Pilot Archive
Thread: What would make you use a POB ship more often?
gunners etc mid mission, or have more supplies brought in ship.
Flightcomputers/Droids could always auto-pilot your ship to and
from the POB ship (just an idea to help the RP side of it)
Message Edited by MADMAN69UK on 10-18-2005 01:46 PM
The auto turret idea is great - like the Xwing vs Tie Fighter game
And just to wave the flag again...
Smuggling holds and being able to Smuggle in space
Kynth wrote:
What would make you use a POB ship more often?
Don't limit yourself to simple stat increases. What would also make a POB more fun?
Here's my own wish list:
Allow ships to dock in space
Couldn't get that to work in the original beta. However just like we were told multipassenger vehicles weren't technically feasible, I wouldn't be surprised to see this cooking on a back burner somewhere.
Group owned ships
Hard to manage since groups like guilds are essentially "owned" by a single player (resources allocated to that account) and by and large are a group of administrative tools, not an allocation of system resources on the level of ships and equipment. Might be nice, but highly unlikely considering the grief potential.
Re-arming
Very definitely doable, possible, and desirable. Anything to give a crew some more to do and feel like part of the action.
Fixed Forward turrets
No. The devs made a bright shining line saying that multiplayer ships should be for multiple players, and it's a line I heatily agree with. There's enough out there for the lone pilot, there's no "need" for this, and with the upcoming POB component changes, could quite possibly be exceptionally unbalanced.
Auto-tracking turrets
Again, no for the reasons stated aabove. Now, if you asked for independently rotating turrets (where they stay pointed as the gunner points, and don't turn with the ship unless the pilot turns beyond the turret's firing arc) then ya got something worth begging for.
Unmanned pilot seats
DEs begged for this feature to be linked to having a droid on your ship. That's still the way I'd prefer to see it implemented.
Ops chairs
Allow members of another faction to man your operations seat.
Done to preserve game balance, and prevent factional confusion. The only way I could condone a change to this would be in cases of factional PvP or PvE where the ship then allowed members of the Pilot's faction to sit in Ops.
KSE Firespray
Why isn't this a POB ship already?!
Even when Jango owned it, the ship was heavily customized. There is nothing definitive that I've seen showing a stock off-the-line KSE as being POB, and since the ship is so darn small inside anyway, it hardly seems worth devoting the system overhead to making it so. However I wouldn't mind seeing it converted to a 2nd man optional MP craft. Having someone to fire the tailgun from time to time might be fun (yet having it slaved to me if I was solo).
Travel Times
Can't put the genie back in the bottle. If a system like your's had been implemented at the launch of JtL (cutting the old shuttle times in half and making private ships quicker than shuttles) then it would have done a lot of good for the game economically, but now it's too late. Backsliding to somethign like this would do more harm to the subscriber base than good.
Kynth wrote:
What would make you use a POB ship more often?
Don't limit yourself to simple stat increases. What would also make a POB more fun?
Here's my own wish list:
Allow ships to dock in space
Then allow players to transfer between ships e.g. Fighter -> POB. That way friends can link up without having to travel, land, hit their overloads and would let them man a POB more easily. Have uncrewed/unmanned ships de-spawn. Handy. Interesting spin, I like this one
Group owned ships
An option to allow any player on the ships Admin list, who is also certified for the ship, tolaunch the vessel from a starport. A group of friends or a guild could then maintain a few POB ships for use by authorised guild members or otherfriends. Cool. I haven't really seen a need for this, but fine by me.
Re-arming
Let players reload their missiles from their cargo hold. Have a terminal next to the weapons conduits or similar location where they can feed torpedos into the magazine. No kidding. We can repair but we cannot reload, come on devs.
Fixed Forward turrets
Allow unmanned turrets to be locked into a Fixed Forward position and be fired by the pilot. Just like the turret in the Y-wing. Although I'd like it, I think this defeats the whole pob / starfighter purpose. With the updated elite parts coming *someday* and a good engine, I could fly my YT1300 on just about any pve sector of space to include doing many of the missions. Heck I do it with missiles now....
Auto-tracking turrets
An ideal, really. Allow your turrets to fire upon your target automatically, even if it's vastly reduced accuracy. Although, once again, I like this, I just don't see it as feasible for the same reason as above.
Unmanned pilot seats
I would like a POB to continue to fly in the last direction at the same speed even with nobody in the pilots seat. This would be great for autopiloting to a waypoint then kicking back to chat with your friends. I *do* agree that with autopilot or follow on I should be able to run around the ship as much as I want.
Ops chairs
Allow members of another faction to man your operations seat. An Imperial can't help out a Freelance friend with flying his YT-1300? That's not very fun. Oh man *please*.
More POB's!
Withthe upcomingfive turret Y-8, we're in Capital ship territory. Nebulon-B's! Correllian Corvettes! Or even Action V transports! Gallofrees! Ebon Hawks! It's nice to have a dream.
KSE Firespray
Why isn't this a POB ship already?! It's the rarest ship in the game, and one of the most iconic ships in SW,carries a crew and has a hold.It also has trouble competing against other vessels in JtL. Did you see Jango's Slave I keep up with Obi-Wan's Aethersprite in Episode II? A 2 person crew would be nice as a minimum.
Travel Times
Do away with instant travelling. Make people have to use their ships to hyperspace to somewhere new. If you travel by Shuttle between planets via the ground game, move the players to a 'Passenger Lounge' roomwhere they have to wait one minute (that's not very long) before they reach their destination. A POB ship becomes a great passenger ship. Sorry, i don't agree. The days of waiting for shuttles / transportation are long gone. Every modern mmorpg has pretty much realised that travel time is wasted time to *most* of their customer base.
Just had a thought on the auto-tracking turrets. If like the OP said, they had
a severely recuded accuracy, they'd really beno problem for other players
to deal with. You could maybe even reduce the damage they do by 50% or
more if unmanned. But they would be very handy if you were out alone and
just needed to dispach a few tier 2's that drifted your way etc.
One thing.
Pilot Controlled Turrets when not manned. Lock'em forward and lemme have'em.
Where I'm coming from with the desire for fixed forward turrets a la the Y-Wing (i.e. fixed forward when not manned) or auto-tracking turrets a la X-Wing Alliance (i.e. reduced accuracy) is it's one of the main reasons we don't see POB ships in space more often.
Either players can't get hold of enough crew members to man their turrets, and if they can they may have reduced the number of fighter escorts available to them.
If you're performing a mission, or helping out a Guildie/Friend, there's currenly no advantage whatsoever in taking a POB ship over a fighter at the same level.
That's a sad thing for these iconic vessels don't you think?
A POB needs a minimum of 3, optimum of 5 players to operate at it's most effective. That's 5 fighters, with an average of 6-10 mobile weapons that could otherwise have been used in a mission instead of the POB, and the problem is those fighters would have been far more useful.
Balance wise, the maneuverability of a POB ship vs a PvE ship and especially PvP ship eliminates any advantage a POB ship might otherwise have, especially at Tier 5. I'mwilling to bet a JSF will cook a player turret manned POB, even when the new Publish 24 Elite components hit.
Now, I love my POB. It's decked out in a funky style. I have a crafting station to work with and I haul my resources around too. I just wish I could get involved in helping my guild while flying my POB withthe reduced crew.
Scoser wrote:
Large glowing "I WIN!!!" button on the pilot's chair's armrest.
Have you watched a wingman use an E-Pulse yet?
It's ne of the funniest things going when you see it used for the first time on a swarm of low level gnats!
... but you have some good ideas too, especially the ship docking.
Also, the ability to logout in space, and login back at the same spot in space.