Forums » Suggestions
Screw those missiles. They're bullshit even on the border/station turrets.
Excellent post, CD. Nice reading.
what about mounting some sector turret weapons on 'em like the nice missile turret.
If ye damage the ship they target ye automatically : p
My point is if it is not fair for a player to have, it shouldn't be in-game, or IFF deemed fair for specific use, such as on a capital ship (or player station turret :), they should be limited as such. Currently the sector turrets are actually 2 small port weapons on a tiny magical ship with tons of magical armor. Their weapons should be an as-yet-to-be-realized capital class add-on, and if terradons, connies, and HACs (oh my!) ever become player ships, there would probably need to be 2 or more sizes of both turrets and fixed weapons.
So, BT, I know you were joking, but a Terradon could support that missile as a main gun, or HACs could support them as large turrets. (imagine a HAC with all missile turrets firing at once to bust shields in Deneb!)
But, knowing the devs any such weapons will take a month or 3 to craft even 1...
If ye damage the ship they target ye automatically : p
My point is if it is not fair for a player to have, it shouldn't be in-game, or IFF deemed fair for specific use, such as on a capital ship (or player station turret :), they should be limited as such. Currently the sector turrets are actually 2 small port weapons on a tiny magical ship with tons of magical armor. Their weapons should be an as-yet-to-be-realized capital class add-on, and if terradons, connies, and HACs (oh my!) ever become player ships, there would probably need to be 2 or more sizes of both turrets and fixed weapons.
So, BT, I know you were joking, but a Terradon could support that missile as a main gun, or HACs could support them as large turrets. (imagine a HAC with all missile turrets firing at once to bust shields in Deneb!)
But, knowing the devs any such weapons will take a month or 3 to craft even 1...
Everyone knows the devs hate fun
"terradons, connies, and HACs (oh my!)"
HAHAHAHAH
Follow the silksteel road, follow follow follow follow....
---
At first I thought PO cappies should have automagical firing too, but it would be more entertaining if the pilots could take control of them and have basically the autoaim work from a 3rd person view, allowing multiple targets to be shot or one target with multiple guns. I guess some mixture of autofire and autoaim would be neccessary, but managing 4 guns in the absence of gunners would be something interesting (read: not boring) to do.
HAHAHAHAH
Follow the silksteel road, follow follow follow follow....
---
At first I thought PO cappies should have automagical firing too, but it would be more entertaining if the pilots could take control of them and have basically the autoaim work from a 3rd person view, allowing multiple targets to be shot or one target with multiple guns. I guess some mixture of autofire and autoaim would be neccessary, but managing 4 guns in the absence of gunners would be something interesting (read: not boring) to do.
There's an idea.
+1 to multiple turret targeting control.
+1 to multiple turret targeting control.
It'd also give them the ability to last a little longer in combat.
+10
+10
I hope quite a few of these suggestions make it into the Trident before mine is done.
They have plenty of time to implement them ;-P I won't be done anytime soon(tm).
They have plenty of time to implement them ;-P I won't be done anytime soon(tm).
and I hope I win the lottery
Remember crazyspence, "you have to be in it to win it" :P
It's faster and more reliable to just rob a bank. Plus: that way the money is tax free.
Incorrect re: tax-free: proceeds of crime are taxable as ordinary income, and failing to send the IRS its cut of your ill-gotten gains is itself a separate federal crime (ask poor Al Capone). Interestingly, any other business or financial institution that processes proceeds of crime is likely in violation of AML laws. The IRS, however, is allowed to get its hands dirty in pursuit of tax dollars.
Best part? Imagine your business was robbed of $1MM in 2011. The robber reports $1MM in income from self-employment on his 2011 tax return, sends the IRS a wire for the $350,000 or so he owes in tax, and sticks the remaining $650,000 in an investment fund. A year or two later, he's caught and spills the details of where the money went. You ask the IRS and the investment fund for your money back. The investment fund must give it to you; the IRS need not.
Best part? Imagine your business was robbed of $1MM in 2011. The robber reports $1MM in income from self-employment on his 2011 tax return, sends the IRS a wire for the $350,000 or so he owes in tax, and sticks the remaining $650,000 in an investment fund. A year or two later, he's caught and spills the details of where the money went. You ask the IRS and the investment fund for your money back. The investment fund must give it to you; the IRS need not.
