Just a few things I think might improve the overall play.

1) A periodic announcement of who has each flag. Maybe every 20 to 30 seconds.

2) The player who has the flag may not shoot.

3) A way to tell if team members are in jail. Either by noting it in the group list or in a similar manner to the score card at the bottom.

Other suggestions I heard...

4) Create internal barriers so that straight flights to the other side are not possible.

5) Make the flag heavier so that defenders have a chance to retrieve the flag from ships like the x1. I'd call this one a priority.

1: Yes

2: No, they need to be able to shoot back. Chasing after the person with the flag the whole time isn't fun.

3: Yes

4: Yes

5: 500kgs - 1000kgs

I second Nahin's first 4.

5: I'd say 1000-1750kgs.

It's still very easy to run with that amount of weight on a valk. I'd suggest something that should make it easier, but not too easy. It has to have some kind of effect on the maneuverability and turbo accel. This should slow light ships by about 30% and heavy by about 5-10%.

Yeah just make it like the old CTF, make it 3 or 5 sectors and make the flag heavy and that you cannot boost while you have it. That way players have to travel over 'x' amount of sectors with the flag just like back in the alpha days. 3 Sectors would probably be the best.

6. Host it at a time when it meshes perfectly with my scheduel, dammit!

+1 to the others, tho.

Why not make the flag 3cu? That'd make it impossible to pick up with a (non-rune) valk.

You'd still be able to do it with a hog 2, which is just as hard to catch.

yeah not boosting or not shooting sounds like a good idea i mean its capture the flag not hold onto your own flag.

Not boositng good
Not shooting bad

Imagine if criminals had to drop their guns after stealing? how would they take a hostage or end the chase in a bloody gun battle?

Weapons are necessary for the entertainment of the masses

r1a) heavy flag: 2500kg
- or -
r1b) no turbo while carrying a flag

r2) if a player is hit on his own side, he is sent to his OWN capship, but may undock immediately.

r3) A jailbreak sends prisoners to their OWN team's capship. They may then undock manually.

r4) you have to dock with your own capship to score a point.

r5) minimum damage: A hit will only register if it exceeds a minimum damage. 200?

/methinks roda is stoned. His suggestions seem to make no sense these days.

what's wrong with being stoned?

anyways.. I am wary of the "no turbo while carrying the flag" idea. It'll be damned near impossible to escape with the flag, as it only takes ONE hit to be tagged. Maybe have holding the flag increase your ship's drain by 30/s (or some such high number)? That way you can sprint a little, dodge, then high tail it and sprint again.

If we were to implement "no turbo while carrying the flag"... the guy carrying the flag would need to be able to defend himself, aka his fire should have some kind of effect on his opponent.

In the long run, though, I'm 100% for making the flag HUGE, like 10cu or some such, so that the smurfs won't always have the advantage (force people into trade ships and attacker/defender roles).

Also, given that in rl ctf you can body block (but that's damned difficult in open space...), I'd like to see my shots do damage when I'm on the opponent's side. If the opponent dies mid-game, they get sent to a capship (whether or not they end up in jail... I don't care) and they are given their ship back.

Atice: Please review suggestion r2, and comment.

There is currently no point in even shooting at a player when they are on their own side. Suggestion r2 fixes this.

In suggestion r1b (no turbo with flag), the flag carrier would still be able to fight. When combined with r2, the flag carrier (and escorts) could fight their way to a score. Make it more of a shooting contest than a running contest.

I played the ctf, and spent a major part of my time in turbo chasing fluffeta. I like the idea of actively defending a flag, I just don't like long drawn out turbo chases. Have you ever tried to chase down an ultralight? I would rather see fire fights over flag control, like when fluffy would intentionally fly past niki, so that niki could try to tag me. Or when niki would carry the flag, and brazenly turn and fire on a would be pursuer.

Please, less running, more shooting.

For the record, I was there for CTF as well.

I like your r2, though I like the idea of doing damage better than immediately sending to your own side's cappy. However, I think both are equally viable (and possibly equally fun) solutions.

Your r2 with r1b would work well in concert. However... I feel like flares might be a bit... evil if all it takes is one hit. For that matter, anything with splash damage has the potential to be incredibly disruptive in such a situation. My solution helps to avoid the tri-flare valk situation which I believe would ensue if r2 were implemented.

Please, less running, more shooting.

We are so on the same page here.

I'd like to see more death and less "tagging" in CTF because furballs are fun. Perhaps it would be better if jail was scrapped entirely, if the defined "sides" were removed, the capships become scoring posts (bring the flag to it, score a point), allow people to kill each other (like all the other furballs we regularly have), and disable turbo with the flag. Simple as that. If fights become too one-sided due to pvp superiority then we can do team scrambles every once in a while.

I'd prefer the changes to be kept simple and along the current game-play style. Not because some of the ideas suggested here aren't good or great, but because I'd rather not have the devs get the current version bug free, tweaked a bit to improve playability and moving on to the more important work of moving VO further towards 2.0.000

hmm i was under the impression you would only be able to not turbo while holding your own flag. which would make defending rely more on the ability to hit your target then having the lightest fastest ship and running around in circles.