Faction System redux trumps pods.

"Cloning contract" i mentioned before could be an easy solution for "distance" problem.

Inc:
Well, you can still have the concussive force of collisions no?
Just make it so that the bots take no damage from it.

As far as my comment about objectives, I wasn't really thinking about Deneb, those missions are designed, as you say, like Battlefield, or many other fps's where you kill as many of the other side as you can. And in fact, when I said that I imagined penalties for podkilling, I had Deneb in mind. It may be a warzone, but Serco and Itani would hardly condone blasting a defenseless enemy. Serco would consider it dishonorable, and Itani would consider it immoral.

My thoughts for this are really more in line with player created content, which right now is sustaining much of the population.

If guilds have wars, they can accomplish objectives,

A crack team of VPR pilots can send a wannabe pirate home to their proper nation space.

Or alternately, if that player has no nation (Read: Me), getting podkilled would then result in some delay (2 minutes or so).

You would hardly have to worry about the KOS-with-all-3-nations players worrying about a 2 minute interlude after they were unfortunate enough to actually get their pod blasted... It takes a COMMITTED person to go KOS with all 3, they won't be leaving any time soon, and they damn sure won't get podkilled easily if you use the stats I described.

I don't think the pod would change the tactics in Deneb, other than adding a little travel time (times back to the battlefield should be on the order of a little over twice as long as they took before (time to take the pod back to the station to get the ship and then back again). If bots, explosions, and the accidental roid don't kill them, and players experience penalties for specifically targetting them in DW (Intent is a prerequisite to kill one of these suckers), then I think the DW environment would be relatively unaffected.

So I don't think you'd see exclusionary tactics applying where other rules (such as DW rules) apply.

I think Ladron's point regarding turrets is a good one... so I amend my previous suggestion:

Invincible to everything except players, strike forces, and turrets

Well, it's pretty clear to me that Inc. comes down on the carebear circle jerk side of this debate. I'm done wasting my time fleshing out an idea that's a foregone conclusion w/r/t VO. Most of the "issues" about inadvertent pod destruction are easily countered by giving it invulnerability/insanely high shields for X seconds. After that, should be on your own to boost back to a station in your little 210/65 craft before someone turns you into a spray of red icicles.

Penalties for killing enemy troops that are trying to return to the fight? That's some bullshit right there, Shape. If they can't be captured and managed, you shoot them.

What you should do is throw a hissy fit, threaten to quit forever and take your guild with you if your genius idea isn't implemented at once, stop playing for a couple of days, and then return in a glorious aura of awesomeness and smugness when some tangentially related feature makes it into the game.

PS: I love the logic of "It takes a committed player to go KOS with all three nations, so pissing those players off is perfectly okay."

Ladron: intellectual property laws are far more complicated than the mere mechanics of "how" one plays (suggested reading: how the four criteria for "fair use" are always subject to interpretation and precedent and how no hard and fast rules are possible). It's probably a non-issue anyways, but it was something that occured to me (and is probably something any small business owner/operator has to keep in mind).

As for my other point, which was Incarnate's as well: balance of pod statistics. In response to the large number of "what-ifs" that can occur, a counter "well turn off that damage/AI/etc." are raised. One can keep doing this as a thought experiment, but sooner or later it has to be implemented. If a bug is introduced, or some unintended damage type is missed, etc, what then? The devs have to get a patch going ASAP to tweak the new feature (a pod) that is seriously impacting a core game mechanic (respawn time). That's an unenviable headache if your next meal comes from subscribers and the newbs who are trying it out now.

From my point of view this is high risk for little reward (though, like I said, I'm not in this for RP). If there really are problems with the current respawn rate, maybe a timer can be introduced for the respawn or something else to prevent "instant" returns to the battle.

Ladron: intellectual property laws are far more complicated than the mere mechanics of "how" one plays (suggested reading: how the four criteria for "fair use" are always subject to interpretation and precedent and how no hard and fast rules are possible). It's probably a non-issue anyways, but it was something that occured to me (and is probably something any small business owner/operator has to keep in mind).

Please, leave the lawyering to those of us who have passed the bar. Your ignorant braying of words that you don't really understand is making my head hurt. Suffice to say, this isn't copyrightable, it's not patented, and it sure as fuck isn't a trademark.

lol @ Dr. Lecter. No need to get testy about it and I already mentioned it's probably non-issue. Thanks for clearing it up.

