Forums » Suggestions
I know there have been similar threads in the past. I felt this idea was different enough to get its own thread. It’s a bit long so bear with me here.
I propose a system where ships become disabled after a fight. After someone shoots your armor down, your green health indicator fills back up, only gray. You would now be unable to move your ship or fire any weapons. You are disabled. The gray armor bar would only last a few shots. It’s just so that people don’t accidentally kill each other when they really wanted to disable them. This gives a buffer. But wait, there’s more.
Now your opponent gets an option window. He would have 10 seconds to choose either “Board” or “Release”, or he can just finish destroying you.
If he chooses release, your ship’s power would be restored and you would be set free, with absolutely no health. You wouldn’t be gray anymore, but a single shot from even the weakest weapon would again disable you. You would basically have to go straight to the nearest station to repair. This would be the default if he chose nothing at all after 10 seconds.
If the opponent had chosen “Board” (and moved within 5 meters of your ship), you would now have 10 seconds to choose either “Allow” or “Self-Destruct”. Here’s where it gets interesting.
If you chose “Allow” at this point and he boards you, he can take as much of your cargo as he can wants and can hold, any weapon-port equipment, and approximately 10% of your total money. Now this seems like it’d be pretty cut and dry. If you were really poor, you’d allow people to board you, and if you were really rich, you’d self-destruct. HOWEVER, there’s a chance that the opponent could take more or less of your money, decreasing in probability the farther from 10% of the total in either direction.
% of Money - Probability
5% - 1% chance
6% - 2% chance
7% - 4% chance
8% - 9% chance
9% - 17% chance
10% - 35% chance
20% - 17% chance
30% - 9% chance
40% - 4% chance
50% - 2% chance
The opponent could never get less than 5% of your total money and never more than 50%. Most of the time he’d get between 9 and 20%. This would make your decision a bit harder, especially if you were poor.
After the opponent finished boarding you, your energy would be restored and you could fly to a station with no health. If you don’t think you can make it home without being boarded again by another pirate or destroyed, you should just have chosen self-destruct.
There would have to be a system to stop pirates from boarding a ship and then destroying it afterwards. Maybe after you board a ship, your shots don’t hurt that ship (like the dreaded FF system now) until they get to a station to repair.
To go along with all this, I propose that ships and equipment cost 3x or 4x what they do now. I’ve suggested this before and people always say it’d make PvP nearly impossible. NOT WITH THIS IDEA.
I always felt like money was nearly meaningless in VO. It is very easy to earn and it goes a very long way. You can buy dozens, if not hundreds of decked out ships without going broke and having to earn more money. This would fix that problem without making the game impossibly hard or dull.
In a duel or even just civilized PvP, it would be considered poor form to destroy or board your opponent after you win. We would just disable and then release each other. We could PvP all day without losing a single credit. Boarding or destroying an opponent could even result in a faction standing penalty.
This system would also make pirating more realistic and interesting (and profitable). You could now take people’s money like real pirates would. They would be the only ones to really use the boarding feature anyway.
Bots would ignore this system and always finish destroying ships. You could however board bots.
For people who don’t like being boarded, nothing would change, you could always self-destruct and it would be just the same as if the opponent had killed you, like in the current system. You would never have to be boarded ever, not even once, if you didn’t want to. You’d always have the choice.
The main reason for all this was to come up with a system that was more realistic. It isn’t realistic to have your ship destroyed and replaced every few minutes. You should really fear pirates and gray space. This would do that. Everything would cost more, so you’d value it more, and there would be more risk in doing things. I think that risk makes a game more fun.
I propose a system where ships become disabled after a fight. After someone shoots your armor down, your green health indicator fills back up, only gray. You would now be unable to move your ship or fire any weapons. You are disabled. The gray armor bar would only last a few shots. It’s just so that people don’t accidentally kill each other when they really wanted to disable them. This gives a buffer. But wait, there’s more.
Now your opponent gets an option window. He would have 10 seconds to choose either “Board” or “Release”, or he can just finish destroying you.
If he chooses release, your ship’s power would be restored and you would be set free, with absolutely no health. You wouldn’t be gray anymore, but a single shot from even the weakest weapon would again disable you. You would basically have to go straight to the nearest station to repair. This would be the default if he chose nothing at all after 10 seconds.
If the opponent had chosen “Board” (and moved within 5 meters of your ship), you would now have 10 seconds to choose either “Allow” or “Self-Destruct”. Here’s where it gets interesting.
If you chose “Allow” at this point and he boards you, he can take as much of your cargo as he can wants and can hold, any weapon-port equipment, and approximately 10% of your total money. Now this seems like it’d be pretty cut and dry. If you were really poor, you’d allow people to board you, and if you were really rich, you’d self-destruct. HOWEVER, there’s a chance that the opponent could take more or less of your money, decreasing in probability the farther from 10% of the total in either direction.
