It takes less than 5 minutes to fly from any given capitol to greyspace

Quoted for motherfuckin' truth (though not for an Itani who gets stuck respawning in Eo and doesn't want to run Serco space--but having the most territory in the game has to have some downsides).

Seriously, can we get some Inc. comment?

It really disappoints me that everyone is onboard about destroying the only decent feature this game has ever had which is quick, easy, multiplayer space combat.

If this ever gets implemented I'll crack open my bottle of champagne and toast to the once best and only place left for interstellar combat and its demise.

This.

Right, because people who want to furball simply cannot grasp the idea of "don't pod kill, because we like goofing around." The result with a functional pod is no different than if you'd survived and been damaged/run out of ammo--fly the back to the station and get re-fitted.

If, however, you're bringing ITAN into Deneb to counter my Serco advance, I'm not interested in a chummy furball for the pure pleasure of mixing it up with you just as much as we can ole buddy!

Rather, I'm there to beat the bloody snot out of you and seize the area. I don't want to just mix it up with you every 45 seconds: I want you dead and out of my fucking way as a reward for having killed you. Last I checked, you're supposed to have the same goal there.

If you want a circle jerk, go organize one. I'm here to play an RPG.

^^i was going to say that, but the pirate puts it way more eloquently.

edit: make it swarm proof so griefers cant have a field day in B8.

edit: make it swarm proof so griefers cant have a field day in B8.

I think if one of the proposals such as:

A) eject the sucker at high velocity in some direction

AND/OR

B) make it invulnerable for the first 3 seconds of its existence

was implemented, swarms wouldn't be a problem

make it invulnerable for the first 3 seconds of its existence

I like it, and it might be harder to implement the sudden burst of speed thing. Really, if you want to take one of these out, you should have to divert your attention from other matters for a bit.

Looks good, but to the people concerned about getting pod killed right after their ships explode:

How about making the pod invulnerable for a limited amount of time. Then when the time's over, the pod self-destructs. Set the time limit to only 1 minute, enough to make it to most stations on any system. Also, after one sector/wh jump, each subsequent jump would substract 10 seconds from the timer.

This way people wouldnt need to be worried about getting killed again, it would eliminate annoying whining about pod killing "griefers", and it would make the pod bad for scouting.

How about making the pod invulnerable for a limited amount of time. Then when the time's over, the pod self-destructs. Set the time limit to only 1 minute, enough to make it to most stations on any system. Also, after one sector/wh jump, each subsequent jump would substract 10 seconds from the timer.

This way people wouldnt need to be worried about getting killed again, it would eliminate annoying whining about pod killing "griefers", and it would make the pod bad for scouthing.

Um, how would this be any. fucking. different. from the current approach? You'd 100% of the time go back to a station in the very same system and start again. Nobody gives two runny shits about whether it's "good for scouting."

Some people did comment about the pod being used for scouting. But yeah, whatever works...

Leber, can I commission a "Failure To Grasp Fundamental Concept" medal? Maybe with discretionary "Epic Failure" oak clusters?

Seriously, this is ideal for real battles, while keeping sparring effectively the same.

(On a side note, "Family Guy" supports the destruction of escape pods)
"Hold your fire, there are no life-signs aboard"

"What? Are we charging by the laser now?"

I'm new to the game but I'll voice an opinion here: I bought a subscription *because* it's "space quake". I'm not in this for role playing. I'm in it because this game epitomizes FPS combat in space, IMO. I'm in to duel, or otherwise mix it up often with other players who kick my ass because I'm new and suck. It would significantly impact the fun-factor if I had to drive a ship through storms and such all the way from some home sector to where the real fights are.

All that said, for players like me, there'd have to be a really fine balance made on the escape pod stats. If it's too easy to boom, there's going to be a big hit in fun for a lot of folks like myself. If it's indestructible, why bother? I'm imagining someone's flare spam all arriving a moment after the pod ejects and taking it out too. "Oops, our friendly sparring just sent you back to Eo. lemme know when you're back in 20 minutes."

