Weapons in cargo rock...

As for not being able to fire them, at least let me have a remote detonator for the sunflare crates, teach those pirate bastards. Of course that would be more for ammo in cargo, wich also rocks.

Be sure not to forget engines and batts in cargo.


"enemy sighted, switching from cruise mode to combat mode"

Remote detonator for sunflares.

I would lay so many sunflare mines it won't even be funny.

Some ideas... This turned out alot longer than I thoght it would :/

FUEL:
Why is it that I can go from s3 to s15 and then trade between 15 and 14 for 3 hours without refuling?

I think there should be a fuel tank on the ships so that you'd need to dock in atleast every other sector I visit to refuel.
A large convoy of traders with escorts could also bring along a supplyship that carries an incredible amount of fuel.
If you run out of fuel while just sitting in space you'd need such a supply ship to come and "rescue" you.
Also there should be some sort of tow-line (like discussed in several other threads) so that someone willing to give up a heavy weapon slot could tow you home.


HEAT:
Why can I fire all my weapons at once until my battery is empty without overheating?

OK... It's space. In space radiating heat is a problem since there is constant heat-radiation from nearby suns/stars. (Ask any NASA engineer about this. Alot of the space shuttle dustoff weitht is radiation shielding)

I say: Cut the energy usage of the weapons in half and let them generate heat!
If you have a heavy battery and a small heatsink you blow up after 20 seconds of fireing two Adv. gatling cannons...
You'll need to keep your eye on this yourself. The ship will not simply stop fireing it's guns when you overheat.

SUPPLY SHIPS:
In order to implement the FUEL section we'd need supply ships.
Theese should hold a cargo named "fuel tank" in a huge cargo hold (50-60 cargo) to carry fuel.
Theese cargo slots can also be used for regular cargo.

Theese ships would need to be very slow and should spend all afternoon doing a 180 deg turn.

In order to refuel, a ship would have to dock with the supply ship (one at a time) and hit the "refuel" button.

Another ship class could be "Ultra-light fighter".
I'm thinking:

Name: Mosquito
Hull: 100
Manouverability: INSANE
Speed: INSANE
Range (before refuling): allmost nothing.

Theese small ships would have one small weapon slot, allmost no fuel, allmost no heat tolerance and should be able to dock with the supply ship two at a time without denying a third "normal" ship to dock.
They should be buyable on the supply ship and should come with a weapon. Should be allmost free.

When docked to a supply ship they automatically refuel.
While docked the two pilots of the two mosquitos would see a more tactical 3D map that shows 'roids, stations, cargo and ships within scanner range. This would also make it a good "base ship" for attacks when the game stops being CTF.

One last thing:
Why can't I buy guns and bring them along as cargo? What makes a gun or a battery so different from a box of acidics or rare minerals?

-
Demonen [AKA Zathras]

batteries are fuel... constantly recharging from a source (engine rotation?)

just envisioon a battery as a a very small nuclear engine. It recharges because at the time of not shooting it picks up all kind of particles from space and uses them to generate juice.

Cheers

Demonen: Well, I'm all for fuel and maybe even heat sinks, but don't expect anyone else to be jumping up and down over your attempt to bring some complexity to the game.

/me lets celebrim and demonem jump up and down all they want. As long as it doesnt get incorperated, im happy :D

cheers

It's simple, the batteries transfer heat generated from weapons firing into energy and stores it, and it also picks up particles of dust flying around to generate energy.

I thought the batteries were actually made of really efficient solar panels combo'ed with some fusion energy thingamajig of some sort. Putting nonrechargeable "fuel" on a spaceship runs a lot of risks, such as being stranded 90km away without anywhere to refuel. I don't think a lot of people would enjoy being stranded. Even if a teammate were to come save you, don't you think he'd become stranded too? Before you know it your entire squadron is now floating away to infinity. I'd also hate to spend money just for the minor task of moving around, especially with gas prices on the rise. That would suck big time. Conclusion: limited fuel is a bad idea.

The energy consumption of energy weapons essentially works the same way as an overheating weapon. While it's not explicitly stated anywhere in the game, the behavior you'd see for both features would be nearly identical. One can assume that since you already run out of energy temporarily at one point, that delay period will be enough to cool those ports down for another round of bursts. Conclusion: having energy and heat factored into weapon usage would be redunant.

All right. I see all your points, but what about the huge supply/command/carrier/trasport ship and it's little companions?
Maybe built-in weapon/engine/battery? Too small to pull anything on it's own, but nice to protect the transport.

I still think guns etc. should be transportable as cargo.
Maybe they should have different prices aswell in the coming dynamic economy? Supply and demand...
Maybe s14 can produce sunflares, but not without High Yield Acidic Compounds that are produced in s15...

I could make good money trying to run the blocade... (I imagine Itani would try to control the flow of sunflares ;)

"<S15 Blocade Ship #1> You are suspected of transporting Sunflare Missiles. jettison cargo at once or be destroyed. The trade in Sunflares is restricted!"

(ofcourse, guns in the cargo hold could not be fired... They're in a crate!)

I kinda like the idea of fuel, maybe complemented by a small ion-drive that only flies at low speeds, but at least gets you there (for emergencies when you run out of fuel).

But if you're gonna put fuel into the game, do it properly: fuel is only needed to change speed/direction. F=m*a, remember? If you don't accelerate, you need no force either, so you don't expend fuel, simple as that. So you'd get fuel for the engines, a small nuclear reactor (the battery we currently have) for the ion drive and weapons.

Um. That would not work. Celebrim explained why to me when I suggested that the engines use energy based on acceleration.

"Um. That would not work. Celebrim explained why to me when I suggested that the engines use energy based on acceleration."

I did? Hmmm... I'm going to have to keep better track of the nonsence I write here. Someone is going to have to refresh me on my line of reasoning.

When I've talked about fuel in the past, I haven't even related it to travel within a sector. The strongest arguement I have for fuel is it limits the strategic range of small craft, which in Vendetta terms is directly linked to jumping sectors. So, when I talk about fuel I usually mean 1 unit of fuel = 1 jump. Fuel and fuel capacity is also a good way to 'strand' newbies in 'safe' areas so that they don't go wandering where they aren't supposed to be, and likewise is a way to isolate sectors containing exceptually tough hazards (and exceptually high rewards) so that they are difficult to get to. The current system leaves the entire universe open to exploration in all too short of time, even with thousands of sectors, especially since you can count on the location of hidden gates being published on the net in a short period of time.

On the other hand, keeping track of continious fuel usage seems sort of tedious to me, and also would tend to leave you stranded too often since it's harder to calculate your round trip requirements. Arolte is absolutely right when he says that fuel as a feature carries risks. That's why I prefer a 'point like' and completely predictable fuel expenditure. There are still risks, but I think the gains are worth it.

Having fuel wouldn't in my mind preclude having (relatively hard to obtain) gizmos that slowly regenerated fuel without the need to buy it for those (experienced) players that really hated micromanagement.

We don't need everything perfectly realistic, that means NO fuel. Otherwise you could accelerate forever off into space crashing the server. and flying/ combat would be near impossible.

Allright allright! Scrap the fuel idea and the heat idea.
What about the rest?

IRL I would never transport ARMED missiles/rockets. No way.