Professor Chaos, I could see changing which sector a comet is in on a weekly basis, but the systems are LIGHTYEARS apart, only the wormholes connect them. So, unless you propose the comets move through warp points (which I doubt), comets should never leave a specific system.

As far as complexity being bad for new players, let me put it this way:
Chess is very simple; someone can learn to play chess in well under an hour; chess has a hidden complexity that lets advanced players basically play the same game in a very different way. The problem, as I see it, is that it means the advanced players absolutely crush even moderately experienced players. This sucks all the fun out of chess unless you happen to have a natural talent for it or are too persistent to quit. Unfortunately, the kinds of people who play MMORPGs are not the second kind, thus many newbs will leave shortly after learning how much effort one has to put in to play reasonably. Having pre-made ship setups with complicated parts would only work if the setups were at least close to the best possible.

Toshiro --
"A good 50% of the new players wants to see as much as possible as soon as possible. Dying lots on the way there isn't going to help VO once it goes public on a large scale" = YES.
"having all the fun stuff happen outside nation space isn't going to get the people coming in droves" = That is EVE and EVE does have people coming in droves...

Phaserlight -- "what if gas widgets could be mined from asteroids as a by-product of regular mining [and subsequent description]" = That sounds wonderful! :)

I do not particularly like the idea of having to watch the temperature of the space surrounding you, but could put up with it.

My time away from playing the game is showing, I think. Of course, you're right, LostCommander. Comets don't warp, and systems are bigger than I was thinking. Maybe a select few systems have an orbiting comet, and maybe the orbit is so big it leaves the available sectors for a week and then orbits within the system for two weeks, variable per comet/system.

As for learning curve, unless the game is neutered to the point of being tic-tac-toe, there will always be a curve, and there will always be people unable to deal with it. The answer is to provide a lot of variety in activities at every level of the curve. The truth is, no matter how good at anything you are, there will always be some better and some worse.

Think of preset ships the way you buy a car. One model will come in several varieties at different prices, with different sized engines, luxury features, etc. A basic setup of a ship would have sufficient equipment/weaponry to survive basic beginner activities. This would encourage new players to learn about the various upgrades to find out what is a good buy for their style of playing.

Watching temperature of gas around you would ONLY be a factor you have to worry about if you fly into a dense nebula sector near a star, or into an atmosphere, or if you are being hit with weapons that cause a lot of heat. Unless you engage in these activities, it's nothing to worry about, and you could even turn it off to not clutter your HUD. If it's off, then a light could come on and a tone sound only if you get dangerously hot.

Point, tosh.

/me bows out of the converasion

Quick slightly off-topic thought about watching the temperature of your ship. Maybe ion storms are hot? Just a thought.

"The answer is to provide a lot of variety in activities at every level of the curve"
Assuming I may freely extend your comment to mean FUN activities, then that is exactly the point; in chess, you get to study (who wants to do that for a GAME!?) and LOSE REPEATEDLY (oh, how fun -- *sarcasm*) until you are good.

And maybe ion storms are the sole place one can collect/mine some ionized gas? That would make them at least part useful and part annoying instead of just annoying.

Nebulae that are self-illuminated ARE ionized gas, ion storms would just be another place to find it.

Of course, fun activities. :) The potential crafting system and coming economy will make for lots of new activities that don't involve combat and dying, but have a point and can be fun.

Well, I was hoping the ion storm gas could be made special somehow so some people might be daring enough to go SEARCHING for ion storms instead of having everyone avoiding them whenever possible.

I agree with you completely. Ion storms are just annoying, and they serve no purpose whatsoever. I don't see why ion storm gas would be special, but there needs to be some point to the things and a reason to stop in one.

The topic of heat dissipation has been touched upon in a previous thread, I think. Basically, we have a magical heat sink that makes all energy that gets converted to heat dissipate into space. Some suggested that it's the engines that do it (by emitting light), but that din't hold up for long (for obvious reasons).
Watching the temperature of your ship (like you have to do in other games, I think MechWarrior 1&2 had that feature) would spawn a plethora of additional gadgets and, subsequently, Balance problem and discussions.

Well, I personally find ion storms with valent assault bots (and other high-level bots) to be great places for a duel.

What if ion storms were the ONLY places one could mine gas, and the type retrieved depended on the system you were in? Since regular craft couldn't reasonably support a miles-in-diameter ramscoop (too much energy), stumbling into a high-density spot would be the only way to reasonably collect significant amounts.

I think the ion storm link is a good tie in. It makes ions storms less of an annoyance and more relevant to the game play.

I can see finding an ion storm as a potential mission -go explore and find out where an ion storm is occuring in this system and it means that the resource will have limited availability and collecting would be a bit of a challenge. It also makes reporting locations of ion storms important to other players and open up a new role for stormchaser type RP.

