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This needs tweaking. I suggest tripling the armor they have now and removing the missile turrets.
I see no issue with how things are currently. All this change has done is cut out the boring parts of bombing and put more time-sensitive action in its place.
Unless you actually liked getting kill-farmed for about a hour or so before a single 2 minute window that may or may not actually change anything at all.
Unless you actually liked getting kill-farmed for about a hour or so before a single 2 minute window that may or may not actually change anything at all.
Maybe change the 2 minute timer to 5, put an opportunity for some more dogfighting, or maybe only open it when all opposing troops are dead.
Personally, I never cared much for station conquering. The idea behind it is interesting, but how it was conceived is boring, well to me at least. Since my PSU died I haven't had a chance to login to vo in one form or another, so I haven't had the displeasure of participating in any conquering of stations. But some of you might recall that I suggested the actual occupation lasting longer. I can't imagine how fast these stations will change hands now. But I think there are underlying issues that make it boring. One of them being the eternal chasing of ships, another being the lack of weapon and ship diversity. Everyone who isn't on a lite sub pretty much has their levels where they can buy anything and the faction system issues doesn't help that.
I realize the development team isn't large of course, I'm not suggesting the lack of content is due to some indifference on their part. But what I am saying is that perhaps the "conquering content" is misplaced at the moment. Or perhaps a better way of saying it, is that it currently reveals a lot of the shortcomings of the game unintentionally. At some point it might be wise to overhaul this as well as things like ctc just as border patrol got an update a few years back.
Just my two cents.
I realize the development team isn't large of course, I'm not suggesting the lack of content is due to some indifference on their part. But what I am saying is that perhaps the "conquering content" is misplaced at the moment. Or perhaps a better way of saying it, is that it currently reveals a lot of the shortcomings of the game unintentionally. At some point it might be wise to overhaul this as well as things like ctc just as border patrol got an update a few years back.
Just my two cents.
Fighting over I-8 last Sunday was the most fun I've ever had doing station conquest. Which I guess isn't saying much, since I've always considered station conquest to be something to do when I want to just kick back and relax, watching the pretty lights go flashy-flash. But still, it was actually fun for a change.
Arf: I'm pretty sure I managed four once. :)
Arf: I'm pretty sure I managed four once. :)
Increase countdown to 4 or 5 min, leave health as is.
Agreed, countdown should be increased.
My original thought was also to bring health slightly higher so that one spamrag (3 gems 2 chaos) would still leave a turret alive, but then I realized that is essentially making it easymode to get all the turrets down to the perfect level for you to come along with one rag and just take them all out in one go.
I think its actually better the way it is because dropping a turret early carries a risk that it will respawn before you finish the other ones and it's very easy to have continuous re-spawn of turrets with reppers healing them to make it harder to get them destroyed. It's also harder for attackers to calculate how much damage to dish out to the turrets in order to keep them at a level they want, and the reppers can also mess with this by repping a turret that's under attack if the can see it isn't a full volley, or even if it is. This way your opponent thinks he's levelling the turret but you can block the stack or rapidfire heal the turret and you've saved it.
A value tweak for the respawn time of turrets could work too, perhaps down to 7.5 minutes rather than 10?
Also, I don't know why tarenty wants to remove missile turrets, they are an important part of the makeup of the station defenses. It is now a tactical decision whether or not to bomb missile turrets first and/or whether or not to repair them/protect them as defenders first and I don't think we should remove that.
My original thought was also to bring health slightly higher so that one spamrag (3 gems 2 chaos) would still leave a turret alive, but then I realized that is essentially making it easymode to get all the turrets down to the perfect level for you to come along with one rag and just take them all out in one go.
I think its actually better the way it is because dropping a turret early carries a risk that it will respawn before you finish the other ones and it's very easy to have continuous re-spawn of turrets with reppers healing them to make it harder to get them destroyed. It's also harder for attackers to calculate how much damage to dish out to the turrets in order to keep them at a level they want, and the reppers can also mess with this by repping a turret that's under attack if the can see it isn't a full volley, or even if it is. This way your opponent thinks he's levelling the turret but you can block the stack or rapidfire heal the turret and you've saved it.
A value tweak for the respawn time of turrets could work too, perhaps down to 7.5 minutes rather than 10?
Also, I don't know why tarenty wants to remove missile turrets, they are an important part of the makeup of the station defenses. It is now a tactical decision whether or not to bomb missile turrets first and/or whether or not to repair them/protect them as defenders first and I don't think we should remove that.
Countdown works. My previous suggestion was based off a nonissue.
Actually, I edited my post because I felt like that comment wasn't helping the discussion. It wasn't, but hey, since you want things to go that way, let's do it.
You're an asshole. You exploit every bug that you can. The suggestions you make are quite obviously self-motivated, and you've got no moral issue with any of it. Ass. Hole.
