Forums » Suggestions

Factionization

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Nov 28, 2004 Marksman link
A few of these things are in the "Already Suggested" thread, but are somewhat different than the previous ideas. The primary issue here is one that's been omniscient as of late, ships reflecting there factions. I know the Devs are trying to work out gameplay issues (which is an awesome thing), but some of the ideas here could coincide with that. Here are some of the issues:

=Hull=

-Itan- The backstory mentions shields. This has been suggested numerous times before, and will be again here. Suggestion: slowly recharging sheilds, weaker the larger the ship.

-Serco- The backstory mentions organic ships, and this could be implemented much like the Itani shields. A layer of hull (or increased hull) that slowly regrows itself, or "Auto Repairs" slowly every (#) jumps.

-Union of Independent Territories- With the Serco and Itani ships well-described in the backstory, it leaves the Nuetral Territories at somewhat of a grey area (no pun intended) as to how there hulls could compete with the Itani and Serco ones. Since it does mention them being the discoverers and key developers of the Xithricite Alloys, it could be feasable that their ships would have somewhat higher hulls than the other two factions, without loss of mass due to Xithricite's lightness. They also might be able to borrow technologies from the other two factions, but weaker variants of such. Different corporations could sell different makes of ships (to a greater extent that they already do).

=Engines=

Engines are soon to be implemented as upgradable/changeable in the next few updates, but here's a few suggestions as to how the factions would have theres set up.

-Itan-There ships in the backstory were built to be agile, as is shown with the valk. Wouldn't they're engine systems also be built with things such as better turning/acceleration? It would make for some interesting PvP if the Serco ever decided to invade Deneb.

-Serco-There ships in the backstory are big and brutal, yet somewhat agile. I could see they're engines a bit overclocked; higher maximum speed at a bit of a lower acceleration.

-Union of Independent Territories-There ships would more than likely be more balanced, as compared to other two factions. Being traders and holding they're own defensive role, pirates are more than likely the biggest issue they face. To deal with this, they're best bet would be to have ships that have both strong acceleration and maximum speeds, yet not to the extent of the Serco and Itani ships.

=Ships in Genera=

-Itan-As mentioned before, slightly smaller and agile would fit best with the way they're set up.

-Serco-Based on the Prometheus, big and brutal, not quite as agile, but powerful engines meant to pursue.

-UIT-Great defensive, utilitarian ships. Maybe even an extra slot on certain ones that counts as large but can only hold mining equipment. Balanced out.

-Corvus-Being the black market, Corvus should play a larger role in the game: supplyier to pirates. They should be able to sell all three of the nation ships (they only sell one) to people with high enough faction to them. Each of these ships (minus the marauder; corporation perk) would more than likely be downgraded in comparison to the Faction versions, but still well enough to elliviate an innocent trader of his cargo. Especially good if certain pirates begin to attack they're own faction after (if) friendly fire is implemented.
Nov 30, 2004 Kwick link
I like the idea of the Serco having biological armor.

Perhaps you have to feed it with Carbonic Ore or somesuch so that it can repair itself? I.E, 1 C.U of Carbonic in your hold is enough for a 15% repair.
Nov 30, 2004 Celebrim link
I agree with most of your suggestions, but I do have a few concerns.

"Itan- The backstory mentions shields. This has been suggested numerous times before, and will be again here. Suggestion: slowly recharging sheilds, weaker the larger the ship."

My main question here is, "Why?" I believe that the story exists to support the game play. I don't believe that the gameplay exists to support the story. What purpose do shields serve in the design? Specifically, why do you want shields to work like they do? Why have slowly recharging shields? Why have them weaker the larger the ship, as opposed to the other way around?

Isn't being large and generally speaking sluggish more than penalty enough?

To my mind, the only reason for having shields is to make big ships more interesting. Small agile fighters don't need shields. They can effectively 'shield' themselves just by dodging. It's the ships that can't dodge that most need shields and most need a defence against a single small agile opponenent. And, for those ships I can think of few things less interesting than shields which work as a battery of rechargable hull points.

