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Conquerable Station Suggestion / Improvement

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Jan 23, 2010 Snax_28 link
Yeah, it might need some tinkering to groups overall. Another issue I can see is if the group creator is afk. There would need to be a group expel function, something that would need a majority vote to enact.
Jan 23, 2010 incarnate link
Tying it to groups starts to create more problems than it solves, as far as I can tell.

Strat: it is possible for someone to do more aggregate damage to their own turrets, but they would be taking a hell of a risk doing so.. eliminating their own defenses while essentially rolling the dice to "hope" they ended up doing more damage. While the opposing team doesn't really care who does the most damage amongst them.

But, we can simply take the person who did the most aggregate damage, who is also not holding the prior access key. Anyway, I'll have to talk to ray about damage aggregation mechanics, I don't think we do that anywhere right now. We have lots of "who did the most damage" tests for single targets, but not clusters of targets.
Jan 23, 2010 mr_spuck link
What about spawning some sort of boss turret when all the other ones are down and only counting damage to that one?
Jan 23, 2010 Strat link
Okay. Very short term; Sell free buses and free batteries at the station. People are selling their equipment there and getting stuck. Or if they home there and die, etc...
Jan 23, 2010 iry link
Could an object on the station be given a health bar or shield?

If something on the station needed to be damaged or destroyed to make owner ship vulnerable wouldn't that be easier to measure for damage done?

Some targetable piece of the station could be called something vital like reactor or control room and disabling it would allow the station to be conquered.

The turrets could even give it some sort of shield that would fall / regenerate more slowly when destroyed like the hive.
Jan 23, 2010 peytros link
I really don't think aggregate damage is the way to go it's very unrealistic to how a station would really be conquered. I think putting in a siege mechanic like you destroy all the turrets then must eliminate all previous key owners from the system before you can dock. That would also be a sure fire way of keeping people from ninjaing the dock and adding an element of actually conquering instead of just docking first.
Jan 23, 2010 Snax_28 link
...eliminate all previous key owners from the system before you can dock

One d-bag in a valk would be all that was needed to make this infinitely annoying and frustrating. Not to mention unrealistic. If I'm running around the neighbourhood with a key to my house, it's not like anyone who wants in isn't going to get in eventually.

What would be awesome, and I know this is unrealistic, would be some sort of code-breaking mini game. Have the most powerful defenses situated near or on the station. In order to gain access to the station and to shift ownership, someone would have to go access a panel in the dock and "break in".

I guess a more superficial version of that of course would be someone just sitting in the dock for a predetermined period of time (60 seconds for example) in order to "break in".
Jan 23, 2010 peytros link
then don't let anyone dock once station defenses are down :P also if you can't eventually kill a running valk or make it leave sector you = fail
Jan 23, 2010 Snax_28 link
...also if you can't eventually kill a running valk or make it leave sector you = fail

Guarantee you I could stay in sector, alive, for as long as I wanted, in a Valk. Perhaps if there was some distance restriction, but I still see this as being more of an annoyance than an immersive mechanic.
Jan 23, 2010 Maalik link
Maybe only those who did x damage to a turret and who do not have a key can dock for the first n minutes. Though, giving exclusive docking rights for some shortish duration to the person who did the most aggregate damage sounds pretty good too.

+1 to freebus availability.
Jan 23, 2010 vIsitor link
Maybe the last turret could drop a special widget that allows the holder to board & capture the station? Sure, some jerk could always take it, but at least they'd have to be a fair distance from the docking bay first (and be vulnerable to being shot down).
Jan 23, 2010 ShankTank link
It seems everyone else thinks defending means to wait until the seventh turret is down, kill that turret, then dock and reset the entire thing. This really needs to be fixed, just a 5 minute lockout period until anyone can dock is enough.

Oh yeah, and turrets aren't being as aggressive as they should be. They should shoot everyone who isn't keyed, right now they only retaliate if they get shot.
Jan 23, 2010 Snax_28 link
Not anymore. I just got popped by a turret just for not having a key.

Also, i8+storm=epic win.
Jan 24, 2010 ShankTank link
This is very ridiculous. There needs to either be a 5 minute lockout period after the turrets are killed or lock anyone who previously had a key out of the station for at least 20 seconds. People aren't defending the turrets, seriously, they just wait until there's only one turret left, kill it, then redock.

Also, fix turret ai. They should be shooting everyone without a key.
Jan 24, 2010 mr_spuck link
haha! vIsitors post made me think of something ..how about combining it with the old ctf stuff?

When all turrets are down a flag spawns somewhere in the sector. The flag and whoever picked it up show up on the radar with a special icon. The carrier has turbo disabled. To prevent spacing it out, the flag resets every 5 minutes, even while carried.

Totally makes no sense, but it sounds like it could be fun.
Jan 24, 2010 Starfisher link
spuck: CTF would be an interesting way to do it. The lack of turbo means that the attacking force would have to have achieved dominance. Only problem I see is that now the defenders have even less incentive to come out until the last turret dies, since all that matters is the flag.

