Pilot Archive

Haha, I like your thinking

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Fuss wrote:

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JanuHull wrote:

POBs should stop being thought of as starfighters. They're not. The fix for POB ships is going to be more than just a few upgrades to components. Right now, we need an Elder game that's even remotely at theirappropriate level of power. The ISD, Freedom Station, the Corellian Corvettes, the Gunboats, and probably all Tier 5 content needs a massive upgrade in power to even start to fix matters.Current PvECapital ships ought to have master pilots who are true aces white knuckled going in against them.That's your PvE endgame that should require a POB or a large number of starfighters and its just flat not there.

Secondly, we need to get it straight exactly what PvE is going to be for master pilots. Is it trivial because of our skill, or is it still a challenge because the AI's are worth the effort?If your concern for upgrading POBs is centered around powerful Elite components trivializing PvE, then you've got to find us a PvE endgame that isn't already trivial. See above.

This is why I believe major defensive upgrades are needed for POBs. POBs for players should be able to withstand the kind of damage that an NPC POB can because the endgame for fighters should NOT be the same endgame for POBs. They're the next level of ship, they need a higher challenge. There should be missions where POBsor groups ofstarfightersare needed because the kind of damage put out by NPCs in the spawns are either require ultrapowerful defenses to soakormultiple attackers to take it from more than one approach. A POB on a Tier 4 duty mission ought to have a crew bored to tears, its the functional equivalent of a group of Elite players farming nunas.

You can't think of POB ships in terms of anything less than Tier 5 content because we can't use them until we're in that league anyway. You really need to model player POB power after Tier 5 NPC gunboats, because on a day to day basis in PvE, that's their competition. Other ships that dish out the damage and take it in stride.Player POBs START at Tier 5 and go up from there. That's why the Deep Space capitals need major revisitation to up the difficulty, and why the Kessel Corvette mission to become a master should be a true induction to the kind of content that a Master Pilot will be expected to deal with.

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That last paragraph says so much really. I am about to start a character on kettemoor, so I can gun on your ship .

Fuss Bango (Chilastra)

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Its beena couple weekssince I've flown her crewed, plus my work schedule lately has put my only online time available long after my guild's been offline.(I've got a SW alt, so thats why I've taken the chance to put some serious time into refining the A-Wing, since I can do that myself)

I'd be happy to have you along if we can hook up. I've flown her with just the top gunner before.

Hi everybodies

I have had my Nova Courier the StormGoddess for about two weeks and I have to say, I LIKE IT! True getting a crew together isn't allways easy, but all in all the few times I have had a crew we have had a lot of fun
I agree that the POB ships need a dramatic increase to their defenses. More offensive power would be nice as well, but it's not as important as better deffenses. I don't believe thatoutright combat is really what these ships were only designed for. I believe that the POB ship touches on every aspect of the game. They can be combatants, and they can be pleasure craft, but most importantly I think, they are MULTI-PLAYER ships. No other ship really is quite like them. Sure, you have a few fighters that can carry a gunner or two, but you can actually enjoy downtime between engagements far more in a Nova Courier or YT-1300 or VT-49. Your gunner won't fall asleep while waiting for the next batch of vapor to arrive, they can run and repair stuff, or (if they are RPers) RP the downtime.
I have been known to on occassion pick up new players, (mostly in my Yacht, but that will change now heheh)before they get to a Pilot trainer and offer to give them a ride to whatever planet they need to go to. I off course invite them aboard and launch Allmost all the time I get an "OMG!!" kind of response. Then I get a load of questions like "where did I get this ship" and "where can I gt one" After I explain what it is, and what they need to get one and fly it, I allmost allways drop them off in a city with a trainer (even if it is a yucky Imperial Trainer lol) In fact I think I am going to do that again later tonight Anyone who wants a ride send me a /tell

I had an Idea that illustrates how they can be used to further content both Devmade as well as Playermade.
How about a space mision/quest where an NPC actually spawns INSIDE your ship after you accept it and launch? After a few encounters, in order to get the next part of the mission you would talk to the NPC again. At that point you would get a new WP or a new mission. These can also be tailored to each Proffession/Faction as well. Some you could get from Space Stations and some from mission terminals.

Say A BH gets an NPC bounty. he tracks it and then finds that his mark is in space.Now all he has to do is launch and disable/dock with his marks' ship and suddenly there is his mark in a room on his ship! at this point he can talk to the NPC and maybe get bribed more to let him go, kill him right there and finish the mission or maybe the NPC has a quest to give of his own Granted he could just choose to destroy the Marks ship in space, but he missess out on what could be a very cool side quest. At that point his mission is over, he gets paid, rinse,repeat. The payoff would be that everyone in the crew would get a reward, be it loot, or credits. depending on HOW the mission was finished.

