Remember when that Rhinelander General met its maker at the beginning of a single player campaign ?
He was shot up with some Rhinelander torps....
I would like to see bomber missles inplemented which basically are nerfed Sunslayer like shield busters....
Slow speed.....100 m/s
Hull shot ...3200
Shield shot....13700
refire 0.25.....
splash area 64
They mount all 4 torps, they can fire all 4. But each missle launcher is capable of refiring in 4 seconds.
I imaging a bomber squadron being called in for attack by the battle commander. They wing (3 or 4 bombers swoop in and unleash a massive barrage of bombers towards a battleship to crack its shield....16 torps incoming...awesome)... Remember... if the torps are too close, killling one of them can sell all of em off....oooh imaging the possibility of taking out the shields of all the ships in the battle if one is set of close to a dozen others....
Anyhow, They are still inferior to an OC inferno, can be CD'd and being torp like in agility can be avoided by fighters (don't know about the ones who like to play chnicken with bombers) but will make the bombers slightly stronger against caps. Especially missle GB's. *shudder*. Also remember, unlike a gunshot, these need to be taargeeted to shield or damager is not registered,
Frankly if we are going to play a game of Rock paper scissors, then GB's need an added threat. If any one disagrees or states that this makes bombers too strong, start a new thread in general gaming and I will gladly discuss that with you.
To down shield of big ship the explosion radius needs to be high currently Nova torps have a bit under 100 and it's not enough. To be sure that you down shields the torp would need some 400 meters.
I don't see any huge problems with that, something between sunslayer and nova doing shieldamage only would be nice. The damage you proposed seems a bit low as it equals to just a few shots from bomber EMP guns.
But some 50k shieldamge and energy use about half of Nova torp might work for me.
Not sure if they should be easily cd-able like normal torps or completely un-cd able like Novas. Maybe something in the middle (needs 2 Train Cds to explode).
Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.
The thing is that torpedoes like this are going to be used against battleships, which have no CDs. Probably most should be CD-able, to promote teamwork (having a fighter using a TCD to protect a battleship, maybe make an entirely new sort of CD for that.)
I'm not sure, I just see teamwork opportunities in things like this.
Battleships have flaks that are specifically designed to destroy or deflect torps. If they don't mount a single flak they still have CMs. But yes escort would certainly help even more, even the un-cd-able novas can be cded if you subtarget them.
Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.
A freelancer IFF that is true to the infocard for Freelancers. Aside from guard factions, which are automatically opposed to you, the Freelancer IFF should cause all other factions to be perfectly neutral.
edit: Either this, or a freelancer infocard that more accurately reflects the stance of various factions.
"Things will not calm down, Daniel Jackson. They will, in fact, calm up."
I would suggest a tick box in options or a console command for collision docking. That is, if I get within 0 meters of a give dockable object my ship will attempt to dock with it.
Space is big, if I'm within 0 meters, it probably means I did it on purpose.
====
These long drawn out scripted auto pilot maneuvers for docking and trade lane joining is just insane, and the auto pilot gets drunk occasionally it seems, just from up and try to go through a jump gate a few times you'll find out what the inside/back of a jump gate looks like.
The trains get stuck on the edges of trade lanes quite often and you end up having to park the thing in the middle yourself.
At least replace forward with thruster-forward during these animations.
I'm tired of my ship stopping a light year away and inching along at 80 to close the gap it needlessly created.
====
I'd love to see speed consideration trade offs or trader specific weapons/items.
Possible Examples:
Transport guns that don't do anything but disrupt weapons capability for x seconds. If my cruise can be disrupted I want to disrupt their weapon's array. That way I don't have to declare war on a whole society simply by defending myself.
System disruption missiles. Fast tracking missiles that freeze a ship. For balance or abuse avoidance Perhaps make them seriously costly and or render the ship invincible while it's paralyzed.
Flash bangs. Weapons that cause blindness and sensor errors.
Smoke bombs. Weapons that fills a given volume of space with opaque smoke.