Sounds like a good way to get certain businesses to actually pay their taxes. lol
I was not there, but I'd like to contribute also:
-Cappies vs Fighters:
Fighters should not be able to easily destroy capships, and cappies' turrets should not be that much effective against properly piloted light fighters. That's what bombers should be required to do, hunt cappies. Freespace is like this, a fighter can destroy all cappies' subsystems, but would take many many hours to destroy it. While the cappie have good defenses to keep the fighters away, it is not efficient to hunt fighters.
-Bombers:
Those were built to hunt cappies. But they must have unique weapons, tailored to hunt cappies. This area needs improvements. For me, larger cappies should required a new weapon to be destroyed, something taking 2L ports so fighters can't use it.
-Cappies:
Needs shields, no doubts. And more armour, tons of it. Without shields, tridents are simply oversized moths with docking bays and repair/reload facilities.
And more specialized turrets, including anti-capship weapons, flak turrets, mining turrets, etc. (Later, make NPCs that you can hire as gunners, resulting in autoturrets)
And shared ownership/piloting.
And serious weapons for pilots.
-Cappies vs Fighters:
Fighters should not be able to easily destroy capships, and cappies' turrets should not be that much effective against properly piloted light fighters. That's what bombers should be required to do, hunt cappies. Freespace is like this, a fighter can destroy all cappies' subsystems, but would take many many hours to destroy it. While the cappie have good defenses to keep the fighters away, it is not efficient to hunt fighters.
-Bombers:
Those were built to hunt cappies. But they must have unique weapons, tailored to hunt cappies. This area needs improvements. For me, larger cappies should required a new weapon to be destroyed, something taking 2L ports so fighters can't use it.
-Cappies:
Needs shields, no doubts. And more armour, tons of it. Without shields, tridents are simply oversized moths with docking bays and repair/reload facilities.
And more specialized turrets, including anti-capship weapons, flak turrets, mining turrets, etc. (Later, make NPCs that you can hire as gunners, resulting in autoturrets)
And shared ownership/piloting.
And serious weapons for pilots.
Considering the literally absurd amount of work required to build one, I am not surprised when people complain that Tridents should be way stronger than they are. That is, however, trying to fix the wrong problem. I've let this pass for a while but I'm done with it. A Trident is little more than a glorified Moth with a docking bay and a shield. A Trident is only a Trident, not a Heavy Assault Cruiser. A group of fighters most certainly should be able to destroy a Trident, and in a realistic amount of time. The current armor ratings of the Trident are correct in this regard, perhaps even too strong considering the vessel's size (but I'm not gonna argue that, I'm fine with it as is). NPC Trident shields are also weak enough that an organized group of fighters can down them, and that is how it should be for the player Tridents as well.
Yes, this means that a single Ragnarok with swarms, gems, and a plasma hx could potentially single-handedly defeat a Trident without leaving or reloading. That is good. As I said, it is only a Trident. And it would not be easy to do that unless the Trident's pilot were an antisocial idiot.
Other than the obvious stuff (shields, proper turret weapons, weapon reloads), the Trident does not need to be buffed. Rather, the effort required to build one needs to be nerfed. The people who put forth the effort early to build them while they are stupid-hard, knowing that the devs intended to eventually nerf the difficulty, do not have the right to whine that the Trident should be a HAC just because they worked so hard to build one. Tough cookies. That is the cost of getting one early instead of waiting possibly years longer to get one easier like us lazy people.
I am not meaning to denigrate the current Trident-owners' efforts, and frankly they deserve some kind of reward beyond early use of a Trident for going through such absurdity. A badge and a free month of VO if nothing else, or else some items from the VO store or something.
And as far as the "only special magic weapons should hurt capships" - no. Actually, let's go right ahead and upgrade that to a Hell No.
If you want a ship that a group of fighters cannot kill on their own in a reasonable amount of time, get yourself a real capship. And even then, if you are dumb enough to take that ship and sit still without gunners or other help, while a team of energy ships piloted by people too stupid to go switch to bombers whittles at you for ages, then you deserve to be blown up anyway.
Yes, this means that a single Ragnarok with swarms, gems, and a plasma hx could potentially single-handedly defeat a Trident without leaving or reloading. That is good. As I said, it is only a Trident. And it would not be easy to do that unless the Trident's pilot were an antisocial idiot.
