Pilot Archive

One of the problems with creating any decent ongoing, dynamic content -- such as a tie in for the Death Star -- is that in reality, it can only be done Once. The Death Star can only be Built once, and only destroyed Once. Once the Emporer Loses control of the Galaxy, and is forced into exile, that's it. He can remount an offensive, return from hiding, and once again achieve victory but, in vastly different circumstances, and, the field is not the same. Ditto for a vanquished Alliance. Though it might reappear, and Will reappear, it is not the same beast. It cannot be. Different leaders, different allies, different climate in which it must operate AND, a different base power structure against which it must fight.

MMO's attempt to have static events, static circumstances in a dynamic setting. Every time WE do Emya's mission, The Exact same mission has been completed before, by thousands and thousands of people. And, how many times do we end up doing the same Duty mission, over and over and over again. When will ANY of it make a difference? I blew up the ISD yesterday morning, before I had gone one thousand meters it was back, big and red as ever. What's that about? It's like a folk tale in which an unsuspecting person is lured into the fairy realm and ends up doing the same task, for eons, never approaching the end and, never noticing the passage of time.

I'd like to see some dynamic quests. By thier nature, AND, by the nature of the game, they'd Have to be something other than "Save The World" encounters. Minor aspects that lead to new avenues, new content, and... MEMORIES. NPCs that actually remember who you are, and what you've done (In the vein of the non-repeatable quests, hopefully with a twist). It would be nice to see quest branches that could lead to Unique encounters. Quests that give choices, and open new pathways based upon those choices, with enough pathing that, though a great many people Could start the same quest, in a while, that number would dwindle as continued interactions with NPCs, and continued choices would both open and close routes. There isa glimmering of it.

Choice

Link Rank in here, have orders pop up, have "missions" that enable new promotions. Have Officialdivisions within the Factions, as Pilot does, and, have Unofficial divisions as well. Do little missions on the side for one commander, get in good with one squad AND, be on the outs with another as a result, or, simply be treated indifferently. Don't have the missions be all the same, have your past history reflected. If you've switched sides recently, show that too! Allow the possibility of life as a spy. I don't think it would be that difficult, a little at first but, the base is there for it. As is the role of the smuggler.

The smuggler should add a tremendous depth to the game; shadow operatives that are made use of by both sides, secretly working for various squads/individuals. Unmarked Ships, one minute, next assignment piloting a stolen Imp ship to some secret rendevous, delivering plans on a top secret run, where time is vital, One rebellion faction out to stop you, other rebel patrols simply responding to your colors. Deliver your cargo to some furtive Rebel, whose role you have no idea of, but, hints of deep ties. And, this mission marks you, though you don't know it at the time, draws you into the game. Let there have been an unseen Imperial Element at play. Perhaps the ship WASN'T stolen, a collusion between some Imperial "Sympathizer" and a Rebellion faction. Double agent Imp, yet, the true nature of the mission had nothing to do with the cargo, perhaps... it was you! perhaps you were just a pawn, or, maybe you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Were you noticed by one of your old contacts? Some mission you did some time ago?

And, what did that Rebel agent REALLY want? were they simply drawing out the Imperial Double? were they exposing something, putting something, or, someone into play? Or was it a shell game?

Let it be that. Let there be a deep mystery, as well as shallow ones. Don't allow anything to be taken for granted and, it will open an entirely new way of creating Games.

take MMO's to the next level.

Experience the Greatest Saga ever told...

The physics in space should be tweaked a little so we dont slide around so much. facing someone who is also facing you going in loops trying to hit them really gets to be annoying and unrealistic. ITs just a little to arcady. It should be a little more star warsy realism.

Droid programs take a long time to load, people have to wait to reload them before entering DS and it slows down any action that might occur there.

Message Edited by R9D14 on 08-04-2005 01:22 PM

---

R9D14 wrote:

Droid programs take a long time to load, people have to wait to reload them before entering DS and it slows down any action that might occur there.

