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Yeah, pirate hunting should be tied into the bounty hunter thing. That would make sense.
Yet, I still dislike loosing faction (Corvus) in grey space. Since you can't get it back when you no longer can dock in Corvus stations (for the guild missions), it's a screwy situation to begin hunting down those pirates and eventually be bared from ever crossing B8 or Latos again. It sucks for Itani CtC-ers. Or even PvP-ers. Sed b8 is where the population is for now.
Yet, I still dislike loosing faction (Corvus) in grey space. Since you can't get it back when you no longer can dock in Corvus stations (for the guild missions), it's a screwy situation to begin hunting down those pirates and eventually be bared from ever crossing B8 or Latos again. It sucks for Itani CtC-ers. Or even PvP-ers. Sed b8 is where the population is for now.
"...players on pirate missions will get rewarded for killing pirate-killers according to how many pirates the pirate-killers have killed."
Makes perfect sense to me!
Makes perfect sense to me!
Missions are currently borked, someone reset them please ^^
The convoys are not working, however there are over twenety missions at each station, a welcome change. The hive hunt is no existant right now, which is why I suggest lower the time for the respawn on the levi.
The convoys are not working, however there are over twenety missions at each station, a welcome change. The hive hunt is no existant right now, which is why I suggest lower the time for the respawn on the levi.
Reset. Looking into what went wrong.
I suggest that the frequency that the missions target the leviathans less often.
Well, at the moment, the Stronghold-targetted mission is posted as soon as the stronghold comes into existence, just like all the other HiveHunt missions. And I'm not sure it would make that much difference; the Levi never lasted long before the update either. I'll think about it, though. Any other suggestions for how to keep the Hive around more?
Well you should make a levi spawn as soon as one is dead... and make them go in ALL THE UNIVERSE, and make cap ships avaible ONLY in monitored space. that make more sense.
Maybe I'll do the immediate-respawn as a stopgap, Graig, but the long-term idea is that the factions in the area benefit from the absence of the Hive. As for spreading the Hive throughout the universe, that is coming soon. Also, I don't see why XangXi or other grey factions wouldn't have capships.
They probably shouldn't have the same Heavy Cruiser used by the various militaries. Obviously that's what you have to work with at the moment, but you might consider using a lesser or at least different model for the gray space corporations, when you get them. It doesn't ring true that they're all the same - but again, we know that at the moment that's what you've got.
I would suggest just making the levi tougher... add some wicked guns on the thing (maybe turrets that are only destroyed when the levi is)... and increase the hive spawn rate in empty sectors.
I've been thinking about the whole Hive issue and I've also been trying to watch the hive itself.
I think that there need to be more balance between the missions and the Hive itself. You built the Hive AI and set it up with rules to follow. Timing, how to grow and expand, stuff like that. Then after it was stable you put in the missions. What I think happend is that when you put in the hive in the first place is that you made it a set difficulty so a few people could play around with it. Now that you have the missions in place a lot more people are hunting the hive and creating more stress on the Hive system. I think that you need to increase ether the difficulty of killing just the Levi, the amount of defence in the sector, increase the respawn rate, or last, make the missions themselves harder. With the missions you could decrease the amount of npc help or increase how many hive bots you need to kill per mission. I think that the Levi hunt should be a group only mission as well and not be supported by any npcs.
In an odd way its a supply and demand issue. Hope this helps.
Stranger
I think that there need to be more balance between the missions and the Hive itself. You built the Hive AI and set it up with rules to follow. Timing, how to grow and expand, stuff like that. Then after it was stable you put in the missions. What I think happend is that when you put in the hive in the first place is that you made it a set difficulty so a few people could play around with it. Now that you have the missions in place a lot more people are hunting the hive and creating more stress on the Hive system. I think that you need to increase ether the difficulty of killing just the Levi, the amount of defence in the sector, increase the respawn rate, or last, make the missions themselves harder. With the missions you could decrease the amount of npc help or increase how many hive bots you need to kill per mission. I think that the Levi hunt should be a group only mission as well and not be supported by any npcs.
