I've had a few thoughts about missiles in general. First off as a visual improvement rather then firing a straight line one after another or one grouped glowing dot I propose this. Once the new launcher hardpoints are added the missiles would fire from a single launcher, move away from each other in a circle then as they reach closer to the target they would come together hitting the same point on the target. Similar to the Leviathan doomsday.
The developers could use the same animation as the energy neutralizer and energy vamps, where it bulges on one end and then has a cone shape towards the ship. Perhaps make it larger or extend the size a bit. You could wrap a texture and animate the missiles to follow that shape. This would allow missiles to change completely in that they could be more like turrets from the server's perspective. Have it act like a turret rather then create an object in space, just delay when the damage is applied. This would be similar to the fighter bomber fix but not have them do instant damage. If a defender missile is launched then another animation would be used to show a missile or two intercept and flash somewhere in between, and reduce how ever many missiles were taken out. Not only would this look cooler but it would ease lag in large fights on the server. It would also allow launcher hardpoints to be easier to apply to the models of ships, you only need to put one on there under a wing or on top of the ship. It would free up art resources and help immersion since one launcher can from looking at the icon fire off more then one missile at once.
One other thought coming from more of a combat perspective, is that turrets are widly more effective from a pvp standpoint then missiles. Yes missiles are considered to be more benifical to pve then turrets but I feel that this comparison is lacking. For one when comparing weapon systems in a balanced way you have to look at how quick pvp fights are. In almost every case a turreted ship in 1v1 and fleets will always outperform by a large margin. Where the thought that lower damage is ok in missile ships since they excell for pve. In pve while missiles have a leg up to be sure, things like sentry drones and muaraders have exceptional isk gains per hour. To the point where the benifit margin of missiles isnt that much larger missions are finished in close amounts of time to each other. I think what would help to increase balance would be to add a damage modifier for distance traveled when firing a missile. The farther it takes to travel the more damage it would deal.
I may just be a missile lover dreaming, and im sure other issues would arise from implimenting somethign like this. But I would be interested to see how close missiles ships could be brought more in line with turret ships. I would like to be able to prefrom just as well in pvp and pve regardless of which type of weapon flavor I enjoy the most. I like that they all have differences to them, lasers having faster reloads things like that. I would like the outcome of the fight to be based on skills, equipment, and pilot capability rather then having a huge disadvantage to a particaular weapon group. If I had to lose effectivness in pve then I would be glad as long as all weapons have closer opertunities to preform just as well in both aspects of the game. Switching games of play should require just modual changes like autocannons to artillery.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Incarna
After reading the latest dev blog on Captains Quarters and Incarna. I thought I would share a few features I think would add to Incarna in a positive way. I am not a huge fan of kill boards but adding a personal kill board screen up on a wall would be an awesome feature. Giving those people that are more pvp focused and don't want anything to do with Incarna a reason to take a walk. CCP has talked about corporation head quarters and offices; a corp or alliance kill board there would be a nice touch.
Including a system screen giving you more detailed information on who and whats been destroyed in the system of that station. Statistics would be updated shorter then 30 mins and go back up to 7 days. These statistics would not be available anywhere else so it would be slightly better then the star map.
The areas that are not Capsuleer specific should look very busy, with a lot of traffic and automated drones transporting goods and cleaning.
I would like to see them add a special smuggling mission agent, which would be difficult to get to creating a mini game in itself. Possibly open up lower areas of the station with the chance of getting caught by security. This would risk losing standing or security loss. Trying to get in contact to set up a meeting, disabling security cams, avoiding and sneaking around patrols, requiring a change in outfit for some areas. Stealing security clothing or keycards, even adding a hacking minigame that also ties in to the current hacking skill. This would add a little more depth to current smuggling procedures.
You should be able to walk into a lobby area of a Corporation Head Quarters and find out all you need to know, eliminating the need for new players to search on forums. (I think I read talk about this somewhere)
While the Captains Quarters are more office and work oriented. Apartments that can be co-habited by other Capsuleers with more customization would be nice. It wouldn't follow you to each station it remains as a home where purchased. Allowing for different window views some in station overlooking a promenade, other more expensive ones viewing a planet, moon, or sun. Or just adding another screen acting like a window, and you can upgrade to better views with isk. Adding pets to roam around in these places and placing lavish fountains are some items to include.
