Forums » Suggestions

Sparring Mode (an FF suggestion)

Oct 25, 2006 Cunjo link
When Friendly Fire gets enabled (and I say when because I know the devs aren't planning on keeping no-FF, and I'm hoping FF will come sooner rather than later) it would be nice to have an alternative method of fighting available by which neither combatant deals significant damage, allowing n00blets and other training players to hone their skills without spending massive amounts of cash on ships ans ship repairs, or large amounts of time re-equipping and returning to a fight.

Here's a suggestion for a system that would allow that (realistically) without detracting from gameplay.

If a player could enable a firing mode that powers down the weapons so damage is minimized without compromising the ballistic behavior of the weapons, it would allow for longer and less-costly showdowns between friendly or sporting players of any nation.

how it would work:

Different weapon types would have different properties when firing in the alternate firing mode. Powered down energy weapons for example would be drastically reduced in damage by choking the power output of the weapons. In flight, the shots would appear dimmer than powered-up shots, and upon striking the target they might do only 1/50 of the usual damage. Ordinance wepaons such as rockets and missiles would have their payload tuned down to the minimum for proper fragmentation, so that the damage would be minimal (ad-hoc payload adjustment is already an integral feature in some modern-day nuclear weapons, so it's realistically possible), or the detonation fuse might be disabled altogether for contact-only missiles, eliminating the blast from the payload. Railguns could use low-density tracer rounds instead of high-density metal slugs - the only concern being the ability to switch between the two in flight: you'd need to load up on tracer rounds instead of combat slugs before taking off (and could hold more of them maybe?) instead of being able to change between the two once in space.
Oct 25, 2006 FatStrat85 link
I'm sure you've seen this but I'll post it anyway for reference.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/14519?page=2#187721

I agree with what you're are saying except I think it should be simpler, at least at first. Make the weapons give no damage and have the computer keep track of what your damage would be if the shots had been real. As a matter of fact, I think when your weapons are powered down, they should behave exactly how FF behaves now.

Before this happens I think we need some changes in regards to the faction system. The only reason most people don't have all 3 faction standings maxed out is so they can shoot people of their own faction. Native KOS allows for pirating. So if we did away with FF, everyone would have POS faction standings.

Make the faction system dynamic. So you can't have respected Serco standing without negative Itani standing. A similar contrasting relationship would exist between Corvus and alot of the UIT factions. You'd have to choose who you build standing with. You couldn't just have everyone love you like the way it is now.

Also you would have to make Corvus somehow very desirable to pirates. No pirate would ever give up all their UIT standing for Corvus the way it is now. Give Corvus something that every pirate desires or needs in order to be a serious pirate. Immunity from the unbots would be a start, but some anti-trader weapon that only a pirate would use is more what I'm talking about. There needs to be a fundamental reason or reasons that all pirates will want Corvus standing at the expense of UIT standing.

Sorry that I brought this off-topic so soon but I really think it's important in regards to FF.
Oct 25, 2006 Snax_28 link