Forums » Suggestions
EDIT warning extremely long post (ugh :()
Martin, was more thinking about an electronics slot at first though.
And seeing I prefer to hav emost of them on light ships (while you get for instance armorplatingslots or something else on the biogger version), you would not run into those problems of using swarms at point blank. Since we could have on the bigger ships special slots that render trackingdevices void (meaning you drop a swarm, it will just go on like a normal missile and NOT track. Meaning if you go out of its way, sideways or any other direction it will contuineou going into the way it was headed in stead of adjusting itself periodically). Seeing as it is possible to dodge swarms without turbo in the past for light ships although not that easy. And then we can always make sure that on light ships you can sorta dodge them while on heavy ships you can have countermeasures for them. Or countermeasures that for instance reduce the proximitydetonation of rockets, or that effect the autoaim from other ships. Naturally all requiring some sort of drainage or charge or factionhit or factionstanding or... some other non stated requirement.
The only idea behind it is to make running in general less problematic (as well for randomencounters as for pirates). So to press people to stay and fight or drop cargo or at least induce what I consider to be the real 'piratingbehaviour', namely valuing cargo above the kill since what good is a dead trader to the pirates moneytrunk (he who lives to see another day also lives to be pirated another day). And kind of puts in uncertainty. Will it work, yes no... Can I run, yes no... Since at the moment it has always been like: tab the infiniboost and off we go (and for us alphas turbotab and off we go).
The idea behind the ray was just to not make it dependable on a weaponslot (since a rocket needs in my eyes in roleplaying sense at least a big rockettube while an electronicsslot only requires a small place which can easilly influence for example the next shot fired.) Although you could make the same analogy for a rockettube. But just seemed more easy to do in terms of energy.
But like you stated, how to make it impossible to be used as ways of avoiding exploits, I do not know. Although you can always state that a requirement of such a electronicspart is the inability to mount any homer/mine-oriented weapon since it messes up your own controlls of that weapon. Which in effect would already be some kind of decrease in usefullness.
Same for the reduction in proximity and stuff, you could maybe for the upper stuff state that you can't mount any rockets due to rockets having a chance to explode in your hold effectively killing of your own ship :D.
Autoaimdeprovement aura, inability to use autoaim weapons yourselve since it just shuts off any autoaim installed in your ship. Example: install a gauss on your ship and the only thing you'll have is a gun with the rate of fire of a gauss and the damage but without its decent autoaim. Making this for instance used by tachyonusers or rocketusers that fear autoaim to much and fear the agt on the prom. Although still being vulnerable to the proximity of rockets or the tracking of homers and other seekingtypes of weapons.
But like I stated above, maybe this is to much work to put in and/or even infeasible. It is just an idea, which opens up to a lot of options :D. But which probably still have the problem of being exploitable.
cheers
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PS: naturally every type of electronics slot should be able to be recognized later on or just make the ship glow in a different colour. (remember when ships had the flag, and the ships glowing... in stead of it being white you could make it glow in yellow or red or any other type of colour...) as a starter. To not have to add for instance in the case of a radar some sort of radardevice or picture on the ship. Or you could just put a little picture behind the name with the basic ones after it.
If for example equipped with a radar it would show a radarsymbol behind the persons name (after targetting with next enemy or any other tagettingoption). This would be the easiest implementation on a short time.
PPS: I however agree that a universe filled with pirates is no fun, but at least it would help stop the mentaility of running after each fight since it might be the case that you are unable to flee because that guy has an anti runnersdevice... And finding a solution if it gets abused is seeing the responsiveness of the devs maybe worth of an attempt if not to timeabsorbent.
Martin, was more thinking about an electronics slot at first though.
