Forums » Suggestions
External Capship Docks in border regions
There is a strong need for capship docks at the borders for purposes of trading and stocking combat ships/weapons. The stations/sectors in question are:
Jallik E-13
Deneb O-3
Verasi O-7
Initros O-12
Pyronis O-9
Geira Rutilus O-4
I propose that, instead of placing existing capship docks (that take the capship out of play), you place external docking bays at these stations. These docking bays would be at least big enough to accommodate current capital ships, and limited in number. I'm thinking 4 total. Surrounding the entire facility would be a shield of the same strength that encompasses a HAC, and ships inside this structure will not take damage until the shield has been dropped.
Mechanics of docking would be the same as it is now (where the pilot disembarks), but the capship itself remains IN SPACE, and vulnerable.
Further, individual capship shields will be powered down when they are docked.
Timeouts of capships when people log out will be increased to 15 minutes, and when logging in, capships will not automatically appear until a space is available. If someone is attempting to dock at the same moment someone is logging in with a docked capship, preference for the bay is given to the ship which is most recently active (aka the one trying to dock), provided it's inside the docking area (measured by the edge of the ship poking over the invisible line).
If the docks are full and there is demand for a bay, pilots can /msg the local dock master (who will be flying around in a ship in sector) and initiate a docking request. The dock master will ask for a fee, commensurate with the standing of the requester (higher standing = less fees). The dock master will alert currently docked owners that one of them will be ejected into space in 10 minutes if they don't make room. Ejected capital ships will be moved 1000m from the docks, and will not have any shields, but can be boarded by their owner, at which point the shields will return.
Jallik E-13
Deneb O-3
Verasi O-7
Initros O-12
Pyronis O-9
Geira Rutilus O-4
I propose that, instead of placing existing capship docks (that take the capship out of play), you place external docking bays at these stations. These docking bays would be at least big enough to accommodate current capital ships, and limited in number. I'm thinking 4 total. Surrounding the entire facility would be a shield of the same strength that encompasses a HAC, and ships inside this structure will not take damage until the shield has been dropped.
Mechanics of docking would be the same as it is now (where the pilot disembarks), but the capship itself remains IN SPACE, and vulnerable.
Further, individual capship shields will be powered down when they are docked.
Timeouts of capships when people log out will be increased to 15 minutes, and when logging in, capships will not automatically appear until a space is available. If someone is attempting to dock at the same moment someone is logging in with a docked capship, preference for the bay is given to the ship which is most recently active (aka the one trying to dock), provided it's inside the docking area (measured by the edge of the ship poking over the invisible line).
If the docks are full and there is demand for a bay, pilots can /msg the local dock master (who will be flying around in a ship in sector) and initiate a docking request. The dock master will ask for a fee, commensurate with the standing of the requester (higher standing = less fees). The dock master will alert currently docked owners that one of them will be ejected into space in 10 minutes if they don't make room. Ejected capital ships will be moved 1000m from the docks, and will not have any shields, but can be boarded by their owner, at which point the shields will return.
Ejected capital ships will be moved 1000m from the docks, and will not have any shields, but can be boarded by their owner, at which point the shields will return.
Just so we're clear, you are asking for the ability to eject a capship so you can destroy it? I'm not against this. In fact, I have thought that having the ability to eject afk people out of normal stations should be possible if the bribe is high enough.
Just so we're clear, you are asking for the ability to eject a capship so you can destroy it? I'm not against this. In fact, I have thought that having the ability to eject afk people out of normal stations should be possible if the bribe is high enough.
The motive behind the details of my suggestion are for balance, nothing more. Glad you like the idea!
Why even limit how many? Every station should be able to dock a large ship. Just my thoughts
+1
+1
lol.. i'm not sure about these being in nation space. Those stations should not have sheilds... But, a conquerable one in each of edras, ukari and deneb might be fun. But, I'd have to give it more thought.
So, I think I understand the mechanic being proposed here, but what would be useful is to understand the problem being solved. Like, why do we want this mechanic? There are a lot of reasons one might suggest (ships remain vulnerable, "it looks cool", etc), but it'd be useful to know the specific goals.
