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Ships and the crew required


bastanold

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But what if people build Gargantea type ships? Hell lot of civilians on board and the children...THE CHILDREN!

 

Again, the bigger the ship, the slower everything moves. If you build a Gargantia Ship, you better have 360 degree gun range or you are doomed. Mount them everywhere or make sure everyone knows this is a hub for something/a center that is used by all. If one group doesn't use the giant ship, it's game over for you

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  • 2 weeks later...

Again, the bigger the ship, the slower everything moves. If you build a Gargantia Ship, you better have 360 degree gun range or you are doomed. Mount them everywhere or make sure everyone knows this is a hub for something/a center that is used by all. If one group doesn't use the giant ship, it's game over for you

I am sure NQ will make sure this cant happen

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I am sure NQ will make sure this cant happen

Yep! A player must be near-by (awaking landmines btw) in order to function, and the sheer cost of making a drone and then releasing it is too much effort.

Also, how is it gonna track people?

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Yep! A player must be near-by (awaking landmines btw) in order to function, and the sheer cost of making a drone and then releasing it is too much effort.

Also, how is it gonna track people?

That line of logic is... wow. Erm, you run scripts of things you activate. So no, you are not allowed to tank my RAM by having 1 billion "activate on proximity" constructs. 

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That line of logic is... wow. Erm, you run scripts of things you activate. So no, you are not allowed to tank my RAM by having 1 billion "activate on proximity" constructs. 

They're going to have some method of detecting players, like a pressure plate or an observer mechanism of some type, this would be the activator for the script. It would be the same mechanism as an automatic door, it might not be easy to hide it but it could exist. It wouldn't really be "proximity" unless they specifically give us a "check if player is within X range" type of detector, so no magic buillshit script mines :D

 

We don't know if they'll let you hook that type of detecting/observing module up to an explosive or weapon system though; and if it's required to run off of a construct, then in order for you to make a landmine work you would have to build the ship/building, and then build the explosive/weapon system and detector on top of it, and then bury it. If you have to sacrifice a construct core for every land mine, I can't see this being very efficient XD

 

But Twerk is right that the script doesn't just run when your game client loads it. Someone has to activate it.

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They're going to have some method of detecting players, like a pressure plate or an observer mechanism of some type, this would be the activator for the script. It would be the same mechanism as an automatic door, it might not be easy to hide it but it could exist. It wouldn't really be "proximity" unless they specifically give us a "check if player is within X range" type of detector, so no magic buillshit script mines :D

 

We don't know if they'll let you hook that type of detecting/observing module up to an explosive or weapon system though; and if it's required to run off of a construct, then in order for you to make a landmine work you would have to build the ship/building, and then build the explosive/weapon system and detector on top of it, and then bury it. If you have to sacrifice a construct core for every land mine, I can't see this being very efficient XD

 

But Twerk is right that the script doesn't just run when your game client loads it. Someone has to activate it.

They already have the pressure plates as demostrated on the dev diaries. Same mechanism can be applied for mines. But not full on constructs working ona detection plate.

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  • 2 weeks later...

What im going to say is going to sound harsh but honestly

If you go this far in depth, no one is going to play the game

Everyone loves flying big ships, but if it requires momentous teamwork, and 90% of the people involved are just checking the engines or shields, no one will play the game because they'll all be too bored, this might be good for an immersion point of view in say, a single player game, but you're all imagining being the pilots

imagine spending all day, waiting to press the button R because the engine needs to be repaired, it might sound fun, but it would be the single most dull experience I can imagine, so big ships may have crews (specifically marines) but I highly, highly doubt they will need them, because if they do the game will never get off the ground

this isn't like EvE, where you spend the day waiting for something to happen, even mining has the potential for fun things to happen there, this is sitting at an engine console, waiting to press a button, and doing literally nothing else

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That's why I don't think we'll see huge ships anytime soon. 

 

Even for the pilot its going to be boring, I can see no one sane flying the ship in a straight line manually without using lua...