In an odd way its a supply and demand issue. Hope this helps.
Stranger
What about giving the Levi an asteroid shell (like the old ice crystal from sector 14, or giant hollow asteroid from s13) and some beam turrets? That may help its longevity.
I agree that there should be at least a couple hours downtime for the hive after the levi is killed, preferrably closer to 6 hours or so (what's the point in mounting a massive assault to take it out, otherwise?), but the Levi should then be that much more difficult to kill.
In fact it should be suicide to go after the Levi without sequentially taking down each and every bastion in the system first. So perhaps the more bastions there are remaining, the stronger the levi is (more turrets) and the more bots come to its aid when it falls under attack?
This kind of makes sense since the more bots the levi had deployed throughout the system, the more ore it would have at its disposal to maintain better weaponry/armor and the more aid it could call to itself in time of need. In fact it would be very cool if the Levi required actual shipments of ore to upgrade and maintain its weaponry and would call specific bots to its defense from various bastions. This could lead to tactics such as a diversionary strike on the leviathan to draw bots away from other bastions in order to let an important convoy pass through the system unhindered?
Also, the Hive missions could be ordered in this manner; i.e. they target the bastions first to strangle ore supply, and only when there is a strong probability of success for taking out the levi (say, when there are fewer than three bastions remaining, or when the levi has been weakened to a certain point) does the stronghold mission become available. This could make clearing out the hive a slightly longer, more involved process spanning dozens of missions.
I'm echoing some of Spellcast's suggestions from that other thread here of course...
I agree that there should be at least a couple hours downtime for the hive after the levi is killed, preferrably closer to 6 hours or so (what's the point in mounting a massive assault to take it out, otherwise?), but the Levi should then be that much more difficult to kill.
In fact it should be suicide to go after the Levi without sequentially taking down each and every bastion in the system first. So perhaps the more bastions there are remaining, the stronger the levi is (more turrets) and the more bots come to its aid when it falls under attack?
This kind of makes sense since the more bots the levi had deployed throughout the system, the more ore it would have at its disposal to maintain better weaponry/armor and the more aid it could call to itself in time of need. In fact it would be very cool if the Levi required actual shipments of ore to upgrade and maintain its weaponry and would call specific bots to its defense from various bastions. This could lead to tactics such as a diversionary strike on the leviathan to draw bots away from other bastions in order to let an important convoy pass through the system unhindered?
Also, the Hive missions could be ordered in this manner; i.e. they target the bastions first to strangle ore supply, and only when there is a strong probability of success for taking out the levi (say, when there are fewer than three bastions remaining, or when the levi has been weakened to a certain point) does the stronghold mission become available. This could make clearing out the hive a slightly longer, more involved process spanning dozens of missions.
I'm echoing some of Spellcast's suggestions from that other thread here of course...
Lots of excellent suggestions, most already planned, but I see some in a fresh light that might make them realizable more near-term. Thanks to all!
I'm not impressed with the current state of the pirates in grey space. They simply wait at wormholes and gank traders as they emerge with no time to defend, most moths are dead in 3 seconds flat. The pattern that they hold at the wormholes makes them too easy of a target for pirate hunters, they are simply rocket fodder. Could each group that is intended for a specific trade run mission be in a group in their own pattern instead of them all grouping up together? There is a reason that players don't do that, and pirates shouldn't either. Also they should not simply sit there, they should fly around, and take on ToO as well (ie. those with low corvus standing, etc.)
I also think there should be roaming squads of pirates that are simply out looking for anyone to pirate, not just spawned from a specific mission. Momerath has said in previous conversations with him in game that this would be fairly easy to do, so why not? They could hail you and request that you drop cargo or die, if you supply them with cargo they leave you be, collect the cargo and fly away. If you refuse and do not drop any cargo within a specific amount to time they engage and kill you and take any cargo you have. And, if you have a very low corvus standing they may simply kill you and take your cargo anyway, even after you drop your cargo.
