Pilot Archive
Thread: Focus: Player-Controlled Capital Ships
A couple of my ramblings and ideas and opinions, this coming from a Pilot Ace and a Master Shipwright...
the should be Faction Declared Usage ONLY, not specifically PVP, but should be open to attack from anyone who dares to. Its a large target, from anyones standpoint. If you dare to obtain one, you should be well aware of the risks involved for flying them.
Must purchase NPC Crew with faction to man all non player manned subsystems (number of NPCs is ship specific). Make required crew members "player substitutable", but essential in the mechanics of the ship to make it work correctly. NPC gunners and repair members slow, less intuative etc...
Player owned Capitals (small and large) should be craftable, but require a multitude of materials and subcomponents (include a variety of components that need to be crafted from various professions - collaberation between players is what makes this a strong game!) Unique resources required, Quite a bit of asteroid for hull components maybe... Also a support building planet side to store required materials to get underway. A ship this size just doesnt turn on and run. You need logistical support behind it. WHICH COSTS ALOT OF MONEY How much does it cost to run a aircraft carrier a day, a few million correct? A joyride in this should be a bad idea, as to the resources required to get the ship moving... To craft the ships, they should be a quest schematics with a one use option (or limited) for crafting, maybe along the lines of a random drop, like the KSE. Making it attainable, but oh so hard. Try to stay away from the lunch line 30 minute drop for the JSF approach.
Player rented Capitals can be used in quest based missions from approriate faction stations, which has a limited amount of capital ships in use throughout the galaxy at one time.
To actually pilot one, should include a new profession. Which is a template up from ace pilot. Should be attainable through faction rank and prestige points. Each breakdown similar to pilot profession, with different ships (smaller capitals early on - largest capital qualed upon mastering the profession) qualified and different subcomponents qualified to use. Each skill box should require faction points and a HUGE requirement of prestige points. Make this a long and hard grind. Not every sailor in the Navy will command a carrier, so not everyone in the game should either.
This has a great opportunity to broaden the options available to the space faring players, I think it would be a good draw for new players to introduce them to Galaxies. With the immense amount of content this will add, I feel it will most likely be an expansion.
I think boarding parties would be a great way to include ground combatants, specifically the elite professions... Wow, the possibilites involved here are immense.
On the logistical side of the house, now that the cat is out of the bag, I have a feeling all the crafters are going to need a building with a huge storage capacity introduced, specially if these are going to be craftable, even if its only the components, this needs to be addressed also.
Great direction to be headed in.
Jaissen Dunan
REDSUN
Imperial Pilot Ace
Master Shipwright
Kauri
Curse them!!!
Just when I'm fed up with the state of the game and am preparing myself for moving on, they go and do something like this that would make me want to stay. /sigh
!
tele05 wrote:
good suggestion, but with that being the idea of only guildleaders getting the vette than next thing you see is new guilds popping up out of no where...Catch 22
A couple thoughts based on this and a few other comments so far. Having a quest to gain a capital ship is cool, what about a Guild Quest? The guild leader takes out the quest, and everyone in the guild recieves an email and the quest in their quest log. The quest would not only have multiple steps, but also parallel paths so one a few people could be working on part A of step one, and a few others could be working on part B.
At somestep prestige point are required, but make it so everyone in the guild can pool their points. Maybe you unlock the abilityto purchase a tradable schematic from your Ace trainer, and when you do so a little window comes up allowing everyone grouped with you to donate PP. Better yet, have the person doing the purchase have a window similar to the invite window for a POB ship, a 'request PP window, and those you request from get a window asking if they would like to donate PP and how much.
Finally, to reference the above quote. Don't make capital ships belong to the guild leader - don't make them belong to ANYONE, they belong to the guild. When your guild recieves a schematic for a capital ship, they also recieve a Guild Capital Ship terminal. This terminal is place in the guild's guildhall. It acts as a starship terminal, but only for the capital ship associated with that guild. The guild leader can grant admin rights via this terminal. Anyone in the guild can look at the ship (via the terminal) to see what is loaded so everyone can work towards better equipment. Those with Admin can manupulate the ship, including launching it. The capital ship can only be launched or landed from that terminal - that's a huge restriction, but I think it would be nessicary given the rest of the terminal functionality. Besides, trying to remember where Bob put the keys to the corvette much less parked it could be a pain 
Just my 2 credits.
Just a few quick ideas...
1) These should definitely be a challenge to acquire.. Would like to see it based on a quest, but one that you don't get bored of after an hour of killing the same thing over and over.. The Clone Relics are pretty well done, would like to see something along those lines, except a bit more difficult.
2) Ownership... Do we really want 100s of these flying around? Probably not. 
Not sure how technically feasible it is, but how about something of a Guild ownership system? Might be more logical and easier to work something like this in if they're dealing with...
3) Storage... Corellian Corvettes and Star Destroyers and whatnot really shouldn't be landing at the Coronet Starport, should they? Maybe this is where we also see the introduction of more advanced Space Stations, where players can walk around inside the stations, and use the station to transfer from the smaller ships to the capital ship that's docked there.
