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The response today is disappointing. I was hoping for feedback, rather than "you didn't immediately fall in love with all aspects of the idea, and/or had some minor reservations, therefore I must sarcastically piss and moan."
Flying six minutes through nation space, every other time you die, to return to some sort of battle, would cause people to not participate. Especially new people, who die in like 10 seconds anyway. My issues related to battles were clearly stated. The proposed solutions related to battles (Shape & Co: make pods only die from players, border turrets, but not non-player explosions or fire) was fairly decent, and I hoped for some more commentary. It has some issues, in that players can then use pods to "explore" dangerous locations, like Hive strongholds, without fear of being killed by the enemy, which might be a little hokey. I don't know if it's really an issue or not, but could become one down the road.
If people dislike the way DW is currently structured, in that exclusionary tactics are not available, and people return to the battle too quickly, then that should be a different thread. Solving this for battle scenarios by forcing people to fly for six minutes out of every ten is NOT ACCEPTABLE. There are a zillion better solutions: since we're running multiple battles at any given time, we could allow people to change battles, only be able to "return" to a given battle every X time (but in the meantime they can go fight and die in another battle), something that doesn't cause them to just sit on their hands? Or, for that matter, we can only make "bomber" loadouts available N per X unit time, forcing the player to take a "fighter" for awhile.. there's a myriad of options that doesn't have to make them bored.
Lecter's original post indicates pod-death causes respawn at a random Nation Capitol. For Itani fighting in Deneb, that basically means a 1 in 3 chance of respawning in Divinia, which is only one hop different than the UITs getting stuck in Dau. So, yes, I do think there is some benefit to mitigating collateral damage pod-deaths in battle scenarios, a-la Shape's suggestions and whatever other ideas may be down that road.
The DW battle system is based on casualty counts, if we want something different.. some Counterstrike-style last-man-standing gameplay or some shit, that's fine, go suggest that. But don't attempt to "fix" something that's actually by design with something else that makes it 100x more frustrating. At least not without examining the issues.
If you're not interested in my criticisms or concerns, or discussing them, then why ask at all? You guys saying "I have this idea!" and me saying "that's an interesting idea, but what about X" and then half of you saying "IT'S IN YOUR COURT NOW, YOU CAREBEAR, JUST GO MAKE QUAKE YOU COWARD!" is not super freakin' productive.
Flying six minutes through nation space, every other time you die, to return to some sort of battle, would cause people to not participate. Especially new people, who die in like 10 seconds anyway. My issues related to battles were clearly stated. The proposed solutions related to battles (Shape & Co: make pods only die from players, border turrets, but not non-player explosions or fire) was fairly decent, and I hoped for some more commentary. It has some issues, in that players can then use pods to "explore" dangerous locations, like Hive strongholds, without fear of being killed by the enemy, which might be a little hokey. I don't know if it's really an issue or not, but could become one down the road.
If people dislike the way DW is currently structured, in that exclusionary tactics are not available, and people return to the battle too quickly, then that should be a different thread. Solving this for battle scenarios by forcing people to fly for six minutes out of every ten is NOT ACCEPTABLE. There are a zillion better solutions: since we're running multiple battles at any given time, we could allow people to change battles, only be able to "return" to a given battle every X time (but in the meantime they can go fight and die in another battle), something that doesn't cause them to just sit on their hands? Or, for that matter, we can only make "bomber" loadouts available N per X unit time, forcing the player to take a "fighter" for awhile.. there's a myriad of options that doesn't have to make them bored.
Lecter's original post indicates pod-death causes respawn at a random Nation Capitol. For Itani fighting in Deneb, that basically means a 1 in 3 chance of respawning in Divinia, which is only one hop different than the UITs getting stuck in Dau. So, yes, I do think there is some benefit to mitigating collateral damage pod-deaths in battle scenarios, a-la Shape's suggestions and whatever other ideas may be down that road.
The DW battle system is based on casualty counts, if we want something different.. some Counterstrike-style last-man-standing gameplay or some shit, that's fine, go suggest that. But don't attempt to "fix" something that's actually by design with something else that makes it 100x more frustrating. At least not without examining the issues.