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6 hours ago, Toecutter said:

What im going to say is going to sound harsh but honestly

If you go this far in depth, no one is going to play the game

Everyone loves flying big ships, but if it requires momentous teamwork, and 90% of the people involved are just checking the engines or shields, no one will play the game because they'll all be too bored, this might be good for an immersion point of view in say, a single player game, but you're all imagining being the pilots

imagine spending all day, waiting to press the button R because the engine needs to be repaired, it might sound fun, but it would be the single most dull experience I can imagine, so big ships may have crews (specifically marines) but I highly, highly doubt they will need them, because if they do the game will never get off the ground

this isn't like EvE, where you spend the day waiting for something to happen, even mining has the potential for fun things to happen there, this is sitting at an engine console, waiting to press a button, and doing literally nothing else

 

 

Except that there are multiple instances where they've been quoted as saying that large ships will need specialized crews, one of which is the Dev Blog on the topic: https://devblog.dualthegame.com/2015/01/30/multiplayer-ship-crew/
 

Quote

The control of this multiplayer crew ship would be distributed to several players according to their specialization. People for navigation, some others for left bank/right bank weapon systems, missiles, others for repair facilities, radar, energy systems, com, or for the faster-than-light engine, etc. You would need real team play to fly an interstellar mothership, creating emergent “professions” ingame as people specialize in certains aspects of ship control

 

 

 

Of course, the goal isn't to just have people sitting around pressing the same button over and over, and the difficulty of solving the problem was addressed in the Q&A:
 

Quote

Out of all of the things you guys want to do with this game, which feature or aspect is the most daunting or problematic?

The most difficult thing in an emergent game like this is to make sure that every gameplay mechanics we introduce has a crucial and not replaceable role in the game, that will not be overridden by some other gameplay mechanics. A good example is spaceship combat. We want that it makes sense to have large ships with a crew, as well as small fighter ships. Both should have their utility or else we will end up with either only large ships, or only small ships. So, these questions are the most challenging because they are hard to forecast. The alpha/beta testing will help us to fine tune this, even in future expansions that we will open in advance on some testing servers.

1

 

 

And to answer your last point, not everyone wants to be a pilot or a captain. I'd be more content sitting in an engine room than in the captain's seat telling everyone what to do with everyone's lives in in my care. 

 

If you want to fly a giant ship around by yourself, more power to you, but you're probably going to end up having a really bad time when other people show up to ruin your day. 

 

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7 hours ago, Toecutter said:

What im going to say is going to sound harsh but honestly

If you go this far in depth, no one is going to play the game

Everyone loves flying big ships, but if it requires momentous teamwork, and 90% of the people involved are just checking the engines or shields, no one will play the game because they'll all be too bored, this might be good for an immersion point of view in say, a single player game, but you're all imagining being the pilots

imagine spending all day, waiting to press the button R because the engine needs to be repaired, it might sound fun, but it would be the single most dull experience I can imagine, so big ships may have crews (specifically marines) but I highly, highly doubt they will need them, because if they do the game will never get off the ground

this isn't like EvE, where you spend the day waiting for something to happen, even mining has the potential for fun things to happen there, this is sitting at an engine console, waiting to press a button, and doing literally nothing else

 

Yes, sitting around waiting to press a button all day would be very boring, but I doubt there will be many or any instances like that. You are assuming that everyone is assigned a position and must stay there all the time. Not so. If the ship is not under attack you could be manning the sensor arrays or working on something in the hangar. If you are in warp you don't need people manning the guns but you do need people making sure the reactor doesn't overheat. In this way people will not be stuck waiting around for their position to be needed; rather, they will be rotating around to where the "action" is. Secondly, you are assuming that all the activities are going to simple. "Press R to repair ship". Nope. If you are trying to repair the ship you need to find what's broken (either with some sort of diagnostic or by manually checking), then once you find what's broken you need to fix it. Maybe you need to replace it with a spare part. It becomes a sort of minigame rather than a single button press. 

