Pilot Archive

Thread: Cap Ships How to do it Long

KJFett3
Fri Jun 06, 2003 9:15 am
#1
I realize that some would like to see Cap ships player owned, but really, we are talking Capital Ships here. Ships of the Line. Such ships, specifically Combat ships require far more resourses than anyone one person can afford. In Star Wars, there are entire planets that can't aford one Capital Ship. I would rather not have Cap ships in the game than to see them stored in one players Dpad and fly into Kessel and see 20 Corvettes attacking 25 from the other faction..knowing they are only one step above a fighter.


Capital Ships should have something Special about them above some rare quest that we know we will all figure out eventually. Quests do NOT keep things rare (points at jedi).A gate like a guild has to put in to keep them rare.



!Drevin of DROW!
!!
KJFett3
Mon Jun 06, 2005 9:11 am
#2
Cap Ships, the new Guild Halls


Capitol Ships: Since the beginning, many of us have longed to get our hands on one. I always wanted to command a ship of the line and move in with fighter cover on some target, launch a shuttle with boarders and commandeer it. Such a battle would be truely Star Wars. It would involve groups of people working for a common goal of attack/defend, and envolve space and ground combat.


Just imagine the adrenaline running as you man a turret and try to track hostile fighters shooting your ships engines while your own crewmen try to repel boards in the halls below your feet with carbines and swords....knowing at any second, you could be kicked out of your station and have to defend yourself against those boards as well.


I believe the best way to put cap ships in the game is in a process that makes them virtual guild halls, a ship that is always around, not docked in your D-pad. The process would work like this.


1) A guild leader would report to a naval base and follow a quest to become a Capital Ship Captain. They would have to be a Master Pilot. They would not have to be a Pilot of their faction....Being an Ace Pilot for the RSF would still allow for being a Captain in the Imeprial Navy, or an Imperial pilot could take on the RSF vette, but not the Rebel Frigate.


There would be 3 total options of bases to run the quests, and each would not be a cookiee cutter of the others.


A) Imperial would result in the leader becoming the Captain of a Dreadnaught. This ship dates back to the time of the republic, and exists in very large numbers. Its hanger is able to support a squadron of fighters and has a decent number of hardpoints for weapons. This could be all or a mix of heavy Turbolasers or starfighter class guns. (the difference in weapons will be explained later in this writeup) This ship would require a crew of 5 onboard to move, and 10 to actually function in battle, and upwards of 20 to be fully battle ready for space battle and repel boards. Two MP ships like the Decimator would be able to dock externally even when the ship is going into hyperspace and be used to shuttle a boarding crew to other ships....or even board a friendly ship to help in its defense were the other ship boarded.


B) Neutral would result in the leader becoming the Captain of a Corvette. While this could be the same as the ones int ehgame, it could have several different types available. This ship was used by many different navies and private organizations. This ship, while smaller than the 2 ships of the larger funded navies has some advatages that make up for the smaller firepower. Its hanger holds 4 fighers in the chin, and an additional ship docked to each escape pod hatch for a total of 8 ships docked during a jump. Having about half the guns of the dreadnaught, this ship would have speed on its side. Nearly 50% faster and able to manuver faster than the dreadnaught, it could be used to find weaknesses in the larger ships to allow the small load of weapons to hit more effectively. This ship would require 3 crew to move, 8 to be functional in battle, and 15 to be battle ready. It would have no hardpoints for an MP ship to dock for hyper like the Rebel or Imp Cap ship, but it would have hard points for them to dock. MP ships would need to undock before the Cap ship hypered or risk damage to their docking system.


C) Rebel would result in the leader becoming a Captain of a Nebulan B Frigate. This is a newer ship of the line, but do to plans being stolen early on, is actually used by both main fleets. HTis ship is a mix between the two other cap ships in many aspects. With an equal hanger capacity to the Imperial Deadnaught, it is ablt to move a good number of fighters into combat. While being able to use speed (about 15% more than the deardnaught) and its wepaon hardpoints to handle ship to ship engagements. This ship would require the same number of crew as the Imperial ship and would be functional in aspects of the MP ships in the same manner as well.