I would assume not have shields at all except were they enhance gameplay. The best way I can think of for shields to enhance gameplay is by making them work like armor. That is, like the armor in Star Craft or GURPS or like hardness or damage resistance in D20. In otherwords, to give large ships the realistic advantages of armor, make the effect of armor be realistic. And the realistic effect of armor is that it makes you more or less completely invunerable to weapons below a certain size. A big battery of hull points cannot accomplish this. All it can accomplish is increase the tedium of dancing around scratching a big ship to death.

"Engines are soon to be implemented as upgradable/changeable in the next few updates, but here's a few suggestions as to how the factions would have theres set up."

They are? I thought that we had gotten away from the idea of interchangable engines? I thought it was by now well established that it was better for game balance and diversity to not have do it yourself engines because engines weren't something which it was easy to balance by any of the tools we have available. Unless we require engines to take up volume and consume fuel, I'd prefer we loose the changable engines. At most perhaps after we have a device slot, we might sacrifice a device slot for some sort of improvement in engine performance.

"Perhaps you have to feed it with Carbonic Ore or somesuch so that it can repair itself? I.E, 1 C.U of Carbonic in your hold is enough for a 15% repair."

I agree that self-repairing armor needs some sort of balancing cost involved.
Nov 30, 2004 johnhawl218 link
As I remember the backstory, the Itani "shield" was generated from the pilots energy. They are monks that have trained there body and mind together. Reasons why this would be good to have in game, simple, it enhances the roleplay aspect of the game, afterall this IS a RPG right? A way to make the balance and justify the shields would be to make the shield only last x amount of time per combat pilot license. As the pilot imporoves his/her skills they would be able to pilot and shield longer due to experience. I dont' see this shield as a strong one, just long enough to say… evade a pirate or shield from an opponent that has gotten behind you and your in a crossfire.

As for the Serco living armor (organic), I think you've already hit the nail on the head. You must maintain a level of food in your cargo hold for it to actively repair. If you run out you will either need to mine for more and sit in dead space, or, return to a station for repairs. This armor would still be the same value it has always been but has that cool, self-repair feature to it.

UIT ships… As I recall, the TPG (The Propeller Group) were the first corporation to develope space flight after the Itani left Terra II. As such, I would look to them to set the standard in UIT ship design. Since they are primarily traders and miners I would imagine that there vessels would reflect that more then any offencive/defencive model. Because the UIT (and other corps) are in close contact with all factions, including the corvos(pirate) factions, that they would be able to develope some offensive and defencive ships with tech from both major nations, but like you said in your original post Marksman, with less potential. Though, I would suspect that none in the UIT (and corps) would have spent the time to master the art of generating a shield from spirit.

That's my take on it as per the backstory. As for different engines and weapons slots, that's a different post altogether.

----
Just had a thought, if the Serco ships need food, what if you normally fed it feric or carbonic ore, which is good, but then started feeding it Xithricite, woudl the ships appearance change to reflex the new food matrix??
Nov 30, 2004 Celkan link
The fact is, Celebrim, if one were to analyse the backstory... Eilon would have lasted a hell of a lot longer had he been in a Valk than in his transport. He had to use *one* Energy Focus, with no outside help, to cover the entire multi-kilometer ship. Had he been in a Valkyrie or some smaller ship, he would have lasted much longer because he would have been able to distribute the same amount of energy over a smaller area. (More layers of shielding.)

Remembering that later in the text, it is mentioned that Itani pilots soon fly into skirmishes with two pilots in their fightercraft; one piloting the ship and manning the guns, and the other running the Energy Focus. With that setup, a properly trained team with a Focuser as skilled as Eilon or Oernon could easily last in battle over a day or two without needing to retreat for repairs.