Dye packs/spikes. Weapons that are carried in the cargo hold that when dropped cause the next them to tractor them in to take damage.
Counterfeits. Items that look like valuable cargo but are actually not. Like the false wallets some travelers carry that have a few dollars and expired id so they can cooperate with being mugged but don't actually lose anything.
Cruise disruption protection, like the armor upgrade it sucks up cargo space but makes CD harder to pull off.
Thruster/cruise speed bonus items that take up weapon slots.
Etc.
---
Notes:
With all this emphasis on role play it is silly to outlaw obvious solutions to what legitimate traders would call the pirate problem. A point defense system for missiles, automated countermeasures, top speed for power/armor trade offs, cargo masking, banks, these would be instant solutions that these people would really make.
Sure you can make fictional arguments against them since you get to invent the laws of physics, and we're talking about technologies in some cases that don't really exist.
But no banks, no insurance, no ship designs with redundant propulsion, no NPC hirable escorts?? Come on.
I've abandoned the main server in favor of the relaxed server simply because pirates ruin the game for me. Because they is no way to deal with them.
Pirates have a WAY unfair advantage. That advantage is the moderators and developers ensuring by design that piracy is viable when after a week of thought and assembly it wouldn't be. The trade lanes/gates for example could scan a ship for weapons and refuse transit until authorization is provided, yet they don't.
Even our airports make you take off your shoes before you climb aboard.
The pirates are immortal and they are protected from all systemic innovations that would harm their trade.
With that kind of protection you might as well change the name of the game to pirate space.
That's one reason your multiplayer is nearly vacant, and yes 200 people is vacant.
And I'm quite sure these will be ignored, but I like going on record. Everyone seems to confuse tedium for game play.
You clearly don't understand the limitations of the software we are playing here. Games have developed massively over the 7 years since Freelancer first game out.
All the things you suggest would take time and some of them may even be impossible using the freelancer engine.
As for 200 players being "vacant" I suggest you have a look at every other Freelancer server still running... we eclipse them all. We eclipse what Microsoft ever imagined would be achieved with the multiplayer of this game. Yes 200 people a night isn't a large proportion of a percent of the world's population, but it suffices for a game that's basically dead on it's feet as far as modern computer games goes. Add to that fact the the server operating program, the one that allows us to run a freelancer server rather than the OS, is not capable of hosting 200 people as standard, only by cracking it was anyone able to get past 128 and we were the first. Yes we could probably get someone to reverse engineer the program but that would a) breach copyright law and b) take forever. So unless you can buy the source code from microsoft it's not going to happen anytime soon.
Never forget that this mod is developed and administrated by volunteers, most of whom, have real lives to attend to. They cannot be expected to spend as much time as a professional games studio to implement ideas of that kind of scope and magnitude. Some yes, others no.
Saint Del is considered a holy healer of diseases of children, but also as a protector of cattle.
Not only what Del said, but we've come a long bloody way from vanilla FL in terms of multiplayer capability. We've boosted the maximum player cap far beyond what Digital Anvil designed the MP servers for. We've added slash commands. We've added administrative tools. We've added account switchers. We've taken a dinky little Microsoft game and created a massively expanded universe far beyond what we believed were the limits. But that doesn't mean we can do things the core engine wasn't designed to do.
I'm rambling. I'm tired. I think I've gotten my point across. Now, I wonder if it'll appear this coherent in the morning.
' Wrote:You clearly don't understand the limitations of the software we are playing here.
Am I to understand then that your response is that ALL of my suggestions are impossible from a software perspective? You know better.
' Wrote:All the things you suggest would take time
Woah really? I had no idea. I thought it would happen instantaneously just because I wanted it. But now that I know events have duration that really changes everything. /sarc
Don't be pedantic. Obviously implementation of changes takes time. The whole mod took time.
As I said at the bottom of my post I know they won't get done, and them taking "time" is just one possible reason.
Don't try the age old tactic of trying to paint me as personally as loathsome just because you're happy with the way things are.
