Yeah, I meant systems; people are complaining that adding new systems will throw them off, so that's just a small suggestion toward fixing that problem. I'm totally fine with dumping everything in, it'll only take a week or less for experienced players to get used to it.

What, people complaining about content being added? Right...

The universe has not been static. It has changed fundamentally since the beginning, albeit not constantly. Players adapted to the change, some faster than others. Such is life.

What I'm getting at is that I personally see no problem with the layout of the systems...they seem as good as they are currently as some suggestions are, to me.

What I'm getting at is that I personally see no problem with the layout of the systems...they seem as good as they are currently as some suggestions are, to me.

And how much travel time do you spend getting to the BS missions and the B-8 Sedina fights every day? Try to make every BS mission and then trek back to B-8 where the PvP action is for a week. Then tell me there are no problems with the current layout.

I jump around grey, Serco, and UIT space quite a lot. Having a longer travel time is just life, and one of the things that is how it is, to me.

It really doesn't bother me at all. :/

Having a longer travel time is just life

No, its a game, and here is where you differ from me and a great number of other people.

When I play a game, I may only have 15-30 minutes to spend on it. If I know that my ship is out in la la land, away from the action, I know that the amount of time I have to play, does not accommodate what I want to do to have fun. What happens then, is I pick another game, that I can get into the action almost immediately.

I want to play Vendetta. I want to have a fun 15-30 minute session, but realistically, if I haven't left myself right next to where the action is I can't do that. About all I have time for is a quick, usually dry and lacking of fun, escort mission.

Yay grind!

If it wasn't a problem, why do we have so many suggestions for things like

Station to station travel without ships, suggested as far back as 2005.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11466#135675

New Wormhole linking Deneb to Grey 2006.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11466?page=2#163174

This issue mentioned but not really discussed in 2007.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/1166?page=2#209289

Lua Travel bots to get you from A->B without actually doing anything.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/9/17115?page=3#230098

There is obviously something wrong with the way things are now, or this wouldn't get brought up every 6 months or so by veteran players, and I wouldn't have had such a positive reaction on the first page of this thread from same vets. I just put together what I thought was a complete solution, and not just a quick "add a wormhole to make people happy" kind of solution.

Until the player base more than quadruples, the universe is to big and uninteresting, and fighting is too spread out. This causes the game to be duller, less fun, and more grinding, thus making it harder to convince players to stick it out, to get to the numbers that will make the current universe full.

Catch 22, big time, that can be partly solved with a relatively small map re-work.

I see your point, and I understand it perfectly. I get how in your situation, the current layout doesn't work.
I just wanted to add my decreasing-value-$0.02 to the conversation, to show that yes, while I think it is annoying at times to me, I'm alright with it.

i've turned away from gameplay lots of times because i ended being on the rat end of space when some cool event was happening in 10 minutes time, at the cheese end of things.

how many times did a bp run kept me too far away from a good event in sedina?

countless solutions have been proposed to day. those outlines by psyra are only a few of them. fast scout ships (aka, tpg dart amongst other suggestions).

nothing has ever been done to that effect.

as for wh layout changes, you can dream. i learnt the painful way that the universe is pretty much hard-coded and that making any kind of change in layout/wh is a major undertaking. it's just not going to happen. unless, maybe, "soon".

I realize moving systems would be a little more difficult to adapt to, than adding some, because maybe the wormholes will change and systems will be in different spots (once or twice).

But I think adding systems should happen only when we can make our own station and cap ships, just because there won't be space with already existing stations in that region.

P.S. PsyRa, I love your idea!

Interesting proposal. A couple of things:

I am going to be beefing up borders, to aid the effectiveness of the improved faction system once Friendly Fire restrictions are removed. Crossing borders if Hated/KoS will be challenging.

