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Some thoughts on Escape Systems

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May 29, 2006 LeberMac link
My magical fairy godparents would have a cartoon TV show and be named "Wanda" and "Cosmo". Plus they'd grant me other wishes and stuff.

Back on-topic:
I really think the Quantum entanglement thingy is the best way to explain this, but explaining it in a way that precludes instantaneous travel for other purposes is going to be difficult. I'm sure Incarnate will think of something. >:P
May 30, 2006 Lord Q link
TRS,
just because something is proven doesn't mean people belive in it. take evolution for example.

moldyman,
i din't know fairys wore shoes

anyway i would like to see the home station system changed so that you respawned at a station within the ststem you died in. and if you are in enemy teratory with no nearby friendly bases, you have to make a run for saftey in a govebuss while the SF chases you down. Alternativly you could be given one totaly random ship for free (you stole it) and have to make a run for friendly teratory. if you called for help first you could stage a jailbrake by having friendly pilots there to escort you back home.
May 31, 2006 jexkerome link
And if you have no friendly pilots, you can't play until you do?

That's a stupid idea, as much as that of capture.

If we were to adopt a stance with view to affecting gameplay, I'd go for cloning. You die, and then you're out of the game for a few minutes; you can't chat and you can't fly out but you can buy stuff and do other things instation while "you're being cloned". So death becomes a slightly bigger annoyance and in some instances it can be critical.

In Shadowbane, for example, when you die you're recalled to where you're homed and resurrected there. The side effect is called a "death shroud", a timed effect during which you can't use any special abilities and your general skills (hitting percentage, dodging, etc.) are seriously compromised. You can move about, but that's it; I think (I'm not sure) you cannot even be affected by helpful spells. So while you're free to move and shop and talk, you can't really do anything useful for the duration of the death shroud. A small annoyance (I think it lasts a couple of minutes) but when you're in an important fight (taking over a mine, destroying a city, fighting over a hunting ground where a magic item will soon drop) those minutes of inaction can be critical, and ensure that, if you're on a roll killing enemies, they won't simply be back in the blink of an eye.
May 31, 2006 tianzi link
In keeping with the back story, here are a few nation specific ideas on escape systems:

Itani: In their centuries of of peaceful introspection, the Itani nation has a very deep understanding of "metaphysics". Most Itani pilots will die a physical death only to live on in spirit (ghosts) or on a higher metaphysical plane to again pilot their ships.

Serco: Most Serco have become too heavy (due to their machine and genetic enhancements) to leave Sol or Red Space and pilot their ships. These peoples have to fly by wire so to speak and are able to electronically home where ever they please.

UIT: These mere mortals have great ejection systems and have a service akin to our American Automobile Club (AAA). Simply put, eject and one of our rescue bots will almost instantaneously take you to your home station.

Just my .05 credits on this thread.
May 31, 2006 jexkerome link
IF the Itani could come back from the dead, the War would be long over and the Itani victorius.

The Serco theory works; in fact, they could all be using clones or guises to pilot their ships. However, this again fails to answer why you need to home.

And once more, if we have engines capable of uber speeds why they aren't used on a more practical capacity than just escape pods and rescue drones?
May 31, 2006 moldyman link
I have seen the light! We were all wrong the answer lies in a simple command...

/displayshippos

Magical hippos guard over us and whisk us back home before we die. We can't be whisked away anywhere because that isn't part of their contract. I mean, they can threaten strike and suddenyl pilots everywhere would die!
May 31, 2006 LeberMac link
I'm glad to see this topic veer off course now. Yay!
Jun 01, 2006 Lord Q link
jexkerome,
or you cold make a run for it yourself. but the idea was to make dying behinde enemy lines something to be avoided.

moldyman,
do you think the hippos are fairy-hippos, or do they just subcontract with the fairys?
Jun 01, 2006 jexkerome link
LordQ: please explain to me when, exactly, dying behind enemy lines is something to be desired.
Jun 05, 2006 tianzi link
When the enemy tortures you till you are almost insane, and then, you start praying for death. (As told to me by an uncle during wwII who was a POW). This is probably what he means by "wanting to dying behind enemy lines".
Dec 07, 2006 upper case link
does that belong in rp?
Dec 07, 2006 Aramarth link
I wish I'd been around to participate in this one.. seeing as two of my characters have RP based upon what happens after a ship disintegrates already.

First and foremost, there is no way a 'teleport' system works if you die in an ion storm. That is exactly the same thing as being able to jump through it unhindered. I mean.. oops!

It would take a psychotic amount of change to the game, but I'd like to see an escape pod system. Maybe instead of "Set Home" where you'd potentially have to wait for a pod to get to Deneb from Odia, upon death you get the sector map and have to choose a destination. Then you get to watch your pod fly there and think about your behavior.

How does this work if you're not dockable anywhere in the system? Pick an empty sector instead of a station, and call your buddy to fly past the SF and pick you up. That or you're now arrested, beaten, and waiting for the next prisoner exchange between factions. Gosh aren't I a ray of sunshine this morning...

Actually another option would be to pick the wormhole sector for your pod's single jump. Having only one jump in the pod would do wonders for keeping Itani and Serco from going further into the other guy's space than one wormhole.

For the people who want to fight and die a hundred times a minute, add a 'simulator' function to the game that can be accessed anytime your ship is docked. All of them connect to the same imaginary sector, so you're playing a videogame within a videogame.

