Pilot Archive
Thread: Focus: Player-Controlled Capital Ships
Trynian1
Sat Jul 02, 2005 2:44 pm
#274
I hope we get more space room to handle it. I am not sure how I feel about owning them. Might be better if theyare not an owned item but rather just a mission where you go do it, then get to fly around and do stuff. Maybe even extended missions that you have to do with the ship. Things like, go take out a squadron but you also can get disabled and boarded by troopers to fight off. At theend you have to give it up and do the mission again to be able to use one again.
Also I wonder about the locations for the mission. If it is in deep space then I am sure we will see the emergence of the all mighty load campers as we did in Kessel in the beginning of JTL.
Brutus_TOD
Sat Jul 02, 2005 6:24 pm
#275
I dont like all this talk about "advanced" pilot professions. Sounds to me like an alpha class profession and we all know what heppens when you do that (/cough jedi). Just make it cost and extreme amount of prestige points (like 50 million) and has a prestige point maintenance cost. And yes, we would need more space to fly these things cause in 2 months you will have hundreds in every sector. Maybe make it a Deep Space only ship (because you dont have clearance to fly it in other sectors).
MericCarew
Sun Jul 03, 2005 7:44 am
#276
I am sure we are all very happy that Capital Ships are on the horizon. I see some problems that need to be addressed before then. I am hoping that all of you will offer some suggestions and build on where I am going to go with this post.
Capital Ships
At the moment Capital Ships as they are implemented in the game now are basically a joke. They don't have the intimidation factor that they should hold over us. I will use the Corvette as the base for my idea.
Currently the Corvette is a joke. I believe that is because of how the destruction process on it is set up. You take down both Shield Generators, Reactor, Engine, and Bridge. Each of those components takes 10 seconds at most to take down. Which for a component I can live with. The problem with the ship is that shields don't matter. I propose that it be changed.
Shields - 50k Front/Back
Shield Recharge - 2000 every 10 seconds
Now I know to some people these numbers may seem huge, but this is a Capital Ship we are talking about. In order to take down a ship we should first need to take down its shield. Once the shields are down you can begin targeting and destorying the components such as the primary and secondary shield generators or weapon emplacments.
If you take down one of the shield generators you would cut the Corvettes recharge down to 1000 or half of what it was with 2 generators. The destruction process would then proceed like it currently does.
What this does in my opinion is make these ships much more intimidating and provides a role for ships such as the B-Wing and Oppressor. Now I know that this idea isn't flawless but thats why I suggested it so that it can be built on.
Could you imagine the Star Destoyer and the Rebel Station in Deep Space with 100k shields to take down before you can target the shield generators and weapons emplacements. The Star Destroyer would now be the fear invoker it was designed to be. Would take an active group effort to take one down in any reasonable amount of time. Which in my opinion is how it should be.
WingZero890
Tue Jul 05, 2005 12:11 am
#277
TomoRainer wrote:
I am sure we are all very happy that Capital Ships are on the horizon. I see some problems that need to be addressed before then. I am hoping that all of you will offer some suggestions and build on where I am going to go with this post.
Capital Ships
At the moment Capital Ships as they are implemented in the game now are basically a joke. They don't have the intimidation factor that they should hold over us. I will use the Corvette as the base for my idea.
Currently the Corvette is a joke. I believe that is because of how the destruction process on it is set up. You take down both Shield Generators, Reactor, Engine, and Bridge. Each of those components takes 10 seconds at most to take down. Which for a component I can live with. The problem with the ship is that shields don't matter. I propose that it be changed.
Shields - 50k Front/Back
Shield Recharge - 2000 every 10 seconds
Now I know to some people these numbers may seem huge, but this is a Capital Ship we are talking about. In order to take down a ship we should first need to take down its shield. Once the shields are down you can begin targeting and destorying the components such as the primary and secondary shield generators or weapon emplacments.
If you take down one of the shield generators you would cut the Corvettes recharge down to 1000 or half of what it was with 2 generators. The destruction process would then proceed like it currently does.
What this does in my opinion is make these ships much more intimidating and provides a role for ships such as the B-Wing and Oppressor. Now I know that this idea isn't flawless but thats why I suggested it so that it can be built on.
Could you imagine the Star Destoyer and the Rebel Station in Deep Space with 100k shields to take down before you can target the shield generators and weapons emplacements. The Star Destroyer would now be the fear invoker it was designed to be. Would take an active group effort to take one down in any reasonable amount of time. Which in my opinion is how it should be.
