Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Declaring overt
Here's my .02 credits that probably won't get seen.
Create a new type of faction perk item. A "declaration tag" or some such. Make it only available to those of high enough rank, but not TOO costly in terms of faction points. Something that they could buy 5 or 10 of and carry around with them (probably non-stackable so that people don't carry 200 at a time). These high-ranking Imperials or Rebels could then use them to declare someone else overt. The players would need to be grouped, and then the declarer would use the "declaration tag" on the declaree, and the declaree would then be overt.
This would allow for things like "stealth raids" where one or two people could stock up on tags, and then a group or two could sneak up on a base, declare as quickly as they could, and storm the base.
If you want, you could even put some sort of timer on it so that a person who's been declared overt in this manner can't be declared overt like this again in 5 minutes or so. To keep down on people doing lots of suicide runs.
Anyway, sorry if this has already been suggested. If it has...then I second it. Or 27th it. heh
This is a start, but I like the idea of a High Ranking Overt member of a faction being able to handle the /declareovert command as well. Yes this would allow ambushes, this is a good thing! ambushes are part of war.
Adding in one more change would make battles more fun and more limited at the same time. Make it so you can only go from covert toovert status once every 30 minutes or so. This includes the forced covert status at cloning. So if you get killed you are out of the fight for 30 minutes. This will put and end to the clone wars we have now. No more cloning, running to the recuiter and rejoining the battle (at not for 30 minutes).
This combination would allow for larger forces to engage, but once one side has won that battle is pretty much over.
I would also like to see more NPC's that can allow you to change your status OUTSIDE the cities. Make them resonably stationary, so you know where to find them again. This would allow for more battles where everyone travels to the city covert (to avoid being ganked during loading) and then meets up OUTSIDE the city to declare. Then the army can assult the city in a much more roleplaying and tactical way.
On a side note, I would like to see a lot more NPC faction members roaming the cities. The Imperial strongholds like Theed and Bestine should have a strong Imperial presence. And the Rebel strongholds like Cornet should have a strong Rebel presence. There should have checkpoints setup at places in the city where they are checking papers. Any covert player going thru the checkpoint would have a small (say 10%) chance of being detected. If detected you are forced to Overt status and attacked by the NPC's. This would add a real sense of danger when you travelled thru a enemy held city as a covert. The "You papers are not in order! Arrest this Man (Woman)!" Now you have to run for your life or battle it out. Your desicion would have to be, "Do I go all the way around the checkpoint to get where I am going, or do I risk my papers holding up?"
I would also like to see cloning centers at the large Imperial and Rebel bases, both NPC and PC. This would tend to move the fighting out of the towns and more toward the bases.
Lets take a look at how the real world works for a second.
Our Marines are staioned in Bagdad. They are in uniform with guns at the ready. Neutrals are all over the place and the Marines do not fire on them. Suddenly a "neutal" pulls out his AK47 , Marines are free to open fire, and the "neutral" can firetoo.
Taking a look at the movies, no one walked around with a blaster in hand and didn't get shot at.
So Covert players, ifthey are in city limits with a gun in your hand you become Overt, but at any time you can put your gun away and become covert (can't be done if you are someones target already) . This would have to be only in city's , one would'nt walk around in the Tatione desert with out a blaster ready.IMHO, this would add to the RP aspect of the game also... how many times have you gone into a cantina to see a female dancing with a Laser Rifle equip'd ?
For example , 5 Imps are standing around the starport, guns equiped and therefore Overt.5 Covert rebs walk into town and dont unequip there weapons. Imps can open fire on site and vice versa. Or perhaps a covert rebel standing near the Imps decides to pull his gun out and (going overt) attack one of the five Imps, all five imps can, and would attack making this a unwiswe choice for the Rebel .
In summary : If you choose to play covert and are in city/town/outpost limits with a gun in your hands (equip'd) you are no longer covert and have an enemy flag, free to fire and take fire. Once you are targeted you can not remove the enemy flag by unequiping your guns, you must flee the city or fight.
If you are outside of city limits , you are just anotherhunter to the eyes of Overt enemys and have no enemy flag.