% of Money - Probability
5% - 1% chance
6% - 2% chance
7% - 4% chance
8% - 9% chance
9% - 17% chance
10% - 35% chance
20% - 17% chance
30% - 9% chance
40% - 4% chance
50% - 2% chance
The opponent could never get less than 5% of your total money and never more than 50%. Most of the time he’d get between 9 and 20%. This would make your decision a bit harder, especially if you were poor.
After the opponent finished boarding you, your energy would be restored and you could fly to a station with no health. If you don’t think you can make it home without being boarded again by another pirate or destroyed, you should just have chosen self-destruct.
There would have to be a system to stop pirates from boarding a ship and then destroying it afterwards. Maybe after you board a ship, your shots don’t hurt that ship (like the dreaded FF system now) until they get to a station to repair.
To go along with all this, I propose that ships and equipment cost 3x or 4x what they do now. I’ve suggested this before and people always say it’d make PvP nearly impossible. NOT WITH THIS IDEA.
I always felt like money was nearly meaningless in VO. It is very easy to earn and it goes a very long way. You can buy dozens, if not hundreds of decked out ships without going broke and having to earn more money. This would fix that problem without making the game impossibly hard or dull.
In a duel or even just civilized PvP, it would be considered poor form to destroy or board your opponent after you win. We would just disable and then release each other. We could PvP all day without losing a single credit. Boarding or destroying an opponent could even result in a faction standing penalty.
This system would also make pirating more realistic and interesting (and profitable). You could now take people’s money like real pirates would. They would be the only ones to really use the boarding feature anyway.
Bots would ignore this system and always finish destroying ships. You could however board bots.
For people who don’t like being boarded, nothing would change, you could always self-destruct and it would be just the same as if the opponent had killed you, like in the current system. You would never have to be boarded ever, not even once, if you didn’t want to. You’d always have the choice.
The main reason for all this was to come up with a system that was more realistic. It isn’t realistic to have your ship destroyed and replaced every few minutes. You should really fear pirates and gray space. This would do that. Everything would cost more, so you’d value it more, and there would be more risk in doing things. I think that risk makes a game more fun.
lol
If I had written a paragraph simply suggesting the abilty to disable ships, board ships, and to make everything expensive, I would of got half a dozen replies saying "use the search feature" or "been discussed at length".
My mini-novel here deserves at least a rejection or two!
If I had written a paragraph simply suggesting the abilty to disable ships, board ships, and to make everything expensive, I would of got half a dozen replies saying "use the search feature" or "been discussed at length".
My mini-novel here deserves at least a rejection or two!
I'm all fer it. There's your rejection :-D
I haven't checked the actual implementation of your idea, but some Escape Velocity-style disabling and boarding is something I've always wanted to see in VO.
However, I think I'd like to see a much nastier version, with absolutely no benefits for the boarded:
1) Disabling should be extremely difficult. No option windows. To disable a ship, you would just have to time and measure your shots to find the tiny window between 1% ship health and total destruction.
2) Boarding should be done manually, without option windows. Not too diffcult, of course. Along the lines of docking with a cap ship. But still enough to put some pressure on pirates who need to board and get away within the space of a few seconds.
3) The boarded should still be disabled after the boarding is finished. If he wants energy/a quick repair to be able to return to the closest station, he will just have to ask other players in the sector for that boost.
So, basically, boarding would become a more difficult way of pirating, that has the benefits of allowing the pirate to steal some money from the disabled player, and possibly grabbing a few extra boxes of cargo. More than what is usually dropped when a ship is destroyed.
In either case, I doubt we will see this functionality, especially now that the devs have implemented some looting possibilities when ships are destroyed.
I haven't checked the actual implementation of your idea, but some Escape Velocity-style disabling and boarding is something I've always wanted to see in VO.
However, I think I'd like to see a much nastier version, with absolutely no benefits for the boarded:
1) Disabling should be extremely difficult. No option windows. To disable a ship, you would just have to time and measure your shots to find the tiny window between 1% ship health and total destruction.
2) Boarding should be done manually, without option windows. Not too diffcult, of course. Along the lines of docking with a cap ship. But still enough to put some pressure on pirates who need to board and get away within the space of a few seconds.
3) The boarded should still be disabled after the boarding is finished. If he wants energy/a quick repair to be able to return to the closest station, he will just have to ask other players in the sector for that boost.
So, basically, boarding would become a more difficult way of pirating, that has the benefits of allowing the pirate to steal some money from the disabled player, and possibly grabbing a few extra boxes of cargo. More than what is usually dropped when a ship is destroyed.
In either case, I doubt we will see this functionality, especially now that the devs have implemented some looting possibilities when ships are destroyed.
Okay, so here is a real rejection:
All credits are clearly electronic only and, for fun-ness reasons, no one should EVER be able to steal credits from someone else.
I still like my disabling suggestion better (surprise), though I could see disabling ships at under 1% HP; it would be interesting.
