general) a kind of neutral mode to be in which is visible to other players, so they don't have to be too paranoid about you flying near them or jumping into their sector

a) a nice way to solve this would be to require ships to activate/power up their arsenal, for instance the weapons could slide to the exterior of the ship to be functional and dangerous

b) the neutral or armed status should be immediately evident on the radar display

c) bringing weapon systems online would have to last no more than a few seconds, but the heavier the weaponry the longer it takes

d) an interesting possibility is ofcourse to sell more expensive versions of the weapons that deploy faster

e) it would then also be a nice touch to have ships require to retract/power down all their weapons to enable wormhole travel

opinion) this would also provide an aspect of the general feel of the area you are in, cruise through a relaxed trading environment, have easier encounters with players of another nation when not directly involved in a conflict, on the other hand in sectors where trust is low ships of different factions would eye each other suspiciously, weapons at the ready, the radar display showing you are surrounded by menacing blimps, i think that apart from the extra depth in tension levels and the 'cool' factor of powering up your arsenal this will also provide some real adrenaline on select occasions

this thing is really meant more as a status indication you can use than as an obstruction to your safety, so if it presents problems the time-needed-to-deploy could be really short or zero


-sorry about the ALLCAPS, didn't really think about it while copypasting
-it's not one post because it's three ideas and feedback posts will be less confusing

I'm not seeing this as a good thing. Trader, weapons closed, is going from point a to point b. Pirate valk rammer, swoops into radar range zooming in on the prey, weapons locked and loaded. Poor trader keeps turboing, while activating his defense weapons, 2 seconds later, the poor traders weapons still havent activated yet and the valk rammer kills him.

Now it would be ok if the activate time was <1 second. But more then 1 second and I have problems accepting it.

What's up with the ALL CAPS titles? And couldn't you combine all three ideas into one post? Grrr...

=/

I understand and agree with the goals, but I don't think this is the best implementation. (Maybe I should do a 'sensors' post sometime soon here.) Briefly, I'd rather have a 'early warning device' that reports whenever someone has locked onto you or whenever someone comes within a certain range of you (or both).

Still, this is yet another original idea, so keep at it. I'm sure you'll come up with something really cool that I'll want to steal sooner or latter.