| Author |
Big Crazy Planet Rehash |
Sardaukar
Admiral
Raven Warriors
Joined: October 08, 2002
Posts: 1656
|  Posted: 2007-06-19 16:46
This is a combination of a few of my ideas, past experiments, conversations with friends, and GTW's brilliant territorial capture idea (that every single person who read it loved, if you can find the thread, I'm not going to repost the details because I'll screw them up). Keep in mind that this is an amalgam of ideas, so please don't post any "bad idea because of part X"; say that part X is bad and maybe offer a better way of handling that part.
Start by reducing the number of systems in the Metaverse. A layout similar to the old layouts, but with whatever changes that feel appropriate. Now make planets biggers and farther apart. Make jumpdrives faster if you want.
Now, with these larger, sparser planets, give them a few moons, resource asteroid fields, and any other orbital bodies of tactical value (like space hulks which can be covered in defenses or are themselves weapons). Additionally, divide the planet surface into chunks which can be captured individually.
Before you say "tried bigger planets, didn't work" or "bigger doesn't mean better", consider this. Current MV battles involve taking a cluster planet by planet, and then a system cluster by cluster. What is happening in this idea, is we are turning present-day cluster battles, into tomorrow's planet-battles. You're fighting for orbital control landmasses, or something like that. Really, just think of something like the Avacet Cluster. Replace the Gas Giant with a terran world, and label the planets around it "moons", then redistribute the abilities of each in the following ways:
Orbital bodies contribute resources to the planet, or parts of the planet, that you own, and can have defenses built upon them. -To be honest, I'm starting to doubt that the territorial part of this will work, so it may just be one faction owning the whole planet.- Moving on... only the planet itself can do major things, like have a shipyard. To make it interesting, maybe we could drop defenses from the list of what a planet can have, so that fleets can orbit a planet and only need to worry about fire coming from the moons. Up for debate. Asteroid fields with significantly larger rocks will be a playground for fleet operations or fast and agile lone wolves, while controlled fields contribute large amounts of raw material but cannot mount static defenses. Space hulks contribute no resources, and may even consume them, but offer enhanced protection; either more defense bases, very large cannons (the hulk itself), or maybe sensor/shield/repair bonuses.
The overrall goal of this, or any idea that could contribute to this goal, is to reduce the number of planets being fought over and increase the size of the battles around them, reducing the "you bomb here, we'll bomb here, won't ever meet" playstyle, and will help focus the small community into much more interesting fights. Having so many planets and systems like we do will mean that they never really amount to any worth and players won't have any real attachment to them. With a system like this, shipyards are rare and hard-fought for; It's big news when a shipyard planet is taken, moons and all.
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Further ideas that I'm resurrecting in this thread for the heck of it:
1.) Indepth planetary population system.
Citizens of worlds take on new worth in the games mechanics. Normally standard-issue, present-day-DS colonists and soldiers, certain events can change their status. A now-large-and-signifcant planet is being ransacked lowranking players flying special Evacuation Transports (marked with red stripes) can try to reach the planet and engage an evacuation, shuttling chunks of the population away. If the transports are allowed to leave unharmed, the planet remains docile; if fired upon, it has an increased chance to revolt in the first hour or so following capture. The evacuated populace can now be returned to another planet to boost its population and increase it's loyalty rating, or can be shuttled to a barracks to be converted into Freedom Fighters/Fanatics/Insurgents/Whatever, special infantry that have some kind of special purpose; increased fighting ability (on their original planet if the digital tags don't slow things down significantly), can be slipped onto the planet to reduce loyalty, something like that.
2.) Electronic Warfare that actually makes sensor ships useful and gives lowranked players more jobs:
More or less, make the sensor system work differently, so that the effects of sensor equipment are determined by the number of scanners on board the ship as well. Having 1 ECCM on a ship means fullstrength ECCM within regular range; adding scanners doubles the ECCM range, but at 50% capacity. Replacing that scanner set with a second ECCM would return the range to normal and boost the ECCM effectiveness to 200%. Overrall, I think this would have little effect on the larger craft, but small ships who have many sensor slots would benefit. A lone scout could mount full ECM, and be intensely hidden, or a pack of scouts could use scanners and reduced ECM to achieve the same amount of stealth as that one heavy-ECM scout, but across a much larger area. Sensor frigates could use heavy, focused ECCM to spot-for-sure enemy ships, or could use a reduced number of ECCM in conjunction with extra scanners to spot a fleet at long range. Or we could totally revamp the equipment system and unify the sensor packages; instead of carrying ECM, ECCM, and Scanners, the player can activate each slot as a different function, dynamically changing their use as needed.
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2007-06-20 10:58
Problem with the idea is that it's trying to solve something we've already addressed, and we can't just remove planets in the MV - it'd make it seem far too empty.
Good idea in theory - I just don't think it'd work to well in practice.
The other ideas involve far more DB tracking and processing, which we're trying to get rid of right now. The less work the server has to do - the better.
[ This Message was edited by: BackSlash *Jack* on 2007-06-20 11:34 ]
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