Some muskrats are worn as boots.

I don't think 32-bit vision would bring any advantages, by the way. It does not extend the spectrum, it merely provides better resolution.

That said, I do not think it is necessary to limit the number of capital ships docking with stations because of graphioal processing power but because it might tip various scales.

I don't think I'd wear ladron hide boots.

I don't think we would have a lot of capital ships in any given system. I mean, even if we get more players we're not likely to have a ton more players because of the nature of the game, and besides I imagine there will be crazy license and price restrictions on capital ship purchase. So out of an already small user base, we'll probably have a fairly small number of people who can actually get capships.

I like the idea of only capital stations being able to handle taking a capship. It opens up blockading possibilities and such, and it makes little sense that every station can handle a cappy.

Perhaps more basic a question is who can own a cappie and if they should be persistent in game. It is fine for the Cap ship to simply dissappear when its owner logs but if a guild owns it then what? If the cap ship is persistant then it would have to be gaurded or docked. I also think it should take two or more players to actually fly a cap ship in any case but thats just my opinion.

Given the player base and how well multi player ships have panned out, requiring two... (or more)... people to fly it, is ridiculous. 1 player and an AI crew which could be supplemented by actual people is a more realistic idea.

Unless a lot has changed to MP ships since I last played, they were not actually viable as a combat solution. However, that was due to a multitude of reasons, not only the unwillingness of the current player base to combine efforts.

There is also the problem that cappies are basicly sitting ducks without a fighter escort....A rather thorny problem no matter how you slice it.

There are a lot of issues with capships. About half of which are not even known by the playerbase. Anyway, I think this fundamental suggestion is sound. When a player docks, a capship could either be "sent away", or have a timer (say, 5 minutes) that on timeout would have the capship "jump to nowhere". In the case of a capship owned by either an individual or a guild, a button or command could be available to "call in" the owned capship.. potentially only at locations near where it was last "left". Then the capship jumps in and is available to the owner or members of the guild.

It's not an unreasonable solution. But there are a lot of other problems that have to be solved. Like, say, Player-ships can't have shields yet, and if we make capships NPC-navigated (as was always the intention).. NPC navigation is giving us problems right now. On the other hand, we're trying to make it a lot better, so hopefully these issues will be addressed before long.

this is easy. just always send the cappie back out on the next escort keeping it persistent. Make sure any players inside are not added to the "group" so if they want cash they'll have to exit and take a new mission that way they can't just sit around making cash from the escort.

Maybe just add somethign to kick a player out of escort cappies if they aren't part of the group/guild/inner circle. *then* jump the cappie to nowhere.

and if we make capships NPC-navigated (as was always the intention)..

wait, what? when the capships become available, your intentions were not to let us pilot them, just set a route and we ride passenger/turret?

"...and if we make capships NPC-navigated (as was always the intention).. "

Well, at least I know I won't be wasting my time trying to save for some thing I no longer have any interest in... talk about ultimately bad ideas.

i am with you ryan, but i would like to hear a definite answer on that.

Um. I think Incarnate was talking about large convoys with NPC-controlled capital ships, not that capital ships are supposed to be controlled solely by NPCs.

You know how cap ship convoys got borked all the time, right?

The intent was always to create a "homeworld" style interface for capships, where you could tell the capship to move in various discrete ways, but wouldn't directly control the actions (this would include a view of the sector, where you could plot courses in 3 dimensions). This solves a lot of issues, because directly "flying" a capship is a horrible experience (the trident is ok, the bigger ones are kind of awful), but it would also give a lot more sector-control than just saying "take me to Sector A". You could still "navigate" around asteroids and things in a sector, or maneuver for best combat positioning, or whatever else.. this is necessary for a lot of stuff. An "external" nav view would give a lot more visibility, and making it more "nav" oriented would remove latency and overcompensation issues (it's can be rather slow to get a ship to stop turning after you give it too much turning thrust, because you couldn't see it starting to move at all). It doesn't mean you would be stuck as a turret, the person controlling any given capship would have a fairly involved interface to help them navigate and use the ship. This 3D sector interface would also potentially be usable for things like, controlling sub-ships in battle environments (higher-level tactical battle control), etc.

This is the same thing we've been saying for years. As you can see here and here and various other discussions going back to 2004 or earlier.

Ah. I'm aware of that, but I assumed there was going to be a 'helmsman' post, which could be manned (or not) by a PC.

I don't think it would make that much difference in the end, but it could be fun to actually pilot thousands of metric tonnes through a dense roid field. Perhaps a simulator, with some sort of pilot's license (with meaningful exams) would be needed, before a human pilot would be trusted with controlling a ship worth multiple millions of credits. Something like 'fly this gauntlet in under x minutes, without touching the pylons/rings/borders' and 'dock this ship within y minutes without crashing into the station'.

Could be a badge, perhaps an aviator's badge, styled after the air force ones, cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut_Badge#United_States_Army

I don't have any problem with that, but there are technical caveats with regard to the engine. Basically, we've constructed a lot of "stuff" around the current concept of a capship, which is not a "player-ship". Player-ships are handled differently, sector control is central to certain concepts like shield-management. So, to have people directly control their own ships would require a fair amount of reworking of the codebase (or a stripping of features like shields, or visible turrets), which might not be worthwhile for the benefit of getting to find out how unpleasant it is to "fly" a capship and win a badge for it. But.. I have no design issues with it or anything, I'd be ok with it if it ended up working out time-wise.

For the moment, though, I'd rather work on the solution that's likely most useful for everyone, and not just the hardcore.

Of course. I was just somehow looking forward to Mark Twain-like stories on the RP forums >_>

I'll be already acting like a cat smelling catnip once HW-style controlled capital ships are introduced. Taking the helm would just be icing on the proverbial cake. Having played some Age of Pirates games, I know how weird supposedly large things can behave when having to perform unintended things (striking foundered ships was especially crashful).

Incarnate you may want to allow the cappies to be flown both ways. The manual way could be a group exercise with captian, helm and enginemen along with the flight, gunner and missle crews. Even a Command position for directing fleet operations could be included to complete the experience. Limiting the scope of a players activities might make the interface a bit less problematic inspite of its specialised nature.

Without computer intervention driving a cappie solo would be worse then an xc full of samo.....It is not something you can do with a joystick inspite of what sci-fi movies like ST:Insurrection might claim.

What do you mean by "flown both ways"? It sounds like you're advocating manual as well as computer control, and then it sounds like you're saying manual control is not a good idea. Or are you saying something else entirely?

I think he is advocating computer-aided control of a capital ship, but I've been wrong before. I do not think that will be necessary. Players achieve great feats despite or exactly because of 'impossible' circumstances. Controlling capital ships sounds like that to me.

computer aid for solo operation and Manual control for Group activities.....