Pilot Archive
Thread: Focus: Player-Controlled Capital Ships
Ships should be restricted per faction (at least for say 4-6 months). This helps define the role of the different factions a bit more as to what kind of capital ships their forces control. Imperials should have a frigate class, perferrably Neb B's. these were made to directly defend convoys from all forms of raiders, most notably rebels and larger pirate clans. Rebels should have a standard corvette as they have been in service for a godo while and are used throughout the galaxy from picket duty to the mainstays of outer rim naval forces. As such these are easy to get and do to their size, need less personnel to man them. Nuetrals become a bit more of a problem to decide. I would suggest an all new ship or possibly a corellian gunboat as their first captial ship. Smaller then the corvette but heavily armed fits the model of privateers and nuetral business people trying to protect their goods and businesses.
Ships should be only on a lease through guilds. This requires guilds to pay a fee, not light but then mot too taxing either to keep these ships mantained and in fighting order. This will give guilds a stronger importance overallin the galaxy. This will also help define guilds more factional wise. The DEVs have been wanting to tug people into picking a side more and this could help. By having the ships leased to guilds the multi factional guilds have to decide how they will be aligned. Some people and guilds argue about this but I believ this could still be pushed through without too much fuss since all 3 space sides will be supported in capital ships.
In the beginning the first 3 ships should have equal berths for manning their ships. As time goes on and more ships added then different crew amounts could be set into place for the different factions to show the size and importance shown to these ships by their factions. I would suggest a crew of 15, but no more then 20 per ship total. limiting the numbers allowed aboard these ships allows for the chance at more action to take place. Smaller numbers of crews allows for the chance of more capital ships to fight in the action or to allow fighters to help support their larger ships during the battle.
Captial ships should betrue flying brick. do not let them turn like they do on the corvette runs and whip themselves around as they do. By making all points of rotation a slower event it allows more movie like actions and battles. This will also make their crews, and mainly their captains, to learn a new type of fighting skill.
Ships should be allowed to be boarded but not taken. The cost should for winning one way or the other a bonus to the faction in some form. By having the battles take place on two fronts brings more to the battles and the importance of keeping your ship or fleet under good command. This will also make the players who crew these ships ready to fight and keep their crews combat capable since they know at any time they could be boarded. This adds in a sense the battlegrounds back into the game ina new format. They brings about pvp in two versions into the same field. Now with line of sight changes, This adds to the realism of fighting in close quaters aboard ships and will make the battles a bit harder on both sides. If a capital ship is taken that guilds ship should not be allowed to be sued for 24 to 48 hours to hopefully kepe the crews more willing to fight and protect their ships more then just going up to go up and not really care one way or the other to what happens.
There should be battles that take place against NPC ships so that there can be battles between capital ships even if one or two factions on the server are not up to the task of pvp combat in this form. NPC ships would also allow the added use of larger capital ships in the forms of Star Destroyers or Mon Cal Cruisers or even a convoy of goods being escorted by a small assault taskforce.
There are many more ships in the Star Wars Universe that could be added to thissort ofaction or even those new ones that are designed for the game. I do not believe they should go above drednaught level though as then they would simply become too massive and lag filled I believe.
Message Edited by CrimsonCredits on 06-07-2005 01:58 AM
DigitalOne wrote:
I heavily support the concept of a Pilot elite profession that allows you to be a capitan or bridge crew. A capital ship should definatly not belong to one person, perhaps storing in the datapads of 3+ people who need to be at the same terminal at the same time to launch the ship or something like that.
This idea is not really viable because that would limmit the amount of capital ships in space to a minimum if you actually get to see them at all. Let people own them and use them as they feel like it. Yes I know in real life it would be impossible to man one of these things solo, but this is a game. If you need a full crew to just fly the thing, then you will never seen them. let 1 person fly them like any other POB ship, but to be able to fight you would need to have a crew.
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..
Message Edited by ShinyJedi on 06-07-2005 08:22 AM
Message Edited by Thoreson on 06-07-2005 06:20 AM
YES the captial ships (star destroyer, mon calmary cruisers etc) should be ownable. The requirements to own one should be high. Maybe they should cost like a million faction points for just the schematic - then you need a Shipwright to build it. Queue a MASSIVE amount of resources required. I see a lot of people saying Master Pilot and a rank of Colonel - which I fully agree with.
The bigger the ship the higher the need for more people to run it. However someone who's jumped through all the hoops to get their captial ship (for example: star destroyer) should be able to launch the ship on their own (much like you can with the POB ships at present). However the amount of players needed to operate effectively should be high, this will mainly be dictated by the amount of turrets the ships have.
Also the bigger the ship the more room in your datapad it takes up (therefore you sacrifice ship lots for it)? Star Destroyer would take up all your slots bar one, allowing you to have one fighter.
To be honest, I think if you that if you gave everyone a capital ship it'd quickly get balanced out, if a star destroyer has 20 gun ports then you're going to need something like 23 people just to run it - that alone is enough to servely limit the amount. Couple that with having to kit one out! And then you're going to need about 10 people to "house" their fighters in the hanger... then you're going to need people to protect the ship in case the shield drop and you get boarded -- of course that's if you and your ship go overt.