And seeing I prefer to hav emost of them on light ships (while you get for instance armorplatingslots or something else on the biogger version), you would not run into those problems of using swarms at point blank. Since we could have on the bigger ships special slots that render trackingdevices void (meaning you drop a swarm, it will just go on like a normal missile and NOT track. Meaning if you go out of its way, sideways or any other direction it will contuineou going into the way it was headed in stead of adjusting itself periodically). Seeing as it is possible to dodge swarms without turbo in the past for light ships although not that easy. And then we can always make sure that on light ships you can sorta dodge them while on heavy ships you can have countermeasures for them. Or countermeasures that for instance reduce the proximitydetonation of rockets, or that effect the autoaim from other ships. Naturally all requiring some sort of drainage or charge or factionhit or factionstanding or... some other non stated requirement.
The only idea behind it is to make running in general less problematic (as well for randomencounters as for pirates). So to press people to stay and fight or drop cargo or at least induce what I consider to be the real 'piratingbehaviour', namely valuing cargo above the kill since what good is a dead trader to the pirates moneytrunk (he who lives to see another day also lives to be pirated another day). And kind of puts in uncertainty. Will it work, yes no... Can I run, yes no... Since at the moment it has always been like: tab the infiniboost and off we go (and for us alphas turbotab and off we go).
The idea behind the ray was just to not make it dependable on a weaponslot (since a rocket needs in my eyes in roleplaying sense at least a big rockettube while an electronicsslot only requires a small place which can easilly influence for example the next shot fired.) Although you could make the same analogy for a rockettube. But just seemed more easy to do in terms of energy.
But like you stated, how to make it impossible to be used as ways of avoiding exploits, I do not know. Although you can always state that a requirement of such a electronicspart is the inability to mount any homer/mine-oriented weapon since it messes up your own controlls of that weapon. Which in effect would already be some kind of decrease in usefullness.
Same for the reduction in proximity and stuff, you could maybe for the upper stuff state that you can't mount any rockets due to rockets having a chance to explode in your hold effectively killing of your own ship :D.
Autoaimdeprovement aura, inability to use autoaim weapons yourselve since it just shuts off any autoaim installed in your ship. Example: install a gauss on your ship and the only thing you'll have is a gun with the rate of fire of a gauss and the damage but without its decent autoaim. Making this for instance used by tachyonusers or rocketusers that fear autoaim to much and fear the agt on the prom. Although still being vulnerable to the proximity of rockets or the tracking of homers and other seekingtypes of weapons.
But like I stated above, maybe this is to much work to put in and/or even infeasible. It is just an idea, which opens up to a lot of options :D. But which probably still have the problem of being exploitable.
cheers
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PS: naturally every type of electronics slot should be able to be recognized later on or just make the ship glow in a different colour. (remember when ships had the flag, and the ships glowing... in stead of it being white you could make it glow in yellow or red or any other type of colour...) as a starter. To not have to add for instance in the case of a radar some sort of radardevice or picture on the ship. Or you could just put a little picture behind the name with the basic ones after it.
If for example equipped with a radar it would show a radarsymbol behind the persons name (after targetting with next enemy or any other tagettingoption). This would be the easiest implementation on a short time.
PPS: I however agree that a universe filled with pirates is no fun, but at least it would help stop the mentaility of running after each fight since it might be the case that you are unable to flee because that guy has an anti runnersdevice... And finding a solution if it gets abused is seeing the responsiveness of the devs maybe worth of an attempt if not to timeabsorbent.
This game is far from ready for things that effect opponents weapons to that degree. For instance, say you use the autoaim weapon on someone with a gauss and then go into reverse, now they have 0 chance of hitting you while you sit there launching (insert appropriatly annoying weapon here) at them with no chance of repercussions. Personally any "electronics" or "upgrades" should ONLY effect yourself at the current time, as there is not enough variance in the wepon/ship combos to make this anything more than something else to get nerfed. Perhaps later when there is more variety it shall be useful, but currently i think its a very bad idea. The only way I could see this being balanced at all is if there was a counterpart weapon that effected the high fire, low to no autoaim weapons in some way making them as substantially harder to use as the weapons that have good autoaim would be without autoaim. Most of the weapons with good autoaim have slow velocities, high energy usage, and weigh a ton. Removing thier autoaim makes them pretty worthless, especially in the heavier ships that cant track precisely enough to be very effective with little to no autoaim weapons.
should have stated that it reduced autoaim. Not nullify. Just like the prox one decreases proxrange not nullifies. And so you could say about the homerrepeller. And youll prolly have one that decreases damage with a small factor (like 1 -5% decrease depending on mkx), or rate of fire...
