Jump carriers, anyone? This might expand the wartime ZoI of house militaries, as jump gate blockades could be bypassed entirely, thus allowing raids deeper into enemy territory. Although, the fighters would have to defend their carrier at ALL costs, otherwise they would be stranded or worse. I am picturing a cruiser-sized ship that is just one big hangar bay and only has light defenses.
This also gives a nice way for intelligence factions to extract ships from within dangerous areas, as well as for pirates to quickly move a raiding party from point A to point B. Although the latter does bring up an interesting rules question. Pirate jump carriers would probably have to be modified transport hulls and not cruisers, to dodge the 'cruisers cannot pirate, but it is perfectly logical for wealthy pirates to have a ship that can get them out of trouble fast' problem.
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' Wrote:When I read this my immediate reaction was the natural one of surprise and joy but after reading this list for the fourth time I'm starting to become very worried.
Let me first of all put into perspective my view. I've played here for little over a month now, considering myself a veteran RPer from communities of other games. My knowledge of Discovery is loose and weak but still I feel I can say with confidence I've identified the communities main flaws and strengths.
My issues are with player owned stations. This is something I initially praised in my mind, presenting freedom over an area that seemed inaccessible due to development policy. Players everywhere will be celebrating now though because of this announcement. They can finally do what they dreamed of and own a fortress. A safe haven. However, this could become another case of what I call the "Capital Ship Issue".
To clarify, one of my biggest pet hates about this community is the availability of capital ships. The majesty and awe of a colossal vessel of such power is totally destroyed by the fact that they are so common. That's not even the worst of it either because a damn high percentage of people in these capital ships are poor role-players or just don't roleplay full stop. Now, of course I am sorry to all those fully competent RPers with capital ships but I am sure you know what I mean. Personally if they were limited to the official player faction members only and kept at a certain number for each faction it would solve alot of problems. Problems such as how the "endgame" of Discovery's PvP is literally just battleship on battleship. Not only that but it would greatly raise the value and respect official player factions get and deserve as the sorts of people that should be setting and enforcing the quality of RP for their independents. But alas, I digress.
What I get at is this: If player owned stations are not laid out correctly then there will be a repeat of the "Capital Ship Issue" with stations. Making them expensive won't help because we all know how that works out in terms of capital ships. Making them destructible is also pretty bad because all it takes is some guy and his mates to just blast it to pieces while the owners are sleeping or offline. My solution is once again to keep them limited to player factions and those that can demonstrate exceptional roleplay skill. Do it through administrators and the forums, not through pure in game code, allowing everyone access to it.
Lastly, I have a little concern over docking with player ships. By this you mean carriers and battleships I imagine. Even if it was just carriers and those titan like vessels the issue is still present. Capital ships are far too common. If it works freely and means anyone can dock with a grouped member of the right ship then there's going to be some major abuse unless it's severely limited. Its once again going to lose the wow factor and its going to overall reduce the value of official factions and their players by taking away something that by all rights should be one of their more awesome bonuses. A minor part of the overall concern is also what happens if I dock and the player disconnects. Sounds like I'm left on my own in the middle of nowhere if I log in before the carrier my ship is in does.
To end though, I love Discovery. The features it has are out of this world quite literally and the content is enough to blow anyone's mind. I just feel the areas discussed above could have been explored in a better way as now it would be extremely difficult to alter them without affecting people and causing them to lose a great deal of effort, hard work and will to carry on with the server. While I don't know how the player owned stations and docking with player ships will work I can only hope that it is done in the best way possible and that it avoids past poor decisions (in my opinion) for how capital vessels were permitted.
- Player constructed and controlled bases
- Player controlled commodity and equipment dealers
- Player docking on ships
- Cloaking devices
- Jump drives
- Different cruise speeds for ships
- Control of lights on ships, hud colours, shields and group targeting
- Turret zoom
Jump drives! Controllable Shields!!! SELF DESTRUCT!!! Man i think i just had a meltdown
Cloaking devices should be able to be used by all people... but they should be quite expensive. Not the 100/1000's of millions of credits though...:(
Expensive enough that you have to play quite a bit into the game (ie have a good trade route going) to get access.
Only administrators should be able to cloak completely (ie the ship disappears off everything), everyone else should cloak slightly (ie there's a slight outline/distortion where the ship is). Also, it shouldn't be able to be used in combat or directly after combat until your energy reserves have recharged to maximum, therefore meaning it should use up all or most of your ship's energy, more required for bigger ships.