Other than the obvious stuff (shields, proper turret weapons, weapon reloads), the Trident does not need to be buffed. Rather, the effort required to build one needs to be nerfed. The people who put forth the effort early to build them while they are stupid-hard, knowing that the devs intended to eventually nerf the difficulty, do not have the right to whine that the Trident should be a HAC just because they worked so hard to build one. Tough cookies. That is the cost of getting one early instead of waiting possibly years longer to get one easier like us lazy people.
I am not meaning to denigrate the current Trident-owners' efforts, and frankly they deserve some kind of reward beyond early use of a Trident for going through such absurdity. A badge and a free month of VO if nothing else, or else some items from the VO store or something.
And as far as the "only special magic weapons should hurt capships" - no. Actually, let's go right ahead and upgrade that to a Hell No.
If you want a ship that a group of fighters cannot kill on their own in a reasonable amount of time, get yourself a real capship. And even then, if you are dumb enough to take that ship and sit still without gunners or other help, while a team of energy ships piloted by people too stupid to go switch to bombers whittles at you for ages, then you deserve to be blown up anyway.
a single Ragnarok with swarms, gems, and a plasma hx could potentially single-handedly defeat a Trident without leaving or reloading
assuming the hypothetical shielded player trident sat still and took the missile stack. A player could maneuver to spread out the inbound stack, and failing that, if they are silly enough to stick around while a single rag whittles them down with an hx, then they wanted to die anyway.
I'm not sure when anyone said "buff them into HACs". I'm just saying allow us what the NPC tridents have. Almost all other requests are operational/interface, and THAT was the real reason to build early: to help refine the player experience for both pilots and crew, and to do it in-game where the possibility of such a ship excited new players into longer commitments to the game.
The requirements to build them has effectively been cut in half since we launched The Compass Rose, and while the insurance mission remains in place it is a completely fair amount of effort for a build-once-replace-forever ship.
assuming the hypothetical shielded player trident sat still and took the missile stack. A player could maneuver to spread out the inbound stack, and failing that, if they are silly enough to stick around while a single rag whittles them down with an hx, then they wanted to die anyway.
I'm not sure when anyone said "buff them into HACs". I'm just saying allow us what the NPC tridents have. Almost all other requests are operational/interface, and THAT was the real reason to build early: to help refine the player experience for both pilots and crew, and to do it in-game where the possibility of such a ship excited new players into longer commitments to the game.
The requirements to build them has effectively been cut in half since we launched The Compass Rose, and while the insurance mission remains in place it is a completely fair amount of effort for a build-once-replace-forever ship.
Pretty much echo everything that CD says above.
The requirements are really not that hard for a ship that's replaceable. Again I repeat my comment regarding the insurance mission, it should be more frequently available, I don't see a downside to having trident available for destruction more often.
My position has never been that they should be better than what the NPC's have. They should be exactly what the NPCs have with some decent control features that make them more effective than the NPC's in the hands of a pilot that can keep track of everything. There is no doubt they are quite useless in their current form, the only real use is the 600cu at the moment, along with a couple of other secondary uses, none of the primary combat ability that a trident should have is there.
I disagree that a further reduction is necessary in the materials list. What should be changed is the convenience features around the building process. For example, you should be able to gather all the ingredients for FCP's etc.. and then just press "manufacture 200x" and it goes on its merry way. Player trading features with station goods is another part of this. You should be able to trade things between players if the items are in the same station en masse. These two simple changes would make trident building less monotonous, but just as involved and co-operative.
The other point is the the concern that trident pilots will be able to get away from you, and thats somehow a bad thing. If someone has a trident, its not time for 1v1sies where your objective is to simply blow up the other person, It means they are trying to trying to accomplish a larger objective than to simply win a fight and blow you up. Tridents should not be nerfed on the basis that one or two pilots have difficulties hunting down or otherwise destroying a capship. They're for holding a sector with a group of people, hauling important cargo or attacking a queen.
The requirements are really not that hard for a ship that's replaceable. Again I repeat my comment regarding the insurance mission, it should be more frequently available, I don't see a downside to having trident available for destruction more often.