As to the mechanic itself. My impression is you want something like externally-visible docks from certain sci-fi properties, like, say, the Verhoven "Starship Troopers" movie:
There are a couple of challenges around this, relating to MMO-ness:
1) It creates a finite number of bays, with inherent challenges when you have a higher player density, or even (for some reason) a higher NPC density. Yes, you have a whole "ships can be ejected" thing, but that's complicated. Ejected how? Does the ship then have to fly itself out there? How long can it take to try and un-dock itself, during which someone is waiting on that docking-slip? Which then gets into..
2) Capship AI is not-awesome at navigating in complex collision-scene situations. They're better than they used to be, but asking capships to be right up next to stations induces more collision-detection load (server CPU), and increases chances for problematic AI interaction. This is why convoy capships park at a distance, and the smaller ships go and dock. And even that isn't entirely reliable, at the moment.
3) Even without the above, you definitely create a big change in the graphical complexity of the scene. As a developer, we analyze the framerate impact of a particular station, background, common ship traffic, and the like, on average devices using average settings, etc. Areas of "density" are always the challenge..
It doesn't matter much if there are 10 capships in a sector, but 10 caphips right up close to each other? They're all going to be using the highest-polygon-count LOD and best textures when you fly up to the station, so basically you're going to be hit with all the graphical intensity all at once. And "you" the developer doesn't even know "how much", because a Goliath is much less graphically intensive than a Capella.
So, basically, you give every station-approaching player a massive hit to their framerate, just as they fly up to the station to try and dock.
Recapping, the benefits of the current capship docking system includes:
- Can magically hold an infinite number of player capships.
- Has no framerate impact beyond the predictable intensity of the docking-bay / module itself.
Now, this doesn't rule out other systems for docking. I've thought about this for many years.
- "Anchorage" concept, could be an area within a sector, where you request an assigned mooring, and your ship is navigated there by AI (the sector) and essentially "docked" in that location. It's still exposed, and visually in-space, but it might be slower to transfer goods or have some other ramifications. Graphically, it's much more "distributed", you don't run into like 20 capships all in one tiny area, they can be spread-out to where the Level of Detail meshes reduce the graphical impact.
- "Extended Anchorage", for extreme player or ship-density scenarios, where the above anchorage becomes problematic due to ship-count, etc. This could be other sectors entirely, adjacent to the station-sector, and there's effectively some kind of "shuttle" that helps you be "docked" from a functionality standpoint.
There are some other things too.. we did some prototypes of a "giant station" that included shipyards and such, which was a bit problematic for rendering at the time. But, none of my ideas intended to have the capships power-down their shields, or create some new "shield" thing that would go around them. I'm not really sure what the goal is there, either?
So, anyway, going back to my original point from the beginning: I don't know what you're trying to do? If the goal is just "more border capship docking", then this is a very complex way to "solve" it. Please give some more detail there, there might be a lot simpler and more effective way of achieving it.
As to the mechanic itself. My impression is you want something like externally-visible docks from certain sci-fi properties, like, say, the Verhoven "Starship Troopers" movie:
There are a couple of challenges around this, relating to MMO-ness:
1) It creates a finite number of bays, with inherent challenges when you have a higher player density, or even (for some reason) a higher NPC density. Yes, you have a whole "ships can be ejected" thing, but that's complicated. Ejected how? Does the ship then have to fly itself out there? How long can it take to try and un-dock itself, during which someone is waiting on that docking-slip? Which then gets into..
2) Capship AI is not-awesome at navigating in complex collision-scene situations. They're better than they used to be, but asking capships to be right up next to stations induces more collision-detection load (server CPU), and increases chances for problematic AI interaction. This is why convoy capships park at a distance, and the smaller ships go and dock. And even that isn't entirely reliable, at the moment.
3) Even without the above, you definitely create a big change in the graphical complexity of the scene. As a developer, we analyze the framerate impact of a particular station, background, common ship traffic, and the like, on average devices using average settings, etc. Areas of "density" are always the challenge..