Additionally, why do "pirates" not pick up cargo, they are more like mercenaries at the moment, killing, but not collecting. Each pirate group that is spawned for a trade route should have a complement of ships specific to the needs of the mission. So that if they are taking out a trader that has a moth, that the pirate group has the intercepter, bomber, and moth that can haul the cargo back to the pirate station. Plus any support ships they might need for protection themselves.
Pirates should also be competative with each other. This is why I think they should hold patterns per group, not just one big cluster-fuck. That way if one group sees a weaker group take out a transport, perhaps the larger pirate group takes the cargo from the smaller pirate group and returns the cargo to their home station instead. This would also help regulate the total number of pirates that are spawned at any given time.
I also think there should be roaming squads of pirates that are simply out looking for anyone to pirate, not just spawned from a specific mission. Momerath has said in previous conversations with him in game that this would be fairly easy to do, so why not? They could hail you and request that you drop cargo or die, if you supply them with cargo they leave you be, collect the cargo and fly away. If you refuse and do not drop any cargo within a specific amount to time they engage and kill you and take any cargo you have. And, if you have a very low corvus standing they may simply kill you and take your cargo anyway, even after you drop your cargo.
Additionally, why do "pirates" not pick up cargo, they are more like mercenaries at the moment, killing, but not collecting. Each pirate group that is spawned for a trade route should have a complement of ships specific to the needs of the mission. So that if they are taking out a trader that has a moth, that the pirate group has the intercepter, bomber, and moth that can haul the cargo back to the pirate station. Plus any support ships they might need for protection themselves.
Pirates should also be competative with each other. This is why I think they should hold patterns per group, not just one big cluster-fuck. That way if one group sees a weaker group take out a transport, perhaps the larger pirate group takes the cargo from the smaller pirate group and returns the cargo to their home station instead. This would also help regulate the total number of pirates that are spawned at any given time.
Er, it'd be nice if weapon realated trade good's prices went up when the levi was alive =D
It would also be nice if we could transport weapons as cargo.
Corvus bots don't respond to conc mines (other than being blown 100m away).
On the subject of keeping the Leviathan alive longer, I think anything done directly to the lev (more armor / weapons / etc.) is a waste of time. Instead, make it harder to get to the lev (and survive long enough to cause noticeable damage). As long as you can pick off all the bots around the lev easily, the lev will always be easy pickings (unless it has insta-kill weapons, which makes the game no fun).
If I gave you a stick and pointed at a bee hive and said "kill the queen", do you worry about the queen?
If I gave you a stick and pointed at a bee hive and said "kill the queen", do you worry about the queen?
Stronghold-targetted missions should probably not be posted untill someone has actually seen the stronghold and survived to tell about it...
So the location of all strongholds is unknown at first. If you warp into a sector with a stronghold you get the message "You've discovered a stronghold, report to the nearest station asap for a reward" and a datadisk (of 0 cargo space) spawns in your hold.
After you've brought the datadisk to a station you get a little reward for the scouting, and the stronghold mission gets posted.
If the stronghold goes long without being discovered a scout mission could be posted first: "Recent bot sightings suggest that there is a stronghold near sector x.y, go locate the stronghold and report of the number of bots present"
So the location of all strongholds is unknown at first. If you warp into a sector with a stronghold you get the message "You've discovered a stronghold, report to the nearest station asap for a reward" and a datadisk (of 0 cargo space) spawns in your hold.
After you've brought the datadisk to a station you get a little reward for the scouting, and the stronghold mission gets posted.
If the stronghold goes long without being discovered a scout mission could be posted first: "Recent bot sightings suggest that there is a stronghold near sector x.y, go locate the stronghold and report of the number of bots present"