Also, YOU had the superior numbers last night (5vs3), and we still quite handily killed all of the turrets. Heck, Gruumsh was making good progress solo against four of your guys!
The reason people were avoiding station conquest for months was not because it was too hard to kill the turrets, it's because the political backlash and administrative overhead of dealing with the (then, mostly broken) key system made it not fun, which isn't good for a game.
You're an asshole. You exploit every bug that you can. The suggestions you make are quite obviously self-motivated, and you've got no moral issue with any of it. Ass. Hole.
Also, YOU had the superior numbers last night (5vs3), and we still quite handily killed all of the turrets. Heck, Gruumsh was making good progress solo against four of your guys!
The reason people were avoiding station conquest for months was not because it was too hard to kill the turrets, it's because the political backlash and administrative overhead of dealing with the (then, mostly broken) key system made it not fun, which isn't good for a game.
Aww, diddums: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/16/27615
Yeah, the fact that plugins are needed to retain some sort of sanity with the key system perfectly illustrates some of the problems.
Plugins are needed to notify you who the hell just entered the sector in a way that doesn't require you to press a button and look through an annoying list on the PDA. It's just an interface macro the same as Targetless or anything else.
The solution to a problem with the key system is to fix the key system.
By the by, we use one key for our conquerings and we've had no troubles with it as yet.
The solution to a problem with the key system is to fix the key system.
By the by, we use one key for our conquerings and we've had no troubles with it as yet.
"Also, YOU had the superior numbers last night (5vs3), and we still quite handily killed all of the turrets. Heck, Gruumsh was making good progress solo against four of your guys!"
My thing is, if station conquest is so easy and there is no point in defending, then why didn't you guys take the station last night while people were defending it?
"The reason people were avoiding station conquest for months was not because it was too hard to kill the turrets, it's because the political backlash and administrative overhead of dealing with the (then, mostly broken) key system made it not fun, which isn't good for a game."
Not true. As Chaos said, there is no fun in ramming a swarm rag mindlessly over and over. Myself, as many others, could care less about "political backlash".
My thing is, if station conquest is so easy and there is no point in defending, then why didn't you guys take the station last night while people were defending it?
"The reason people were avoiding station conquest for months was not because it was too hard to kill the turrets, it's because the political backlash and administrative overhead of dealing with the (then, mostly broken) key system made it not fun, which isn't good for a game."
Not true. As Chaos said, there is no fun in ramming a swarm rag mindlessly over and over. Myself, as many others, could care less about "political backlash".
I don't find spamming flares around a station dock for 30 seconds to be much fun either.
"Also, YOU had the superior numbers last night (5vs3), and we still quite handily killed all of the turrets. Heck, Gruumsh was making good progress solo against four of your guys!"
So what? Turrets are not the point. They have never been the point. The point is to dock in order to take control of the station. If you failed to do that, then they successfully defended the station from you, and you therefor cannot say that "you can't hold the station during an attack".
They certainly managed to hold the station during a sustained attack from LAW on Sunday after they took it from us. We dropped the turrets multiple times but never managed to get that dock.
So what? Turrets are not the point. They have never been the point. The point is to dock in order to take control of the station. If you failed to do that, then they successfully defended the station from you, and you therefor cannot say that "you can't hold the station during an attack".
They certainly managed to hold the station during a sustained attack from LAW on Sunday after they took it from us. We dropped the turrets multiple times but never managed to get that dock.
Having a lot of contention is probably not a bad thing.
I was going to suggest a less drastic reduction, like 200k, but if I now have to take stations in the wee hours of the miner's watch of vo because I can't identify the current owners with whom to negotiate access, the lower the better.
I'm all for more pew pew in vo, and I understand the point of blocking enemy access or harassing their building efforts, but but let me suggest this one tweak (well, 2 actually) to keep this change from making life hell for building Tridents: offer alternative locations to build Fused Composte Plating (Latos N-2) and Fluid Formable Silksteel Alloy (Pelatus O-15). You would maintain the routes to and from Nyrius, but make the backbone of Trident Tedium NOT tied to the conquerable stations. All the other parts can stay in the conq stations to keep them desirable.
Really, THIS model of conq stations belongs in Deneb (and GR, and Eo) with options to fortify defenses via missions available to people with an active owner keys (i.e. manufacture a turret, up-armor an existing turret, spawn a repair drone, all up to a limit), while offering advanced military gear manufacturing to all.
I was going to suggest a less drastic reduction, like 200k, but if I now have to take stations in the wee hours of the miner's watch of vo because I can't identify the current owners with whom to negotiate access, the lower the better.
I'm all for more pew pew in vo, and I understand the point of blocking enemy access or harassing their building efforts, but but let me suggest this one tweak (well, 2 actually) to keep this change from making life hell for building Tridents: offer alternative locations to build Fused Composte Plating (Latos N-2) and Fluid Formable Silksteel Alloy (Pelatus O-15). You would maintain the routes to and from Nyrius, but make the backbone of Trident Tedium NOT tied to the conquerable stations. All the other parts can stay in the conq stations to keep them desirable.