It doesn't matter much if there are 10 capships in a sector, but 10 caphips right up close to each other? They're all going to be using the highest-polygon-count LOD and best textures when you fly up to the station, so basically you're going to be hit with all the graphical intensity all at once. And "you" the developer doesn't even know "how much", because a Goliath is much less graphically intensive than a Capella.
So, basically, you give every station-approaching player a massive hit to their framerate, just as they fly up to the station to try and dock.
Recapping, the benefits of the current capship docking system includes:
- Can magically hold an infinite number of player capships.
- Has no framerate impact beyond the predictable intensity of the docking-bay / module itself.
Now, this doesn't rule out other systems for docking. I've thought about this for many years.
- "Anchorage" concept, could be an area within a sector, where you request an assigned mooring, and your ship is navigated there by AI (the sector) and essentially "docked" in that location. It's still exposed, and visually in-space, but it might be slower to transfer goods or have some other ramifications. Graphically, it's much more "distributed", you don't run into like 20 capships all in one tiny area, they can be spread-out to where the Level of Detail meshes reduce the graphical impact.
- "Extended Anchorage", for extreme player or ship-density scenarios, where the above anchorage becomes problematic due to ship-count, etc. This could be other sectors entirely, adjacent to the station-sector, and there's effectively some kind of "shuttle" that helps you be "docked" from a functionality standpoint.
There are some other things too.. we did some prototypes of a "giant station" that included shipyards and such, which was a bit problematic for rendering at the time. But, none of my ideas intended to have the capships power-down their shields, or create some new "shield" thing that would go around them. I'm not really sure what the goal is there, either?
So, anyway, going back to my original point from the beginning: I don't know what you're trying to do? If the goal is just "more border capship docking", then this is a very complex way to "solve" it. Please give some more detail there, there might be a lot simpler and more effective way of achieving it.
So, I think I understand the mechanic being proposed here, but what would be useful is to understand the problem being solved. Like, why do we want this mechanic? There are a lot of reasons one might suggest (ships remain vulnerable, "it looks cool", etc), but it'd be useful to know the specific goals.
You mean you want specifics beyond "for purposes of trading and stocking combat ships / weapons"?
Ok. On the Deneb front there are lots of weapons and add-ons sourced elsewhere, particularly in greyspace, that have beneficial applications to that region. And while you can cart them up in a capital ship, you still need to transfer in the janky way of unloading incrementally.
Trade goods and mined ore are also things that are carted to these border regions (trade goods more on the further reaches and mined or more on the closer-to-grey reaches) in capships. Trade goods are used primarily for standing recovery, mined ore for manufacturing. The janky-ness of incremental ship ferrying transfer must be done with these as well under current circumstances.
Those are what best answer's the "problem" part of your question, but don't fully address the "specific goals" part. Because in my mind there is a huge amount of value added in providing external docks for gameplay purposes if they offer more vulnerability than current docks. Being able to see the docked capships is visually compelling, it gives more of a sense of human activity to other players, it gives an opportunity to opportunistic hunters to engage with these capships in ways that currently aren't possible, and it opens up an interesting economic angle with the limited supply of docks.
My impression is you want something like externally-visible docks from certain sci-fi properties, like, say, the Verhoven "Starship Troopers" movie
What they look like is up to you. But personally I was envisioning more of an enclosure, like current docks are (only in this implementation the ships wouldn't dissappear when they enter). I would guess that "less enclosure ness" would be more difficult as far as shields go.
Re: finite bays:
Why not design the docks such that they can be expanded out to adjust to higher player density? A modular system of sorts.
Re: ejection:
I was thinking you could either A) have it be "auto piloted towards a destination 1000m out (which I guess means you'd have to back into the parking space...which could be fun) or B) have it be pushed out via force, i.e. by some appropriate limited detonation inside the hangar, enough that the capship gets moved ~1000m away (which would be cool to watch, and to see it bump into other ships)>
2) Capship AI is not-awesome at navigating in complex collision-scene situations.
Ok well obviously I did not know that. There aren't work arounds? i.e. placing the capship docks far out? I don't fully understand the scope of what "collision detection" means... if that means AI making sure it doesn't run into anything, surely you can just turn that off and let it run into whoever is sitting out there. But if it means something more core to how the game operates (like without it capships would literally fly through other objects)... then that's a problem that you are going to have to deal with in a broader sense regardless of this suggestions (as player density grows, and more and more players fly around in capships).
