Forums » Suggestions

Some tweaks for Deneb

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May 17, 2013 Snake7561 link
Make the NPC bombers stack in Deneb.
As of now, the Ragnaroks that attack capitol ships aren't really useful and are just free points for the other team. They are only useful once the shield goes down, and even then they don't do much.

Give Capitol ships shield turrets.
In the words of Espionage, "Deneb is a game of who can be the most spamraggy." If capitols had shield turrets, you'd have to coordinate with your team mates so they'd attack in more places said shield turrets could defend. So you'd add in an element of teamwork.

Tweak the smaller fighter's positions.
In Deneb, the fighters and the bombers/capships are fighting a completely different battle. Usually the fighters just go at each other separately, usually in the range of Itani capitol gauss, giving us an advantage.
It would be great if instead, the fighters fought for the airspace around the enemy fleet. The whole point would be to shoot down enemy bombers that try to take off - hopefully my first suggestion would be implemented - while protecting your own bombers in your fleet's airspace. Also, put several tridents outside the enemy fleet so the attacking force could repair/reload.

Also, if you win the mission, there should be a chance of Trident parts dropping, along with capitol gauss, capitol swarms, and anything else used in capitol ship building along with a crapton of credits.
I feel like Deneb is a major component of Vendetta's universe. It's really the only place you'll have daily major battles, and should be the regular stop for PvP instead of Grey.
May 17, 2013 idd link
Finally, Snk makes a good suggestion!

+1
May 17, 2013 Snake7561 link
May 17, 2013 greenwall link
silence idd! you cant comment in deneb related posts until you start playing in deneb again. Same goes for the rest of you serco.
May 17, 2013 TheRedSpy link
Oh, I'm confused. We saw you fighting for us in Deneb and just figured you had it covered. One man avalon army and such.

Our mistake!
May 17, 2013 Kierky link
/pissingcontest

Anyway +1
May 21, 2013 Mr. Threepwood link
+1, but the real problems of Deneb are even easier to address for the devs (as they don't require any new AI programming, like stacking and sane trident / fighter behaviour would):

1) travel time grey / deneb: kill some systems or add some wormholes. (e.g. http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/27530#334105 )

2) add a serco system to the deneb - geira wormhole

3) remove some of the missions, there are too many missions active compared to the # of PCs.
May 21, 2013 greenwall link
3-4 missions too much for ya, eh?
May 21, 2013 Mr. Threepwood link
It's not really about the amount of missions per se, but I feel that 1 mission of each type (or maybe 1 or 2 extra small skirms for character) would be better until more PCs are taking part.

If you look at deneb stats, you can see that so far that have been 43 skirms, in which 9 PCs took part. Even though the Itani have 8 player assisted wins versus Serco only 2, the running tally is almost even 22-21. So it seems that the efforts of the Itani PC's have been totally wasted by the RNG in the non-player skirms.

Moreover, there is a grand total of 2 pks so far, so obviously there is no intense PvP going on in Deneb, mainly because the Serco are largely ignoring it as a venue of nationalism.

I think Snks suggestions are good for increasing the PvE potential of Deneb, but the real potential for *anything* in VO rests ultimately on PvP, not PvE (unless they do some serious rewrite of AI code, which will not happen Real Soon (TM).

So, foster PvP in Deneb by luring more players in with shorter travel time and a Serco station, and concentrate those players in relatively few events to make sure they actually meet each other and that their efforts have a meaningful impact on the outcome.
May 21, 2013 draugath link
Stacking is a Player invention. I don't see any reason that NPCs should have to mimic this. What they could probably use is an AI boost to better coordinate mundane bombing runs.
May 21, 2013 Dr. Lecter link
Stacking is the logical response to shields when forced to attack them with the given weapons. Why AI wouldn't figure this out is beyond me, but there's no reason NPCs should avoid the most effective way to drop shields with what they carry.
May 21, 2013 draugath link
The most logical response to shields is to use more ships in a coordinated attack, not the single ship bomber runs they do now. Stacking is a result of thinking outside the box and should be left to the domain of players.

