Pilot Archive
Thread: Focus: Player-Controlled Capital Ships
Message Edited by Dorjhe on 06-05-2005 12:37 PM
Just my two cents about boarding. First off, no tubes, mass transports to move parties between the ships, nothing like that. Make all potential boarders fly their own fighters into the enemy ships hangers. To keep the battles from moving completely away from space fighting and into just in-ship fighting, make a restriction, such as the shields have to be down for fighters to have access to the hanger bay. (Makes sense actually).
Now, as to having a group of fighters to accompany you, make the crew of the ship form together at the starport, launch into space together, max of 8 people to control the ship. Now once their in space, friendly fighters can dock with the capital ship, landing inside, storing their ships for the battle ahead and whatnot.
Note about factions, make only rebels or imperials able to command GCW ships (admiral). Any other function on board could be done by a neutral, as I'm sure both sides hire mercenaries to man their ships. I think neutrals should also be given their own type of capital ship, but that's someone else's domain to think about.
Ok Corvettes I consider mid range however there are comparable cap ships for instance
The Vette is 150m
Sienar fleet systems IPV-1
120m
4 turbolasers
Crew of 6 to fly this. It has 2 fewer turrets BUT is 30m smaller and should be faster/more manueverable. This is an imperial craft of course.
Also I've heard mention the Skipray Blastboat
it's tiny though and capital scale because of the powerplant and sheer destruction it can deliver
3 med ion cannons
2 laser cannons
1 proton launcher
1 concussion launcher
P.S. the imperial SD I listed earlier is in fact a level 3 SD there are Victory I and II ranked before it.
This are my personal thougths:
-There should be a difference between owning capital ships and starfighters; i mean, i dont like to see some character with 6 capital ships in his datapad. It should be capped at one or two per characater (or account?). Or make some rules like the houses and lots.
-The crew of this ships shoudnt be that large. The captain of the ship (owner) shoud be the pilot o the ship (just like the Y-8); there would be too many time to manouver this ships if you force the captain ask the pilot what to do. This happens in real life but this is a game. So one people should be able to fly the ship. To manage the rest of the components (total energy, reactos, capacitors, shield, weapons) you shoud need a crew of 5-7 people to manage the ship in its total usefullnes. The rest of players can get in turrets, repair the ship, and be the "security corps" (to prevent enemy boarding?).
-To be able to get some of this ships you must do a very hard Quest involving space and ground (interior?). Once done, you get the ships completly disabled, and Shipwrights should make the components to make the ship work again, or craft the components before the boarding and install them after it.
-There should be lot of turrets in this ships, just like it is now, and make a "turret officer" that controls the target (select it) and make the "NPC Turrets" fire at it. And of course some special turrets only player controled.
-This ships shouldnt be PVP Enabled all time, but probably should have some time of vulnerability to be able to destroy or board them, or something like that. It depends if devs have in mind make players able to store capital ships in the datapad or make them be all time docked in space. Or make them completly PVP Disabled... dont know.
Anyway this feature is the more exciting thing ive heard in SWG since its launch. I hope it comes soon...
Well, not all of us PVP. So while that would be a great thing for us to be able to do, what other things for a capitol ship? Have you ever heard of the Errant Venture? Its a merchant/smuggler star destroy. Why can't I have one of those? Already, you can place a vendor on your POB the same way you do in a city capitol. So heres my idea. You take off into the sky, with your crew. The crew consists of these positions:
- Pilot (this is obvious, lol)
- Captain (owner?)
- operations (same as before)
- Comm station (required to allow other ships to dock with you)
- medical officer in the med - bay (obvious, lol
- Entertainers (to man the cantina, allow them to clear your battlewounds)
- Merchant (to take care of those deals that require face to face dealings)
- Gunners (how many??
See, close your eyes for me, and open your mind up. There is a whole galaxy of possibilities of what you can create here. This doesn't have to be all about PVP. There are so many more things you can use this for than what is blatantly obvious. Just like creating a Ithorian bh, a Wookie dancer, or a trandoshan image designer, there are no limits to what you want to do with this games potential. Let us have our owned capitol ships. Let other ships dock with us. Let US worry about how we are going to use it. Don't put limits on this, because the more limits you place on us, the less we can use our imagination. The less we can imagine, the less we will want to play in a universe that was created just to open our minds up. This game already has so much potential they are not using. Dont take away this great opportunity to broaden the game completely.
Just my 2 cents, what do y'all think?
I need to get all my thoughts around this topic before fully answering, but here are some quick considerations:
1) Space sectors are fairly small for a group of large capital ships. I run into the boundries all the time in my fighters.
2) What happens to the ship when all the players logoff?
3) Some players would be perfectly happy being space based 90% of the time. Making a capital ship a PA hall would be interesting.
