I know most players would rather have storms removed from the game, but I figured instead of just getting annoyed with them I'd help out with some thoughts on how they could effectively create situations for PVP, which was their original intention.

I would suggest two different types of storms.

The first type would replace what we have now:

* If your course takes you through a storm sector you are pulled in.
* The storm exit point has to be the same for anyone who gets pulled in, in order to make them useful for pirates.
* Bots should leave storm sectors when the storm starts, I actually have some creative logic behind this, so bear with me...

The storms effect the bots' systems, so obviously they would try to leave if a storm started, but since the storm effects their systems a few bots (2-3) would get "stuck" in the storm.
The ideal way this would work is that certain bots would be spawned in the storm sector depending on the levels of the player who jumped in. This basically turns a storm into a mission, and unlike the current combat missions, it will have a sense of accomplishment because when all the bots are destroyed they don't respawn.
I'd suggest a good bonus for clearing the storm of bots. at least 1000exp for combat and light/heavy weapons depending on the weapon used.
Now since I'm unsure of what's entailed in making that bot spawning possible, an alternative could be to just choose bots that are common for that system, meaning that the noob systems would still have easy enough bots for those in buses to handle.

I originally thought that disabling turbo would be a good idea in the storms, because it would pretty much force the players to fight, but if the experience bonus is high enough that should be incentive, and with this new engine system being released my opinion may be different. Just thought i'd let you guys in on my train of thought. :D

So storm type number two would be a new (very rare!) storm type:
* This storm will pull anyone who activates their jump engine in the entire system into one sector.
* There will be no exit point.
* No standing penalties are enforced in these storms.
* Friendly fire is turned on.

I think it should last about 5 minutes, and the only way out is death or to be the last player standing. They should only happen in grey space, and again should be VERY rare.

Now if that doesn't spawn some PVP nothing will.
-Cam-

hehe sure I think it'd be interesting. Then again don't forget that the reason players "jump" is to actually get somewhere. Make this storm happen only when CTC is not happening and it'd be a good idea.

/givemoney Devs 2c

I like storm idea #1. Right now ion storm sectors are wasted space. Number of pirates: zero. Number of people who stick around to fight the bots: zero.

I do not like storm idea #2. Involuntary cage matches would not be very fun, mainly because they're involuntary.

i'd like to piggy-back an idea in this thread: i'm not exactly sure how the storms work, but if it's possible, i'd like to know where pre-discovered ion storms are on my nav-map. this way i can avoid them once they've been discovered

test1, you can pretty much avoid the storms by warping on the edge sectors instead of going straight across from point A to B.

It doesn't guarantee you will never hit a storm and it makes the auto-nav course plotting useless, but if you hate storms that much, give it a try.