Overt players are able to target any enemy in town that has a gun in his hands ,Overt or not.
You want to be safe in Bestine, Anchorhead , or Cornet for that matter? Don't carry a gun in your hands.
Larathorn wrote:
My opinion, make it so you can declare Overt anywhere, anytime. To become Covert you have to go back to the recruiter and wait an hour. There is no reason that I should have to be within 50m to put on my uniform or flash my military ID and fight for my ideals.
Holocron wrote:
That would let you move in armies of safe people to the location of a fight, and have them all go overt at once and ambush...
I'm guessing the problem here is more that the ambushes would be neverending, not that they would occur in the first place. An ambush every now and then might be entertaining. I would like to suggest adding single use identity papers as a way to moderate the frequency and scale of such ambushes.
If you make a faction perk: "Identity Papers", with some FP cost to go overt and three to five times that amount to go covert again, it could be used to free players from the recruiter for declaring overt/covert without immediately leading to neverending ambushes. Furthermore, I think it would be more realistic if this perk could be traded, but could only be purchased initially by Smugglers for the Rebels and by Squad Leaders for the Imperials. That would reflect the different methodologies of the Rebellion and the Empire, with the Smuggler forging papers and making contacts and the Squad Leader simply requisitioning a new identity be constructed for the operative. By limiting the original purchase of this perk to these two classes, you limit the scale of any ambush without putting a lot of work into getting papers for everyone.
Identity Papers - Select this in inventory, and "Use" to go Overt. Examining the papers tells you they are used to go overt. Using the papers destroys them.
Fake Identification - Select this in inventory and "Use" to go Covert. Examining the papers tells you they are used to go covert. This should not work if the player is in combat or has a TEF. You should be forced to be out of the way and "laying low" when you switch to covert.
Special Ops Dossier - Select this in inventory and a radial appears with "Go overt" and "Go covert". This is just a combined version of the previous two. It should have one use for going overt and one use for going covert, after which it is destroyed.
This isn't as open as simply declaring anywhere, but I would think it would add variation and some freedom as well as giving smugglers something vaguely smugglesome to do, and giving squad leaders a little bit of special unit ability.
Hedron Baht - Master Artisan/Master Shuttle Passenger
I do not know if this has been posted on this thread yet. I did not feel like reading thru the 9 pages to find out. lol
I feel that a Covert member of a Faction should be able to attack an Overt member of a Faction at any time. You should not have to go to a recruiter and declare or get a TEF from group or healing an Overt. Once that Covert member attacks an Overt member of an opposing Faction then he has a TEF and can be attacked by any Overts or Coverts of the opposing faction.
This would be more realistic and make Raids and PVP alot more fun.
If you are Overt you should be a target. But the Covert person who is going to attack an Overt will have to decide if he wants to take the chance that there may be several of the Overts buddies or Faction members around him when he attacks. That fear would keep the TEF sneak attacks down also. It is pretty stupid that you have to sit there and watch one guy blasting your friends and fellow faction members and you do not have the ability to help them with out declaring or getting a TEF. Also Raids should be more covert. Not Declaring and running to the town where if they heard you were coming and have thier radar set to max they see you coming literaly a mile away.
Lets add a little stealth and fun into PVP and not just comakazi (?) runs into cities. Which if the groups are large on both sides the lag kills you before the opposing Faction does.
You just earned yourself a gold star for this one, Holo. This one is an absolute gem. Roll with it! 
I would add one slight alteration. How about 70-80 meters from a recruiter? 50 meters is still within shooting distance which allows camping as a possibility.
Lets take a look at how the real world works for a second.
Our Marines are staioned in Bagdad. They are in uniform with guns at the ready. Neutrals are all over the place and the Marines do not fire on them. Suddenly a "neutal" pulls out his AK47 , Marines are free to open fire, and the "neutral" can firetoo.
Taking a look at the movies, no one walked around with a blaster in hand and didn't get shot at.