Like faction pets on the ground we should be able to get our own flights of ships we are after all master/ace pilots not some recruit who is worth nothing. It might be something like bomberstrike or pirate trap but the ships stay with you and defend you and will attack any thing you have targetted otherwise.

Message Edited by R9D14 on 08-04-2005 01:22 PM

---

We'll, we all have droid commands, we all have to load them, lengthening them would be sort of "we are going to make you tiddle your thumbs before you can play even longer" and most of the time the people I duel in DS want me to get back sooner (they like blowing me up).

A work around, would be to have scheduled battle events, where everyone who has the master pilot tag, gets a system message (like the shutdown server message) that in 60/30/10/5 minutes, there will be a battle in the x,yzsector(specalized just for battle events, not DS or kessel) go to such and such station to request to enter the battle.
Once you die, you cannot reenter until the battle is over, you get one shot and thats it.




On the second note, I would love to have more player/npc ship interaction, but the physics are so far apart for player and npc ships, it can never happen well. Watch any two t5 fighters fight...even if one landed every hit on the other, they'd never kill it because they have weak (so not to kill players in 1 hit) weapons and super strong (so players can't one-shot the npcs) shields.

Personally, I consider this the single largest design flaw in JLS and think it causes the most impedement to advances in immersion.

GCW idea:
One other idea for pushing your GCW standings, is to have a type of duty mission count for x planet points if routinely done. IE, you talk to a recuiter, and you take on "Rebel Activity Space Patrol" over Naboo. Unlike duty missions, you keep them after you land. You have weekly requirements: You must patrol x times in x days (you can do all in 1 day, or space them out over the next 7 days) but if you do, your side gets raised ground GCW standings. If you do them again next week, you keep those standings, or they go away if you don't.

These patrols are overt, and you can take low missions up to "squadron patrols" that are hard and require groups of masters. If you die while overt, the Empire (or rebel alliance) compensate you for your personal costs (ie, no decay).
If you die as a victim of an engagement with one of these patrols as an overt player, your faction also compensates you for your valorous attempt at holding off the enemy.

Last note: if you succeed in 7/7 you get full GCW points for your planet, if you get 1/7, you get 1/7th of them.
No redos till next week.
(Going off duty and resigning up does not give you the chance to redo the missions either, they just offer you to 'pick up where you left off', and a pilot can only take 1 patrol per planet sector, and be in 1 squadron mission per sector so their influence is limited)

That way, we can get out there, and see an wing of ships flying through naboo space, all imperial, all red, all players, and we know there is a patrol in the area. You can steer clear, or plan an attack, but this would do the best thing for space possible:

You'd feel like you were in rebel/imperial controlled space and feel the immersion

Final Final side note:
I'd really like to see a Privateer skill, or droid command, that let you fake your signature, effective only beyond 1500-2000m. If you engage it, you drain 100% of your capacitor, you loose your weapon/cap overloads, and you appear to be a civilian non-overt white-dot ship.
It would be really cool that if you locked it, instead of showing the ship, in the top-right display, it gave static like a jammed signal.
When you get in range though, or are otherwise detected, they get a beepy message (the same sound when a mission person updates you on the comm) and you are informed that a nearby enemy fighter is on the scanner that was masked as a civilian ship.

on the one hand it would be bad for a privateer to loose his weapon and cap droid commands, and on the other gives someone in a non-factional ship a chance to slip by, and the best scenes in SW was Solo doing just that. (ok, sometimes in a lamda shuttle toobut you get the idea)

---

FM_Warblood wrote:

Make JTL a true Combat Flight Simulator

I posted this a few minutes ago in the JTL forums and thought it would fit in here to. Make JTL a true space sim. Give use full control over flight systems and operations. Give us take offs and landings. Gives us all the great stuff other Flight Sims have. Let us shoot a ship and see peices fly off of it. Let an engine go out and make us hit the fire suppresion system. Make our radios go out ,make our landing gear go out so we must deploy them manually. Id love to be in space,get shot up and have to control a limpship back to port and land it while systems fail and I have to feather the engines..I would loveto be able to have towatch my fuel consomption. Would love to have to radio in to find a landing strip thats closewhen Im shot up(unless i lost my radio to). There are sooo many things that could be added to JTL.

