before you reply, please read the first post. You, of course, are entitled to an opinion. But what sense would it make if you would simply ignore the first post and slate the idea, without considering its advantages and disadvantages? Take your time to think about it. There is no rush. Of course, additional ideas and / or amendments are welcome. I hope this will result in a serious discussion about a serious issue, which almost everyone seems to be complaining about, yet nobody seems to be doing anything about it. We thank you, in advance, for your opinions, ideas and constructive input.
What will we be (hopefully) discussing here? We will be discussing the following factions:
Blood Dragons
Bounty Hunters Guild
Bretonia Armed Forces
Colonial Remnant / Independent Miners Guild
Corsairs
Council of Gallia
Gallic Royal Navy
Kusari Naval Forces
Lane Hackers
Liberty Navy
Order
Outcasts
Rheinland Military
Zoners
Now – what do these have in common? Spam. Some of them more, some of them less. When someone - anyone - wants that big, big ship of their dreams, they just head to the base of any of these factions, do approximately 45 missions (or less - depending on the /restart option and bribes they used) and ‘Presto!’ – feel free to buy your own doomsday machine. Everyone is happy. Or are they? This is where the ‘fun’ part starts. A pack of Makos in Gamma, HMS in Kyushu, Legates in Chugoku, IKN in Edinburgh. Somewhere between them, Order and Zoner capitals roam around whole Sirius like it’s their strolling park and fleet engagements between LNS and MNS tagged ships occur. Yes, it can be fun to shoot each other. But there is the issue of context in which it is done. And yes, we realize there are players, who actually stick with common sense when deciding where to go and not to go with their ships. No need to remind us of that.
We feel something needs to be done about this, and this is our proposal to possibly resolve the problem. As stated in the first paragraph, we want to know what you – the community member – think of this and in case you have suggestions or ideas, feel free to let us know in this thread.
The actual proposal itself:
Since you all love real life comparisons – would you give your 7 year old son your car keys? Okay maybe not – GIVE – but let them in the car door for him to see. Neither of us would, and we feel that the current system for getting a capital ship is similar. The system can do a LOT of damage to the role-play environment we all love so much. Everyone driving needs a driver’s license. They need to pass an application process – this is similar to the process we are proposing. To simplify, we will explain how the system would work in a few steps.
Step 1 – Player posts an application. An SRP of sorts. It is posted on an invisible section of the forums.
Step 2 – Administrators issue a number to the application (example: application # 00263), for purposes of anonymity – to prevent bias in voting
Step 3 – The application is posted on a separate forum for faction leaders (under the application number – no player names). Why faction leaders? They should be capable of separating the good and bad ones, while still not investing too much of their time into the game. We propose it this way to not encumber admins with more paperwork. They have enough already.
Step 4 – After a few faction leaders (let’s say 7, for now) give the application a thumbs up, it is approved by them. There is no need for all of them to vote, since it only slows the process. A certain amount of faction leaders (in this example – 7 of them) should be enough to separate the good and bad ones from passing.
Step 5 – The Admin team beams the player’s ship to a base where capital ships are sold, where the player can buy his ship.
Step 6 – Player buys his or her ship, undocks, and moves it wherever needed.
Preliminary steps will have to be done to ensure this system works. These include:
STEP 1 – Deleting capital ships from player-dockable bases and moving them all to one station (preferably an Admin IFF station).
STEP 2 – A new forum section is made for applications. This forum section is invisible, for purposes of anonymity.
STEP 3 – A new forum is made for the faction leaders to vote on applications.
Again, we – the Conspirators Society – trust in good manners of this community and their supportive ideas and / or criticism. In case anything is unclear, ask away. We would reply in the FAQ post.
Q: Did a capital ship ruin your day and this is the way you want to achieve revenge?
A: No - we did not make a forum account just for the purpose of taking a ship away from anyone. This thread is a result of long-term observations and a proposal to a possible improvement of the roleplay on the server.
Q: Is this aimed at reducing capspam?
A: In a way, yes. We would like to get rid of various so-called 'lolwutting' ships. The players capable of actual roleplay would not be touched by it - after they do their application properly, and show they are capable of roleplaying a flagship.