Since you are right, to open to abusal. But like I stated, maybe you are right, was just an idea after all.
But I keep the idea for the anti runner weapon. Since the inability to mount homers or mines stops the exploit that martin stated. Unless anybody knows another way as to not abuse tt for griefingpurposses?
cheers
Since you are right, to open to abusal. But like I stated, maybe you are right, was just an idea after all.
But I keep the idea for the anti runner weapon. Since the inability to mount homers or mines stops the exploit that martin stated. Unless anybody knows another way as to not abuse tt for griefingpurposses?
cheers
If you make the anti-turbo missile a large weapon port item...
1) not all pirate ships could mount one
2) it would reduce the firepower of the pirate significantly
A small-port countermeasure flare could provide some minimal protection against seekers. It would require some skill as you need to make sure your ship is outside of the splash damage range.
Heh.. another idea..
A rear-facing weapons port that you can fire while turboing. Only certain types of weapons would fit here... CMs, certain missiles, certain mines, basically stuff to harass people following you but nothing big enough to kill people outright.
Only certain ship variants would have one.. perhaps a cargo-hauler version of the atlas would have a rear-facing port while a mining version would have it in front.
1) not all pirate ships could mount one
2) it would reduce the firepower of the pirate significantly
A small-port countermeasure flare could provide some minimal protection against seekers. It would require some skill as you need to make sure your ship is outside of the splash damage range.
Heh.. another idea..
A rear-facing weapons port that you can fire while turboing. Only certain types of weapons would fit here... CMs, certain missiles, certain mines, basically stuff to harass people following you but nothing big enough to kill people outright.
Only certain ship variants would have one.. perhaps a cargo-hauler version of the atlas would have a rear-facing port while a mining version would have it in front.
There already are ships that have a front and rear fireing port, Hornet, if nothing else. And using mines is the most directly related weapon that goes with that port.
Good point about the letters of marque [privateer's permits] being basically a protection racket, as far as VO players' perspective would see it. In the real world, they were more, but I see your point. For a small nation, privateering helped create an informal fleet of mercenaries to make up for their lack of official naval vessels and crews. The downside was that it put arms and battle experience into the hands of men who weren't always answerable to the govt.
Anyway, since there are no wars, nor ends of wars [such as truces] among the nations of VO, I see why privateering wouldn't work. Oh well...
Anyway, since there are no wars, nor ends of wars [such as truces] among the nations of VO, I see why privateering wouldn't work. Oh well...
furious, it was not a large port weapon,
only equiping your ship with such a anti missile thingy made you unable to equip seekingtype of weapons or mines. Not meaning you are unable to use other large or small port weapons on it at the same time.
only equiping your ship with such a anti missile thingy made you unable to equip seekingtype of weapons or mines. Not meaning you are unable to use other large or small port weapons on it at the same time.
That was your suggestion, not mine.
My suggestion was to make a large-port anti-turbo missile. This reduces firepower but allows pirates to keep ships from running at will.
Ships would need to have the option to mount some sort countermeasure (would be useful against all seekers).
This approach would be the easiest to implement and would probably be easier to balance.
My suggestion was to make a large-port anti-turbo missile. This reduces firepower but allows pirates to keep ships from running at will.
Ships would need to have the option to mount some sort countermeasure (would be useful against all seekers).
This approach would be the easiest to implement and would probably be easier to balance.
ah k, thought you misunderstood my suggestion.