Really, THIS model of conq stations belongs in Deneb (and GR, and Eo) with options to fortify defenses via missions available to people with an active owner keys (i.e. manufacture a turret, up-armor an existing turret, spawn a repair drone, all up to a limit), while offering advanced military gear manufacturing to all.
The solution to a problem with the key system is to fix the key system.
Sure, but don't pretend station capturing and the key system aren't extremely related. Even without talking about the connected mechanics (some of which I mention below), increasing the amount of station conquering increases interaction with the key system.
What happens when two people are in the dock when the timer ends and both attempt to dock during the same 'server frame'? Why do the capturing mechanics make me have to ask that question?
What happens when a person turbos towards the dock at max speed? Explosives will often fail to detonate in time for the ship to get damaged, despite their proximity causing them to explode. I've encountered that issue many times when successfully stealing the station at the countdown – and yet it's not even a reliable bug.
What happens when the turrets are destroyed, the countdown timer runs its course, and someone who was docked to the station before they disconnected logs in before anyone else docks? Does the station key dialog activate for them upon logging in?
Does the game still silently and automatically create a brand new key if a character captures a station and doesn't pick an existing key within one minute?
Is it a goal of the station conquering mechanics for there to be a clear "defense versus offense", or is it supposed to boil down to "whoever begins the assault, both the aggressors and the supposed defenders will share the exact same goals"? The new changes shift it heavily in favour of the latter.
Really, THIS model of conq stations belongs in Deneb (and GR, and Eo) with options to fortify defenses via missions available to people with an active owner keys (i.e. manufacture a turret, up-armor an existing turret, spawn a repair drone, all up to a limit)
Yes, that makes more sense.
Sure, but don't pretend station capturing and the key system aren't extremely related. Even without talking about the connected mechanics (some of which I mention below), increasing the amount of station conquering increases interaction with the key system.
What happens when two people are in the dock when the timer ends and both attempt to dock during the same 'server frame'? Why do the capturing mechanics make me have to ask that question?
What happens when a person turbos towards the dock at max speed? Explosives will often fail to detonate in time for the ship to get damaged, despite their proximity causing them to explode. I've encountered that issue many times when successfully stealing the station at the countdown – and yet it's not even a reliable bug.
What happens when the turrets are destroyed, the countdown timer runs its course, and someone who was docked to the station before they disconnected logs in before anyone else docks? Does the station key dialog activate for them upon logging in?
Does the game still silently and automatically create a brand new key if a character captures a station and doesn't pick an existing key within one minute?
Is it a goal of the station conquering mechanics for there to be a clear "defense versus offense", or is it supposed to boil down to "whoever begins the assault, both the aggressors and the supposed defenders will share the exact same goals"? The new changes shift it heavily in favour of the latter.
Really, THIS model of conq stations belongs in Deneb (and GR, and Eo) with options to fortify defenses via missions available to people with an active owner keys (i.e. manufacture a turret, up-armor an existing turret, spawn a repair drone, all up to a limit)
Yes, that makes more sense.
What happens when the turrets are destroyed, the countdown timer runs its course, and someone who was docked to the station before they disconnected logs in before anyone else docks? Does the station key dialog activate for them upon logging in?
It used to activate and capture the station. Westacular did this, we reported it and raybondo fixed it. It now sends them packing as if the station had been captured and they hadn't been given keys.
Does the game still silently and automatically create a brand new key if a character captures a station and doesn't pick an existing key within one minute?
Yes. You could however build a plugin with AssignOwnerKey() I imagine to automatically assign the key you wanted which might make things more reliable.
The other questions I don't have an answer for but none of the above are reasons to make the conquerable stations so boring that nobody wants to play them. They aren't even relevant to turret health. If the concern is that the docking is too random then having a high burden on players to repair the vulnerable turrets once they secure the station surely is better than the alternative.
It used to activate and capture the station. Westacular did this, we reported it and raybondo fixed it. It now sends them packing as if the station had been captured and they hadn't been given keys.
Does the game still silently and automatically create a brand new key if a character captures a station and doesn't pick an existing key within one minute?
Yes. You could however build a plugin with AssignOwnerKey() I imagine to automatically assign the key you wanted which might make things more reliable.
The other questions I don't have an answer for but none of the above are reasons to make the conquerable stations so boring that nobody wants to play them. They aren't even relevant to turret health. If the concern is that the docking is too random then having a high burden on players to repair the vulnerable turrets once they secure the station surely is better than the alternative.
Just because you can work around a bug with a plugin doesn't make it not a problem.
+1 to making these things easy to turn over when lazy carebear guilds aren't paying attention.