I've been thinking about this for a while, had discussions with a few players online over the last few days, and in general have watched the chat/boards.

The warp limit is neccesary in order to make combat dangerous, but it doesnt really work. It is not truly long enough to matter at high level, however it can be quite tedius at low levels.
I'm not sure how hard this would be to do, but could the warp limit be variable?

For instance, could it be based on the ship you chose, and modified by the total mass of your ship? Perhaps a minimum range of 1500m for a bus with just the newbie weapons, and a range of 6 or 7 K for a fully armed and loaded centaur, prometheous, or rangarok?

If coupled with my idea for tweaking the engines;
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/6509

I think that it would add a lot to the gameplay. Lighter ships configured for high speed would have a chance to intercept a larger, slower transport because it would have to travel farther. New players in the free ship would have their travel time cut in half, making it easier for them to warp and get familiar with the game.

Thoughts, comments?

That actually makes kinda sense. As in ... heavier ships create more disruptions or something like that. And the safety zone has to get bigger for them. hmm...
Real big disadvantage for the pirated, the pirate doesn't have to go out as far as the pirated. Currently the trader has a headstart.

My suggestion would have been too count ships as small objects with a no-warp zone of about 500-1000m around them (Or did I hear that on the chat?). But yours might work better. :)

[stamp of approval] to Spellcast
[stamp of no ships are not large objects] to mr_spuck

Using this 'realistic' knowledge busses would have to go at least 3k still anyways. They have lower technology than the other ships and so their computers would have a hard time dodging large objects.

That would actually be quite good, since then the "updated" bus can have a lower distance, and be a very good spur to spend some cash on it.

adjust the transport missions accordingly though.

4km on every hop are some minutes that matter...

heh, some of the mission timers would still need adjusted down. i'm completing 20 minute missions in 9 minutes.

So, I'd be in my Prom, some Valk tries to whack me, but fails, I fire off enough so he has to run, he gets to 3000m and goes, but I have to find a space 6k out to pursue? No thanks.

thats the advantage of having a hit and run style craft ctishman. tho for the valk i was thinking in the high 5k range for the jump, so it would be a vulture trying to wack you and then running at 3k. In my original post i stated that the warp distance would be based on the ship, and modified by the mass. not based only on the mass.

i was thinking
Bus 1500-2000m
centurion 1800-2200m
wraith 2000-2600m
atlas 2600-3400m
vulture 2400m-3000m
etc etc so on and so forth. the bottom range is for a basic variant with nothing but a free engine, the high end of the range for a fully loaded down ship with a full cargo hold.

Keep in mind that i am a prom pilot all the way. A prom isnt designed to chase its enemys its designed to drive them away or kill them outright. You want to pursue the people that attack you take a different ship.

anyhow, the idea isnt perfect, but i was trying to suggest a way to add some diversity to the game.

Right now the 3k warp limit is not functioning the way it seems to have been intended. It was meant as a way to give PVP a chance to occur, instead its merely annoying to new players and largely ignored once you are past a certain level.

Between that and the infinite turbo that was the focus of the engines/turbo thread i referenced earlier, the game IMO has lost a lot of what made it interesting combat wise.

These sound like really good idea's Spellcast, they would certainly cut down on the newb frustration and give more meaning too the bus upgrades as well :-)

What about reversing it?

Think of the ships as boats on a big lake. Asteroids and other large objects generate 'subspace wake'. While objects sitting still in the water don't usually create a wake, this isn't water we're dealing with.

Smaller craft like Jet-skis (valks, cents and vults) really get thrown around by wake coming off these large objects. By contrast, someone in a yacht or barge really isn't going to feel the wake so much, or at least isn't going to feel it in a way that would interfere with navigation. Thus, heavier ships like the Centaur, Rag and Prom would jump at 2000 or so, and smaller craft would have to go further out, with one exception.

Drafting.
Let's say you're hot on the tail of a freighter, and they jump out suddenly. A smaller fighter could 'draft' in their subspace wake shadow, taking advantage of the momentary (5 seconds or so) hole in space they tore when they left. You'd have to be in the 1000m notification range, and have the ship targeted when it jumped, but at that point, your course would be set for you, and all you'd have to do would be click 'activate' to pursue.

