Forums » Suggestions

Ship Transport Vessels

Feb 21, 2008 MythOpus link
I've looked to see if there was a related thread already but couldn't find one so sorry if I didn't look hard enough :)

I suggest there be a new class of capital ship called something akin to "Heavy Transport Vessel" (actually, is there already such a thing?). This vessel would be capable of carrying Trade Goods/Equipment/Ships along predetermined shipping routes from one station to another.

A player at Station A for example would set up some of there Goods and Ships to be transported from Station A to Station C. Then when the Transport gets to Station A, it picks up any cargo that it needs to and begins along the shipping lane from Station A to B then to C etc. (Not all the stations of course). These shipping lanes would generally be from Systems inside a particular nation as well as inter-nation systems i.e. taking Cargo from Jallik to Dau.

As with all capital ships, the Transport -can- be destroyed by a coordinated assault. This might encourage a group of players to escort their goods across the shipping lane due to the fact that if the transport is destroyed, the cargo is lost. This also leaves room for another type of Escort mission which could give more experience/money than a regular Escort mission depending on the amount/quality of the cargo on board.

Once the Transport sets sail, any cargo a player has onboard cannot be retrieved until the Transport gets to the station.
Transportation might even cost the player something and perhaps agreeing to escort the Transport might knock off a percentage of that cost?
Thoughts?
Feb 21, 2008 Shadoen link
There's already a transport capital ship called TPG Constellation:


You probably didnt know about it since they rarely appear in game, only when devs or guides spawn them. Oh, there's also one mission where you can see it, but it's sorta complicated.
However, they still dont do what you suggested. I guess it would be cool to have them transport cargo from station to station.
Feb 21, 2008 MythOpus link
Yeah I knew of that Capital ship but assumed all of them were swarm barges (ala. Border Skirmish)

I'm not sure what that transport ship has as far as weaponry goes but I don't think it should be able to defend itself readilly against an assault.
Feb 21, 2008 MSKanaka link
A ways back, escort missions occasionally would have a capship running the mission, typically a Trident or Teradon, but occasionally a Constellation would be used instead.

They've been removed from escort missions for the time being; if I remember correctly, the reason being that the capships need their pathfinding to be a little better optimized before they can be put into more widespread use.
Feb 22, 2008 mgl_mouser link
Yeah. They keep exploding.

--Mogul.
Feb 22, 2008 Capt.Waffles link
ah, good times.
Feb 23, 2008 ingoguy15 link
Honestly, this would be an excellent addition to the game. The way that cap ships work is not good in terms of pathfinding, and the death by cap ship jump needs to be fixed, but what this does is it allows turrets to be used by escorts. Anyone who didn't know turrets were operated by players in this case could get a nasty surprise when four or five Ragnaroks came out of the docking bay. Heck, just a bunch of hidden Vultures could do some major damage.
Feb 25, 2008 Hedgehogs4Me link
More Connies FTW!

And the idea of something to transport cargo for you is an interesting one. Almost like the idea of buying convoys that I had a while ago. The idea was sort of like this:

You could buy a convoy to transport stuff for you. You don't have to follow it, but if you don't, hive or just someone with a grudge against you could shoot down your convoy and you lose all your stuff.
On your inventory page, the items being transported by the convoy would appear as "in transit from ____ to ____".
They wouldn't give you any sort of advantage in battle (i.e. staying away from transforming the game into EVE), as they wouldn't attack unless they were attacked first.

Of course, the idea that Myth has is (I think) different in this way: it would be using cappies as a sort of "cargo train" that anyone could buy "tickets" for cargo, and when it gets to its location, all the cargo gets unloaded there and it gets put in the station for you. That is the idea, no?
Jul 28, 2008 Phish link
How about this: You say I wanna transport my stuff from Point A to Point B. It then shows up as a mission for X amount of minutes and other players can join it just like normal convoys, but the amount the players who protect it is some percentage of whatever you payed to transport it.

The flip side to that is being able to offer missions at a station for players with cargo ships to pick up your cargo and deliver it to a station, as well as having player made convoys.