Forums » Suggestions
THE MOTH IS NOT AND NEVER WAS THE CENTERPOECE FOR AN EPIC CONVOY RAID
everything Spellcast says about needing a slow hevily armored transport to promote PVP and milti-player pirating is true EXCEPT the moth is not that ship.
eventualy there will be a ship that fills that role and untill then the moth is the closest sunstitute, but that doesn't mean it needs a 70 m/s top turbo speed and 3 times it's curent armor (numbers made up for hyperbolous effect). the moth is a small civilian bulc transport like a u-haul. and you can't make a u-haul out to be a comercial super-tanker or a military supply transport. heck it isn't even an 18-wheeler.
the moth should be vulnerable in that one skilled pirat who makes no mistakes should have a 50-50 chance of killing it. that way a moth captain may (probably wouln't but may) want to hire an escort for any mission through grey or known dangerous space. if 2 skilled pirats work together to kill a moth 1. they are probably wasting their time given the possable payout, but 2. they should be able to kill it fairly esily (provided no stupid mistakes)
and before anyone says "but we shouldn't have to wate for capitle ships before creating a slow transport like we want"
i'd like to reminde you that that sort of thinking is why the devs have had to spend so much time redesigning the client, the mission system, etc. lets think these things through and do them right the first time so we don't have to redo all this work again later.
so in sumary:
the moth needs less armor not less speed, and VO as a whole needs larger ships to fill various roles.
everything Spellcast says about needing a slow hevily armored transport to promote PVP and milti-player pirating is true EXCEPT the moth is not that ship.
eventualy there will be a ship that fills that role and untill then the moth is the closest sunstitute, but that doesn't mean it needs a 70 m/s top turbo speed and 3 times it's curent armor (numbers made up for hyperbolous effect). the moth is a small civilian bulc transport like a u-haul. and you can't make a u-haul out to be a comercial super-tanker or a military supply transport. heck it isn't even an 18-wheeler.
the moth should be vulnerable in that one skilled pirat who makes no mistakes should have a 50-50 chance of killing it. that way a moth captain may (probably wouln't but may) want to hire an escort for any mission through grey or known dangerous space. if 2 skilled pirats work together to kill a moth 1. they are probably wasting their time given the possable payout, but 2. they should be able to kill it fairly esily (provided no stupid mistakes)
and before anyone says "but we shouldn't have to wate for capitle ships before creating a slow transport like we want"
i'd like to reminde you that that sort of thinking is why the devs have had to spend so much time redesigning the client, the mission system, etc. lets think these things through and do them right the first time so we don't have to redo all this work again later.
so in sumary:
the moth needs less armor not less speed, and VO as a whole needs larger ships to fill various roles.
sigh, renegade you can consider the hive whatever you want, but the point of the matter is that the whole point behind the new hive was specifically to be able to clear out entire sectors for XX hours, why WOULDNT the stations want to keep the traderoutes clear?
actually i never bothered because i don't consider them in need of escorting
once again, thats YOUR opinion. I'm guessing the devs feel differently since the escort and pirate attack missions are geared around convoys of exactly those ships. While i would like to see larger capital ships that do nothing but haul cargo, I'd also like for them to be quite RARE, as i'd expect ALL capital ships to be, given how few stations should be able to dock them and how much resources they should require to gain.
In worst case scenario a moth should only be protected by 2 people, otherwise the profit you get out of it is not worth the investment (or the alternant traderoutes). - renegade
trade goods should have a much larger range of prices, going from the basic goods we have now all the way up to some truely valuable items with very high purchase prices, ... -me, in my last post
I'm trying to suggest ideas and implimentations that are more than short term fixes, the next thing on the list iirc after they get the UI and missions running is some new ships and a change in the economy/factions.
Also i am totally against the idea that any single trader should EVER be safe in greyspace. for that matter even an armed and combat ready pilot in a fighter should always be looking over his shoulder IMO. if you want safe, then that should be what the nation sectors are for.
Sure, it takes a hell of a nerf to make time alone make it inadequate... but then, a 20-minte trip of flying in a faster, more maneuverable ship is less painfully boring than a 10-minute trip in a supernerfed slow-ass moth... that was my point.
- cunjo
and cutting the speed to 160 and lowering the thrust some is not going to supernerf the moth. and if it IS found that the moths are dying too easily (which i doubt) at that point you can raise the armor some to make it survivable in a group combat where it is the escortee.
the moth should be vulnerable in that one skilled pirat who makes no mistakes should have a 50-50 chance of killing it. that way a moth captain may (probably wouln't but may) want to hire an escort for any mission through grey or known dangerous space
imo no trade ship should be able to make a trip through grey space without an escort and have more than a 15-20% chance of survival. thats my opinion, danger as a concequence of your choices. you choose to go to grey space, you choose to take a big risk.
do the rewards for that risk need to be increased, certaintly, but the moth IS that ship IMO. I really dont expect to see too many ships much larger than the moth being common in vendetta.
actually i never bothered because i don't consider them in need of escorting
once again, thats YOUR opinion. I'm guessing the devs feel differently since the escort and pirate attack missions are geared around convoys of exactly those ships. While i would like to see larger capital ships that do nothing but haul cargo, I'd also like for them to be quite RARE, as i'd expect ALL capital ships to be, given how few stations should be able to dock them and how much resources they should require to gain.
In worst case scenario a moth should only be protected by 2 people, otherwise the profit you get out of it is not worth the investment (or the alternant traderoutes). - renegade
trade goods should have a much larger range of prices, going from the basic goods we have now all the way up to some truely valuable items with very high purchase prices, ... -me, in my last post
I'm trying to suggest ideas and implimentations that are more than short term fixes, the next thing on the list iirc after they get the UI and missions running is some new ships and a change in the economy/factions.
Also i am totally against the idea that any single trader should EVER be safe in greyspace. for that matter even an armed and combat ready pilot in a fighter should always be looking over his shoulder IMO. if you want safe, then that should be what the nation sectors are for.