Oh yeah, and about busses:
They're built like bricks, and have enough mass to jump at 2000, even though they have none of the other benefits of a heavy ship.

hmm, I see one problem with your idea though Ctishman, if reversed the traders would find it even easier to get out of pirate blockades, whic would reduce the number of PVP encounters, which ideally is against the point of the suggested alterations.

I do see what your saying about bigger ships not been affected by wake as much, but I think this subect is a tough one to get right 'phtsics' wise and at the same time 'playability' wise :-)

Did you see the note about drafting I put in the message? It explains how that fault could be counteracted.

Plus, cargo pilots don't exist in the game world for the sole purpose of being 'prey', or nobody would want to play them. PVP is great for fighters, but for freighter pilots it's an endless exercise in frustration, panic and powerless rage as some pirate who paid half what you did for his ship makes off with your valuable cargo, and at no point did you have the ability to do more for your own protection than to throw a nasty glare at him. I see it as a much-needed advantage to counterbalance the...oh...everything else fighters have in their corner.

Ctishman, there are plenty of places where traders can make money in relative peace. these are called nation systems, and are supposed to be mostly free of pirates because they are defended by the strike forces and stuff.
I know that isnt working perfectly yet, but it works pretty well and i personally think that the modifications i'm suggesting to both the engines/turbo and the warp limit would allow the defbots a better chance to do their job without as much trouble.
If a pirate has to fly farther to warp, that gives the defbots more chance to kill him. If he cant go as fast because he's got infinite turbo, his prey has a better chance of escaping, and if he's set up to catch his prey, then he cant turbo long enough to outrun the defbots.

A freighter doesn't neccesarilly have the ability to defend itself so well, thats IMO part of making the game more realistic, more immersive. If you want to trade in the dangerous parts of space, you would take a smaller faster ship and move small amounts of cargo.
Going out there, alone, in a centaur, loaded with cargo, is(and should be) just another way of begging a pirate to kill you. Part of trading is balancing your profit with your abilities, trading in a skycommand prometheous doesnt get you as much money, but you have a better chance of surviving.

We've done trade convoys before, they actually DO work. Player organized trade groups can make it harder on the pirates.

as far as the drafting idea, It doesnt really solve the problem of the pirate being able to catch the trader, since now both are in a new sector and the trader still has a head start. Besides, you only need a second or two in a new, empty, sector to rejump and completely loose your pursuer.

Yeah, rejumping's got to be addressed some time, as right now it's just a free ticket out of anything.

Think about it. If you're a trader, you don't want to stay in the same four to six sectors every time you play the game, every day. That's just a job, not fun. However, to get to the real profits, you have to get to Neutral space. Problem is, every damn sector between here and there is crammed with swarms of little homicidal maniacs, in a 10-to-1 ratio to you, who'll take down anything that comes through, regardless of ship class, whether or not you're carrying cargo.

That's pretty much the situation we've got now. Nobody wants to be a trader because there's so many pirates, and staying in the core sectors is the same boring mission, over and over and over again. There's got to be a way to balance this stuff out.

One of the most obvious ways would seem to be a player-sponsored mission, i.e. escort. I offer a "mission" to escort me and my centaur to point B and back again. If you stay within the same sector as me 80% of the time and I make it there and back, you get paid. If I get killed, you get nothing or pay a penalty.

This would automate the process of finding escorts and making sure they get paid.

There wouldn't be as many pirates if Fighter to Fighter combat didn't consist of "Fire homers and run."
Pirate hunters can't stop pirates if we can't kill them.

Erm, is that post in the right thread? If so, clarify svp.

What about sappers that have a tempory effect of making a ship unable to jump? That way traders can have that smaller jump limit, but pirates in big ships can give a large slot to a weapon that would take a least some skill to use (because it would be an energy based weapon, not one of these missiles they love so much). This would not only force the pirates to get a bit of skill, but it could make up for them having to go out as far to jump and catch a trader. Sappers would have a short effect, and wouldn't be like chain guns so let's say there is a delay of 20 seconds and it lasts 5? You could use a rag and have two, that way you can make your effects much more dangerous. Of course they would still load gems or some other missiles, but they might actually be forced to learn how to use tachs or gauss.

Of course, this wouldn't slow the ship just disable it's jump drive.