I stand by podkilling as an effective tactic for the Deneb wars, even under the current "casualty based" system. Let me explain why.

In the Deneb battles, the casualty counts required for victory are high enough that a single pilot in a fighter running around shooting other fighters will have exactly zero effect on the outcome. For that matter, ITAN or ONE could show up en masse, unopposed, and shoot fighters without having a significant effect on the results of the battle. This is a good thing. Player characters who show up and do exactly the same thing as the 300 NPC's in the sector should have as much effect as the 301st NPC.
However, there is the interesting problem of capital ships.

- They are worth considerably more casualties that a single fighter

- Capships have regenerating shields, which necessitate the use of special tactics when attacking them (i.e. "missile stacking")

- The NPC pilots are incapable of killing capships alone, since they don't know how to drop the shields

Consequentially, the REAL objective of a player or group of players in a Deneb battle is NOT "run around and shoot as many as you can" but rather, "make coordinated bombing runs on the opponent's capital ships, while attempting to stop their bombers from dropping the shields on ours".

This being the case, it is VERY HELPFUL if you can remove enemy players from the battlefield for a longer period of time. The goal of anyone in Deneb in something other than a bomber should be "kill as many enemy pods as possible so that we can maintain airspace superiority for a couple minutes and drop the shield on this HAC". I'm deeply sorry if that means people who get killed have to stay out of the action for a minute or two; but seriously, just be glad you respawn at all.

Incarnate you talk about frustration vs. fun. Yes, flying back from your capitol to Deneb is slightly frustrating. What is *considerably* more frustrating is trying to shoot enemy bombers off of your trident, only to have them respawn and jump back in before the missiles time out from their last run.

Edit:
DivisionByZero: By your logic, the devs should never implement capital ships, player-owned stations, an economy redux, a faction redux, or any of the myriad other planned improvements to the game. All of these things, like escape pods, make small changes to the fundamental mechanics of the game and as such carry a high risk. The funny thing is, Guild Software is extremely good at what they do, and on a technical level this game has always been solid as a rock. I feel confident making the assumption that they will continue to introduce new features without making the universe head asplode, otherwise I would not be paying subscription to this game. Whether or not you have that confidence is your own problem.

Edit MkII:
Heh, the original body of this message should be considered my response to the Shape post directly below this, as well.

Lecter:

(EDIT: Sorry ladron, I missed yer last post, so I'm going to amend this first part)

Look, per ladron's points, it IS annoying when bombers can jump back in actually faster if they unload all and die than if they return to reload to the nearest station.

However, Deneb is carebear land these days anyway, its pretty much just fighting bots, and that's the way Inc designed it, hence, who cares?

People will have all the interesting conflicts in grey, where things CAN happen, and Deneb will be left to the carebears who already choose to play in it, the same ones who hang out in Sedina waiting to take a rag full of swarms to go fight a leviathan... over... and over....

As far as my NPC suggestions, look, who the hell cares about those damage types anyway? So we don't see accidental pod explosions every now and then... this is a feature designed for PvP interaction, I could care less what happens against NPC's, and I'll make any and all concessions on that part of the idea.

genka:
Nice to see you again, forgot you were there! How's trying to piss us off by making a spoof BLAK guild working out?

But for once, I'll actually respond to your question. You're not going to piss off longtime players with a 2 minute delay penalty predicated on losing a chase AFTER they lost a fight... I think most of them would think the 2 minute penalty is fair.

That doesn't mean that they're going to take anything you throw at them.

(P.S. I haven't seen you ingame, did you get angry or something? Wasn't there something about Syn? Well, how bout we give it back to you?)

ladron: Perhaps the situation, as it stands, is more frustrating, to a larger number of people, than would be your proposed degree of death-matters-ness, but I doubt it.

I don't have the answer, but I think there must be a way to mitigate the spam-die-spam thing without making dying significantly more frustrating than it already is; it's really easy to die as a skill-less newb, even against collectors.

Oh, and genka? We all came back didn't we?

So how is my logic wrong?

lurksalot: I speak from personal experience, that is all. When the dynamic warfare was introduced I made an alt to play it, and I know the entire guild that alt is in feels pretty much the same way. To be honest, I find it difficult to believe that anyone who has actually played the Deneb wars more than once would think any differently.

Edit: Didn't notice the last part of your post, lurks. Please read the rest of this thread. HIVE BOTS DON'T KILL PODS. Thank you.

