I'd like to start by saying that 3.2.8 has taken a very positive step in balance and that I'm very grateful to be playing the Vendetta Test for free.

I have a question about the special ship concept. How are they intended to be special?

A) Ships which are totally balanced with the others but are the only ship filling their exact niche and role.

B) Ships which are of higher quality than normal ships, giving their nation a better ship for a particular niche than the free-market alternative.

C) Ships which are of higher quality than normal ships and are also the only ship filling their exact niche and role.

D) Something else :)

I'd like to know what you're shooting for so my observations as a play-tester can be as useful as possible.

Asp

I don't think special ships should be any stronger or faster than regular ships. Instead, special ships should be given special abilities. For example one ship may be cloaked if it stays stationary for a long time (without firing of course). Another ship would have a very low heat signature, making guided missiles useless against them. And another ship could maybe have an alien IFF system that would cause bots to ignore you. These are just a few examples of what I mean by "special abilities."

As you can see, none of these concept ships are any stronger or faster than non-special ships. But they all have some unique characteristic that can give them a slight advantage over others. They can be a huge advantage at special tasks such as recon, flag captures, exploration, etc., but in regular battles they'd be just as balanced as non-special ships. By capturing or finding special ships throughout the universe, you make the player think about what special ability a ship has and how it can be applied to various tactics. This would certainly be a lot more fun than simply changing the agility or armor of a ship and simply slapping a "special" label to it.

I don't know if that's what the devs had in mind with special ships. I hope it is, because the other way would be more boring. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I think each nation should be special themselves, being itani or gold or serco shouldn't just change your home sector color and one ship.
SL pokes around at the story line...

Itani:
Ship maneuverability +5-10%
Max speed (none turbo) +2%
Hull points -2%

Serco:
Hull points +5-10%
Weapon damage +2%
Maneuverability -2%

Gold:
Trade advantages (buy lower sell higher) +5-10%
Max speed (turbo) +2%

The itani, ships are more maneuverable.
The serco, ships are harder to kill and kill stuff easier.
The gold, ships are great for trading.

The special ships are just an emphasis on this.
I'm not too sure if i like gold's specialness though... It does keep them in between

This needs tweaking...

someone go intot eh archives and look for a suggestion of mine about the advantages certain nations should have.. you'll find they're the same as the advantages the nation ships have now.. odd.


I dislike the idea of special ships.

Conceptually, the idea of a "special ship" is based on the premise that the manufacturing Nation would pour their particular expertise into its construction, yielding a vessel that excelled most in the technological areas where that Nation was strongest. I could be specific, but it would require referring to a lot of storyline stuff that isn't public yet. In any event, all this is based on a number of gameplay mechanics that aren't present in the game yet. Things like character progression, rather than "money" being the only thing separating a new player from one with more experience. Ie.. character skills, augmentations, training, faction, whathaveyou.. playing into whether a given character could own/use/pilot a given ship. Say, for instance, a certain unsual modified ship (or addon, or weapon, or whatever) was only available on the black market at a certain station. It would be necessary to have a certain faction standing with that group in order to be able to purchase a special item from them. Running missions for them until they trusted you, or some such.

Anyway, clearly, we don't have any of this gameplay in place yet. Mission systems, faction standing, character progression, all the wonderful features that would make Vendetta actually.. work right as a game, aren't there yet. So, right now we just have 3 dumb "special" ships limited to the respective nations for which they were designed. If you can even consider the current "team" concept really even having much to do with the "nation" concept for which we're planning. This is the trouble with having a simple game and slowly making it more complicated.. it's hard to plan how to make the gameplay correct at every step of the way, because every new feature introduction throws the balance out the window again. Thus, we have a game with varying stages of half-assed game balance at different points, because it's all "en route" to a bigger and better destination.

Stop that, you're making me drool.

/me wipes a rivulet of drool from his chin

Is enchanted by the nice story the nice devy spun.

Can I have it please please please :D

/drools some more :D

cheers

Whoa... this game is gonna rock... I mean, I already spend most of my life on it, but with all that stuff in... whoa...

Sounds like a mix between EVN (or EV or EVO) and what we have now.

Good things about the missions in EVN:
--Restrict you from going out and buying the best, you can't get the Polaris Raven without playing the polaris missions for a LONG time.
--Changes how much factions like you, if you side with the polaris, pretty much everyone hates you except for the rebels, side with the auroran, federation + polaris hates you but rebels like you.

Bad things about the missions in EVN:
--Sometimes you have to spend too much time just going from point a to b and b to a ferrying food or what not.
--Lots of bugs. (mission bits didn't set correctly and stuff in the first version (the vell-os bug where you can't buy stuff after you finished the game))

SL switches into a non drool soaked shirt.
psst, be sure to make missions really hard

*drools all over incarnate* Sooo... When do we get to see the rest of the storyline? :P

"you can't get the Polaris Raven without playing the polaris missions for a LONG time."
Oh? >:D

"Sometimes you have to spend too much time just going from point a to b and b to a ferrying food or what not."
Not if you get a starbridge, go to rebel space, and pirate pirates. Then everyone likes you (except the pirates)! :P

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Oh? >:D
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I mean not captureing one (well, even then it's hard because finding one wandering around is rare, very very very rare)

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Not if you get a starbridge, go to rebel space, and pirate pirates. Then everyone likes you (except the pirates)! :P
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I mean in storylines, the rebel missions in particular.