2)After aquiring the rank of Captain, the Guild Leader (GL) would deploy his ship to the home system. (Imp=Naboo/Neu=Tat/Reb=Cor) The ship would then be docked some distance from the planet. At this point, the GL would have access to the ship as if it where a guild hall. All members of the guild would have entry access and the GL could add who he wished to the Admin list. A ban list would not be available. The ship would exist in space at all times, and would not be pulled out of a D-Pad. This would allow members to have access to the ship at all times, even when the GL is not in the game. All crew rules would apply, but the ship would require the GL or a guild officer be aboard before engaing in combat.


3) Combat would be PVE/PVP/GuildWar.


A) PVE: In PVE, the ship would have to be properly manned, and could patrol/lurk space lanes to capture enemy shipping, or deploy to areas of other PVE hostile ships in hopes of looting rewards etc. Some PVE actions might be


a) boarding a vette or other ship/station and running ground missions like we do now on the vette to destory/steal the ship.

b) full naval battle of destroy the other hostiles with naval stratagy of ships of the line and fighters. Areas of space could be increasingly harder allowing multiple guilds to engae in bigger battles together in PVE

c) Planetary invasion. A strike force could receive a misison from a same factioned station to handle a drug bust, disrupt an enemy base on the planet. Once deplyed onthe surface and moving into postision near the base to hit, the ground forces would be able to call in artillary support to randomly hit the base before moving in to engage.


Losing a Cap ship in PVE would result in the ship repawning in the home system and it would be unable to move for X number of hours and require repair work by the engineer


B) PVP: In PVP, the ship would move to a factioned space station and declare. Once declared, declared ships of the neutral/hostile navies would be able to engage. Neutral guilds would have the flexability to declare either way. All normal PVP rules would apply at this point, and this is where overt enable players could laod up and attempt boarding hostile ships to seize them. Doing so does not result in the destruction of the ship, but awards major faction to the winning side, and docks the commandeered ship in its home system for X numebr of hours so that it can not renegage immediatly as it is needed to repair.


C) Guildwar: In Guildwar, the system is the same as PVP, but is open to being attacked by same faction if a guild war is declared. This is more so that if captains of the same faction were to disagree on an issue, they could dela with it in deep space on their own. /wink


4) Functions of the Cap ship.


A) The ship systems, while replaceable with crafted or looted gear would require a Master Shipwright to handle the installation. The starfighter weapons would be the only wepaons that would be a crossover from the fighter class levels, all other systems would be larger systems that would not function in a starfighter, and would be craftable by SW or looted from other destroyed Cap ships.


B) The weapons would be split in two groups. Each turret would be required to be manned by a player. Turrets would function for the defense of the ship even if the bridge is not manned, and the ship is not moving.


a) Cap ship guns (Turbolasers) would be huge and function with a long range and be such that a couple hits would shred even the best fighters, but dont expect to hit many fighters with them. The targeting system will only track capitol ships, and will have a warmup and cooldown timer to prevent shooting fighters easily. Such timers will not create anissue with hitting the much slower moving Cap ships though and these gusn will be best used for engaging the larger Cap ships. Targeting would be used to decrease the timers on the gun, and aid in targeting specific componets of the other cap ship, like the sheilds or engine. A ship with all Turbolasers would do very well against other Cap ships, but would be very weak against fighter assaults


b) Starfighter guns (lasers) can be installed in a turret instead of Turbolasers. These would function exactlly as they do now in MP ships, and have no timers so that they can track fighters easily. Doing little to no damage agasint Cap ships, they would be perfect for starfighter defense and be a must for a well balanced ship, or if the ship is a designated antifighter screen.


C) The hangers would hold the designated number of fighters, and would allow the pilots of the ships to move between their fighters and the Interior easily. Ships with full hangers would be able to take on no more fighters, but additional crew could be added by use of an MP ship that docks. Fighters would be deployed to a ship in the same fashion as at a spaceport. If a fighter is docked on a Dreadnaught, and the pilot leaves on the MP ship to help in the assault of a hostile ship, they would have to return to the ship to retreive the ship again. (this is one reason for the enability to ban guild members from the ship. a guild member that is removed fro the guild would find the ship moved to the main spaceport of the home system).