Fighter craft cannot really board anything; boarding should require something special, if it is even allowed at all; I do not like the idea of boarding fighters in general (though maybe capships).
Games are supposed to be FUN, not necesarily realistic.
Ships are already going to be drastically more expensive:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11768 - by Incarnate
All credits are clearly electronic only and, for fun-ness reasons, no one should EVER be able to steal credits from someone else.
I still like my disabling suggestion better (surprise), though I could see disabling ships at under 1% HP; it would be interesting.
Fighter craft cannot really board anything; boarding should require something special, if it is even allowed at all; I do not like the idea of boarding fighters in general (though maybe capships).
Games are supposed to be FUN, not necesarily realistic.
Ships are already going to be drastically more expensive:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11768 - by Incarnate
Fun-ness is what I had in mind, actually. The stealing of credits has nothing to do with realism (unlike the "Fighter craft cannot really board anything;" point, which seems to me to be an argument based on realism, not fun ;-) ), but adds another element of challenge and difficulty. Always been fond of games that dare to take actually take something away from it's players, and VO is one of these.
But yeah, games are supposed to be fun indeed. I think I can safely say that neither mine nor FatStrat85's suggestion were intended to put realism before fun, or intended to actually sabotauge the gameplay of VO. I'm not sure about this, but perhaps we even imagined that our suggestions would improve gameplay in VO. But I suppose that we would do well to remember that realism and extended gameplay mechanics can NEVER equal fun...
But yeah, games are supposed to be fun indeed. I think I can safely say that neither mine nor FatStrat85's suggestion were intended to put realism before fun, or intended to actually sabotauge the gameplay of VO. I'm not sure about this, but perhaps we even imagined that our suggestions would improve gameplay in VO. But I suppose that we would do well to remember that realism and extended gameplay mechanics can NEVER equal fun...
Rejection from here as well. How in blazes does one "board" a Centurion? A moth, maybe, but it's still iffy.
There's a fine line between 'fun' and 'omfg what the hell that is so god-damn stupid'. This is leaning towards the latter.
There's a fine line between 'fun' and 'omfg what the hell that is so god-damn stupid'. This is leaning towards the latter.
Yes Ion, I know that you HAVE to have extended gameplay mechanics in order to provide more fun ideas. The sarcasm was worked in well though, nice job. :)
I think there is an important boundary between the GAME taking something away from a player and ANOTHER PLAYER having said ability. When parts of the GAME are mean, it encourages players to band together to crush the Hive or whatever. When other players are mean, it divides the game's player base, hurts people's feelings, and turns the forums into a flame war; this is especially true when "mean" is different for different people (surprise) and allowed to fit within the game's mechanics since I believe MOST people are not trying to be mean per-se... ("WTF, I'm a P_I_R_A_T_E - PIRATE!!! I'm not SUPPOSED to be fluffy nice!).
As such, I am entirely against allowing things to be stolen that really ought to be safe (like credits).
Um, Cabbage... Is that the kind of thin line that divided the United States from Japan in WWII -- you know, that Pacific Ocean one??? ;)
I think there is an important boundary between the GAME taking something away from a player and ANOTHER PLAYER having said ability. When parts of the GAME are mean, it encourages players to band together to crush the Hive or whatever. When other players are mean, it divides the game's player base, hurts people's feelings, and turns the forums into a flame war; this is especially true when "mean" is different for different people (surprise) and allowed to fit within the game's mechanics since I believe MOST people are not trying to be mean per-se... ("WTF, I'm a P_I_R_A_T_E - PIRATE!!! I'm not SUPPOSED to be fluffy nice!).
As such, I am entirely against allowing things to be stolen that really ought to be safe (like credits).
Um, Cabbage... Is that the kind of thin line that divided the United States from Japan in WWII -- you know, that Pacific Ocean one??? ;)
I really want a disabling/boarding option, but it's not coming any time soon. That being said, I like how Ion said there shouldn't be any freebies for the boarded, and it should be tricky to disable a ship. I think some form of location-specific damage or critical hit system would do the trick. If you are able to score a critical hit on the engine, there should be a percent chance that the engine is either disabled or the ship is destroyed. The tricky part is that if the engine is disabled, the ship continues on its course (anable to alter course, of course), and you have to match course and speed to board. This would of course be easier with a tractor beam, since you could stop the ship and maybe even tow it to a safe area where you can take your time. Maybe if you can maintain a distance within 5m for several seconds, your HUD says "Press Activate to Board Ship." You hit enter, and you get a window with options at that point. Back to this in a second.
