So, I recently ran into fellow at Sedina D-14, followed him up into yellow space, demanded he pay me a nominal fee (100,000 credits) and when he refused to pay with the terrible excuse "I don't have that much" proceeded to dodge his swarms and make him one with the nebula. Now, to my horror he revealed that he was actually a newb, and still on his trial account! Naturally he proceeded to guilt me, but I was genuinely stumped how someone could make it to Sedina, outfit his Centaur with swarms, and no less doing this on a mission, without understanding that grey space is dangerous! There's pirates here. Truth be told I don't have any pity for people handing around Corvus stations, but where's the section in the tutorial explaining that Sedina is scary?

LOL. I really don't see the humor in continually impersonating a n00blet just to do so, but... Meh.

Fact is, if you see someone in grayspace, they are fair game. Shoot 'em. unless you fear the repurcussions for doing so.

I mention it a couple of times in parts of the tutorial, but not specifically enough. I've been planning an advanced "learn to navigate" tutorial, which will go through wormhole usage and so on, so I guess I'll have to put information in there. Of course, there's still nothing requiring the user to TAKE said mission, or READ said text, or even believe it if they do.

I'm thinking of not letting them out of their capitol sectors for a little while. Maybe level 2 or something? But then, if this guy had a centaur and swarms he was fairly advanced. I dunno, maybe there should be a big neon sign at the wormholes that says "ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE".

Well, perhaps a message bouy that lets you know you are now leaving protected space would work.

I like the neon sign better. with flames. and a pitchfork.

But seriously, yeah, a bouy or something would be a good idea.

might be a nice addition to leave a bunch of ship carcasses in there, like a floating debrie field. some rotating like roid fields.

I like that upper case. Would give the impression of "you're gonna die if you continue this way".

Even better, how about have # of carcasses depended on how many ships have been killed in the sector recently. This way you would know a sector is currently active and dangerous if there is lots of ship debris floating around :)

I like to see an increasing amount of ship wrecks and debries one could encounter as you enter deeper and deeper into gray space. nice idea.

M. Duncan

Another quick point. Currently, sectors of high piracy and Player Killers usually have a high number of cargo crates floating around, further encouraging n00bs to go to those sectors.

Pirate: DIE TRADERS!!!!!!!!
Traders dead, big explostion, lots of cargo dropped.
Pirate: I'm going to get take the booty back to station and make profits..... (leaves sector with some cargo).
n00blet (foolishly stubbles upon sector): Goody treats, I'll spend lots of time here :)
Pirate (returns for more booty): n00blet.... DIE!!!!!!!!!!!! (kills n00blet).
n00blet: no fair, I'm only a lvl 0 :(
Pirate: Stay out of grey space then.
n00blet: no way, that's where I find my super l33t weaponz.
Pirate: DIE n00by!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
n00blet: no fair, I'm only a lvl 0 :(

Heh... that's the best way to bait the lil' suckers. And then you approach in that non-threatening looking EC-107...

Muwahahahaha.

BTW, the ship wreckage would be teh awesome. Start with a few dozen of those flaming chunks o' capship that usually vanish fast. Add some drifting caps and HACs. Oooohhh yeah, gettin' creepy here. And if you're gonna waste time on that fog crap? Blanket the Latos O-12 and Pelatus south WHs in it... give it an evil red glow.

[Teh Edit] New music... fuckin' scary music. That's it, done. [/Teh Edit]

With ghosts and stuff that would randomly fly across your view. Wait, that was just a cloud of Xith dust... or was it!?

This is one of the best ideas yet to give this game atmosphere (though variations have been suggested before). Too much at this point would cause a lot of lag I think, but some of it is doable, and doable right now.

Take each cap ship and maybe a couple small ones, and modify the model and graphics so it looks dead. In a sector, just set it up like a station you can't dock with, or a 'roid, but it looks like a HAC with a big chunk missing and huge burn marks and a few holes in it. It would only be eye-candy, but important eye-candy. The main feature of the sector would be one or two dead HACs or other cap ship, plus two or three dead smaller ships and several bits of indistinguishable wreckage. If this is all that's in a sector (other than maybe asteroids) it shouldn't lag too much.

The message buoy is a perfect (and probably easily implemented) idea, only at wormhole sectors, though. Make it so you can't miss it, and newbs have no reason to complain. They still will, though.

Instead of music in the dead sectors, just creepy ambient noises.... the kind you're likely to hear in vacuum.

Instead of music in the dead sectors, just creepy ambient noises.... the kind you're likely to hear in vacuum.

Well, you're not likely to hear ANYTHING in a vacuum, but I do get your point that greyspace should sound dangerous. Lemme work up some ambiences...

One of the things that really bothers me is the look of cargo. Here I am playing this neat space game, except for these arcade looking cargo things. Scrap metal and weapon drops should look like a piece of a ship. It could be on fire or have static electricity (like the lightning mines) to enhance it. That way when someone comes up on a battle scene, it looks like a battle scene. Make cargoes dropped on purpose look like cargo crates with reflectors attached. Again to add to the realism and immersion of the game. I'm tired of seeing this arcade look. That way when a newb steps into B-8 and sees ship part laying around, he shouldn't be surprised when a pirate shows up to kill him.

Hmm. That would be interesting. I mean, if I recall correctly, cargo can already be set so that only certain players can pick it up.

Make it so that nobody can pick up the pieces, swap in ship-chunk graphics for the current crates, maybe add a touch of intermittently-arcing lightning to a piece or two and have em drop off every ship when it's destroyed, then stick around for say thirty minutes.

I like ctish's idea of ship debris, every time someone (or something) goes boom.. it leaves debris that will fade over time..

I like it.

A simple message in pilots chatbox saying: "You are entering unprotected and highly dangerous space, turn back or proceed at your own peril!" would suffice.

Ambient noise: Heartbeat. Faint, not overpowering.

But I fly with music off anyway.

Nojan's idea could be simple and quick. I mean, the race tubes already do it.

{danger}{pirate}{die}

Of course, the newbs don't know GTS, but this, along with the message bojansplash suggested, would be great.

I think GTS should be used more widely in general. It's an awesome way to give Vendetta some individuality.