After a couple weeks of playing, I come up with just a few things that might be nice?

Alright, first, we have pitch, yaw, roll, strafe.. plenty of directions to move. I know the battery/engine system is simple and works nice, but wouldnt something like manuvering thrusters be interesting? Meaning, you have your main engine thruster, and then little ones. If you want to roll faster, upgrade roll thrusters, turn, turn thrusters, pitch, yaw, the same. :)

Second. One word comes to mind. Flashbang. After repeatedly being chased and doing random wild manuvering just to duck into a wormhole or a station at maximum speed, I think something akin to a flashbang grenade would be nice. You could limit it to 1 round.. or put a time limit on it so people cant repetatively use them. Maybe also make them for cargo ships only? If you happen to be directly following someone within, say, 300m? and your looking at them when they drop one... flash.. whiteout for.. 5 seconds? and loss of radar for, 8? giving the other ship a chance to whip around and head for safety.

Ok, just one more. Can you say, Kamakazee? :-D. It would be nice if the cargo of a ship had some affect on its explosion when fired upon. Doesnt have to be for many items, perhaps just for things that would burn/explode. You could even make some new cargo's that are highly explosive. This way, pirates attacking cargo/other ships carrying explosives, would be victims to a sudden explosion, perhaps causing severe damage within x radius? depending on how much they were carrying and what it was?

Alright, I'm dont now :)

A flashbang would probably be completely ineffective in space. It's not just the flash that disorients the person, but also the loud noise and shockwave that's associated with it. I'd also imagine that these pilots (like today's astronauts) are equipped with visors to protect against solar activity. So even the flash would probably be useless too.

hmm...
Well, if the whole cockpit setup is a bunch of screens connected to outside cameras, then you could have like a special spectrum which takes out the cameras for a few seconds...

Well, all three things have been mentioned before, but feel free to give input if you want.

1) I've got no problem with upgrading manueverablity in general, but I've a worry that if you can upgrade 'yaw', 'pitch', or 'roll', that people will break the system by upgrading one exclusively and you'll get these weird quasi-2D battles.

2) Some of the discussion of ECM weapons has included discussion of 'flashbang' effects. No word from the devs on whether they are interested in such weapons though.

3) Kamikazee PvP tactics are very bad for gameplay.

celebrim, for the 3th point I kinda understood it as:

If you shoot my ship, loaded with the special cargo, not only my ship is going kaboom with a bigger bang, but also the cargo woud get completely and utterly destroyed.

I know that I would carry them :D

Why not just have Sam's idea and let weapons get carried as cargo... Imagine blowing up a ship loaded with 14 avalon widgets? BOOM!

ROFL that would be AWESOME! that would practically take out an entire sector's worth of ships (based on the average population of 9)

yes yes /me wants all this stuff that you are sayin CeaddaCompy.

Hehehe... Also, if you had to stock the stations with avalons or whatever... They'd cost a fortune... :D

renegade:

"If you shoot my ship, loaded with the special cargo, not only my ship is going kaboom with a bigger bang, but also the cargo woud get completely and utterly destroyed."

That's what I understood it to mean too. But in practice what I think it would mean is:

"I'm going to charge in close to you and try to take you down at short range (with rockets or whatever). Then, even if I lose, I'll still take you down with me (maybe with /explode if I have to)."

mmmhh

/me doesnt like that :(.

maybe just a thing that destroys the cargo in stead of dropping it?

So no big bang, just a sort of making it annoying for pirates to succesfully make money out of pirating :D

hehe

Time delay destroy! Give it a 2 minute timer. That way, if the pirates pick it up and don't run to station IMMEDIATELY, it explodes.

Hehehe... Beep... Beep... Beep... "WTF?" Beepbeepbeep FOOM!!! :P

OOOOOO, AAAHHHH


and give the cargo a great red, digital, readout (bombs allways have them in movies for some strange reason)

*pulls a Roadrunner* BeepBeep.... : P

laterz

- Invisiblish One

A couple of things:

I like the idea of customizable pitch, yaw, etc. I don't think a quasi-2D fight would really be an issue either, as I'm sure one could develop counter-tactics (zip above or below the opposing ship, spin and fire at it's exposed top or bottom, move as it tries to face you). What I'd like to add to this idea is a limited amount of engine space for all components. As an example, let's say a ship has 12 units of engine space. One could buy pitch, yaw, and roll, and brake engines at one space each, and a big 8-space rear engine. This would make a fast cargo ship that can move out of battles quickly, but is virtually helpless if caught and has to put some serious thought into stopping...

As for the detonating cargo idea: there should be serious consequences to a ship that has such volatile cargo. Even bumping into something might set it off, or perhaps a small item weapon has been developed that causes very little damage, but has a high chance of setting off the cargo. To counter this, a ship could have special shock-proof containers. Of course this means it might not explode at all...

Finally, if cargo can cause such explosions, what about unused ordinance?

"If you shoot my ship, loaded with the special cargo, not only my ship is going kaboom with a bigger bang, but also the cargo woud get completely and utterly destroyed."

Heh... I can imagine 7 buses loaded w/ nukes, along w/ 1 valk storming into a base... Valk shoots each bus, killing off all enemy units, and then slowly drifting away with the flag