/agree
It makes no sense to have these componets simply out in the open and vunerable
Brutus_TOD
Tue Jul 05, 2005 3:04 pm
#278
I dont agree with making capital ships guild based. I am in a BH guild for the purpose of Jedi v. BH war, but my friends list is filled with over 400 pilots that i have helped to set up vette raids for. Requiring Guild-only capital ships would create problems. One being that larger guilds are at a deisadvantage if they only get one. This will cause many to leave and start smaller guilds. Smaller guilds tend to disband quicker than larger guilds, hence you see the problem with guild based ships.
I would like to see them as nothing more than portable space stations. Bringing them into combat will either make them extremely weak or extremely powerful. We all know one of the two will happen. My i dea was for the controls to be strictly run by npc's (besides piloting) so it would have the fire power/defense of a regular vette. Where the players come in is when its attacked. Players can either stay onbord repairing systems and fighting boarding parties or can launch their ships (which are docked in the capital ship) to engage the attacking force. And once the shields are down, both enemy and allied ships could doc to help defend. I like the idea of limiting the amount of both. The npc's running the ship would mean its balanced in the sense of fire power and defense, which will not dissapoint the owners, or the ones being attacked. also remember that even a tier 1 ship can outrun it so there wouldn't be forced combat with the capital ships. I also like the idea of having to take out shields before you can take out turrets cause it makes sense and would please the ship owners. And Repairs could be made at the core system's space station for a cost of PRESTIGE, not credits.
werehere
Tue Jul 05, 2005 6:40 pm
#279
no
defeats purpous is which to man ships like pob what is chanllenge in that all will e equally powerful then just repair and have sw constantly making repair kits
FlyingMonkey133
Wed Jul 06, 2005 12:30 am
#280
Heres what I believe would balance them out and make them fit to improve the gameplay but this is all just my opinion......
1. The needed crew should be a realistic number, say 8 at the most is needed but the more there are other than that the more effective the ship will be.
2. If theres not enough players to man all of the turrets or no players to man the turrets, say half of them should be controlled by npc's. This is so that at all times the ship will be at least slightly defendend, but there will still be blind spots that fighters can attack.
3. I dont think shipwrights should get the shaft with this great inclusion but i dont think that the ships themselves should be craftable. There should be an extremely long and difficult quest that at the end of 2 rewards are given, the deed for a capitol ship of the players choice (limits within factions), and the title admiral. Shipwrights should be needed to create components that were destroyed in battle (ex. destroyed gun turrets, shield generators etc.)
4. There should only be 1 capitol ship per factional guild , but any guild members can do the quest to get the Admiral title which is absolutley necessary to launch and fly the ship. The guild leader and the owner of the ship (doesnt need to be the same person) decide which of the admirals in the guild have access to launch the ship and be the Admiral on board.
5. Only members of the guild can be part of the crew on a capitol ship but any1 of the same faction can dock in the ship and support it by repairing damaged components, putting out fires, defending from boarding parties, and as an exception to the only guild cna crew part, man the guns.
6. Being the size that capitol ships are just shooting them shouldnt have an effect. Certain things will be needed to do to damage the ship: there should be certain weak points around the ship that when hit damage the shield generator, but these points are heavily defended by turrets and should be very difficult to get to if all of the turrets are manned by players. After the shield generator is destroyed the ship can take damage on most places on the ship and it can be boarded by a player ship.
7. There should be a limit on how many enemy player ships can board at a time so that when the shield goes down every enemy ship in the area doesnt go straight for the docking bay. This would also make POB ships more active in the GCW. After being boarded the attackers can locate and destroy the engine, reactor (when this happens all of the lights should go out for a time and then be replaced with red flashing lights signaling the emergency power) and a few other key systems which after are finished the group can head to the bridge and activate the self destruct, all the while fighting through waves of npc's and players attempting to defend the ship.