So, basically, you give every station-approaching player a massive hit to their framerate, just as they fly up to the station to try and dock.
Ok well again, did not know that. Your ideas for spreading it out graphically seem cool, but obviously would make the shield/vulnerability part of my suggestion more complex.
But, none of my ideas intended to have the capships power-down their shields, or create some new "shield" thing that would go around them. I'm not really sure what the goal is there, either?
The goal there is to create vulnerability aka increased opportunity for other players to attack/destroy/antagonize. It would discourage players from parking their capships there long term and flying off into another part of space. Because these are all "border" stations, there is an increased potential for actors with bad standing to interfere with business... I think that's a really cool gameplay idea to run with. We've had it somewhat with the Nemesis (if I got the name right)... the HAC that sometimes shows up in Geira Rutilus O-4. But killing a roving NPC that has no impact on the game is quite different from killing a player capship.
In other words, introduce this enhanced capship docking capability at these stations but create a risk associated with it that we haven't had before.
As someone who has played all the main avenues of gameplay, I can see a lot of benefit to the game on various fronts. Traders, miners and combat pilots get enhanced stockpiling capability in the areas they need it, and enemies of these players get increased opportunities to attack them, and finally all players get the visual satisfaction of seeing the capships docked in space.
You mean you want specifics beyond "for purposes of trading and stocking combat ships / weapons"?
Ok. On the Deneb front there are lots of weapons and add-ons sourced elsewhere, particularly in greyspace, that have beneficial applications to that region. And while you can cart them up in a capital ship, you still need to transfer in the janky way of unloading incrementally.
Trade goods and mined ore are also things that are carted to these border regions (trade goods more on the further reaches and mined or more on the closer-to-grey reaches) in capships. Trade goods are used primarily for standing recovery, mined ore for manufacturing. The janky-ness of incremental ship ferrying transfer must be done with these as well under current circumstances.
Those are what best answer's the "problem" part of your question, but don't fully address the "specific goals" part. Because in my mind there is a huge amount of value added in providing external docks for gameplay purposes if they offer more vulnerability than current docks. Being able to see the docked capships is visually compelling, it gives more of a sense of human activity to other players, it gives an opportunity to opportunistic hunters to engage with these capships in ways that currently aren't possible, and it opens up an interesting economic angle with the limited supply of docks.
My impression is you want something like externally-visible docks from certain sci-fi properties, like, say, the Verhoven "Starship Troopers" movie
What they look like is up to you. But personally I was envisioning more of an enclosure, like current docks are (only in this implementation the ships wouldn't dissappear when they enter). I would guess that "less enclosure ness" would be more difficult as far as shields go.
Re: finite bays:
Why not design the docks such that they can be expanded out to adjust to higher player density? A modular system of sorts.
Re: ejection:
I was thinking you could either A) have it be "auto piloted towards a destination 1000m out (which I guess means you'd have to back into the parking space...which could be fun) or B) have it be pushed out via force, i.e. by some appropriate limited detonation inside the hangar, enough that the capship gets moved ~1000m away (which would be cool to watch, and to see it bump into other ships)>
2) Capship AI is not-awesome at navigating in complex collision-scene situations.
Ok well obviously I did not know that. There aren't work arounds? i.e. placing the capship docks far out? I don't fully understand the scope of what "collision detection" means... if that means AI making sure it doesn't run into anything, surely you can just turn that off and let it run into whoever is sitting out there. But if it means something more core to how the game operates (like without it capships would literally fly through other objects)... then that's a problem that you are going to have to deal with in a broader sense regardless of this suggestions (as player density grows, and more and more players fly around in capships).
So, basically, you give every station-approaching player a massive hit to their framerate, just as they fly up to the station to try and dock.
Ok well again, did not know that. Your ideas for spreading it out graphically seem cool, but obviously would make the shield/vulnerability part of my suggestion more complex.
But, none of my ideas intended to have the capships power-down their shields, or create some new "shield" thing that would go around them. I'm not really sure what the goal is there, either?