If you're not interested in my criticisms or concerns, or discussing them, then why ask at all? You guys saying "I have this idea!" and me saying "that's an interesting idea, but what about X" and then half of you saying "IT'S IN YOUR COURT NOW, YOU CAREBEAR, JUST GO MAKE QUAKE YOU COWARD!" is not super freakin' productive.
Inc., I'm not really sure what you think our ruminating over hypothetical pro/cons will get you here. Your stated issue is "well, we don't want it to make death in VO too frustrating." Wow, too frustrating. There's a useful, objective standard that disussion and consensus can really add something to.
Oh, wait, no it's not. We'll just hear from the same people saying "X is a perfectly acceptable travel time" and "What are you, nuts?! I'd NEVER play any game where I couldn't be exactly where I feel I deserve to be in more than Y seconds!!!1." It won't really help you any more than a poll would (forum functionality that might be nice, btw) and will be infinitly more aggravating for us.
New people don't belong in Grey--if they get sent home, so be it. Hell, it would save them from themselves: you want to see frustrated? Try the noob/idiot who homed at Sedina D-14 and who we won't let out of Grey without blowing him right back to Corvus.
As for Deneb, we could make it the closest, rather than a random, capital station. Though that's a bit Itani slanted given Eo. UIT seem screwed, but this can be modified by doing nearest capital with which you have high standing.
Also, I think the "well this will just happen constantly" thing has been addressed by (1) limited invulnerability to all fire, and (2) speed/armor suggestions.
Finally, have you FLOWN from a capital to the edge of Grey/Deneb in a decent ship lately? (I know, I know--I can't talk...finally moving somewhere with good internet in Sept, so maybe then :) It. Isn't. That. Hard.
Oh, wait, no it's not. We'll just hear from the same people saying "X is a perfectly acceptable travel time" and "What are you, nuts?! I'd NEVER play any game where I couldn't be exactly where I feel I deserve to be in more than Y seconds!!!1." It won't really help you any more than a poll would (forum functionality that might be nice, btw) and will be infinitly more aggravating for us.
New people don't belong in Grey--if they get sent home, so be it. Hell, it would save them from themselves: you want to see frustrated? Try the noob/idiot who homed at Sedina D-14 and who we won't let out of Grey without blowing him right back to Corvus.
As for Deneb, we could make it the closest, rather than a random, capital station. Though that's a bit Itani slanted given Eo. UIT seem screwed, but this can be modified by doing nearest capital with which you have high standing.
Also, I think the "well this will just happen constantly" thing has been addressed by (1) limited invulnerability to all fire, and (2) speed/armor suggestions.
Finally, have you FLOWN from a capital to the edge of Grey/Deneb in a decent ship lately? (I know, I know--I can't talk...finally moving somewhere with good internet in Sept, so maybe then :) It. Isn't. That. Hard.
I still think Shape came with the best suggestion Inc. The rest is just the usual showing of verbal feather plumes and lack of understanding what the other is saying.
If the pod had the functionality that Shape suggested, it would not be a long trek to return to the battle. Most pods would not be boomed anyway. However, in cases where a real battle for supremacy was to take place, the extra flight time would force players to co-ordinate and (gasp!) co-operate in order to win. It would take effort to actually kill the pods and the pod kills would be meaningful.
As to the accidental kills.... shit happens. If people know that it may happen, they might think twice before charging into the fray with 20% armour.
Back on track with constructive critique people. Chop chop:)
Stop editing your posts when I am writing Dr. Lecter!!!!;)
If the pod had the functionality that Shape suggested, it would not be a long trek to return to the battle. Most pods would not be boomed anyway. However, in cases where a real battle for supremacy was to take place, the extra flight time would force players to co-ordinate and (gasp!) co-operate in order to win. It would take effort to actually kill the pods and the pod kills would be meaningful.
As to the accidental kills.... shit happens. If people know that it may happen, they might think twice before charging into the fray with 20% armour.
