work that is really unnecessary. Plus, all the pilots who favor one kind of ship over another will cry and scream. A ship berth is a ship berth is a ship berth...

E) There will be special shipyard stations, it's rumored. It's also rumored that a special mooring system will be instated for capships at regular stations. It would be interesting if you were vulnerable to attack while moored. You are still floating outside, after all. Shipyards, however, would be different. Since the capship would be in it's protective shell, it should be immune to damage. This would make shipyards very attractive in some situations. Also, repairs on a capship should be paid for. A) If you're rich enough to buy a capship, you better be ric enough to repair it. B) The mechanics may be hapy cheery commies at the moment (free repairs, pfft), but I'm not so sure the station would be happy to have half it's repair crew run over to fix your ship. If regular repairs would be 200c (in my head), turrets should be about 200c per, and the main hull of the ship about 50,000, It may not seem like much now... but with the ecomony redux and the likeyhood of these things getting damaged, it'll suck up money and make onethink before taking damage. An alternative is 1k per 1% of your hull.

F) Point and click is fine. It's an autopilot, and rightfully so. Capships should be able to have an AI that can pilot them in the most basic wayss "Go there. Stop here. etc " Manual override could happen but why bother most of the time. Plus, it's not like you can make the capship do evasive manuveurs with the AI. THAT would rely on a human.