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On 08/07/2017 at 7:39 AM, Lord_Void said:

 

Yes, sitting around waiting to press a button all day would be very boring, but I doubt there will be many or any instances like that. You are assuming that everyone is assigned a position and must stay there all the time. Not so. If the ship is not under attack you could be manning the sensor arrays or working on something in the hangar. If you are in warp you don't need people manning the guns but you do need people making sure the reactor doesn't overheat. In this way people will not be stuck waiting around for their position to be needed; rather, they will be rotating around to where the "action" is. Secondly, you are assuming that all the activities are going to simple. "Press R to repair ship". Nope. If you are trying to repair the ship you need to find what's broken (either with some sort of diagnostic or by manually checking), then once you find what's broken you need to fix it. Maybe you need to replace it with a spare part. It becomes a sort of minigame rather than a single button press. 

 

On 08/07/2017 at 7:15 AM, yamamushi said:

 

 

Except that there are multiple instances where they've been quoted as saying that large ships will need specialized crews, one of which is the Dev Blog on the topic: https://devblog.dualthegame.com/2015/01/30/multiplayer-ship-crew/
 

 

 

Of course, the goal isn't to just have people sitting around pressing the same button over and over, and the difficulty of solving the problem was addressed in the Q&A:
 

 

 

And to answer your last point, not everyone wants to be a pilot or a captain. I'd be more content sitting in an engine room than in the captain's seat telling everyone what to do with everyone's lives in in my care. 

 

If you want to fly a giant ship around by yourself, more power to you, but you're probably going to end up having a really bad time when other people show up to ruin your day. 

 

It's literally corporate suicide if they do this

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16 hours ago, Toecutter said:

 

It's literally corporate suicide if they do this

 

Sorry if it's not the kind of game you're looking for, but the multi-crew ship mechanics are a big part of why many of us backed the game. 

 

I don't think anyone who pledged is sitting around here hoping that ships don't need crews. 

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43 minutes ago, yamamushi said:

 

Sorry if it's not the kind of game you're looking for, but the multi-crew ship mechanics are a big part of why many of us backed the game. 

 

I don't think anyone who pledged is sitting around here hoping that ships don't need crews. 

I for my Part would like both types of Ships.

I am a huge Fan of the whole LUA Scripting Idea and I am eager to see if we actually can Implement our own AutoPilot Script.

 

But if it wasn't there that won't be a Dealbreaker to me. That there are Ships that you can fly Solo we know (DevVideos).

For the larger ones I expect them to require big crews though.

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On 12/07/2017 at 5:07 AM, yamamushi said:

 

Sorry if it's not the kind of game you're looking for, but the multi-crew ship mechanics are a big part of why many of us backed the game. 

 

I don't think anyone who pledged is sitting around here hoping that ships don't need crews. 

Can you imagine, 4-5 hours roaming through space, doing almost nothing, SUDDENLY PIRATES, now you have the amazing task of pressing some buttons to repair an engine

and now you're expecting the vast majority of the player-base to enjoy doing this

While *you* might not mind that, the vast majority of people who play video games have a shorter attention span than this, and while you might have pledged hoping for crews, lets consider that there are less than 10,000 pledges at the moment, and lets assume they're all like you and they want crews to be a thing, and that the (low) estimate of 6 people can fly a ship, that means, assuming all of these people were online at the same time, in this single shard universe, a grand total of 1600 ships could be active at one time, and while that may seem like a lot, I'm sure there are people here who play EvE and know how dead the game can feel with even 30,000 people online

then there's the fact that most of these people are going to be offline at any one time, lets go with one quarter being active at once, even though people don't always play during their timezone, and people have lives, that's 400 moderately large ships online at once, and this isn't even taking into consideration gigantic monstrosities people can build, this is just what I perceive as the average ship

now lets consider that these ships cant function properly missing even one crew member, so most of those are going to be inactive, and lets realize that the average person isn't going to play a game to sit around for 4 hours to click a button (this is why people mock miners in EvE) and this game wont even get past launch day, and I'm sure you'll say "We dont need idiots to play this game" and true, regardless of them or not, I'll still play Dual Universe, but to make the game utterly devoid of content like that, since NPCs wont be in the game, and just how fun do you think it will be

This game has massive potential, I want it to be awesome because I absolutely love the premise, but from a business standpoint, if they make crews something a ship must have to be competetive, then no one will play Dual Universe but hardcore, avid fans

