Cities And Housing Archive
Thread: Starports for Metropolis
Surely you cant allow little things like that to stop discussion on the issue of player city ship terminals. Rather, I prefer to think of it as an ongoing challenge to plausible creativity. What happens when you put items in the bank of a player city and the mayor removes the bank and/or the city gets destroyed? The items are still accessable through the planetary banking system. No cause for concern on that matter. What about when you log out whilst still in space? Dont you log back in at your launch point? Clearly there are already safeguards in place that we really do not even need to let it slow down our wishful thinking even in the slightest.
I dont see any issues with banned players either, considering how many different fixes have gone in regarding banned players being able to travel to a city, they must have figured out how to do a quick check before validating the authorization by now.
When it comes to the last point however, one must pause for a moment to review the facts.
1. Most pilots are not going to take the time to land at a city just for the opportunity to bypass one more stop on their way out. It will mostly be used as a landing point after missions and thats it.
2. Having an NPC city vs a player city serve as a jump point to a different location doesn't make them useful, its just there as a waypoint on a further journey.
3. If the developers really wanted to encourage NPC cities they wouldn't have mission difficulty capped on every single NPC city on the "starter" worlds. This issue absolutely FORCES people to flee these cities at the earliest opportunity, usually in favor of a player city. I understand they dont want high level creatures piling up around zones for the new people, but capping them all is amistake, perhaps what they could do instead is to cap one city per planet as newb and let the rest of the cities progress up the difficulty. So that say, you could get up to cl15 missions from mos eisley but you had to go to mos espa to get cl30 missions, and so on.
AvArmor wrote:
Thats what i would love to see, atm there isn't much reward for having a huge city, other then making them Research centers etc.
So why not allow large citys to place there own Starport, alot of ppl i have talked to think its a good idea, not to mention the advantage this would offer to ppl with vendors in such a city.
Any1 else like the idea?
Yeah buddy. I'm all for it!!!! Check out the Starship Terminals for the Imperial Themepark on Naboo or the Abandoned Rebel Base on Dantooine as a model for them. I wouldn't have a problem having the City Starship Terminals work the same way, i.e. you have to be in Space to choose to land at one.
Perhaps cap the Starport Terminal count for planets at 6 or 8, including NPC ports, that way planets like tatooine and corellia wouldn't end up with 15 or 20starports and Lok could have more then 1 place to land finally...
And there wouldn't really need to be 'room' to put these, just have a Terminal and place it in a merchant tent, city hall, or the bank.
Set a backup code so if someone is banned, or the Starship Terminal poofs, any ships stored at that terminal are automatically moved to the closest NPC Starport. If you're banned before you land, you'd just be refused landing priviledges.
People who don't want to fly in space would still use the NPC starports. I don't think this will "kill NPC starport cities". At least not any deader then Keren is already!
Message Edited by Rodian-Bob on 07-07-200506:06 PM
Message Edited by Rodian-Bob on 07-07-2005 06:06 PM
-Bob is Robii D'Luminatii
Balrozgul wrote:
Surely you cant allow little things like that to stop discussion on the issue of player city ship terminals. Rather, I prefer to think of it as an ongoing challenge to plausible creativity. What happens when you put items in the bank of a player city and the mayor removes the bank and/or the city gets destroyed? The items are still accessable through the planetary banking system. No cause for concern on that matter. What about when you log out whilst still in space? Dont you log back in at your launch point? Clearly there are already safeguards in place that we really do not even need to let it slow down our wishful thinking even in the slightest.
I dont see any issues with banned players either, considering how many different fixes have gone in regarding banned players being able to travel to a city, they must have figured out how to do a quick check before validating the authorization by now.
That's a pretty horrible analogy since the banking system is global and has been since it was put in the game before launch meanwhile the starship system is not. A more aptanalogy would be comparing it to the bazaar system. Nowif I where buy something placed in Coronet from a bazaar terminal that is in Theed does this mean that I can land at Tyrena and pick it up? No. The item is tied to the location, just as a ship is tied to it's landing location. It wouldresult inthe same as a designoversight in Mos Espa months back where they forgot to add in starship terminals. People who flew into the starport could not access their ship because they had no terminal there and no other terminal would work. You lose the starship terminal, you lose the ship.
As per logging off in space and waking up in a starport, well wht does that have to do with ship location availability? The fact that your last port of call is saved and used means that your ship will automatically transfer from terminal to terminal when a PC one gets destroyed?
And finally, they've broken the /ban preventig shuttles in 3 times now so I doubt a 'quick fix' exists and giving one more avenue to be broken just compounds the issue via murphy's law.
When it comes to the last point however, one must pause for a moment to review the facts.
1. Most pilots are not going to take the time to land at a city just for the opportunity to bypass one more stop on their way out. It will mostly be used as a landing point after missions and thats it.
What makes you say that? When I travel around I tend to use the least laggy starport or one closest to my destination simply out of convenience. It would be used as both a bypass to the lag of Coronet as well as the home of citizens.
2. Having an NPC city vs a player city serve as a jump point to a different location doesn't make them useful, its just there as a waypoint on a further journey.