4) Crew... Obviously, running one of these should take several players to be effective. But how about for times when you just can't muster up a full crew? How about NPC gunners, bought as "pets" from the Faction recruiters just like other Stormtrooper NPCs can be bought? I mean, they already have the AI for capital ships firing, so it seems like it could happen. The NPCs wouldn't/shouldn't be as effective as a human crew, but would still be an option. Hell, if they had this now, I'd take my Decimator up a whole lot more.
My thought on this is the ships should be owned, not borrowed.
They also should not requier a massive crew to operate. I mean how many people were manning the Vet in ep3? Two... maybe three. There should be a pilot seat, and a support seat for someone to do all the support activites. Then you should need a gunner for each turret. Makeing the requierment for a vet to operate fully 8 people. I mean come on they are nothing more then YT-1300 that are bigger. The controls wouldnt be much diffrent. Think about it like this... you need two people to fly a small propeller plane, and two to fly a 747. Its the same principle.
They should requier afairly high faction rank (Dont know how you would handel this forprivatieers). Also they should requiermaster pilot. Iwould say they should be player crafted... but the resource requierments would be MASSIVE, makeing them way to expensive for all but the power gamers... and the power games have enough content specificly for them in this game. So perhaps as faction perks that cost near that of a SF base. That alone would help keep the amound down a bit. These ships should also be fully customizable with new weapons, engines, ect.
So what if there are many cap ships flying around in space? Theres nothing wrong with that. it will make space look more... active. Right nowspace looks horrubly deserted. Massive battles of Cap ships would def help improve the look and feel of space. Bottom line, if my friend and I want to save up and buy a cap ship like a corvette or something to use, we should be able to. It shouldnt be limited to guilds, or to 8 people, or anything like that. As its totally over kill. Were not talking Star Destroyers or anything like that... were talking ships that are not that big.
Now we just have to play the waiting game and see what the devs come up with... and all I can say is it better not suck.
Well, make those Ships REALLY REALLY expensive...and even then, to use this, you need Instanced Space Sectors i think, or Space would be full of Captial Ships.
How i think it should be.....
A Stardestroyer and a Mon Calamari Cruiser shots each others....Player maned Fighters start from the Ships, fighting each other, Multiplayerships with Combatteams start to board the other Capital Ship, trying to take out vital Ship Systems, they land inside the Hangar, Blastershots spray around, as they storm out of the Boarding ship and the fire of the Defenders start...somehow they fight through to a Batterie of Laser Turrets, planting their Explosives, few Secounds later, the Batteries are destroyed, the Sirens scream, Shilds are gone, time for the Boarding Party to fight back to their Ship and leave the damned Capital Ship.
Just a few things id like to say if changes like this are going to be made.
1) Dont screw shipwrites again and make the only really desired ships 100% quested crank up the resource usage to even of what a Tier 6 or 7 would be and add option 2.
2) Impliment a space ranking system seperate from your faction rank and place rank requirements on stuff like this.
3) One thing id rather see is player owned space stations... (or something to that effect). The only thing id love more thenseeing Jedi get fixed would be a player space city....able to dock it then and walk around attaching additional houses to the main station itself or optional larger yacht like ships that you can place and dock as a personal house. There would have to be some sort of restrictions as to where in the system you could place houses to prevent it getting over crowded and a restiction on size (hence just add the houses onto the main station itself). Eh im not the game designer here i could ramble on for hours with ideas but it would just be awesome to live in space (i almost do anyway just no vendors or housesup there)
Just throwing some stuff out there but IMO as unpopulated as some servers are and as interest in faction wars have become smaller and smaller due to large amounts of people never playing just being another name on the list in cityhall....i dont see this being a big thing except to those like me that still love space more then ground game.
A isd should be quest based. Im not talking about 3 easy quests. Talking about 100! 225 for ISDII.
These quests should require you to be the midshipment. As a ship midshipment yoiu work on a captal ship using weapons, commanding stuff, etc. You would be working on NPC ships, like, Corvettes, Dreadnaughts, Nebulan B1 and B2, Star destroyers, etc. To make quests work and not get in people's ways there could be space instances zones so when your npc captain gives you a mission the npc ai will hyper to the instance.
Before you can become one you must head to the imperail academy on naboo, tat. or coreilla. You will be givenen 20 different quests ranging below your lvl and near it. You will recieve a lambda shuttle as completion. Then u start the 75 quests that take u through these ranks. Its basicly a new rank system for starships.
High Admiral
Fleet Admiral
Admiral
Vice-Admiral
Rear-Admiral
-----------------------
Commodore EXTRA
Line Captain EXTRA
Captain (67-75
Commander (49-67
Lt. Commander (40-49
Lieutenant (28-40
Sub-Lieutenant (15-28
Acting Sub-Lt. (1-15
Midshipman/Ensign(training
The numbers stand for the quests( first is starting 2nd is end). Becoming adrimals would be impossible as since you can't control fleets of star destroyers. After completing set of quests you recive a new rank, a badge, and unlock the instance for you to grind at. When captain is complete you recieve the smallest captal ship, The Corvette. Commondore also gives a New and Special capital ship never heard of.