Sure, it takes a hell of a nerf to make time alone make it inadequate... but then, a 20-minte trip of flying in a faster, more maneuverable ship is less painfully boring than a 10-minute trip in a supernerfed slow-ass moth... that was my point.
- cunjo
and cutting the speed to 160 and lowering the thrust some is not going to supernerf the moth. and if it IS found that the moths are dying too easily (which i doubt) at that point you can raise the armor some to make it survivable in a group combat where it is the escortee.
the moth should be vulnerable in that one skilled pirat who makes no mistakes should have a 50-50 chance of killing it. that way a moth captain may (probably wouln't but may) want to hire an escort for any mission through grey or known dangerous space
imo no trade ship should be able to make a trip through grey space without an escort and have more than a 15-20% chance of survival. thats my opinion, danger as a concequence of your choices. you choose to go to grey space, you choose to take a big risk.
do the rewards for that risk need to be increased, certaintly, but the moth IS that ship IMO. I really dont expect to see too many ships much larger than the moth being common in vendetta.
Sectors ok (as i agreed in my previous posts), systems forget it, the hive is already to big of an infestation to be able to completely kill it off for that long.
Anyway, and what you are saying is YOUR opinion. But seeing as this is a suggestionthread, i'm exclaiming my opinion, if you can't agree to it then so be it, i'm not here to convince you. The devs will know what they are doing or what they intent.
Heck, as a sidenote the escortmissions are geared towards defending those vessels now because golly there aren't any different ships to use... and seeing as we have been clamoring for content they had to make do with those. But i at least hope that once luis has finished some more of his art that these ships will get changed with bigger sized vessels. And I doubt that these will be the size of capital ships... the hac is how many times bigger then our moth? I bleieve its something like 20 times while the moth is only like 2 - 3 times bigger then our cent? I'm sure there are a couple other stps in between that size... that will warant escorts... its not like the moth is the only version i nbetween a tradeship and the capital ship...
Once more the moth and centaur are still only single person vessels...
Anyway, a moth isn't perfectly safe if its filled with something a bit heavier then luxury goods..., if you reduce its thrust a bit more, then gaining on it won't be as big as a problem as it is now... its only when the ship is empty that the thrust it has is unbalancing, but you can't punish the ship because of that... since this is a consequence of the masssystem. Although i have admitted in advance that the ship needs some adaptation and that i would be willing to try a reduction in speed out to somewhere around 160 - 170, or a thrustreduction. But then you came with the point about all the tradeships should be nerfed because you want them to have a need for escorting... ships that already are cannonfodder to pretty much any ship if they are bogged down by cargo... and now you want to make it even worse... so bad even that I would consider myself as target practice (bulls eye)... sinc eits not only boring, its also useless due to the chance for profit being so low.
Anyway, and what you are saying is YOUR opinion. But seeing as this is a suggestionthread, i'm exclaiming my opinion, if you can't agree to it then so be it, i'm not here to convince you. The devs will know what they are doing or what they intent.
Heck, as a sidenote the escortmissions are geared towards defending those vessels now because golly there aren't any different ships to use... and seeing as we have been clamoring for content they had to make do with those. But i at least hope that once luis has finished some more of his art that these ships will get changed with bigger sized vessels. And I doubt that these will be the size of capital ships... the hac is how many times bigger then our moth? I bleieve its something like 20 times while the moth is only like 2 - 3 times bigger then our cent? I'm sure there are a couple other stps in between that size... that will warant escorts... its not like the moth is the only version i nbetween a tradeship and the capital ship...
Once more the moth and centaur are still only single person vessels...
Anyway, a moth isn't perfectly safe if its filled with something a bit heavier then luxury goods..., if you reduce its thrust a bit more, then gaining on it won't be as big as a problem as it is now... its only when the ship is empty that the thrust it has is unbalancing, but you can't punish the ship because of that... since this is a consequence of the masssystem. Although i have admitted in advance that the ship needs some adaptation and that i would be willing to try a reduction in speed out to somewhere around 160 - 170, or a thrustreduction. But then you came with the point about all the tradeships should be nerfed because you want them to have a need for escorting... ships that already are cannonfodder to pretty much any ship if they are bogged down by cargo... and now you want to make it even worse... so bad even that I would consider myself as target practice (bulls eye)... sinc eits not only boring, its also useless due to the chance for profit being so low.
I didn't read the thread extremely closely, but I read most of it and skimmed all of it. Basically, Spellcast is right about everything. Not every detail, and some details are undecided, but by and large he has it right. It isn't just his opinion; he's paying attention.
About the HiveHunt missions to clear out trade routes: it's even easier and cooler than Spellcast's explanation. Any sector with a Hive presence is going to get a HiveHunt mission (possibly after it is discovered by someone on another mission). The destruction of many traders/other-faction-ships in any sector, is going to either raise the reward and required firepower of an existing mission in that sector (hivehunt), or cause a new mission to be created to clear out whoever has been killing the ships (pirates/blockaders).
About the HiveHunt missions to clear out trade routes: it's even easier and cooler than Spellcast's explanation. Any sector with a Hive presence is going to get a HiveHunt mission (possibly after it is discovered by someone on another mission). The destruction of many traders/other-faction-ships in any sector, is going to either raise the reward and required firepower of an existing mission in that sector (hivehunt), or cause a new mission to be created to clear out whoever has been killing the ships (pirates/blockaders).
Sectors ok (as i agreed in my previous posts), systems forget it, the hive is already to big of an infestation to be able to completely kill it off for that long.
please point out to me where ANYONE suggested being able to clear a hive out of a system?!
so bad even that I would consider myself as target practice (bulls eye)... sinc eits not only boring, its also useless due to the chance for profit being so low.