Having screens that can be bought and placed which would display captured images from screenshots or character portraits. You can caption them saying patron of the month or banned from bar. All purchasable items for shops, bars, etc should be player made opening up another profession route.
Hair salons with more options then the basic character creation, or plastic surgery and other modding shops. (Similar to what was in The Burning Life novel) Include lots of gambling mini games, I really like the first one that focuses on strategy. Seasonal tournament ladders built in would be fun.
Food and drink, making people act like they want to eat every now and then. Have food give you a non attribute bonus similar to boosters, increase turret tracking by 1% for an hour or two, but you can only eat once every 5 hours. Alcohol should give you a greater bonus 2-3% but have a penalty in an area as well. It would take 10-15 mins of consumption to take affect allowing someone to strike up a conversation in the cafe or bar.
Having practical reasons to come into a station (eating and checking details on system information screens) without making them so important it's required to compete, should give a nice feel for role players and non role payers alike. Keeping stations fairly populated.
For me this is looking pretty exciting. Hopefully we can pick all those modules as we please. From what I saw years ago during the demo adjustments seemed more limited. Heres to hoping this feature will continue to expand down the road.
Including a system screen giving you more detailed information on who and whats been destroyed in the system of that station. Statistics would be updated shorter then 30 mins and go back up to 7 days. These statistics would not be available anywhere else so it would be slightly better then the star map.
The areas that are not Capsuleer specific should look very busy, with a lot of traffic and automated drones transporting goods and cleaning.
I would like to see them add a special smuggling mission agent, which would be difficult to get to creating a mini game in itself. Possibly open up lower areas of the station with the chance of getting caught by security. This would risk losing standing or security loss. Trying to get in contact to set up a meeting, disabling security cams, avoiding and sneaking around patrols, requiring a change in outfit for some areas. Stealing security clothing or keycards, even adding a hacking minigame that also ties in to the current hacking skill. This would add a little more depth to current smuggling procedures.
You should be able to walk into a lobby area of a Corporation Head Quarters and find out all you need to know, eliminating the need for new players to search on forums. (I think I read talk about this somewhere)
While the Captains Quarters are more office and work oriented. Apartments that can be co-habited by other Capsuleers with more customization would be nice. It wouldn't follow you to each station it remains as a home where purchased. Allowing for different window views some in station overlooking a promenade, other more expensive ones viewing a planet, moon, or sun. Or just adding another screen acting like a window, and you can upgrade to better views with isk. Adding pets to roam around in these places and placing lavish fountains are some items to include.
Having screens that can be bought and placed which would display captured images from screenshots or character portraits. You can caption them saying patron of the month or banned from bar. All purchasable items for shops, bars, etc should be player made opening up another profession route.
Hair salons with more options then the basic character creation, or plastic surgery and other modding shops. (Similar to what was in The Burning Life novel) Include lots of gambling mini games, I really like the first one that focuses on strategy. Seasonal tournament ladders built in would be fun.
Food and drink, making people act like they want to eat every now and then. Have food give you a non attribute bonus similar to boosters, increase turret tracking by 1% for an hour or two, but you can only eat once every 5 hours. Alcohol should give you a greater bonus 2-3% but have a penalty in an area as well. It would take 10-15 mins of consumption to take affect allowing someone to strike up a conversation in the cafe or bar.
Having practical reasons to come into a station (eating and checking details on system information screens) without making them so important it's required to compete, should give a nice feel for role players and non role payers alike. Keeping stations fairly populated.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Jumping and Motherships
I was thinking about the jump mechanic, and great as it is a few additions came to mind. Something I would like to see would be to include a Blind Jump option. This would consume a full fuel bay and put you in a random system within range, maybe a 25% reduction in range. Same capacitor requirements of course and you would take an awful risk if you landed stranded in a hostile system. Or you might get lucky and end up in an empty system while you waited for some friends to help resupply your crippled ship.
One idea that came to mind would be to allow a ship with jump capabilities to train for an additional skill to calculate its own jump point without a cyno. This would not be applicable to covert jump drives. It would take 8 hours to spool up the drive at level 1 and 4 hours at level 5. I don't feel that this would dumb down or break the game in anyway. Lets face it what capital ship doesn't have a cyno alt, what this does is provide better quality of life. As far as having alliances try to exploit this; since when has there been any difficulty getting a cyno in a system, and with the system cyno jammers I doubt any issues would come about. 8-4 hours is a long time to wait anyway. Or just forget the skill and make it randomly chose between 8-4 hours. Enabling it to be impossible for more then one ship to sync with another, a fleet would end up in system at different times. It would be nice for the few people that only have one account, and would possibly increase the number of jump freighters.