I wonder if the devs could work this in in the near future.

I would suggest the ramscoop be much like a mining beam: large-port equipment, fire = on/off, status bar. I think it should also drain some energy while on though, thus the two stats for a ramscoop would be drain and collection speed instead of heat and collection speed.

Agreed, but what about multiple ramscoops? Will drain be cumulative? Should total ramscoop drain be able to go beyond recharge rate?

Yes, drain should be cumulative, and yes total drain should be able to go beyond recharge rate (if so and the battery runs out, all ramscoops should disengage just as if the hold was reported full); however, I was thinking ramscoop drain would be in the 8-15 eps range, so no current ship/battery combination could have such trouble.

I just think ion storms should be done away with. They're not really realistic, especially since they're random. Self-illuminated nebulae are ionized gas. Maybe hot nebula sectors could act like ion storms, but instead of finding the exit point, you are able to warp out during unpredictable windows of opportunity. Basically, you have to warp out at the right time, not the right place. Also, your radar would be all screwed up.

As for ramscoops, the impracticability of huge ramscoops is why I suggested the small electromagnetic one that attracts gas. It would be interesting, though, to actually SEE a ship with a scoop that's miles across.... hehe. Exactly right, LostCommander, that the two stats would be collection speed and battery drain. Collection speed, though, should be expressed in percentages. Say there's 1000 particles/cm^3, and your scoop has 30% efficiency. Then every second you would gather 300 particles/cm^3 in range of your scoop. A more efficient scoop would collect more, or if the gas is denser, it will also collect more. These numbers would of course be converted to figures useful ingame.

Cumulative scoops are a good idea, but miners should be careful with that. If you have two scoops, each with 60% efficiency, then you're wasting power, since you can't gather 120% of the gas in the area, since there's not that much.

Actually, I have a better idea, and it might make sense after all to have to scoops at 60% efficiency. Really, the two scoops would be competing with each other for the same gas. Instead, the game would treat them as one cumulative scoop, determining overall efficiency with a simple calculation. Adding one 60% scoop gives you 60% efficiency. Adding another 60% scoop gives you 60% of the remaining 40% efficiency, for a total of 84% efficiency. Adding a third gives you 60% of the remaining 16%, giving a total of 93.6% efficiency. So you'd have to carefully consider adding more scoops, since 100% would by an asymptotic value that could never be achieved, and each new scoop adds cumulative battery drain and adds less efficiency.

No, we should keep ion storms. It doesn't matter that they aren't realistic - neither is the physics, or the damage, or the repair... It's just supposed to be fun.

No, the idea would not be to have multiple scoops changing the efficiency of a single fill-box/line, they would be separate gathering instruments just like normal mining beams. No, this wouldn't be realistic either, but it would be standardized (i.e. the collection of all raw materials is basically the same) and I prefer it.

Maybe if ion storms were replaced with something like meteor storms. The sector could temporarily be filled with a cluster of small, fast rocks that are passing through. Depending on the intensity of the storm, you would get hit variously amounts of times. I don't know. I'm not opposed to keeping them, I'd just prefer them gone or given a use, since they're only a nuisance.

The reason the scoops would have a single fill-box/line is that the scoops only gather, they don't store. The gathering would be done in the cargo hold. This would still be standardized. Like I said, the numbers I gave would have to be translated to work in-game. It would take some thought and calculating that I'm not prepared to do at the moment, but it can be done, and once done it would be easy for the computer.

Is there a problem with the use for ion storms being gas collection/mining?

Currently in-game, mining beams each have their own mining progress bar until they have completed a crate of ore. To be standardized, gas collectors/ramscoops would do the same -- each gizmo has its own progress bar.

There's no problem at all with mining gas in ion storms, it's just that if there's a nebula, it would be easier to find, since it doesn't move. On the other hand, it's only a matter of time before you hit a storm, so it's not that big a deal. The scoop should be able to pick stuff up literally anywhere in space, just it would be very very slow unless you're in a nebula/storm.

I have to admit, I've not done more than a couple mining missions, because it was boring. I guess your multiple progress bar would work, but if it's possible to make it more realistic (i.e. they compete for the same gas), I would like that better.

I guess it would be fairly easy to convert my numbers to game numbers. Determine the particle density of the sector and the efficiency of the scoop, and how many particles of hydrogen/helium mix would fill a pressurized crate of gas. When you've collected that many particles, you've filled a pressurized crate and you start filling another one. If you sell a crate that's only 37% full, you only get 37% of the price of a full crate. That could apply to other mining as well. Maybe if you don't want to pay the small fee for a station to seperate the hydrogen and the helium, you could buy an upgrade to your setup (you'd only need one) that seperates them on the fly. You'd pay a bigger fee up front, but if you do a lot of gas mining you'd save money in the long run.