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Suggestion: methods to control ship diversity in MV |
Lark of Serenity
Grand Admiral
Raven Warriors
Joined: June 02, 2002
Posts: 2516
|  Posted: 2010-06-30 23:43
A) faction crew population
each player is worth X crew points, which are added to the pool when joining the server
each ship is assigned a crew point value.
cruisers take the same amount of crew as a player contributes. thus, in order for a faction to field dreads or stations, some players have to take destroyers and frigates in order for the crew points to be available.
eg.
players = 3 crew a piece
cost
scouts: 1
frigates: 1
destroyers: 2
cruisers: 3
dreadnaught: 5
support station: 6
battle/command station: 7
engineer/transport/extractor: 1
scouts and frigates are put at the same value so that people who are opting to fly smaller ships have a few more options.
obviously the values could be played around with for whatever effect is desired. whatever values you give will impact the dispersion of the fleet; in this set up most people will take cruisers because its the most self-serving thing to do, but some organization will allow the fleet to field dreads and stations. theoretically a fleet made of nothing but cruisers wont get very far since they wont be able to cap anything and wont have the firepower to take on a more well rounded fleet.
you could also augment it by making it so crew values are automatically confined to fleets, but fleet admins would be allow to contribute fleet crew to the faction pool. this has the potential to introduce some faction politics, as fleets weigh sharing their crew pool with the rest of the faction against keeping it for themselves. some sort of bonus crew system (based on the number of planets owned, for instance) might be helpful too.
B) ship preperation time in garage
first ship selected to spawn after joining a server spawns instantly
after this, the garage automatically begins "preparing" all or some of your ships for launch. players can select the priority of which ship should be prepared next. preperation time is determined by ship class (scout: 5 minutes, dread: 20 minutes, for example). a log-off timer prevents people from logging in and out to take advantage of the instant spawn,
the purpose of this is so that 1: people cant spam ships to try and do damage, 2: keeping your ship alive becomes more valuable as it may mean a timeout for some period of time if you die.
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Talien
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: May 11, 2010
Posts: 2044
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2010-07-01 00:04
Sounds good on paper, but this would most likely lead to people arguing over who gets to fly the DN/Station and who gets "stuck" with smaller ships.
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Starcommander
Marshal
Joined: December 14, 2005
Posts: 579
From: In your base, stealing your cookies
| Posted: 2010-07-01 01:01
Quote:
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On 2010-07-01 00:04, Talien {SOE} wrote:
Sounds good on paper, but this would most likely lead to people arguing over who gets to fly the DN/Station and who gets "stuck" with smaller ships.
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Exactly, this is the same as putting a cap on how many stations a faction can have, ect.
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Azure Prower
Chief Marshal
Joined: March 14, 2006
Posts: 309
| Posted: 2010-07-01 01:17
The best way to encourage people to use smaller ships was to make them useful in combat.
ie. Harrier and Missile Frigate were a very good example (until they got nerfed of course).
If they are more useful in a dread/station. Then they will go dread/station every time. The people who can't be a dread/station are stuck as supply bots or target practice.
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Shath
Admiral
Pitch Black
Joined: July 17, 2007
Posts: 219
From: Portland, OR
| Posted: 2010-07-01 01:38
lark ur genius....talien makes good point but screw it i like argueing anyways lol
DEVZ PUT DIS IN GAME NAO
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Siginau
Fleet Admiral
Pitch Black
Joined: March 19, 2010
Posts: 72
| Posted: 2010-07-01 02:00
yeah lets not implement this plan, then people go "oh i cant fly a dread? scenario."
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NoBoDx
Grand Admiral
Joined: October 14, 2003
Posts: 784
From: Germany / NRW
| Posted: 2010-07-01 02:41
Quote:
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On 2010-06-30 23:43, Lark of Serenity wrote:
B) ship preperation time in garage
first ship selected to spawn after joining a server spawns instantly
after this, the garage automatically begins "preparing" all or some of your ships for launch. players can select the priority of which ship should be prepared next. preperation time is determined by ship class (scout: 5 minutes, dread: 20 minutes, for example). a log-off timer prevents people from logging in and out to take advantage of the instant spawn,
the purpose of this is so that 1: people cant spam ships to try and do damage, 2: keeping your ship alive becomes more valuable as it may mean a timeout for some period of time if you die.
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so basicaly if you startet as a scout to check the current status of the map, you have to wait half an hour to spawn your station ?
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GunRunner
Marshal
Joined: October 17, 2003
Posts: 72
| Posted: 2010-07-01 03:09
I think the idea of ship caps is a horrible one. You gain pres slower in smaller ships. This adds a handicap to gaining rank because of not having better ships available to match your rank. I think one should be able to fly what ever you want so long as you have the prereqs.
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Schroedingers Gun
Fleet Admiral
Joined: April 24, 2010
Posts: 99
From: favour6
| Posted: 2010-07-01 03:37
if that wentlive the QQ would be EPIC, and when we had a method to bring down the numbers of stations and dreads the QQ was epic and won, there can be now way that will not result in epic QQ and as all the devs and mods are veterans with dreads and stations they have a vested interest in keeping dreadspace going, so they can pew pew and have no rivals HUGE rock > BIG rock > rock > scissors > paper is how it will always be there is no point in fighting it, give it up people nothing new will have any effect because if it does the the UGTQQ will get it nurfed, maybe if it was UGTO only they wouldn't but thats a seperate issue
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2010-07-01 05:08
Once the planetary system is in place we'll be looking into controlling the diversity of ships in play. There have been things suggested within the development team but nothing has been set in stone just yet.
