Forums » Suggestions
Regarding a Taxi Ship (or Fast Transport System)
I just watched the impromptu presentation that Incarnate gave at the International Game Developers Association, and his discussion of taxi ships intrigued me. One of the reasons he gave to not having an uber-fast, no-weapon, fragile ship is that despite a taxi's combat inability, it may still be able to outrun the station/sector/wormhole defenses put in place. Moreover (this wasn't mentioned by Incarnate, at least as far as I watched), having an uncatchable taxi ship would make cat/mouse/chase situations less frequent or enjoyable (as one of the participants could just run off in a taxi ship never to be seen again).
So here is the dilemma we face: we (or many of us) would like a way to travel decently quickly from one part of the galaxy to another, yet the means of travel must be destructible by stationary defenses, and must not be invincible to wormhole campers/pirates/chasers/etc (in other words, a player waiting for a player at a choke point shouldn't say "aw, shit, he's in a taxi... nothing to be done here").
This thread is not meant to house only my proposed solution; I encourage others to suggest ideas here as well.
My (half-baked) solution:
A npc bus service. The service would have 8 routes: Geira Rutilus to Intrinos; Helios to Edras; Arta Caelestis to Verasi; Jallik to Deneb; and of course the four previous routes in reverse. The service would run regularly scheduled trips (every 15 or 30 minutes), and the passenger manifest and bus progress would be published on channels relating to the specific services (similar to how CtC publishes info). Bus passage could cost a fairly low fee of 250,000cr per trip. The bus would be piloted by an npc. Each player who uses the service will be flown in his own bus (the bus's would fly together as the CtC transports do); this ensures that each individual player is killable while he is in passage. The bus services will be run by nations: the Serco nation will run the Serco busses, the Itani the Itani, the UIT the UIT, and Corvus the Grey. An attack on a bus will cause faction loss with the bus's nation (with the notable exception of the Corvus bus's).
Bus's will have no defenses save their speed, and will be given the following specs (on an EC class ship of course):
Armor: 5000 (a few well-timed flares can take this out)
Weapons: 0S, 0L
Cargo: 0 cu
Mass: 5000 kg (heavier than a normal bus)
Thrust: 140 N (low thrust)
Spin Torque: 5.0 Nm (won't turn well at all)
Max Speed: 45 m/s (it is incredibly vulnerable when recharging)
Turbo Speed: 350 m/s
Turbo Energy: 52 m/s (it will have to recharge its battery at regular intervals)
Bus's will be equipped with a Fast Charge battery.
Players who use the bus service will have no control over their craft, save that those with mouselook enabled will be able to enjoy the sights.
Constructive suggestions are welcome. I have not spent a large amount of time thinking this over, so if I have overlooked anything please do bring it to my attention (and I will fix it).
My intent is to have a workable idea before Incarnate comes back. I know that this suggestion is not incredibly trivial to implement... but I don't imagine it would be a huge time-sink.
So here is the dilemma we face: we (or many of us) would like a way to travel decently quickly from one part of the galaxy to another, yet the means of travel must be destructible by stationary defenses, and must not be invincible to wormhole campers/pirates/chasers/etc (in other words, a player waiting for a player at a choke point shouldn't say "aw, shit, he's in a taxi... nothing to be done here").
This thread is not meant to house only my proposed solution; I encourage others to suggest ideas here as well.
My (half-baked) solution:
A npc bus service. The service would have 8 routes: Geira Rutilus to Intrinos; Helios to Edras; Arta Caelestis to Verasi; Jallik to Deneb; and of course the four previous routes in reverse. The service would run regularly scheduled trips (every 15 or 30 minutes), and the passenger manifest and bus progress would be published on channels relating to the specific services (similar to how CtC publishes info). Bus passage could cost a fairly low fee of 250,000cr per trip. The bus would be piloted by an npc. Each player who uses the service will be flown in his own bus (the bus's would fly together as the CtC transports do); this ensures that each individual player is killable while he is in passage. The bus services will be run by nations: the Serco nation will run the Serco busses, the Itani the Itani, the UIT the UIT, and Corvus the Grey. An attack on a bus will cause faction loss with the bus's nation (with the notable exception of the Corvus bus's).
Bus's will have no defenses save their speed, and will be given the following specs (on an EC class ship of course):
Armor: 5000 (a few well-timed flares can take this out)
Weapons: 0S, 0L
Cargo: 0 cu
Mass: 5000 kg (heavier than a normal bus)
Thrust: 140 N (low thrust)
Spin Torque: 5.0 Nm (won't turn well at all)
Max Speed: 45 m/s (it is incredibly vulnerable when recharging)
Turbo Speed: 350 m/s
Turbo Energy: 52 m/s (it will have to recharge its battery at regular intervals)
Bus's will be equipped with a Fast Charge battery.
