Forums » Suggestions
EDIT: This version of the suggestion is terrible. A significantly better version can be found later in the thread. Read that one instead.
The Trident Insurance system is too nonsensical to keep, but the reverse situation of needing to rebuild a whole Trident from scratch is also problematic -- the burden of construction would have to be lowered massively or nobody would ever take risks with their Tridents, but if you lower the burden that far, having a Trident becomes too accessible.
So, let's take a third option: lose the insurance, but don't utterly destroy the Trident when it is dropped to 0%. Just wreck it instead, leaving an unusable husk floating in space. Any cargo should be jettisoned at that point. Cargo and equipment stored within docked ships should be included in the cargo drop, but not equipment that was mounted on the Trident. Any docked players (including the captain) or /gunners should be killed. The wreckage of the ship would then become an NPC-controlled ship with 8% health that just sits there with the brakes on. The health should steadily deteriorate at a rate of about 2% per hour -- if it reaches 0%, it will explode and have the normal random chance of dropping equipped gear, and optionally some Trident parts. If it does explode, the Trident is gone forever and must be rebuilt from scratch. Repair guns could be used to repair the ship faster than it deteriorates, buying time to fix it properly (repairing to 100% would not restore the ship to working order). I would probably vote against allowing damaging weapons to actually damage the wreckage. I kind of want that to be possible, perhaps with them only doing a tenth of their normal damage, but I kind of think it wouldn't be fair even then.
Meanwhile, as long as the Trident wreckage is above 50% health, anybody should be able to dock with it by sitting in the docking bay alone for 30 seconds. Only one person should be allowed aboard at a time, and whoever is currently docked will be ejected in their ship when somebody else successfully docks. If the wreckage falls below 50% health, anybody who is docked should also be ejected. People who are on the Trident's key should be permitted to dock with a reduced (or no) delay to give them an advantage over would-be thieves.
Once inside the Trident, you should be presented with a status display listing parts that the Trident needs replaced to restore functionality. These parts should be a randomized assortment taken from the Trident ingredient list. The total effort involved should be kept reasonable, although what constitutes "reasonable" is up for debate. I would say that starting from scratch and working alone, it should take four to six hours of work to acquire those parts, not including time spent on station conquest, and they should total at least a thousand CU so that it takes multiple trips. Delivering the parts would require docking with the Trident wreckage and clicking a "Take Parts From Hold" button, which would remove them from your ship's cargo hold. As you make these deliveries, turrets should start coming online. (Perhaps the first one happens when you've delivered a fifth of the parts, and then the second at two fifths, and so on. So you'd have all four turrets available for defending the wreckage once you're 80% done.)
Once the final parts delivery is made, the Trident's ownership would be assigned to the person who delivered the most parts, and it would be converted from an NPC Trident wreckage to a proper player-controlled Trident. The ownership computation should be weighted based on the difficulty of the parts, as well as the key -- parts delivered by the previous owner should count three times as much as parts delivered by somebody else.
Given the risk of permanently losing your Trident (whether due to failure to salvage the wreckage or due to other players salvaging it faster than you), the build requirements would still need to be lessened a good bit, but not to the levels they'd need to be if Tridents just plain died like normal ships. Building them should still be a major challenge, and while the overall work of making one would be less, you'd have a strong incentive to build a variety of spare parts to hasten repairs in the event that your new Trident gets wrecked.
edited: changed ownership assignment criteria to increase difficulty of theft
The Trident Insurance system is too nonsensical to keep, but the reverse situation of needing to rebuild a whole Trident from scratch is also problematic -- the burden of construction would have to be lowered massively or nobody would ever take risks with their Tridents, but if you lower the burden that far, having a Trident becomes too accessible.
So, let's take a third option: lose the insurance, but don't utterly destroy the Trident when it is dropped to 0%. Just wreck it instead, leaving an unusable husk floating in space. Any cargo should be jettisoned at that point. Cargo and equipment stored within docked ships should be included in the cargo drop, but not equipment that was mounted on the Trident. Any docked players (including the captain) or /gunners should be killed. The wreckage of the ship would then become an NPC-controlled ship with 8% health that just sits there with the brakes on. The health should steadily deteriorate at a rate of about 2% per hour -- if it reaches 0%, it will explode and have the normal random chance of dropping equipped gear, and optionally some Trident parts. If it does explode, the Trident is gone forever and must be rebuilt from scratch. Repair guns could be used to repair the ship faster than it deteriorates, buying time to fix it properly (repairing to 100% would not restore the ship to working order). I would probably vote against allowing damaging weapons to actually damage the wreckage. I kind of want that to be possible, perhaps with them only doing a tenth of their normal damage, but I kind of think it wouldn't be fair even then.