Back on track with constructive critique people. Chop chop:)
Stop editing your posts when I am writing Dr. Lecter!!!!;)
um, the game knows when you are killed in DW, so how about if you are pod killed in DW you just go back to the station in deneb?
on another note, if this was implemented, would there be a use for a 'home station' any more?
on another note, if this was implemented, would there be a use for a 'home station' any more?
Inc:
Sorry if my earlier comment to Dr. Lecter was unduly harsh on DW conflict,
For myself, and many others, bots just aren't that interesting opponents, and so I tend to avoid the Deneb War conflict unless other players are showing up. Bots won't ever be that interesting in the way of opponents. They're either overpowered or underpowered. It seems impossible to strike a balance there, because they are standardized, once you know how to beat a bot, you just rinse and repeat.
But this is a suggestion designed to foster deeper gameplay inside player created content, and so I don't feel that DW should have any place in this. It seems straightforward to implement some of the suggestions presented earlier to keep DW mostly as it is, with the small caveat of forcing players to head back to a station on their own, rather than insta-traveling.
If killing pods is frowned upon in the DW conflict, (And made explicitly clear to all pilots entering the sector), I actually think we would find the bombing problem fixed as well. Then the additional minute or so of travel time, the time it would usually take for them to rearm at the station, slows the rate of bomber attacks.
Now, as far as your suggestion that these would be used to explore bot infested territories, I don't know that that's a problem. What I suggested, a ship with 160 m/s cruise speed and no turbo, would indeed allow exploration of bot infested territories, but I can't think of a case where this would be more useful than a ship with 225 m/s infiniturbo for the same purposes, it's not as if bots are particularly good at chasing down someone who doesn't want to fight.
Sorry if my earlier comment to Dr. Lecter was unduly harsh on DW conflict,
For myself, and many others, bots just aren't that interesting opponents, and so I tend to avoid the Deneb War conflict unless other players are showing up. Bots won't ever be that interesting in the way of opponents. They're either overpowered or underpowered. It seems impossible to strike a balance there, because they are standardized, once you know how to beat a bot, you just rinse and repeat.
But this is a suggestion designed to foster deeper gameplay inside player created content, and so I don't feel that DW should have any place in this. It seems straightforward to implement some of the suggestions presented earlier to keep DW mostly as it is, with the small caveat of forcing players to head back to a station on their own, rather than insta-traveling.
If killing pods is frowned upon in the DW conflict, (And made explicitly clear to all pilots entering the sector), I actually think we would find the bombing problem fixed as well. Then the additional minute or so of travel time, the time it would usually take for them to rearm at the station, slows the rate of bomber attacks.
Now, as far as your suggestion that these would be used to explore bot infested territories, I don't know that that's a problem. What I suggested, a ship with 160 m/s cruise speed and no turbo, would indeed allow exploration of bot infested territories, but I can't think of a case where this would be more useful than a ship with 225 m/s infiniturbo for the same purposes, it's not as if bots are particularly good at chasing down someone who doesn't want to fight.
Lecter, ruminating over hypothetical pros and cons is called VIDEOGAME DESIGN. If we can anticipate areas of frustration and boredom, and avoid or mitigate them in advance, then that's a good thing. That's basically what I do all the time, and it saves a hell of lot of time on implementing something that sucks and then having to fix it. Clearly, we can't anticipate everything (obviously, I don't), but we can anticipate enough to be useful.
I don't think flying from, say, Divinia to Deneb is too terrible. I just don't want people to need to do it over and over again. Like, doing it twice would be about my limit, before I would log off.
I do actually agree with the intended goals. And I like certain aspects of this solution, such as the option of pod destruction, where friendly combat can still have a relatively fast return rate.
So, discussion point:
1) Is temporary invulnerability and/or pod armor sufficient to protect the player in chaotic Battle scenarios?
2) Or, should additional special-case collision behaviour also be in effect, where only PCs and Border Turrets can damage pods?
3) If the latter, then what about exploitative scenarios where players fly around in enemy space (say, past turrets, or in Hive locations) without fear of reprisal from the strike forces and the like? Special-casing stuff kind of sucks, I don't really want to go down that road too far (PC, not NPCs, except strike forces, but maybe.. blah). If we just stick to 1), that's a lot simpler.
