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Some thoughts for future weapons
I have been chatting in game to a few folks (Dr. Jackle is me) and decided to post some thoughts for some weapons that I was going to implement in a old space type game I was designing.
The first was a weapon that was meant for PvP. You hit somebody with it (beam, wave, w/e) and for X amount of time it scrambles the controls of the player to one of 5 random presets (so there is no pattern). Imagine having primary fire be break, strafe left changes views, etc. Or maybe not that mean, but thats an idea.
The second is what I called in my draft the "BKP "starkiller"". It creates a mini black hole that sucks ships (and missiles) into it, either holding them or crushing them.
Third is the tractor beam. Self explanatory, you hit them and hold it, and it pulls them to you. It would drain power fast though
Fourth is the EMP missile. If caught in its splash radius it would disable you ship for X seconds.
A few other things I was designing but would work well here also include two jammers (one for missiles, one to disguise your color on radar (makes you grey or even makes you the other factions color) and a cloaking device. Cloaking would take energy and if you fire any weapon its disabled and cannot be turned back on for lets say 30 seconds of no fire or being hit.
Anyways, those are just some thoughts. I do have some idea of how hard coding like this is, and the dev team has my utmost respect.
Just my thoughts.
The first was a weapon that was meant for PvP. You hit somebody with it (beam, wave, w/e) and for X amount of time it scrambles the controls of the player to one of 5 random presets (so there is no pattern). Imagine having primary fire be break, strafe left changes views, etc. Or maybe not that mean, but thats an idea.
The second is what I called in my draft the "BKP "starkiller"". It creates a mini black hole that sucks ships (and missiles) into it, either holding them or crushing them.
Third is the tractor beam. Self explanatory, you hit them and hold it, and it pulls them to you. It would drain power fast though
Fourth is the EMP missile. If caught in its splash radius it would disable you ship for X seconds.
A few other things I was designing but would work well here also include two jammers (one for missiles, one to disguise your color on radar (makes you grey or even makes you the other factions color) and a cloaking device. Cloaking would take energy and if you fire any weapon its disabled and cannot be turned back on for lets say 30 seconds of no fire or being hit.
Anyways, those are just some thoughts. I do have some idea of how hard coding like this is, and the dev team has my utmost respect.
Just my thoughts.
Goldmine.
Goldmine?
Oh yeah... but I'm just gonna behave, Zam.
Did I do something wrong?
You didn't play enough, read enough, think enough.
NONE of what you said will be considered seriously by the majority of the VO population and the devs, unfortunately. You're asking too much too soon (tm), and though you acknowledged that in your post, it was still a bad idea to post it in the first place. Though I admittedly hope to see stuff like that sometime in the far future (tm)...
Goldmine means it's trolling season, btw.
Don't worry about it, but next time try to think about how people will react before posting... because unfortunately they're right. It's a goldmine.
NONE of what you said will be considered seriously by the majority of the VO population and the devs, unfortunately. You're asking too much too soon (tm), and though you acknowledged that in your post, it was still a bad idea to post it in the first place. Though I admittedly hope to see stuff like that sometime in the far future (tm)...
Goldmine means it's trolling season, btw.
Don't worry about it, but next time try to think about how people will react before posting... because unfortunately they're right. It's a goldmine.
AH, in that case I apologize. I only posted because I felt some of them might be decent ideas. I tossed a few of them out in game and got some positive feedback.
I am in no way asking or demanding these features at all however. I was just putting some thoughts out there. If the devs/VO community are opposed to them that is their rite.
As far as the far future, unless I am very very wrong here this game has been in dev. since 1998 and I think it was published in 2004. That means its around 5 years old.
Again, I am a new comer to the game, and as such I realize my thoughts and ideas for such a thing are not going to be looked at seriously anyways.
As I said, I know that this kind of stuff would be hard to code in. These are just ideas.
I honestly thought I would get a different response judging from the feedback I got in game. Oh well. This is a very cool game with what seems to be a good community.
- Blitz_Stryfe
I am in no way asking or demanding these features at all however. I was just putting some thoughts out there. If the devs/VO community are opposed to them that is their rite.
As far as the far future, unless I am very very wrong here this game has been in dev. since 1998 and I think it was published in 2004. That means its around 5 years old.
Again, I am a new comer to the game, and as such I realize my thoughts and ideas for such a thing are not going to be looked at seriously anyways.
As I said, I know that this kind of stuff would be hard to code in. These are just ideas.
I honestly thought I would get a different response judging from the feedback I got in game. Oh well. This is a very cool game with what seems to be a good community.
- Blitz_Stryfe
Gee, I guess the ALL CAPS was insufficient to attract your attention: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/7692
I keep saying we should make that post RED and use the [BLINK] tag or something.
Blitz, you need to understand that even though this game has been live for 5 years and was in development for 4 years before that, there have only, ever, been 4 developers that would work on the game. Instead of having a gigantic company behind them that can throw money at problems or outsource talent, these 4 guys only have the money we give them to have shelter, food, and the occasional beer.
Most of their time is not spent writing code and implementing suggestions, as nice as that would be for them AND us; I would wager that 50% of their time is spent with more mundane things, like server colo issues, billing & invoicing, hardware & software, bug quashing, etc.
I'm amazed that Guild Software is still making changes to the game; my hat is off to them. You have to realize that if something takes EA or Blizzard 30 days to implement with their legions of employees, the same kind of feature might take Guild Software 3 years. It's a question of available man-hours to throw at the problem.