Meanwhile, as long as the Trident wreckage is above 50% health, anybody should be able to dock with it by sitting in the docking bay alone for 30 seconds. Only one person should be allowed aboard at a time, and whoever is currently docked will be ejected in their ship when somebody else successfully docks. If the wreckage falls below 50% health, anybody who is docked should also be ejected. People who are on the Trident's key should be permitted to dock with a reduced (or no) delay to give them an advantage over would-be thieves.
Once inside the Trident, you should be presented with a status display listing parts that the Trident needs replaced to restore functionality. These parts should be a randomized assortment taken from the Trident ingredient list. The total effort involved should be kept reasonable, although what constitutes "reasonable" is up for debate. I would say that starting from scratch and working alone, it should take four to six hours of work to acquire those parts, not including time spent on station conquest, and they should total at least a thousand CU so that it takes multiple trips. Delivering the parts would require docking with the Trident wreckage and clicking a "Take Parts From Hold" button, which would remove them from your ship's cargo hold. As you make these deliveries, turrets should start coming online. (Perhaps the first one happens when you've delivered a fifth of the parts, and then the second at two fifths, and so on. So you'd have all four turrets available for defending the wreckage once you're 80% done.)
Once the final parts delivery is made, the Trident's ownership would be assigned to the person who delivered the most parts, and it would be converted from an NPC Trident wreckage to a proper player-controlled Trident. The ownership computation should be weighted based on the difficulty of the parts, as well as the key -- parts delivered by the previous owner should count three times as much as parts delivered by somebody else.
Given the risk of permanently losing your Trident (whether due to failure to salvage the wreckage or due to other players salvaging it faster than you), the build requirements would still need to be lessened a good bit, but not to the levels they'd need to be if Tridents just plain died like normal ships. Building them should still be a major challenge, and while the overall work of making one would be less, you'd have a strong incentive to build a variety of spare parts to hasten repairs in the event that your new Trident gets wrecked.
edited: changed ownership assignment criteria to increase difficulty of theft
This seems...complex. It also seems impossible to conduct under certain circumstances, like if a trident is destroyed in a static hive sector with nasty bots and/or in a storm.
+1 The artificial insurance system needs to go.
-1
Noteworthy suggestion but, as Lecter said, a bit complex and leaves a very slim chance that someone could actually save his trident and rebuild it.
The situation where trident gets blown up is usually a situation where your enemy has the upper hand so chance is you will never recover your trident and your enemies will grab it.
If implemented this will effectively remove tridents from greyspace.
The situation where trident gets blown up is usually a situation where your enemy has the upper hand so chance is you will never recover your trident and your enemies will grab it.
If implemented this will effectively remove tridents from greyspace.
So, FYI that while the insurance system is not ideal, it is artificially low at the moment. It was supposed to start at 500k, and then go up as people made "claims", ending up in the millions.
It's still pretty artificial, and some kind of salvaging system would also be cool in general, although I'm not sure if it's the best solution to the general case of people losing tridents? But open to continued feedback on this..
It's still pretty artificial, and some kind of salvaging system would also be cool in general, although I'm not sure if it's the best solution to the general case of people losing tridents? But open to continued feedback on this..
-1 ok, so my understanding is you want an npc to have the dent? And the player start from scratch? Uhhhhm no lol rar.
So, FYI that while the insurance system is not ideal, it is artificially low at the moment. It was supposed to start at 500k, and then go up as people made "claims", ending up in the millions.
Why hasn't this been fixed?
Why hasn't this been fixed?
Inc, I think it's also more rewarding to see the trident go boom and know the player and his guild lost something of value that they have to rebuild. I still think reasonable build requirements and tridents that just go boom would give us all more to do. Players could even use their trident to make backup parts for their next one.
The situation where trident gets blown up is usually a situation where your enemy has the upper hand so chance is you will never recover your trident and your enemies will grab it.
If implemented this will effectively remove tridents from greyspace.
That sums it up.
What about a way for a player to steal and NPC dent which could be kept until it is destroyed, but can't be brought back to nation space or the faction it was stolen from without the SF attacking.
If implemented this will effectively remove tridents from greyspace.
That sums it up.
What about a way for a player to steal and NPC dent which could be kept until it is destroyed, but can't be brought back to nation space or the faction it was stolen from without the SF attacking.
harpo, let us not be afraid of losing something if it makes the game more interesting. If someone swipes your dent from under your feet, you have your ultimate vendetta!!!
The repercussions for losing a trident are so low it's silly.
"-1 ok, so my understanding is you want an npc to have the dent? And the player start from scratch?"
Nope, you misunderstood. Basically I wanted to have the dent be disabled rather than destroyed entirely, so that the player would have to repair it in-space using manufactured components. I also wanted to include a possibility that it could be stolen.