In conclusion, a guild could very well live out of its cap ship. Moving from system to system. In additon to all of this for the Cap ships, guilds with functioning Cap ships would find a shuttle added to the roof of all their guild halls that would provide shuttling to the cap ship no matter where it is located as long as it is not in combat. Moving to a Cap ship in this fashion does not move any of the members ships tho, so they would be unable to fly off the cap ship unless leaving in an MP ship or calling the shuttle and returning to a guild hall they select. Only guild members would have the ability to load to the cap ship in this fashion. Non-members would also be able to land with a Cap ship of another guild, but only if they are added to the admit list. Unguilded can remain unguilded, but sponsered by a guild, and would have all the benefits of helping on the ship, but not be tagged.


No matter what the ground faction of the members, they take on the faction of the guild leader when they deploy to Cap ship. Guilds with multiple factions would find that going the neutral route was the best idea. In fact only guilds that are fully Imperial/neutral or Rebel/Neutral would truely benefit the route of going with a factioned Cap ship.


I am sure there is room for improvement on this system. I think the idea of allowing anyone to "own" the ship is a bad idea as its just not realistic that anyone of us could handle a Cap ship. I thought of how to allow unguilded have a ship, but it struck me that if enough unguilded go together to run a capitol ship, they would be well, a guild..just with no tag. So if unguilded in the numbers needed to run a ship, wanted to own a ship, they could form a guild and do so.






!Drevin of DROW!
!!
KJFett3
Mon Jun 06, 2005 9:15 am
#3
I realize that some would like to see Cap ships player owned, but really, we are talking Capital Ships here. Ships of the Line. Such ships, specifically Combat ships require far more resourses than anyone one person can afford. In Star Wars, there are entire planets that can't aford one Capital Ship. I would rather not have Cap ships in the game than to see them stored in one players Dpad and fly into Kessel and see 20 Corvettes attacking 25 from the other faction..knowing they are only one step above a fighter.


Capital Ships should have something Special about them above some rare quest that we know we will all figure out eventually. Quests do NOT keep things rare (points at jedi).A gate like a guild has to put in to keep them rare.



!Drevin of DROW!
!!
KJFett3
Wed Jun 08, 2005 9:56 am
#4
To expand on the guildhall function of the ships, my ideas for making it function as apartments for guild memebers would be as follows:


Upon being deployed, the ship would take a sinlge lot from the GL, and allow for 100 space in the ship. Main areas like the command deck, halls, med center etc would not be able to have items dropped (they would already be decorated like the vette is now, but the conference rooms, the captains quarters etc would be open to the GL as rooms to drop items in. There would then be an additional 10-20 rooms with their own seperate admins lists on them. The Captain would then have the authority to assign the rooms to guild members. These rooms would be bare, and the doors would not even open till the GL assined the room. Once assigned, the new owner would lose a lot, and gain 75 space in the room. It would then function like a small house. Only that player would have admin to it.


When the ship is boarded while in combat, all players in player quarters would be kicked out and the doors would lock down. Halls and all open rooms (command deck, med room, engineering, hanger, etc. etc.)would remain open for combat in the attempted seizing of the vessel.


Other rooms in the ship would have features similar to the faction bases on the ground. To commendeer a ship, the boarding party would not only have to kill or subdue the crew, but would also have to take control of the ship by doing stuff in the appropriate rooms like taking down a base. Upon completetion, the boarders would be loaded back into their ships in space, and the disabled ship with its crew would be loaded back at its home system in need of repair from a shipwright as I set out in the first post.



How should the capital ships compare to the ships in game now.


We should never see a fighter soloing a player run Cap ship. Even the best single fighters should not have the power to beat though the sheilds. Sheilds should take 6 or 7 fighters firing concussion missiles together to able to drop them...and then that still wont stop them from recharging again. Only another Capital ship should be able to duke it out with another Capital ship. This doens't mean that a full squadron of Krayts loaded with space bombs shouldn't be able to take down a corvette. They should. It just means that if they are not organized and down in perfect order, they wont succeed. And even if they do destory the ship it should be at heavy cost. A Captial ship with fighter support would still have a huge edge over a Capital ship that had no fighter cover because once the sheilds are down by the guns of the friendly Cap ship, the fighters could pick off turrets and such effectivly.


