Since it seems that a lot of people, including myself, are having a some trouble with fighting the more advanced bots, what would people think about an offline, practice combat mode? This way you could practice against various bots without having to worry that your MkIII vult has gotten blown up for 84th time. Now, some people might think that having to learn combat in the game is better, since it is harder, and gives people a reason to make money. However, from a realism point of view, it seems a little ridiculous to have to go into space and learn how to fight by getting blown up 100 times. It seems to me that nations who want to develop good pilots would provide some kind of combat simulator so people can learn the ropes without being in harms way.

From a practical standpoint, I can't see how this would be terribly hard to implement. Just provide one sector that can run offline, on your own PC and you can populate it with any number of bots. This type of botting would of course provide no XP, only practice.

One last thing, before all the vets come on here and say that this would be coddling people, remember that a lot of you have had more than a year to learn the combat system. I think that providing a simulated mode would be a good equalizing factor for newer players. I definitely think its cool that online 'combat schools' have started, but I think this would a valuable addition to that.

I don't think it's a bad idea.

/givemoney Devs 2c

My problem with combat sims is that in the past, when I've seen them implemented, the inevitable result is that a large percentage of the gaming population spends all thier time in 'sim space' with a corresponding drop in the quality of play in 'real space'.

Dying isn't particularly painful yet. Don't sweat it.

My advice would to be extremely cautious. Go to a station to repair after every fight. Try to stay as close to 3000m out as possible so you can always jump away. Don't stay to fight if two bots jump you at the same time. Pick fights in sectors that only contain opponents you know you can beat.

Don't be afraid to ask other pilots how they gear up for specific targets. For instance, it's pretty easy to take out Tycorp assaults with a Hornet full of Geminis. You have to strafe in one direction just before firing and while the missiles are tracking, and don't fire until the bot is within 500 of you. It usually takes 6 missile volleys to do the job. In other words, firing all 4 of the launchers linked once, then firing 2 linked.

I'm actually doing fairly OK now against the bots, my learning experience just would have been a little less painful with a sim. I think Celebrim makes a fair point about the sim sucking people away from the actual game.

I guess I was thinking that a sim might be useful for working on specific skills that the player might not want to commit in game resources to. Like it might be nice to be able to have infinite missiles for practice so that you can get the hang of fighting with unguided rockets.

Would the idea be made any better if the sim was actually a part of the game? I.e dock at a station and you pay X amount of credits to play in the simulator for x amount of time. Governments could even limit the amount of time one could spend in a sim.

All in all, I'm not even sure its a great idea, just interested in what other people thought of it.

As long as the simulation is a source of PRACTICE, and doesn't count on your kills/deaths score, or affect your exp., or provide a source of credits, there's no incentive to play it ASIDE from as a way to practice new skills.

You must be one of the Jumpgate generation.

In that game, there was a simulator you could jump in and test out your new weapon configurations on practice drones, instead of live targets. That could be risky, lest your weapons would fizzle because they overloaded your capacitor. In the simulator it was not such a hassle, and you could hone your ship fairly quickly.

Another great use for the simulator was PVP. Anybody across the universe could jump in and select one of 4 arenas. You could play against eachother and work on your PvP skills with no penalties. You earned no XP but it was a great way to cut your teeth. Without the simulator, there was this great taboo/stigma attached to PvP'ing. There was always a risk associated with it, always some spite (darn you, i just lost all my expensive rare gear!) and it was painfully rare. You cant learn anything in an environment where you get about one fight a year, of which you werent ready for (maybe afk, mining, in your non-combat ship) and classically your opponent would come out of nowhere and obliterate you before you knew what happened.

A few things i found with the simulator implemented in jumpgate. A few myths and facts:

"All PvP would be confined to the simulator". No that is rubbish. It was rarer than you think. Fighting in the simulator was nothing compared to RS (real space) fighting. Most pilots preferred patrolling real space and fighting on risky terms. Only a handful of people tweaking their ships, couple of people practicing a new move, or a mentor teaching a noobie would occupy the simulator arenas. No XP, fame, or fortune could be attained in a simulator. The simulator mode is blank and desolate; It gets boring fast. You cannot direct the fate of the roleplaying universe. But it was still a very handy and necessary tool.

"Combat is meant to be learned the hard way. Its part of the fun and risk. Its like real life". Bah! come on. Soldiers have shooting ranges, mock exercises with blanks. Even now, a sort of simulator thats being introduced. I've been impressed by the combat simulator they have at the airforce base, and they practice on target drones. I think everybody has a right to learn basic skills and try new things in a low risk/no risk environment.

"it would take some of the mystique out of fighting a hive queen"
I aggree with this one. Therefore, you should not be able to practice against every single bot in the vendetta universe. That way, there is still a great unknown to fight against in real space.

I think a great solution would be to have a simulator that only mentor/scholars could use while docked at the same station. You enter a wacky wireframe (TRON'ish) world where you could shoot eachother until death. On death you get a 10 second downtime before your ship is replenished and you learn your lesson. You can also solo in the simulator and select different levels of bots. BUt these are merely target drones and will not resemble the look, or behaviour, of real live bots/drones/collectors. Some will shoot back, and they will all move with varying levels of evasiveness.