Anyway, I have some other discussion points and ideas, but that aren't formulated yet, and I was supposed to leave for the Madison IGDA meeting seven minutes ago, but instead I keep replying on here. I'll check back later.
I don't think flying from, say, Divinia to Deneb is too terrible. I just don't want people to need to do it over and over again. Like, doing it twice would be about my limit, before I would log off.
I do actually agree with the intended goals. And I like certain aspects of this solution, such as the option of pod destruction, where friendly combat can still have a relatively fast return rate.
So, discussion point:
1) Is temporary invulnerability and/or pod armor sufficient to protect the player in chaotic Battle scenarios?
2) Or, should additional special-case collision behaviour also be in effect, where only PCs and Border Turrets can damage pods?
3) If the latter, then what about exploitative scenarios where players fly around in enemy space (say, past turrets, or in Hive locations) without fear of reprisal from the strike forces and the like? Special-casing stuff kind of sucks, I don't really want to go down that road too far (PC, not NPCs, except strike forces, but maybe.. blah). If we just stick to 1), that's a lot simpler.
Anyway, I have some other discussion points and ideas, but that aren't formulated yet, and I was supposed to leave for the Madison IGDA meeting seven minutes ago, but instead I keep replying on here. I'll check back later.
Incarnate, you ruminating over the same pros and cons ad nauseam is called "Videogame Design." After a pretty short extent, when the issue is so subjective, our doing the same thing it's called "Pointless Talking Past Eachother."
In any event, I'm leaving the rest of this one to whomever cares. I'm done with the idea.
In any event, I'm leaving the rest of this one to whomever cares. I'm done with the idea.
Regarding point 2:
I don't know that the exploit potential of players flying around enemy space is that high.
If we assume that someone actually makes it past the border turrets, (which is perfectly doable right now in other ships, capital sectors are tough, but I don't think the pod would survive a jump), and we further suppose that the strike force, for whatever reason, will not be activated by this pod.
Then we have an enemy player in nation space, with a ship with no weapons and no cargo space. If they find a station they can actually land at, and then get a ship, well, that would certainly activate the strike force, and they'd have the same problems trying to interdict other vessels.
If there's a pod alone in nation space, does it make a sound?
It doesn't seem to me that there is anything inherently more useful about this ship from the standpoint of exploration. There are far better ships in the realm of border jumping (the greyhound for example), which also have the ability to blast people.
However, that being said, I'm okay with 1) as well,
I'd rather armor wasn't the primary way to protect it though, I can't imagine pulling off more than 3 hits on that, and even that only if I was lucky.
3-5 seconds of invulnerability seems fine to me...
I don't know that the exploit potential of players flying around enemy space is that high.
If we assume that someone actually makes it past the border turrets, (which is perfectly doable right now in other ships, capital sectors are tough, but I don't think the pod would survive a jump), and we further suppose that the strike force, for whatever reason, will not be activated by this pod.
Then we have an enemy player in nation space, with a ship with no weapons and no cargo space. If they find a station they can actually land at, and then get a ship, well, that would certainly activate the strike force, and they'd have the same problems trying to interdict other vessels.
If there's a pod alone in nation space, does it make a sound?
It doesn't seem to me that there is anything inherently more useful about this ship from the standpoint of exploration. There are far better ships in the realm of border jumping (the greyhound for example), which also have the ability to blast people.
However, that being said, I'm okay with 1) as well,
I'd rather armor wasn't the primary way to protect it though, I can't imagine pulling off more than 3 hits on that, and even that only if I was lucky.
3-5 seconds of invulnerability seems fine to me...
Lecter, your pissing/content ratio just exceeded 1.0. If you don't want to discuss any more, fine, but let's try to keep the discussion as on topic and civil as possible, please.
On inc's discussion points:
I agree that special cases suck. As Whytee said, shit happens. It is my honest opinion that if you gave the pod the stats that shape proposed and a 1-second temporary invincibility, accidental pod deaths would happen less than .1% of the time. Flying a big fat bomber around in Deneb, I almost never get hit by accident. People try to shoot me, and sometimes they hit. If a rag isn't getting hit on accident, I think it's safe to say a little tiny pod that is several times more maneuverable won't either.