As far as faction missions, there could be a new Master Duty Mission or a new set of quests at the Theme Parks available. Similar to the Escort a ship or the Dock and get the Info/Item ones. But this time a factional NPC appears in the ship and tells the Pilot where the waypoints are or where he needs to go. Say it is Vader and he needs to go from the Retreat to the ISD in DS. All the requirements to finish the mission would be to dock with the ISD. There would be attacking ships of course, and a flightpath before the ship could jump, but all that would be required would be to make it there in one peice. If the Captain and crew decide to fight the waves of attackers or bolt and run (how many times has Han and Chewie done the running dogfight, just to get away to their destination?) would be up to them.
I really think that the POBs' are something special, and in their own way much more versatile than any singleplayer fighter can be. Are there issues that need to be resolved? Yes, there are. They are under gunned and under protected. Should they be completely customizable? HELL YES!!! But I don't believe that the customizations should be permanent. That way you can tailor it to fit the mission/quest/RP event All in all, they should be used in as many different ways as we can think of to use them. THAT's what I think they were made for.

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Snooze821 wrote:

Normal fighters should still be stuck in starports but would make POB ships really interesting especially when grouping to do things like hunting on planets like Endor where you can land anywhere and make a POB ship as the base camp.

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JanuHull wrote:

POBs should stop being thought of as starfighters. They're not. The fix for POB ships is going to be more than just a few upgrades to components. Right now, we need an Elder game that's even remotely at theirappropriate level of power. The ISD, Freedom Station, the Corellian Corvettes, the Gunboats, and probably all Tier 5 content needs a massive upgrade in power to even start to fix matters.Current PvECapital ships ought to have master pilots who are true aces white knuckled going in against them.That's your PvE endgame that should require a POB or a large number of starfighters and its just flat not there.

Secondly, we need to get it straight exactly what PvE is going to be for master pilots. Is it trivial because of our skill, or is it still a challenge because the AI's are worth the effort?If your concern for upgrading POBs is centered around powerful Elite components trivializing PvE, then you've got to find us a PvE endgame that isn't already trivial. See above.

This is why I believe major defensive upgrades are needed for POBs. POBs for players should be able to withstand the kind of damage that an NPC POB can because the endgame for fighters should NOT be the same endgame for POBs. They're the next level of ship, they need a higher challenge. There should be missions where POBsor groups ofstarfightersare needed because the kind of damage put out by NPCs in the spawns are either require ultrapowerful defenses to soakormultiple attackers to take it from more than one approach. A POB on a Tier 4 duty mission ought to have a crew bored to tears, its the functional equivalent of a group of Elite players farming nunas.

You can't think of POB ships in terms of anything less than Tier 5 content because we can't use them until we're in that league anyway. You really need to model player POB power after Tier 5 NPC gunboats, because on a day to day basis in PvE, that's their competition. Other ships that dish out the damage and take it in stride.Player POBs START at Tier 5 and go up from there. That's why the Deep Space capitals need major revisitation to up the difficulty, and why the Kessel Corvette mission to become a master should be a true induction to the kind of content that a Master Pilot will be expected to deal with.

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TheZabrakMaul wrote:

P.S Anyone know why the heck I can't post in this forum while using Firefox?

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You have to turn off WYSIWYG editor in your forum profile.

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Just_Bri wrote:

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TheZabrakMaul wrote:

P.S Anyone know why the heck I can't post in this forum while using Firefox?

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You have to turn off WYSIWYG editor in your forum profile.

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Thanks

As of this morning, I have verified that Tier 4 Imperial NPCs can be soloed in an Elite component equipped Nova Courier.

I just took on one major spawn of them before leaving for work, two TIE Oppressors, two TIE Agressors. All soloed with minimal turret switching by me aloneusing overloads and Cap to Shield shunt.

Next stop, Kessel.

Just wrapped up a run in Kessel, the Nova handled a pounding from multiple Tier 5s and came out ahead without a ding on the armor. The only thing it really can't handle without a pilot are the gunboats.

Regarding components, I believe POB ships should have their own class of components, right the way throughout the craftable list. They are larger ships; freighters, sub-Capitals, gunships, etc. They have the mass to carry much larger equipment for a reason. With the increased profile, comes the heavier tools. Specifically, larger defense and offense capability.

Look at the movies... Han's Falcon had dorsal and ventral Quad Lasers, and translated into SWG terms, that should equate to 8 x 4k laser cannons, not the single 4k ish weapons we have now. In the movie, Luke and Han were doing one-shot kills on TIEs, and with good reason. A fighter of whatever level that gets hit by a capital-sized weapon should go poof, or at least be severely crippled. The damage that can be produced is related to the amount of energy the vessel can pump through it's capacitors, and on a larger ship, you should be able to fit much larger generators and such, whereas on a fighter you just don't got the space or bulk integrity to handle the power output. It's why navies build larger ships. It's like a fishing tug being broadsided by a ship-of-the-line.

I personally don't go into PvP that much, so I'm not bothered about being uberl337, but if I hit a TIE-In with a quad laser it should go pop, otherwise, why do I have 5mil mass? The cargo sure as hell doesn't weigh anything

In my opinion, POBs need their own number scale. I would imagine that to be easier to balance than trying to fiddle existing numbers and equations.

Message Edited by korvass on 08-01-2005 01:39 AM

I've passed along the meat of this thread as one of the critical issues of the pilot profession. That in no way guarantees we'll see the kind of changes POBs need any time soon--or at all--but it does ensure the devs know the systemic problems with POBs and many of our best solutions to address those problems.

From there, any development we see on the issue is up to them.


Edited for some crazy typos

Message Edited by TomoRainer on 08-04-2005 03:35 AM

/cheers