Meh, I think my whole idea is too complicated. Just leave players where their ships explode as a cargo crate labelled 'downed pilot' and whoever picks em up and drops em off at a nearby station (faction irrelevant, as they just catch the nearest civilian transport to where they homed) is their new best friend. Naturally, doing this for npc pilots would be a quick way to earn faction, no? It also preserves the reality of combat for the hunted.. no one picks up that Itani pilot in Serco space because they don't give a rip, and a 'pirate' that goes down finds out he truly doesn't have any friends.

That is what our pirates are missing, by the way. They have no desperation, no sense that a noose is close by. A realistic pirate needs to never lose a ship in lawful territory or he is done for.

For the pilot that goes down in an ion storm or while botting who-knows-where, hope someone can find you from directions in a private message, or an npc flys through the sector. It would be simple enough to get npcs to pick up pilot pods, I bet. Note: I meant it about private messages. Make sure a downed pilot can't use 100... that'd be far too much power for 1) his wimpy escape pod radio and 2) access to screaming for a pickup to people who don't want to hear it. It would be ideal to make a system chat for this, and give the pilot only that channel and /msg when in a pod. Also makes it simple if you want to make a career out of picking up downed npc pilots, as they could ask for help there too. 4 radar extender hornet ftw, anyone?

Heck, I'd turn my primary character into pilot recovery in a heartbeat. It makes rp sense, and I'd get to see new, exotic sectors all the time.

Lets face it.. if we're all flying by remote, there is NO reason the Serco haven't just overrun the Itani by now, given their storyline superior numbers. Even if they do as poorly as ship for ship, the entire Itani armada is respawning and the Serco have taken the sector in question. Then the process repeats step by step all the way through blue space. And I'm only talking NPCs here, how many of you Itani flyers can make a difference in a battle with thousands, maybe a million Serco npcs, like such a doomsday battle would truly be? Not likely. Thus it is proven, no cop-out frigging godmode remote control where real lives are not in danger.

Now this thread can slip into oblivion as if I never said a word. Thank you for your time if you read it.
Dec 07, 2006 moldyman link
Dude... I love the pod idea. :D
Dec 07, 2006 Lexicon link
The original purpose of this thread was to explain the existing system of respawning, where you instantly reappear at whatever station you "homed" at. The whole quantum-entanglement principle I think still has the best chance of explaining why it works the way it DOES.

But, since we're now suggesting changes to the way is SHOULD work...

Yeah, I want escape pods, just handle it like they did in EV-Nova, you die, then you shoot off in your pod, fade to black, and you fade up into the nearest friendly station. Even if that station was across the galaxy.

Capturable pods would be annoying unless part of a special game situation or mission.

If you are too cheap to equip your ship with a pod and you die, you're DEAD dead. (Again, just like in EV-Nova.) Abort, retry, fail?

However, I think implementing escape Pods is one of those ideas that is a long way off.
Dec 07, 2006 upper case link
this belongs in the suggestions forum.

hey, just like it's predecessors:

Escape Pod
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/14735

Making Escape Pod Viable:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/8681

Pirates, Disabling, EMP Torpedo and Escape Pod
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/8112

(i stopped looking after that because, well, the point is made that this is a dup)
Dec 07, 2006 Aramarth link
I linked my post in suggestions, actually :)
Sure, capturable pods could be a little annoying, but at the same time, its one more way to add content that sells itself. I can't imagine even half of the possibilities for the challenge of recovering a friend from unfriendly space.
Dec 07, 2006 SuperMegaMynt link
Alright, here goes.

Yes, the cockpit of any ship doubles as a device to open up a temporary wormhole back to a set station, but there's a couple of catches. To begin with, setting up the system for this safety device involves visiting the station in realspace, and picking up a certain agent that has it's own unique double agent that's left at the station. (Consider how a pair of electrons within an orbit always have one spin up, and one spin down, and how this can be used to manipulate the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, since upon knowing the spin of one electron, you therefor know the spin of the other, and using future technology they can be changed back and forth, providing a means of faster than light communication and pin-pointing. Or if your an Ender's Game fan, the ansible.) The bond between these two agents allow a one-time-use, temporary wormhole just big enough for the command couch to open, but the enormous energy requirements make it impractical to carry the receiving end on a starship. So, this is why you can only use the wormhole to travel to places that you've already been to, ala self-destruct warping, and it's why your ship is destroyed when using this system of warp.

What I really like about this idea is that it implies if Capital Ships were big enough, we could set home to them.

**********************

Or...

The cloning system is a very and practical system in today's standards. However, this method is not without it's side effects. After having undergone extensive cloning, a brutal chemical process that over time reduces one's genes to the most efficient manner possible, the greater portion of today's population have become nothing but robotic zombies, feeding when given food, breeding when alone, the and following orders of their superiors without question. Their genetics have been mixed to the point where they, without a doubt, follow the same paths when given same choices, like some advanced algorithm. To avoid confusion, these massively cloned individuals are denoted by an asterix before their name. An interesting social side effect is the racial slur that recently became popular when in reference to these unfortuanate people. NPC, an acronym traditionally meaning "Non-person Character", is often used to describe them, pointing out their lack of individuality, and implying that this quality makes them sub-human, even non-human entities. More likely than not, PC's, or "Person Characters" will make it a point not to hunt others of their type, while mercilessly attack NPC's as if they were nothing more than computer programs with names.