OR

We could just make it so that your missiles blow up if you collide with them, though that's going off on a tangent not relevant to this topic.
May 21, 2013 Snake7561 link
Theepwood, my suggestion is designed to add PvP to Deneb.
Taking down the shields would require coordination, something NPCs could never have. The NPC bombers would be more of a distraction. Also, the PvP aspect would be heavily influenced by the need to blockade enemy ships. What do you mean by "add a Serco system to Deneb?" And how do you except Deneb to be finished in a week with a decreased amount of missions?
And yeah, Itani space is a bitch to get through, but a Warthog Mk2 gets you through pretty damn fast.
Draugath, your roleplay is broken.
Why shouldn't bombers use stacking? Would you rather have them as cannon fodder? Plus, if the NPCs could take down the shields in large, coordinated attacks, that wouldn't really encourage player interaction.

-----
And some other stuff I thought of:
Give Promethei sunflares, no reason they should be using neutrons
Make all the stations conquerable
May 21, 2013 Dr. Lecter link
The most logical response to shields is to use more ships in a coordinated attack, not the single ship bomber runs they do now.

Unfortunately, the devs seem incapable of getting their AI to perform such miracles, which is also why the battles devolve into such pathetic shitshows that there's a fighter skirmish going on 15,000m away from where a few scattered capship pairs are inefficiently blasting away with no real strategy employed.

In any event, even if you're using more ships in a coordinated attack, because of the nature of shields they'd each still want to stack to maximize the punch of their own salvo.
May 21, 2013 Mr. Threepwood link
If you stack well they remain in front of you, so that wouldn't really solve it.

Stacking is forced by the insane recharge rate of shields. I guess that you need around five bombers to take on a trident without stacking, let alone a HAC. (whether you should be able to kill a major capital ship with a bunch of single seat bombers is a second question, but intuitively I would say that if you manage to stick around for a while and not get killed, you should be able to).

I think increasing shield capacity and decreasing the recharge rate to make it feasible to do normal bombing runs would be a better solution than to teach the NPCs to stack missiles. I would say put the shield capacity higher than the damage capacity of a standard bomber, and make shield recharge such that (a) it is fully reloaded by the time the solo bomber flies back, r&r's, and returns, but (b) that it is about equal the max energy weapon damage per second (taking battery recharge into account)

So, a trident shield would become:

capacity: 60k (around 120% of spamrag damage capacity=18x950 + 40x850 = 51100)
reload: 3-5 k/sec (a megaposi is probably the most effective energy setup, dps = 50*dpe=50*66.67=3333)

[I can't find the current stats anywhere, but this should be a slighly stronger but slower shield...]
May 21, 2013 Snake7561 link
It takes one bomber with Geminis and Stingrays to take a trident. You can solo a HAC with avalons.
May 21, 2013 draugath link
I could get behind NPCs being able to stack missiles if it didn't trivialize content anymore than it already is. Snake doesn't seem to understand the concept that easy isn't always fun. NPC Trident's should require a little bit of effort to take out (certainly more than they currently do).

Getting inline with Threepwood's suggestion, tweaking shield capacity and recharge could go a long way to creating more interesting conflict.

Though frankly what's even more important is the ability to destroy missiles mid-flight. I realize this is again slightly tangential, but it opens up the possibility of more interesting capital ship defense, especially when paired with Threepwood's suggestions.. Sure, it's possible for a pilot in a fast ship to turbo through the proximity radius of a missile swarm and detonate it prematurely, coming out unscathed (or with little damage), but when you've got 3 or 4 people launching swarms to try and bring down a capship's shields, this tactic becomes less useful.

This could also make jackhammers and screamers a somewhat more viable option for bombing runs, since the initial speed and acceleration of unguided missiles makes them a harder target to hit.
May 21, 2013 Alloh link
One thing became clear to me:

Deneb, as of now, isn't interesting or attractive to most players.

Too broken, no real conquer mechanics in place, static stations, nothing ever changes... our efforts are useless.

Good options would be create shortcuts from gray border to Deneb. Conquerable stations, Fewer missions and add more periodic events, like scheduled attacks on stations... and a serco beachhead.

Anyway, another topic to be ignored by devs.
May 21, 2013 Snake7561 link
"Though frankly what's even more important is the ability to destroy missiles mid-flight"
/me smacks you with a shield turret
Did you even read the bloody OP?
" Deneb, as of now, isn't interesting or attractive to most players. Too broken, no real conquer mechanics in place, static stations, nothing ever changes... our efforts are useless."
Well that's why I made a fucking thread about it
May 21, 2013 draugath link
I did read the original post. People don't want to sit inside a trident firing shield turrets in the hopes they can deflect some swarm missiles or other fire. They'd rather be doing active defense out in their ship. This is hard to do without the ability to destroy missiles.