Problem with it is however as you stated is that the light ships will not be able to use it and it will make the life for pirates way more difficult, since if they can't mount a heavy or large port weapon at all, I don't really see that much threat coming from their ship. Imagine a warthog only coming after you with a sunflare or a gauss or a neut3. I'm sure traders(in a wraith for instance) will have it decently easy to kill the warthog, even if the wraith lacks the ability to boost. At least if they contained comparable pilots
the only way that it could be usefull is for groupcombat, but this then defies the renegade feel of pirating I had in mind, unless that was thge entire idea behind it?
However if you had to give up a small port weapon since most ships have more then 1, then it would be easier to keep it 'fair', although you'll still run into some of the same problems that martin stated. Reason why I came up with the elctronics thingy and the inability to mount these no chance at avoiding weapons without boost. Which would detract to much from the funfactor in the game. Since how much fun is it if you see a swarm getting launched at point blank and no amount of experience or any other skill will help you in avoiding it or at least decreasing its outputted damage (example: on swarms there was the technique of blowing the outer swarm to let it then blow the rest so you only took damage from 1 - 2 swarmrockets meaning a max of 1 - 2k damage, effectively reducing the power of swarms and using your armor to soak the damage and take on the agressor).
But you are right, your approach is the easiest, I only don't know how you would adress the problems I envisioned higher. So if you have an idea, please share.
cheers
PS: unless we go back to the past and nerf these weapons so they can't hit jack, or add some electornics gizmo inherent on pure traderships that decrease the effectivity of seekertype weapons drastically so that you can effectively (slightly easy) dodge swarms as you can on a light ship. But I do not know if anybody would want that.
Problem with it is however as you stated is that the light ships will not be able to use it and it will make the life for pirates way more difficult, since if they can't mount a heavy or large port weapon at all, I don't really see that much threat coming from their ship. Imagine a warthog only coming after you with a sunflare or a gauss or a neut3. I'm sure traders(in a wraith for instance) will have it decently easy to kill the warthog, even if the wraith lacks the ability to boost. At least if they contained comparable pilots
the only way that it could be usefull is for groupcombat, but this then defies the renegade feel of pirating I had in mind, unless that was thge entire idea behind it?
However if you had to give up a small port weapon since most ships have more then 1, then it would be easier to keep it 'fair', although you'll still run into some of the same problems that martin stated. Reason why I came up with the elctronics thingy and the inability to mount these no chance at avoiding weapons without boost. Which would detract to much from the funfactor in the game. Since how much fun is it if you see a swarm getting launched at point blank and no amount of experience or any other skill will help you in avoiding it or at least decreasing its outputted damage (example: on swarms there was the technique of blowing the outer swarm to let it then blow the rest so you only took damage from 1 - 2 swarmrockets meaning a max of 1 - 2k damage, effectively reducing the power of swarms and using your armor to soak the damage and take on the agressor).
But you are right, your approach is the easiest, I only don't know how you would adress the problems I envisioned higher. So if you have an idea, please share.
cheers
PS: unless we go back to the past and nerf these weapons so they can't hit jack, or add some electornics gizmo inherent on pure traderships that decrease the effectivity of seekertype weapons drastically so that you can effectively (slightly easy) dodge swarms as you can on a light ship. But I do not know if anybody would want that.
So lets go with the small weapons port idea for now...
Starting with martin's centaur vs. centaur scenario...
Pirate centaur: Turbo disruptor (S), Swarms (L) and something else
Trader centaur: Countermeasure (S), Swarms (L) or mines
Scenario 1: pirate disrupts trader and fires swarms. Trader fires countermeasures and blocks half of incoming missiles, survives. Fires his own swarms and starts running as the engines come back online.. (don't know about the numbers involved here). Pirate might disrupt again, but at least the trader has a chance now.