Ihavefound space to be boring after or maybe even beforeI mastered pilot. It is the same thing over and over and over. I love flight sims but this isnt even close to that felling for me. If you compaired it to say IL-2 or Microsofts Combat Flight Sims it wouldnt even rank.

Do one mission in a B-17 with 8 other people on-liine and you would laugh at SWG's multiplayer ships.

Or how about a Spitefire? One flight in that and you would never want to fly an A-wing again.

And what about Lock-on? Kill a ground radar station in a A-10and then yank and bank to get that SAM off your 6 and you will be looking at JTL a whole new way.

And the Me 262 is the shnitz. Gotta really be good at controling both engines as not to burn them out and catch fire but man is it a blast to fly when you learn how. Anything in SWG can be jumped right into and dont require any type of skill to learn. Every ship is the same and has no detailed flight controls or operations.

Even ejecting in most flight sims is cool. Cant say that for JTL.

Of course the Flight Sims I play are very well thought out and researched and they show it.JTL justdosnt do it for me. Cant really say why . If it was a stand alone game it would be a major flop in my list of flight sims.

As long as you can 'LOAD' ur ship,hit the throttle to full speed and then shoot a player ship one time to get it to explode theGCW will be a joke

Message Edited by FM_Warblood on 05-27-2005 12:30 AM

---

i was thinking the only way tomake GCW in space workis by add something that is going to affect everyone. i was thinking their should be in deep space where 5 space stations that can flip to imp or rebel. The stations should be placed in the center of deep space and on each side their is a star distoryer and a rebel command center. Now the faction that has the most bases fliped is the faction that should get a 20% bouns in faction and a 10% lower faction cost to base and other faction idems on every plant. Every day for 6 hours a base in deep space and be fliped. The only way to flip thestation is by playersdocking in to them and fliping them like they do to bases but with a longer timer.Then if the faction that is winning manges to get all the bases they will be able to enter the emenys base (star distoryer or rebel command center)and distory it with in and can be distoryed on a ship where it will be a PvP zone. The star distoryer and the rebel command center will have cloning centers and can take their ships off right from their faction base. Once a faction is winning the war in deepspace the faction will get the bouns.

1. deep space should be bigger sense it is the only place pvp go on.

2. the timer for loading in overt should be upped

3. And add the system i was taking about

4. Quest are not going to fix Space changing system is.

Message Edited by trojanman666 on 08-23-2005 10:24 AM

Message Edited by Beltfed on 08-23-2005 01:57 PM

• Novice Pilot: Imperial/Rebel/Privateer (as applicable)Pilot Officer (addressed as Mr. or Ms. So-and-so).


• 1111: Imperial/Rebel/Privateer Flight Officer (typically also addressed as above).


• 2222: Imperial/Rebel/Privateer Flight Lieutenant (addressed as Lt. So-and-so or by literal designation)


• 3333: Imperial/Rebel/Privateer Squadron Leader(addressed by literal designation).


• 4444: Imperial/Rebel/Privateer Wing Commander (addressed as Cmdr. So-and-so or by literal designation).


• Ace: Imperial/Rebel/Privateer Group Captain (addressed as Captain So-and-so or by literal designation).

I've read a lot of complaints on the GCW boards about how the current ranking system is Army specific despite the fact that we now have ingame Navies and Fighter corps. Also, to me it seems kind of silly that our best pilot sometimes have enlisted ranks above their head. I will point out, however, that in Star Wars novels, pilots and figher squadrons assigned to Army units are often called by Army ranks to avoid confusion. For example, since an army Captain is the equivalent of a Flight Lieutenant, and a Figher Corps Captain is the equivalent of an army Colonel, things could get silly. However, I'd rather see Fighter Corps Ranks introduced than fall back on the 'assigned to army units' excuse.

Oh, and perhaps we could use Prestige Points to obtain Commodore and higher ranks (the various Marshal ranks).

Edited to add the Prestige Points thing

Message Edited by Obed on 08-24-2005 01:53 PM