Pilot Archive
Thread: Focus: Player-Controlled Capital Ships
so lets also hope for the best again.It looks clear that true capital ships will be more like stations. We will get fly things smaller things. A 150m ship isn't going to be too big of a problem, the Y8 is about 110m. These should be craftable, but to limit them I can understand making them single time quest rewards.
As a MSW I really don't make a living on ships, its always the stuff that goes in them. Some have made a big deal about the new rewards but all that would have been is a quick bunch of creds, and if past exp shows us anything there would have been HUGH over charges.
Another way to limit them is simply to use space resources, just swap out a stack of steel and it would make the price skyrocket and keep them down.
My initial thoughts are that this will all be part of a story line exp. as we are getting close to ESB. A PvP only planet also may allow the posibility of an area we could fly speeders against AT-ATs and AT-STs and the lag could be controlled. The zone style world could prevent straff runs and leave the sky fighting as background to the ground game. As I recall in the movie, it was almost like 2 zones of combat
ok ive read through asmuch as i could before i need to sleep. Sorry if anyone else has already posted this.
What about new master professions. Similar to the origonal pilot classes but geared towards using capital ships. Each branch could apply to a different role onboard the ship forinstance captain or gunner etc. Each branch could have a different type of xp required and can only be gained from playing the asociated role onboard the ship this would almost garuntee that you could find a player to fill a role onboard.It would denenetley give us something to work towards and keep us interested and would probably get allot of people grouping in capital ships.
the downside to the multiple xp types is that you could be a lowsy pilot or a crap gunner which would make things pretty tedious. and sitting in the ops chait to get xp would drive some folks nuts.
A couple of things I would like to see would be
1) Shipwright craftable by limited use schematic that would be dropped as part of a factioned space quest- it would have to be a hard quest but not insanely hard. Definatly harder than the corvette though for ace
2) Large resource requirements in the range of 2-3 million units ground resources and 100-200k space resources for chassis
3) Master pilot certified for cammanding and flying
4) New capitol ship grade weapons, armor, capacitor, reactor, etc- all shipwright craftable
5) Stations for 8 or more players- turrets, operations, pilot seat, repair, navigation, etc
6) Docking bay for up to 4 fighters/ bombers. No more than 4 though, would have to use the /dock command to board if grouped with the commander. Be able to repair at the capitol ship and rearm missiles if in inventory.
7) Multiple decks, with medical bay, engine room, bridge, etc
8) New quests for capitol ships with new loot for capitols ships
9) Should have a minimum crew requirement so that 1 player couldn't park on a good loot spawn with their capitol ship and outdamage other players.
Him I've got the wrong plumbing to be a Her! But thanks. I tried to post something informative.
DrendalKahn wrote:
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.
- 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
Wow and i thought the news about hoth was wicked cool..
I do have this thought though im guessing we are only going to be looking at mid-range capital ships (obviously not super capital) and not large capital ships (i.e Mon Cal and ISD) as much as I would love to take 40 of my best friends I never knew onto an ISD and go burn coronet to the ground.
If we are talking about a whole new line of midrange craft becoming playable id really like to see the Lamda shuttle become playable it would be good for carrying alot of people over to assault one of these capital ships. (Once thier disabled of course) I also would like to see maybe flyable gunboats maybe? Those are just a little bit bigger than a decimator.
Anyways time to go read the rest of the thread =)
(Still hoping for a player controlled ISD, even though i know not to hold my breathe)
BHM wrote:A few things:
To prevent capital ship wars, they should require:
-Master Pilot
-Huge amount of Prestige points
-Very high rank (maybe new ranks like admiral, which should also cost prestige and involve new space quests)
If a Capital ship is disabled, it should cost a a lot to repair it.
One should be able to (say) disable it THEN /doc, get on board, fight the players and do something like base busting. If a ship is disabled from inside, it should take x days to repair it. I know that this might be very hard to code, but it would be cool..
Basically, capital ships are extremely cool, but we don't want to see 200 Vettes in space fighting each other and 0 starfighters.