The goal there is to create vulnerability aka increased opportunity for other players to attack/destroy/antagonize. It would discourage players from parking their capships there long term and flying off into another part of space. Because these are all "border" stations, there is an increased potential for actors with bad standing to interfere with business... I think that's a really cool gameplay idea to run with. We've had it somewhat with the Nemesis (if I got the name right)... the HAC that sometimes shows up in Geira Rutilus O-4. But killing a roving NPC that has no impact on the game is quite different from killing a player capship.
In other words, introduce this enhanced capship docking capability at these stations but create a risk associated with it that we haven't had before.
As someone who has played all the main avenues of gameplay, I can see a lot of benefit to the game on various fronts. Traders, miners and combat pilots get enhanced stockpiling capability in the areas they need it, and enemies of these players get increased opportunities to attack them, and finally all players get the visual satisfaction of seeing the capships docked in space.
greenwall... maybe lets start simple first... in deneb lets a have a conquerable station with one regular dock and two external capship docks no shields just turrets and guards. Stuff left in this station goes to the next conquerors, except nationalist ships... those get lost to the void even if you immediately retake the station.
Capships that dock to the external docks should take time for reps reloads and weapons changes... they can leave, but full armor may not have been restored or shields and it may take time for the new weapons to come online if they were very recently equipped there. Being docked to the station should rep armor faster than a rep gun, but outside enemy ships could target and damage it all while a rep gun or more could still assist the station in speeding up the repair. NO NPC capships would come to this station.
Edited to add. anything in that station is available to all players that have the key... ships, drops, ores, and weapons. Now, we'll have some fun! Remembering, that if conquered, everything but nationalist ships goes to the victor.
Capships that dock to the external docks should take time for reps reloads and weapons changes... they can leave, but full armor may not have been restored or shields and it may take time for the new weapons to come online if they were very recently equipped there. Being docked to the station should rep armor faster than a rep gun, but outside enemy ships could target and damage it all while a rep gun or more could still assist the station in speeding up the repair. NO NPC capships would come to this station.
Edited to add. anything in that station is available to all players that have the key... ships, drops, ores, and weapons. Now, we'll have some fun! Remembering, that if conquered, everything but nationalist ships goes to the victor.
lol
Ehh, so I keep trying to respond to this, but there's so much to explain that it becomes unwieldy. I'm going to try and condense the basics:
- Rendering performance is based on content complexity and density. Capships are very complex. Put a lot of them close together, and you have a high density of very-complex objects. Not including things like custom-liveries and such. This will slow people down, a lot. "Expandable" docks? Okay, now you have a much bigger problem, up to the "expansion limit".
- Rendering performance can be mitigated by having greatly reduced density. Like, having the capships all spread-out from one another, all over the place. Like.. in my "Anchorage" concept.
- Collision Detection is a pretty common thing that happens 15 times per second, to tell if you're hitting something. Without it, you fly through stuff. It uses a lot of different systems to speed up this process, like doing checks of escalating "precision" based on distance, dividing up "space" into regions of potential-collision, and so on. Ours system is quite fast, and is intended to scale to multi-player capship battles with very large numbers of players, and also high-complexity scenes (like dynamic debris fields, for instance).
- That being said, it doesn't mean we should be "trivial" in using resources for aesthetic enhancements. Stations have drastic potential for traffic escalation during higher player-concurrency loads. So, one has to be pretty cautious.
- Game designers, like all engineers, solve problems in large part by building towards the strengths of technology, and not towards the weaknesses. In other words, I design around challenges that I know are inherent issues. I don't mean "inherent" like something is wrong with our game or engine, I mean "inherent for all MMORPGs, ever, using any technology". It's why ships move kind of slowly, and why we have "wormhole areas" and not cool-looking jump-rings.
- Deneb is intended to be largely self-contained, like your Nation buys you replacement ships and the like. "Stockpiling" in Deneb is not important to me, and may cease to exist entirely. Making standing easier to recover for people in capships is not really a priority either. But, I don't consider either of those points important to this topic, I'm just making the note, because this is part of why I ask for "make examples of why we should implement your Suggestion".