You are still trying to only solve one problem renegade.. you are focusing too much on things as they are right this minute.
the economy is going to get a redux, trading will have meaning again because it will be more interesting with bigger effects..
as for being a bullseye, if you are trading in grey space, YOU ARE A BULLSEYE, or you should be anyway. Actually i highly doubt it would be hard to alter the 'escort' missions to instead show a list of convoys being prepeared at the station you are at and to where they are going, thus allowing a trader to sign on as a member of that convoy (possibly for a small fee, maybe instead for a % of your cargo space), gaining benefit from the escorts with minimal trouble on your part.
Once more the moth and centaur are still only single person vessels...
SO WHAT?!!
look, you are assuming that everything major is going to get moved by larger ships, i think not. docks for any ships bigger than the moth (it barel fits as it is) will most likely be few and far between, capital ships themselves should be rare enough that they will be the exception not the rule so even ferrying cargo from a capital ship to a station will be uncommon most places.
Most cargo is still going to get moved by small 1-person ships. Its easier to design basic gameplay around 1 person ships, then you dont have people stuck somewhere because they dont have enough people to crew a larger ship.
anyway, this thread has now more or less wandered off into universe balance and game design as opposed to just the moth.
There needs to be a larger difference between the trade ships and the combat ships. I'd be interested to see what would happen if all trade ships got slowed down except the maud, that would make it a special ship, something like a fast delivery ship as opposed to a small bulk carrier.
please point out to me where ANYONE suggested being able to clear a hive out of a system?!
so bad even that I would consider myself as target practice (bulls eye)... sinc eits not only boring, its also useless due to the chance for profit being so low.
You are still trying to only solve one problem renegade.. you are focusing too much on things as they are right this minute.
the economy is going to get a redux, trading will have meaning again because it will be more interesting with bigger effects..
as for being a bullseye, if you are trading in grey space, YOU ARE A BULLSEYE, or you should be anyway. Actually i highly doubt it would be hard to alter the 'escort' missions to instead show a list of convoys being prepeared at the station you are at and to where they are going, thus allowing a trader to sign on as a member of that convoy (possibly for a small fee, maybe instead for a % of your cargo space), gaining benefit from the escorts with minimal trouble on your part.
Once more the moth and centaur are still only single person vessels...
SO WHAT?!!
look, you are assuming that everything major is going to get moved by larger ships, i think not. docks for any ships bigger than the moth (it barel fits as it is) will most likely be few and far between, capital ships themselves should be rare enough that they will be the exception not the rule so even ferrying cargo from a capital ship to a station will be uncommon most places.
Most cargo is still going to get moved by small 1-person ships. Its easier to design basic gameplay around 1 person ships, then you dont have people stuck somewhere because they dont have enough people to crew a larger ship.
anyway, this thread has now more or less wandered off into universe balance and game design as opposed to just the moth.
There needs to be a larger difference between the trade ships and the combat ships. I'd be interested to see what would happen if all trade ships got slowed down except the maud, that would make it a special ship, something like a fast delivery ship as opposed to a small bulk carrier.
maybe this is reading too much into the backstory but concidering that the first mention of large scale ships using curent technology were refrencing Itani mining transports and personal yachts. i always asumed that NPC capitle ships would be fairly common. and as such the side A protects convoy B while side C tries to intercept it sort of interaction (eiher based around missions or resulting from guild scale activities) would be centered on capitle sized transports. and that those ships should turbo at speeds fighters can reach under normal power, but carry upwards of 1000 CU in a hevily armored but minimaly armed hull. and THAT is the sort of group combat everyone wants to encourage.
Yes owning a ship like that would take a guild (even if an indavidual could buy the actual ship it still needs escorts to survive even random encounters with the hive). but they would be relatively common (say half the NPC convoys were centered by one, and most trade guilds would own one or 2). and they would be the targets that are worth getting 10 pirats together to take down.
otherwise pirats who want to go it alone have to pick on the weeker but faster transports (the moth, tar, maud, etc). and while 1 pirat has an iffy chance of catching a moth, 2 could make short work of it. the reason a moth captain may not bother with escorts is because a lone moth is a small target and so might slip through unnoticed. (because the pirats would prefer to focus on a conjvoy containing multiple moths or one of those big transports given the opertunity). however the only way to be certain of one's saftey is to avoid pirats hang-outs all together.
anyway i thinik everyone knows my thesis at this point so i'm not going to reiterate it. but just because the moth is the bigest commonplace transport doesn't mean it should alway be folloed by a wing of starfighters even if it's in dangerous space. (ok i lied, i did reiterate it in a slightly different form)
Yes owning a ship like that would take a guild (even if an indavidual could buy the actual ship it still needs escorts to survive even random encounters with the hive). but they would be relatively common (say half the NPC convoys were centered by one, and most trade guilds would own one or 2). and they would be the targets that are worth getting 10 pirats together to take down.
otherwise pirats who want to go it alone have to pick on the weeker but faster transports (the moth, tar, maud, etc). and while 1 pirat has an iffy chance of catching a moth, 2 could make short work of it. the reason a moth captain may not bother with escorts is because a lone moth is a small target and so might slip through unnoticed. (because the pirats would prefer to focus on a conjvoy containing multiple moths or one of those big transports given the opertunity). however the only way to be certain of one's saftey is to avoid pirats hang-outs all together.
anyway i thinik everyone knows my thesis at this point so i'm not going to reiterate it. but just because the moth is the bigest commonplace transport doesn't mean it should alway be folloed by a wing of starfighters even if it's in dangerous space. (ok i lied, i did reiterate it in a slightly different form)
and once again as far as i'm concerned no transport should be anle to fly across dangerous space alone, the moth should just be in a touch more danger.
So we cool ppl?
General consensus = Get out the ol' nerfing bat?
Ok now that that's settled the Devs can plan on..........
Oh wait, they were going to do this anyway!
All that testosterone for nothing...
:P
General consensus = Get out the ol' nerfing bat?
Ok now that that's settled the Devs can plan on..........
Oh wait, they were going to do this anyway!
All that testosterone for nothing...