Scenario 2: pirate disrupts trader and starts mining around him. Trader fires CMs as the pirate starts mining, detonating the mines as the pirate deploys them, ouch! Trader makes a run for it as engines come online and deploys his own mines to cover his escape. Rinse, repeat.
Scenario 3: Trader fires swarms, pirate leaves and waits for swarms to come back and kill the trader. CMs again save the day or trader leaves when engines come back online....
I personally don't think anything short of a cap ship should be able to take out a centaur in a single shot. Sounds like the swarms to a bit too much damage to me, but I haven't seen their stats yet.
Do mines detonate each other if they are too close together?
Basically CMs as I see them should 1) become the primary target of any seeker in the area (sometimes), 2) should set off any proximity weapon when they get within the proximity.
The turbo disruptor should have a splash area as well, so if a pirate fires it off at point blank range they will disrupt themselves too. The period of disruption should be fairly short.... 30 seconds seems like a looong time when you are dodging fire.
By the way, nothing says pirates can't gang up on the traders...if they find that easier, well that's good. It encourages player interaction.
I could envision tactics where one lone pirate with a disruptor is lurking around a wormhole. When he finds a mark, he messages his group mates in the next sector. He disrupts the mark, and then the trader starts to panic when he notices the two other pirates jump in sector.
Traders would either start getting heavily armed ships or escorts when they go to greyspace.
Right now Greyspace is a joke. I flew through every system the other night in a bus and only tramshed bothered to kill me, and I think that was just out of principle. I was more in danger because I was too lazy to fly around ion storms. If I had a faster ship or better battery, even that wouldn't have been an issue. When I first got on the server everyone was warning me about flying there, but really, if you don't want to fight, you don't have to.
'
Now imagine some bots with turbo disruptors or CMs!
Starting with martin's centaur vs. centaur scenario...
Pirate centaur: Turbo disruptor (S), Swarms (L) and something else
Trader centaur: Countermeasure (S), Swarms (L) or mines
Scenario 1: pirate disrupts trader and fires swarms. Trader fires countermeasures and blocks half of incoming missiles, survives. Fires his own swarms and starts running as the engines come back online.. (don't know about the numbers involved here). Pirate might disrupt again, but at least the trader has a chance now.
Scenario 2: pirate disrupts trader and starts mining around him. Trader fires CMs as the pirate starts mining, detonating the mines as the pirate deploys them, ouch! Trader makes a run for it as engines come online and deploys his own mines to cover his escape. Rinse, repeat.
Scenario 3: Trader fires swarms, pirate leaves and waits for swarms to come back and kill the trader. CMs again save the day or trader leaves when engines come back online....
I personally don't think anything short of a cap ship should be able to take out a centaur in a single shot. Sounds like the swarms to a bit too much damage to me, but I haven't seen their stats yet.
Do mines detonate each other if they are too close together?
Basically CMs as I see them should 1) become the primary target of any seeker in the area (sometimes), 2) should set off any proximity weapon when they get within the proximity.
The turbo disruptor should have a splash area as well, so if a pirate fires it off at point blank range they will disrupt themselves too. The period of disruption should be fairly short.... 30 seconds seems like a looong time when you are dodging fire.
By the way, nothing says pirates can't gang up on the traders...if they find that easier, well that's good. It encourages player interaction.
I could envision tactics where one lone pirate with a disruptor is lurking around a wormhole. When he finds a mark, he messages his group mates in the next sector. He disrupts the mark, and then the trader starts to panic when he notices the two other pirates jump in sector.
Traders would either start getting heavily armed ships or escorts when they go to greyspace.
Right now Greyspace is a joke. I flew through every system the other night in a bus and only tramshed bothered to kill me, and I think that was just out of principle. I was more in danger because I was too lazy to fly around ion storms. If I had a faster ship or better battery, even that wouldn't have been an issue. When I first got on the server everyone was warning me about flying there, but really, if you don't want to fight, you don't have to.
'
Now imagine some bots with turbo disruptors or CMs!