Ergo I would be in favor of a pods-get-no-special-treatment approach. Hive bots don't target them at all, and other NPC's only target them if there are no better targets around. If they get hit by a stray gauss bolt or run into an exploding connie, that's just tough luck.
I made a post earlier that addressed the 2nd and 3rd points, but in my ideal solution those aren't even relevant.
I still think that the pods should have a radar range of 0m. That would help insure that there is no real exploit potential. A ship that can't see makes a horrible scout.
If the turrets shoot at them, it would be nearly impossible for them to infiltrate even one turreted wh. You have to get above about 180m/s to avoid the ubermissiles, and these things can only go 160.
Finally, let's try to keep this thread on-topic, and keep the pissing to a minimum. kthnx.
On inc's discussion points:
I agree that special cases suck. As Whytee said, shit happens. It is my honest opinion that if you gave the pod the stats that shape proposed and a 1-second temporary invincibility, accidental pod deaths would happen less than .1% of the time. Flying a big fat bomber around in Deneb, I almost never get hit by accident. People try to shoot me, and sometimes they hit. If a rag isn't getting hit on accident, I think it's safe to say a little tiny pod that is several times more maneuverable won't either.
Ergo I would be in favor of a pods-get-no-special-treatment approach. Hive bots don't target them at all, and other NPC's only target them if there are no better targets around. If they get hit by a stray gauss bolt or run into an exploding connie, that's just tough luck.
I made a post earlier that addressed the 2nd and 3rd points, but in my ideal solution those aren't even relevant.
I still think that the pods should have a radar range of 0m. That would help insure that there is no real exploit potential. A ship that can't see makes a horrible scout.
If the turrets shoot at them, it would be nearly impossible for them to infiltrate even one turreted wh. You have to get above about 180m/s to avoid the ubermissiles, and these things can only go 160.
Finally, let's try to keep this thread on-topic, and keep the pissing to a minimum. kthnx.
I tend to agree with ladron. Between a short period of invulnerability to avoid excess ordinance and an extremely quick no-turbo speed with a bit of armour, they're going to be reasonably difficult to kill intentionally, let alone accidentally. Building on what ladron posted, I have a few thoughts to add.
The first deals with what this is intended to most directly affect: PvP. From my standpoint, this will remove the strategic advantage you gain from staying and blowing up in combat rather than running and repairing (halves the time cos you didn't have to fly home). However, this is becoming less and less of an issue, because the ship prices are already encouraging more people to run and repair, and more people are just running for the fun of it. In general, I don't think this will change friendly 1v1 or furballs that much (it might cause a lot more running in situations where people genuinely don't like each other, but that already happens a lot, so meh).
The second thought I had was stupid in hindsight, and so I will not even bring it up.
Finally, I would make the suggestion that if this ever gets implemented, put it into the test server first, advertise the fact, and get lots of people to do Deneb and furballs with it active before it goes live. There's no way of knowing the frequency of accidental deaths without trying it out, and also no way of knowing if it will, unexpectedly, actually cause PvP to start really sucking and take all the life out of the game. You might well have been going to do it anyway if it gets implemented, Inc, but I just wanted to put it out there.
I like this idea more and more the more I think about it, it adds more realism, it adds better pacing, it makes things matter more. These, to me, are all Good Things.
The first deals with what this is intended to most directly affect: PvP. From my standpoint, this will remove the strategic advantage you gain from staying and blowing up in combat rather than running and repairing (halves the time cos you didn't have to fly home). However, this is becoming less and less of an issue, because the ship prices are already encouraging more people to run and repair, and more people are just running for the fun of it. In general, I don't think this will change friendly 1v1 or furballs that much (it might cause a lot more running in situations where people genuinely don't like each other, but that already happens a lot, so meh).
The second thought I had was stupid in hindsight, and so I will not even bring it up.