After unlocking captain you can start getting the star destroyers. These quests will be hard. There will be tier 6 and tier 7 stuff!
After getting a ISD or ISDII(victory stardestroyers I,II will be different quests) you will be crazy happy. Thse are the stats of them
Name/Model#
Imperial-1 Class Star Destroyer
Designer/Manufacturer
Kuat Drive Yards
Combat Designation
Capital Starship
Length
1600 meters
Crew
37,085 (4,520 officers; 32,565 enlisted)
Power System
SFS I-a2b solar ionization reactor
Weapons
60 Taim & Bak XX-9 Heavy Turbolasers (computer assisted targeting)
60 Borstel NK-7 Ion Cannons (computer assisted targeting)
10 Phylon Q7 Tractor Beam Projectors
Starfighter Squadrons (standard)
Three TIE Starfighter squadrons
Two TIE Interceptor squadrons
One TIE Bomber squadron
Name/Model#
Imperial-2 Class Star Destroyer
Designer/Manufacturer
Kuat Drive Yards
Combat Designation
Capital Starship
Length
1600 meters
Crew
37,085 (4,520 officers; 32,565 enlisted)
Power System
SFS I-a2b solar ionization reactor
Weapons
50 Heavy Turbolaser Batteries
50 Taim & Bak XX-9 Heavy Turbolasers (computer assisted targeting)
20 Borstel NK-7 Ion Cannons (computer assisted targeting)
10 Phylon Q7 Tractor Beam Projectors
Starfighter Squadrons (standard)
Three TIE Starfighter squadrons
Two TIE Interceptor squadrons
One TIE Bomber squadron
You see the crew limits are huge!!!?! To fix it a droid interface added could make the turbolasers automated. A player siiting at the bridge could use the droid command to activate it. Ion lasers could also be affecected by it expt its a different droid command. There would need to be 10 players at bridge sitting at different command consoles using Droid Automated turbo laser commands as only certain ammount of turbolasers will work on automated at one console. Turbolasers on automated would be very sucky agianst fighters. A player could also command one turbolaser. Tractor beams would be used to capture ships. Also a player can only activate one droid command on a isd.
Engies would require 3 players to run. They would be able to control boosters, engine speed, and engine repairs. The capactiors would require 2 players to use. They would repair it and recharge it. They would be located in turbolaser areas. Theres also two more capactors at ions. The people at capactiors need to be careful. If they recharge it to fast turbolasers could run out of fuel. Recharge it to soon and some could be disabled. Fuel can be from asteroids. THe reactor requires a player to keep it repaired and power levels balanced. Power levels are need to be balanced so stuff works. Shields work the same but also have the abiltity to be strengthen to certain parts of ship( another droid command). It would be the 11th console at bridge. There are also oxyegen pumps and gravity stabliztion consoles at the ship. It would require several players to patrol areas of ship to keep them repaired.
Star destroyers would be limited two per sector. Sectors also will need to be enlarged.
1. Should be player owned, personally, I'm leaning toward letting ShipWrights craft them.
2. Captain should somehow earn the right to get one. Prestige points? Quest?? Credits??
3. One person should be able to fly it, but NOT bring it into combat, or do much else besides decorate.
Crew stations should be:
A. Captain - Owner/Overall command of the vessel (Ace) - Invite/Kick crew members, Admin of the vessel.
B. First Mate (Exec) - Secondary Command (4444) - Same as Captain, but subordinate to.
C. Helmsman (4xxx) - Pilots the vessel, initiates hyperdrive jumps, sets Waypoints.
D. Chief Weapons Officer (x4xx) Control Capital weapons (the big anti-cap-ship guns), control Droid weapon programs.
E. Chief Engineer (44x4) - control Droid engine and shield programs, initiate repairs.
F. Gunner (Turret Stations) (xxxx) - control turrets placed around the ship, assist Engineer in repairs, repel boarders
4. Capital Ships should have the ability to group together in Fleets. The Fleet will have the ability to name itself, and is not permanent, so a ship may serve in a particular fleet, then change to a different fleet at a later time, similar to a standard ingame group, but one level higher, only the Captain and Exec of each ship appear in this group list. Subordinate members of each ship serving in a fleet gain a Fleet "tag" next to their name, indicating which fleet and ship they are from.
For example, if I was a gunner on the Corvette "Seeker", which is in the Imperial Fleet "Rosenthal", then my tag would read:
Kinjiru Spleen
Seeker/Rosenthal Fleet
Which isn't useful for much while onboard, or besides as identification on planet, but if I were flying a fighter as a member of the Seeker's captain's group, attached to the Rosenthal fleet, then it becomes my designation, to be used in the coordination of a fighter assault between multiple cap ships.
Using this method, you could group multiple cap ships together for large scale ship battles, lasers lancing between them, with fighters dodging and dogfighting amidst the deadly beams.
Now THAT's Star Wars.