Yes, and the other posters are correct; your ideas have been suggested many times before, in the case of the tractor beam, I would wager has been suggested well over 25 times.
Blitz, you need to understand that even though this game has been live for 5 years and was in development for 4 years before that, there have only, ever, been 4 developers that would work on the game. Instead of having a gigantic company behind them that can throw money at problems or outsource talent, these 4 guys only have the money we give them to have shelter, food, and the occasional beer.
Most of their time is not spent writing code and implementing suggestions, as nice as that would be for them AND us; I would wager that 50% of their time is spent with more mundane things, like server colo issues, billing & invoicing, hardware & software, bug quashing, etc.
I'm amazed that Guild Software is still making changes to the game; my hat is off to them. You have to realize that if something takes EA or Blizzard 30 days to implement with their legions of employees, the same kind of feature might take Guild Software 3 years. It's a question of available man-hours to throw at the problem.
Yes, and the other posters are correct; your ideas have been suggested many times before, in the case of the tractor beam, I would wager has been suggested well over 25 times.
Against my better judgment, I'm going to pretend to take your suggestions seriously and give you some honest-to-God feedback instead of the same canned responses that we Guild Software Fanboys (Guildies? Guidites?) have been conditioned to regurgitate in a Pavlovian response to snarkbait.
*ahem*
#1 -- Not so sure that this is a good idea. VO is, at its hard, a skill-based game, and taking control out of the hands of the player (even temporarily) could be a major disadvantage (game-breaking, even). Thats not to say that a weapon of this sort couldn't work, but that anything of that nature tends to be (rightly) treated with a fair amount of skepticism around these parts.
#2 -- A weapon that could both "hold" and destroy ships would be imbalanced-no way around it. However, an "Ensnaring" mine of sorts might be feasible if appropriately encoded, but, remember that anything that takes control away from the player is not immediately welcomed around here.
A "chaff" like weapon drawing away missiles in the manner which you intend would be welcomed, however. Anything to thwart the Swarm-spammers.
#3 -- Oft-requested, but still not implemented. The physics coding for such a device would likely not be trivial (especially if you want it to behave in any useful fashion). The usefulness of such a device is sometimes debated, but there is no question that almost anyone would like to have something like this in-game anyway, if only for the novelty.
#4 -- Again, removing player control is generally thought of as a Bad Thing™. Come to think of it, though, and EMP weapon that sapps the enemy's battery power might not be a bad idea...
# 5 -- Jammers would be nice, especially if they only blocked the "advanced" missiles (Geminis, Swarms), making the more primitive ones more desirable. Even so, the behavior of a "jammed" missile would have to be worked out first (are they merely blinded? do they fly in circles? etc).
#6 -- IFF equipment is a good suggestion, but it won't be useful until the faction system is overhauled (and we've been waiting for that for years now). If you're still around when it is, bring this back up; it might be taken more seriously then.
#7 -- Cloaking has been planned almost since the beginning, but there are certain hurdles which must be overtaken before it is a reality. With the recent changes to the radar system (occlusion, etc) we're closer than ever, but it remains a distant prospect.
In the future, PLEASE READ THIS PRIOR TO POSTING A SUGGESTION. Its in big, friendly bold letters, and will save you from many trolls and headaches in the future if you bother to heed its sage advice.
*ahem*
#1 -- Not so sure that this is a good idea. VO is, at its hard, a skill-based game, and taking control out of the hands of the player (even temporarily) could be a major disadvantage (game-breaking, even). Thats not to say that a weapon of this sort couldn't work, but that anything of that nature tends to be (rightly) treated with a fair amount of skepticism around these parts.
#2 -- A weapon that could both "hold" and destroy ships would be imbalanced-no way around it. However, an "Ensnaring" mine of sorts might be feasible if appropriately encoded, but, remember that anything that takes control away from the player is not immediately welcomed around here.
A "chaff" like weapon drawing away missiles in the manner which you intend would be welcomed, however. Anything to thwart the Swarm-spammers.
#3 -- Oft-requested, but still not implemented. The physics coding for such a device would likely not be trivial (especially if you want it to behave in any useful fashion). The usefulness of such a device is sometimes debated, but there is no question that almost anyone would like to have something like this in-game anyway, if only for the novelty.
#4 -- Again, removing player control is generally thought of as a Bad Thing™. Come to think of it, though, and EMP weapon that sapps the enemy's battery power might not be a bad idea...
# 5 -- Jammers would be nice, especially if they only blocked the "advanced" missiles (Geminis, Swarms), making the more primitive ones more desirable. Even so, the behavior of a "jammed" missile would have to be worked out first (are they merely blinded? do they fly in circles? etc).
#6 -- IFF equipment is a good suggestion, but it won't be useful until the faction system is overhauled (and we've been waiting for that for years now). If you're still around when it is, bring this back up; it might be taken more seriously then.
#7 -- Cloaking has been planned almost since the beginning, but there are certain hurdles which must be overtaken before it is a reality. With the recent changes to the radar system (occlusion, etc) we're closer than ever, but it remains a distant prospect.
In the future, PLEASE READ THIS PRIOR TO POSTING A SUGGESTION. Its in big, friendly bold letters, and will save you from many trolls and headaches in the future if you bother to heed its sage advice.
Thank you for the feedback. I can now see some of the flaws with my suggestions. Also I should have seen that link but I got over excited when I went to post this.
Yeah blitz, to be honest, everyone would be glad to have these features readily available. But real life is pretty cruel and it's just not feasible for these features to be put in game right now.
Though we always hope, Soon.
Though we always hope, Soon.