:P
Spellcast,
agreed, but i still say cut the armor... and then re-evaluate the situation
and if you reply you'll say cut the speed and/or thrust (i know we're going in circles, but we both feal strongly that we know what's best and that we should make that known to the devs so unless something new hapens i'm going to stop posting, you should feel free to take the last word if you like, just keep to your usual arguments and i wouln't respond)
agreed, but i still say cut the armor... and then re-evaluate the situation
and if you reply you'll say cut the speed and/or thrust (i know we're going in circles, but we both feal strongly that we know what's best and that we should make that known to the devs so unless something new hapens i'm going to stop posting, you should feel free to take the last word if you like, just keep to your usual arguments and i wouln't respond)
well i made my opinion clear, the devs swooped in and stated their vision.
I know what i am going to do on my next renewal of my subscription, but in between i'll see how it goes.
I know what i am going to do on my next renewal of my subscription, but in between i'll see how it goes.
I'm sorry you feel that way Renegade. I think maybe you're taking my vague statement as an endorsement of something I didn't mean to say. In fact, after reading the whole thread again, I'm not exactly sure what your position or concern is. I'm happy to address it specifically, if you'd like to discuss it further.
Our primary concern is, and always will be, FUN. Obviously different people have different ideas of what *would* be fun, and what they've found fun in the past. I think generally, the ideas of what *would* be fun are more likely to change. Once we have more of this in place, using whatever we have at hand (ie the Moth vs some future larger transport), we can more easily determine what really is fun. And we'll certainly be looking at what all of you are saying about it.
Right now, the simplest thing we can do to make the Pirate and Escort missions more fun, is to slow the Moth down. Not necessarily even the player Moth; it's easy to make an NPC-only variant. If we find that just slowing down the NPC moths, and maybe nerfing the NPC pirates a bit, makes the Escort/Pirate missions really fun, that will be great. If it has unforeseen negative consequences, we'll re-evaluate. If it doesn't go far enough, again, we'll look at it then.
I didn't mean to make you feel like we were disregarding your opinion. I was just saying that a lot of what Spellcast has said in this thread is just what has been said by us in other threads, on IRC, and in-game. We haven't closed our minds to any possibility, but we do have to choose a direction to go in at any given time, if we want to get anywhere.
Edit: Just a word on the side issue of the Hive. There will be multiple Hives. At least 3. The Leviathan in the Stronghold makes Queens; Queens make the other bots; Observers, in large numbers, can create a Leviathan. This is on the design wiki, and is, in a very rudimentary way, already in the game. There will never be any real danger of the Hive being completely exterminated, simply because we won't let that happen. But it will be quite feasible to beat a Hive back across multiple systems, and with a large enough force, destroy a Leviathan, decapitating that Hive. Which will benefit the factions in those systems in a measurable economic way. But, you can bet another Leviathan will show up sooner or later ;)
Edit2: Something Spellcast said has been rolling around in my brain. Certainly, we do intend you to be able to take a group trading mission, hire your own PC/NPC escorts and, eventually, post your own missions (trade/escort and otherwise). But in terms of short term things to make life more interesting for traders, I think he struck on something. But first..
The reason we didn't create a trade mission right away, is that cargo handling was non-existent (in Deliverator) when we decided which group missions to go for first with the new system. It is still incomplete and buggy, and would need to be much better to support a real group trade mission. There are also several logistical problems with cargo distribution (do we just assume that they can take as much as fits in the hold of their current ship; the space left; fill it when they undock?), that make it quite a bit more complex than the 5 missions we have right now.
So, Spellcast's idea is a nice step towards that with far fewer complications. But then it occured to me, that all you really have to do, is look through the Escort missions and take one with a route that approximates the one you'd like to take. There's nothing stopping you from being along for the ride. The escorts won't specifically try to get in between you and the pirates the way they do with the traders, but they consider you a friend and will attack those who attack you. Maybe after the current 5 are stable, I'll look at doing something closer to Spellcast's notion, where you'd pay a small fee, or carry a really small amount of cargo, and the escorts would guard you the way they do the other traders.
Our primary concern is, and always will be, FUN. Obviously different people have different ideas of what *would* be fun, and what they've found fun in the past. I think generally, the ideas of what *would* be fun are more likely to change. Once we have more of this in place, using whatever we have at hand (ie the Moth vs some future larger transport), we can more easily determine what really is fun. And we'll certainly be looking at what all of you are saying about it.
Right now, the simplest thing we can do to make the Pirate and Escort missions more fun, is to slow the Moth down. Not necessarily even the player Moth; it's easy to make an NPC-only variant. If we find that just slowing down the NPC moths, and maybe nerfing the NPC pirates a bit, makes the Escort/Pirate missions really fun, that will be great. If it has unforeseen negative consequences, we'll re-evaluate. If it doesn't go far enough, again, we'll look at it then.
I didn't mean to make you feel like we were disregarding your opinion. I was just saying that a lot of what Spellcast has said in this thread is just what has been said by us in other threads, on IRC, and in-game. We haven't closed our minds to any possibility, but we do have to choose a direction to go in at any given time, if we want to get anywhere.
Edit: Just a word on the side issue of the Hive. There will be multiple Hives. At least 3. The Leviathan in the Stronghold makes Queens; Queens make the other bots; Observers, in large numbers, can create a Leviathan. This is on the design wiki, and is, in a very rudimentary way, already in the game. There will never be any real danger of the Hive being completely exterminated, simply because we won't let that happen. But it will be quite feasible to beat a Hive back across multiple systems, and with a large enough force, destroy a Leviathan, decapitating that Hive. Which will benefit the factions in those systems in a measurable economic way. But, you can bet another Leviathan will show up sooner or later ;)
Edit2: Something Spellcast said has been rolling around in my brain. Certainly, we do intend you to be able to take a group trading mission, hire your own PC/NPC escorts and, eventually, post your own missions (trade/escort and otherwise). But in terms of short term things to make life more interesting for traders, I think he struck on something. But first..