My position has never been that they should be better than what the NPC's have. They should be exactly what the NPCs have with some decent control features that make them more effective than the NPC's in the hands of a pilot that can keep track of everything. There is no doubt they are quite useless in their current form, the only real use is the 600cu at the moment, along with a couple of other secondary uses, none of the primary combat ability that a trident should have is there.
I disagree that a further reduction is necessary in the materials list. What should be changed is the convenience features around the building process. For example, you should be able to gather all the ingredients for FCP's etc.. and then just press "manufacture 200x" and it goes on its merry way. Player trading features with station goods is another part of this. You should be able to trade things between players if the items are in the same station en masse. These two simple changes would make trident building less monotonous, but just as involved and co-operative.
The other point is the the concern that trident pilots will be able to get away from you, and thats somehow a bad thing. If someone has a trident, its not time for 1v1sies where your objective is to simply blow up the other person, It means they are trying to trying to accomplish a larger objective than to simply win a fight and blow you up. Tridents should not be nerfed on the basis that one or two pilots have difficulties hunting down or otherwise destroying a capship. They're for holding a sector with a group of people, hauling important cargo or attacking a queen.
I was mostly responding to Alloh. The bit about understanding that people want really cool ships after doing all that work may have made this unclear. Also I seem to have formed an exaggerated impression of what Alloh had actually written, now that I've gone back and re-read his post. I think when I saw the bit about requiring a magic weapon I just slipped into rant mode and got carried away. :)
Just starting to get back into VO after 2 months off. (only been back online something like 4 times now)
Anyway, from what I'm seeing in this thread, I'd like to see a Trident's defense be a bit more automated? The reasoning behind this is that we need to classify the ships in a proper way.
* Corvette (anti-fighter capship) in other words, not a fighter hunter, but an anti-fighter escort for heavier capships.
* Frigate / Destroyer (anti-capship capship) Smallest combat capship we can see. Armed with anti-capship weapons.
* Cruiser (anti-capship) Larger capship with anti-ship weapons. (e.g. HAC is effectively a heavy cruiser)
* Battlecruiser
* Battleship
* Carriers (CVE, CV, CVA) The Connie (and to a lesser degree the Trident) are examples of this. They would tend to be armed with anti-fighter weapons.
etc.
One thing I have noticed is that the number of people who can log into a capship seems to be based on the number of turrets it has, hence 4 players for a Trident, which I'd classify either a CVE or a Corvette.
If AIs ran all turrets not occupied by players, it would give the turret armed capships a more realistic punch.
Anyway, from what I'm seeing in this thread, I'd like to see a Trident's defense be a bit more automated? The reasoning behind this is that we need to classify the ships in a proper way.
* Corvette (anti-fighter capship) in other words, not a fighter hunter, but an anti-fighter escort for heavier capships.
* Frigate / Destroyer (anti-capship capship) Smallest combat capship we can see. Armed with anti-capship weapons.
* Cruiser (anti-capship) Larger capship with anti-ship weapons. (e.g. HAC is effectively a heavy cruiser)
* Battlecruiser
* Battleship
* Carriers (CVE, CV, CVA) The Connie (and to a lesser degree the Trident) are examples of this. They would tend to be armed with anti-fighter weapons.
etc.
One thing I have noticed is that the number of people who can log into a capship seems to be based on the number of turrets it has, hence 4 players for a Trident, which I'd classify either a CVE or a Corvette.
If AIs ran all turrets not occupied by players, it would give the turret armed capships a more realistic punch.
"If AIs ran all turrets not occupied by players, it would give the turret armed capships a more realistic punch."
+1
Or, failing that (not sure which would be more difficult) tie empty turrets to the captains weapon systems, enabling the Tridents owner to target a ship with the otherwise unoccupied turrets as well as what ever "normal" weapons they have equipped. Given the incredibly poor maneuverability and incredibly low speed of VO's cappies, this wouldn't over power them so much as bring them up to a more reasonable level of defense.
+1
Or, failing that (not sure which would be more difficult) tie empty turrets to the captains weapon systems, enabling the Tridents owner to target a ship with the otherwise unoccupied turrets as well as what ever "normal" weapons they have equipped. Given the incredibly poor maneuverability and incredibly low speed of VO's cappies, this wouldn't over power them so much as bring them up to a more reasonable level of defense.