And one that serves as a nexus for players and bottlenecks travel routes to the help of merchants, recruiters, and PvP'ers. Fights to get off of Lok are some of the hardest in the game because of there being only 1 starport. They do serve as a purpose as gateways and popping 10 more per planet just further alienates the playerbase from each other.
3. If the developers really wanted to encourage NPC cities they wouldn't have mission difficulty capped on every single NPC city on the "starter" worlds. This issue absolutely FORCES people to flee these cities at the earliest opportunity, usually in favor of a player city. I understand they dont want high level creatures piling up around zones for the new people, but capping them all is amistake, perhaps what they could do instead is to cap one city per planet as newb and let the rest of the cities progress up the difficulty. So that say, you could get up to cl15 missions from mos eisley but you had to go to mos espa to get cl30 missions, and so on.
They're doing a lot to NPC cities eventually. At the least a facelift at most something they haven't said but the diversification of roles between PC and NPC cities should result from this and the eventual politician revamp.
Balrozgul wrote:
It wouldresult inthe same as a designoversight in Mos Espa months back where they forgot to add in starship terminals. People who flew into the starport could not access their ship because they had no terminal there and no other terminal would work. You lose the starship terminal, you lose the ship.
I doubt they would ever allow such a thing to come to pass. I use the banking system as an analogy because Im saying that its possible to implement a recovery system of some sort, not saying that one actually exists right now because well its pretty obivous there there isn't any need for it is there?
Not necessarily because the systems are very different. It is possible, I suppose, since you can code anything. However the amount of time and effort it would take could easily be better spent rather than giving a fallback solution to curb griefing for a system that isn't even necessary. I don't see why starports should be given to Player Cities beyond an 'I want them' temper tantrum attitude.
What makes you say that? When I travel around I tend to use the least laggy starport or one closest to my destination simply out of convenience. It would be used as both a bypass to the lag of Coronet as well as the home of citizens.
So you're going to launch into space, fly to your starport and land in your city just for the convienience of bypassing coronet? How is bypassing coronet from a player city any more different than bypassing it from JTL in general? Ive never had any real lag issues there, but ever since JTL launched I have been thankful to avoid the stench of the rebel scum who populate that place.
No, I'm going to go to my starship terminal click on travel then land in another player city starship terminal. I just traveled the galaxy almost instantlywithout having to interact with anyone in the slightest thanks to PC's being false ghost towns. (ie no reason to mull about the streets and be visible/talky) This is the same problem that occured when they made insta-shuttles. When you had to sit around and wait you could actually talk to people and make friends, now if you don't have friends online already you have to go out and actively recruit instead of passively meet.
And one that serves as a nexus for players and bottlenecks travel routes to the help of merchants, recruiters, and PvP'ers. Fights to get off of Lok are some of the hardest in the game because of there being only 1 starport. They do serve as a purpose as gateways and popping 10 more per planet just further alienates the playerbase from each other.
Wow.... things must be a lot different on your server... Mine can boast maybe 10 metropolis' total.... well maybe 15, but certainly not 10 per planet. (Isn't that breaking the cap on 4/5 cities?) Sorry but I can't agree with you here. The only ports of call of interest in this equation are the starting and ending points. Say as an example I have my ships parked in the imperial outpost on dantooine and my player city is there as well. I use the shuttle to travel to IO and then I use my ship to fly wherever I want to go. The fact that I spent 60 seconds in IO doesnt then make it important. You go TO a location because that location itself is important to you for pvp, shopping, recruitment, etc.
Actually that is the cap for the 'main worlds' with 10 being able to hit rank 4 or 5; the 'adventure' worlds are even higher. Right now all the main worlds on bloodfin have the 10 shuttle ranks capped and it wouldn't be hard to hit metropolis for all of themif given a reason. As it stands metropolis just means you pay more in taxes and get 10 extra decorations. If it meant getting a starport people would try and make it. I don't know how the 'adventure' worlds are making out since I avoid Dantooine like the plague and don't pay much attention on Lok or others.
The 60 seconds you spent on world is time to meet and greet other players and get spammed out of your mind. Merchants do make more money thanks to having a spambot/macro going so removing their ability to do this essentially shrinks their profits and marketability. It also makes it hard to find anyone. You said it yourself that unused NPC cities are ghost towns. Well if PC cities get ports then even the major worlds will likely shrink in their currently meager collection of people making it even harder for new players to meet people and get involved in the community.
They're doing a lot to NPC cities eventually. At the least a facelift at most something they haven't said but the diversification of roles between PC and NPC cities should result from this and the eventual politician revamp.
I wouldn't put much stock into a politician revamp, but whatever they are going to do to the NPC cities they should do quick. Walking into ANY of the secondary cities on the big three is like walking into a ghost town these days. The removal of the artificial mission caps will go a long ways towards fixing that issue. As to a diversification of roles, thats fine, provided that the NPC roles are not then more important than the player city roles. Why should I, as the mayor of a populous metropolis, have to play second fiddle to a motley assortment of buildings that can barely call itself an "outpost?"
It'll happen just takes time. I'm not expecting it tomorrow or even next year but it will occur. And those 'outposts' generally only exist on worlds that are supposed to be devoid of much intelligent life. Be glad that they decided to throw continuity out the window and allow metropoli to exist on Dantooine where none should rather than call the small NPC cities there pathetic for being somewhat accurate.