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A WARNING: New Docking limits coming for Dau and Arta Caelestis

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Sep 24, 2008 MSKanaka link
"... launch some ultra hard impossible to kill, impossible to evade strike force to kill them uber quick and hard every time, am talking about SF that's so jacked up it's impossible to do anything but die."

The last thing VO needs is a Concordokken.
Sep 24, 2008 Whytee link
ehm, no thank you. The SF should be tough, but not impossible to kill. I men, seriously how big is the problem? Maybe Lecter is the prime newb eater in the game, so what? He does not grief new players, maybe he kills them once or twice, so what? Same goes for yoda and everyone else that prey on newbs.

What disinterests the new guys is when people make online channel 100 flame wars, when someone misuses the channels to satisfy their own nefarious and infantile needs, when nobody helps the new characters and are obnoxious towards them. That is what turns people off, not getting killed at a "safe" station.

I shall stop my Hortan rant before it turns into a genuine Roda rant. But please stop the overprotection of newbs in nation space.

Go on Inc, you have the right ideas!!!!!
Sep 24, 2008 incarnate link
blacknet - So, kind of like:

The "Friendly Kill" counter is conceptually similar to our current vote muting system, where each user vote is a "strike" against the user in question, with votes that expire over a period of time. In this case, each "Kill" marker has an expiration of fourteen days. If a character accrues three of these "kill" counts at any time, they experience a Character Deportation. Should a character receive three Character Deportations within a 6-month period, they will be "permanently" expelled to Corvus space. (blah blah, other requirements, stuff, etc, see the post).

Except instead of an "impossible strike force", I'm going to be using the more robust (but mortal) defenses that I've been discussing on here.

This at least limits newbie-hunting or friendly-team-killing to roughly two per 14 days, per character. The timeframe could be changed easily enough, to 30 days, 3 months, or whatever, based on feedback etc. But it would allow a character a certain amount of unforgiven monitored kills with minor repercussion (degradation of radar status, etc), leading to major repercussion if they continue.

If people are willing to brave all the new defenses for fully hostile newbie-hunting, well, more power to them.

Please do not reply to this thread unless you've recently read the Removal of Friendly Fire RFC (at least the first post).
Sep 24, 2008 Dr. Lecter link
If people are willing to brave all the new defenses for fully hostile newbie-hunting, well, more power to them.

Looking forward to it.
Sep 24, 2008 blacknet link
Incarnate, yes kinda like that. Also what would be good is if the defenses were to target the higher ranked players over the lower ranked targets. say you had 2 players with a score of 5 and 1 player with a score of 1. the turrets/defenses would target the 2 players then the 1 player according to which was closer (more weight). Could also ignore things like mines and the like as that will distract the turrets/etc.. Figured if the queens can be immune to mines then so could the turrets/defenses.
Sep 24, 2008 look... no hands link
blacknet, the problem with your previous suggestion with the uber sf's, is that I for instance have three paid accounts, only one with reasonably leveled chars, the rest have characters i could create on a trial account easily.

I keep them as extra paid accounts for two reasons; first, I'm kinda lazy about leveling characters, even to 1/1/1 to screw around with. Second, I admire John, Ray, Andy, and Micheal's determination in trying to create a business and game from scratch (even if at times I disagree with some design aspects of the game). They are each plenty skilled enough to make much better money working for other companies, but instead they are doing this.

However if there were account-wide consequences, I'd simply work around the problem. I'd do as I please on a second account, and when it becomes unusable, I'd unsubscribe it and subscribe another, granted this might mean im paying a sub every three weeks instead of every month (Yes, I know their are more than one month blocks, I chose to buy in one month blocks).

oh Inc, I've got a question;
Lecter: Not completely safe, no. A newbie-only sector would be guarded by the same sorts of defenses we already have, just more densely. Think of it as the "lightest possible shade".

They would be safe from other nooblets, in that sector, as their equipped weapons would only be damaging to the Training Drones they had to fight.".


If only newbs can get there, and their weapons can only hurt bots, and their fighting training drones how exactly are they not totally safe?

And while I'm at it a hopefully constructive suggestion, arm them with training neutron blasters that do 1 damage and make the training drones only have 5-10 HP, with an explosion splash damage of 1. This way they still can't really hurt each other (unless they can land a couple thousand hits with the sf on them, in a bus) and they can still kill the training drones.
Sep 24, 2008 incarnate link
lnh - Did you read the "Removal of Friendly Fire RFC", as I requested? It says:

Specialized Newbie Station Sectors will be implemented, both to protect newbies and to get them involved in combat as quickly as possible, without having to learn any intra-system navigation or course plotting. Each Capitol system would contain at least one such sector, where the totally raw newbies would start. Each newbie would be started in an EC-89 with training weapons that only damage the local Training Drones, and do minimal (but some) damage to other players or factional NPCs. Flight ring pathways ("gates"), similar to our racetracks, would be positioned near the stations to help walk newbies through the basics of flight. Each sector would be heavily defended by turrets and a patrolling strike force. In addition, the sector itself should be laid out such that a fairly large station (lots of exit/docking bays, but not necessarily physically large) would open onto a course of asteroids. Within the field of asteroids, Training Drones would be gradually more difficult the further one went from the station. New users would use these sectors to progress through basic missions: basic flight, combat, intra-sector navigation (using Nav Beacons), and brief introduction to more advanced flight/combat tactics. If newbies damaged each other or local NPCs with their training weapons, they would be admonished and informed of some simple ramifications of this behaviour. Upon completion of these missions they would gain Training Flight Status (accomplishment), allowing them to fly anywhere within the local system (not allowed through wormholes). Their final completion would give them a new mission, teaching them the basics of intra-system navigation, and taking them to their next station, one of the true Capitol stations.

It isn't "completely safe" because it's a sector like any other. It has no magical protections, and it isn't an instanced spawn that is "unreachable" by other players. It's simply a very well-defended sector, using the same defensive mechanics we currently implement. In other words, if a newbie-hunter were truly enterprising, they could fly into these sectors and hunt newbies.. but they would be under a great deal of pressure from the usual defensive mechanisms.

To reiterate my earlier request:

Please do not reply to this thread unless you've recently read the Removal of Friendly Fire RFC (at least the first post).
Sep 24, 2008 slime73 link
LNH: I hope you know that it's Ray, not Jay, that you're giving your money to. :P
Sep 24, 2008 look... no hands link
Yes, I read it a couple days ago. I got confused when you called it "A newbie-only sector" in your previous post, sorry about that.

heh looks like i made a typo slime, ill fix it
Sep 24, 2008 incarnate link
It would be newbie-only, in the sense that people who had advanced beyond the need to be in that sector would no longer be welcome there (barring other possibilities of having specially-approved "mentor" types allowed there). This would prevent more advanced team-killer types from prowling there; at least, they would have to run the gauntlet just like a true pirate.

Aside from that, though, it would be just like any other sector, with heightened defenses.
Sep 24, 2008 blacknet link
I think it would be safe to say LETS DO IT. Then tweak things accordingly.
Sep 25, 2008 look... no hands link
this is actuayyl the kind of newb protection I'd suprt, I'd even go futhur, as shown by my earlier post at the top of page thr33.

I still need some clarityification, once you leeve the sector,., you cant get back?, im soryr for bein so dence, been a long night at home with the old amn and at the bar.
Sep 25, 2008 incarnate link
Yes, once you leave the sector, you can't go back, and hopefully this will be made clear to the departing user. They won't even be able to leave the sector until they pass certain tests and so on, so this transition should be fairly obvious to them.

Once you have the ability to take your little bus and go put "real" weapons on it, you can't go back to the starting sector, lest you shoot the other new people. (Again, barring some kind of special "mentor" dispensation by which advanced players can visit and help the newbies).
Sep 25, 2008 yodaofborg link
I think Inc means, and do correct me if I am wrong Inc (but you are not being very clear :P).

"You CAN go back to the sector, but big things like turrets will try lay waste to you if you do"

not

"You cannot go back"

:P
Sep 25, 2008 incarnate link
Fair enough, yes :). You can go back, it's a sector like any other. But anyone returning from the outside will be fired upon (other than specially-permitted mentors and such).
Sep 25, 2008 blacknet link
So in gaming terms that means 5 minutes to find a workaround in order to get back into the sector :) Sorry Incarnate, I could not resist.

/me ducks
Sep 25, 2008 IRS link
Heck, I already see the beginnings of a new race event- "The Home Run".

Participants take the ship of their choice and try to run the newbie introduction raceway course without getting blown up by the automated defenses or each other. A newbie character will be created to oversee the racers. First three to complete the training course alive get the week's pot, divided a la the Deneb Run. If not enough people survive, the remainder of the pot is added to next week's pot.

Personally, I can't wait to score a Home Run.
Sep 25, 2008 Dr. Lecter link
Great event idea, especially since the best practice for said event will be n00bing.
Sep 25, 2008 Scuba Steve 9.0 link
Hopefully there will be an "Are you sure you want to go here? You are no longer welcomed in this sector due to blah blah roleplaying reason" confirmation dialog before you warp into the sector on accident or unknowingly.
Sep 26, 2008 incarnate link
<rolls eyes at Event idea>

blacknet: strictly speaking, I could just add long-range beam weapons back in, and you would all be so much popcorn. Ask anyone who had to face those things when they were on the old "Frigate". But, doing so would practically add in "magical" defenses, which I dislike.

Anyway, I think I can add in stiff enough defenses to make you guys not last real long, or at least not be able to mess with newbies very much while you're there, which is the only real point.

Scuba Steve: We could add a more general feature for engaging jumps to any location where you're "Hated", and make it optional (like the pop-up includes a "Don't show this again" checkbox). That might actually be of some use for newbies and such.