Shipwrights on board have the ability to repair components while in combat. I dont think anyone with less than Novice SW should be making repairs while in combat, and while anyone can make the repairs, they would suffer a % chance of destroying the item instead of repairing it if they are not a SW. Those with Artisan skills should be able to make moderate repairs while out of combat with no risk of damaging the parts.


Boarding actions should require the destruction of the engines and sheilds. Weapons and the reactor still being online would be acceptable.


The Captain of the shipshould have the ability to "stand down and be boarded" which would result in the ship loading back to the home system with a timer before it can move again along with awarding the points to captain that the captain surrendered to. This could only be done before being boarded. Once boarded there is no surrender.


Just some more thoughts to make the Cap ship experience enjoyable.







!Drevin of DROW!
!!
Washell
Wed Jun 08, 2005 10:02 am
#5

Half a page down is a focus thread from the pilot correspondent called: Focus thread: Player controlled capital ships. That thread is meant to bundle your idea with all the others and present it to the devs. Work with the system, better chance of seeing things implemented.


As for the post itself, has been suggested before. I'm in favor of anything that keeps me longer in space.



KJFett3
Wed Jun 08, 2005 10:10 am
#6




Washell wrote:

Half a page down is a focus thread from the pilot correspondent called: Focus thread: Player controlled capital ships. That thread is meant to bundle your idea with all the others and present it to the devs. Work with the system, better chance of seeing things implemented.


As for the post itself, has been suggested before. I'm in favor of anything that keeps me longer in space.






Look at the origianl post date and time. It was before the most suggestions where given. In fact the orignal stuff was typed up before the focus thread.


I have a post in there directing attention to mine as my post is to large to drop in there I think. I think it is on page 2 or 3.



Okay, I merged it all in its entirerty into the focus thread. I'll let this one fall to the side. Looks like others are posting long ones in there as well so it wont hurt I guess.

Message Edited by KJFett3 on 06-08-2005 10:17 AM



!Drevin of DROW!
!!
Dragon942
Wed Jun 08, 2005 10:47 am
#7

I like your ideas, so I will post here (instead of the focus thread) specific things I think will improve this suggestion.



  • First of all, Dreadnaughts are huge. I think the Imp ship might have to be reconsidered, the EU describes the dreadnaught as a ship with a crew of thousands. Nebulaon-B also might be on the large side, unfortunetly I don't have any good ideas for replacements right now.



  • Next, I think instead of being completely persistant, leading to space cluttered with undefended capital ships, just have the ship jump to hyperspace when the last crew member leaves. It will stay in hyperspace until the next crew member requests to board it, upon which it will re-enter realspace at the same spot it left earlier.



  • You mentioned a capitol ship being unable to do anything for X hours after being destroyed. I think X should be a small number, proably even less than one. It really only needs to be long enough to keep the capitol ship out of the battle it was destroyed in (might only be half an hour) in PvP events, and could be even shorter for PvE situations (like 5-15 minutes). This timer should really only exsist to prevernt cap ship zerging and give some small penelty for death, but should not get in the way of the crew having fun. (Imagine you spend all this time getting all your friends/guldies together to fully crew a ship, then you die because one of your gunners lagged at the wrong time, and the rest of the day is shot. None of them would ever waste their time to fly again, and you will never be able to get a crew together).



  • During assults, there could be a limited number of boarding points on a ship, to encourage the use of using Decimators/Novas/YTs as assult craft as you can fit more people on them.





Starscreamer Sapphire
Starsider
KJFett3
Wed Jun 08, 2005 11:05 am
#8




Dragon942 wrote:

I like your ideas, so I will post here (instead of the focus thread) specific things I think will improve this suggestion.



  • First of all, Dreadnaughts are huge. I think the Imp ship might have to be reconsidered, the EU describes the dreadnaught as a ship with a crew of thousands. Nebulaon-B also might be on the large side, unfortunetly I don't have any good ideas for replacements right now.

True, I am leading more to the Carrack Class now myself. The dreadnaught is about 3x the size of the vette, and does have a huge crew, but the crew was able to be slimmed down by our time period by improvements in equipment. I think the Carrack would still be better though.



  • Next, I think instead of being completely persistant, leading to space cluttered with undefended capital ships, just have the ship jump to hyperspace when the last crew member leaves. It will stay in hyperspace until the next crew member requests to board it, upon which it will re-enter realspace at the same spot it left earlier.