- I'm totally fine with having a vulnerability-vs-convenience tradeoff that makes docking in "small" stations a bit less annoying. In fact, that's part of what my "Anchorage" concept is about, that I referenced in my previous post. It also leaves capships vulnerable, has a negligible impact on framerate and server-performance, and a relatively low cost of implementation. But, it does not give us the visuals of "docks". I get that Docks are really cool, I've been thinking about them since the 90s. But, at the moment, the best way of working around the various issues with Docks is by.. not having Docks.
- I don't personally see a lot of value in the whole "giant shielded docking zone" thing. I mean, the ships already have shields, we're adding more anti-capship weapons, so.. why not just attack the capship itself? What's the point of a whole other complex game mechanic?
- I am not excited about the notion of intentionally driving combat conflict to the immediate vicinity of stations. In fact, we're trying to get away from that (recent NFZ changes). If we have a lot of players in an area, just trying to trade and interact, having some kind of weird capship-attack thing going right in the same area doesn't seem.. helpful? Again, if it's in an "Anchorage" and is well away from the station, that could be possible (but it still might be better off in a separate "anchorage sector").
- Rendering performance is based on content complexity and density. Capships are very complex. Put a lot of them close together, and you have a high density of very-complex objects. Not including things like custom-liveries and such. This will slow people down, a lot. "Expandable" docks? Okay, now you have a much bigger problem, up to the "expansion limit".
- Rendering performance can be mitigated by having greatly reduced density. Like, having the capships all spread-out from one another, all over the place. Like.. in my "Anchorage" concept.
- Collision Detection is a pretty common thing that happens 15 times per second, to tell if you're hitting something. Without it, you fly through stuff. It uses a lot of different systems to speed up this process, like doing checks of escalating "precision" based on distance, dividing up "space" into regions of potential-collision, and so on. Ours system is quite fast, and is intended to scale to multi-player capship battles with very large numbers of players, and also high-complexity scenes (like dynamic debris fields, for instance).
- That being said, it doesn't mean we should be "trivial" in using resources for aesthetic enhancements. Stations have drastic potential for traffic escalation during higher player-concurrency loads. So, one has to be pretty cautious.
- Game designers, like all engineers, solve problems in large part by building towards the strengths of technology, and not towards the weaknesses. In other words, I design around challenges that I know are inherent issues. I don't mean "inherent" like something is wrong with our game or engine, I mean "inherent for all MMORPGs, ever, using any technology". It's why ships move kind of slowly, and why we have "wormhole areas" and not cool-looking jump-rings.
- Deneb is intended to be largely self-contained, like your Nation buys you replacement ships and the like. "Stockpiling" in Deneb is not important to me, and may cease to exist entirely. Making standing easier to recover for people in capships is not really a priority either. But, I don't consider either of those points important to this topic, I'm just making the note, because this is part of why I ask for "make examples of why we should implement your Suggestion".
- I'm totally fine with having a vulnerability-vs-convenience tradeoff that makes docking in "small" stations a bit less annoying. In fact, that's part of what my "Anchorage" concept is about, that I referenced in my previous post. It also leaves capships vulnerable, has a negligible impact on framerate and server-performance, and a relatively low cost of implementation. But, it does not give us the visuals of "docks". I get that Docks are really cool, I've been thinking about them since the 90s. But, at the moment, the best way of working around the various issues with Docks is by.. not having Docks.
- I don't personally see a lot of value in the whole "giant shielded docking zone" thing. I mean, the ships already have shields, we're adding more anti-capship weapons, so.. why not just attack the capship itself? What's the point of a whole other complex game mechanic?
- I am not excited about the notion of intentionally driving combat conflict to the immediate vicinity of stations. In fact, we're trying to get away from that (recent NFZ changes). If we have a lot of players in an area, just trying to trade and interact, having some kind of weird capship-attack thing going right in the same area doesn't seem.. helpful? Again, if it's in an "Anchorage" and is well away from the station, that could be possible (but it still might be better off in a separate "anchorage sector").
- I don't personally see a lot of value in the whole "giant shielded docking zone" thing. I mean, the ships already have shields, we're adding more anti-capship weapons, so.. why not just attack the capship itself? What's the point of a whole other complex game mechanic?