So Covert players, ifthey are in city limits with a gun in your hand you become Overt, but at any time you can put your gun away and become covert (can't be done if you are someones target already) . This would have to be only in city's , one would'nt walk around in the Tatione desert with out a blaster ready.IMHO, this would add to the RP aspect of the game also... how many times have you gone into a cantina to see a female dancing with a Laser Rifle equip'd ?
For example , 5 Imps are standing around the starport, guns equiped and therefore Overt.5 Covert rebs walk into town and dont unequip there weapons. Imps can open fire on site and vice versa. Or perhaps a covert rebel standing near the Imps decides to pull his gun out and (going overt) attack one of the five Imps, all five imps can, and would attack making this a unwiswe choice for the Rebel .
In summary : If you choose to play covert and are in city/town/outpost limits with a gun in your hands (equip'd) you are no longer covert and have an enemy flag, free to fire and take fire. Once you are targeted you can not remove the enemy flag by unequiping your guns, you must flee the city or fight.
If you are outside of city limits , you are just anotherhunter to the eyes of Overt enemys and have no enemy flag.
Overt players are able to target any enemy in town that has a gun in his hands ,Overt or not.
You want to be safe in Bestine, Anchorhead , or Cornet for that matter? Don't carry a gun in your hands.
-Raph Koster,
As opposed to 200 people being within 50 meters of a recruiter or HQ, and all typing /overt at once.
/boggle.
Raph I dont know if you understand this or not. But being able to immediately go overt again after dying is the biggest problem. There should be a massive restriction on how long it takes for you to be able to go overt again after a battle once you die.
This will:
1) Actually allow players who are winning a battle to effectively take over a territory. Hey even if it is by sheer numbers who cares? This is how PvP works nowadays basically. Sheer numbers win.
2) It will once and for all eliminate the "no loss" for pvp rule. Now your loss is time and maybe a territory.
3) It will allow for certain territories to be held longer than others and maybe actually establish rebel/imp territory.
You cannot just change one thing to make pvp better, enhanced time restrictions maybe as much 30-45 minutes before you can re-declare ("hey guys the imps have a huge army sitting in bestine now, lets try and get them out). More factions points per kill to make up for the time wait in between people being able to declare now.
Just 2 suggestions that would definetely make pvp more interesting.
Holocron wrote:
We're considering adding a command that lets you /declareOvert if you are within 50m of a recruiter or within an HQ.
Reason: spawn camping in the HQ battles is rather annoying.
Alternate solutions? Loopholes with the proposed solution?
Wonderful Idea.
Would we be allowed to declare /covert as well?
Bah first one did not go i'll do it again
If you declare overt you should always be overt. If you die, set a 10 minute timer where you are covert and once its up you turn overt automatically. You should not have to visit the recruiter every time you die.
First, Get rid of revenge TEF period. Its stupid for a dead person to come back to life and shoot someone and then get killed all over again. Whats up with pet camping? Using pets in PvP, if u clone, and theyre still alive, u are automatically TEF'd when u come back to life. This is clone camping. Get rid of the TEFs.
New Rules:
1. Factional Coverts maydeclare OVERT (not TEF'd) at anytime and anywhere, but ONLY when they do one of the following:
a. Converse witha factional recruiter to declare overt
b. Converse with any Overt Officer (both PCs and NPCs alike)to delcare overt status. In the case of PC to PC declaration, the declared Overt Officer must hold the rank of lieutenant or higher, and must be of higher rank than the covert requesting overt status. The covert will then "request" overt status through use of the "Request Overt" option on thereticule which will then bring up a yes or no questionaire box as in being invited into a group, the overt will then grant overt status or deny overt status to the requesting covert faction member.
c. At any time, a covert may target an overt member of the same faction who is in combat and usethe assist keywhich will then automatically declare the covert an overt and will begin fighting the overt's enemy(s). After the fight is over, the covert member will retain their overt statusand until he or she finds a recruiter to become covert once again. They must then wait an hour before they are once again covert.
2. Upon dying, an overt must wait 10 minutes before being able to declare overt once again. This gives the opposing faction as well as the cloned player time to board a ship and regroup at another location.
-----------Problems solved, everyone is happy-----------