Pilot Archive
Thread: Focus: Player-Controlled Capital Ships
Message Edited by BrashDarkstar on 06-15-2005 06:24 AM
TomoRainer wrote:
I'd like to hear what you guys think in terms of player-controlled capital ships--what their role should be, whether they should be owned or borrowed, how hard it should be to obtain one, the sorts of modifications you'd want to be able to make to them (if any), ways to prevent or limit griefing, etc. Anything under the sun is fair game on this one. As always, though, keep it constructive; this is a combination of brainstorming, wishlisting, and concern-airing, and while debating each others' comments and ideas is fine, remember we're not the ones creating these things. There isn't really anything at stake here, so keep it cool.
As a general warning, this isn't exactly an addition we're going to see in the next publish, though they've definitely already done some work on it. On top of that, I'd imagine the mechanical restrictions on player-controlled capital ships could end up being pretty tight--so while I'm sure we'd all love to run the helm of a Star Destroyer, I wouldn't get hooked on the idea.
Anyway, everything on this front is still probably a goodly ways off, but it kind of looks like we're in the lucky position of knowing about a future addition before all the details have been set in stone. If that's the case, I'd love to be able to take some recommendations to the devs in the near future.
Message Edited by TomoRainer on 06-06-2005 04:54 AM
- Encouraging players to enjoy being in the StarWars Universe by incorporatingless restrictions on elements from the movies
- To allow for spacefaring guildhalls and to promote some guilds to be space-centric
- To allow for a larger scale space warfare
- To allow ground players to enjoy the space expansion a little more by traveling to POBs for some moreaction
- To allow players to establish a home in space
Owned or Borrowed?
Owned
Difficulty to obtain
I don't think a lot of players are focusing on the ROLE or what the ships should be used for because this would also effect the idea of the difficulty to obtain them. If players are going to enjoy Starwars Galaxies moreso, they need to be somewhat easy to obtain (not too easy). Continuity-wise it shouldn't be any big problem seeing corvettes, transports (I hope they include the Imperial Shuttle) and Star Destroyers roaming the galaxy. I could see a problem with continuity and seeing too many Calamari Cruisers. Also, this would be an excellent way to allow guilds to come together in space and establish a space base. I'd recommend that they allow each guild to establish a spacebase "guild-ship". This would allow for players to land and have guild meetings in space and would make the space expansion much more enjoyable by players that don't get to experience it that much.
Ultimately I think we shouldn't see a plethora of Star Destroyers in any one sector but seeing 3 or 4 would be fine. I really think that obtaining a Star Destroyer should be not that difficult. I think if you let players have Star Destroyers, they'll get one (just to have it) then after roaming around in it will realize that they need a large crew to actually be effective and it's just a big Luxury Yacht without friends or guildmates to help out. Think about it: Would you have a ship take up 2-3 spaceship slots when all you can do is drive it around the galaxy without any access to weapons?
I think that cruisers like Corellian Corvettes should be much more common, especially shuttles like the Imperial Shuttles. They should be as difficult to obtain as they cost in resources. Once again, I think players will realize that when they have no weapons at their pilot helm, many solo-pilots will drop the MP capital ships in favor of a fighter. So we really wouldn't see that many large ships because lack of use other than a POB the size of a house. And continuity-wise, that should be just fine.
Restrictions
My thoughts on Star Destroyer restrictions:
- Must be owned by at least a faction Captain
- Must be declared as a guild-ship
- Should require at least 10000 faction points (if not more) to generate a deed (if from a blueprint)
- Must be maintained like a building (throwing cash into it for upkeep but don't make the upkeep too high)
- Should take lots
- Should not have any weapon firing capacity from the bridge except Ordnance
- Should not have any ordnance firing capacity from the pilots chair
- Should require 1-2 to pilot (might be an interesting idea to require more than one pilot)
- Should have the capacity for 16 gunners. The gunners should have the capability of manning one of the turbolasers or sitting in a virtual gunner chair which can command up to 30 different stations (but only one at a time)
- Should be a permanent space POB and not loadable from a spaceport (and must be accessed by another means of transport). Being a permanent POB should be unattackable unless manned or it's window of attack is open (like a faction base)
Victory Class Star Destroyer restrictions:
- See Star Destroyer restrictions except should require less faction points
- See Star Destroyer restrictions except should require less faction rank
- See Star Destroyer restrictions except should require less upkeep
- See Star Destroyer restrictions except should allow less gunners
- Should have something that will make it attractive vs having a Star Destroyer (faster/cheaper/etc)
- Should have something that will make it unattractive vs having a Star Destroyer (less gunners/mass/shields/etc)
Calamari Cruiser restrictions:
- Pretty much the same restrictions as the Star Destroyer
- Required to be a PA Guild Ship (or some other limiting factor since there should not be a large number of Rebel ships freely roaming the galaxy)
Rebel/Imperial Gunboat restrictions:
- At least rank of faction Sergeant
- At least 5000 (maybe more) faction points
- No inside dock for spaceship but should allow outside docking of 1 ship (and it remains docked while the Gunboat moves around
- Essentially is just a little larger POB than we have now
Imperial Shuttle restrictions:
- Should be comparable to obtaining the Y-8
- We should have already had it
Corellian Corvette restrictions:
- Should not require faction point nor rank
- Should be costly to obtain
- Should allow for 6 gunners
- Should allow for starship docking up to 8 non-POB ships
For modifications, the Star Destroyer should allow for 2 shield gens (but both are double strength and double regen), and 8 custom cannons of your own assignment (turbolasters). The reactor and all the other doo-hickeys should only be applicable to your equipment. The built in cannons should all be free from reactor or capacitor requirements. Require 3 engines that the SD averages out. Pretty much all of the other capital ships should be standard like a YT-1300 but have as many cannons slots as they should and more mass. Also, it would be nice to have CAPITAL SHIP ONLY parts and loot. And maybe even require CAPITAL SHIP ONLY parts on the bigger ships (SD and Calamari Cruiser).
