It seems odd that gaining pk's rarely involves rails (I doubt it will even as balanced weps), but that the pk medals award rails.

This is unfortunate for our friend Alamar/terjekv, who has become a specialist, but will likely not have access to the 500 pk medal for some time (getting pk's for him is a much slower process)

Instead, what if the game logs your pk's with certain weapons. And then you "Level up" your weapons.

So you're good at rails? if you get 25 rail kills, you get the mk II

100 rail kills the mk III etc...

likewise this could be done with many weps.

This is not a major problem for botting, since a neutron blaster is as effective as a Neut II generally. A phase blaster and a Phase mk II aren't too dissimilar either.

It would also make people have to work for the weapons they're interested in. As well as getting people into the combat zone.

I'm sure there are people out there thinking... but wait, I'm a trader, I don't like PvP (while I don't understand this at all, I can respect it).

Well, for you guys, why do you need the special versions of these weps?

the only reason we have so many variations is for PvP purposes.

Just as in many RPG's you could level your weapons skill with certain weps. Lets do the same here.

You would begin to develop classes of players, but of their own choosing.

make the actual pk medals more general. Perhaps the pk medals would allow you access to escort fighters. (I believe even the old X-wing had this functionality)

you could hail your escort with a player targetted via

/msg *ShapeEscort1 "%target% attack"

(this would of course come as a standard bound key, along with
"return to formation" or "attack the nearest target")

This is simply one idea. But an award which represents the achievement of the Pk's would be superior to an award which seems to preference a style

rather then just counting kills to get the improved weapons, how about making it an XP-based system? killing 100 Orun Collectors gives 500XP, which might not give you an improved weapon. but, going out and killing 20 Assults means a lot more real experience.

maybe making it both things, 1000XP / 25 kills, 5000XP / 100 kills etc? this also makes PvP usage relevant. :-)

(weee! me, a "specialist"!)

I like the idea of having to work up your skill with a particular weapon to get the better Mk's. I've suggested having "classes" for a while now and it's always looked down on. BUT, I still think it would add something to the game. It just makes sense that if you use something more that you would be better at that then anything else, so as your "skill" increases your able to use better versions should increase as well. Perhaps, instead of pk or xp just make it total # of kills with said weapon. Pk's are worth more then bot kills, 1pk:20bk so it's not based on your xp as a combatpilot/trader/miner/pirate/medic/etc. Weapons are for killing wether it's defensive or offensive.

At the same time, you could use this same idea for ships. Make more ships available earlier, and to get the mk's you have to actually USE the ships, as you succeed in tasks with particular type of ship you gain access to better mk's. Special ships would always remain a faction requirment, but also perhaps a level of skill with the ship type is required also.

This could really get rid of mindless botting simply because your constantly working up a particular configuration. It's not the standard push for combat 9 to get ths SC Prom, perhaps you simply need to reach 5/-/-/-/-, then you have to start flying with the prom to earn the higher models.

"This could really get rid of mindless botting simply because your constantly working up a particular configuration. It's not the standard push for combat 9 to get ths SC Prom, perhaps you simply need to reach 5/-/-/-/-, then you have to start flying with the prom to earn the higher models."

I like this, cause i don't like botting.

I reckon Alamar should have access to the advanced rail at 100pk's simply because I've never seen anyone put so much effort into learning a weapon that is so hard to use well.

Rail Specialist? Indeed he is.

I can't think of anyone who deserves the advanced rail more, but it will take him quite a while to get to 500pk's because the rails are so hard to use well.

I like this too

I like the idea of leveling weapons and ships. Ace Combat 5 is kinda like that - you have to get a certain number of kills per fighter to be able to unlock another version. They also add things like, attackers get more exp for killing ground targets than air targets, fighters are opposite, and multi-role fighters tend to fly in the middle.

So maybe, light fighters get more exp for killing light fighters, heavy for heavies/capital ships?...

cool idea. i'd like to ammend a little something for players like me who use the neutron class small weapon almost exclusively... the return of the tachyon at 500 pks! basicly a n3 with a touch less mass. :D hehe

an n3 with less mass? good lord...

ev

Agreed as long as it wouldn't throw off the balance for items.
But we could have like Mark X versions of guns for more variety :)

/givemoney Devs 2c

Does this guy serpass Piro and myself during the beta?

Nope, I can say that he doesn't :)

I like this idea too, though one must be careful not to "nerf" (my fav word now) the new players. The problem is that you will create an "equipment gap" between vets and newer players, which is bad for the game IMHO.

Anyway, having said that, I would like an uber "explode" command for 25 Pks from /exploding an enemy.

Rails pwn and should never change they are easy to use but impossible to perfect. GO SPIDER!!! BETA FOREVER!

Honestly, I'm against all ideas that would further reward excellent PvP'ers.

Between my characters, I have about 250 player kills, and I've got over 100 with one of them. I don't consider myself an excellent PvP'er, but I feel it would be unfair if I got any other new, and better, weapon. Shape, for example, has over 1000 player kills. He will most likely kill anyone he fights. Why give him an even bigger advantage in PvP? If a player is good enough to get 25/100/500 player kills, why do they need a better weapon?

As softy2 mentioned, this will create an even larger gap between the new and old players. Even bad PvP'ers who have been around long enough are bound to get 500 kills. A good n00b vs. a bad vet= an unfair situation.

Also, everyone would end up with uber neuts or gauss. Few use anything else. Then you'd have 2 legions-those with uber neuts and gauss and those without it.

Finally, this would simply be yet another way to exploit.

"Hey buddy! I want a neutron mkXIII. Could you let me kill you 50 times in my neutron cent? I'll let you do it to me too."

Nice idea, but it would need a good deal of tweaking.

How about a players rating using something like the duel system.
Each individual weapon would have a rating for how well you used it depending on whether or not you killed the enemy or got killed. This rating could have a very minimal effect on the weapons that you got.

MINIMAL ok?

/givemoney Devs 2c

how about this :

Examples of ways to reward PKs without [EDIT:bad inggerish] building equipment gap :

(a) reduction in price for weapons
(b) increased availablity of weapons and ships (e.g. you can buy IBG/proms/mauds in grey space, your uberness has gained you a minion which fly them from nation space to your home in grey etc..)

Discuss.

Look, if you don't give players something for their time and trouble, they just won't bother.

500+ pk's is bloody hard to get, no matter how long you've been around, it takes dedication and skill, there are vets who probably won't get it for a long time, and "noobs" who could pull it off in a few weeks. And it is one for which the reward is pretty uninteresting.

My point remains the same, why give a reward that preferences a style of fighting?

Softy: I like the idea of having other ships available in grey. Though the price idea is less interesting. Money is never too serious a problem.

However, I'd like to see something new for these. Maybe make it a reward that could be reached through other means as well.

So that the Finest Traders, Finest Prospectors, Finest Explorers, and Finest Fighters all can reach something similar.

The Hindu philosophy of many paths :)

there it is, a great idea all around. 500 pk's or trade missions grants ships available in grey space. super cool. :)