Q: How does it improve roleplay that you put in place more restrictions and more load work onto admins?
A: This precise system is designed with Administrators' time in mind, and would probably reduce the time they need to deal with sanction reports. Let's face it, big ships get sanctioned more for a simple reason - it's easier to see them, thus noticing their flaws.
Q: Now you do realize that this would greatly reduce the amount of player in already empty systems?
A: Not necessarily. After passing the application, the player is free to continue / start his roleplay wherever he wants.
Q: Karlotta?
A: No. We are not Karlotta. We are a GROUP of 'veteran' players with a suggestion to improve the RP environment.
ad: The group doesn't include Karlotta.
Q: I don't foresee much change if no caps disappear. (No complaints here though.) I thought you're trying to make them more rare to see?
A: We would like the RP environment of the server to gradually improve by this proposal. We understand it is not something that will happen in a day.
Q: Could this lead to faction leaders denying valid requests in order to keep steady number of capships in certain factions?
A: The faction leaders have no way of knowing how many number of ships there is - No. We want qualitative improvements, not quantitative reduction.
Q: Who are you?
A: Since post counts and join dates obviously matter, when it comes to merit of an idea - together we have more than 3000 posts on this forum, and our 'oldest' member dates back to 2008.
Neither can one fly a Togo or a Spyglass freely. They would get slapped. The current system allows anyone to buy the ships - however long can they keep it in secret, is up to them.
to Pingu?! below - We guess that needs further discussion on the issue.
So you saying we now should strip all players of their capital ships? Thought how many people spend their lives trading for them? Now I do have 6 battleships of my own. Losing them - ill be finding myself another place to play since I spent great amount of hours mining / trading / repping to get them.
Now if cap ruined your day, too bad. But punishing all? Get over it.
by editing to what you put into FAQ - how does it improve roleplay that you put in place more restrictions and more load work onto admins? Now you do realize that this would greatly reduce the amount of player in already empty systems?
' Wrote:But taking caps from players that already own them, could be a problem. Whining & QQing.
That is one of many problems I can see with this idea. It's a good idea in theory, but as to whether it would work in practice, my vote would be probably not. You see, Not only is it a -lot- of work for the faction leaders, who no doubt have enough on their plate with regards to real life and this game, but it's also a huge change that many people would not be happy with. Yes, your extending the time it takes to get a capital ship, but are you really stopping the people your trying to stop from getting the ship? There's that inevitable line of "If they want it, they will eventually get it". It would also most likely come down to Igiss, after all, such a major change would require his approval as it is his mod.
Just a couple of thoughts to mix in here.
EDIT: After reading the FAQ, many players would be touched by this, it means they now have to spend time trying to get back a ship that they had, then had taken away and have it all left up to a few people saying yah or nay. The game is here to be enjoyed, not to be a burden, there is a fine balance between the two.
TCS: You're missing a few steps in your plan. Provided that the admins would even want this kind of overhead:
- Delete all existing caps.
That said, making operating capital vessels a lot more expensive could help too. Right now, you buy em, and if they boom, you lose about 1M in bots/bats you have to re-buy. Applying a death penalty of about 5% of the ship value would discourage lolcapping - Every time a battleship dies, it'd be a good 6-20M down the tube (as opposed to less then 1M for a well-equipped bomber). Not sure if it can be done though.
[Edit] @Bear above: As one of the current IMG faction leads, anything to get rid of these ridiculous dreadspams (be they in Liberty, Tau, Gamma, Alpha or bloody Omicron Lost) is something I'm willing to put some effort in. Not that the IMG/Colonial caps are popular - weakest battleship and battlecruiser, statwise.
[Edit2] @Reptile: Propose another solution then. What can be done to keep these battleships from being a royal pain in the neck to players who are constantly harassed by their presence - typically outside of their home territory. Making leaving their ZOI sanctionable would be one thought but that'd put the overhead on the admins.
Wide awake in a world that sleeps, enduring thoughts, enduring scenes. The knowledge of what is yet to come.
From a time when all seems lost, from a dead man to a world, without restraint, unafraid and free.
Mostly retired Discovery member. May still visit from time to time.
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