And just imagine trying to direct PvP like that, not only do you have to control a fleet of say, 10 ships, but then you also have to deal with your own ships, and so does everyone else, it would be an absolute cluster of a cluck and no fun for anyone other than the people who do nothing but play the game, which is nice, but just because you want the game to be indepth and difficult, doesnt mean you should make it absolutely inaccessible to newcomers

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I personally think it would be much better for NQ to get rid of their "No NPCs" choice and add NPCs as in game hire-able characters, that add particular bonuses to the ship, and can be interacted with using an inbuilt system or by walking around your ship, that way it will be in depth and accessible at the same time, and adds some potential for character development that mass effect shows us everyone loves

Hell, they could even add player created NPC's for it, and suddenly the universe is a lot more rich and engaging

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That's the problem there with crews - Timezones, availability and interest of players in commiting to a crew - which is what I always said (I know from eve that you can calculate with only 10% of all people online at any given moment when there is no op running). So it IS a problem if you think that players HAVE TO fly big ships with multicrew.

 

But let's face it: if nothing happens at all for 4h, it doesn't really matter if you're cruising in your single seater alongside your fleet or running around with many others within some battleship. Especially since we don't know what else you can do while on that ship (market orders, industry, creating constructs, ....).

 

And IF a fight breaks lose, I'm sure there's more to do than just pressing a button. You'd possibly have to find and repair armor blocks, repair cables/engines/turrets, bring ammo to turrets, fight off a boarding party,...

 

I don't think that large ships are feasible at all in the beginning and since we don't know if they implement any minor automation for guns for example (with a drawback ofc) it's only guessing and drama on the forum until NQ explicitly states what they plan.

 

I'm against NPCs though (although i could live with them if they are much weaker than a player run ship) and I'm definitely against player created NPCs (stats-wise)

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Just now, Lethys said:

That's the problem there with crews - Timezones, availability and interest of players in commiting to a crew - which is what I always said (I know from eve that you can calculate with only 10% of all people online at any given moment when there is no op running). So it IS a problem if you think that players HAVE TO fly big ships with multicrew.

 

But let's face it: if nothing happens at all for 4h, it doesn't really matter if you're cruising in your single seater alongside your fleet or running around with many others within some battleship. Especially since we don't know what else you can do while on that ship (market orders, industry, creating constructs, ....).

 

And IF a fight breaks lose, I'm sure there's more to do than just pressing a button. You'd possibly have to find and repair armor blocks, repair cables/engines/turrets, bring ammo to turrets, fight off a boarding party,...

 

I don't think that large ships are feasible at all in the beginning and since we don't know if they implement any minor automation for guns for example (with a drawback ofc) it's only guessing and drama on the forum until NQ explicitly states what they plan.

 

I'm against NPCs though (although i could live with them if they are much weaker than a player run ship) and I'm definitely against player created NPCs (stats-wise)

I just mean player created NPC's with backstories, interactions and voices etc, stats could be from say a preset list or somesuch, but thats getting off topic

we also know from EvE that if people are at least partially engaged, they'll be willing to spend those 4 hours looking for content, and much longer if they have an attention span (W-space stories man) and like I said, marines are more than feasible because lots of people want to shoot randoms, in fact having that as an option will likely bring more players to the table, but really, just repairing armor blocks? carting ammo around? its just not feasible in my honest opinion, these aren't fun things to do, everyone is going to want to be the pilot or the marine, its always a very low percentage of people that want to support someone else, its just not going to happen

And while people could fly small ships, are they really going to want to, when all the cool kids have their amazing custom battleships with people who never sleep, and all they can use is some 1 seater fighter that looks like an x-wing

the whole idea of crews in an MMO just stands on shaky ground imo

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3 hours ago, Toecutter said:

I just mean player created NPC's with backstories, interactions and voices etc, stats could be from say a preset list or somesuch, but thats getting off topic

we also know from EvE that if people are at least partially engaged, they'll be willing to spend those 4 hours looking for content, and much longer if they have an attention span (W-space stories man) and like I said, marines are more than feasible because lots of people want to shoot randoms, in fact having that as an option will likely bring more players to the table, but really, just repairing armor blocks? carting ammo around? its just not feasible in my honest opinion, these aren't fun things to do, everyone is going to want to be the pilot or the marine, its always a very low percentage of people that want to support someone else, its just not going to happen