Turrets should be manned, no npcs firing from turrets. It should take 7 or 8 persons to pilot/shoot/repair the vessel.
I don't like the "borrow" option, but I really don't want to see 200 Vettes at the same time..
I don't think you would see that. From what some of the ACE pilots on here say, it's easy for a fighter to take out a vette. If that's the case, you really wouldn't want to do much in them without a fighter escort.
And yes, turrets should be manned with real people, just like in the existing POB ships.
First we need space. Lots of it. I suggest to use some kind of instanced technology to make as many space sectors as wanted. Ships 'park' in one of these instances but are able to move to another of these space space zones. There could be only X captial ships at a time in these zones. You could possibly introduce some more rules like the X ships each faction maximum to keep control over it. You might allow players to create their own instance with a name they want as a home for the captial ship.
Capital Ships should work more like player cities than like ships in a datapad. You need to be master pilot to file an application to become commander of a capital ship. The authorities will then check your demand. In game mechanical terms, you need people who want to sign on your ship. That will be your crew. They will have cabins to store items and so on.
To conn a ship to another position, you need to set navpoints (waypoints). The ship will slowly move to that waypoint. You also could use hyperspace and move to another space sector (not planetary sectors).
The commander of the ship will have all the information, but cannot manipulate it. The other crew don't have the information, but is able to do actions. The commander can add or remove people to or from positions. If you are not on the list of a position (set by the commander), you are not allowed to change anything. One position is for acquiring information, it works as a kind of radar for the space zone and shows the number of players, pilots, turrets [...] on the ship. The others are turret command (aiming with batteries), conning, TIE squadron control (send TIEs for various tasks, like reconnaissance, interception), repair and maintenance (use programms to load the energy to bridge shields).
The bridge is for all the commanding and conning stuff. The hangars are to start and land ships. The cabins are to store your personal stuff. A pilots / officers cantina and a med center will be standard too.
Combat
Once two ships are close to each other (and of different faction) they engage in combat. This will happen automatically(!). The only thing you can do is to maneuver the ship in a good shooting position. The turret operator can assess the turrets either against starfighters or to attack the other ship (like 15% vs Starships / 85% vs captial ship or another combination). The other crew members might use turrets manually. Player Starfighters can do much harm. They are able to attack turrets, the bridge and other parts of the ship. The autocombat of the two capital ships will be worse for the ship with lesser autoturrets. So starfighters are of a great help in a space combat.
The reason to engage in combat is missing. There will be a large tactical map that puts all sectors in correlation. If you want to hyperspace and must pass other sectors, an imperial interdictor might draw you into realspace halfway, or pirates and others. Holding certain space sectors (key sectors) will count towards the occupant. Each cycle, other sectors are determined randomly to be key sectors.
Final Notes
I guess its unlikely to see something like this coming. As it seems, the demo shows content areas with NPCs and new missions in a very star wars fashion. However, its damn cool - maybe the best I have seen so far in development. My guildmates that are now in the WoW section of our guild are aroused and consider to return, when this is coming.
Message Edited by BadMisterFrosty on 06-06-2005 09:41 PM
Might as well jump in on this . . .
The ships should be player owned: It should take a lot of credits to buy one (and perhaps prestige points, though some people won't likethe idea of requiring master pilot to own one), butthis is not to say that there shouldn't be NPC cap ships which all players can land on, take a mission and then board an enemy NPC cap ship. Like in the fanfest movie.
A high rank should be required to own a ship: C'mon, really. You shouldn't be able to have command of a capital ship if you're a Warrant Officer II. Requiring factional points to own a factional ship will limit their numbers, and encourage people to engage in the GCW. The bigger the ship, the higher the rank.
A minimum crew requirement: Again, to limit the number of cap ships, there should be a minimum number of crew needed to launch a ship. This number is just to get the ship moving. There should be more crew to fill out the complement of postions aboard the vessel. The bigger the ship, the higher the minimum number needed to launch.