Another thought along this line is remembering the talk of motherships one day coming back in a completely different form representing the "True mothership class." I also read about an idea to add new systems to K-Space with no Stargates linking them. Instead you had to get there through the wormhole network. A pretty cool idea. I was thinking that having a mothership act as a moving station, where corp members dock in and out while placing all thier stuff in a hanger. It would act like a roaming convoy, never claiming space but always on the move. That would work perfectly with the idea of the new unlinked K-Space. You could position it above npc 0.0 so its jumpable by only a mothership. It would make sense that a mothership would have the largest jump range.
Logging out when your docked in a mother ship means you would log back into it keeping everyone together. You could have a cloning and repair station included, but if the mothership was destroyed that would be a huge amount of loot left in the wreck, and you would default to a racial cloning facility.
One idea that came to mind would be to allow a ship with jump capabilities to train for an additional skill to calculate its own jump point without a cyno. This would not be applicable to covert jump drives. It would take 8 hours to spool up the drive at level 1 and 4 hours at level 5. I don't feel that this would dumb down or break the game in anyway. Lets face it what capital ship doesn't have a cyno alt, what this does is provide better quality of life. As far as having alliances try to exploit this; since when has there been any difficulty getting a cyno in a system, and with the system cyno jammers I doubt any issues would come about. 8-4 hours is a long time to wait anyway. Or just forget the skill and make it randomly chose between 8-4 hours. Enabling it to be impossible for more then one ship to sync with another, a fleet would end up in system at different times. It would be nice for the few people that only have one account, and would possibly increase the number of jump freighters.
Another thought along this line is remembering the talk of motherships one day coming back in a completely different form representing the "True mothership class." I also read about an idea to add new systems to K-Space with no Stargates linking them. Instead you had to get there through the wormhole network. A pretty cool idea. I was thinking that having a mothership act as a moving station, where corp members dock in and out while placing all thier stuff in a hanger. It would act like a roaming convoy, never claiming space but always on the move. That would work perfectly with the idea of the new unlinked K-Space. You could position it above npc 0.0 so its jumpable by only a mothership. It would make sense that a mothership would have the largest jump range.
Logging out when your docked in a mother ship means you would log back into it keeping everyone together. You could have a cloning and repair station included, but if the mothership was destroyed that would be a huge amount of loot left in the wreck, and you would default to a racial cloning facility.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Incursions
The new Incursion sites have been a lot of fun so far. I really like the idea of making PVE closer to PVP. Having objectives for each type of site is a nice touch, having to use hacking and mining modules is fun. Hopefully we can see them expand upon this more and add more complexity and variety.
One thing I would hope to see would be to target a hatch on a large station. Destroying it allows you to fly into a tunnel, they could add an object to approach to at each corner for the clicking challenged. Maneuver through a couple tunnels, and drop some of that unstable ore into a container giving you 30 seconds to get out or the explosion will pop you. Alright so its more of a hopeful Star Wars dream but you can't deny I wouldn't be fun to do, especially in an Interceptor.
Its good to see CCP fixing the CONCORD griefing issue, it works to encourage random players to fleet up. The only thing I can think of to help facilitate people in different corps to join up would be to add one more High Sec spawn but limit it to the 3-5 and 5-10 pilot sites only. So we would have 2 Null Sec, 2 Low Sec, and 3 High Sec spawns total. That would give a little more opportunity for smaller less coordinated groups. I can also see that larger fleets would just split their fleet and cut right through them as well, so that may be a bad idea.
While incursions have had a few minor issues I think its been a good success and nice addition to EVE. Hopfully the storyline will integrate it to stay, even switching pirate factions at the very least. It would be nice to see some Sleeper activity as well. Seeing them mobile and making operations in response to hostile Capsuleer activity. A few lucky W-Space systems could offer a bonus to plexing by attacking reinforced sites. A shorter system despawn and respawn timer would probably be used for this.