The reason we didn't create a trade mission right away, is that cargo handling was non-existent (in Deliverator) when we decided which group missions to go for first with the new system. It is still incomplete and buggy, and would need to be much better to support a real group trade mission. There are also several logistical problems with cargo distribution (do we just assume that they can take as much as fits in the hold of their current ship; the space left; fill it when they undock?), that make it quite a bit more complex than the 5 missions we have right now.
So, Spellcast's idea is a nice step towards that with far fewer complications. But then it occured to me, that all you really have to do, is look through the Escort missions and take one with a route that approximates the one you'd like to take. There's nothing stopping you from being along for the ride. The escorts won't specifically try to get in between you and the pirates the way they do with the traders, but they consider you a friend and will attack those who attack you. Maybe after the current 5 are stable, I'll look at doing something closer to Spellcast's notion, where you'd pay a small fee, or carry a really small amount of cargo, and the escorts would guard you the way they do the other traders.
It is still incomplete and buggy, and would need to be much better to support a real group trade mission. There are also several logistical problems with cargo distribution (do we just assume that they can take as much as fits in the hold of their current ship; the space left; fill it when they undock?),-momerath
How difficult to add/how far down the road is some form of player to player exchange of items with the new UI? I ask because it might be easier and faster to just impliment that* and make a group mission where all the cargo is given to the person who takes the mission, then anyone in the group can deliver it and get credit towards the mission.
Not sure how you would go about assigning rewards for the mission tho...
That puts the effort on the group leader to distribute the cargo as needed. It's not as elegant of a solution, but its quick and shouldnt be very complicated. Actually you dont even need to add in-station trading since the whole take it outside and jettison it thing works to a point.. its just kinda tedious.
*limited to cargo only to prevent the whole 'giving weapons to low levels that they couldnt otherwise get' issue until you are ready to deal with it.
How difficult to add/how far down the road is some form of player to player exchange of items with the new UI? I ask because it might be easier and faster to just impliment that* and make a group mission where all the cargo is given to the person who takes the mission, then anyone in the group can deliver it and get credit towards the mission.
Not sure how you would go about assigning rewards for the mission tho...
That puts the effort on the group leader to distribute the cargo as needed. It's not as elegant of a solution, but its quick and shouldnt be very complicated. Actually you dont even need to add in-station trading since the whole take it outside and jettison it thing works to a point.. its just kinda tedious.
*limited to cargo only to prevent the whole 'giving weapons to low levels that they couldnt otherwise get' issue until you are ready to deal with it.
All I wanted and meant to say is that for me everything categorised as a tradeship now with maybe the exception of the moth is in my eyes not in need for an escort not even in grey. Its to small to be in need for one. Its to lightly armored to be in need for one.
Make it slower and all you will get is ganking of tradeships, it happened in the past and it will happen again and the resulting unease, complaints and other subsequent stuff. And to be honest, I am not willing to go through that debacle again for a game which i'm paying to play. And to be honest, i'm tired of the same old same old replies of different time, different circumstances... while all that happened was a reconfirmation of what i had stated. Although i'm hoping that my fears won't come through again.
Every tradeship with the exception of a behemoth can at the moment be pirated with a moderate successrate if carying cargo. Shape and his fellow outlaws made that more then evidential. Nerfing them any more would just make trading in grey useless. Even with the aide of escorts. Heck... ctc has made clear how usefull escorts are, as did ctf in the past. How many times didn't a person get killed on such trips even if getting escorted by x people... The only reason wy people aren't getting pirated as much is because of the sheer size of the universe and the lack of people in game to populate this universe (not taking into account the moth).
What I am saying is that in my opinion the ships that will need escorts within grey will be ships that are bigger sized then the moths, have no weaponports and are slow moving fat targets but with a big hull so they can actually give the time to escorts to do their job properly. But they still don't come even near the size or hull of a cap ship, which last time i heard had a hull of around 1 mill hps and is around 20 times bigger then the moth.
in my opinion are the ships you see now still just small ships available for the renegade, for the explorative people, for the lonesome rangers, the lonesome cowboys... that wanna make a small buck without having to go through the hassle of finding an escort or somesuch.
But because I considered the lack of other ships (bigger sized, atypical freighters) to be unable to do it any differently, but to give us some bang for our buck that the escortmissions that have been made at present are just using placeholderships untill a time in the future that they will be introduced and replaced.
But seeing as you stated explicitely that is not the case, i don't see the reason to pay for something that will just end up in enfuriating me, as it did in the past. I jus tprefer to have the option (and a decent chance) to get somewhere without having to be dependable on other people... but maybe that is just my own crucifix and i should go back to singleplayer games. But like i said, i have payed for a year a little while back so I'll see how it goes and if the other changes will be likeable.
Still its not because I'm saying this that anything should change... it is after all your decission (the devs) and not mine, nor spellcasts, nor anybody else that will shape this game. But in hte end, I will choose for what i find fun, even if that means i'll just have to go back to singleplayer games.
Make it slower and all you will get is ganking of tradeships, it happened in the past and it will happen again and the resulting unease, complaints and other subsequent stuff. And to be honest, I am not willing to go through that debacle again for a game which i'm paying to play. And to be honest, i'm tired of the same old same old replies of different time, different circumstances... while all that happened was a reconfirmation of what i had stated. Although i'm hoping that my fears won't come through again.
Every tradeship with the exception of a behemoth can at the moment be pirated with a moderate successrate if carying cargo. Shape and his fellow outlaws made that more then evidential. Nerfing them any more would just make trading in grey useless. Even with the aide of escorts. Heck... ctc has made clear how usefull escorts are, as did ctf in the past. How many times didn't a person get killed on such trips even if getting escorted by x people... The only reason wy people aren't getting pirated as much is because of the sheer size of the universe and the lack of people in game to populate this universe (not taking into account the moth).
What I am saying is that in my opinion the ships that will need escorts within grey will be ships that are bigger sized then the moths, have no weaponports and are slow moving fat targets but with a big hull so they can actually give the time to escorts to do their job properly. But they still don't come even near the size or hull of a cap ship, which last time i heard had a hull of around 1 mill hps and is around 20 times bigger then the moth.
in my opinion are the ships you see now still just small ships available for the renegade, for the explorative people, for the lonesome rangers, the lonesome cowboys... that wanna make a small buck without having to go through the hassle of finding an escort or somesuch.