Finally, how is this not an almost perfect copy of EVE Online's system? Since it is so close, what are the copyright issues involved in implementing it (if any).

<rant title=IveSaidThis4MillionTimesAlready>I will state this one more time, and anyone who raises an issue answered by this statement will simply be referred to this post. Don't take it personally, I'm just sick of answering the same damn problem every fourth post:

When you engage in "friendly combat" with other people, DO NOT SHOOT EACH OTHER's PODS. That is NOT a difficult concept to understand. The stats we have for these pods would make them difficult to catch anyway. This is not going to make it any more difficult to have a friendly sparring match or furball; the only time this system would even make a significant different from current gameplay is when you are in a situation where you want to beat the shit out of another player and get them the hell out of your way. Examples of this include VPR attacking pirates in greyspace, Itani/Serco warfare in Deneb (or elsewhere, possibly), or a blockade situation.
</rant>

Copyright issues: Are you serious? The way that you move pieces in Life is exactly the same as the way you move them in Chess (you pick them up with your hands and put them down in the new location). Obviously the Life developers are grossly infringing on Chess's intellectual property and should be sued through the nose.

It seems that people are a bit too focused on grey. If you want a bit of friendly sparring and just happen to be Itani, there is nothing to stop you finding a friend in Eo, retire to a secluded location and beat the snot out of each other. Likewise, Deneb is not too far from the capitol systems that it is a problem. I could even imagine that opposing pilots would not kill the opponent's pods as it is the other players that are the difficulty in the border skirmish, surely not the dumb bots.

Dr. Lecter says it so elegantly:)

Seriously people, if you're going to respond with a criticism, at least SKIM the entire thread...

Your criticism MAY have been addressed

Hi. Comment from me has been requested. I don't have a definitive answer, but I'll ruminate publicly as desired.

I'm not against the idea, fundamentally. It's not a new one, I had the same idea a long time ago, and I think we talked about it back in '03 or so, as Rogue mentions. My concerns at that time were similar to those voiced here. But this is as good a time as any for a reappraisal.

- The Problem -
The intent seems to be to make death more meaningful, in this case, by introducing the possibility of increased time that one needs to spend returning to a given scene of combat. This could possibly reduce the "annoying griefing factor" of someone returning a given location to fire on people over and over again.

- The Tradeoff -
By making a pod that can be flown away, the "losing" player is exposed to another layer of "vulnerability". If their pod is destroyed, they are stuck back at (probably) a more distant location. If their pod is not destroyed, they can theoretically return to the nearest station to re-arm and be back on the battlefield in a short period of time.

This establishes a couple of things:

1) Returning to combat will always be slower than it is currently, whether your pod is destroyed or not. You'll have to fly back to a station, rather than simply clicking "Yes" and launching. This is not a lengthy or unreasonable added amount of time, in most cases, I'm just stating it for the record.

2) The degree of risk, and vulnerability of the player, is entirely dependent on how easy these "pods" are to destroy. Various suggestions on here: fire the pod off at high speed to give it a head start, make it invulnerable for X time, so on and so forth. However, the issue here is really where that tradeoff lies. If I make the pods fairly difficult to kill, most of the point of the game change is negated, we just gain slightly longer average respawn times. If the pods are not that difficult to kill, then people will kill them all the time, which could lead to a lot of added frustration.

The situation in 1) can be mitigated. I've been meaning to throw in some "special" stations that are hung off of random asteroids or whatever, that have little or no NFZ, allowing nearby combat. People surviving this sort of combat could fly back to the station fairly quickly to re-arm, allowing something fairly close to the "deathmatch" type fast-combat that some pilots really love.

