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Three suggestions - Delnar_Ersike - 08-08-2012
As the title says, I have three suggestions. In short, they are as follows: the ability to trade maps between players, a new type of capital ship specifically to combat player bases, and a special type of weapon specifically for carriers and light carriers.
First, map trading. I've been thinking about this even before I took my long break from Discovery, and now that I've started playing again with fresh new characters, I feel this is even more necessary. I do not know if this is possible on a technical level, but if it is, it should be implemented (possibly along with player bases appearing on maps). Map trading would include base locations and prices, planet locations, jump holes and gates, trade lanes, debris/minefields, and wrecks (as well as player bases if they are visible on maps).
However, to protect the possible reconnaisance-based market that would be created from an addition like this (think Zoner scouts selling maps to independant traders, or Gallia unlawfuls selling maps to possible Gallia smugglers, etc.), a "map brokering" flag should also be implemented with at least the following three modes: a mode where maps can be brokered to anyone (if A gives to B, B can give A's information to anyone), a mode where maps can be brokered only to people with a certain tag (would work like player base docking permissions do, so if A gives to B, B can give A's information to people based on A's filters at the time of transaction), and a mode where maps cannot be brokered (if A gives to B, B cannot give A's information to anyone).
Next, siege ships. This idea came to me a long time ago, but at the time not for Discovery specifically. It came after discussing some flawed RTS mod design with one of my friends, who also knows quite a bit about WW1 (yes, this is relevant). We discussed the fact that certain RTS games/mods follow a design very similar to the situation in WW1: that at the end of the day, he who attacks, loses. Fortifying an acquired area would be so effective in those games, that the two sides would just bunker down and both build impenetrable defensive lines. In the end, the winning player would find some clever way of going around the other player's defenses, but in most cases, the game would be drawn out and end in a stalemate. This is why pretty much all RTS's allow you to build some sort of siege equipment that could always break a defensive line, no matter how strong it is fortified.
I've been reading a couple of threads recently about player bases (I took a pretty long break from Discovery when it was 4.85 and have only recently come back), especially ones about a certain Molly base in Dublin, and (though I admit, the Mollys' plan was pure genius) I believe a similar situation has arisen in Discovery: after a certain point, player bases become so impossible to kill, that in a war, once one side has fortified a position, it becomes impossible to get the position back from them, so the only thing the other side can do is fortify their own position... you can probably see where this is going.
My suggestion is to implement a new type of capital ship specifically designed to take down player bases. The cost to acquire such a vessel would be astronomical, not to mention ammo for its weapon (you do need to justify being able to take down a player base that costs billions to build and operate), as well as other possible limitations (only available at guard systems, has no way of defending itself, only x number are available per faction and only to official factions, ways to make sure someone doesn't lolwut in and blow up random player bases while their owners are offline, etc.), but it'll the attacking team a chance at breaking through. Yes, I know you could on paper also take out a player base by killing the suppliers, but that's much harder in practice, especially if the way around is either extremely long and full of enemy factions, or virtually non-existant. Plus, siege ships could add a whole new dimension to PvP events...
And no, repurposing existing ships to have weapons effective against player bases wouldn't cut it, as, IMO, the only way siege ships can be balanced is if they are extremely vulnerable, even more so than other capital ships vs. bombers.
Finally, a special type of weapon that can only be used by Carriers and Light Carriers: I call it the "Drone Gun". When the weapon is fired, one (or two or three, the specifics will need some balancing) AI Fighter (and/or Bomber) will "undock from" (spawn under) your ship and fall into formation with you. The AI(s) IFF, ship type, and equipment is based on what type of weapon you have equipped (the same way SNAC's are differentiated). If the weapon is fired again, the AI(s) spawned by that weapon will, if they are still alive, go back under your ship and "dock" with it. If the AI(s) die, you will need to dock with an allied base before you can spawn the AI(s) from that weapon again. Once again, I do not know if this is technically possible, but if it is, it needs to be in Discovery.
This would greatly differentiate Carriers and Light Carriers from other capital ships and make them feel more carrier-like. Yes, I know players can dock/undock from Carriers to achieve a similar effect, but they can do the same with other capital ships. Carriers, by definition, should be specialized in harboring small strike craft, rather than being an empty name for a capital ship. And since the drone gun take up one weapon slot, that's one less proper weapon the Carrier can equip, once again differentiating Carriers from Battleships and Dreadnoughts.
Also, this weapon could also be used in player (maybe even NPC?) bases the same way weapons platforms are (once it's in the game as a capital ship weapon, why couldn't it be base weapon?). If a red IFF player comes within x distance, the AI(s) will spawn, and they will go back as soon as there are no more red IFF players within x distance of the base. If an AI is shot down, it will take some time and resources before it can respawn.