But because I considered the lack of other ships (bigger sized, atypical freighters) to be unable to do it any differently, but to give us some bang for our buck that the escortmissions that have been made at present are just using placeholderships untill a time in the future that they will be introduced and replaced.
But seeing as you stated explicitely that is not the case, i don't see the reason to pay for something that will just end up in enfuriating me, as it did in the past. I jus tprefer to have the option (and a decent chance) to get somewhere without having to be dependable on other people... but maybe that is just my own crucifix and i should go back to singleplayer games. But like i said, i have payed for a year a little while back so I'll see how it goes and if the other changes will be likeable.
Still its not because I'm saying this that anything should change... it is after all your decission (the devs) and not mine, nor spellcasts, nor anybody else that will shape this game. But in hte end, I will choose for what i find fun, even if that means i'll just have to go back to singleplayer games.
How many times didn't a person get killed on such trips even if getting escorted by x people... - renegade
and that is the exact reason that i want to slow ships down, so escorts can do thier jobs. its hard to defend someone when you have to spend half a sector catching up to them.
Nerfing them any more would just make trading in grey useless.
umm, what is this facination you have with trading in grey renegade?
look, incarnate has stated that grey space is supposed to be kind of like the wild west of vendetta, how many single wagons or stagecoaches without any armed men gaurding them do you think traveled in the wild west, no matter how much or how little cargo they carried. even lone, unarmed riders on a single horse were probably not THAT common over any long distance.
in my opinion are the ships you see now still just small ships available for the renegade, for the explorative people, for the lonesome rangers, the lonesome cowboys... that wanna make a small buck without having to go through the hassle of finding an escort or somesuch
I consider the ships we have now to be the equivalent of the modern car, everyone has one, (or 2 or 3) they get used for most things by most people... some people invest in larger things like 18-wheelers and cargo trains and container ships and such, but the average person makes due with thier car.
If you take a family sedan through a civil war (you have your pick in africa, then theres that whole thing in iraq.. etc etc) your odds of getting through aren't very good, but a family sedan is just fine for driving around rural Ohio.
if you want to be safe(safer anyhow, nowhere in the game is supposed to be perfectly safe) stay in nation space. if you want to go to grey space, you should have to take your chances, or alter your behavior.
as to returning to single player games, that might be best for you renegade, there are things that can be done in a singleplayer game that cannot be done effectively in a multiplayer game. From your posts you seem feel that every area of the game should be equally accessible to you, and thats just not the game that seems to be developing. It's always fun arguing with you, but if you get infuriated over a game... it might be time to step back and take a deep breath.
and that is the exact reason that i want to slow ships down, so escorts can do thier jobs. its hard to defend someone when you have to spend half a sector catching up to them.
Nerfing them any more would just make trading in grey useless.
umm, what is this facination you have with trading in grey renegade?
look, incarnate has stated that grey space is supposed to be kind of like the wild west of vendetta, how many single wagons or stagecoaches without any armed men gaurding them do you think traveled in the wild west, no matter how much or how little cargo they carried. even lone, unarmed riders on a single horse were probably not THAT common over any long distance.
in my opinion are the ships you see now still just small ships available for the renegade, for the explorative people, for the lonesome rangers, the lonesome cowboys... that wanna make a small buck without having to go through the hassle of finding an escort or somesuch
I consider the ships we have now to be the equivalent of the modern car, everyone has one, (or 2 or 3) they get used for most things by most people... some people invest in larger things like 18-wheelers and cargo trains and container ships and such, but the average person makes due with thier car.
If you take a family sedan through a civil war (you have your pick in africa, then theres that whole thing in iraq.. etc etc) your odds of getting through aren't very good, but a family sedan is just fine for driving around rural Ohio.
if you want to be safe(safer anyhow, nowhere in the game is supposed to be perfectly safe) stay in nation space. if you want to go to grey space, you should have to take your chances, or alter your behavior.
as to returning to single player games, that might be best for you renegade, there are things that can be done in a singleplayer game that cannot be done effectively in a multiplayer game. From your posts you seem feel that every area of the game should be equally accessible to you, and thats just not the game that seems to be developing. It's always fun arguing with you, but if you get infuriated over a game... it might be time to step back and take a deep breath.
Renegade said:
"But because I considered the lack of other ships (bigger sized, atypical freighters) to be unable to do it any differently, but to give us some bang for our buck that the escortmissions that have been made at present are just using placeholderships untill a time in the future that they will be introduced and replaced.
But seeing as you stated explicitely that is not the case, i don't see the reason to pay for something that will just end up in enfuriating me, as it did in the past."
I said:
"Once we have more of this in place, using whatever we have at hand (ie the Moth vs some future larger transport), we can more easily determine what really is fun."
In what way did I explicitly state that the Convoy ships were not placeholders for something larger and slower? What I said, in, fact is exactly the opposite: The Moths are what we have 'at hand'. Meaning, they *are* placeholders, though we don't yet know exactly what they'll be replaced with. We do have the Trident, which is meant to be a trade ship primarily, but there is some functionality needed before even NPCs can fly it, and more before players will be able to. So the Moth is the closest thing. Another thing that I said in my post, which I would have thought would relieve you, is that we may only nerf NPC-flown Moths. At any rate, I'm glad you'll be around for a while, because I'm quite confident that you'll ultimately like the direction we're going.
"But because I considered the lack of other ships (bigger sized, atypical freighters) to be unable to do it any differently, but to give us some bang for our buck that the escortmissions that have been made at present are just using placeholderships untill a time in the future that they will be introduced and replaced.
But seeing as you stated explicitely that is not the case, i don't see the reason to pay for something that will just end up in enfuriating me, as it did in the past."