If the EF ever is implemented, it would best be introduced (IMHO) when we have the ability to fly multi-piloted craft, such as capships and heavy bombers. For a single-pilot ship, one could assume a drain of perhaps 5-10 eu/second on top of whatever your weapons/engines are doing while it is on. On a multi-pilot ship, it would make sense if one player was actively running the Focus and nothing else. In that case, they would have a simulated battery (FP) and a drain of 5-10 second while it was on. When it was not on, their "FP" would recharge at a rate determined by perhaps another skill tree, or maybe (2*Combat + Light + Heavy).
Nov 30, 2004 Celebrim link
Celkan: As I hopefully made clear earlier, I don't give a @#$$ what the backstory is. I happen to have read the story, but as I said, the story should be a slave to the necessities of gameplay and not the other way around.

Let's assume you are correct and do our best to adhere to the rules set by the story. If I recall the text correctly, the Abbot's personal ship was 300m in length. Let's assume it has roughly the same proportions as a Valk (the Abbot is a man who appreciates aesthetics). The the surface area of the bubble enclosing it is about 400 times the surface area of the bubble enclosing a Valkyrie. Lets assume that an 'armor' type shield system is used. Are we to assume that (in the hands of an veteren pilot) the Valkyrie's shield is a form of armor that renders it immune to weapons that do less than say 240,000 damage? On the other hand, if we assume that its some sort of regenerating shield, or we to assume that such a shield when placed around a ship should absorb hours worth of damage? (Remember, the Abbot held off the attack of 29 warships for almost a half-hour.) Do you really want to see a Valkyrie with a shield capable of sustain over 1,000,000 damage just because some story might imply such a thing?

No, of course not. Instead, we are going to figure out what is balancing and interesting in the game and then invent the story describing whatever game play rules we've come up with to describe that. One obvious thing we are going to assume is that the abbots tremendous mythic feat is something which beyond the skill of any PC by several orders of magnitude.

"On a multi-pilot ship, it would make sense if one player was actively running the Focus and nothing else."

That would make sense? THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE??? While that might make perfect sense FOR THE STORY, who the heck wants to do nothing while pretending to power a shield with their mental energy. That doesn't sound like such a fun job to me. How about it, does that sound like a fun game to you?

While we are on the subject, people beat me up pretty badly (on several occassions) for daring to suggest we should have something like a skill tree, even though my skill tree had only the slightest impact on combat. And yet, just because the story implies it, you are willing to see Vendetta's lovely player skill based system completely dashed in order to provide for Itani monks using energy focuses to absorb ten's of thousands of points of damage?
Nov 30, 2004 Marksman link
Ack!

*fans out the flames*

Just suggestions here folks... and if they ever really DID implement shields, wouldn't things like ion beams harm them more than normal? I wasn't talking about shields being an "Almighty invulerable protection."

The Abbot was supposed to have one of the most powerful minds in Itani history, and last time I checked noone in the game has the title.

Shields in my eye would just add an extra few hitpoints (as would the organic 'shell'), recharging over time (LONG time) and succeptable to some damage more than others. As I see it, sheilds would be rather thin.

You could also implement the shield into an itani-only thing to use as a tertiary-fire item, which saps your energy like crazy. Maybe even enough not to shoot.

Celebrim: you seemed ok with the idea of balanceing the organic hulls, why not suggest a way to balance shields? All of my suggestions are trying to make the game be more factionated, thus UIT would have good ships, Serco organic ones, and Itani mind-powered sheilds. I NEVER said they would be inpenetrable.
Nov 30, 2004 johnhawl218 link
Celebrim, the fact that you do not care about the back story is fine, BUT, the devs are the ones that made the story and they should stick with it. Sure the shields are powerful, in the hands of a powerful man, I do believe that a much less powerful version, if implemented correctly could add a lot in the realm of roleplay that this game is lacking. I understand also that you wish for this game to be based on the skill level of the player him/her self but not everyone is as dexterous as the next and will never reach certain levels of play, should they be left in the dirt if its JUST A GAME. Who wants to constantly be killed by some guy who's wayyyy better then them??? Little things like skill trees helps to even the playing field a bit and make the game more enjoyable for those less skilled but just as interested in the game as you. This is not a flame just an opinion. Suggest as you like, I think you're just being a bit supercritical about all this.
Nov 30, 2004 Celebrim link
"I wasn't talking about shields being an "Almighty invulerable protection."

