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mrjacobean

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Posts posted by mrjacobean

    Maximum Construct Weapon Range.

    in Idea Box

    Posted

    Calculating trajectories is not that hard for kinetic weaponry. We've landed probes on asteroids with our current tech like that.

    with probes, we take a leisurely stroll to get to the asteroid, whereas a kinetic weapon requires speed to deliver enough force (you cannot correct your course when you fire a gun, but you can when you are flying a probe)

     

    In addition, all the calculations need to be done in a few seconds, whereas with our space program we have months/years to calculate the correct course. You then have to factor in their velocity relative to you and their acceleration. Whilst this is fine for targets a few hundred meters away, it doesn't really work when the target is tens of KM away, or 1KM away and tiny (smaller ship equals less margin for error). When it comes to that, just "Spray and Pray"

    Trauma Mechanics and Emergent Gameplay Consequences.

    in The Gameplay Mechanics Assembly

    Posted

    I won't go into details as of what Battle Fatigue is in real life, although THIS sums it up pretty nicely.

     

     

    The TL ; DR version, is that a person loses efficiency, in a statistical way, depending on the amount of battle and / or injuries they have accumulated (along with other things, that are too dark to elaborate).

     

    This can be emulated with a Trauma mechanism in the game, so death has some consequences that go beyond material loss and punish people who actually went looking for trouble, as well as make assassins something more than just glorified bounty hunters.

     

     

    This suggestion covers :

     

    1. The logic behind it.

    2. The suggestion of a powers system on a timer.

    3. Ways to overcome it faster via emergent gameplay and player interaction.

     

    Without further ado, here we go.

     

     

     

    1. The Logic Behind It.

     

     

    Discouraging mindless PvP and turning the game into a bloodbath. While a Bounty System is welcome as a precaution, as a good fella in Discord pointed out "I am not worried about the Bounty System, it will only bring more content for me as a PvPer, it's a reward for PKing people more than anything". 

     

    So how do you make that person think twice before going after you? What prevents them from going into a killing spree?

     

    That would be a skillpoints loss system, right?

     

    Well, wrong. Skillpoints are like your money in-game, they are there as a "save" button, they are there to signify your progress and "power", in an abstract way. They should be secured.

     

    But what if there was a way to take away efficiency, without taking away skillpoints? And well, money are meant to be spent anyways.

     

    That would be the Trauma mechanic.

     

     

    2. Powers on a Timer.

     

     

    If a person dies once, they suffer a Trauma debuff, that is chipping away a percentage of their attributes, which are linked to the skill training system, as skills are operating on increasing the bonuses of a person's attributes, while attributes are there to justify how fast a person learns skills and what skills they can learn.

     

    For this suggestion, the percentage loss for the first death off of a person's attributes, is 1%. I know it sounds very small, but it's for ease of understanding more than anything.

     

    When a person dies, they suffer the Battle Trauma debuff, which is on a timer of 10 minutes. It sounds very little for one death, BUT, if you die again within that timer, your Trauma increases in duration and intensity.

     

    The equation for the timer is :

     

    (BattleFatigue-Timer)^(times of death)

     

    While the Efficiency Loss beyond the first death, is :

     

    [ (Efficiency Loss Percentage) + 2(times of death) ] / 100

    This means for the first death, the equation is :

     

    (10 minutes)^1

     

    Timer is 10 minutes. No biggie, 10 minutes with 1% attributes loss. That will make your 100 Strength character have 99 Strength, who cares, right? Well, thing is, certain skills, require certain attributes, and attiributes assuming the Devs went the EVE way) take time to learn depending on your attributes. So a 1%, equates to a certain extension of the training timer to fill up.

     

    But if you die AGAIN (somehow you fell off the stairs or something, I'm a Twerkmotor, not a fortune teller) within 10 minutes, the timer begins to look something like this :

     

    (10 Minutes)^2

     

    [1 + 2(2) ] / 100

     

    So, you got 100 minutes of Trauma, at 5% efficiency ratio. It's still fine, it's 1 hour 40 minutes of 5% less effciency, it's not something devastating, it's not the end of the world. Maybe you'll log out anyways, and by the morning you will be feeling fiiiiiiiiine.

     

    But somehow, you die again within the timer ( Fail Hard 2 : Fail Harder , Evil Stair had its way again).