At anytime up to this point, since it's only the engine that's disabled, the player can either negotiate a price to make their enemy leave (would have to be more than what the player thinks they can make by stealing weapons/cargo/ship), or simply self-destruct. Under the right conditions and with good timing, you can inflict serious damage on your enemy by self destructing, maybe even destroy them. Other methods of disabling would require special equipment, such as an EMP weapon. EMP should come in a the form of a large, heavy missile with proximity detonation. The warhead could have a rating of 1, 2 or 3, each delivered in a missile that is either slow and well-guided or fast and poorly-guided. When outfitting your ship, you can have your electrical systems "hardened" with a rating of 1, 2 or 3. In addition, each class of ship would have a natural EMP resistance based on its size: Light ships, 1; Medium ships,2; Heavy ships, 4; capital ships, 8. Effectiveness of an EMP warhead would be determined by a probability. Take the rating of the warhead and divide it by the electical hardening rating plus natural shielding of the target times 2. So if I use a level 2 EMP on a light ship with a hardening level of 1, 2÷(1+1)x2=.5, or a 50% chance of disabling the target. However, the same warhead against a capital ship with level 3 hardening: 2÷(8+3)x2=.09, or a 9% chance of disabling.
These numbers are just examples of how the system would work, obviously not set in stone. Also, disabling someone this way wouldn't be permanent, some calculation on how long it would take to get systems online would have to be devised based on how strong the warhead was, how big the ship is, any addons that dissapate EM radiation, and how long it takes to boot up the ships computer (cap ships would have a more cumbersome computer than a small ship). You'd either have this window to work with to board the ship, or you could use the window to try to disable the engine, risking destroying the ship for the chance of completely disabling it. Since this method (EMP) disables the computer system, while the computer is down, the player can’t self-destruct.
Boarding a ship would have to depend (until we can walk around stations and ships, and maybe shoot people with handheld firearmes) on how many people board the ship vs. how many crew are aboard the ship. It’s not feasible, even if you’re lucky and disable a capital ship, to board one when all you have is a one-man fighter. Maybe when there’s real FPS capability in walking around the ship you board, if you’re amazingly skilled, you can take out the whole crew single-handedly. Realistically, though, you’d have to bring in help. This would be hard to implement, there would have to be a way to tell the server that you’re not boarding alone, you’re teaming up. Maybe this can be the first option in the window that comes up when you press “Activate” to board the ship: Wait for reinforcements. When enough reinforcements come, you click “Board Ship,” and get a new set of options if you board successfully, or your player is killed if you board unsuccessfully. Whether the boarding is successful or not would be a calculation based on how many you are attacking with vs how many are defending, and defenders get a 50% defense bonus. If you have two crews of five boarding a ship with a crew of eight: (5+5)÷(8x1.5)=.83, or an 83% chance of success. To effectively board a capital ship, you’d need the crew of another capital ship, or several crews of heavy ships and some persistence.
Once you board a ship, you have options. You can chat with the captain of the ship to negotiate a price for letting him go. I agree that credits should be safe, and should only be lost voluntarily. So if the captain is willing to offer you an amount that’s worth more to you than the ship and its cargo, you let him go. Otherwise, you can take all the cargo/equipment you can hold in everyone’s cargo holds, and you can attempt to take the ship. This would be based on some other probability, maybe modified by the presence of a “Computer Specialist” that you hired at a station to be part of your crew, or software that you bought, or software already in the ship’s system that resists your efforts.
Like I said, this would be really involved to implement, but gives a realistic chance of capturing ships, and makes pirating worthwhile but not easy. Keep in mind that while it sounds complex when reading it in this post, all the complicated stuff would be taken care of by the computer. In-game, it would simply be that you fire at a ship, and if you’re lucky/skilled you disable it. If you have time, you get close and you and your friends board the ship. Again if you’re lucky or have enough people, you simply take the cargo and try to take the ship if that’s what you want. If you take it, and you have no way to tow it home, you can choose to pilot your new ship and either destroy your old ship or have mercy on your victim by giving him/her your old ship. [Not Coming Soon]
At anytime up to this point, since it's only the engine that's disabled, the player can either negotiate a price to make their enemy leave (would have to be more than what the player thinks they can make by stealing weapons/cargo/ship), or simply self-destruct. Under the right conditions and with good timing, you can inflict serious damage on your enemy by self destructing, maybe even destroy them. Other methods of disabling would require special equipment, such as an EMP weapon. EMP should come in a the form of a large, heavy missile with proximity detonation. The warhead could have a rating of 1, 2 or 3, each delivered in a missile that is either slow and well-guided or fast and poorly-guided. When outfitting your ship, you can have your electrical systems "hardened" with a rating of 1, 2 or 3. In addition, each class of ship would have a natural EMP resistance based on its size: Light ships, 1; Medium ships,2; Heavy ships, 4; capital ships, 8. Effectiveness of an EMP warhead would be determined by a probability. Take the rating of the warhead and divide it by the electical hardening rating plus natural shielding of the target times 2. So if I use a level 2 EMP on a light ship with a hardening level of 1, 2÷(1+1)x2=.5, or a 50% chance of disabling the target. However, the same warhead against a capital ship with level 3 hardening: 2÷(8+3)x2=.09, or a 9% chance of disabling.