Once again, I don't think Griefing will be a problem. The way space is worked out, you can't touch other players unless you are declared and they are declared. I also think players that want to grieve other declared players will realize the team that it requires and quickly forget such a pursuit after a couple weeks. In other words, time will solve your griefing problems.
So that's my hope list.
Message Edited by Kssob on 06-15-2005 12:10 PM
Kssob wrote:
Ultimately I think we shouldn't see a plethora of Star Destroyers in any one sector but seeing 3 or 4 would be fine.
Being able to pilot it or not , we should defenetly be able to get inside of those things and have us some nice fights .
Very nice
AxilX wrote:
best Idea i've seen, hands down.. this is the only way proposed so far that will effectively limit the number of captital ships, whilist still allowing all players some level of access to them. For those of you that are requesting "Really really hard quests!" to limit the numbers... please look around and see how many jedi we have.
DrendalKahn wrote:
AxilX wrote:
best Idea i've seen, hands down.. this is the only way proposed so far that will effectively limit the number of captital ships, whilist still allowing all players some level of access to them. For those of you that are requesting "Really really hard quests!" to limit the numbers... please look around and see how many jedi we have.
... And look at all the people in Mando armor we have running around.
That had a lot to do with Mando being bugged as well. I know a number of guilds that went to do it, and loaded up the loot only to lose it because of bad coding. And no, most CSRs would not give the loot back. Also, now that people have figured out how to do the DWB, Our sever has going on 100 jetpacks. Groups were going in and making 3 or 4 at a time or more. Most of them made pre-curb as well. So...no Mando and the DWB isnt a good example to prove his jedi theory wrong.
As for quest...
Comanding a ship is not something that should be determined because you killed 20 SBDs. It should not be based on physical stregth. It should be based on Leadership, Intelligence and Tactics.
!
First of all, puzzle pirates. If you haven't played, you should and join a crewed ship.
Captain (1)
- Manages Crew - Promote/Demote/Invite/Remove etc.
- Promotes and demotes Leiutenants (co-captains)
- gives 'orders' to crew (a la battlefield 2) - i.e. assigns roles (gunner's mate/ engineer)
Lieutenants (1-4)
- Manage crew (if permitted)
- gives 'orders' (if permitted)
- Can take over as acting captain if the captain is not on deck
- Lieutenants can be general command - or be given specific comand (i.e. Marine Commander, Chief Engineer)
Bridge staff (0-5)
- navigation
- communication
- normal energy distribution
- sensors
- shield manipulation
Gunner's Mates (1+ per gun)
- In charge of aiming/firing weaponry
- if they are weaponsmiths, can repair/tune guns and rearm missiles
Engineers (4+)
- Increase ship performance
- perform in-flight temporary repairs
- handle power distribution
- perform salvage operation
- If they have droid engineering skill, can direct hull repair droids to repair external systems in-flight
- If a weaponsmith, can tune and repair weapon systems and rearm missiles
- If an armorsmith, can operate system to regenerate armor from prepared materials and can prep materials from raw materials
Combat pilots (1+ per available launch)
- escort/assault duty
Marines (per crew capacity)
- Boarding/Repulse duty
Flight Deck (3+)
- increase launch speed of escorts
- repair/rearm escort fighters
Quartermaster (1-2)
- buy/sell from stations, merchants get much better pricing
- operates on-ship commisary (vendor area)
- if merchant, can also operate a 'geedunk' which is a commisary that can sell any item, instead of just approved items (vendor in rec room)
- if smuggler, can operate a blackmarket which can sell contraband (blackmarket npc in ship somewhere)
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Question: Have any of you been near capitol ships? They cause a huge drop in FPS for me and I have a decent system.
How on earth will this work if there are 1-2 Star Destroyers Vs. 1-2 Mon Cal Cruisersnot to mention20+ Star Fighters on each side. As far as I can figure it would be unplayable.
Not only that but when you shoot things like the Star Destroyers they hit effects cause a huge drop in FPS too which really doesn't help. Not to mention you basicly have to be crashing into a Star Destroyer before you can shoot it.
I just have to wonder how this is actually gonna work.
My system is:
Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz
1 GB RAM
256 MB Radeon 9600
So what will I need not to have a drastic drop in FPS? I could get more RAM and a better processor, what about my graphics card?
DavidHarper wrote:
Question: Have any of you been near capitol ships? They cause a huge drop in FPS for me and I have a decent system.
How on earth will this work if there are 1-2 Star Destroyers Vs. 1-2 Mon Cal Cruisersnot to mention20+ Star Fighters on each side. As far as I can figure it would be unplayable.
Not only that but when you shoot things like the Star Destroyers they hit effects cause a huge drop in FPS too which really doesn't help. Not to mention you basicly have to be crashing into a Star Destroyer before you can shoot it.
I just have to wonder how this is actually gonna work.
My system is:
Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz
1 GB RAM
256 MB Radeon 9600
So what will I need not to have a drastic drop in FPS? I could get more RAM and a better processor, what about my graphics card?