Forums » Suggestions

Seperate capital ship cargo space from docking ports!

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Jan 05, 2017 Darth Nihilus link
I know you have your own ideas about what the trident is supposed to be like. I would like to point out though that it seems like everyone in the player base is in agreement that the trident ought to be able to effectively haul 1200cu.

Currently it only has 800cu, but can effectively haul 1200cu using 6 XCs in the cargo. I think that this has already set some expectations on what the trident should be able to do.

Taking away the overstuffing would be a good thing. It is just too silly. But taking away the ability to haul 1200cu would also have a huge affect on current opinions of the trident. The trident is so poor in combat that most people look at it as being primarily a hauler. Taking away the 1200cu cargo limit would effectively nerf that idea.

I understand the fact that GS has its own plans and can see the bigger picture that us players cannot. And I'm not saying that overstuffing should stay. I'm just hoping that you guys are taking into consideration the expectations that have already been allowed to set firmly in place.

Having said that, I think I understand the direction everything is heading. Thanks for giving some thoughts and input on this thread Incarnate. I know I can speak for many when I say your responses on such anticipated changes, even if they aren't exactly what we want to hear, are more than welcomed.
Jan 05, 2017 Death Fluffy link
In this instance, Darth Nihilus speaks for me as well.
Jan 05, 2017 Ore link
If the problem is "captain should always be able to dock" would a "Captain's only docking bay" solve that?
Jan 05, 2017 Hoban-Wash-Washburne link
We read too much into the build? You're damn right, especially after the sadistic grind to basically get a dump truck. Zero combat use against other tridents or capships. It is quite honestly getting to be a waste of time to bother with even bringing it out as its only useful for cargo if overstuffed. It is quite clear that you and the player base have a completely different ideas on how capships should work. What is the great logic behind capships not being able to damage other capships in a combat game?
Jan 05, 2017 The_Catman link
Any limiting of the dents capacity will see them disappear from space.

They are only currently acceptable as a sloth-like hauler due to their 1200 cu capacity, any change is only likely to make them even worse.

-1 to OP
Jan 05, 2017 aaronund link
Can we expect a cargo buff on the TTM and Goliath once the overstuffing issue has been resolved?
Jan 05, 2017 vanatteveldt link
I've not played for a while, but to me it seems the problem is that the TTM is underspec'd.

The moth is 34m, the TTM 210m, or more than 6 times longer. Since volume is cubic, this means the volume of a dent will be around 216 times larger. Now the shapes are not the same, but you would still expect it to be at least 50-100 times larger in volume, as also confirmed by the TTM mass being 100x that of a moth.

So, you would expect a TTM to carry *at least* 120x50=6.000 cargo, or almost an order of magnitude more than the current 800. I'm taking the basic variant because a TTM also has room for armor, weapons, docks etc, although you would expect a larger ship to be more space efficient than a smaller ship.

The fact that the cargo of a docked ship is even significant to me feels like a symptom, not a cause, of the problem.

Given the size and costs of a TTM, it should either be a vastly superior weapons platform, or a vastly superior freighter, not a slightly larger version of an XC with shields.

(and that would actually create room for an entry-level freighter like the goliath, with cargo in the order of 1000)
Jan 05, 2017 kbireta link
hoban, lighten up. The trident needs a buff and doesn't have enough defenses. I think you sound insulting in your last post on this thread. The dent is hardly a "dump truck" go try to do as much efficient sss harvesting in a moth if you think that. Take out levi's in your behemoths and post the vids ;)

Inc, Happy New Year and thanks for the best game I've found on the net!
Jan 05, 2017 incarnate link
Guys, if I had wanted to fix the XC over-stuffing thing, I could have gotten rid of it long ago. I haven't fixed it, precisely because some of the other factors needed to "correctly" balance the cargo capacity, in a meaningful way, weren't ready yet; and it wasn't really doing any harm (silly as it is).

I have no intention of changing the XC issue suddenly without re-considering other factors of cargo capacity. But I am not promising you some specific cargo number right now, because I may be changing or introducing other new concepts at the same time.

It's also notable that we're fiddling with aspects of the economy at the same time. The old economy was really not designed for people to be coming along and dumping off 6,000 cargo at once..

In any case, I don't think there's any reason for anxiety there.

What is the great logic behind capships not being able to damage other capships in a combat game?

This isn't purely a combat game. This is not Battlefield. It is a game with combat, and definitely it can play a big part, but combat is not everything.