I know you didn't. Most of what you suggested seemed reasonable and well thought out. The only thing I really strongly objected to was the idea that shields should be better the smaller the ship.

"you seemed ok with the idea of balanceing the organic hulls, why not suggest a way to balance shields?"

First, any shield system would have to get better the larger the ship. If small fast manueverable ships were given superior shields on top of thier other advantages, why would you use anything else?

So long as that basic rule is followed, there are probably about ten different shield systems you could some up with that could be balanced. I like the 'armor' version simply because I think it makes for the most interesting sorts of tradeoffs. My opinion is having a shield as a big reserve of hull points doesn't do alot for the game that couldn't be done much easier by just increasing the hull points of ships.
Nov 30, 2004 Celebrim link
"I do believe that a much less powerful version, if implemented correctly could add a lot in the realm of roleplay that this game is lacking."

I don't see how. Perhaps you could explain to me what this correct implementation is, because I confess that its beyond my powers of imagination.

I don't think its a very good idea to be increasing roleplay at the expense of gameplay.

"Little things like skill trees helps to even the playing field a bit and make the game more enjoyable for those less skilled but just as interested in the game as you."

You're preaching to the choir man. No need to convince me. But, as big of a proponent of skill trees as I have been, even I don't think that anyone should have a skill that lets them do what Eilon did.
Nov 30, 2004 Marksman link
"You're preaching to the choir man. No need to convince me. But, as big of a proponent of skill trees as I have been, even I don't think that anyone should have a skill that lets them do what Eilon did."

And noone said anyone should. Sheilds would probably work a lot like the organic hulls, they wouldn't be... "Über."
Nov 30, 2004 CrippledPidgeon link
My main gripe is: do the Itani need ANOTHER unfair advantage over the Serco?
Nov 30, 2004 Celebrim link
Nov 30, 2004 Marksman link
The sheilds would be weak as heck and the serco would get organic hulls. Those balance eachother out.

Your armor plating idea would definetly be a nice touch, Celebrim, as for how said organic hull would fit into that system very nicely. So would the shields for Itani, theoretically. Xith plating for UIT too...

Anyways, please... no more flaming in this thread!
Dec 01, 2004 Celebrim link
Ok, I still support my shield system design, but I've been doing some thinking about it and I've got a suggestion for those people that really care about the RP aspect of 'Energy Foci'.

Add a new advanced skill/license that is only available to Itani and only after achieving some relatively high skill/license level and only after completely some difficult 'monk' mission(s) series.

'Contemplation' - You are skilled at focusing the mental energy of your mind and can with the right equipment use your psionic energy to produce power for your ship. For each level of Contemplation you have, the cost of powering shields on your ship is reduced by 5 energy units.

Obviously, the number is somewhat tossed out of the air and assumes certain things about licenses and shields, but you get the idea. Equally obviously, the other two factions will need some sort of unique faction specific skill, and just at the moment I have no idea what those would be.
Dec 01, 2004 johnhawl218 link
to add to Celebrim's new idea, perhaps a license for serco only that is the equivilant to the force shield license, but instead, it's a man/machine interface skill that gives them the ability to have their ships react faster do to the machinery that they enhance their bodies with. This would also even out the agility of the prome vs. the valk.
Dec 01, 2004 Celebrim link
Hmmm... johnhawl218's idea is good, but it gives me an idea I like even better, but it would require a more robust skill system than what we have now.
Dec 01, 2004 Marksman link
All great ideas!

I took the time to read your prior post Celebrim... the one on Armor slots. I love the idea, but have a few quetions and opinions on it.

1.) How would mass affect a ship with the extremely large amounts of plating?

2.) (*plug!*) Do you think the idea of an organic hull system would fit in said 'armor slots?'