One thing I would hope to see would be to target a hatch on a large station. Destroying it allows you to fly into a tunnel, they could add an object to approach to at each corner for the clicking challenged. Maneuver through a couple tunnels, and drop some of that unstable ore into a container giving you 30 seconds to get out or the explosion will pop you. Alright so its more of a hopeful Star Wars dream but you can't deny I wouldn't be fun to do, especially in an Interceptor.
Its good to see CCP fixing the CONCORD griefing issue, it works to encourage random players to fleet up. The only thing I can think of to help facilitate people in different corps to join up would be to add one more High Sec spawn but limit it to the 3-5 and 5-10 pilot sites only. So we would have 2 Null Sec, 2 Low Sec, and 3 High Sec spawns total. That would give a little more opportunity for smaller less coordinated groups. I can also see that larger fleets would just split their fleet and cut right through them as well, so that may be a bad idea.
While incursions have had a few minor issues I think its been a good success and nice addition to EVE. Hopfully the storyline will integrate it to stay, even switching pirate factions at the very least. It would be nice to see some Sleeper activity as well. Seeing them mobile and making operations in response to hostile Capsuleer activity. A few lucky W-Space systems could offer a bonus to plexing by attacking reinforced sites. A shorter system despawn and respawn timer would probably be used for this.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Low Sec
I like many others think Low Sec isn't broken so much that its a perception issue preventing it from being populated. A thought I had on this would be to increase the travel through it by making it less risky. If the gate gun damage was increased by a large amount eliminating small gate camps. It would take many more ships to have a successful gate camp. A gate camp in Low Sec would be very rare but not impossible.
If you weren't told "Don't even go to low sec its camped," instead hearing "You can go there but just be careful when you do stuff". People would travel through it with no fear; find a system with no one there and begin PI, mining, or rating as they please. So it brings people there with little risk to travel from gate to gate but still a large risk to mission or mine bringing the fights to take place in those areas. It encourages people to play smart and pay attention, a place you cant afk like high sec but can still have fun in for a slightly greater reward.
I think once people are in low sec systems and see how they can access it easier. They will be tempted and get cockier, being active in the space and bringing a small group seems a lot easier without the worry of gate camps.
Another change I think should help encourage more Low Sec activity. Would be to remove security loss for destroying someones ship, but increase the sec loss for podding someone. I know for many people the reduction of security status is a strong deterrent. Especially if you are not making an income through ratting or missioning. This makes people primarily want to pvp in wormholes and 0.0.
If you weren't told "Don't even go to low sec its camped," instead hearing "You can go there but just be careful when you do stuff". People would travel through it with no fear; find a system with no one there and begin PI, mining, or rating as they please. So it brings people there with little risk to travel from gate to gate but still a large risk to mission or mine bringing the fights to take place in those areas. It encourages people to play smart and pay attention, a place you cant afk like high sec but can still have fun in for a slightly greater reward.
I think once people are in low sec systems and see how they can access it easier. They will be tempted and get cockier, being active in the space and bringing a small group seems a lot easier without the worry of gate camps.
Another change I think should help encourage more Low Sec activity. Would be to remove security loss for destroying someones ship, but increase the sec loss for podding someone. I know for many people the reduction of security status is a strong deterrent. Especially if you are not making an income through ratting or missioning. This makes people primarily want to pvp in wormholes and 0.0.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The Character Creator
Wow is what I have to say about the new character creator. Excellent job CCP its just stunning and I am really looking forward to Incarna. I spent countless hours trying to make it look exactly like myself, something I try to do with all the games I've played.
It doesn't get much closer then that and I was pretty happy with it. With one big exception, that's a gallente Character Model of all things; and well I of course chose the much better Caldari race way back when. So I am left with this crap.
A William Shatner version of myself, wonderful... Anyway I am still pretty hopeful that one of the future micro transactions will be to jump clone bodies which was hinted already by CCP. After all if I read about civilians in the novel "The Burning Life" being able to do crazy modifications, like turn their stomachs into basically fish aquariums. I think a very wealthy Capsuleer would have no trouble looking like another race. In turn it would open up many possible story elements. For example maybe in my bio I could write that some ass gallente guy wanted to get back at me. So he changed some of the cloning records and I wake up in the wrong body. I would be pretty pissed off at that, a funny practical joke. Why wouldn't future people do something like that. Make someone look like the race they hate, hilarious. Or perhaps I orchestrated the whole event in order to sleep with my arch enemy's wife and take his family from him, the ultimate revenge. Really endless possibilities here for the RP community.