8. To make it so that not everyone starts a guild with some friends and gets there own capital ship i think that if you decide to get a capital ship then you can have no other ships....no fighters....no pob's....no nothing. The Ace pilot box is still needed to do the quest but all of the ships you had before must be given up. This will keep the people who really like flying fighter ships from getting the ship. There is one problem that this could cause is if everyone still got the capitol ships then there would be almost no fighters in space
Well thats my veiw on it all feel free to argue any point just please dont flame
Mullet-MAN
Fri Jul 08, 2005 6:38 pm
#282
My thoughts:
Guild controlled . (1 per guild)
Some type of restrictions on what types of C Ships a guild could have based on population (Larger the guild the bigger the ship, reach a certain population level and boom you floating guild hall is upgraded or downgraded)
Acts as a floating guild hall for members (crafting, mediacal, entertainment, bank, bazzar)
Guild wars allow an opposing guild to attack dissable, board a nother guilds C ship
C ship (bigger ones) has high maint and is equiped with minimum # of troopers (cost/Maint)
C Ship (bigger ones) can have hired wings of ship to ship defenders
Guild members can use some utility to find what system thier guild capital ship is on
Maybe an area that is public for visitors (hanger bay or some othe facilities but not the bridge)
Imp Reb & Nuetral C ships only available to Guilds declared that way
Imperial C ships patroll for smugglers (scan cargo and board , NPC and Player ships) = source of income for guild to help with operating costs
Nuetral C ships can be comerce pirates. - (Scan cargo and board NPC or oposing fations (hutt/blacksun if ever implemented))= source of income for operating costs
Rebel C ships Disrupting Imperial Commerce (Scan cargo and board NPC and player ships) = Source of income for operating costs
If just some of these ideas make it I would play so much more in space, = 15$/30$ a month longer so get on it SOE! (Cracks whip)
werehere
Fri Jul 08, 2005 6:44 pm
#283
not guild based it will never work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Arturun
Fri Jul 08, 2005 9:15 pm
#284
Ok, here are my ideas:
First off, a capital ship pilot profession that requires master pilot is a good idea, IMO.
Here are my ideas for capital ship requirements:
- The appropriate certification*
- Completion of a capture mission**
- Refit of the following parts to make vessel space-worthy again:
- Weapons systems-made/repaired by Weaponsmith
- Shielding-made/repaired by Armorsmith
- Hull Structure-made/repaired by Architect
- Computer systems -made/repaired by Shipwright (using some Droid Engineer parts?)
- Droid Crews***-made/repaired by Droid Engineer
- Gathering a sufficient crew (would require minimum of about 8 to be effective)
- 1 Pilot (requires appropriate certification*)
- 1 Operations Officer (like current, but can also activate security systems, etc)
- 1 Gunner per 1-2 guns (possibility of NPC/Droid gunners to fill holes? better than nothing when you come up short for people)
- varying Maintenance Crews, some NPC/Droids
- varying Medics/Doctors, some NPC/Droids
- varying Security Teams, some NPC/Droids (although droid combat capabilities would have to be significantly improved)
*Possible Capital Ship Pilot abilities & certifications:
- Firstly, I don't think these should show up until you've unlocked them, similar to the jedi proffessions currently in the game.
- Novice Capital Ship Pilot:
- Certification: Tier 1 Capital Ship - [something small & weak for a capital ship, maybe System Patrol Craft]
- Certification:Level 1 Ship A.I. (like astromech/flight computer only able to maintain a capital ship, and direct any droid crews)
- Certification: Level 1 Capital Ship Components (or start 1 level higher thancurrent maximum
- Ability: Hire Mercenary Crew (hires non-faction npcs to fill empty slots on ship)
- Following division of skills:
- Far left tier: Capital Ship Certifications
- Middle left tier: Capital Ship Components Certifications
- Middle right tier: Abilities
- Tier 1: Commission Faction Crew (like Hire Mercenary Crew, but same faction and more capable)
- Tier 2: Hire Mercenary Guard (like Commission crew, but to defend ship from boarders)
- Tier 3: Hire Mercenary Pilots (like Commission crew, but ships to defend ship from space)
- Tier 4: Commission Faction Guard (like Hire Mercenary Guard, but more capable)
- maybe some other abilities similar to those already in place, as well
- Far right tier: Ship A.I. commands and certifications
- Tier 1-4: various steadily increasingabilities similar to those in place
- Tier 1-4: steadily increasing skill modifier to controlling ship droids
- Tier 1-4: increasing certifications for Ship A.I.s
- Master Capital Ship Pilot:
- Certification: Master Level Capital Ship (corvette, etc?)
- Certification: Master Level Capital Ship Components (or next level in sequence)
- Certification: Master Level Capital Ship A.I. (or next level in sequence)
- Ability: Commission Faction Pilots (like Hire Mercenary Pilots, but more capable)
- NOTE: the Hire/Commission abilites should last until capital ship either lands or hired/commissioned guards/pilots are destroyed)
**Possible mission to get capital ships
- Should happen to get each new capital ship
- First, must be Master Pilot, have many prestige points (large number, but not exorbitantly impossible, and/or a space faction separate from the ground with appropriate requirements-but not highest to start capital ship pilot, just high enough to be realistic)
- When the following conditions are met, an email should be sent to the pilot, telling them they are needed for an important mission, and give written clues/info on where to find Tier 1 Capital Ship Trainer, but not waypoint.
- Then, the pilot recieves a mission to go into an individual instance of deep space where they must recapture a (starter) capital ship that has been captured by the enemy
- The pilot will recieve a boarding craft (or may just be required to bring friends and board it)
- Then, once the pilot enters individual instance of deep space, either wingmen/boarding party in tow, they must disable the ship.