Ladron: I disagree with the way you have characterized my argument. I would distinguish between added features like cap-ships, faction redux etc which are just that: features. They are appendages to what I feel is the core of the game: a skill based FPS with full DOF flight. In this case, making changes in the externals about economy or faction are secondary to the flying. Respawn is fundamental to how often you can experience the core aspect of the game and fits in a different category.

You and I may disagree on what it is we love about the game, but I think we could agree to say that the FPS aspect is what really sets VO apart from other MMOs out there. EVE, for instance, has an extremely developed economy, faction/corp system, etc. But when people come here and ask how VO is different, we all say, "in EVE you click. in VO you fly." I'd think it was more important to maintain the best and most distinguishing parts of VO first (i.e. fly and fly a lot), than start making appendages that risk obscuring the core.

Of course, maybe I'm in the minority here. I want an FPS game first and I don't mind the RPG elements. Do people want an RPG first?

Ladron: I wasn't thinking of the pods being destroyed, just the additional trouble of flying back home. They have all the inconvenience of current dying, with the additional burden of navigating to a station and buying a ship. I haven't played all that many MMOs, but it seems like more inconvenience just from a noob perspective, than most of them, and this game definitely needs some noobs.

Some have advocated the long travel time from a capital as a successful means to capture sectors.

This is faulty thinking.

If two groups of three pilots are fighting over a sector and this is implimented, both groups will suffer. the winning group will be alone in the sector waiting for the opponents to regroup and attack together. The losers will be stuck with the long commute from the capital.

Adding a time penalty to death only limits player interaction.

Adding a time penalty to death only limits player interaction.

Man, maybe we could just get rid of the systems and sectors and crap, and just have a big map with plenty of weapons and health and respawn points!

We'd be just like UT2004! Hooray!

Yep Lector, that seems to be the idea these two are going for.
I don't get it. There are already plenty of mindless fps games out there that blow Vendetta out of the water in the mindless fps category. If that's what you want, go play unreal tournament, quake, doom, nexuiz, or one of the literally hundreds of other games that are exactly the same. The cool thing about Vendetta is that there's actually a game here too. You don't just mindlessly shoot people, you shoot people to accomplish some objective, be it stealing their cargo, kicking them out of your space, or whatever. This proposed pod system doesn't change anything fundamental about the gameplay mechanics, lurks. It just enhances those mechanics, the same way the addition of capital ships would, and makes the game a richer, more immersive experience. Now unless you have something new to add to the discussion, stop blabbering on about how we're ruining this tech-demo by making it into a game.

Inc brought up several points for discussion. I've made my first response on those points, does anyone else have something constructive to say, preferably related to the issues Inc raised? Everything else has been done to death, and responding to the same 2 posts by the same 3 people over and over again is getting old.

Yeah, there's nothing much left to say. Regardless of his "even handed" posts, it's pretty clear that Inc. thinks having to fly through nation space for 3-6 minutes if you die in Deneb or Grey is just too much.

Nation space isn't somewhere players should ever have to go, even if they can't fight for shit and still insist on doing so with people who don't consider them to be sparring partners. They should be able to spawn instantly from wherever they die, that way they're never more than 20-30 seconds away from being right back where they were when they were blown away by someone who worked hard to get rid of them so they could do _______ while they were gone. Those sorts of goal-driven players aren't the sort who make characters, dedicate time and money towards them, and generally give a MMORPG its persistent player base. Nope, it's the space quake for its own sake crowd that does that.

And of course, there's no real way to make "furballing just for fun" an Opt In sort of thing. Accidents/too easy to kill pods just can't be prevented--it's like reading about concealed carry in the New York Times. Just too risky!

Moreover, there's no meaningful benefit to having real players traversing nationspace, which is the domain of ultra-noobs who would never actually want to see vet players, or talk to them, or anything like that. Certainly, no other interactions could be sparked by that proximity of noob and vet. Nope, everyone will just truck right on past like nobody else is there--this is EXACTLY the same as having a timer before respawn. Yep.

So, yeah, just let it go. There's no point wasting your time and interest on this one. He's dead, Jim.

Edit: You edited your post on me, and what I had typed up here originally is mostly no longer relevant. : p

But you're right, there *is* nothing left to say. The ball is now in Guild's court. If you don't think it's a good feature, then don't implement it. But FFS don't let this game atrophy away just because you're afraid of making any bold moves.

I don't really like this idea, because it makes the game more work to play, I generally play games to avoid working.