I've had my own plans for universe expansion for some time. My general thinking was towards a secondary "ring" around the existing one, all grey, that connected to the current universe in Deneb, Edras and Ukari (Deneb effectively becoming grey, or at least disputed). This outer ring would be important to "player-owned" stations and guild-contested territories. It would also, eventually, lead to the "greater" unexplored universe. This may all sound very "pie in the sky" and "Soon(tm)", but it isn't that farfetched.. it's mostly the work in making our Nav map system dynamic rather than based on static graphics (a choice we had to make in a hurry when we shipped to retail). The server side was designed for an infinite universe from the very beginning. Of course, we have plenty of space as it is, but I would like some "additional" space to allow players and guilds to truly stake out claims and battle to keep them.. without mucking up new people or the "basic" universe.

Of course, this does nothing for the player-transportation issue that was the original cause for this thread. I would prefer a different mechanic, such as the "TPG Dart" type scout ship, or ideally.. a sort of roving "capship bus" that can take one from place to place at higher speed.

Why do I prefer this? Well, for one thing, I had hoped to use the linearity of Serco/Itani nation space to allow for increasing defensive response against those who wish to breach the borders. Sticking in more wormholes and things doesn't make it impossible, just a bit more complicated, and I'm not sure that it's worthwhile. There are some other concerns, but I don't want to make this another one of my 37-page responses. Perhaps capship "ferries" that go between two points periodically would do? Like maybe between all three capitols or some such, and the ferries would only allow those to dock who would be accepted at the other side.. so if people want to do blockade running, they have to do so under their own steam.

Anyway, I've been too busy to respond on here for the last couple of weeks, trying to catch up now.

How about a silly mission that teleports you to the other side on success?

Something along the lines of..
Research Station: "A group of 10 piratas, generally hanging around in bla, keeps stealing our toys. Kill them all and we might let you try out our experimental teleportation device!"

(10% of the times teleportation goes wrong in some way)

That's possible. It could be expensive, too, to offset things in some way? Maybe works a little like crafting, so you have to have some wacky recipe to use the feature? Everyone would stockpile the required goods at the stations, which is fine, but at least it wouldn't like.. completely negate the value of flying from place to place.

Thoughts?

The simple addition of a capship that 'devwarps' from one end of each nation's space to the other would more than suffice, imho. I would be against any high speed transport that crosses borders.

A 400m/s bus with 48 drain and no weapons would also be a nice feature.

I honestly can't wait for the ring!

We should be able to go to the EVE galaxy and blast them out of their little ships! hehe

I am glad you thought is was "interesting", but I was a bit bothered by the response. I thought at first it was the usual pride poke that comes from having an idea rejected, but upon further contemplation, it seems to me it was more than that. Therefore I will add a dissenting view as to why I think this is a good idea, and not a bad one.

First lets talk about Capship ferries and faster ships for travel. As Aramarth noted, Capship ferries would need to be dev warp from end to end in order to handle the travel time problem. A problem which in essence revolves around the time it takes to pass through wormholes. Simply jumping on a traveling ship so you can sit and wait for the journey to end, does nothing to reduce the amount of time wasted getting to the fun/busy parts of the universe. If the solution does not travel you from one end to the other end any faster, it is pointless, and will never be used. Besides, who besides 5 year olds find riding the bus "fun".

Faster ships could significantly cut down on the travel time, but it still does little for the monotony of long range travel in my opinion.

The larger grey ring makes sense, so no point in addressing it here. This part of the "big plan" was not what bothered me. That more grey will be required for player stations is almost a given.

Here is what bothered me.

"Well, for one thing, I had hoped to use the linearity of Serco/Itani nation space to allow for increasing defensive response against those who wish to breach the borders. Sticking in more wormholes and things doesn't make it impossible, just a bit more complicated, and I'm not sure that it's worthwhile."

This is why.

First, the actual length of the string of nation space is only shortened by one for the Itani who currently already have a extra jump to gray from the Capital. This would balance that out. Everything else keeps the strings in tact. So the "difficulties" appear to be almost identical for both nations, and unchanged for the Serco. That is of course unless there are going to be nation specific defenses set up throughout grey. Somewhat doubtful. The proposal only brings the travel distance between further Serco and Itani boarders closer together, it does not shorten the length of the line from boarder to capital.

I suspect therefore that there must be another primary argument. Although I wish I knew what the contents of the "37-page response" would be, I suspect it is more along the lines hinted at in this quote. "but at least it wouldn't like.. completely negate the value of flying from place to place."

