So, I was thinking about personalization. This game doesn't really have a lot of it.

SO, I was thinking that if you can pull off POS (pillar of society) with a faction, that faction would be willing to sponsor you by building you your own custom crafted ship (only you would be able to purchase it)

The actual crafting system would involve giving you a certain number of points which could be spent on (This could ONLY be done once):

Chassis:
Depending on what faction you upgrade, the actual values of this could be different.

For example, with POS itani, the available options might be
Valkyrie
Border Guardian Centurion
and then all of the standard issue frames.

You would need the licenses for any ship that you craft. And the specialty frames would cost extra points.

Ports:
These would be limited by the maximum number of ports available on the frame, the "normal" number. Removing ports would drop the mass by some predetermined value.

Engine:
Upgrades would cost enough that you couldn't order both an engine upgrade AND a specialty ship. A number of different models (like a 60 drain mid topspeed/high turbothrust interceptor version, 70 drain High topspeed/Low turbothrust stuntship model, etc..).

Maneuvering thrusters:
Allows upgrades to spin torque

Hull:
etc..

Name:
etc..

The point values would be set up in such a way that you could make something that gained a particular strength, but with a more extreme drop in something else. So that the basic model is the "Stable" one, while these models, while useful, would not supplant the existing standard.

I love it! I'll take an SVG with one port, heavily reduced armor, and mega-thrust! :D
It'd die to rockets, but the only people who beat me nowadays use rockets anyway... (well... when I'm in my normal ship at least)
-:sigma.SB

I'd like to see some custom abilities even to the skin....unit decals etc... Aces High opened up the skin templates to the players for custom paint and tail art, and they haven't had any problems with obscene jestures and such.

too high end imo, there needs to be more of this lower down the line then just PoS. Or, have other ways as well. But I do like the idea at heart. MORE choices all around, more custimization, more more more!

Would the number of available customizable ports be the total number of ports regardless of size? So if a Prometheus has 1L and 2S, totalling 3 ports, then you could theoretically have 3S ports with lower weight and higher armor, or 2L ports with higher weight and lower armor?

This would be so great. I could make the ultimate medium tradership. The Utlas.

i don't like this idea,

i'm all for custamization, but i think a bigger impact would come from custamizing or altering the aperence of the ship rather than the stats. As it ti there is a lot of veriaty in ships and a lot of it doesn't get used (at least not extencively). Even though other ships are around i mostly see Cents, Proms, and Moths.

Now if having PoC granted acess to a new texture that instead of just a color had military markings. Like the way Enterprise was painted with the Symbols of the Terran Empire in the recent parallel universe episode of Enterprise. The color and symbols would be related to which faction you got it from.

While this provides no practicle advantage, it is more noticable to the other players who see you in game, and in my opinion has more styal than simply having a custom built ship. Also, it would be easier for the devs to redo the texture system than build a ship customization system from scratch.

Well, there WOULD be style. When someone had you targetted, your name for the ship would come up.

And colors are cool and all, I for one want them. But how is that any different from the guild tags we have now? sure a bit flashy, but it will become boring VERY fast.

(Crip as far as swapping ports, theoretically it could work, but you'd have to make it so that the loss of weight DID not equal the loss in firepower, so that no matter what you do, you move away from the "optimum" framework)

maybee i should clarify,

i'm not against the idea so much as the amount of work it would create. Putting the problems with programing an apropriat interface aside, there are some serious balance issues. If people are aloud to min/max a ship then there is a signifigant chance that these ships will become too powerfull.

if the idea could be cleanly inplemented i'd be for it, but i don't see this taking any less than 10 balance attempts before it is usable.

I'd rather simply see more ships in the game, than see crafting, at least for now. Simply put, there's other things that need fixing, like the mission system, and the infamous "content" issue.

Link to a link: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/9719

Quote: Balancing a game is tricky business. Balancing a multiplayer game is nearly impossible. Balancing a competitive multiplayer game that goes on to be very popular—well that actually is impossible…unless the game has no variety.

The first lesson is that “variety” and “balance” are inversely proportional; the more you have of one, the less you're likely to have of the other. . . . The trick is to introduce variety, yet keep a reasonable level of balance. And it’s quite a trick, indeed.

Personally, I think VO would benefit much more from having more variety than by being "balanced." Yes, I do think this suggestion would be very difficult to implement well, but I think it would be worth it.

Haha, quoting my posts back to me eh? :D

Well, variety and balance being inversely proportional, not entirely true.

In this case, if you make the ships ability to cope drop off sharply with changes, then they can build a ship for a specific purpose, but other than that it will be very unidimensional.

Hence, adding this actually doesn't add any "variety" from a balance perspective at all, since you're simply building worse variations.

Actually, I was quoting your post at Lord Q, but anyway...

> Well, variety and balance being inversely proportional, not entirely true.

> In this case, if you make the ships ability to cope drop off sharply with changes, then they can build a ship for a specific purpose, but other than that it will be very unidimensional.

> Hence, adding this actually doesn't add any "variety" from a balance perspective at all, since you're simply building worse variations.

OK, either you are adding variety, or you aren't. You can't have it both ways. If all you allow players to do is create worse variants, then you aren't really adding anything to the game. I'd call that "false variety," and I'd say there's all ready too much of that in VO, as evidenced by the vast predominance of Centurions & Prometheuses in combat - there are other choices, but they aren't "real variety" because most players can't regularly take on a Cent or Prom in anything but another Cent or Prom, so the other "choices" aren't really viable.

I'd say for this suggestion to really be worthwhile, it needs to not be handicapped by "overbalancing" any improvements a player might make - in order for any player to actually want to use it, they need to be convinced that the changes they make will actually be better. If they can only make minuscale improvements in one area, and are forced to take massive losses in all other areas, then nobody will use it, and the whole thing becomes pointless.

Of course, I'm not saying anyone should be able to make any change they want with no repurcussions, but all in all personally crafted ships should have a net gain in performance, not a net loss.

Well, the idea is, you can make a ship that's good for something, but whenever you exchange something, you lose a little on the deal.

For example:
in Escape velocity, you could get Mass expansions or Cargo Expansions

Mass expansion would take 15 units of cargo space, and convert it into 10 units of weapons/armor space.

Cargo expansion would do the same.

You don't get equal trade, but you can get something useful.

There should also a way to edit you cargo space to lower mass, allowing for maybe more armor os maneuverability.

I like this idea. And the cool thing about it is it takes so long for PoS it would not get vary abused.