Rest assured, we are looking into it (and have been for some time).
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Schroedingers Gun
Fleet Admiral
Joined: April 24, 2010
Posts: 99
From: favour6
| Posted: 2010-07-01 05:09
Quote:
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On 2010-07-01 05:08, BackSlash wrote:
Once the planetary system is in place we'll be looking into controlling the diversity of ships in play. There have been things suggested within the development team but nothing has been set in stone just yet.
Rest assured, we are looking into it (and have been for some time).
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and the QQ will be so EPIC that it will be put back the way it was
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Ollary
Marshal
Joined: September 19, 2003
Posts: 5
| Posted: 2010-07-01 06:55
The faction crew should be connected with planets and pop on it (how much birth it has). If ther is 100 pop in a system, then the faction has a automatic increase of 100 crew evry sec, 10 sec or min, dount now how fast it should be. And if u wanna take a New Dread or a destroyed (all crew are death) u need 1200 crew for stations 10 000 crew, frigats 100-150 etc. And perheps ther should be a limit of max crew a System can hold....like 30-40 k ?!?!
This perheps dount take the numbers of stations down but it gives the need of hawing as muchs planets cap. in a system. And even better u haw another system with a SY and full crew in it.
Its like with resources, but human workpower will travel by itself to SY planets to get a chance to fly Into The Infinity with a spaceship:)
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Bardiche
Chief Marshal
Joined: November 16, 2006
Posts: 1247
| Posted: 2010-07-01 07:01
Schroedinger's Gun, before you start accusing the staff of wanting to preserve "DreadSpace", perhaps you should better consider each individual member of staff and try to reason whether your assertation is correct.
Off the top of my head I can name four staffmembers at the very least who would rather fly smaller ships if necessity didn't force their hand as it does many Dreadnought-able captains.
Some of us don't command Dreadnoughts and Stations because we want to. We do so because we need to adequately respond to the threat posed by the other party.
Case in point: a Grand Admiral is suggesting a change that would handicap her more than it would benefit her when you consider the ship options.
Even back in 1.483, Cruisers were the bread and butter of combat and as a result, fights were quick-paced and exciting because you had to dodge and use maneuvres to outsmart your enemies. It isn't weird to think the staff should want to bring back that aspect of the game.
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Shigernafy
Admiral
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 5726
From: The Land of Taxation without Representation
| Posted: 2010-07-01 07:08
Quote:
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On 2010-07-01 05:09, Schroedingers Gun {SOE} wrote:
and the QQ will be so EPIC that it will be put back the way it was |
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We're not talking artificial ("spawn failed: your faction can only use 3 dreadnoughts") limits, just modifying planet resources and spawn requirements. It won't be possible to endlessly spawn things without creating a very robust planetary support system.
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Enterprise
Chief Marshal
Joined: May 19, 2002
Posts: 2576
From: Hawthorne, Nevada
| Posted: 2010-07-01 07:34
Hard caps wont work in this game just because people will QQ when its first come first serve and people are stuck in ships they don't want to be in.
Its an excessively complicated problem.
You see, no matter what the Dev team does unless there continues to be fundamental balance changes like we've been seeing recently with MFs, people will still gravitate to the largest ships.
This all started with the initial problem that someone thought up the interesting but ill-thought idea that bigger should equal better. This really doesn't work out in the end because bigger ships are too easy to get and keep, and thus the game becomes very top heavy very quickly.
Which is what we see now, where the majority of the fleet are Dreads or larger. This isn't a bad thing if you're one of those ships. But it does make the combat dull and repetitive, as Dreadnaughts and Stations are more about timing than actual skill. So diversity is a good thing. It also bring more interesting combat from the tactics and strategy employed.
This is starting to be seen with the very effective Missile Frigate swarm, which is a solid counter to Dread and Station fleets. As long as this line of thought continues, we should see diversity change as fleets change to fit the current bill.
But, this is only one ship made useful out of dozens.
So heres the main argument I've been pushing since the days it used to be part of the gameplay : Nothing is better than anything else, just different. Things have a counter, so nothing can be used for everything. No Dreadnaught is effective against every ship, no Destroyer either. Its a simple concept with alot of hard balance decisions.
So whats the point of ranking up and getting more badges? Having more choices. A Dreadnaught can say, provide heavy fire and defense from range, something that a Cruiser or Destroyer can't do. Once this concept is understood people can play whatever ship they want but the ship they choose chooses their role they play. So no more ten assault dreadnaughts flying around, because ten assault destroyers will fly circles around them. Of course, they wont be very effective against other destroyers, or dreadnaughts designed to counter small ships, and etc.
A planetary system shouldn't about restricting choices, it should be about maintaining them. Theres a big difference. A person should be able to fly a Dread if they want to, but they have to accept that if they don't have the proper support of a diverse fleet of ships then they leave themselves vulnerable to other tactics. This is where DS becomes a game that has enough depth and complexity to attract a larger crowd that wants an action game but doesn't want it to be too easy.
I have alot of great ideas to make this happen, but that would take a pretty sizeable notepad document to explain. Anyways. Cheerio.
-Ent
[ This Message was edited by: Enterprise on 2010-07-01 07:35 ]
[ This Message was edited by: Enterprise on 2010-07-01 07:37 ]
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