The shielded zone would be in place because the docked capships would have their shields powered down. And dropping a "mother" shield that protected a bunch of unshielded capships is easier than dropping individual capship shields.
- I am not excited about the notion of intentionally driving combat conflict to the immediate vicinity of stations. In fact, we're trying to get away from that (recent NFZ changes). If we have a lot of players in an area, just trying to trade and interact, having some kind of weird capship-attack thing going right in the same area doesn't seem.. helpful? Again, if it's in an "Anchorage" and is well away from the station, that could be possible (but it still might be better off in a separate "anchorage sector").
You mean other than conquerable stations, which obviously have had tons of conflict in the immediate vicinity of the station? I don't understand how you think having conflict at a border station is such a strange thing ("not helpful"), or why it wouldn't be cool. The point is not to be helpful to a particular class of gameplay style, but to add more interesting shit to do in this game. My proposal would only enable / draw conflict to border stations if a critical, large mass of players assembled and engaged, large enough to take on all the turrets and strike force, AND drop the shields, etc.... which right now is pretty damn unlikely. But the prospect of it (much like the prospect of killing a levi was for many years before it became a solo-able endeavor), that it might be possible if enough staged an attack, is pretty freakin cool.
Sounds like this isn't likely to happen for a variety of reasons, and that's fine. I appreciate your responses and the insight into the development process.
The shielded zone would be in place because the docked capships would have their shields powered down. And dropping a "mother" shield that protected a bunch of unshielded capships is easier than dropping individual capship shields.
- I am not excited about the notion of intentionally driving combat conflict to the immediate vicinity of stations. In fact, we're trying to get away from that (recent NFZ changes). If we have a lot of players in an area, just trying to trade and interact, having some kind of weird capship-attack thing going right in the same area doesn't seem.. helpful? Again, if it's in an "Anchorage" and is well away from the station, that could be possible (but it still might be better off in a separate "anchorage sector").
You mean other than conquerable stations, which obviously have had tons of conflict in the immediate vicinity of the station? I don't understand how you think having conflict at a border station is such a strange thing ("not helpful"), or why it wouldn't be cool. The point is not to be helpful to a particular class of gameplay style, but to add more interesting shit to do in this game. My proposal would only enable / draw conflict to border stations if a critical, large mass of players assembled and engaged, large enough to take on all the turrets and strike force, AND drop the shields, etc.... which right now is pretty damn unlikely. But the prospect of it (much like the prospect of killing a levi was for many years before it became a solo-able endeavor), that it might be possible if enough staged an attack, is pretty freakin cool.
Sounds like this isn't likely to happen for a variety of reasons, and that's fine. I appreciate your responses and the insight into the development process.
The shielded zone would be in place because the docked capships would have their shields powered down. And dropping a "mother" shield that protected a bunch of unshielded capships is easier than dropping individual capship shields.
So.. the advantage is that you can destroy a lot of capships "en masse"? Is that the point? You want to be able to destroy like 10 or 20 stored capships and not just one? (I'm honestly asking here).
What would be the potential gain from that?
You mean other than conquerable stations, which obviously have had tons of conflict in the immediate vicinity of the station?
Yes, as you say, that is obvious. Conquerable stations are not a part of the dynamic economy. There aren't convoys runnning to them in the same way, they don't carry missions that people are seeking out, they're really a completely special-case.
I don't understand how you think having conflict at a border station is such a strange thing ("not helpful"), or why it wouldn't be cool.
Well.. you want to make conflict-driven gameplay, that can happen at any time, in the immediate vicinity of stations in Nation Space (Initros being an example). I mean, the recent NFZ discussion has some related insight. The number of newbies who are flying around in Nation Space, and how they'll be limited to that region would be another.
It isn't that I think it's "strange" or that it wouldn't be "cool" in a particular sort of way, it's that it conflicts with much of the intended purpose of those stations, and comes with a lot of risks. That's what I mean by "not helpful".
Any time one type of gameplay causes several other kinds of gameplay to potentially stop functioning (like, people who want to complete a mission, or are trading), that has to be examined kind of carefully.