The thread asked for suggestions, I gave some. And you will fail in your attempt to shame me into sharing your idea of fun.
' Wrote:As for 200 players being "vacant" I suggest you have a look at every other Freelancer server still running... we eclipse them all.
I see so because you're in the lead no improvement is possible or should be desired?
Well whoever started this thread seems to want suggestions for improvement. Obviously that's not you.
Again, I'm pleased as punch you're happy with the way things are but its human nature to always want something better. And I'm only human.
200 is chump change. I'm sorry you don't like that fact, but that's what it is. A fact. I don't care about the server limitations, if you had 1000 people knocking on the door someone would probably find a way, period. There are tons of games older than freelancer that have communities much larger than freelancer.
Don't get all defensive, its not like I said something bad about your mother, I'm just saying this game and this mod are unpopular in the grand scheme of things for good reasons. And one of those reasons is predation.
Clearly the mods/developers LOVE pirates. That's why there's no character death, no way to lose your ship. There is no real risk in being a pirate. And its ironic that the game has such a huge focus on role playing and yet pirates died repeatedly. Even in D&D you're supposed to scrap a character when they die.
It's more dangerous in game terms cursing and using autopilot than it is to be a fun ruining newb hunting parasite pirate. And don't quote me the lvl 29 rules, it needs to me like lvl 50 since that's about when trading becomes profitable enough to actually offset piracy cost. And that's why many people play this game for an hour at best and walk away. (When they aren't banned for trivialities by over zealous mods first of course.:cool: )
And don't talk to me about the plight of the poor over worked developer. No one is putting a gun to their head, or the mods head. Its a game and you play it or mod it because you want to. by letting their pet project out they open up for complaint and kudos, justified or not, asked for or not.
But again, suggestions Were asked for, and I gave mine. Sucks for you that you don't like what I have to say. But I liked saying it and I'm willing to bet at least one other human somewhere down the line will have enjoyed reading it and that's enough for me.
Hey, maybe you can dig for a trivial excuse to ban me from the forum too and delete this post, that's one sure way to make sure your opinion is the primary one.
I appreciate the effort that went into this mod but its not like I'm following the guy around demanding that he work for me for free, my input was requested.
I've put man years into my blog, that doesn't mean people don't have the right to call my life's work garbage, and many do and I don't censor them. And I'm not even saying this mod is garbage I'm just saying it could use revision, again, as asked.
No one is forcing him/her/them to read this or to listen.
You censorship fans baffle me, why censorship fans are almost always moderators however, does not.
Now please, leave me alone. Your reply is off topic and you're intentionally baiting me into a flame war.
' Wrote:Not only what Del said, but we've come a long bloody way from vanilla FL in terms of multiplayer capability. We've boosted the maximum player cap far beyond what Digital Anvil designed the MP servers for. We've added slash commands. We've added administrative tools. We've added account switchers. We've taken a dinky little Microsoft game and created a massively expanded universe far beyond what we believed were the limits. But that doesn't mean we can do things the core engine wasn't designed to do.
I'm rambling. I'm tired. I think I've gotten my point across. Now, I wonder if it'll appear this coherent in the morning.
Again, suggestions were asked for, I don't recall reading in the starter post where it said "By suggesting additional features or changes you here by annonce that you think all work prevously done is worthless and all developrs, mods, and contributors are worthless human beings."
Look, obviously I like the game, I'm playing it enough to find flaws in it aren't I? I'm taking the time to even answer aren't I?
I wish people would quit acting like I kicked their kid off his bike just because I don't think the discovery mod is the end all be all of gaming development.
Just because I want to see changes doesn't mean mean I don't appreciate the work that's been done so far.
This game is awesome, its like a poor man's eve online, and it has TONS of potential. I'd like to see the whole effort open sourced, and maybe ported to some open source space clone. Like how total annihilation turned into spring.
VERY few games/mods approach that level of coolness, and this is one of them.
But again, it has problems, and again my input was asked for! Sheesh.