I said:
"Once we have more of this in place, using whatever we have at hand (ie the Moth vs some future larger transport), we can more easily determine what really is fun."
In what way did I explicitly state that the Convoy ships were not placeholders for something larger and slower? What I said, in, fact is exactly the opposite: The Moths are what we have 'at hand'. Meaning, they *are* placeholders, though we don't yet know exactly what they'll be replaced with. We do have the Trident, which is meant to be a trade ship primarily, but there is some functionality needed before even NPCs can fly it, and more before players will be able to. So the Moth is the closest thing. Another thing that I said in my post, which I would have thought would relieve you, is that we may only nerf NPC-flown Moths. At any rate, I'm glad you'll be around for a while, because I'm quite confident that you'll ultimately like the direction we're going.
From what ive gathered from Incarnates comments the Trident should be making it way onto the sence following a new complete production User Interface, at the same time your missions Momerath42 should be hitting the main server as well, at least thats my guess from your current progress. The other ships should also be making head way into the main server along with the Trident in the coming months.
The Hac's are still planned to be user controlable and are being worked on in between the user interface bug fixs. The player crafting system is also on the table and probably planned out by now and has some concept images by now.
Again this is all what ive gathered so far, anything im off on Momerath?
The Hac's are still planned to be user controlable and are being worked on in between the user interface bug fixs. The player crafting system is also on the table and probably planned out by now and has some concept images by now.
Again this is all what ive gathered so far, anything im off on Momerath?
It depends on what you mean by 'complete'. The Trident is already in the game, so the reason it's not used isn't because of the client code-freeze we've had for the last few months. It's because there's a fair bit of work to be done to make anything too big to dock, player usable. When the new client becomes the production client, this won't have changed, and I can't predict when that work will be done. As for my missions, I fully expect them to be released this coming week (As I have for the last few weeks, but I'm pretty sure this time ;) ). The client needs more work than that, but it will hopefully be done in 2 or 3 weeks. I'm sure John has given many man-months of consideration to the design of both the large-ship interface and crafting system, but work isn't going on 'in between the user interface bug fixs'; we're focused on getting our respective projects production-stable, and won't start implementing anything else until we're done. As always these are estimates, not promises, and I've been told I'm overly optimistic ;)
[quote=spellcast]
actually i never bothered because i don't consider them in need of escorting
once again, thats YOUR opinion. I'm guessing the devs feel differently since the escort and pirate attack missions are geared around convoys of exactly those ships. While i would like to see larger capital ships that do nothing but haul cargo, I'd also like for them to be quite RARE, as i'd expect ALL capital ships to be, given how few stations should be able to dock them and how much resources they should require to gain.
[/quote]
[quote=momerath]
I didn't read the thread extremely closely, but I read most of it and skimmed all of it. Basically, Spellcast is right about everything. Not every detail, and some details are undecided, but by and large he has it right. It isn't just his opinion; he's paying attention.
[/quote]
Once more I don't care that you nerf the moth a bit, and that it would need an escort in grey. But in my opinion the centaur, wraith, atlas should not require an escort to be successfull in trading in grey. Seeing as htey are the ships for the adventurous types,
[quote=spellcast]
the moth should be vulnerable in that one skilled pirat who makes no mistakes should have a 50-50 chance of killing it. that way a moth captain may (probably wouln't but may) want to hire an escort for any mission through grey or known dangerous space
imo no trade ship should be able to make a trip through grey space without an escort and have more than a 15-20% chance of survival. thats my opinion, danger as a concequence of your choices. you choose to go to grey space, you choose to take a big risk.[/quote]
[quote=momerath]
I didn't read the thread extremely closely, but I read most of it and skimmed all of it. Basically, Spellcast is right about everything. Not every detail, and some details are undecided, but by and large he has it right. It isn't just his opinion; he's paying attention.
[/quote]
as got stated in here...
I can agree to make it dangerous, but at present if they encounter a pirate in grey that is intent on pirating them then these ships will go down.
The only exception is the moth, and i kinda agreed that they could need a small reduction in either speed or thrust. But as always, lets keep these steps babysteps. Tweak today maybe to 170, see how it goes in 2 weeks. If they are still as strong then slow them down some more, or decreae thrust or...
Please once more, I don't want to see the other tradeships to be nerfed, seeing as they are already quite vulnerable to human pilots once bogged down by tradegoods. I don't care that you would knock down the moth a bit, although if it enters a storm and the hive is near you'll end up with a big dent before you are a tad safe, but thats ok. But by your first post you kinda stated that everything spellcast said was correct (with some minor details being incorrect). But that in my head is not a minor detail. This is basic gamedesign.
However there is still to much of a difference between the handling of a ship with cargo and without. Its that what is causing these complaints to be honsst. If people would take a loaded moth ro fight with, they wouldn't do so well as with the unloaded version now.
actually i never bothered because i don't consider them in need of escorting
once again, thats YOUR opinion. I'm guessing the devs feel differently since the escort and pirate attack missions are geared around convoys of exactly those ships. While i would like to see larger capital ships that do nothing but haul cargo, I'd also like for them to be quite RARE, as i'd expect ALL capital ships to be, given how few stations should be able to dock them and how much resources they should require to gain.
[/quote]
[quote=momerath]
I didn't read the thread extremely closely, but I read most of it and skimmed all of it. Basically, Spellcast is right about everything. Not every detail, and some details are undecided, but by and large he has it right. It isn't just his opinion; he's paying attention.
[/quote]
Once more I don't care that you nerf the moth a bit, and that it would need an escort in grey. But in my opinion the centaur, wraith, atlas should not require an escort to be successfull in trading in grey. Seeing as htey are the ships for the adventurous types,
[quote=spellcast]
the moth should be vulnerable in that one skilled pirat who makes no mistakes should have a 50-50 chance of killing it. that way a moth captain may (probably wouln't but may) want to hire an escort for any mission through grey or known dangerous space
imo no trade ship should be able to make a trip through grey space without an escort and have more than a 15-20% chance of survival. thats my opinion, danger as a concequence of your choices. you choose to go to grey space, you choose to take a big risk.[/quote]
[quote=momerath]
I didn't read the thread extremely closely, but I read most of it and skimmed all of it. Basically, Spellcast is right about everything. Not every detail, and some details are undecided, but by and large he has it right. It isn't just his opinion; he's paying attention.