     

    Timer begins to look something more like ... erm, this : 

     

    (10 minutes)^3

     

    [1+ 2(3) ] / 100

     

    I'll save you the hassle, that timer is about 1 week long and it is for a 7% efficiency loss. You might say, "that's not too bad, it's only 7%", but then again, that equates to skill training taking longer, so that one week, is more like 2 weeks more on a high level skill. It is punishing :|

     

    But no worries, Emergent Gameplay is here for you. Time to get to the Doc Mitchell's house to patch your noggins up (if you get the referrence, you are Cazador-proof then).

     

     

    3. Ways to overcome it faster via emergent gameplay and player interaction.

     

     

    Many a person in these forums, have asked if they can build medical centers. Well, with the Trauma suggestion, they can be part of the gameplay in more ways than just a med-kit vending machine.

     

    A medical skills trained person, has the ability to reduce or even remove the Trauma, via the level of their training and of course, the material costs behind it, either by producing medicine that can counteract the effects of Battle Fatigue that cost a lot, depending on their effectiveness, or via Elements that heal the injured fella.

     

    The twist is, Doctors can only affect Physical attributes, like strength, endurance, agility and dexterity.

     

     

    But I hear you say "but what about Mental attributes?". 

     

    Enter the Bar. No really, there should be bar in the game :|

     

    Not exactly bars, but alcohol can be used to reduce the Trauma timer for Mental attributes, like memory, charisma, intelligence and perception.  The twist is, you can't get too much alcohol at once, otherwise you get poison damage (because logic) and also, you get withdrawl, which affects your physical attributes in a very very minor way compared to Trauma.

     

    This will reinforce the social aspect of the game, having people take time to chill as they wait for their Trauma debuff to wear off, possibly in a bar in-game, or by drinking on their own. Can't force people to have social interactions if they don't want to.

     

    Afterthoughts.

     

    This will also create venues for players of more ... RPish backgrounds, to have a legit reason for being in a bar, rather than w/e RP people do ( I don't know, I'm not a turbonerd :| ) , as well as hospitals being legit places to be built and of course, NOT being attacked via interfactional agreements on Laws of War (if there are any).

     

     

    This opens up also the economic and politic aspect of the game. Logistics for war, take a whole new meaning. A person that does not die and has a high KD, becomes recognised in their organisation as Cost Efficient, as that guy or gal is melting people without dying, not requiring new armor every time after dying and of course, not costing a heckton on Trauma therapy, not to mention, their character being drunk or in alcohol withdrawl debuff, that needs another medicine to make it go away.

     

    This also opens up the Drugs Industry in the game. Drugs are much cheaper to make than high-tech medicine, but they cause you SEVERE withdrawl effects (gotta send the message out there people, not everything is as harmless as weed). The Empire of Baconstone, may have an issue with its troops being unreliable bacause of them drugs they use to avoid paying for real medicine that's non-addictive, therefore banning them, thus needing them smugglers to fly in to capitalise in that sweet sweet revenue of illegal tradings. It's far more a legit and organic way of banning drugs in-game, rather than "I wantz drugz illegalz by Devz".

     

    Politics though are not limited to that. The good ol' tactic of "STORM THAT HILL, THROW MORE MEAT INTO THE ENEMY'S GRINDER" takes in DIMINISHING RETURNS. Every time your soldiers die, they lose their armor, and they lose efficiency. You may have the money to support their armors, but the medicine costs begin to pile up.

     

    Defenders become more weary and they are on an efficiency level as well. 

     

    If a faction relies in attrition warfare, they will have to tax people who are not in their fleets or armies, thus politics, take off on a whole new level, as people start protesting on the Protection Bubbles having more Rent, sales taxes going up and in general, Emergent Gameplay of rebellions.

     

    It's a mechanic that branches everywhere. 

     

     

     

    That was exactly my idea, also including ways for the trauma healers to buff you beyond your base skill level and maybe improve your skill training speed for a certain amount of time.

    Testing Expansions

    in The Gameplay Mechanics Assembly

    Posted

    What if the devs just update the game at random without any news?

     

    Then it would be up to us to "discover" all the new additions?

     

    .....just sayin

    The only problem with that are the bugs and exploits possible in an untested update, which may lead to massive change when for example someone finds a loophole that allows them to dupe items and floods the market for a quick buck.

