Forums » Suggestions

Observer/fast travel ship

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Nov 13, 2005 mgl_mouser link
I believe I mentioned this before but couldn't find where.

I'm sick of overuse of the teleport home /explode "exploit". It's not a game exploit per say, but people exploit it for their own agendas.

When someone explodes (intentionally or not), the pilot's escape pod should be "salvaged" and brought back to nearest station. It'd actually be nice for some salvage force to arrive and pick-up the pod (one wich couldn't get picked up like regular crates, of course). But, pod or not, one should not be brought back to the other end of the galaxy in an instant. There's too much opportunity for abuse.

I'd like to have a super-fast observer/rapid transport ship instead. No CUs. Nearly no mass. Just, damn fast, along these lines:

Name: TPG Dart
TPG Dire-Assist Rapid Transporter
Armor: 100
Cargo Capacity: 0 cu
Weapons: None
Mass: 700
Length: 3 m
Thrust: 300 N
Max Speed: 70 m/s
Spin Torque: 2.00 Nm
Turbo Max Speed: 450 m/s
Turbo Energy: 80/sec

Ship design would be simple. A rocket and a seat belt.

Practical use: return home, race against transport (get ahead/change ship), long-range galaxy travel.

I can imagine it being used by even arbitrators too. A totally defense-less ship but so fast, not even rails can get at it.

It's low mass and zero cargo basically you can't use it as a weapon (ram a target/repeat).

It's low spin torque would also ensure it can't be use in combat. This thing is an arrow: fast, but no steering.
Nov 13, 2005 roguelazer link
Okay.
Nov 13, 2005 Harry Seldon link
Some conversation about escape pods here:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/10429
Respawning changes here:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/10466
And I'd rather see *slower* travel, as evidenced here:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11040
Nov 13, 2005 Shapenaji link
Haha, ramming that thing would be great :P

you get a wing of arrows to just boost into people...
Nov 13, 2005 Corbin Armond link
And if you could get good at hitting the wing bug point on cap ships with it...

Regardless I like the idea of the ship.
Nov 13, 2005 fooz2916 link
Rather than a small zippy ship with huge drain, I'd rather there be a huge ship with little drain (but still with light armor).

This thing has to be able to move extremely quickly across large expanses, but if it was really small, it'd be too hard to kill it in the Deneb Run. So make it the size of a moth, except it has really light, flimsy armor, and the entire ship is an engine.
Nov 13, 2005 icbm1987 link
cargo capacity: 1 cu

just for teh samo. :P
Nov 14, 2005 mgl_mouser link
Zero CU.

Precisely because the samoflange.
Nov 14, 2005 Renegade ++RIP++ link
Nov 14, 2005 Cunjo link
I see a number of problems with this, most notably:

1) high speed + low spin torque = unflyable ship. If you WANTED to use it as a weapon, this could be good, but we don't. if it's moving at 450 m/Sec (would it even be able to reach that, given 80 drain?), then you also want to be able to avoid that roid.

2) 100 armor? are you crazy? that thing would pop if you ran it into a cunk of floating bubblewraip. what if you got caught in an ion storm with threescore assault bots? what then? must make it AT LEAST 650 armor. (one neut hit)

3) 2 cu cargo. Tone down the thrust and a light ship like that would be ABSOLUTELY UNFLYABLE if it picked up a crate of XiRite, much less a crate of samo. There's absolutely no need to completely remove capcity to carry cargo.

PS. on the topic of the 'go home on pop' travel VS 'go to nearest station', there's a REASON you do the former. what if a tani-KOS player succumbs to the SF in the middle of Itani space? you think they will be able to get out again not given anything halfway decent to fly? (if anything at all)
Nov 14, 2005 Eldrad link
Cunjo the mass is less than 1/4th the mass of the next lightest ship and the spin torque is only 2/7ths therefore it would turn better than any other ship. Additionally given it's very low mass and high acceleration it probably would reach top speed with some batteries.
Nov 14, 2005 Lord Q link
Cunjo,

actualy that could be prety cool, having to "escape" if you are destroied behinde enemy lines. it may give a reason for people to fear the SF.

also it would be REALY cool, if you respawned onboard capitle ships if one is in the same sector. it would add a bit of realisam to the death system.
Nov 14, 2005 Spellcast link
PS. on the topic of the 'go home on pop' travel VS 'go to nearest station', there's a REASON you do the former. what if a tani-KOS player succumbs to the SF in the middle of Itani space?

then he ends up at the nearest known station he can legally home in, even if its 6 systems away.
Nov 14, 2005 exDragon link
What is with this common theme I see to make fast and light ship a little bit faster then middle and heavy weight ships but take a lot more energy proportionally. The escape ship should not have a boost drain over 50. Its a light weight ship after all. It doesn't take much energy to move it.

The battery for the regular ship can be the same batter for the escape ship.
Nov 14, 2005 Phaserlight link
I strongly agree with the premise of this thread, but I believe there's a much simpler solution.

Auto-return the player to the nearest dockable station upon death.
Nov 14, 2005 Lord Q link
while the ship is light it is also acceleration much faster and to a higher velocity than the hevier ships. and since kenetic enery is derived from velocity and mass, an increase in either would require a perportanate increas in the energy required to move the ship.

however i think the main reason people perpose higher drains for small ships is a general prefrence for keeping infiniboost ships in limited supply (the runners suck mentality)
Nov 14, 2005 Renegade ++RIP++ link
runners are only a problem while they can damage you. And if you don't add any weaponport to its build i hardly see the problem in having an item like this.
Nov 14, 2005 ananzi link
many months ago people suggested a 'mining scout' ship, similar to this but with a built in scanner.
Nov 15, 2005 Cunjo link
*points Ananzi to the Cent MK II*

you really don't need any better than that for mining recon...
Nov 15, 2005 ananzi link
cunjo and computers will only need 640k.

some asteroid chains are 40 kilometers long. at 200m/s thats 3.5 minutes just to travel from one end to the other. a 100/400 m/s ship would halve the time it takes just to travel from one end to the other let alone scan it.