3.) Would this be for Serco only or all of the factions?

4.) [ignore if said yes to #3] If only Serco, how would it balance for the other factions? Sheilds would be the cheap ticket for Itan, but what of the UIT?

5.) [opinion] The Skycommand Prom would more than likely have the largest amount of these armor slots; ne's pas?

6.)[fact] You CAN take an MBT out with a 7.62mm round, albeit an armor peircing one. Much harder depending on the version/ engine position on a tank, much easier on what say a T-80 than an M1A2 Abrams. Snipers equipped with the Remington M-24 Sniper Weapons System (SWS) were able to take out the aged T-72's in the first gulf war, though most of the accounts of this were done with the Barrett M-82 Anti-vehicular SWS... ^_^

7.) A new skill tree would be fairly hard to place into the game, with my original suggestions I was only trying to fit in with the one we have now.
Dec 01, 2004 Celebrim link
"1.) How would mass affect a ship with the extremely large amounts of plating?"

The original system predates components having mass. I would probably give armor plates a token ammount of mass, as I tend to think that most of the components are too heavy as it is (though upcoming changes in the total mass/thrust of some ships may fix that).

It would be possible to develop a system that let you put as much armor as you wanted on a ship with the trade off being mass, but full customization is a dangerous thing if not done carefully.

2) Since the organic hull repairs hull points, it seems to me that it has more to do with hulls than armor. I'd make Serco only variants of several ships which had the regeneration feature.

3) This is for all faction, although at first Serco would be the main benificiary. I never really intended armor to play a key role in fighter combat. I came up with the idea of armor after realizing that ship's like the Centaur could never really be balanced against ships like the Valk, and that therefore even combat type ships larger than the Centaur (which by no means should stay the biggest ship forever) would need extra advantages. Armor was intended to be one of those advantages. Initially, the Prom and the Serco vulture would get two armor slots. All the other 'armored' variants would get one slot. Everything else would be unarmored.

As bigger vessels would be introduced, they would be given armor slots corresponding to thier size and balance needs.

4) Ignoring except to say that other factions would have slight advantages in other areas.

5) That is basically the intention. Obviously though, its intended that there would be eventually attack craft, gunships, partrol boats, corvettes, frigates, etc. and these would carry ever heavier armor plating. Serco would always have a slight advantage in this regard though.

6) Ok, sure. But the point still stands. The front armor can take any number of hits from a 7.62mm round, or heck probably a 37mm round. The tank (unlike what I'm suggesting here) has different ammounts of armor on different 'facings'.

7) I'd thought of that. No point in going into that here, but I think it could be done with a little fudging.
Dec 02, 2004 mburrack link
Just to address a point that was kinda missed in the first post:

> Since it does mention them being the discoverers and key
> developers of the Xithricite Alloys, it could be feasable that
> their ships would have somewhat higher hulls than the other
> two factions, without loss of mass due to Xithricite's
> lightness

Considering Celebrim's suggestion of an Itani EF "skill", which seems to both fit with the backstory *and* make gameplay more varied between the factions (a good thing, imho), that would leave the Serco and the UIT for "armor/hull types".

Serco could have hull widgets that are organic in nature and feed off of the cargo hold, as stated earlier. (Here's an evil thought, too: what if they fed off of *anything* in the cargo hold? Carrying CTC cargo back, get shot, and watch your armor eat away your cargo! Haha! but anyway)

In the backstory, not only did the UIT discover Xithricite, but they were the first ones to make armor out of it, eventually propagating to the Itani and the Serco. So what if the UIT hull widgets were Xithritic in nature, did not self-repair (only repairable at a station) but had near-zero mass compared to the Serco armor? Thus giving a trade-off compared to the Serco method.

Then, the Serco and UIT widgets could be bought using the same rules as the faction-specific ships: only if you have good standing with that faction. Sure, you could *buy* organic armor and put it in your UIT ship, but you'd have to have good standing with the Serco to do it.

Just some random thoughts of mine to throw into the mix :)

--mcn