     

    The discovery aspect could still be in play if they decided to give only alpha and beta testers access to the test server, but that is up to them to decide

    captured ships and selfdestruct

    in Idea Box

    Posted

    ...So, yeah, salvaging will be worth it if a ship's in bad condition and can't be repaired anymore due to its Core Unit that held the blueprint being gone.

    Well, there is a reason Pirate ships look like they just strapped pieces of metal to a damaged ship. 

    captured ships and selfdestruct

    in Idea Box

    Posted

    I am going to throw my two cents in quickly before Twerkmotor spontaneously combusts.

     

    I agree there should be a way to effectively "Scorched Earth" your ship, either through self destruct or EMP pulse that fries every computer system making the ship worthless. Scrap can still be collected, but the ship cannot be used (can't add more blocks on to it?

     

    I also agree on the fact that you should be able to stop the process when you are attacking, where my favourite skill 'Hacking' (maybe have it as a skill group? Have things like forgery, systems access, cyber-warfare etc.) comes into play. You hack the ship to stop it from exploding/EMPing itself and by doing so, disable the ship. This means that if you activate the self destruct, and the attacker stops it, you become a sitting duck due to your ship being shut down (maybe have it rebooting? so on a timer?).

     

    I am completely fine with people self destructing, just so long as there is a way to stop it (hacking minigame against the clock?) and that larger ships take longer to explode.

     

    In terms of respawn debuffs, this sounds like a good idea and it would allow for many more professions. Maybe have different healing techniques, so for physical skill damage you have a doctor, for mental skill damage you might go to a bar, maybe have different methods for each skill group. You might also be able to get buffs from these activites. With this, you could make the timers last quite a while, and it would mean that a capital ship will have a sickbay, mess hall, quarters etc. to help get respawned crew members back on their feet quicker.

    Mission-centered Economy

    in Idea Box

    Posted

    Excerpt from a video script I am writing that explains the problem much better :

     

    "...the economy can't be entirely kickstarted off of this one thing. By doing so, you create an economy that will inflate like mad or at least be very unstable. Why?, because when it is more profitable to sell to NPCs, everyone will sell to them. That creates a shortage of supplies for the higher tiers of items as they are not going to the economy, they are disappearing into the void. This drives the amount of money in the economy up, but it also drives prices up due to shortages in resources. At some point later, selling to NPCs will no longer be the best deal for anyone, so the amount of money in the economy stops increasing. It just becomes a downward spiral, repeating again and again."
     
    In addition, the influx of cash will only happen at the arkship, so everywhere else becomes a backwater due to it being unprofitable to stay there when you can stay at the arkship and sell everything there. It is a pulling factor that is at spawn. As for the buying things from the bots, well done, you have made non-renewable resources renewable. If you only get the bots to sell what they buy, well done again, you have just created a middleman that drains money from the economy (buy price has to be bigger than sell price) instead of a way to add money into it.
     
    P.S. I apologise if that sounded rude or uncalled for

    Mission-centered Economy

    in Idea Box

    Posted

    Job boards are planned to be in the game.

    As far as I know they will work pretty much like whats in the OP.

    That may be so, but the thing that needs to be there are NPC jobs on those boards that do not require you to take anything away from the economy (like selling iron), otherwise they would just be streamlining the player interaction (which is good, but it does not solve the biggest problem with the economy, which is starting it). My current understanding is that all the jobs on the board (that the devs have said) are player driven, so the reward is payed for by a player.

     

    My main point is we need a direct time -> money method, otherwise the economy will collapse/not grow.

    Mission-centered Economy

    in Idea Box

    Posted

    So, similar to the way that Star Wars Galaxies had money enter the economy. This could work, but since PvE does not exist (as far as we know), the only mission types would be courier, crafting (like courier, but you craft the items from the components given to you on the way) and exploration (go to place, head back). The amount of money made through this method was determined by distance to the objective in SWG, which would have been abused in SWG if you could place them yourself due to fast travel stations (put them next to fast travel stations and at oposing corners of the map), but won't in DU because fast travel doesn't exist. I think this is the way to go for getting money into the economy, it just needs to be balanced with the NPC market.