4) Launching/landing fighters from capital ships would add a fun dynamic to the game.
5) GCW space territory control and fights would add a fun dynamic to the game.
6) Boarding actions would tieground combat and space combat nicely. (thinkthe beginning of Star Wars)
Oh.. and I recommend everyone check out the first post in the thread again.
However lets not make it where it is so insanly difficult it is near impossible to get them. I think they should be PA oriented.. the possibility of being in space ALL the time is just lovely.. I wouldnt mind living in a ship. We could dock our ships at the ships and get a room
When we log in again we're still there but there is a rebel attack! and just like the droid player events in the cities, we have certain ongoing quests and events on the ship alot.. I dont want to see the captital ships just becoming another Decimator.. which was interesting at first but now it is near impossible to find even 1 gunner for my ship. I think the molding of the 2 systems (ground and space combat) would bring alot more interest in JtL and definatly make the currently dead space zones in lively areas...
Just a few thoughts..
TomoRainer wrote:
Nice discussion so far, keep it coming.
Oh.. and I recommend everyone check out the first post in the thread again.
/JOYGASM!
Just some more general comments:
- I'd rather not see capital ships as PA Halls... I'd rather see space stations. There would have to bea cap per-sector like there is for cities on ground though. There could be rebel, neutral, and imperial -- but that's another topic. 
But whatever.
- Put Prestige xp to use here, puh-leese.
- Roles need to be clearly defined. A full group of capital ships should fall to a well balanced group of fighters, bombers, gunboats, cargo ships,andcapital ship(s). I like having totally different ships in my datapad, and would be really, really pissed if one dominated them all. I'd even like to see Capitals be significantly seperate from the YTs/Novas/Deci's we have now (like maybe give the current MP ships a player controlled gun or something). Dorjhe has an excellent point on page two, but I'd further like to build off her argument and see some differences in schematic (e.g. add player controlled guns onthe YTs et al, and none of the captialships -- some other advantage besides just y/p/r and hit profile).
- Give shipwrights special components for them. Make them have something rediculous like 50million mass, so we know exactly who the daddy here is and there's no fitting Captial components onto even YTs or something.
- I still think quests are the best way to get one of these, I still think you shouldn't have to go overt to fly one, I still think they would be greatin aGCW sector control role,and I still think they should go in your datapad as being owned. I believe that covers it, lol.
- The escape pods were a beautiful idea. It'd be cool if you would be ejected to some random spot on the nearest planet too.
- The crew should be large, but damn, some of you guys are getting complicated. 
(~5 would suffice to survive, I'd say -- but have room for more). In any case, it should be large enough to take some planning, but not so difficult that it's not fun.
- NPC crews would rock. If you were able to be boarded by an enemy, they'd make good guards. They could also help repair or something too.
- Someone above said something about launching/landing fighters. Thatwould be a great role for them too. Maybe fighters could /dock and be fullyrepaired..? Tonsof room for support roles, which would be a good, unique role, as we don't have anything like that at this time.It'd alsobe cool to have fighters stored inside them and have the fighter pilots launch when battle comes -- sorta make them like aircraft carriers.
More later.
Edit: I need coffee.
Message Edited by DrendalKahn on 06-06-2005 06:15 AM
Well, they would have to have a large crew to opperate, atleast 20 people to get them into space.
They have to be a group project, and shouldnt do any one person any good
They have to be 100% craftable, for the love of all that is holy please.
They have to involve multiple schematics, and require cross spectrum crafter cooperation.
They should take damage that requires replacements provided by crafters, and possibly a delay penalty upon distruction.
Ideally they should belong to guilds.
They should be extremelly exclusive, both to build and to use. To see one flyingit shouldinstantly demonstratecommunity at work.
Different capitol ships should also have "tiers", small, medium, and large capitol ships. Corvette=small, dreadnaught\nebulon B=medium, and Large(which are the only faction specific capitol ships)=star destroyer{victory or imperial class} and mon cal.
Both capitan and bridge crew should be distinguished pilots far beyond having masterd the pilot profession, perhaps requiring that they are a multiple ace, and have completeda number of missions, training, and use of prestige points aswell.
An easier way to map this is by developing an elite profession to pilot, the requirement should be to have completed all three squadrens, and a number of missions etc. This should also open new commands and abilities to captians and bridge crew.
As a pilotcompletes these prerequisitsthey can gain rank from pilot to captian,rear admiral, and admiral, and as suchis able to pilot larger ships.
Should behave inside like present POB ships, with a number of designated engineers, medics, and repair crew (look here look herelook here==========>AND DROIDS!!!!<===========look here look here look here).
Should requre heavy use of droids. When a capitol ship is destroyed, droids need to come out like candyfrom a piniatta, thats how many droids should be in there.