Forums » Suggestions

Capital Ships Drop Capship Parts

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Jun 26, 2011 Capt.Waffles link
It only makes sense. I'm not talking about being able to take a hand full of border skirmishes and build a cappy, but a small chance of the parts surviving the explosion. And only certain parts, low end building block parts. Like maybe Fluid Formable Silksteel Alloy, Merged Cybernetics Arrays, even the purchasable mundane parts.

Adds another way to start the slow collection of the parts needed. We all know that on certain groups will build cappies. This might open it up other groups that would other wise disinterested. You know who you are (*cough* everyone but ORE *cough*)

Also seeing parts scattered across space adds a tiny bit of depth to the mission.
Jun 26, 2011 ryan reign link
+1

And it would get more people involved in BS missions.
Jun 27, 2011 Conflict Diamond link
+1

I've meant to mention the same for some time, actually. I would try it out with just fused plates and fluid formable silksteel alloy dropping rarely from NPC ships. Even if those are farmed in deneb, they have a very long moth trade route into grey to become useful again. Player-built capships could have extremely better drop rates all around over npc ships, and include 2nd and 3rd stage manufactured items, like the 195cu, 200k kg Optical Sensor, the odd reinforced bulkhead, internal bulkheads, engines, and even the occasional 4th stage item like engine pylons, external hull and hangar bay assemblies. The aftermath of a player ship dying would be much fun with moths up to XC size salvaging heavy items while others try to stop them.
Jun 27, 2011 Alloh link
+1 no doubt... that is the main concept of salvaging.

Going back to today's Naval Salvaging, sometimes large blocks/chunks could remain almost intact, or even almost a whole ship, and those parts could be taken/towed to a shipyards, where you find out what you get, even complex items as a hangar bay.

Since it is Deneb war, restrict salvaging rights to winner of combat and neutrals = easy to implement, leave a uberturret nearby.
Jun 27, 2011 ryan reign link
If salvage in Deneb is restricted, to hell with neutrals. You want parts off a ship my friends and I destroyed? You'd better damned well be one of the people who helped destroy it.
Jun 27, 2011 Pizzasgood link
-1 to the concept of salvaging rights. Just drop the items, or don't drop the items. While towing dead ships to salvage yards would be interesting, there are many more things the devs could be doing instead that would be more fun.

As for Deneb farming, I agree with giving them lower drop rates on military NPC vessels. RP-wise, the nations designed their ships so that when they are destroyed, they leave as few salvageable pieces as possible, so that when a battle is lost the enemy can't salvage their ships. Civilian models would make sense to be easier to salvage - a civilian cap-ship is theoretically more likely to be destroyed in an accident than in warfare (if you assume the average VO player is atypical compared to the average resident of the VO universe).
Jun 27, 2011 tarenty link
Since it is Deneb war, restrict salvaging rights to winner of combat and neutrals = easy to implement, leave a uberturret nearby.

Dumb. But +many to OP.
Jun 27, 2011 draugath link
The larger the ship, the higher the chance of a drop.
Jun 28, 2011 abortretryfail link
+1 OP on this!

Stick to the large-quanties-required parts like Fluid Formable Silksteel Alloy and Fused Composite Platings. Maybe throw Samoflange in there too for the bigger ones like HACs. Other "trade goods" like hull platings, conduits, data link connectors, etc. should probably have a chance to drop too. At the moment all we get is lots of "Scrap Metal."

Alloh, have you seen the wreckage left over by a HAC blowing up? The explosion is more than 1km wide and there's 3 huge burning holes where the engines/reactors were. Today's naval salvaging doesn't usually involve what's effectively a nuclear bomb explosion and picking up the irradiated bits.

Things like reactors, computers, engines, docking bays, sensor arrays, etc, are going to be destroyed or irreparably damaged in the explosion, but some of their less-sensitive component parts might survive in a state that could be re-manufactured.

Also +1 to the "winner takes the spoils" idea in Deneb. I don't see any reason why a claimed sector shouldn't be defended from easy looting by the enemy. Don't use uber-turrets though. If someone wants to run the blockade with a moth and try and steal stuff from the enemy's sector, go for it.