     

    Actually, with this you won't need an NPC market at all. It won't inflate the economy because it determines the economy, as whatever reward equation you make will include a constant that is multiplied by distance to equal money output (maybe decrease the amount of money you can get from them as time goes on due to the player influence expanding). As long as the items transported are worth nothing, it won't be exploited. However, it may not match with the lore as it is supposed to be a player run economy, and the mission terminals suggest another group is at play (the ship AI?)

    Transporting constructs

    in Idea Box

    Posted

    #1 If you are transporting a construct, have someone taxi you to it and fly/ride it yourself, no need for something big (unless its a ground base, in which case you can't move it)

     

    #2 I think you can (read: should) have a hybrid setup, but you won't beat ships that are air/space only in speed/load

     

    #3 Only useful if you want to move an atmospheric ship from planet to planet, in which case you could ask to rent space on a carrier headed that way that has enough hangar space (if you are in a larger org, they would have a carrier anyway)

     

    #4 This is something that I could see, but how it would work is still a question. It would probably have too many moving parts, so just a simple landing pad/hangar bay would be fine. In the case of an underground base, a hidden access point to a massive cave would be the solution (moving parts = lag)

    Locking Your Ship

    in Idea Box

    Posted

    I would say that all ships are locked for those who do not have permission, but people can use a skill (like hacking) to open it without permission. The larger/more complicated the construct, the longer it takes, with higher skill levels decreasing the time taken. Also might require a special tool so you have to use it constantly, meaning your back is not covered when, say, the owner gets back. Maybe have some things be impossible to hack until you have a high enough skill level. Or a disposable hacking module that you place on the ship to hack it for you, but using your skill level (or the skill level of the one who made it).

    Night-Vision / Thermal Sights / Thermal Scanning

    in Idea Box

    Posted

    Well, technically, the way I see it, the Lock-On at a construct on CvC is the range-finder, as it establishes and keeps track of the target you are aiming at. So, an asteroid field would actually be a problem for a turret to lock-on a ship, as the asteroids would act as anatural shield if the Gunner was to fire when the target was passing behind a rock.

     

    Optical camouflage does not actually work well, as heat is not contained, unless the ship requires heat sinks, special paint-job, (Ventiblack), but even then, the heat sinking would be limited before its containments well critical. And heat sinking on its own would not work if the ship was to be accelerating, as its thrusters alone would be leaving a trail behind them of ions.

     

    Radar is too primitive for space, you only need Optic Sensors as they don't have to bounce a signal and wait for its return, as they are essentially very smooth mirrors that are able to reflect the full spectrum of light, hence they can pick up things pretty well given the background cold of space. A spaceship would be standing out like Hell in Alaska :P

     

    But the thread is not about CvC detection. That is way too complicated to discuss. It got sensors of all kind and stealth of all kind ( as you pointed out as well ).

     

    The conversation can go forever, which is why I focused on Avatar V. Avatar detection methods at night and not space in general :P

    I was going to add something about avatar camouflage in my post, but it wan't a fully fleshed out idea (now it is though)

     

    What about regular camouflage? Having a ghillie suit or camo patterns? I don't think such things will effect combat as you will see them as lockable signatures when you might not be able to see them yourself (without the UI). Would there be a way to solve for this?

    Multi-Organisations membership

    in General Discussions

    Posted

    You should make it so you can look at what orgs someone belongs to when they area part of your org (set their rank to some probation rank which does not give them access to anything). If you see an org that you don't like, you can do as you will with that information, be it kick them, ask them to leave it or whatever. If they then join another org, that you don't like, then you can do what you will (kick, ask to leave other org, etc.). This does mean you have to check, but this does make it fairer (i.e. officers need to do their job).

     

    As someone earlier said, you could also train in a skill (hacking) that would allow you to hide one or more of your org memberships (rank dependant) from everyone but that org and whitelisted others (such as allies). The officer in the recruiting org can then also do a hacking check to see if they have any hidden orgs (does not tell you how well you did, just says which orgs they are a part of or "you could not find any additional information").

     

    Helpful for recruiters, not hindering spys (it is up to you to secure your org, not the devs).

    Night-Vision / Thermal Sights / Thermal Scanning

    in Idea Box

    Posted

    Well, the only actual stealth tech in space would be the Cloaking field, but it would have a limit before the crew begun to boil alive :|

     

    Also, you need to remember, if the eneny can't see you in Cloak... you can't see the enemy either. Yup, it works both ways. So, get prepared for some submarine action in space, like, having a passive drone camera to monitor the surrounding area from a distance, to see if an enemy is facing towards you or away from you to get the jump on them.