Maybe each turret should drop a flag or widget. The widget would weigh a LOT so as to slow down the carrier when all 8 were on board. If the widget is taken more than ~5km from the station, you have 10 seconds to bring it back to the limit before it destroys your ship. You can't dock with the widgets unless you have all 8 on your ship.

Still open to someone grabbing the widget, running outside the limit and spacing the widgets. Or someone could jettison it inside a roid. Bleh, roid jettisoning actually would ruin any scheme that involved widgets, because the defenders would only have to successfully dump one inside a roid to ruin the game for that cycle.

Or maybe if all 8 widgets are dropped (ie all turrets down), no one can dock at the station until someone has all 8 and docks? That would prevent defenders from just hiding the widgets, because if they do then the station goes back to neutral and no one can dock until the next cycle. People already inside can launch, and if you die and spawn inside, you can launch. But you can't dock unless you have the 8 key parts, which triggers the existing mechanism.
Jan 24, 2010 Capt.Waffles link
People keep making suggestions to ensure that the station changes hands every time. Just saying when this thing goes wide scale thats going to suck. You own a nice station out in BFE grey (assuming the new grey ring is in place) and you basically lose it because some one( and i mean one) half heartedly tried to take it, and succeed in taking out the turrets.

Maybe (assuming, yet again, you can pay to increase defenses) there should be a siege timer based on number of defenses and what not. You have X amount of time to destroy the defenses and take the station before reset and then a cool down period before an attempt on the station can be made again. BUT then again it does make sense that the group with the most money should be able to take out any station at anytime.

I don't think you should be locked out just because you owned the station last, maybe you should still be able to dock until someone else takes the station or a turret respawns (longer respawn time?). I mean those people do still technically own the station.

OR what if the turrets don't need to be down to capture the station. Maybe if there was a siege ship that needs to dock to take the station. Taking out the turrets would help insure the ships safety. It should be heavy, slow, WELL armored and possibly expensive.
Jan 24, 2010 Alloh link
Contributing:

-FIX the old key being accepted.

-OPTION TO REVOKE OLD KEY and issue a new one, as parameter to /giveownerkeys, like '/giveownerkeys "My Name" NewKey'. From that moment, all defenses AND DOCK only accept $NewKey. Word "newkey" creates a new numbered key and revoke old ones.

-If who conquers station is on a group when captured, all group receive the owner keys.

-Add one "FIXED" turret, inside the dock. One must clear it for last to "conquer" station. Or 2 around entrance. But make it spawn attached to station. Or station's antennas...

-A team who needs to destroy N turrets and defenders must be able to wipe out "ninjas" on sector. So keep ninja move option.

-Put on station's Neons the NUMBER of valid key, in arabic numbers (like 1,2...), not signs. Much better if owner can write its neon signs, or his GUILD tag!

-Add 2 strike force pilots. Preferably Centurions, to make clearly different. But only if owner "buy" it from station, just like a commodity. They auto-respawn (5 or N) times only.

*-Time before re-conquest possible, like, must wait all 8 turrets to spawn to "unlock" capture mode. (To prevent abuse, ignore "owner" killing own turrets, only account for enemy kills)

*-Keep a LOG of any given key (when, key, giver, receiver) on station's log, readable while docked. Put it on welcome page text, only for owners.
Jan 24, 2010 Starfisher link
Waffles: I think it goes without saying that it should be a bit harder to take the station when no one is around to defend it. However, if you make the station too capable of defending itself, you'll make it completely impossible to take when competent defenders join in along side the automatic defenses. That would result in no one ever attacking stations except when there's no one from the station owner's group/guild online, since doing otherwise would be a waste of time and resources. That would be boring, and irritating for all involved to boot.

Riffing on your idea of a siege ship, it could be a freighter full of mercenaries who are going to board the station to kill anyone inside and/or get them to hand over the keys. The mechanism could be tested out by making a cargo widget that weighed a crapload and cost a good chunk of change. Dock with X "Mercs" and the station gets slaughtered, changing hands to whoever brought the merc team. If your ship gets destroyed, the mercs don't drop (unless we can get a custom widget graphic of a bunch of people in spacesuits freaking out), they just evaporate, making defense of the combat team ship extremely important.

That might be pretty difficult to achieve given a competent defense force but it could also encourage some interesting team tactics to keep the ship alive or clear a path for it.
Jan 24, 2010 ladron link
Strat: it is possible for someone to do more aggregate damage to their own turrets, but they would be taking a hell of a risk doing so.. eliminating their own defenses while essentially rolling the dice to "hope" they ended up doing more damage. While the opposing team doesn't really care who does the most damage amongst them.

Your intentions may have been to make the turrets legitimately help defending the station, but honestly they're useless in that regard. The TGFT/ONE/VPR consortium that was holding the station for several hours yesterday intentionally destroyed their own turrets anytime they became too damaged so that they could re-capture the station and instantly respawn all of the turrets, and this was a very effective strategy.

Killing one turret over and over again while there are no attackers around would absolutely insure that the defenders did more damage overall to the defenses than the attackers did.