I would argue that the proposal actually increases the value of taking the time to fly from place to place, as well as hiring escorts and the like.

For example, if you were to travel in the proposed universe from Giera to Dau, you could take the fast, riskier road through Latos. Which is almost certain to be filled with people fighting, an active boarder skirmish or blockade, pirates, and all manner of players wanting to kill you, or you could take the long safer road through Initros, Ukari, Arta, and face a better chance of getting through unmolested. Thus the value of travel is increased by the long road decreasing of risk along the journey. As it is now, there is no way to make that choice, you only have one way to travel.

Another part that bothered me, was that increasingly hard progression of defense goes against natural models of physical defense. Trees have bark on the outside, if you get in to the soft wood, it's weak. Same goes for skin, exoskeleton's, and a countries borders. The natural method of defense is to never let hostiles past the border. It is not to let them in, and then deal with them the closer to the heart they are. The natural method is to have as hard as boarders as possible, and let the defenses keep them from the weaker areas. If that fails, there is usually some type of immune system, however that is much more a "last line" of defense, only handles certain situations, and is more often a healing and repair mechanism after damage has been done. One question. How often do you think a city cop asks for a passport? Isn't it more often assumed that because you are there, you should be, as the boarder would have caught you if you shouldn't.

One natural model that does resemble the harder near the middle model is a hive protecting its queen and we already have that model in play. Here we are required to take out the small, medium, and large hives before engaging the Queen/Levi.

Making nation space more of the same would not be as much fun as opening up more interesting avenues of play, specifically operations behind enemy lines. Nation space trade/mining harassment, and other covert types of operations. These avenues will be either completely negated, or insanely difficult to pull off, if defenses get harder the deeper you go. Players will be stuck with simple boarder harassment, and that is not nearly as much fun as trying to keep alive while causing a ruckus in enemy territory, or chasing spies around your nation space.

I think a better model is to have the outside layer(s) very hard to penetrate, and then easier once inside, with a caveat. There should be a chat channel that players can listen to, that announces KOS intrusions into a nations monitored worm holes and station space. Basically any time a strike force gets launched currently. That would let the players handle incursions past the boarder, give warning of an enemy traveling through the systems, and make it more interesting for both.

In any case, you have whatever plan you have, and will do what you think is best. I just feel that I, and others, would be more likely to play more if we could get into the action quicker, without cutting ourselves off from half the universe doing it.

I was going to recommend a Deneb-Sedena wormhole. (figured someone would beat me too it but not in this much extra LOL) Of course any wormholes can be explained as found by a new more sensitive wormhole detector being invented.

Love the ring of Grey outside idea.

I like the map redesign.

Right now I use two alts to do my trail but something better needed.

A way that the Hive is bypassing the boarders to expand needs some explanation at some point. the outer ring would explain.

You should get experience for hitting Strike Forces, guards and convoys of known enemy. Maybe a Raid Mission to keep it to only your natural enemies. (military members) The waring corporations would have similar missions. Clovis would from time to time issue punishment/extortion orders against corporations and governments. (these would vary and show up randomly)

How about temporary, "unstable" wormholes? Not shown on the system map, maybe you have to find them in random sectors with a special wormhole detector, then you can share the info with your guild/faction to get a temporary shortcut for trading/raiding advantage?

Maybe unstable wormholes have limited number of uses, say less than a thousand, before they disappear...? Maybe even a way for players to cause them, through special missions or something?

I like what Incarnate is saying, however if you guys really want something changed in the Universe map, the backstory is simple. The wormholes destabilized. Whoopie! Done. And if they were going to do that, they should go ahead and make it a monthly randomized event. Doesn't sound so good now, does it.

So let's back Incarnate's idea since I've already heard rumors about this and it sounds fantastic.

Keep up the great work, Incarnate.

Right on PsyRa. Incarnate: Do the map!

I keep several alts just to eliminate travel time between b8 and deneb. Its too bad that I have to resort to an out of game method to eliminate the half hour wasted travel time. PsyRa's map fixes this elegantly.

It also provides the choke point to make life interesting in VO again.