These numbers are just examples of how the system would work, obviously not set in stone. Also, disabling someone this way wouldn't be permanent, some calculation on how long it would take to get systems online would have to be devised based on how strong the warhead was, how big the ship is, any addons that dissapate EM radiation, and how long it takes to boot up the ships computer (cap ships would have a more cumbersome computer than a small ship). You'd either have this window to work with to board the ship, or you could use the window to try to disable the engine, risking destroying the ship for the chance of completely disabling it. Since this method (EMP) disables the computer system, while the computer is down, the player can’t self-destruct.
Boarding a ship would have to depend (until we can walk around stations and ships, and maybe shoot people with handheld firearmes) on how many people board the ship vs. how many crew are aboard the ship. It’s not feasible, even if you’re lucky and disable a capital ship, to board one when all you have is a one-man fighter. Maybe when there’s real FPS capability in walking around the ship you board, if you’re amazingly skilled, you can take out the whole crew single-handedly. Realistically, though, you’d have to bring in help. This would be hard to implement, there would have to be a way to tell the server that you’re not boarding alone, you’re teaming up. Maybe this can be the first option in the window that comes up when you press “Activate” to board the ship: Wait for reinforcements. When enough reinforcements come, you click “Board Ship,” and get a new set of options if you board successfully, or your player is killed if you board unsuccessfully. Whether the boarding is successful or not would be a calculation based on how many you are attacking with vs how many are defending, and defenders get a 50% defense bonus. If you have two crews of five boarding a ship with a crew of eight: (5+5)÷(8x1.5)=.83, or an 83% chance of success. To effectively board a capital ship, you’d need the crew of another capital ship, or several crews of heavy ships and some persistence.
Once you board a ship, you have options. You can chat with the captain of the ship to negotiate a price for letting him go. I agree that credits should be safe, and should only be lost voluntarily. So if the captain is willing to offer you an amount that’s worth more to you than the ship and its cargo, you let him go. Otherwise, you can take all the cargo/equipment you can hold in everyone’s cargo holds, and you can attempt to take the ship. This would be based on some other probability, maybe modified by the presence of a “Computer Specialist” that you hired at a station to be part of your crew, or software that you bought, or software already in the ship’s system that resists your efforts.
Like I said, this would be really involved to implement, but gives a realistic chance of capturing ships, and makes pirating worthwhile but not easy. Keep in mind that while it sounds complex when reading it in this post, all the complicated stuff would be taken care of by the computer. In-game, it would simply be that you fire at a ship, and if you’re lucky/skilled you disable it. If you have time, you get close and you and your friends board the ship. Again if you’re lucky or have enough people, you simply take the cargo and try to take the ship if that’s what you want. If you take it, and you have no way to tow it home, you can choose to pilot your new ship and either destroy your old ship or have mercy on your victim by giving him/her your old ship. [Not Coming Soon]
I still do not like the idea of needing to be lucky to disable something; I do not want % chances - those are for the screen-saver that is EVE.
I'm all for it, but with a few caveats.
first of all, disabling should be tremendously hard to do.
Example: you have to drop them to exactly 0-1%. Any more and they're still active, any less and they're toast.
It would make certain unused weapons, like the phase blasters, into useful weapons. Disabling weapons, not destruction weapons.
Once they are disabled though, they return to station, they have no more choice in the matter, it is as if they died.
THEN, the disabled ship can be boarded, and the boarding party has the opportunity to capture the ship, steal the cargo, or steal a certain degree of funds, either 5% or 20000 creds, whichever is less.
This ought to prevent abuse, and add the fun side of capturing ships and actually having worthwhile piracy.
first of all, disabling should be tremendously hard to do.
Example: you have to drop them to exactly 0-1%. Any more and they're still active, any less and they're toast.
It would make certain unused weapons, like the phase blasters, into useful weapons. Disabling weapons, not destruction weapons.
Once they are disabled though, they return to station, they have no more choice in the matter, it is as if they died.
THEN, the disabled ship can be boarded, and the boarding party has the opportunity to capture the ship, steal the cargo, or steal a certain degree of funds, either 5% or 20000 creds, whichever is less.
This ought to prevent abuse, and add the fun side of capturing ships and actually having worthwhile piracy.
I agree, it should be difficult, more difficult than simply destroying the ship, but there should be good reward for accomplishing it, such as capturing the ship. I'm not sure I like keeping it at 0-1%, that's really hard, but it's too general. Normally, a ship would keep going with 1% armor, but if the engine is ruined, that's when a ship starts drifting, or when the guidance computer is down. It was really easy to disable ships in EV, because the window was so big. I liked in EVN that you could increase your "capture" probability by equipping a squad of marines.
I think there should be an EMP weapon (I know it's been suggested before, that's because it's a good idea), and if not a tractor beam then at least a grappling hook. Remember, equipping these weapons means another weapon can't be equipped in that slot, so there's more strategy in what you equip your ship with. It would encourage people to team up, maybe a couple fighters to attack the ship while a larger ship with EMP missiles and a tractor beam and a big crew (with marines) to capture the ship.