[/quote]
as got stated in here...
I can agree to make it dangerous, but at present if they encounter a pirate in grey that is intent on pirating them then these ships will go down.
The only exception is the moth, and i kinda agreed that they could need a small reduction in either speed or thrust. But as always, lets keep these steps babysteps. Tweak today maybe to 170, see how it goes in 2 weeks. If they are still as strong then slow them down some more, or decreae thrust or...
Please once more, I don't want to see the other tradeships to be nerfed, seeing as they are already quite vulnerable to human pilots once bogged down by tradegoods. I don't care that you would knock down the moth a bit, although if it enters a storm and the hive is near you'll end up with a big dent before you are a tad safe, but thats ok. But by your first post you kinda stated that everything spellcast said was correct (with some minor details being incorrect). But that in my head is not a minor detail. This is basic gamedesign.
However there is still to much of a difference between the handling of a ship with cargo and without. Its that what is causing these complaints to be honsst. If people would take a loaded moth ro fight with, they wouldn't do so well as with the unloaded version now.
Hmm, I can definitely understand where you're coming from now, Renegade. I didn't mean to suggest that all the current trading ships would be pirate-bait in grey without an escort. I do expect it to get more dangerous, but there will certainly always be a place for the lone trader.
You will obviously have to trade cargo-space for speed and handling, compared to whatever ships usually fly with escorts. I don't know what ships those will be. The thing is, just by shifting the economy around, we could make it profitable to do trade runs in a hog. And I think we probably will have missions and other reasons that you'd carry a very small cargo and make good money.
The aspect of the discussion I was focused on is making missions fun, and making it possible to have an impact on the universe through them. For this, we really need the convoys to move slowly enough that fighters can easily keep up. How we go about making that happen is still a subject of discussion, and ultimately John's decision.
You will obviously have to trade cargo-space for speed and handling, compared to whatever ships usually fly with escorts. I don't know what ships those will be. The thing is, just by shifting the economy around, we could make it profitable to do trade runs in a hog. And I think we probably will have missions and other reasons that you'd carry a very small cargo and make good money.
The aspect of the discussion I was focused on is making missions fun, and making it possible to have an impact on the universe through them. For this, we really need the convoys to move slowly enough that fighters can easily keep up. How we go about making that happen is still a subject of discussion, and ultimately John's decision.
problem with that is that as soon as you add cargo to any ship it starts to affect its handling making the tradership filled with equivalent units a better fightership than this hog.
If mass hadn't been implimented then you would have been correct that it would be solvable. Its just that now thee are so many different variables that each have an influence on each other that will make it so much more difficult.
Its the same debacle as the cent mk2 that got used as the primarilly interceptor and cargo frighter for ctc runs. you just shot down the ctc bot, got the cargo and pushed the boost button. You were gone without any chance of being intercepted (while you still were bogged down by the xith mass ). While if you had taken any of the tradeships (exception being the moth), chances would have been way higher that you would have been shot down or even intercepted.
the difference in handling between empty loadouts and full loadouts are just to big, but thats a consequence off having to add thrust to keep a moderately decent propulsion while having the cargo loaded and not turn it into a snail. If you make this difference smaller it will be easier to balance all ships.
That or you are going to need to make the heavy loadouts way more profitable in your next rebalancing of the economic redux. meaning a load of 120 lux should be less profitable then a load of 40 ion cores. Although this is going to be problematic if you then consider the transports of ores which are way less profitable but way way way heavier.
I still am in favor of having a difference between unloade dthrust and loaded thrust. This way you can more easilly balance ships that are loaded with unloaded versions without making them uber. Although you'll still have the trouble of people adding 1 unit to their cargo to get the thrustadvantage. Although you could say that the thrustadvantage would be only gainable on a item per item base, but that would make it difficult to balance light loadouts and heavy loadouts (by making the light loadouts better manouvrable then an empty loadout). Or just my favorite give any ship some sort of basecargoweight before their handling gets empaired. But even that is going to be a pain to balance properly... mass made it more real, more interesting but is also making the balancingpart harder and harder...
If mass hadn't been implimented then you would have been correct that it would be solvable. Its just that now thee are so many different variables that each have an influence on each other that will make it so much more difficult.
Its the same debacle as the cent mk2 that got used as the primarilly interceptor and cargo frighter for ctc runs. you just shot down the ctc bot, got the cargo and pushed the boost button. You were gone without any chance of being intercepted (while you still were bogged down by the xith mass ). While if you had taken any of the tradeships (exception being the moth), chances would have been way higher that you would have been shot down or even intercepted.
the difference in handling between empty loadouts and full loadouts are just to big, but thats a consequence off having to add thrust to keep a moderately decent propulsion while having the cargo loaded and not turn it into a snail. If you make this difference smaller it will be easier to balance all ships.
That or you are going to need to make the heavy loadouts way more profitable in your next rebalancing of the economic redux. meaning a load of 120 lux should be less profitable then a load of 40 ion cores. Although this is going to be problematic if you then consider the transports of ores which are way less profitable but way way way heavier.
I still am in favor of having a difference between unloade dthrust and loaded thrust. This way you can more easilly balance ships that are loaded with unloaded versions without making them uber. Although you'll still have the trouble of people adding 1 unit to their cargo to get the thrustadvantage. Although you could say that the thrustadvantage would be only gainable on a item per item base, but that would make it difficult to balance light loadouts and heavy loadouts (by making the light loadouts better manouvrable then an empty loadout). Or just my favorite give any ship some sort of basecargoweight before their handling gets empaired. But even that is going to be a pain to balance properly... mass made it more real, more interesting but is also making the balancingpart harder and harder...