Forums » Suggestions

Cowards! Cowards all!

Dec 13, 2004 softy2 link
Ok, that got your attention :).

CripplePidgeon brought up a point in his post that makes a lot of sense : it is too easy to get away from a fight. Turbo to 3000m and zoom, or even fight near WH and zoom. This is a problem for both nation battles and pirates.

My suggestion is to have some sort of "grav well" weapon that prevents ships from, say, 4000-5000m around the weapon from warping away and turboing. Make it very massive, say 3500kg, and requires an L port, and sucks energy like a mining beam. So the ship carrying it will not be doing much flying. Of course one can still run out of the range and warp, but this gives his/her opponents a chance to deal the final blow.

The idea is to encourage team play : pirates need to work in pairs or groups (which pirates of yore did : they usually pirate in fleets), one to carry the Grav well generator, and one to do the actual shooting. Nation combatants would need to bring in some kind of "heavy support ship" to carry that thing, and it may be strategically important to protect it etc.

Just my 2 creds.

[Edit] : Thinking a bit more, it might not work : faster ships will still outrun slower ships. But then, I suppose that's nothing one can do about that. Any other ideas?
Dec 13, 2004 wylfing link
This has been suggested in many forms, except that your idea adds the twist that it's a constant-fire L-port weapon, which prevents you from dogfighting effectively. This is a huge difference, because it offers a way around the two major problems created by the other suggested methods (such as turbo- and warp-stopping missiles):

(1) People need to have a non-zero chance of escaping predators. We're not talking about genuine pirates, we're talking about the KoS nerds who shoot buses just because they can.

(2) People need to have a non-zero chance of running a 1-man wormhole blockade.

The gravity generator helps with both of these by requiring multiple people working together -- and it is breakable by multiple people working against it.
Dec 13, 2004 Celebrim link
"Thinking a bit more, it might not work : faster ships will still outrun slower ships..."

Bingo.

"But then, I suppose that's nothing one can do about that. Any other ideas?"

Yes. I'm not sure how well they would work, but I can come up with several possibilities.

1) Fuel.
2) Longer delays between jumping.
3) Increased cost of turboing for fast/high acceleration ships.
4) Create PvP scenarios in which being forced to retreat is similar to losing.

I favor #2 and #3 in the short term, and adding #4 in the long term.

Also, alot of the problem is that the game isn't well balanced. All the best combat ships are also fast ships and generally speaking fast ships have no disadvantages compared to slower ships.

Ultimately though, if you want to 'pirate' you are going to have to be in a fast ship.
Dec 13, 2004 CrippledPidgeon link
The only problem with #4 is how do you police that? How can you tell that someone was "forced" to retreat? What if were damaged, was ambushed by a newbie, so I fire a missile at them, they run away at boost until the missile fuel runs out, in the mean time, I make my getaway. Does that mean we were both forced to retreat?
Dec 13, 2004 Celebrim link
CP: I think you aren't understanding where I'm going with that. I'm suggesting that there needs to be missions/events which are contests which promote PvP with a tangible reward and that abandoning the fight would be the same as losing to the other faction.

Think of CtF fights, only done in a more immersive faction.
Dec 13, 2004 johnhawl218 link
How do you create a mission that involves two people who have to fight. Do the two sides of the battle sign up together to initiate this pvp mission? Or is the second person an innocent victom? Elaborate please?
Dec 13, 2004 bobis2high link
I would make it more of a mine system. A MASSIVE Large port launcher, with MASSIVE ammo say max 2 or 3 and 7000 meter range. When you drop them they last 5-10 min and do not move, and they are large enough they could be shot relitivly easly.
Dec 13, 2004 Celebrim link
johnhawl218: There are several ways to do this.

1) We could create missions which have competing goals. For example, members of faction X could be given the goal 'Protect the listening posts in sector A-1 from destruction'. Meanwhile members of faction Y have the goal, 'Destroy the listening posts in sector A-1'.

2) We could create missions which negatively impact everyone in the opposing faction, indirectly encouraging members of that faction to disrupt the mission. For example, we could have a mission like 'Do 1,000,000 damage to gray station Bab5, to let your faction take control of it for 24 hours.'

3) We could directly encourage members of a faction to disrupt the missions of the opposing faction by rewarding them any time they destroyed someone engaged in a combat mission for the opposing faction. For example, you could get a bonus of 500XP for PKing an opponent currently involved in a combat mission.

4) We could allow mini-missions to be triggered based on events. A simple example would be that you encounter a member of the opposing faction of roughly your level, it might trigger and force you into a 'engage this target' mini-mission in which both you and the target gain a 500XP reward if you can either destroy the target or force them to leave the sector.
Dec 13, 2004 wylfing link
> 1) Fuel.
> 2) Longer delays between jumping.
> 3) Increased cost of turboing for fast/high acceleration ships.

Only #1 is a good idea, and this is already implemented in the game. (The fast charge battery breaks this functionality.)

Regarding competing mission objectives, though, I've posted in favor of that elsewhere. That would add a lot of depth to the game.
Dec 13, 2004 softy2 link
Hi,

I like (1), (2) and (3). In fact, I think (2) should be made such that jumping ships are not invulnerable (I think they are right now, at least the CTC transports are).

I am not sure I like (4). It seems kinda artificial to force people into battles. Beside people don't really care about "losing" : they just don't wanna die :).

I still think that we should try to focus on solutions that

(1) Emphasise Teamwork : it's a MULTIplayer game, so let's make it Multiplayer.
(2) Self-regulation : MMORPG is better than standalone games in the sense that with the correct ruleset, the game becomes self-governed.

I am glad to see people talking actively about this :).
Dec 13, 2004 Forum Moderator link
Players with faster connections and computers jump more quickly than those with slower ones (due to sector loading times). A pursuer could potentially initiate his jump after his prey began theirs and still end up in the next system ahead of their prey , killing them upon arrival. The invulnerability is necessary.
Dec 13, 2004 Celebrim link
"Only #1 is a good idea, and this is already implemented in the game."

1) If you don't think ideas #2 and #3 are good ideas, please explain why.
2) Fuel is most certainly not implemented in the game.
3) If you believe that the fast charge battery breaks the games design, why do you believe that #3 is a bad idea?
Dec 13, 2004 softy2 link
>Players with faster connections and computers jump more quickly than those with slower ones (due to sector loading times). A pursuer could potentially initiate his jump after his prey began theirs and still end up in the next system ahead of their prey , killing them upon arrival. The invulnerability is necessary.

But the loading does not take place during the phase where the camera cuts into the ship going into warp, it only happens after the cut-scene is over. What I mean is make the ship vulnerable during the time when the cut-scene is in progress, so trying to jump out to escape pursue means that you pay the price of being a sitting target for a few of seconds.

Jumping into a system (after the loading is done) you are right of course.
Dec 13, 2004 Spellcast link
hmmm, a very good point softy. while it wouldnt help with the in-system jumps, the WH jumps would become more dangerous at least.
Dec 13, 2004 Starfisher link
If you think wormhole ganking is bad now... wait for that to happen. Heh, it's fine when escaping pursuit, but when just merrily going on your way it would suck incredibly to watch your ship exit a wormhole to a hail of neut3s and have to watch it happen with literally no chance of escape.