My idea of making it not only tricky to disable the ship, but difficult to board the ship to actually make disabling worthwhile, makes it sufficiently hard. It's not JUST luck, you have to be careful not to do too much damage, and it helps if you're a good shot and can hit the engine almost exclusively, and you have to plan ahead to have enough troops to board the ship. In the very distant future (Vendetta 420.0), when we can enter the ship in FPS mode and shoot up the crew with blaster rifles and grenades, then the luck aspect will be gone from this feature. As it is, this is a far future feature. You do have a point, Shape, that this will make weaker weapons a bit more purposeful, as there's less risk of doing too much damage.
It's silly to think you can board a ship and take cash, though. That's like picking someone's pocket, and all they have is a credit card, and by the time you use it it's been cancelled and you're busted. No one carries money in this game, it's all electronic. They do, however, carry valuable cargo, that can be stolen.
[EDIT]: By the way, the numbers in my equations are just an idea of how it could work within the way the game works. They would need a lot of adjusting. My point is and has been that there is no meaningful pirating system without the boarding and disabling of ships. This is one way pirates could steal cap ships, too.
I think there should be an EMP weapon (I know it's been suggested before, that's because it's a good idea), and if not a tractor beam then at least a grappling hook. Remember, equipping these weapons means another weapon can't be equipped in that slot, so there's more strategy in what you equip your ship with. It would encourage people to team up, maybe a couple fighters to attack the ship while a larger ship with EMP missiles and a tractor beam and a big crew (with marines) to capture the ship.
My idea of making it not only tricky to disable the ship, but difficult to board the ship to actually make disabling worthwhile, makes it sufficiently hard. It's not JUST luck, you have to be careful not to do too much damage, and it helps if you're a good shot and can hit the engine almost exclusively, and you have to plan ahead to have enough troops to board the ship. In the very distant future (Vendetta 420.0), when we can enter the ship in FPS mode and shoot up the crew with blaster rifles and grenades, then the luck aspect will be gone from this feature. As it is, this is a far future feature. You do have a point, Shape, that this will make weaker weapons a bit more purposeful, as there's less risk of doing too much damage.
It's silly to think you can board a ship and take cash, though. That's like picking someone's pocket, and all they have is a credit card, and by the time you use it it's been cancelled and you're busted. No one carries money in this game, it's all electronic. They do, however, carry valuable cargo, that can be stolen.
[EDIT]: By the way, the numbers in my equations are just an idea of how it could work within the way the game works. They would need a lot of adjusting. My point is and has been that there is no meaningful pirating system without the boarding and disabling of ships. This is one way pirates could steal cap ships, too.
I like both the original suggestion and Professor Chaos' extensions - this opens a completely new niche of gameplay, namely piracy.
(IMHO we only have a sortof-emulated version of piracy ATM.)
(IMHO we only have a sortof-emulated version of piracy ATM.)
About not boarding a cent? that's the perfect part about it. From 1% to dead (personally, I'd make it 3%, varying on ships) is diffrent on all ships. On a cent, that's around 60 damage; Almost impossable. In a moth, it's quite a bit more. On a frigate? lol, easy boarding.
Exactly, zamzx. That's why a more realistic system that takes into account where you hit the ship with what, and where you need to outnumber the crew to have a decent chance of successfully taking it over, makes sense.
Professor Chaos - "My point is and has been that there is no meaningful pirating system without the boarding and disabling of ships." ???
Care to explain why both are necessary? And how would you board a fightercraft anyway - there is only ROOM for 1 person?! I still say no boarding of non-capital class (multi-character) ships.
Care to explain why both are necessary? And how would you board a fightercraft anyway - there is only ROOM for 1 person?! I still say no boarding of non-capital class (multi-character) ships.
I think that the trading ships should at least be boarded. And a small ship could get boarded in a diffrent way, pretty much you latch onto the ship and suck all the credits out :P
Why is a pirating and boarding/disabling necessary? Because that's what I want to do in this game, that's why! It would be fun, immersive and realistic. I think I used the wrong word when I said pirating "system," though. It should no more be a "system" than laissez-faire capitalism is a "system;" i.e., it should simply be possible to disable and board a ship.
How would you board a fighter? Like zamzx said, latch on to it and.... well, I'm already on record as saying stealing credits shouldn't be possible (since no-one carries cash), but you could "dismantle" the ship, i.e., unequip stuff and take it as cargo. There's probably not much valuable cargo on a fighter. How about this for boarding it. This is only the RPG element, it would have to be handled by an interface window until realtime spacewalks are possible (not soon). You go out the airlock, and you open the other guy's cockpit, either by overriding the lock or by cutting it open. Whoosh, there goes his air; click, there goes his seatbelt, and goodbye pilot. Then the ship is yours, to tow or fly away as you wish. If you had more than one crew on your ship, perhaps you could set a destination for the ship and an AI pilots it there and docks, as if it was one of your crew manning the ship for a bit. Unless you're after the actual ship or there's a valuable piece of equipment equipped, then you wouldn't want to board it anyway.