For example: To launch a corvette, perhaps a crew of just three is needed -- a commander, a navigator and an engineer (just an example, don't flame me). But to achieve full functionality aboard the ship, you'd need more people -- perhaps several gunnery officers (for large guns and for banks of smaller gun batteries), a flight surgeon to run the sick bay and a security officer to board other ships and repel hostile boarders.
In other words, there should be a minimum to get the ship flying, but the minimum doesn't ensure that the ship performs well in space -- just that it is basically moving. Launch with a skeleton crew at your own risk.
Ships should be required to be overt: Sorry, but without this requirement, space is going to look like a marina on Memorial Day. Lag will be crazy. If people know they face a risk when they whip out their cap ships, they'll avoid the casual jaunts around the system to show off. That's what your yacht and other MPs are for. The devs can always peel this rule back if they think it's too harsh, but it makes sense to start out with it.
Give some GCW reward for those who take the risks: Since those with capital ships would have to do so much and take such great risks, there should be a bigpayoff. Missions should provide great FP, unusualand highlyvaluable itemsand there should be some kind of "bragging right" reward for taking out an enemy ship. I don't know what this should be. An NPC ship blockade of a planet would be good if NPCs did not attack coverts. As it is now, it would be almost griefing to apply the planetary control model to space sectors.
Other thoughts:
-- Players should be allowed to man individual turrets on ships, but on the really large ships, it might make sense to also allow them to control "banks" of turrets. Like, say, the starboard or port side guns. The warhead launchers. Or the forward or aft large cannons. You could have a control panel with a drop down menu with commands like, "Attack my target," "Attack my target type," "Assist my target," or "Attack target component."
-- Frankly, I think it would be neat to allow large ships to carry a complement of NPC starfighters it could launch in an attack and to have a certain number of NPC personnel on board to repel boarders.
-- I like the idea of missions that involve attacking an enemy NPC ship, disabling it and then boarding it to either, say, free prisoners of your own faction or to capture high-ranking enemy NPCs.
-- The player commander of a ship should be allowed to let other factional ships land in the hangar bay and board or just simply purchase repair services or warhead reloads. This could allow the cap ship crew to make a little bit of money.
On another note: Please, please, also do not forget about space stations. Many of us would like to just land on a station and head to the local cantina or get a factional mission or some other kind of quest.
And my personal suggestion, a pilot's lounge foraceplayer pilots only (which would exclude me, unless you allowed the pilots to invite one member as a guest, sort of like going to the country club swimming pool with your rich friend).
Message Edited by TulasiKid on 06-06-2005 07:01 PM
- 1 per guild
- Said guild needs to own a city and be the primary guild. Reason for this would be to implement guild name in city terminal. More or less, if you can hold a flying fortress you NEED to have somewhere to land it, if not a terrestrial base of operations.
- Guild needs to have "x" amount of total prestige points
- Guild needs to have "x" amount of total faction points
- Guild needs to have greater than "x" amount of total pvp rank
- Guild needs to have "x" amount of colonels
- Guild needs to have "x" amount of Ace pilots.
- Guild needs to have "x" total amount of Prestige points.
- Needs to be quest based, long, hard intensive, requiring a lot of ace pilots
These are heavy faction and PVP requirements, you own a flying fortress, you need to be an active faction aligned guild.
Restrictions:
The following things need to be restricted.
- No opposite faction members allowed onto capital ship (unless under attack, or in the "prison').
- 1 per guild that meets requirements.
- High maintenance fees
- Must have limited movement and/or long hyperspace timers.
Aspirations:
- Hope to be able to hover next to other capital ships
- Hope to add bonuses to nearby starfighters. (In the same manner that city radius works, but for ship stats).
- Hope to have aerial battles seen to that of those in Ep 6, and begging of Ep 3.
- The ability to take "quest missions" (both land and space involved) that reward w/ very good missions payouts. (This will intice players to hang around the ship in times of no PVP).
Conclusion:
Its a pretty long list, you might want to have it multi-guilded instead of just 1 per guild. That way, the star destroyer will rarely be deserted. If you have multiple guilds allied to a capital ship then you will rarely see it desterd. You might also consider having player owned capital ships Deep Space only.