Well, if we can't craft lighter ships, perhaps crafting larger ships will allow a bit of design.

So that, people get to start off with a design (certain things can vary), and then that design requires certain parts.

Can we replace the emu with an ostrich? those don't fly!

Sarahanne! Just use the Hoverboy Mk IV! for the capn's chair!
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Actually, I would not mind seeing a level requirement that's pretty high for these ships - like a total combined levels of 50?

5 longstanding members can easily get that.

Take [SCAR] for example.
A-Dawg 12/13/12/12/9
Mecha 10/10/10/12/8
Dr. Lecter 12/14/13/13/11
Zoras 10/10/10/10/5
Cunjo 12/12/12/11/7
Combined: 56/59/57/58/30

A guild could easily make that. It would also necessitate being in a guild to have a Cappie though.

Yeah, but it forces you to join forces to do it. I'm never joining a guild again, so will I never experience owning a cap ship? I hope I will.

Besides, with the few number of players currently in game, and the fact that the TPG cap ship doesnt have a docking bay means individuals will have to be able to own them.

Emus can't fly either.

> Yeah, but it forces you to join forces to do it. I'm never joining a guild again, so
> will I never experience owning a cap ship? I hope I will.

This is my main concern, too. I do think they should require high license levels, like maybe 20 or higher, but I also think they should be obtainable by individual players. Which means we need more high-level missions that give larger XP rewards, so that level 20 is attainable.

> Besides, with the few number of players currently in game, and the fact that the TPG
> cap ship doesnt have a docking bay means individuals will have to be able to own them.

Maybe, maybe not. It's possible multiple characters would board the cap ship while it's at a station. Even for cap ships that do have docking bays, I consider the ability for characters to board without docking a necessity: only a finite number of ships can be docked w/ a cap ship, and if every crewmember who's manning a turret takes up a docking splot, then that means there has to be fewer characters flying fighters out of the cap ship.

I really do think that part of the cost of a large, multi-player ship should be to bring the components to the station. That would make the ship even more precious because you've spent hours working towards getting the ship. I hope you cry when your capship gets its 1st scratch on the paint job.

I do wonder how many people are needed to run a successful capship. It should also require that at least 3 players are in the ship before it can launch from the docking moor at the home station. While one person could own a ship, how would they run all the features? If these capships are larger shouldn't they require a navigator, weapons officer, science officer, captain and a few yeoman to bring you important things to sign and freshen your drink? As an individual how would you fire more than one set of weapons? Learn to use joysticks with your feet?

Crew need not necessarily be player characters, NPCs should be able to fulfil all the same roles a player character can, although not as well, as they are only artificially intelligent. I'd prefer to have players crew my cappy, but I don't want to be locked out of it just because none of my guild-mates are on at the same time.

Beolach you may not have noticed but [IA]'s no longer active. You are of course welcome in [Itan].

:)

I'm always willing to crew a capship with you! Promises to be lots of fun.

I also feel that NPCs should be able to handle player functions. Perhaps you are required to hire a crew and pay them weekly. In terms of weapons, I would prefer an AI over a player. The AI turrets have proven far more accurate than players, and if I had to choose, I'd pick the AI. My thoughts on this are here:

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/12103

As far as requiring players to launch, I ask, why? The AI has proven that it can fly them without players. What would be the point? Crewman? How many real players want to sit in engineering and make sure blah blah is working? The only reason to have players other than the pilot on board is to work the weapons, and that should be an option, but you should also have the option to use the AI.

Requring players makes capital chips a social event. It would encourage the MM part of the MMORPG. You would have to find other players to fly with you if you wanted to use the ship. I don't get on VO much but I find it more fun to play with others than by myself.

Sarah, agreed.

But, lacking said players, someone's going to spend all day trying to find players to fill up slots, and then (having found everyone who wants to pvp), sit there and wait for some poor bastard doing trading runs and blast him over and over.

They'll all be thoroughly bored.

We just don't have the players to warrant a good reason not to have Player buyable AI.

I'm all for capital ships being ownable by individuals, up to a point.

To me some ships (something the size of a HAC for example) should be so expensive in terms of money, components needed, and levels that no single player will EVER realistically be able to get one on his own.

On the other hand I can certaintly see something of more moderate size (say the trident or the TPG cappy) being ownable by a single player, however the req's should be prohibitive enough that not everyone will be able to get them the month they start playing.

On a related note I'd like to see capital ships have an interface something like the houses in ultima online, where the owner can set permissions for other people.

lastly i'm gonna plug a post i made about a potential system for a mission tree for capital ships:

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11520#136830

I'd like to see some ships that are available only to the loyal, dedicated players who have 3, 6 or 12 month subscriptions or have been playing for months and months (I do recall some saying they did a month to month subscription to max the money to guild)

Maybe they should get access to a varient of the Trident and other ships if they have the proper levels.

I think it should be more level oriented.
Let's not fuel the Elitist attitude.

its not about elitism boxcar, its called rewarding your loyal customers.

You will note that she specifically mentioned variants that would become availible with the appropriate levels for length of play.

There is nothing in-appropriate about some form of "thank you" to people who have stuck with you for a long period of time. As long as the variants werent significantly stronger than the regular versions, would it matter. maybe it could be as simple as a slightly larger cargo hold.

i think that the whole AI vs PC controle for capitle ships sub systems will be decided by how much controle the captain has over AI and PC players. for example if i can order all my turrets to fire on a specific target, and the AI will un varingly obey that order no mater what, than player conrtroled turrets may be good or bad (because a player could do something stupid like start firing on a cent they saw out of the corner of their eye rather than the incomming avalons, but also that same abilikty to chose targets could be usefull if the player shot down an incoming avalon instead of the cent you told them to destroy.

anyway while i think prety much any position should be fillable by PCs i'd also like AIs to be available as well, after all gettinf enough people to fully man a HAC is a signifigant undertaking, and if these things are going to be excessively expencive running a skelitan crew is just stupid.

anyway i was thinking along the lines of level 10 combat being the requiernment to take a series of cap-ship traaining missions that raise your captain's lisesnce level, then that level determins what sort of capitle ships/equipment you can buy (and posable what sort of AI you can hire)

well if these capitol thing-a-ma-bobs end up being guild propeties only as the should be then i dont think there will be any worry on players needed to fly the darn thing. means guilds will have to get off their rumps and actually do something!