Finally, I would make the suggestion that if this ever gets implemented, put it into the test server first, advertise the fact, and get lots of people to do Deneb and furballs with it active before it goes live. There's no way of knowing the frequency of accidental deaths without trying it out, and also no way of knowing if it will, unexpectedly, actually cause PvP to start really sucking and take all the life out of the game. You might well have been going to do it anyway if it gets implemented, Inc, but I just wanted to put it out there.
I like this idea more and more the more I think about it, it adds more realism, it adds better pacing, it makes things matter more. These, to me, are all Good Things.
I think maybe a compromise could be achieved by restricting pods to only certain ships. Then you could reason that fighters are too quick and agile to be reasonably equipped with a pod, so boomed pilots just reappear in their home station. Whereas bombers, and other bigger vessels doing more specialized tasks would have to actually pay attention, and attempt to survive and do their task and if they're boomed, they need to quickly run back to a station to grab another bomber or whatever and go at it again. A trader coming into grey space whose boomed by a pirate would love a pod because it allows him a chance to get to a station (unless he was already homed in the station he was boomed in, which is unlikely) and get a new ship, and attempt to grab his cargo again, and maybe call for help. If his pod is boomed, then its back to nation space, and the pirate wins.
That way if youre deciding to play the fighter, you can continually be blown out to oblivion, and never have to go further than your homed station. If you want to play more interesting and immersive aspects of combat, you run the risk of being sent back.
sound fair? It would definitely take cooperation to keep bigger vessels alive (and their pods), making escorting through dangerous territory more interesting!
btw i'd love to see a bunch of pods zoom out of a capship after it booms! even if their aren't players inside, more creds, exp could be given for popping those pods.
That way if youre deciding to play the fighter, you can continually be blown out to oblivion, and never have to go further than your homed station. If you want to play more interesting and immersive aspects of combat, you run the risk of being sent back.
sound fair? It would definitely take cooperation to keep bigger vessels alive (and their pods), making escorting through dangerous territory more interesting!
btw i'd love to see a bunch of pods zoom out of a capship after it booms! even if their aren't players inside, more creds, exp could be given for popping those pods.
Play testing would definitely help flesh this idea out. I'd recommend any such testing include people who know how to aim who are dedicated to trying to pop the pods to actually figure out how hard it is. That could address the question of "well griefer X is definitely going to try to pop me, what then?" sort of thing. I was never opposed to the idea, in principle, I just think the balance would be crucial to get correct.
honestly has no one read bojans CLONING CONTRACT suggestion? I mean i think bojan is a stupid ninny but this is a GOOD IDEA and other games with 100s of times more subs then vo have it. make it FREAKING EXPENSIVE like 10 mil and you can have your clone pop up at any capital station of your liking as long as you have admire with them. then faction redux will take care of tri POS newbs popping up in corvus.
then if we make the cloning contract expensive we can reduce the stats on the pod to say like 120m/s with no turbo because honestly especially in greyspace we need a way to deffinitivly conquer a sector and keep it.
then if we make the cloning contract expensive we can reduce the stats on the pod to say like 120m/s with no turbo because honestly especially in greyspace we need a way to deffinitivly conquer a sector and keep it.
Rejected: That completely defeats the purpose. If you read some of the other posts in this thread you'll see that we are doing away with the (downright silly) concept of "home stations"; if your pod dies then you as a pilot are dead, and your body is cloned in a specialized facility at your nation's capitol. While I agree with you that realistically fighters shouldn't have pods, that would frankly be unplayable, and it adds unnecessary complexity to the game. Let's just be simple, concise, and consistent about this.
DivisionByZero: Well duh. You could make that statement about any given design decision in any given game that has ever been created in the history of games. Please stop making posts that contain no relevant or useful information.
EDIT: peytros, you posted while I was writing this: That is a very good idea. I agree in concept, but an extremely expensive death regardless of ship choice would be overly harsh on newbs who are dirt poor. I'd like to hear more thoughts on this though. Perhaps cloning contracts would be cheap in Dau, Itan, and Sol II, but considerably more expensive in the more outlying capitols, and Odia.
Now, as this thread has gotten quite lengthy, I'm going to summarize the major points of this proposal, in their current form, as I understand them.