     

    But the thread is more Avatar oriented instead of Construct :P

    In space you have optical camouflage, heat sinking and radar masking as cloaking techniques. Heat sinking would just need heat sinks in your ship, but it would boil your crew alive. Optical can work fine, just needs a special kind of armour plating that drains energy. And radar masking would require something to provide interference so the enemy can't lock on, like a debris field or decoys.

     

    All of these would reduce the enemy's ability to pick you up or track you, but they cannot be on indefinably (except radar masking, the enemy knows you are there but can't pinpoint you exactly).

     

    Whilst for radar masking it would be hard to adjust sensors to get a read, the others would still allow you to see the enemy, but would limit your actions if you don't want to break concealment. Having both optical and heat sinks plus running silently means you will be completely undetectable, and you can still pick up radar contacts, but you won't be able to target them using your guns as they would need to emit a signal to range-find (like a laser).

    Night-Vision / Thermal Sights / Thermal Scanning

    in Idea Box

    Posted

    Oh, yeah, some other fella got confused as well on this. I'm not talking flat percentage loss.

     

    Think of it like this.

     

    A person is 100% illuminated. When you aim at them, you get 100% of your hit chance (weapon stats, player attributes, player skills, etcetera).

     

    If they are 50% illuminated, you get 50% of your hit chance.

     

    If the enemy is 1% illuminated, you get 1% of your hit chance, which I guess it makes some sense in the context of the game realistically.

     

    This is where the Night-Vision comes into place, you illuminate them with an infrared flashlight (limited in range), which can give you the bonus of illuminating the target, A night-vision set of goggles, has the added benefit of not exposing you to the enemy, unless they wear Night-Vision goggles as well, in which case, you will have a good ol' gunfight but in the dark.Unless they turn their flashlight at you, in which case, you get blinded, so there is a counter to this mechanic and tactical thinking involved.

     

    The Thermal Sights, are in essence the upgraded version of the Night-Vision, but they have power cost and some people may not be using them, since they want to reserve power for their shields or weaponry.

     

     

    Not to mention such a thing would create the need for searchlights around a base that lock on people not authorised to be in the vicinity and it would create some possible VENTI-black stealthsuits that absorb light, so even if you were to look at them with a night-vision scope, they would be still not illuminated in the dark and requiring Thermal Sights to be used to detect infiltrators wearing such stealthsuits.

     

     

    AKA, Emergent Gameplay :P

    I would say that instead of chance to hit changing, change the range at which you can target them (i.e. they don't show up on when searching for targets, similar to if you use silent running in elite: dangerous). This would mean that in pitch black, you have no clue they are there instead of knowing they are there but being unable to hit them.

    Additional Renewable Resources and Power

    in Idea Box

    Posted

    People seem to forget that player made safezones are not safe. They are force fields that can be collapsed when consuming damage, and will need to be powered by something expensive to run. If you have such an item impossible to make renewable (such as hydrogen for a fusion reactor), then they will still need to interact to keep their retirement home safe. Not to mention that a place full of expensive equipment is a very juicy target for pillaging.

    Mega-scale Mining

    in Idea Box

    Posted

    Mining lasers with limited range would be good, the limited range will stop people from insta-gibbing an area with a massive barge containing hundreds of lasers, if you are online, you will see it coming. Alternatively, you could have it so you have to own the land in order to mass-mine it (using massive drills and the like, you can still regularly mine in wilderness areas). 

    Two words space elevator

    in Builder Forum

    Posted

    After the Space Elevator is built, the next step is to construct a Torus around the planet. We could use the Elevator/Torus as the capital city, having the base of the elevator at the Arkship. Whilst the elevator is under construction, we could use the interior as a massive tower block, full of factories and apartments. Also, the Elevator is useful as it means you do not need ships with hybrid engines to get cargo off/on the planet.

     

    Any Alpha testers can start the planning and construction, then, once the server is wiped for Beta, we will have learned some lessons and have more manpower. Do this again when the game goes to release and we should have a pretty good plan for building it.

     

    I think a octagonal shape for the tower would be easier to do as circles using blocks can look a bit iffy and squares don't look cool.

     

    Anyway, those are my thoughts

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