The second situation is more of the crux of my concern. This is not only a 1-on-1 PvP type issue, but a larger issue for battles and the like. The sheer amount of crap flying around in a Dynamic Warfare battle can be considerable, the lethality of which is high enough that people may often get stuck back in their Capitol stations (and for UIT players, god that would suck, having to fly back to Deneb from Dau?). The same with Stronghold raids on the Hive and such, anything with a lot of firepower flying around; you respawn in your light little "pod" and boom, a bot or capship explodes near you and you die. On the other hand, if I make the pods really.. hard to hit or tough or something, then I have to ask why we're really bothering? If the things are really hard to hit, and fast, and tough, then it's unlikely that people will be able to destroy them, even in 1-on-1 combat. You only need a brief head-start in a 225m/s ship to successfully run from practically anyone as it is, so don't the cases of someone's pod actually being killed seem a bit unlikely? (unless turbo thrust was particularly low)

- So, Finally -

I like the general ideas and intended purpose of this proposal, but I'd like to see some more discussion on the above scenarios. As I said, I don't have a conclusion, but I've tried to ruminate on the topics that come to my mind. Most importantly:

Let's not add more frustration than we remove.

Frustration does not make for Fun. I understand the frustration of relative lack of repercussion, that people just bounce back up again, which we want to reduce. But, at the same time, lets not make for cases where, due to no malicious intent on anyone's part, people end up spending a hell of a lot of time flying through space to get back to their Dynamic Warfare battle, Hive Skirmish, or whatever. All that will do is drastically increase frustration.. to no real purpose. And it will kill participation in battles, as they're currently designed. If we want to do more exclusionary tactics in battle scenarios, there are probably better ways of going about it (assemble a special anti-jump beacon thing in a given DW sector, and only 1 enemy player per unit time can then jump in; whatever). Anything but, "Hey, welcome to Dau! Now fly back to Deneb!" I would log off and unsubscribe after a few rounds of that.

Thanks for the response Inc,

Here's my riposte:

Well, for one, you can make it so that bots will not pod kill.

Or, more specifically, pods can ONLY take damage from players...

You track who fires energy weapons and rockets all the time, via friendly fire restriction. This seems similar.

Your RP reasons (if, in fact, you need any, can be)

Serco/Itani military are under strict orders not to blast pods, mercenaries on the other hand (the vast majority in this game) are not beholden to this restriction. (And in fact, under certain missions or sectors, pod-killing opponents could be penalized)

Hive bots don't target ships which are not specifically a threat to their operation (whether the threat is of a military nature or to their resources) or cannot be easily converted to their use.

Asteroids and explosions don't do it because the pod has an improbability generator correctly configured for the probabilities of just those events... (And to make the hostess' undergarments jump 1 foot to the left at fancy parties)

This should prevent hive skirmishes or Deneb warzones from becoming problematic, or an accidental high velocity ejection into a rather craggy roid.

You quite rightly point out that we don't want to add frustration. However, as it stands right now, it is hardly possible to accomplish objectives when there is no real way to capture a sector other than to fight your opponent until their wrists are compelled by carpal tunnels to avoid their mice.

Now, that being said, I think the players will police themselves on this one.

Here's a proposal for the ship:

Skin: Observer
Hull: 1600
Mass: 1000 kg
Thrust: 80
non Turbo Speed: 160 m/s
(No turbo)
Spin Torque: Something high, I don't know the stats on observers by length.

(So, essentially, it's the most maneuverable little guy out there, but it's still slower to get around than taking any other ship short of a large trading vessel)

what does this let it do? well, in order to catch the damn thing, you have to turbo, and it can change directions so quickly that it makes it quite difficult to hit,

Add a 3-5 second invulnerable head start, and I think this could be an interesting chase.

You'd get a use out of rails, mostly just to have someone inside the sector in a ship capable of railing pods after explosions.

Would be damn near impossible to tag it with energy or rockets... it would just turn too quickly. But not impossible if the person jumps too early.

EDIT: On further thought, this would make it very difficult to podkill someone after a 1v1 fight, you'd really need a second person to do the podkill part.