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We are proposing to change the current pilot respawn system of the game by eliminating the concept of "home stations". When your ship dies, you are ejected from the wreckage in an escape pod, which you then try to fly to the nearest station so that you can buy a new ship and get back out into the verse.
If your pod is destroyed, then you as a pilot physically die and must be cloned. This happens at the nearest national (UIT, Serco, or Itani) capitol in which you have good standing*. If you are hated by all three nations, you are cloned at the Corvus capitol. Alternatively, this may involve making a costly* cloning contract with capitol stations, rather than simply being cloned for free at the nearest one.
The escape pod itself is ejected at a high speed* in the direction of your ships motion. The escape pod is invulnerable to all damage for a short time* to prevent accidental death from surplus explosive damage and the like.
The escape pod has the following stats*:
Skin: Observer
Hull: 1600
Mass: 1000 kg
Thrust: 80
non Turbo Speed: 160 m/s
No turbo
Spin Torque: ?
The proposed advantages of this are:
- It makes death more meaningful/makes it possible to accomplish player-created objectives through combat.
- It greatly improves the roleplaying aspects of combat in this game and makes it more realistic.
- It improves the pacing of fully consensual combat.
- It takes away the current tactical advantage of dying vs. repairing.
The proposed disadvantages are:
- It will slightly slow down the pace of consensual furballs (which some people claim is an advantage, but more on the disadvantage side).
- It could be frustrating, especially for new players, to have their pod killed and end up far away from where they died.
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* These things affect the balance of this proposal and need to be enumerated. It is my personal opinion that arguing over the numbers on paper for months won't get us as far as actually trying a couple configurations on the test server, but we DO need to come up with something that is at least reasonable so we can test it.
At this point we more or less have all of the major concepts hashed out; the bulk of the remaining discussion should focus on tweaking for balance. After I have carefully thought through each of the starred values in that summary, I will make a post with my suggestions. When thinking about numbers, keep in mind that this is way smaller and lighter than the ships that you are used to flying, and try to adjust accordingly.
DivisionByZero: Well duh. You could make that statement about any given design decision in any given game that has ever been created in the history of games. Please stop making posts that contain no relevant or useful information.
EDIT: peytros, you posted while I was writing this: That is a very good idea. I agree in concept, but an extremely expensive death regardless of ship choice would be overly harsh on newbs who are dirt poor. I'd like to hear more thoughts on this though. Perhaps cloning contracts would be cheap in Dau, Itan, and Sol II, but considerably more expensive in the more outlying capitols, and Odia.
Now, as this thread has gotten quite lengthy, I'm going to summarize the major points of this proposal, in their current form, as I understand them.
-----
We are proposing to change the current pilot respawn system of the game by eliminating the concept of "home stations". When your ship dies, you are ejected from the wreckage in an escape pod, which you then try to fly to the nearest station so that you can buy a new ship and get back out into the verse.
If your pod is destroyed, then you as a pilot physically die and must be cloned. This happens at the nearest national (UIT, Serco, or Itani) capitol in which you have good standing*. If you are hated by all three nations, you are cloned at the Corvus capitol. Alternatively, this may involve making a costly* cloning contract with capitol stations, rather than simply being cloned for free at the nearest one.
The escape pod itself is ejected at a high speed* in the direction of your ships motion. The escape pod is invulnerable to all damage for a short time* to prevent accidental death from surplus explosive damage and the like.
The escape pod has the following stats*:
Skin: Observer
Hull: 1600
Mass: 1000 kg
Thrust: 80
non Turbo Speed: 160 m/s
No turbo
Spin Torque: ?
The proposed advantages of this are:
- It makes death more meaningful/makes it possible to accomplish player-created objectives through combat.
- It greatly improves the roleplaying aspects of combat in this game and makes it more realistic.
- It improves the pacing of fully consensual combat.
- It takes away the current tactical advantage of dying vs. repairing.
The proposed disadvantages are:
- It will slightly slow down the pace of consensual furballs (which some people claim is an advantage, but more on the disadvantage side).
- It could be frustrating, especially for new players, to have their pod killed and end up far away from where they died.