- Once the ship is disabled, they should have to board the ship, kill off enough of the crew, and re-take the ship. Boarding the ship, there should be a few crew already dead from both the attack that took the ship first, and the player'sattack, and damage everywhere.
- Once the ship has been cleansed of enough (or all) of the enemy boarders, the player's group should have to repair the ship enough to limp it back to the station. This should take a very long time.
- Once at the station, the above components would have to be replaced/repaired, and the ship re-crewed. Ideally, this should take a long while (many hours, at least). All in all, this mission should take no less than a dayor two from start to finish. And the ship would be the player's.
- This mission should have to be done for every capital ship wanting to be earned.
- Capital ships could be made tradeable/sellable, but I am not in favor of it. I'm not sure who'd want to, anyway, after all that.
***Droid Crews
Possibilites for ship-controlled droid crews:
- Crafted by Droid Engineers (obviously)
- Higher the skill modifier for controlling ship droids (under skill boxes with Ship A.I.s), higher level droids that can be employed
- Different types:
- Security:
- Probot & Probot Advanced
- DZ70 & DZ70 Advanced
- MSE & MSE Advanced (yes, seriously, they could patrol the ship, and alert something of intruders like in the movies; mostly Imperial?)
- Those floating black interrogator droids? (would be mostly/exclusively Imperial, Rebel & Privateer counterparts should be created)
- maybe some new ones, like droidekas/sbd at higher levels
- Repair:
- LE Repair Droid (duh, lol)
- CLL-8 Binary Lifter Droid (if there's room, they are kinda big, after all)
- Medical:
- Surgical Droids
- Gunner:
- dunno, probably more of a computer for a turret, or something
- Multi-purpose:
- The R-series
- used for combination of repair, security, etc
- Other:
- Protocol Droids (there's gotta be a use for them, lol)
If I forgot something, or anyone has any more ideas, feel more than welcome to comment/add, but this is my ideal working for capital ships
-Arturun
Message Edited by Arturun on 07-09-2005 07:12 AM
Aronn_Cornwell
Fri Jul 08, 2005 9:40 pm
#285
uhm Im getting a little scared here. People are talking about low handling (y/p/r) and bad accel/top speed. Yeah the BIG capital ships should have that. at least bad accel and terrible handling at high speed. And a preferred speed vs. handling ratio at the lower part of the scale, not the 60-65% of the fighters.
BUT the cap ship they are talking about here (Star Wars capital ships being ships over 150m if I remember correctly) is the CR90 - know as the Corvette to most people. Or the Blocade Runner, favored by smugglers and other shady people all over the galaxy for their fine handling for their size, their oversized engine-setup and the extreme configurability. I am a smuggler, allways been allways will be. my ship-of-choise today is my YT-1300. I have spent months and millions prepping her and learning to handle her. Unless someone is waiting for me in the other end I allways Launch ship, overt. I have been attacked many times but I can usually get out of it. if I cant outgun it I can outfly it.
I have allways wanted a 'Corvette', long before SWG was invented. I dont wish to see thisend up likethe Blak Sun helmet or the Mando armor. There are quite a lot of them on display... I have never seen a mando suit in action, once I saw a pilot with a black sun helmet.
Anyway, make them kinda like a YT-1300 compared to a normal figher: It has its cons and pros. make it solo/duo FLYable. make it so that you can make it into the ship you want, wether you prefer shooting your way out of trouble, or flying out of it. I like the last one. Id like a setup where each engine slot had its own socket, and if you put 11 lvl10 RE's in it you would have a killer manouverability. And coupled with a good shield-ray (Front gen, reargen and so on) the reactors (s, as in more that one)would be strained allready. a couple of defensive 'lasers'and a nice sound system and that would be it. Or you could go for lower performance engines, or just not all engines installed for a lower performance, and some less advanced shields, and then have a decent gunship. Dont know about boosters, maybe they shold be avoided due to "structural strain" and such.
Make them un-repairable at space stations, its not that hard to believe that "We're not equipped to deal with that kind of thing!" - instead make it fully player repairable. Shipwrigts make the repair stuff, perhaps from space resources. (until patch 2453, where Player Owned Spaceship RepairStations are unbugged).
Just to make the point: Captial ships are a vague definition here. cars are cars.ferarris should not handle like monstertrucks or limo's just because they allso are cars.THE corvette is a corvette, a small, agile, dependableship. not a frickin star destroyer. Why would leia use hers if it was outperformed by everything?
AquariusII
Fri Jul 08, 2005 11:12 pm
#286
i like your idea Arturun. Like Capital Pilot can be an elite proff.