Jump To Lightspeed Archive

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Fellstaff wrote:

A bulk freighter has no chance without escorts. And while you have all those customization options, your freighter isn't gonna be better than a stock Z95 in speed and maneuverability. You don't want a freighter, you want a frigate, and that isn't gonna happen.

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A. You're right that freighters are pointless if JtL doesn't include features to make hauling cargo worth doing. So all of us wishing for freighters are also wishing for a decent cargo -shipping game. The two have to go together.

B. Freighters don't have to be able to beat fighters -- all they have to do is be able to survive long enough to get away. That requires two things: 1) high speed, and 2) good defenses.

1. High speed certainly can be achievable by loaded freighters; their problem isn't speed, it's acceleration. In other words, they can't go fast from dead stop in a short amount of time, but if given enough time to build up speed, a freighter's top speed in space should be very good. Fighters, on the other hand, don't need a greattop speed -- it'stheir acceleration and turn rate which give fighters their high maneuverability. But a freighter isn't looking to manuever in a dogfight, it's just trying to escape to the nearest hyperspace jump point. If a freighter can survive long enough to accelerate to a good top speed, then it should have a chance to get away.

2. Similarly, a freighter should never be able to slug it out with apowerful fighter (or a group of averagefighters)... but they should have much better survivability than a fighter, especially at close range. This comes from two features: a) armor/shields, and b) defensive weaponry.

a. Freighters, with their greater mass and displacement (size), ought to have more armor and be able to mount much larger shield generators than the typical fighter. Taking down a freighter should be a matter of whittling downits powerfulshields (you did remember to load ion missiles, didn't you?), then peeling away its layers of armor. That should take time... during which the freighter captain will be desperately trying to decide whether to pump energy into his shield generators or his engines.

b. Freighters ought to have lousy long-range weaponry, but given their size they should be able to mountnumerous short-range point defense weapons.If the typical fightership is a wolf or tiger, then the typical freighter should be able to be a porcupine or hedgehog.

The point of all this, again, isn't that freighters should be able to match fighters on their own terms, but thatfreighters should havejust enoughcapabilityto have achance of making it into hyperspace before being boarded.

--Flatfingers

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NattyDreadlock wrote:

Am i the only one who wants a big, ugly freighter?

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nope im with you on that one there man...Personally i picture the movie Space Truckers type life....driving slow through space haulin stuff listen to some good old fashioned country music on my other computer of course to reduce the lag lol..

Signed,
Sa'tek Bane

Message Edited by NattyDreadlock on 08-18-2004 05:34 PM

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NattyDreadlock wrote:

Someone posted a great site of Star Wars ships...and its full of freighters. The Devs have no excuse for taking advantage of such good info to provide a reasonable fleet of player controlled freighters.

After looking at the sight, I see no reason why player controlledfreighters couldnt be up to 100m in length...mayeb even 125m.

Here is the site:

http://deckplans.00sf.com/

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Here's a very recent GameSpotquote from Cinco Barnes on the subject of how trading might work in JtL:

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As for the impact [of Jump to Lightspeed]on the economy, that's a matter of pure speculation...for the moment. One thought is that this will really open trade, making it much more efficient for people to travel to far reaches to find, trade, and buy rare resources and items. Another plausible addition resulting from Jump to Lightspeed could be intergalactic taxi and tourism services. Players are extremely opportunistic, and they've often found ways to make money and develop the economy that we never expected. Once folks start playing the beta, we'll know things (lots of them) for sure.

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(See the fullGameSpot interview.)

So what do we think about these comments?

I agree that players can be opportunistic about finding ways to do interesting things (i.e., things the developers never intended) with the game rules. But most of those wind up being negative things (such as exploits) that are immediately corrected as "bugs."

I'm not so sure players will successfully operate as traders in JtL as it has so far been described. The fact that there's no game code preventing some action doesn't mean players will choose to engage in that action.

Domanyof uswrite books or newspapers in SWGwhich we can then distribute to other players? No. Why not? Because there's no in-game mechanism to support that.

Domany of usloan large sums of money like a bank, or make complex business deals? No. Why not? Because there's no in-game mechanism to support that.

Domany of usplay card games in SWG? No. Why not? Because there's no in-game mechanism to support that.

All of these things can be done in SWG as currently implemented. But just because players can do some thing doesn't mean they will do that thing... and in fact, most of the time they don't, because the game offers no secure or simple way to do it. We'd do it if it was a feature that was obviously supported by the game code... but why risk doing something that could be nerfed tomorrow as an exploit, just because the game code doesn't make it impossible today?

This being the case, I'm justnot easily persuaded that we'll be able to establish viable and fun trading empires in JtL just because there's no game rules preventing that activity. I think we need specific in-game mechanisms codedto support those activities before players will risk their time and credits doing them.

I could be wrong, of course.

--Flatfingers