So yeah, tell me what you think, and if any developers are reading this, I'm especially curious about any technical limitations on map trading and/or the drone gun. Thanks for the feedback ahead of time!
Three suggestions - Tunicle - 08-08-2012
1) If people wishing to do this they can get a craft and fly the map then sell the ship. Doing it once then selling it multiple times would quickly destroy the point as it could be passed on at no cost and therefore misused.
2) Possibly, but it would need to be carefully controlled and much better policed than presently and administered inRP. Otherwise we will just have $$ rich trade grinding to get the ship then mucho ooRP base destruction, just because they can. There has been enough ooRP base grief without mechanisms to facilitate it more.
3) Has been on some servers for a while. But does it work or does it generate 1 man warring factions? And how much server load will it generate? Would prefer 5 real players rather than 1 and 4 spawned ones lagging the server.
Three suggestions - Jayce - 08-08-2012
I'd love to see NPC-spawning weapons for cruisers.
Three suggestions - Ursus - 08-08-2012
1) I played an MMO that had cartography as a skill choice, and it was one of the most useless skills in the whole game. Most people just memorize where they are going, and if they want a map they buy it once. As an alternative though, I would like to see the option of buying whole system or even house maps from NPCs, I just dont think its worth the effort to make them player-made and tradeable, which is a lot of work for no real gain.
2) Siege weapon is a good idea, although I would change this a bit. Maybe put a siege weapon as an option on a base. So if you get a base you want to destroy, you build another base next to it and build a siege gun on it that points at the hostile base. At that point you no longer need 20 battleships, you only need enough ships to defend your siege weapon.
3) NPCs as "ammunition" has been discussed a lot. Some of the other mods have it already, I think.
Three suggestions - Delnar_Ersike - 08-08-2012
Quote:I played an MMO that had cartography as a skill choice, and it was one of the most useless skills in the whole game. Most people just memorize where they are going, and if they want a map they buy it once. As an alternative though, I would like to see the option of buying whole system or even house maps from NPCs, I just dont think its worth the effort to make them player-made and tradeable, which is a lot of work for no real gain.In the current state of maps, I agree, trading maps to other players *might* seem completely useless, especially with FLCompanion and people who've been on the server so long, all their characters have every system mapped out.
However, map trading could create some nice RP (all those "Exploration Ships" could now be used for actual exploration, for example), not to mention how it would ease some burden when creating new characters (you wouldn't need to explore systems again, just give it the map of one of your higher-level characters). Also, should changing commodity prices and/or player base mapping be implemented, the framework would already exist for trading such things between players, but now I'm just dreaming.
For now, I'd say the greatest improvement map trading would have on Discovery is open up a whole new realm of RP'ing. Oh, and selling maps to NPC's would be a nice addition, but I don't see how it would be implemented (dock with a base, ???, profit?).
Quote:If people wishing to do this they can get a craft and fly the map then sell the ship. Doing it once then selling it multiple times would quickly destroy the point as it could be passed on at no cost and therefore misused.I think you underestimate how long it would for you to fly into every system, dock with every base, find every wreck, and come within 10k of every single object in space.:DBut I admit, there are some people with the patience to do all that with a single character and then give away their maps for free, but that's part of the system as well.
Quote:Siege weapon is a good idea, although I would change this a bit. Maybe put a siege weapon as an option on a base. So if you get a base you want to destroy, you build another base next to it and build a siege gun on it that points at the hostile base. At that point you no longer need 20 battleships, you only need enough ships to defend your siege weapon.Though a good idea, it's not an option, I'm afraid. The defending base could just build their own siege weapon and destroy any attacking base before it's even completed. In fact, anything that you have to construct in order to siege a base wouldn't work, as the defending faction could just build their own to take down the siege bases. Since siege ships would be mobile to a degree, defending a base with siege ships against other siege ships wouldn't work the same way defending a base with buildable siege weapons against other buildable siege weapons would.
Quote:I'd love to see NPC-spawning weapons for cruisers.Not for cruisers, carriers. Yes, I'm nitpicking, but it does make a difference.:P
Quote:NPCs as "ammunition" has been discussed a lot. Some of the other mods have it already, I think.A good start, but I don't think that would be balanced. For one, you'd only need to sacrifice one weapon slot to get all the NPC's you need, not to mention the fact that people could just have other people keep drone ammo in their inventory, so when the carrier runs out of drone ammo, it could be resupplied, resulting in a *huge* AI fleet. Plus, though AI ships are terrible pilots, they can do a lot of damage in larger numbers.
A possible compromise would be to still have one AI per drone gun, but have the ability to *replenish* drone guns with ammo should an AI die.
Quote:Has been on some servers for a while. But does it work or does it generate 1 man warring factions? And how much server load will it generate? Would prefer 5 real players rather than 1 and 4 spawned ones lagging the server.I admit, it didn't occur to me that drone guns could cause server lag.