I chose 1600 hullpoints for a reason, a single sunflare won't do it, you need a double hit, a single rail less than mk III won't do it either. 3 neutron blasts are needed, (very hard in this case), positrons become an interesting weapon, because you only need 2 to podkill (true for all positrons including megaposi).

Rails are truly the only way to one shot it.

Thanks for the comment, inc

I was in the middle of writing out a response to inc when I refreshed the page on a whim and found that shape had come up with something better : )

I really like those proposed stats for the pod. Somewhat difficult to catch/kill, but not impossible, and it doesn't have to worry about being run down by a straight-line fast ship so much as a maneuverable one.

Honestly I think it would make sense for the NPC's to target pods in Deneb, however even without strict orders to not kill pods, NPC's should probably opt for more threatening targets. Leave it up to the humans to decide when the pods should die.

Border defense turrets should absolutely target pods, otherwise I forsee them being used to infiltrate nation space. Not exactly the intent, eh?

But the real concern raised in inc's post is of uncontrollable events (such as a HAC exploding 50m away from the pod) killing a pod by accident. My first response would be: "well, you unlucky sonofagun, you just got your ship blown up AND your pod killed. Fortunately for you, the laws of statistics say this is probably the only time that will happen this year, so enjoy your flight back from the capitol this once". This isn't very sympathetic to the luck-challenged, though. Since the only truly long flight that is even remotely probable under these circumstances is Dau-Deneb, and a UIT fighting in Deneb must have joined the military of one side or the other, how about this: A UIT who joins a national military can choose to respawn at that nation's capitol OR Dau. They would choose Dau anyway if they were going to greyspace, so it doesn't unbalance things in that regard, and makes it a good deal less frustrating for a UIT mercenary in Deneb.

Alternatively, if the Vendetta engine has a concept of "damage type" (not sure if it does, but if I'd written it, it would), just make the pod take 0 damage from ship explosions and collisions. The RP explanation is that being so small and round, the shell (I daren't call it a 'hull') of the pod can be made of a flexible polymer which absorbes shock extremely well.

I think we can all agree that Hive bots should never target pods, and perhaps should be incapable of harming them. The Hive just isn't malicious enough to care whether the pilot lives, they just don't want your guns pointing at them.

However, as it stands right now, it is hardly possible to accomplish objectives when there is no real way to capture a sector other than to fight your opponent until their wrists are compelled by carpal tunnels to avoid their mice.

The whole point of the DW objectives is that they are based on casualty counts. For most of the bigger battles, there are plenty of NPCs you can easily kill. If the casualty counts need to be adjusted, so be it, but I don't see this "pod" scenario changing that one way or the other. This is the kind of "Warfare" that we have put in place, a-la "Battlefield 1942" and the myriad of other MMOFPS instanced big-battle systems. Preventing people from returning to the front lines was not a part of the intended design. If this is desired, feel free to suggest alternatives (in some other thread). And, as mentioned earlier, if some exclusionary tactics are desired, we can move in that direction, but preventing people from rejoining merely by distance does not seem like a good solution.

Again, this response is solely about the battle case, with regards to the conquest of sectors via Dynamic Warfare. Not generalized PvP or whatever else.

I'm open to the "separate damage" concepts (pods not damaged by explosions, capships, npcs, bots). If we remove collisions, though, there will be cases where pods end up embedded inside an asteroid or some such.

Anyway, please continue discussing. I will check back.

Very well thought out Shape. With this pod type it would mostly be the accidental damage that would be a concern to Inc. Unless you drive a bomber against the capships, how often would you really expect to die in your pod from accidentals? And if you drive a bomber and your pod explodes along with your target, surely that is a glorious way to go!!

The all-out warfare with pod killing a part of it would take co-operation, very neat. Which would make it possible for guilds to stake out territory and actually hold it.

Oh, and we'll take the new stations as well Inc:)