And while people could fly small ships, are they really going to want to, when all the cool kids have their amazing custom battleships with people who never sleep, and all they can use is some 1 seater fighter that looks like an x-wing

the whole idea of crews in an MMO just stands on shaky ground imo

LOTS of assumptions based on little to no information we have. In a sandbox game people create their own content and go to where others have created content. You keep using the "4 hours flying doing nothing" what? How does that even make sense. If you're looking for content for gameplay you're going to go where the action is not fly around at random doing nothing. Sandbox games are about creating content and meeting up to participate in that content. If you're just flying around for hours not finding anything, then yeah sorry you're not doing it right.

 

There will be all kinds of ships of different sizes and capabilities as there are different types of players and playstyles. Having played many MMOs over the years I can say with 100% accuracy that your "low percentage wants to play support secondary roles" is bs. or rather it wont be so low as you think it will be. I highly doubt support and crew roles will come down to "waiting 4 hours to click a button". Have only known about NQ for a short time but they don't at all appear to be as stupid as to think that is fun gameplay either, perhaps give then more credit and benefit of the doubt until at least we get more info on all how these systems will work. 

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5 hours ago, Toecutter said:

lets assume

 

Oh my ... the assumptions ....

 

5 hours ago, Toecutter said:

lets consider that there are less than 10,000 pledges at the moment, and lets assume they're all like you and they want crews to be a thing, and that the (low) estimate of 6 people can fly a ship, that means, assuming all of these people were online at the same time, in this single shard universe, a grand total of 1600 ships could be active at one time, and while that may seem like a lot, I'm sure there are people here who play EvE and know how dead the game can feel with even 30,000 people online

 

First off, there are almost 8,000 star systems in EVE, so that 30,000 rapidly turns into 3-4 people per system, often less. Compare that to DU where everyone will be in the same system for a while after launch. Even after a year or two, the DU game world will probably only have a dozen or so systems connected due to the expense and difficulty of building gates, so even 1600 ships would be 133ish ships per system assuming 12 systems.

 

4 hours ago, Toecutter said:

everyone is going to want to be the pilot

 

Why is that a problem? If everyone wants to be a pilot then they could all fly single person ships and all be the pilots. Not every ship needs to be a six person cruiser, in fact having a variety of ship sizes in a fleet will probably be the norm.

 

 

Remember that there is a lot more to do in the game rather than fly around looking for fights, so if being on a ship isn't your thing there is lots of other stuff to do. That being said, I don't know where you keep getting the "sitting around for four hours waiting to push a button" thing ... see my previous posts for why that isn't relevant. 

 

I think Pang_Dread summed it up well.

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@Pang_Dread

He assumes DU is the same as eve and there you do have to roam that long to get a proper fight. 

 

But as void said: this isn't eve with "only" 50k players who spread over 8k systems. As I said earlier too, there are means to hamper the sspreading like skills, patches and travel time. So if done properly, I can't see why one should need to roam for that long to get a fight - if that's what they're after

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59 minutes ago, Lethys said:

@Pang_Dread

He assumes DU is the same as eve and there you do have to roam that long to get a proper fight. 

 

But as void said: this isn't eve with "only" 50k players who spread over 8k systems. As I said earlier too, there are means to hamper the sspreading like skills, patches and travel time. So if done properly, I can't see why one should need to roam for that long to get a fight - if that's what they're after

Yeah iirc NQ specifically said they want to control the rate at which we spread out into the universe. While there will still be TONS of space (physical space that is) with the first planets and into space travel there should never be so much that you literally have to travel hours to find something to do.

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Why should every single player have access to big ships? What use would a bigger warship even be for a single player or small group? Not for trading, prospecting, mining, exploring, transporting or other tasks/playstyles I would think individuals would dabble with.

 

As I see it, bigger ships are the mark of big organizations. Depending on how easy or hard they are crewed, I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see the big ships but in Org vs Org battles/sieges/skirmishes - if not for the roaming hardcore 24/7 Pirate crews in their ganking barges :D

 

The assumption of standing fleets is also something I wouldn't really get behind before launch, by the way.

 

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