Before release, 160m/s was the highest infiniboost. THAT was much better. Anyone could catch you, but if you wanted to have an easy time, you could infiniboost and take your chances. Now, with 200m/s, only people with incredible drain on their engines can catch you. A 500m lead is often enough to make it to the jump point unharmed in a 200m/s infiniboost ship when being chased by a 240m/s 70e drain ship like an IBG or a Valkyrie. That's just annoying. It's bad enough that all energy weapons are useless while bosoting. Trading should NOT be boring and easy, not when you're in gray space. Trading in gray space should be dangerous, exciting, "life-on-the-edge" feeling every time you do it. 200m/s infiniboost takes that away.

I'm for non-consensual PvP and I'm for infini-boost. I'm OK with it currently so long as the top speeds vary from ship to ship. I'd rather see more choke points and collectors to encourage PvP than removing the boost.

As said above I think the pros beat the cons, unless some can think of some more cons?

Would it be reasonable for the infini-boost ability of the fast charge battery to be dependent on some formulation/rule based on the speed and mass(ship+cargo) at the time of turbo use? This could at least make a pursued trader/miner have to decide to either drop the cargo and infini-boost out, or risk having to fight because under the load/speed conditions, infini-boost can't be acheived. This introduces some interesting load-planning on the part of the trader/miner, or heavily loaded missile boat.

Just a loosly scientific thought from a crazy trader/miner.

Cron Lennan

I'm for just leaving as is, don't fix what aint broke. And I don't think it's broke.

I actually like that idea. Basically make the power drain dependent on the mass of the ship. That way an unladen ship might always have infiniboost and a fully stocked one wouldn't.

It could be as simple as a drain of 1/sec per 200 kg, so a 10,000 kg ship would drain 50/sec. The boost drain per kg could be a function of the battery. You would also want to assign an efficiency for each ship, so some of the really fast light ships wouldn't always have infiniboost. For example, a Valk might drain twice as fast as it should based on mass alone, while an atlas might drain at 75% of the rate.

One possible reworking of the batteries could look like this..

Free: capacity 250, recharge 35/sec, boost drain 1 per 350 kg
light: capacity 300, recharge 35/sec, drain 1 per 300 kg
medium: capacity 450, recharge 40/sec, drain 1 per 200 kg
Heavy: capacity 550, recharge 45/sec, drain 1 per 100 kg
FC: capacity 250, recharge 50/sec, drain 1 per 300 kg.
(disclaimer: numbers would need to be tweaked).

This would have the following effects:

1) small, light ships would be able to infiniboost with even the freebat, but they wouldn't be able to carry much.

2) Big, bulky ships would only be able to infiniboost when empty

3) Ships with a heavy battery would have a reduced ability to infiniboost, thus providing an incentive to actually use a light or medium battery.

People would have to balance between speed and firepower, ships with a lot of battery capacity wouldn't be able to boost for very long.

Traders would be faced with the need to occasionally dump cargo to get out of trouble. Pilots would also be forced to decide if they want speed or firepower, but not both.

Honestly, who is the infiboost hurting the way it is now.

If it's not affecting a majority of the whole server population, why make the devs go back and tweak batteries and ships YET AGAIN. I'd rather leave it the way it is now, and get MORE CONTENT. This is not worth the time argueing over it or the devs tweaking it.

Infiniboost isn't hurting anyone now. That *IS* the problem.

With few exceptions it makes the game entirely too dull. There is also no reason to use anything but the heavy or FC battery as things stand now.

Now I understand that you may like it the way it is now, but I don't. I can't make the devs do anything, they will do whatever they think works best and will either change it or not.

If you think this is a waste of time, go play or read a different thread.

I personally think it would add some excitement to the trading part of the game if I couldn't infiniboost unscathed through a cloud of Arklan Guardians.

I personally think it would be a mistake to pile more content on top of flawed gameplay. This will just make the game's problems worse and harder to fix.

I would and do read other posts, I only fear that they will listen to you and implement your suggested changes, and so I feel the need to voice my oposition. I think if there were more content available, that there would be less scrutiny placed on infiboost as there may be more oportiunity for people to interact though suggested missions such as the co-op missions, or more border patrol missions (like ctc) where people would congrigate. Also, if there were more content there might be a bigger influx of new users giving you more oportinity to kill more people. Nit picking the basics till everyone is soo bored with current content that they leave is not the way to do it.

Maybe just a little request in an attempt to close this issue (since we are in the Suggestion section): the Orion C is currently the only real interceptor capable of catching up any infiniboosting ship. I guess this is why so many people use it.

On paper the SGV should be able to do it as well - but I don't know if facts match figures.

Could we have a third choice? Like a basic Valkyrie model with 60 m/s drain and a better thrust? Less manoeuverable than a Rev C or a SGV to keep balance between the three models.

And/or slightly improve the speed and thrust of the Corvus Marauder. It is currently useless at 220m/s with 210N thrust because it has less autonomy than a TPG model (the +20 top speed does not make up for it) and it must carry less mass than an Orion cent (it becomes somewhat sluggish with a gauss or a flare tube). A small increase in speed and thrust could make the Corvus Maud a true pirate ship capable of intercepting and destroying any fleeing traders!

