I wouldn't mind seeing them get deleted. Less systems means more people in regular systems contributing to cause & effect. Cause is = activity with the effect = more activity, generated by pirates pirating traders. Police policing. Etc.
The problem is, that you can't just delete them. All the sysstem/station/planet files will remain.
My suggestion would be to move all the stations/planets/structures from guard systems into non-guard systems, and use the superfluous systems as planet atmospheres. Or just turn them into relicts like Omicron-82.
Result: Less systems, more interactions, more things to discover, space feels more filled.
There have to be enough bases equal to the number of faction ships divided by 3, as I've read that Freelancer can't handle more than 3 ships on a base properly. Part of the reason why even the unique ships are spread across 3 admin bases. Even then, there are faction ships that can only be bought outside the guard system.
Aside from that, yeah, there seem to be quite a few that offer little - maybe a few different commodities and equipment. I'm sure a fair bit of work went into the models and infocards, but I'd be curious to hear other reasons why.
Not necessarily my opinion, but to play the devil's advocate - if they were removed, wouldn't there be complaints that it's too time-consuming or dangerous to set up a new ships flying through potentially hostile territory? By forcing restarts in areas full of enemy players, NPCs, and bases, wouldn't most players just fly silently in a Stargazer under level 30 to the base with the ship they want to buy, avoiding any interaction or combat? The guard systems allow a player to set up immediately and jump into the action upon exiting. Restarting in a guard system also lets a new, uniformed player without FLCompanion or the wiki immediately know the location of the system to buy their faction's ships later on.
I see what you mean, but doesn't that rely on having obvious faction tags/naming conventions and metagaming (yes, I know it's a reality)? It's difficult to know who's what, short of camping the base for fresh, untouchable Stargazers under level 30 and checking their IDs - especially if there are multiple restarts for different factions in the same system. I'm not sure it's an ideal way to bring players together for interaction, though I do agree there needs to be more reasons for people to converge in certain spots to interact - especially beyond core house systems.
If I'd be a newbie, using a restart and finding myself in a completely empty guard system, I wouldn't be as motivated to continue playing, as if I would spawn in an active system (where the restart base might be a bit upper plane/hidden in an asteroid field).
Also, any restart base would sell at least 3 ships, which should be enough for a newbie to chose from. Experienced players who do restarts in order to buy caps from a more far off shipyard, they'll either have to buy themselves a cheap fighter first, or use the 425 m/s fast restart ship to reach their destination.
I find the point, that guard systems are a more newbie-friendly starting place stupid.
(05-26-2014, 10:04 AM)Narcotic Wrote: The problem is, that you can't just delete them. All the sysstem/station/planet files will remain.
My suggestion would be to move all the stations/planets/structures from guard systems into non-guard systems, and use the superfluous systems as planet atmospheres. Or just turn them into relicts like Omicron-82.
Result: Less systems, more interactions, more things to discover, space feels more filled.
I remember going through this before. Even if they didn't add anything to Disco as you put it. Any of the admins whom are willing can spend a period of time keeping an eye on this ingame (because they got the tools to do it) and I bet will conclude that they don't take anything away from the game either. Conn does, however......
and yeah I'll say it, if ever Gallia is decided to be retconned then it too has taken from the game for years. =P
Posts: 3,416
Threads: 106
Joined: May 2012
Staff roles: Balance Dev
(05-26-2014, 10:04 AM)Narcotic Wrote: Result: Less systems, more interactions, more things to discover, space feels more filled.
Except not really. Just because the systems are repurposed to be "pretend atmospheres" doesn't mean they're not systems anymore. They're still contributing to the (huge) number of total systems.
The other option is coding a little program that lets us delete systems by automatically removing/altering any references to deleted systems in the server's database(s). It can be done. It's just nobody can be arsed to, it seems.
![[Image: rTrJole.png]](https://i.imgur.com/rTrJole.png)
![[Image: LJ88XSk.png]](https://i.imgur.com/LJ88XSk.png)
![[Image: ka0AQa5.png]](https://i.imgur.com/ka0AQa5.png)
![[Image: QwWqCS8.png]](https://i.imgur.com/QwWqCS8.png)
![[Image: Signaturev_zps8f090a17.png]](http://i1124.photobucket.com/albums/l573/TheSynergys/Discovery/Reavers/Signatures/Signaturev_zps8f090a17.png)
![[Image: Narcotic.gif]](http://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/Narcotic.gif)
![[Image: GMG_banner.png]](http://i319.photobucket.com/albums/mm447/ProwlerPC/GMG%20RP/GMG_banner.png)
![[Image: cdSeFev.png]](http://i.imgur.com/cdSeFev.png)