Forums » Suggestions
Ideas to make Station Conquest more player centric
Based on a short conversation with the opposing team last night, and also on general thoughts on how the station conquest mechanic currently functions, this thread is for ideas on how to make station conquest more complex, specifically, more player vs. player and less player vs. turret vs. player trying to repair the turret. Understandably, a lot of the suggestions in this thread will require a larger playerbase to function, but we'll have that eventually. Also, for the purposes of this thread, don't consider currently available game mechanics as limiters. If a functionality is worth doing, the devs will build it.
I've got a quite a few ideas, but here are a couple to get us started:
-Player controlled turrets: All turrets must be player controlled. Not necessarily meaning a player inside a turret firing it, but player directed, with perhaps a battle map interface where you click on the turret and assign it a target. Multiple controllers could work to assign targets on the same interface interactively. If a turret does not have a target, it doesn't fire as long as there are key possessing players in the sector. If the sector is completely empty, turrets are automated as usual. Turrets only respawn if resources are available for their production.
-Production based strike-force capability: Also player initiated. Strike Force is constructed based on set rate of production over time assuming the resources required are available. Strike Forces can consist of any ship and weapons combination, each with specific resource requirements for production. As with turrets, SF can only be launched by controlling players if they are on the station and are controlled by the same map interface as the turrets. Click on the SF group and assign them a target, or assign them a specific behavior. As with turrets, if there is no key holder in the sector SF can be set to autolaunch a limited number of ships per wave.
Both of these suggestions require certain limits be placed for station storage of materials and space for hangered ships.
(also with both of the above suggestions, I believe there MUST be a strict anti-bot policy in place. )
-Conquer mechanic has to change to something more player centric as well, or at least the reasoning. For example, leave the destruction of the turrets as a primary requirement, but also have them part of the control network infrastructure, meaning if a turret drops out, a sphere of SF control and turret control also drops out or becomes slow.
-Another thought would be a whole new conquer condition, such as blasting through the station shields and forcing a landing party onto the station.
Conquer mechanics are the hard one. How you conquer the station dictates completely how you interact with the owner players. As it stands, the station is almost always conquered when it's empty, with no defending players.
Perhaps a time window for conquering would be a good way to fix that until we have a large enough playerbase. A time window and player controlled turrets and SF would make a much more dynamic and PvP centric conquer experience. It would also give the winners something to be proud of, knowing that no one was gonna snake the station out from under them when they're asleep. Eventually the playerbase will be large enough that a time window will not be necessary. (Also, very important, with the current non player controlled turrets, a time window would NOT work, because the station would never be conquered. The turret power/repair speed vs. the attacker speed would almost always win out unless the attackers have overwhelming (15:1) player numbers. Last night we only took the station from first 2 then 3 defenders because we had a massive head start.)
Anyway, I think these are some good ideas, hopefully some one else has some even better.
I've got a quite a few ideas, but here are a couple to get us started:
-Player controlled turrets: All turrets must be player controlled. Not necessarily meaning a player inside a turret firing it, but player directed, with perhaps a battle map interface where you click on the turret and assign it a target. Multiple controllers could work to assign targets on the same interface interactively. If a turret does not have a target, it doesn't fire as long as there are key possessing players in the sector. If the sector is completely empty, turrets are automated as usual. Turrets only respawn if resources are available for their production.
-Production based strike-force capability: Also player initiated. Strike Force is constructed based on set rate of production over time assuming the resources required are available. Strike Forces can consist of any ship and weapons combination, each with specific resource requirements for production. As with turrets, SF can only be launched by controlling players if they are on the station and are controlled by the same map interface as the turrets. Click on the SF group and assign them a target, or assign them a specific behavior. As with turrets, if there is no key holder in the sector SF can be set to autolaunch a limited number of ships per wave.
Both of these suggestions require certain limits be placed for station storage of materials and space for hangered ships.
(also with both of the above suggestions, I believe there MUST be a strict anti-bot policy in place. )
-Conquer mechanic has to change to something more player centric as well, or at least the reasoning. For example, leave the destruction of the turrets as a primary requirement, but also have them part of the control network infrastructure, meaning if a turret drops out, a sphere of SF control and turret control also drops out or becomes slow.