@john

I trust that the Devs have their own agenda for releasing new content and also addressing gameplay issues such as the one I have mentioned. I trust that they will do the right thing, it's their project, not mine.

Sweeping problems under the carpet won't help. Right now there is an entire aspect of the game that could use some content. That would be trading. I would consider the addition of danger to trading to be 'adding content'. If they focus all their attention on getting bigger things for the fighter jockeys to blow up, they run the risk of losing people interested in trading. I am sure they understand that.

I trust that they will deal with issues in an order that makes sense to them. I may get old waiting for them to address this particular issue, but that is my problem, not theirs.

why again was a variable thrust model not liked?

example:
A Rev C Orion Cent can go 240m/s at full burn but is not infiboost, why not make the "turbo" button incremental like the accelerator and decelerator, so that if you wanted to infiboost you would had to boost up to 200 or 210 (or even 180 as cap), anything higher would start to drain. To me that seems the easiest way to fix this without having to change too much.

So how would that fix the 'riskless trading' problem?

What you are talking about is giving all ships the ability to infiniboost at some speed. Unless you also do something to reduce that speed, traders will still be able to zip past any bots they encounter in ion storms. Then you get back into one of the various 'fixes' we've already discussed.

I'm not opposed to it, but it is basically simplified tap boosting.

I'm sorry but your version or risk and mine are different I guess, I still die every once and a while in ion storms, or trading in grey space, to me there still is danger. Perhaps you play at times of the day when the danger is minimal. I don't know. I don't see infiboost as something that needs to be fixed so I can't offer suggestions that would solve your issues with it, but it you wanted it to be different then it is now I've offered and can offer more suggestions. And I'm sure if we were to look at all the posts previous that there are other good ones too. But this is something I feel is fine, there are other ways to make the universe fell dangerous other then doubling the amount of time it takes to make a trade run. Why not make the bots faster? Give them better ships? I feel confident in saying that if there were triple the population on our server that this issue would probably never be brought up.

johnhawl, that Idea for boosting is one I really like. I don't think I should have to tapboost to get a particular drain at a particular velocity.

neither do I, but I could have sworn last time I suggested that it was shot down quickly.

johnhawl218 said: "Perhaps you play at times of the day when the danger is minimal."

That's so very true. Grey Space & Space in general are so much more dangerous during peak than off-peak.

I personally like infiniturbo, and hope it never gets taken away. I would be fine with capping it at 200 m/s or less, but I don't want it to be taken away completely. And I'd also prefer the low-speed infiniturbo, high-speed short burst suggestion.

What if your maximum infiniturbo speed was a function of your ship mass and battery? That way large ships full of cargo could infiniboost, but only at limited speeds (which would make them more vulnerable).

Infiniboost should stay a property of the ship and not of the load. Also, IMO, keeping boost separate with ships that can infiniboost and ships that can't like it is now is a Good Thing, rather than putting boost on a sliding scale (why would anyone then boost at full capacity?); the main issue most players who dislike infiniboost have at the moment is the fact that several ships are capable of infiniboosting VERY VERY fast, while other ships without infiniboost can't even come close.
To reiterate my proposed solution:
Trade ships should infiniboost, as should other very large ships. Fighters should not. Trade ships and other very large ships should have 190-210m/s boost. Fighters should have 220-250m/s boost, but have drains ranging from 55-75.
This would allow fighters to catch trade ships as long as they're careful with their energy usage and don't let the trade ships run too far (which would satisfy the pirates), but it also allows traders to keep their fairly fast infiniboost.
And, always remember guys, Vendetta Online is NOT a trading game. Look at the title. It's a space combat flight simulator with trading features. While trading can and will (and should) become an important part of the game, it should NOT replace combat as the number one priority.
-:sigma.SB

Boy, you guys really get hung up on the PvP thing. I at least could care less about the fact that some of the player ships can outrun other player ships in boost. That is fine. What I don't like (again) is that you can avoid nearly all bot combat with any sort of infiniboost, thus avoiding any sort of non-player hazards that may be out there with minimal effort.

(BTW, if your maximum boost speed decreases with your load then you can still boost at max load, it's just slower).

Solra, how do you propose to make bots in ionstorms anything more than a nuisanace? With your approach, the only people who will get caught in them would be people in fast boosting fighters.

My point being that if trading isn't going to be at least a bit risky at all times, why bother having it at all. If you want this to just be a PvP game, then kill the trading.

If you want it to be open to possibilities, then make them all viable. If you make trading dangerous then all sorts of player interaction options open up. The number one priority of any game should be to make sure the players have fun.

So the real question you guys need to be asking is:
Do I want it to stay the way it is because it is convenient for me and the way I play right now, or because it is the best for the overall gameplay? I don't think it is good for overall gameplay, I think that some of you veterans have adapted to the current system and don't want to see it change because it alters the way you would have to play the game.

In any case, the Devs will decide what they want. With any luck they will choose the path which leads to the best overall gameplay. Some of you won't like it, but you will adapt as you have before.

I have nothing more to say on this matter.

> how do you propose to make bots in ionstorms anything more than a
> nuisanace? With your approach, the only people who will get
> caught in them would be people in fast boosting fighters.

At least for n00bs, bots in Ion Storms are already too hard. I refer you to "Game is too hard!" http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/8851