As for one-man warring factions, theoretically this could also occur with battleships, as IMO, the combat ability of about 6 fighter AI's with Class 9 Weapons plus a Carrier sporting only Secondary Turrets matches the combat ability of a fully-armed Battleship (the AI's are harder targets, but they also deal a bit less damage). Remember, for each AI drone, the player must sacrifice a weapon slot (probably a Primary Turret in the case of a Carrier, but capital ships would need to be redone anyway, as currently only Liberty, Rheinland, Zoners, and The Order have Carriers of some sort), not to mention the fact that AI's cannot be controlled the same way an actual turret can.
Three suggestions - AeternusDoleo - 08-08-2012
From a dev standpoint:
1: Autofilling the map... not sure if this is possible, or even desirable.
2: Siege ships would need to be balanced - for instance in a way that they reduce shield mitigation rates of a base shield for a short time. They would also need to be rather fragile. Either way, if it allows for 6 or so players to take out a fully upgraded base in under an hour, it defeats the point of player bases. Grudges outside of the game sadly, need to be taken into consideration.
3: Carriers spawning NPCs is something we intend to do eventually. Cannon has been testing some code for it - but it is still in development. Don't expect this before 4.87.
Three suggestions - Ursus - 08-08-2012
' Wrote:2: Siege ships would need to be balanced - for instance in a way that they reduce shield mitigation rates of a base shield for a short time. They would also need to be rather fragile.make it an alternative to a shield module? then the siege base would be fragile enough to be destroyed by 3 heavy ships relatively quickly
maybe make modules for the levels, upgrade the siege base to level 2 and you can add another siege module, to accelerate the destruction but requiring you to bring your own resources
probably simpler and cleaner to just make a special type of siege base, if you need to take on a level 4 base build 2-3 siege bases
Three suggestions - монолит - 08-08-2012
Siege ships ? I approve. SRP only ? Or maybe super demanding to build/expensive ?
Also this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHAPSs5XrSQ#t=01m45s
Three suggestions - Delnar_Ersike - 08-10-2012
' Wrote:Autofilling the map... not sure if this is possible, or even desirable.Why wouldn't it be desirable?
On a similar note, I took some time to count how many ships could be used for exploration RP. Besides the AI Core Cruiser (since it "has been primed to trespass far beyond the confines set by the limited maze of jump holes and gates crossing Sirius"), some Zoner ships ("suited for exploration needs"), and ships labeled "scout ships", there are four vessels named explicitly for exploration: 1 2 3 4.
' Wrote:Siege ships would need to be balanced - for instance in a way that they reduce shield mitigation rates of a base shield for a short time. They would also need to be rather fragile. Either way, if it allows for 6 or so players to take out a fully upgraded base in under an hour, it defeats the point of player bases. Grudges outside of the game sadly, need to be taken into consideration.Most definitely; as I said in the main post, there need to be enough limitations in place to stop people from Ninja'ing other people's bases. Kasrkin's idea to make them SRP-only (like the Barge) is probably the best solution so far in my opinion. And yes, they'd need to be fragile, though I suspect very low agility, gunboat-level hull and shields, and their inability to properly fight back would take care of it. Plus, once the defending faction sees a siege ship, they'll most likely make destroying it their top priority anyway.
' Wrote:Carriers spawning NPCs is something we intend to do eventually. Cannon has been testing some code for it - but it is still in development. Don't expect this before 4.87.Yay! I didn't expect the Drone Gun to be implemented in 4.86.x anyway...
Three suggestions - Psymple - 08-11-2012
I keep seeing SIEGE SHIP over and over and over again...
What about a module, that if you have fuel, causes all ships NEAR YOU to have infinite energy...
Would make base sieging Slightly easier, but weapon platforms would stop you getting close together in
order to use it, you would need transports to keep filling the fuel up and the ship itself would be very vulnerable
weapon platforms also.
This would allow you to potentially double/tripple the damage output of your ships but require them to stay still and close together whilst sieging and also making them VERY vulnerable to weapon platforms.
If 5 people siege a base you would need 1 Module carrier, 1 transport to fuel and then the other 3 BS would have to get as close as they can to the module carrier...
So a 5 person siege would become a 6-9 person siege instead...
Whilst still remaining ballanced, would it work in PVP?
YES... but it would be hard to use in pvp if your having to stay close to a single ship...
Result? Infinite energy light cruisers and gunboats/fighters...
Also who says it only works for your "OWN" team...
Giving the bomber that is trying to kill you "Infinite Snac'age" is probably a
bad idea... would be an interesting double edged sword....
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Edit.
Never write your ideas when you have just woken up...
All in all, probably hard to implement.
But I feel would make base sieging that little bit easier, whilst remaining ballanced
and also capable of having some interesting Pvp oppertunities.