How would you board a fighter? Like zamzx said, latch on to it and.... well, I'm already on record as saying stealing credits shouldn't be possible (since no-one carries cash), but you could "dismantle" the ship, i.e., unequip stuff and take it as cargo. There's probably not much valuable cargo on a fighter. How about this for boarding it. This is only the RPG element, it would have to be handled by an interface window until realtime spacewalks are possible (not soon). You go out the airlock, and you open the other guy's cockpit, either by overriding the lock or by cutting it open. Whoosh, there goes his air; click, there goes his seatbelt, and goodbye pilot. Then the ship is yours, to tow or fly away as you wish. If you had more than one crew on your ship, perhaps you could set a destination for the ship and an AI pilots it there and docks, as if it was one of your crew manning the ship for a bit. Unless you're after the actual ship or there's a valuable piece of equipment equipped, then you wouldn't want to board it anyway.
Mkay, Professor Chaos. Then I still like me idea for how disabling should work:
Make the disabling weaponry also do damage, but it would be EMP damage, displayed on the hit bar as a light-blue or scrambled color bit covering the left-end of the hit bar. If the hit bar ever becomes completely scrambled, the vessel is disabled. New regular damage is taken away half from undamaged HP and half from scrambled HP (scrambled parts were destroyed too). Any repairs affect BOTH damage and scrambling (so 100 repair points fix 100 damage AND unscramble 100 HP). To keep things simpler for newbies, when your ship is disabled, a pop-up will prompt you to abandon the ship and return to your station, or stay and hope for rescue (this pop-up can be given an automatic answer in the game options).
There can then be a 2000kg large port equipment called a Cutting Beam which dismantles a disabled ship in 10 seconds while within 50-100m; the result would be 4 times as much scrap, all cargo, and all equipment (no kaboom). If/When a tug/tractor beam/hook is implemented, then one can tow the ship back to a dock (station or cappy) and keep the ship (and all its equipment and cargo); while towing a ship, the tow-er has access to the tow-ee's jettison menu and has the option to "space" the tow-ee (this, of course, cannot be done in station sectors or nation space); if the ship is returned to a dock with the pilot still inside (i.e. didn't leave and didn't get spaced), then the original pilot retains ownership of his vessel and cargo.
Also, see Hacking Ships for just cargo-stealing.
Make the disabling weaponry also do damage, but it would be EMP damage, displayed on the hit bar as a light-blue or scrambled color bit covering the left-end of the hit bar. If the hit bar ever becomes completely scrambled, the vessel is disabled. New regular damage is taken away half from undamaged HP and half from scrambled HP (scrambled parts were destroyed too). Any repairs affect BOTH damage and scrambling (so 100 repair points fix 100 damage AND unscramble 100 HP). To keep things simpler for newbies, when your ship is disabled, a pop-up will prompt you to abandon the ship and return to your station, or stay and hope for rescue (this pop-up can be given an automatic answer in the game options).
There can then be a 2000kg large port equipment called a Cutting Beam which dismantles a disabled ship in 10 seconds while within 50-100m; the result would be 4 times as much scrap, all cargo, and all equipment (no kaboom). If/When a tug/tractor beam/hook is implemented, then one can tow the ship back to a dock (station or cappy) and keep the ship (and all its equipment and cargo); while towing a ship, the tow-er has access to the tow-ee's jettison menu and has the option to "space" the tow-ee (this, of course, cannot be done in station sectors or nation space); if the ship is returned to a dock with the pilot still inside (i.e. didn't leave and didn't get spaced), then the original pilot retains ownership of his vessel and cargo.
Also, see Hacking Ships for just cargo-stealing.
Amazing.... am I actually finding myself agreeing with you, LostCommander? Hehe. I read your earlier suggestion of EMP hit-points, but it kind of left me. I like the idea, but I think they should automatically repair themselves at a preset rate that can be improved with an addon of some sort. Also, an electrical hardening addon can increase the hit-points. This would make disabling with EMP harder since if you take too long it doesn't work, and also give the victim a chance of escape. Once the hit-points are gone, the ship is disabled until they restore themselves at half speed.
Your pop-up idea is perfect. It would be boring to wait with your disabled ship and hope for rescue, and besides, who knows if you'll survive? If you REALLY want your ship, then stay and take the chance, or bargain for your ship. Otherwise, eject and get on with the game.
I was afraid to suggest a cutting beam, since my idea was already so involved and getting shot down. It's a great idea, though. Completely dismantling in 10 seconds is really fast, in my opinion. Maybe there are three levels of cutting beam, and while you use it you salvage one equipped item every however many seconds until there's just the ship left, which you can either leave or cut for scrap metal. Each item becomes cargo to be picked up, and however large the ship is decides how long it takes to get scrap metal. Maybe twice as fast as items, since you don't have to cut precisely.