I like that idea. I was just worried about polits up flying and wanting to dock with their ship. How would they call it form hyperspace? The home systems could have dock yards branching off the main Space stations that these could be docked at so they arent just all floating around, but I like the idea of being able to stash my guild's ship in an asteroid feild in the Dath system away from prying eyes.



  • You mentioned a capitol ship being unable to do anything for X hours after being destroyed. I think X should be a small number, proably even less than one. It really only needs to be long enough to keep the capitol ship out of the battle it was destroyed in (might only be half an hour) in PvP events, and could be even shorter for PvE situations (like 5-15 minutes). This timer should really only exsist to prevernt cap ship zerging and give some small penelty for death, but should not get in the way of the crew having fun. (Imagine you spend all this time getting all your friends/guldies together to fully crew a ship, then you die because one of your gunners lagged at the wrong time, and the rest of the day is shot. None of them would ever waste their time to fly again, and you will never be able to get a crew together).

All very true, and why I didn't get a value to X. I think it would have to be flexible based on PVP/PVE battle, and might even just be regulated by how fast the SWs can get it repaired.



  • During assults, there could be a limited number of boarding points on a ship, to encourage the use of using Decimators/Novas/YTs as assult craft as you can fit more people on them.

Exactly, all ships would actually only have a few places to dock besides the hanger if they have one. Thus you could dock a couple fighters and try to take it over with 2 people, or dock to YTs and unload 4 people into the ship. In some ways, I think the MP ships should be the only ships that can dock to allow a boarding crew to deply. It would certainly give them more use in combat.










!Drevin of DROW!
!!
Dragon942
Wed Jun 08, 2005 11:41 am
#9




KJFett3 wrote:



True, I am leading more to the Carrack Class now myself. The dreadnaught is about 3x the size of the vette, and does have a huge crew, but the crew was able to be slimmed down by our time period by improvements in equipment. I think the Carrack would still be better though.


I agreee, the Carrack is a nice choice. But as I said in the other thread, I am pessamistic and think they'll probably just make up some piece of crap.


I like that idea. I was just worried about polits up flying and wanting to dock with their ship. How would they call it form hyperspace? The home systems could have dock yards branching off the main Space stations that these could be docked at so they arent just all floating around, but I like the idea of being able to stash my guild's ship in an asteroid feild in the Dath system away from prying eyes.


For this I figured each member of the 'crew'would have a control device in their datapad. Using this device would give you the current waypoint of the ship (like /findfriend). If you fly to the waypoint and someone is already on the ship, you simply dock and load into the ship. If no one is on the ship, there will be no ship at the waypoint. In this case you use the control device again. This loads you onto the ship and in the meantime everyone else sees the cap ship hyper in.













Starscreamer Sapphire
Starsider
KJFett3
Thu Jun 09, 2005 12:02 am
#10




Dragon942 wrote:





KJFett3 wrote:



True, I am leading more to the Carrack Class now myself. The dreadnaught is about 3x the size of the vette, and does have a huge crew, but the crew was able to be slimmed down by our time period by improvements in equipment. I think the Carrack would still be better though.


I agreee, the Carrack is a nice choice. But as I said in the other thread, I am pessamistic and think they'll probably just make up some piece of crap.


I like that idea. I was just worried about polits up flying and wanting to dock with their ship. How would they call it form hyperspace? The home systems could have dock yards branching off the main Space stations that these could be docked at so they arent just all floating around, but I like the idea of being able to stash my guild's ship in an asteroid feild in the Dath system away from prying eyes.


For this I figured each member of the 'crew'would have a control device in their datapad. Using this device would give you the current waypoint of the ship (like /findfriend). If you fly to the waypoint and someone is already on the ship, you simply dock and load into the ship. If no one is on the ship, there will be no ship at the waypoint. In this case you use the control device again. This loads you onto the ship and in the meantime everyone else sees the cap ship hyper in.


I like that idea, it could work.












I hope they don't just make up some ship for the Empire. There are plenty of ships used by the Empire for them to pick from. Shoot even the System Patrol Craft at 120m is a nice ship.






!Drevin of DROW!
!!
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