-Another thought would be a whole new conquer condition, such as blasting through the station shields and forcing a landing party onto the station.
Conquer mechanics are the hard one. How you conquer the station dictates completely how you interact with the owner players. As it stands, the station is almost always conquered when it's empty, with no defending players.
Perhaps a time window for conquering would be a good way to fix that until we have a large enough playerbase. A time window and player controlled turrets and SF would make a much more dynamic and PvP centric conquer experience. It would also give the winners something to be proud of, knowing that no one was gonna snake the station out from under them when they're asleep. Eventually the playerbase will be large enough that a time window will not be necessary. (Also, very important, with the current non player controlled turrets, a time window would NOT work, because the station would never be conquered. The turret power/repair speed vs. the attacker speed would almost always win out unless the attackers have overwhelming (15:1) player numbers. Last night we only took the station from first 2 then 3 defenders because we had a massive head start.)
Anyway, I think these are some good ideas, hopefully some one else has some even better.
Player controlled turrets
I like the general premise. If we were to go down this road, I think that the turrets should be semi-automated at least, but would work much better under player control. You don't want to have to post someone outside the station at all times. At least, not until we have 10x+ the number of players we currently have. Having to provide resources to a station for turret production is a fucking brilliant idea, however (and ties into the overall economy redux... sorta).
Production based strike-force capability
I again like the resource/production approach. I again disagree with mandated player control (if you feed the station, it should be able to partially defend itself). Especially as we move into the territory of blockades and the like to starve a station, you shouldn't have to be both feeding and defending. You don't want defending a station to be more effort than it's worth to keep. If we are going down a road of mandatory player interaction, we are going to need much more incentive to hold a station (read: cash or weapons).
As for differing station conquest mechanics, I have a far-out idea. What if there were three ways to conquer a station. 1) Destroy it's defenses (what we currently have). 2) Destroy it's manufacturing center. 3) Destroy it's repository of goods for manufacturing. This approach would require stations to have parts which can be destroyed, but that's easy enough (hopefully). An interesting twist might be that the conquering party would have to pay to repair the station. That way you would probably want to conquer it via the cheapest method, which would probably also be the hardest to accomplish as it would be the best defended (also, think of the awesomeness of conquering a station that had just been restocked with goods.. the new owners would get to keep the goods!).
It's also possible that one of those above methods would require a heavy contingent of fighters instead of bombers (not sure how that would be enforced just yet), which would involve more furballs, which is good.
I like the general premise. If we were to go down this road, I think that the turrets should be semi-automated at least, but would work much better under player control. You don't want to have to post someone outside the station at all times. At least, not until we have 10x+ the number of players we currently have. Having to provide resources to a station for turret production is a fucking brilliant idea, however (and ties into the overall economy redux... sorta).
Production based strike-force capability
I again like the resource/production approach. I again disagree with mandated player control (if you feed the station, it should be able to partially defend itself). Especially as we move into the territory of blockades and the like to starve a station, you shouldn't have to be both feeding and defending. You don't want defending a station to be more effort than it's worth to keep. If we are going down a road of mandatory player interaction, we are going to need much more incentive to hold a station (read: cash or weapons).
As for differing station conquest mechanics, I have a far-out idea. What if there were three ways to conquer a station. 1) Destroy it's defenses (what we currently have). 2) Destroy it's manufacturing center. 3) Destroy it's repository of goods for manufacturing. This approach would require stations to have parts which can be destroyed, but that's easy enough (hopefully). An interesting twist might be that the conquering party would have to pay to repair the station. That way you would probably want to conquer it via the cheapest method, which would probably also be the hardest to accomplish as it would be the best defended (also, think of the awesomeness of conquering a station that had just been restocked with goods.. the new owners would get to keep the goods!).
It's also possible that one of those above methods would require a heavy contingent of fighters instead of bombers (not sure how that would be enforced just yet), which would involve more furballs, which is good.