I don't like the hacking beam idea, but once you have control of the ship, you should also have control of the systems (like the jettison menu), and I like being able to "space" the pilot. I think you should be able to do this anywhere, though, but it's illegal in nation/station space, and incurrs large penalties, since you just killed the dude. If all you want is the cargo, then just disable the ship and bring up his jettison menu and jettison it all and take what you can carry. Then leave him be. This would be a reason to not abandon your disabled ship, because maybe they just want the cargo. You can abandon at any time.
[EDIT]: This cutting beam could be used in salvage missions if there are abandoned ships/stations cluttering the universe. If we can do this, and if we must have license levels that depend on patience rather than skill, then I propose that instead of simply a "mining" level it be a "mining/salvage" level. That would be incentive for people like me who are bored by mining (hence my mining level of 0) to engage in non-combat activities. Especially if there's a chance of finding an interesting item not widely available, or that I'm not allowed to have yet. Then I can go equip it at non-aligned stations that look the other way at such things.
Your pop-up idea is perfect. It would be boring to wait with your disabled ship and hope for rescue, and besides, who knows if you'll survive? If you REALLY want your ship, then stay and take the chance, or bargain for your ship. Otherwise, eject and get on with the game.
I was afraid to suggest a cutting beam, since my idea was already so involved and getting shot down. It's a great idea, though. Completely dismantling in 10 seconds is really fast, in my opinion. Maybe there are three levels of cutting beam, and while you use it you salvage one equipped item every however many seconds until there's just the ship left, which you can either leave or cut for scrap metal. Each item becomes cargo to be picked up, and however large the ship is decides how long it takes to get scrap metal. Maybe twice as fast as items, since you don't have to cut precisely.
I don't like the hacking beam idea, but once you have control of the ship, you should also have control of the systems (like the jettison menu), and I like being able to "space" the pilot. I think you should be able to do this anywhere, though, but it's illegal in nation/station space, and incurrs large penalties, since you just killed the dude. If all you want is the cargo, then just disable the ship and bring up his jettison menu and jettison it all and take what you can carry. Then leave him be. This would be a reason to not abandon your disabled ship, because maybe they just want the cargo. You can abandon at any time.
[EDIT]: This cutting beam could be used in salvage missions if there are abandoned ships/stations cluttering the universe. If we can do this, and if we must have license levels that depend on patience rather than skill, then I propose that instead of simply a "mining" level it be a "mining/salvage" level. That would be incentive for people like me who are bored by mining (hence my mining level of 0) to engage in non-combat activities. Especially if there's a chance of finding an interesting item not widely available, or that I'm not allowed to have yet. Then I can go equip it at non-aligned stations that look the other way at such things.
Professor Chaos - "EMP hit-points . . . they should automatically repair themselves at a preset rate" and "an electrical hardening addon can increase the hit-points"
- I would like to keep the HP the same; I am suggesting that some remaining regular HP get set as EMP-affected HP by EMP damage, not 2 separate health bars. Instead of a hardening modification adding HP, how about if it adds an armor resistance instead (like -10% EMP damage)? Also, I do not agree with automatically repaired EMP damage because no one would remain disabled for longer than until the next time their HP was updated from the auto-repair (making it basically impossible and pointless to "disable" someone).
You need to start playing again (or go play a couple rounds of laser tag) -- 10 seconds is a LONG time in combat; if there is no current combat, then longer waits just waste everyone's time. Also, think about it, EMP damage is going to be lower per second and per energy, thus the person would already be dead anyway, so why make the pirate spend even more time finishing them off?
Oh, and of course you could hack or tow and space a pilot anywhere; I meant without getting KOS status (stealing and murder being rather looked down upon).
I can definitely see mining levels used for the cutting beam equipment and having the cutting beams used for salvage missions.
- I would like to keep the HP the same; I am suggesting that some remaining regular HP get set as EMP-affected HP by EMP damage, not 2 separate health bars. Instead of a hardening modification adding HP, how about if it adds an armor resistance instead (like -10% EMP damage)? Also, I do not agree with automatically repaired EMP damage because no one would remain disabled for longer than until the next time their HP was updated from the auto-repair (making it basically impossible and pointless to "disable" someone).
You need to start playing again (or go play a couple rounds of laser tag) -- 10 seconds is a LONG time in combat; if there is no current combat, then longer waits just waste everyone's time. Also, think about it, EMP damage is going to be lower per second and per energy, thus the person would already be dead anyway, so why make the pirate spend even more time finishing them off?
Oh, and of course you could hack or tow and space a pilot anywhere; I meant without getting KOS status (stealing and murder being rather looked down upon).
I can definitely see mining levels used for the cutting beam equipment and having the cutting beams used for salvage missions.