The simlator is a great tool. Its not a flight of fancy or something unproven. Its something implemented (successfully) in vendetta's older cousin, Jumpgate, and proved to work very well too.

So, you mean that deaths being free ( there is a free ship, you can blast it as many times as you want ... ) with only the time spent to get to the bot area, is too hard to make it worth practicing?

I don't agree here, and for those who want to practice PvP combat, there is the classic way of "to the red" that has been incredibly common. Doing it in a place where both players are admired or higher serve to make it even more interesting.

And don't forget that /duel is a simple and good way for a mentor to show a newer pilot of their own nation the ropes of PvP combat.

Edited:

I think TCoop's points are very good ones, though I will mention that I've never played Jumpgate. I'm just working off common sense here.

Spider, if you're going to reply to a thread, please actually address what others are saying in the topic.

I have my full support behinde a combat simulator so you can get the feeling for various ships/weapons/enemies.

An ingame simulated arena sounds cool to. In the end you just have to try it and see if it works out as well as it sounds.

Edit: You could even distribute the offline bot practice as another "demo" to get people hooked on vendetta.

Now there's an idea...

I have to say that there is nothing that makes proving my point easier than when a person that chooses to disagree with me inadvertantly makes it for me.

To quote:

"Another great use for the simulator was PVP...You could play against eachother and work on your PvP skills with no penalties. Without the simulator, there was this great taboo/stigma attached to PvP'ing. There was always a risk associated with it, always some spite...and it was painfully rare...about one fight a year."

And you were saying about PvP not being principally confined to the simulator?

My fellow Vendetta supporters, I rest my case.

You didn't really need to... Most of us are against a simulator, because we fully understand that it would remove combat from the "realer" world.

An in-station simulator that lets you test equipment and bots according to the person's level would be great. The whole point of the simulator is to prepare you for real space fighting so I don't see the problem. It would not "remove combat from the "realer" world" because the pilot gains nothing from the simulator other than being able to function well in the "realer world".

Yes it would. Because there would be no cost the death, all the Pirates and PVPers would flock to there. The real universe would lose most of its players. That happened in Jumpgate, I don't see why here would be any different.

Why on earth would a pirates flock to a simulator? Help me out here but I thought part of the thrill was well getting to pirate some poor schmoo's cargo/ship.

The only thing I see moving from the "real" universe is dueling aka consentual pvp. Is that such a great loss?

Botting in a simulator? Why do it other than to test tactics or configurations. Even then as many have said more experienced players have more than enought money to buy ships back and there are ways to minimize the risk.

The best arguement against this is the work to benifit ratio and whether something like this should be a priority or one of those "nice" things to have.

shrug, my 2 cents.

Hmmmmm,...

Thought long and hard about this one before posting, so i hope i make a bit of sense for a change.

*Basic Combat Missions*

A good way to learn how to shoot the easy bots, and get a grip with how the flight engine works. You also get a slow increase in equipment available, and apart from a high death count and money/ship loss, all that happens if you die is your bonus gets reset. A good thing. (No need for simulator training, as this is it)

*Advanced Combat Missions*

Not a problem for any alpha, and most beta, but new players will become unstuck here. The harder bots while being far from impossible to kill, are much harder than the collector bots. In my opinion, also a good thing, apart from death count/money loss, again, no loss to stats, they only go up. Either through player advice, or by dying lots, you too, will be able to mop up 600+ assaults without repair. (No need for simulator training, as this is it)

*Player V's Player*

A very big part of this game, and being skill based, levels are irrelivent. At the time i joined, it was pretty hard for me to learn PvP as most the people who were then playing, kept handing my ass to me, and that put me off trying, for a while. - The /duel command should be tweaked to allow for a training mode maybe, ie If you get shot to 5%, you loose, no loss of ship/money. I think this would be a good idea, regardless of the training aspect.

I dont think we need simulated on or offline training - an offline one would only be cool imo as a demo.

/givemoney devs 3

I agree with yodaofborg here. The basic combat mission with a gov bus and gun is just a simple simulator. The only bad part is the time spent returning to the fight.

The Advanced Combat mission is the real trainer here. Things are at stake now, and the extra pressure helps you stay sharp.

I didn't say a single word about PvP. PvP in a "simulator" is just plain retarded.

I am saying that being able to learn how to attack the bots you can't kill before wasting a lot of money would be nice. I still haven't found the right combination of ship and weapons to attack even Aputech-5s and I have been working on it for a while now. Ask someone to help? Yeah, I have done that and recieved no response at all from my faction members. Plus, I would rather do it on my own. I would just like to be able to figure _how_ to attack the bots giving me trouble before I spend tons of cash.

Just because the 1337 alpha/beta players think it is a silly idea doesn't necessarily make it so. And, quite frankly, the attitude some of the alpha/beta players take towards suggestions and the like is starting to turn me off Vendetta.

Money is not an issue. Ever. For anyone.