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* These things affect the balance of this proposal and need to be enumerated. It is my personal opinion that arguing over the numbers on paper for months won't get us as far as actually trying a couple configurations on the test server, but we DO need to come up with something that is at least reasonable so we can test it.
At this point we more or less have all of the major concepts hashed out; the bulk of the remaining discussion should focus on tweaking for balance. After I have carefully thought through each of the starred values in that summary, I will make a post with my suggestions. When thinking about numbers, keep in mind that this is way smaller and lighter than the ships that you are used to flying, and try to adjust accordingly.
I know that the Hive Observers are listed as being 2000kg, but considering that that would be about a quarter of some of the smaller ship's mass, perhaps an escape pod with a mass of about 500kg would be more appropriate? You could always tone down the thrust to get the same thrust/mass ratio; its not like we're going to be putting guns on these things.
Simply returning to the nearest nation capitol seems terribly unwieldy; especially in UIT space, where all of the UIT Capitols are in Arta Celaestis and Dau. Perhaps "homing" should be restricted to only Capitol Stations (including those marked as such for the corporations)? This would permit a bit more control, while maintaining the reasons for having the pod in the first place.
Simply returning to the nearest nation capitol seems terribly unwieldy; especially in UIT space, where all of the UIT Capitols are in Arta Celaestis and Dau. Perhaps "homing" should be restricted to only Capitol Stations (including those marked as such for the corporations)? This would permit a bit more control, while maintaining the reasons for having the pod in the first place.
Mass of pod: I agree. I'm too tired to do the math right now, can you post your proposed stats for the pod with that mass, preferably keeping the acceleration the same?
Stuff about stations: You have a good point, though since TPG is the only company with a "capitol" station, which happens to be literally next door to the main UIT capitol station anyway, that wouldn't make too much difference. For the sake of consistency, though, I would vote yes on this. I expect that at some point other companies (or perhaps even guilds) could end up with "capitol" stations, so it would be good if we went ahead and declared that you can be cloned at any capitol station, provided that they like you enough and you pay them enough. That also helps to bring in more distinction between the station types, which I think is a good thing.
On a related note:
I thought the intention was that someone can be cloned only at stations marked as "capitol", maybe I was unclear on that. Did anyone think it was a good idea for people to be cloned at the research station in Dau that sells almost no good ships, for example? Personally I think that would just be annoying. Capitol stations are good 'homes' because the tend to have the widest variety of equipment available.
Stuff about stations: You have a good point, though since TPG is the only company with a "capitol" station, which happens to be literally next door to the main UIT capitol station anyway, that wouldn't make too much difference. For the sake of consistency, though, I would vote yes on this. I expect that at some point other companies (or perhaps even guilds) could end up with "capitol" stations, so it would be good if we went ahead and declared that you can be cloned at any capitol station, provided that they like you enough and you pay them enough. That also helps to bring in more distinction between the station types, which I think is a good thing.
On a related note:
I thought the intention was that someone can be cloned only at stations marked as "capitol", maybe I was unclear on that. Did anyone think it was a good idea for people to be cloned at the research station in Dau that sells almost no good ships, for example? Personally I think that would just be annoying. Capitol stations are good 'homes' because the tend to have the widest variety of equipment available.
Any nation at war would build a cloning station near the front lines and clone any member of its military that died (in good standing)....
A neutral station might take a contract from any party if the price was high enough...(player owned stations?)
Escape pods should automaticly seek out the nearest safe base - not a home station and pilot themselves there....
A neutral station might take a contract from any party if the price was high enough...(player owned stations?)
Escape pods should automaticly seek out the nearest safe base - not a home station and pilot themselves there....
I would just like to say that I really like the escape pod idea, and while I don't have any particular ideas for the specifics, I think that it greatly increases the desire to live. I have definitely become too nonchalant about dying. If I have 2mil, and dying only costs me 50k to buy my stuff back, I don't really care.
Again, I'm just giving merit to the idea as a whole.
Again, I'm just giving merit to the idea as a whole.
PaKettle the escape pods don't "seek out" anything. You fly them wherever you want; ideally the nearest station.
Your assuming they must be under the control of the player.....The course might be locked in at the time of launch.