Also also +1 to a higher drop rate on these items from player controlled capships.
Jun 28, 2011 endercp12 link
It may be a bit off topic, but perhaps instead of dropping fully formed parts, destroyed capital vessels could drop damaged (ie non working but requiring far less manufacturing to get into working order) parts. I.E. Someone kills a player owned trident and is rewarded with the possibility of a damaged engine pylon + trident scrap, which could be refined into other parts?
Jun 28, 2011 abortretryfail link
That's not a bad idea. It could be done similarly to how GuildWars has salvage kits. Maybe add salvage missions that you can take and bring the broken/damaged part, which will have a chance to give you some of the component pieces of that item?
Jun 28, 2011 Alloh link
i was proposing that the drops to be something as "Xcu Salvage Parts Crate". Then the player takes it to a shipyards to find out what was recovered ... like anything from "10cu scrap metal" to a "complete docking bay"...

And about neutrals and uber-turrets, that is exactly how the game does now... so simply the winning nation drops a few turrets in sector, and only the winning nation and neutrals can harvest/salvage parts. Only change is that no one from losing side, not even a 3PoS, can enter safely.
Jun 28, 2011 ryan reign link
On the subject of neutrals... NO. If you did not take part in the battle and you try to profit from it, not only are you cowardly scum... you are a target for the turret/any people from the winning side currently there.
Jul 14, 2011 look... no hands link
What would be really cool is to have wrecks of capitol ships remain persistant for a while, and some way to extract resources from them.

Mining beams should be able to extract high purity ores from them, the same as they extract low purity ores from rocks.

Special cutting or salvage beams should be able to extract parts from them, preferably not going straight into a ships cargo hold but being left to float like any jettisoned cargo.

As for the wrecks being persistant, perhaps they should blow up after say 15 minutes of no activity related to them so as not to create too much server load.

Long term it would be cool to be able to tow away big chunks of wrecks to a more secure location.
Jul 14, 2011 Dr. Lecter link
+1 to everything LNH just said.
Jul 14, 2011 Kierky link
+1
Jul 14, 2011 Alloh link
Good one, LNH... but how integrate that with exploding capships?

Simple, what explodes is the ship's reactor. No complete hull ever remains. Only few standart chunks, as you said, and never the reactor of ship and its vicinity, most of center of hull allways vanishes in explosion, therefore some capship pieces never drop. Greater chance of survival for winglets.

Sector sleep/reset makes all wrecks disappear... radiation of reactor's explosion make them degrade into dust at most 30' after explosion.

Mining beams should extract the ore without heating the wrecks. Or better, at double rate.

A special "Nanobot Salvage Beam" would be required for recovering whole components... You "shoot" it on wrecks until something appears up in your cargo bay.

What if salvaging ship does not have enough room? One possibility, you end up with corresponding volume of ore, instead of whole component. In this case we also need a "Component Scanner"...

OR, instead, we should have a specialized salvaging ship. Any ship can "mine" wrecks for ore/alloys, but complete components only a specialized "Salvage Behemoth" with salvage beams+scanner... maybe a specialized version of Trident. An unarmed and slower ship with at least 200cu storage, dedicated only to salvage. We need more specialized ships!
Jul 15, 2011 look... no hands link
that's why i said the components should just appear as cargo floating in space, not only does it solve the problem of ships hold's being too small, but it also adds some risk into it. You're salvaging a ship only to have somebody else swoop in and steal the parts.

Also it would be cool to have the border skirmish sectors having massive debris fields to fight around.
Jul 15, 2011 Alloh link
Also it would be cool to have the border skirmish sectors having massive debris fields to fight around.

One possible way to implement this:

Make a few models of ROIDS that looks like capship remains... ancient and existing. Fill deneb sectors with these special "roids". Debris fields implemented.
Jul 15, 2011 look... no hands link
Aye but dynamic debris fields would be cooler, also the debris should drift out from the location of the explosion until they go poof.