My suggestion would be to remove the turrets and instead replace them with some kind of nodes (no weapons) with shields that require two bombers/stackers to take out (high recharge rate, too). Automated defense would consist of a strike force with WTDs instead of aerna seekers (N3s instead of LENBs to prevent easy farming), every member of the strike force would have a 1 minute respawn time and they would dock/repair every time there are no targets in the sector. This way, the shields requiring two (or three) people hitting them at exactly the same time would force attackers to slow down to prep/organize their bombers (the high recharge rate will ensure that this requirement of organization cannot be overcome by zerg rush) but they would not be able to do this without fighter escort. The lack of turret fire means that a furball will be possible in the sector given defending players. How's that sound?
Node stats:
Shield strength: about the same as a Connie
Shield recharge: very high, perhaps double that of a connie... really just as high as you can make it without requiring more than two (or three) people with perfectly timed stacks... I can't give an exact number since we don't really know any exact shield stats
Armor: 100,000
Respawn rate: 30 minutes
Shield respawn is what it normally is
3 nodes in the sector...
How's that sound?
Oh, and Strike Force leaves the sector during the turnover period, of course.
Node stats:
Shield strength: about the same as a Connie
Shield recharge: very high, perhaps double that of a connie... really just as high as you can make it without requiring more than two (or three) people with perfectly timed stacks... I can't give an exact number since we don't really know any exact shield stats
Armor: 100,000
Respawn rate: 30 minutes
Shield respawn is what it normally is
3 nodes in the sector...
How's that sound?
Oh, and Strike Force leaves the sector during the turnover period, of course.
A single player could easily control the entire turret system on his own with a RTS style map interface. As I said before, when there are NO keyholding players in the sector, the defenses are automated as usual.
Guess I misread. That sounds pretty cool. I'm far more excited about the prospect of multiple targets and having to bring goods to a station, but I like your idea of turret control. That turret control system, once implemented, would probably work well with capships too.
Back from vacations...
And back to previous proposal: station conquest requires (new) Eletronic Warfare Turret (EWT) to be used.
Therefore, requires a complex team and actions, starting with demanding 2 players on a moth/atlas. This boat is critical and vulnerable, so must be guarded by fighters.
Conquest procedure:
1) EWT ship enters the landing dock, for simpler implementation. Or must shoot at launch dock shields to disable it then enter it.
2) Gunner shoots EWT for "S" secs on bottom wall, at short distance. S must be adjusted, start with 15 sec.
During this time the turrets do not shoot inside dock, but attacker gets exposed to fighter defense. Undefended stations are doomed once EWT enters dock.
To make more interesting, make conquer time be related to turrets used, like 30sec with 1 turret but 10sec using 3, to favours moths/teamwork.
Also, EWT shoots should disable guided missiles. And weight a lot. like 25ton, since it has its own super-power-cell.
> This way the conquest requires much more teamwork, since requires an specially crafted ship/equip/crew that requires fighter escort, and becomes the primary target for defenders. And move the station conquest back to the station itself, not on turrets.
And back to previous proposal: station conquest requires (new) Eletronic Warfare Turret (EWT) to be used.
Therefore, requires a complex team and actions, starting with demanding 2 players on a moth/atlas. This boat is critical and vulnerable, so must be guarded by fighters.
Conquest procedure:
1) EWT ship enters the landing dock, for simpler implementation. Or must shoot at launch dock shields to disable it then enter it.
2) Gunner shoots EWT for "S" secs on bottom wall, at short distance. S must be adjusted, start with 15 sec.
During this time the turrets do not shoot inside dock, but attacker gets exposed to fighter defense. Undefended stations are doomed once EWT enters dock.
To make more interesting, make conquer time be related to turrets used, like 30sec with 1 turret but 10sec using 3, to favours moths/teamwork.
Also, EWT shoots should disable guided missiles. And weight a lot. like 25ton, since it has its own super-power-cell.
> This way the conquest requires much more teamwork, since requires an specially crafted ship/equip/crew that requires fighter escort, and becomes the primary target for defenders. And move the station conquest back to the station itself, not on turrets.