Part of what I'm aiming to do in the near-term, from a gameplay standpoint, is create more meaningful goals to go after (let's say.. "targets", of various kinds, that have various stories and drops and spawn organically in a procedural manner). The problem with such goals is that "difficulty" can require a certain balance, if one is aiming to, for instance, get people to group together and combine forces assault a particular mob.

A guy managed to solo a Leviathan in a fighter ship, for instance (albeit with extreme patience to do so), so the notion of making every capship owner suddenly have the ability to trivially take out each passing Constellation.. well, that's problematic. It creates problems for the new dynamic-economy system. It creates a requirement for a far stronger escort and strike-force system to now deal with the super-strong players..

And then that means the targets get tougher. And then the people who don't have capships can't take them on anymore. Then all of a sudden you have a much more starkly divided game, with "haves" and "have-nots": people without capital ships are locked out of large areas of content that we currently all take for granted.

Capships are supposed to be another "level" of the game.. large-scale trading, mining, enhanced group play, leading to player-manufactured stations and trade routes and a lot of other stuff. They are not suddenly supposed to make you able to kill everything trivially.

You will eventually see more combat-oriented player-manufactured capships. That will come in time. But I am saying it isn't being dropped in right now. The game just isn't ready for it right now.. not on multiple levels.
Jan 06, 2017 Death Fluffy link
Thanks for the clarification Inc. I am looking forward to the changes that will come with the direction you are headed.
Jan 06, 2017 Hoban-Wash-Washburne link
so the notion of making every capship owner suddenly have the ability to trivially take out each passing Constellation.. well, that's problematic

I'm not saying you need to be able to take out a connie with a dent but one trident should be able to fight another trident and have a chance of success at destroying it. I get that there has to be balance in the game.
Jan 06, 2017 incarnate link
I'm not saying you need to be able to take out a connie with a dent but one trident should be able to fight another trident and have a chance of success at destroying it.

Well, then what kind of weapon do you think would be appropriate for a Trident to have, that would allow it to fight another trident, but wouldn't substantially impact the existing balance of attacking a Constellation?

If you think you can come up with some kind of idealized balance of weapon trade-offs, then perhaps create a new Suggestion thread that describes your idea?

Generally, however, any weapon we create that allows easier trident-vs-trident combat will also make it easier to go after convoy shipping.. be they tridents, constellations, or whatever. Ultimately, this isn't really a "bad" thing, but it's problematic when it isn't offset by other balance factors that we don't have in place yet, and when we're still trying to build an economy that's actually based on the transfer of items using the convoys.
Jan 06, 2017 Hoban-Wash-Washburne link
How about this weapons idea
Jan 06, 2017 aaronund link
Why not just make the Convoy turn around and engage, that way it's a fight and not just firing a PCB while your buddies do a simple stack. Make attacking a constellation difficult due to the power of the ship, not difficult because you have no friends.

Also Wash's suggestion is pretty sexy overall.
Jan 06, 2017 kbireta link
aaround, the suggestion isn't good. The only saving grace would be if it were balanced to include the atlas and the moths.

Wash's suggestion is game breaking... imagine if you flew a dent with 4 gem turrets with unlimited ammo into a bot sector, all the sss that would drop while the owner or his friends collect would break the demand for sss.
Jan 06, 2017 Death Fluffy link
While we're on the subject, the bloody connie and hac should both turn their broadside weapons on any attacking cap ship, not just try to go head to head with them.
Jan 06, 2017 aaronund link
@kbireta
You already can and it's not really game breaking. This has existed for some time in a few different ways. What Wash is asking for is essentially improving functions that already exist in the form of plugins. These plugins cannot be used against other capital ships effectively right now but can be used to farm SSS.
http://www.voupr.com/plugin.php?name=stolenturrets
Jan 07, 2017 Luxen link
I like the idea that a convoy be capable of fully defending itself, but if it does, it should have the same 3 paths a player has when attacked - or, two, i guess, unless a convoy had some way to tell you were a pirate.

1) full fight; the convoy brings weapons to bear and lets loose. Maybe altering the convoy to have randomly selected weapons would also make it easier to defend itself?
2) run away; turrets fire, but instead of running at escort speed, the haulers of the convoy haul ass to the nearest jump point, while the provided escort ships do their job.

Also, would a weapon like this be a no-go for capital vs capital fights? I understand that it could be used against any slow-moving capship, but by making it difficult to obtain and expensive to re-use it shouldnt have too much impact, right? Besides, if convoys were destroyed on their way to a particular station enough, that would create a depression of items left for more daring player-traders to fulfill. Wouldnt it?
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