Not a suggestion per se, but a suggestion about priorities. If the vets are busy the noobs notice and it helps their interest level.

1) I think that GS finishing and releasing the trident variants will contribute to vet activity. It would increase manufacturing which would increase hauling which will increase nefarious activity to thwart it, as well as station conflict. I don't know how much work is left to go on it but I think it could be important. Vets need goals. I know of two players (one serco, one itani, both nationalists) who have tridents mostly built and stated that they would come back and finish when the variants were released. I don't talk to many people in-game so I'd bet there are others.

2) If there is a player or players who regularly play during the traditional Nation War time that could possibly start it up again, I think it would help. I did not participate often but I know it generated a lot of buzz. The prize does not have to be big, it's mostly about bragging rights.

I like big prizes.

If you win I'll give you an observer optics, I think it's 150cu.

In a sense I agree with the OP. I have one dent almost ready to go and am working on the manufactured parts for another. Lately my time in game has been decreasing because all I do is build or transport for people who are. Or sold / traded to builders. Like the OP said, I have no intention of getting serious about finishing the two dents until the S&P are released.

While I would love to see the S&P released, I am concerned that it would only serve as a very temporary fix. Esp since as was said, players are ready to go with the next dents. Then what? I would rather see them introduced to the game with a role to play. Until we get decent main guns for the tridents, the M is sufficient.

"It would increase manufacturing which would increase hauling which will increase nefarious activity to thwart it" ... not sure about this, I think most players haul their valuable stuff in tridents. Plus, manufacturing tends to make players invisible as they grind for sss, minerals, nodules, etc.

Personally, I think we need to increase player interaction. As it is now, you can fly from wh to wh to wh and possibly pass a half dozen players in nearby sectors without even knowing about it (mining, botting, etc). Increasing the ability to see the types of player ships in nearby sectors in the nearby ships list within ranges based on whether you are in a station (longest range), trident (medium range) or small ship (shorter range, more for rags less for ec89) would increase player interaction. This would increase the opportunities to encounter and interact with other players more often which increases the incentive to work/team with other players and it is player interaction that keeps vets and new players interested in logging in more often.

As much as I'd like new tridents, I have to -1 your first point Harpo. The game play for existing tridents isn't fleshed out enough.

+1 to someone bringing back nation war. I'll donate for the cause.

Part of the problem is the sheer amount of access one has to have to all of the conq stations in order to build. Move FFSA and FCP out of the conq stations so that smaller more nefarious groups can build with less access time needed. Make the S&P combat oriented and give them a cargo hold of 200 and weapons as well as acceleration that can decimate a class M.

That gives capital class weapons that can be used effectively against Deneb missions and Levi hunts as well as introducing a real threat to Class M pilots being pirated.

Now when you want to move those bits around you need support in the form of spotters and combat pilots both fighter and dent.

@fluffy

"Make the S&P combat oriented and give them a cargo hold of 200 and weapons as well as acceleration that can decimate a class M."..... So, your suggestion is to build an even more invincible trident than there is now that can *decimate* the current trident???? lol, just what we need, an even more invincible capitol player ship.

The current trident already flies around virtually invincible. Until we can increase interaction with tridents and everyone else, for that matter, (by sensing ships within range in other sectors), there is no real necessity for players to work together. Space is just to safe, unless you plan on using a wh. The last thing we need is a more powerful trident that can hop away to another in system sector at it's leisure.

RE Nation war...
Nation war is fun, but a half hour planned battle is not what most players are looking for. Let's focus on more spontaneous player interactions that will keep them coming day after day. :)

I'm just suggesting how introducing the S&P as combat variants could 'keep the vets busy'. The class M flies around virtually invincible because groups rarely form to kill them. I have had my trident destroyed twice by players. Once by a well coordinated group of ONE and once by Big Nasties pet furies. On an alt, I was able to spot an enemy player in a trident, return to the wormhole sector in a bomber, de shield the players trident, head back to a station for a fighter only to return as the enemy pilot left the wormhole sector. If I had had an ally in the area then most likely that player would have lost his trident. And I'm NOT a combat oriented player. I just know how to take out a queen.

That illusion of invincibility offends me. I'd very much like to see the class M become at least as at risk as a centaur. At this point, I wouldn't want it as vulnerable as a behemoth, but that might change over time.

Regardless, if the S&P are not going to be combat variants then there is no point to them unless they are a larger class of capital ship. There is currently no reason to improve upon the M's capacity or performance imo. Neither is there any reason why the S&P would have be more invincible than the M.

Fluffy, in ways we agree. But, you can hunt queens. We need a mechanism to hunt tridents. I've been in groups with a pcb where the trident got away with in system jump. The problem is... once a dent does an in system jump they are home free which makes them nearly invincible.

I'd like to see the dents and all other players become huntable without having to jump into every darn sector in a system just to have the player jump again. With a team and more sensor range, that could be accomplished which would bring teams of dent hunters together and teams of dent defenders together. Until then, all players are one in system hop to safety even deep in grey!

btw, I apologize for any offense that came across in my post. I just want to bring people together which makes mmos more fun and offending you wouldn't do that :). Sometimes, increasing the danger some for everyone could be a better way to do bring people together than scheduled battles or even more grinding for better tridents.

I do agree that the s&p should be more combat worthy, but we're not ready for that yet with the mechanics the way they are.

No offense taken. Some of my ideas in the light of other viewpoints have been proven to be rather silly if not ridiculous. I don't mind being called out for them. I really only play VO so that I can justify pontificating on the suggestions forum ; )

As far as content goes, there are a lot of other things that I would rather dev time be invested in than rushing out the S&P that would probably do more to keep players busy than shiny new tridents. Like a good player to player trade system.

I would probably spend a lot more time doing stuff to generate items to put up for sale if such did not require often endless loops around a station dropping and docking.

Or a fixed trade system. I really do miss spending hours or even days looking for that perfect trade route. It might have been a bug, but it was rewarding. There isn't really any point for me to bother trading now. If I need credits, my time is often better spent just running escort missions.

I have bigger fish to fry than tridents that have little immediate impact or value beyond being another shiny thing to attain. I'm going to post a bunch of new goals and things in the near future.

We've had some sudden left-turn crap lately. Like I found out this week that our office ISP is going away shortly, so I dropped everything to scramble and migrate what services we have on this address space. It won't impact the game, but it definitely sucks up time.

Last week I was out of town at GDC.

Anyway, announcements coming, which I think you will all find more relevant, to both newbies and vets alike.

Thanks Inc

About the system jumps, I propose these changes:
1. When a dent jumps, everyone in the sector knows.
2. If you're within 250m of a jumping Dent, you get dragged along with it.
Result: Dents are going to start jumping like bullfrogs.

turtle. Just turtle.