I see a lot of people complain about the lack of cloths and color options. Yes it is quite weak but relax its just the first iteration and I'm happy with it. Of course many more options will come, and hopefully clothing will be expanded upon as a shop profession. Adding more depth to Incarna wouldn't be a bad thing; making the majority of people wanting more variety in clothing options to have to seek out shops.
All and all a job well done CCP.
This is what I came up with the first time around.
And with the new and improved version.
And here's a much younger version of myself. I'm going for the fresh clone look.
It doesn't get much closer then that and I was pretty happy with it. With one big exception, that's a gallente Character Model of all things; and well I of course chose the much better Caldari race way back when. So I am left with this crap.
I see a lot of people complain about the lack of cloths and color options. Yes it is quite weak but relax its just the first iteration and I'm happy with it. Of course many more options will come, and hopefully clothing will be expanded upon as a shop profession. Adding more depth to Incarna wouldn't be a bad thing; making the majority of people wanting more variety in clothing options to have to seek out shops.
All and all a job well done CCP.
Faction Warfare
I haven’t been involved in Faction Warfare at all but I really like the idea of it. I’ve heard that it needs some work though and I have had a few thoughts on what I would like to see it become. My idea would require a whole revamp on what faction warfare is however.
What I think could be a fun idea is to create a new type of space; 1.1 or Faction Space, War Space, Fact Space whatever we want to call it. It would comprise of 20 border zone systems 10 between Amarr and Minmatar, and 10 between Caldari and Gallente. Faction Warfare would only take place in these 20 systems. If you sign up to participate you are still allowed access through all empire regions, just the opposing side npcs will shoot you on sight in these new 1.1 systems. Your free to shoot other players that also participate only in 1.1 systems, and you don’t need to be in a special Corp anyone can sign up regardless of the Corp you are currently in. Think of it as a tag that you enable. This way you can do your normal thing with your friends, and not be excluded allowing for more participation.
These systems would be objective based similar to the new Sansha Incursion sites. A new fleet format would be introduced. Each system acquires its own automatic fleet formation. If you are on a faction side and you enter a 1.1 system you are asked in a pop up window if you want to join the battle. Selecting yes leaves any current fleet your in and places you in an npc fleet, with an npc as the fleet boss. Free move would be on and no leadership skills take effect in order to prevent exploiting from the other team in case they filled up a side with alts in leadership roles.
Each System will have areas warpable on the overview and can vary in objectives. One idea would be to have two weapon manufacturing outposts. You would warp to your own faction outpost bringing you to an acceleration gate which places you 75k from the outpost, and loot a bomb item from it. A new bomb item would not spawn until the first one has been destroyed. You can jettison the bomb but if not picked up in 30 seconds the can will despawn. If an enemy picks up your bomb it will blow up their ship. The objective is to destroy the enemy outpost by looting it and placing a bomb which will drop the outpost’s health by 10%. So you need 10 bombs to win.
One catch is that surrounding the weapons outpost is a new stasis webifyer bubble that only affects the opposing team. It would be 10 – 7.5k in radius allowing for more tactics. Once one side wins the outposts are immune for 1-2 hours and no bombs are spawned giving that side temporary control over the system. Bonus LP is awarded for the victors. The map will reflect who has control. Holding 75% of the systems will grant you a bonus to LP gain, holding 100% of the systems will give you an even higher bonus. Destroying the opposing faction player ships will grant LP and isk by size of ship, small, med, large.
Another scenario would apply to only 2 systems. With each side having 5 initial areas, across the bordered systems on one end of the line is each team’s main staging system. You would have to control all 4 of the middle systems for a dreadnaught to spawn in the final system. Only when defeated will you gain control of the last area which then after 2-3 hours your dreadnaught will spawn. This allows the other side to attack it to press on; the attackers will also get additional npc battleships as reinforcement to encourage constant flipping of control. The bonuses are meant to just be temporary rewards for players who were recently active. This idea is more for casual players where systems are constantly being flipped and short term bonuses apply allowing for casual pvp with minimal organization. You should be able to log in if you only have a short time for 30 mins to 2 hours and get right in on the action.
I’m sure it would need a lot of tweaking but that’s the general outline of the idea.
Any thoughts or complaints on how there could be issues feel free to leave a comment.
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