Players who use the bus service will have no control over their craft, save that those with mouselook enabled will be able to enjoy the sights.
Constructive suggestions are welcome. I have not spent a large amount of time thinking this over, so if I have overlooked anything please do bring it to my attention (and I will fix it).
My intent is to have a workable idea before Incarnate comes back. I know that this suggestion is not incredibly trivial to implement... but I don't imagine it would be a huge time-sink.
people are sofa king lazy
Getting past nation defenses in an unarmed ship shouldn't be a problem for anyone. If you're hated, you won't be able to swap it for something more dangerous inside that nation's borders anyway. There's really no harm in being able to trivially bypass the defenses if you can't cause any problems after you do.
A ship that can get past other players without much effort is slightly worse, but without cargo or weapons, there's little point in making an effort to stop it. There's already a problem where it's virtually impossible to stop any of the faster ships. Anti-racers in the Deneb run rarely score kills, despite there being a large reward for doing so. A 350 m/s ship that can't accelerate is an easier target than a Greyhound (that being virtually impossible to even damage if it's trying to run).
A ship that can get past other players without much effort is slightly worse, but without cargo or weapons, there's little point in making an effort to stop it. There's already a problem where it's virtually impossible to stop any of the faster ships. Anti-racers in the Deneb run rarely score kills, despite there being a large reward for doing so. A 350 m/s ship that can't accelerate is an easier target than a Greyhound (that being virtually impossible to even damage if it's trying to run).
@peypey: yes, yes we are. would be nice to be able to get from one side of Itani space to the other without having to babysit the computer for 20 minutes. Plus, it sorta makes sense that there would be a shuttle service.
@zak.wilson: good point about the unarmed/no cargo ship. I still think the idea of a shuttle/bus service is worthwhile though :). My proposed specs for the bus were so that they wouldn't be rejected out of hand (but would still be faster than normal ships). If you think the specs could use some tweaking, I'm open to suggestions.
edit: The nation-space shuttles would be pretty secure no matter what the specs are (at which point they can be beefed). And honestly, I'm not sure there even should be a shuttle through grey (though it may add an interesting dynamic).
It might even be worthwhile (if the grey shuttle would be implemented) to have two different shuttle ships. One that nationspace uses:
Armor: 5000
Weapons: 0S, 0L
Cargo: 0 cu
Mass: 5000 kg
Thrust: 190 N (low-ish thrust)
Spin Torque: 5.0 Nm
Max Speed: 60 m/s
Turbo Speed: 330 m/s (Slightly slower than the corvus bus)
Turbo Energy: 50 m/s (Infini-boost makes the slightly slower part irrelevant)
And then Corvus/Grey would use the bus in my first post. A nice benefit to the Corvus route is that it would make Helios more interesting.
@zak.wilson: good point about the unarmed/no cargo ship. I still think the idea of a shuttle/bus service is worthwhile though :). My proposed specs for the bus were so that they wouldn't be rejected out of hand (but would still be faster than normal ships). If you think the specs could use some tweaking, I'm open to suggestions.
edit: The nation-space shuttles would be pretty secure no matter what the specs are (at which point they can be beefed). And honestly, I'm not sure there even should be a shuttle through grey (though it may add an interesting dynamic).
It might even be worthwhile (if the grey shuttle would be implemented) to have two different shuttle ships. One that nationspace uses:
Armor: 5000
Weapons: 0S, 0L
Cargo: 0 cu
Mass: 5000 kg
Thrust: 190 N (low-ish thrust)
Spin Torque: 5.0 Nm
Max Speed: 60 m/s
Turbo Speed: 330 m/s (Slightly slower than the corvus bus)
Turbo Energy: 50 m/s (Infini-boost makes the slightly slower part irrelevant)
And then Corvus/Grey would use the bus in my first post. A nice benefit to the Corvus route is that it would make Helios more interesting.
Getting past nation defenses in an unarmed ship shouldn't be a problem for anyone. If you're hated, you won't be able to swap it for something more dangerous inside that nation's borders anyway. There's really no harm in being able to trivially bypass the defenses if you can't cause any problems after you do.
I am 100% behind this idea. Taking a fast trip into UIT space, docking at Axia to load up AAP/MP Hog II, and griefing my weasely black guts out all over Dau for as long as I can . . . perfect!
I am 100% behind this idea. Taking a fast trip into UIT space, docking at Axia to load up AAP/MP Hog II, and griefing my weasely black guts out all over Dau for as long as I can . . . perfect!
Lecter: depends on how the "independent" factions grant docking privileges in UIT space... though your point is a good one given the current environment.