Anyway, bojan's right. -1 to this particular implementation.
Nope, you misunderstood. Basically I wanted to have the dent be disabled rather than destroyed entirely, so that the player would have to repair it in-space using manufactured components. I also wanted to include a possibility that it could be stolen.
Anyway, bojan's right. -1 to this particular implementation.
-1
Maybe the insurance needs to be repriced, and Inc's original intention or increasing premium implemented, but the notion that anyone is seriously going to go through another build process is a joke.
Also agree with Bojan in saying anyone losing a dent is unlikely to be in a position to recover or repair in-situ so a loss would effectively be complete, and no-one would be prepared to use them in greyspace.
Maybe the insurance needs to be repriced, and Inc's original intention or increasing premium implemented, but the notion that anyone is seriously going to go through another build process is a joke.
Also agree with Bojan in saying anyone losing a dent is unlikely to be in a position to recover or repair in-situ so a loss would effectively be complete, and no-one would be prepared to use them in greyspace.
@biretak: most people do not enjoy self flagellation and do not see fun in VO in perpetual grinding.
Turning the game into a perpetual grind for building/rebuilding tridents for people who have them is a sure way to either make them quit or hide their tridents in stations and never use them.
Even now, some players see building a trident as an end game. They built it and they parade with it and after some time they realize that it's nothing special and that nobody really cares about their 'precious'.
Trident is not the end game. It's just another ship you can use from time to time.
Yes, the 'insurance' thing is silly because you can lose it and have it back in a matter of minutes by paying peanuts to M7.
This has to change and the process of rebuilding lost/destroyed trident has to be a bit more complex money and time wise. Maybe include filing a rebuilding claim, having a wait period for new trident to be available (48 hours or so) and, as Incarnate said - price going up depending on how often you actually file 'insurance' claims/lose your trident.
Turning the game into a perpetual grind for building/rebuilding tridents for people who have them is a sure way to either make them quit or hide their tridents in stations and never use them.
Even now, some players see building a trident as an end game. They built it and they parade with it and after some time they realize that it's nothing special and that nobody really cares about their 'precious'.
Trident is not the end game. It's just another ship you can use from time to time.
Yes, the 'insurance' thing is silly because you can lose it and have it back in a matter of minutes by paying peanuts to M7.
This has to change and the process of rebuilding lost/destroyed trident has to be a bit more complex money and time wise. Maybe include filing a rebuilding claim, having a wait period for new trident to be available (48 hours or so) and, as Incarnate said - price going up depending on how often you actually file 'insurance' claims/lose your trident.
Why hasn't this been fixed?
Because people already desperately avoid losing their Trident and changing it won't really improve the game's player engagement, at all, for anyone? Either that or the devs just don't circle back around to adjust things as often as they say they're going to.
That's only 500k for the hull. The addons crank up the losses quite a bit once you fit it out with manufactured turrets and things like TU mine launchers. My typical Trident death costs a couple million in equipment and docked ships.
Because people already desperately avoid losing their Trident and changing it won't really improve the game's player engagement, at all, for anyone? Either that or the devs just don't circle back around to adjust things as often as they say they're going to.
That's only 500k for the hull. The addons crank up the losses quite a bit once you fit it out with manufactured turrets and things like TU mine launchers. My typical Trident death costs a couple million in equipment and docked ships.
Lets try this first: The insurance mission would have a timer on it that starts when it is run and can't be run again for a period of time, say 24 hours. So if a person looses a trident they can go to m7 and replace it, but if they lose it again they have to wait for the timer to expire.
ARF has a good point about the cost, the weapons can add up to a tidy sum especially if they are manufactured.
ARF has a good point about the cost, the weapons can add up to a tidy sum especially if they are manufactured.
harpo, let us not be afraid of losing something if it makes the game more interesting
Fear has nothing to do with it. Stick to the topic, this is the suggestions forum.
Fear has nothing to do with it. Stick to the topic, this is the suggestions forum.
Ok no. There is no way in hell I would ever log back on to play if my dent that I spent a year building got totally destroyed. This would pretty much mean that nobody would ever build a dent and the few there are would be passed around until someone they slowly disappeared. No-one is going to spend that much time and effort (and boredom and stress) building something to just see it snatched from them in a week or two. If this is seriously being considered then tridents need to be nigh on unkillable, requiring a full group of skilled players getting lucky to take down.
On another note, I do like the capturable NPC dent idea.
On another note, I do like the capturable NPC dent idea.
If this is seriously being considered
No need to worry, this is just the suggestions forum, where people toss around ideas.
No need to worry, this is just the suggestions forum, where people toss around ideas.