There are contexts where the tradeoff is reasonable.. like grayspace station conquest. But not Nation Space. Content that is that combatively chaotic and uncertain should not be tied directly to Nation Space stations.
The point is not to be helpful to a particular class of gameplay style, but to add more interesting shit to do in this game.
I don't have any problem with the idea of "cool" and fun "epic" goals for players to attack, and the like.
Just, don't stick them next to a station (and particularly not in Nation Space), and they'll be far more likely to get traction with me.
Sounds like this isn't likely to happen for a variety of reasons, and that's fine. I appreciate your responses and the insight into the development process.
Well, I am open to trying to solve some of the "goals" you raised, like making some middle-ground way of anchoring-off of a station. But, probably not with docks, at least for the time being (if ever, in quite the way you mentioned it).
As I said in the initial response, there is a prototype station with a "shipyard" in it, and some docked NPCs and such, but it was not intended for.. expandable player-usage, for instance (because I have a lot more control over the graphical impact of a small handful of ships). And, even was contingent on a new graphical feature that was not fully implemented and.. is still unproven.
Anyway, glad the responses were helpful, I am trying to give some insight. I've been blasted a bit this year for my lengthy responses.. so, I'm specifically happy you thought they added some value.
So.. the advantage is that you can destroy a lot of capships "en masse"? Is that the point? You want to be able to destroy like 10 or 20 stored capships and not just one? (I'm honestly asking here).
What would be the potential gain from that?
You mean other than conquerable stations, which obviously have had tons of conflict in the immediate vicinity of the station?
Yes, as you say, that is obvious. Conquerable stations are not a part of the dynamic economy. There aren't convoys runnning to them in the same way, they don't carry missions that people are seeking out, they're really a completely special-case.
I don't understand how you think having conflict at a border station is such a strange thing ("not helpful"), or why it wouldn't be cool.
Well.. you want to make conflict-driven gameplay, that can happen at any time, in the immediate vicinity of stations in Nation Space (Initros being an example). I mean, the recent NFZ discussion has some related insight. The number of newbies who are flying around in Nation Space, and how they'll be limited to that region would be another.
It isn't that I think it's "strange" or that it wouldn't be "cool" in a particular sort of way, it's that it conflicts with much of the intended purpose of those stations, and comes with a lot of risks. That's what I mean by "not helpful".
Any time one type of gameplay causes several other kinds of gameplay to potentially stop functioning (like, people who want to complete a mission, or are trading), that has to be examined kind of carefully.
There are contexts where the tradeoff is reasonable.. like grayspace station conquest. But not Nation Space. Content that is that combatively chaotic and uncertain should not be tied directly to Nation Space stations.
The point is not to be helpful to a particular class of gameplay style, but to add more interesting shit to do in this game.
I don't have any problem with the idea of "cool" and fun "epic" goals for players to attack, and the like.
Just, don't stick them next to a station (and particularly not in Nation Space), and they'll be far more likely to get traction with me.
Sounds like this isn't likely to happen for a variety of reasons, and that's fine. I appreciate your responses and the insight into the development process.
Well, I am open to trying to solve some of the "goals" you raised, like making some middle-ground way of anchoring-off of a station. But, probably not with docks, at least for the time being (if ever, in quite the way you mentioned it).
As I said in the initial response, there is a prototype station with a "shipyard" in it, and some docked NPCs and such, but it was not intended for.. expandable player-usage, for instance (because I have a lot more control over the graphical impact of a small handful of ships). And, even was contingent on a new graphical feature that was not fully implemented and.. is still unproven.
Anyway, glad the responses were helpful, I am trying to give some insight. I've been blasted a bit this year for my lengthy responses.. so, I'm specifically happy you thought they added some value.
did you both miss the simpler starting proposal I put above? to try a simpler conq station in deneb? even if it didnt have the external capship docks it could still have a capship dock? I like the stuff there being a free for all except nationalist ships. Those should require standing or considered stolen/kos by all factions outside of deneb if you leave deneb in one without standing. Or they could be lost every time station retaken.
Incarnate responded to this in depth above.