| Author |
Planetary enhancements |
Enterprise
Chief Marshal
Raven Warriors
Joined: May 19, 2002
Posts: 2576
From: Hawthorne, Nevada
|  Posted: 2009-10-13 18:04
Possibly misleading title, but whatever.
Anyways, I've been thinking about how aquiring enhancements currently work.
In its current form, it pretty much requires grinding. I know it was meant as a challenge to get enhancements, but all it has resulted in is grinding. And thats not what I would call fun. I'd actually call it the opposite - its one of the banes of many games.
Being a PvP game, I think there could be an alternative approach to getting enhancements.
Instead of viewing enhancements as rare benefits to people who have grinded for them, they could simply be seen as default ways to boost your ship in specific areas.
Sort of a modern version of modding - something that has been absent from the game.
Modding was pretty much done away with in its past forms due to past imbalances, so I think enhancements could be moved to fill in that void.
That is, enhancements could be modding into a ship via planets.
The idea is pretty straightforward. Planets individually would offer a specific set to choose from - not all planets would have all the enhancements there are. So every planet would have a set (beam, weapon, engine, etc.) and depending on the planet they would be of a certain quality (Standard, Enhanced, Advanced).
Doing away with Minor and Limited Enhancements makes sense given such a small incremental jump from the two up to Standard.
Obviously there would be alot of planets available to each faction which would go up to Standard. This allows players to aquire basic enhancements easily as long as they defend their homeservers.
However, for rarer enhancements such as Enhanced and Advanced, they would only be available in Sag, on a few specific flag planets. (Ice, Arid and Water for Enhanced, and Advanced would only be available on Terrans).
This provides alot of incentive for capturing planets in a contested zone.
Of course, this availability comes at a price.
Dieing in a ship with enhancements can result in the loss of them, basically giving the lost enhancement in a random draw to the ships who did the killing.
All in all, I feel its a better system than the current one, because it keeps people fighting in a PvP fashion, allowing people to get enhancements as they do so, and overall contributing to a goal driven and fluid MV.
I feel though for this to work best, all the planets in homeservers (if we're still even thinking about keeping them), would have to be at Standard, otherwise you could get Advanced Enhancements without even having to fight over it.
Obviously, this idea means that Sag itself would have to be restructured in order to provide enough Terrans for every Advanced set, and so on.
I feel this idea works best in tandem with a few others (such as the MV functioning as a persistant scenario map with more systems and no time limit), but that is beyond the scope of this thread.
-Ent
Revison - Changed enhancement types suggested, reworded and added some text.
[ This Message was edited by: Enterprise on 2009-10-14 07:32 ]
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Sixkiller
Marshal
Courageous Elite Commandos
Joined: May 11, 2005
Posts: 1786
From: Netherlands
| Posted: 2009-10-14 06:24
I like it. Not sure how implementable it is, but it is adressing a problem that defenitly needs to be worked on. It would also increase activity in Sag, so thats good to. One point im interested in is how fast planets make the enhancements, are they always available? Because that would make minor and limited enhancements useless. I like a construction time, but this would probably mean some form of starports or factories need to be reintroduced. Still, thats not bad either.
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Enterprise
Chief Marshal
Raven Warriors
Joined: May 19, 2002
Posts: 2576
From: Hawthorne, Nevada
| Posted: 2009-10-14 07:27
Quote:
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On 2009-10-14 06:24, Sixkiller wrote:
I like it. Not sure how implementable it is, but it is adressing a problem that defenitly needs to be worked on. It would also increase activity in Sag, so thats good to. One point im interested in is how fast planets make the enhancements, are they always available? Because that would make minor and limited enhancements useless. I like a construction time, but this would probably mean some form of starports or factories need to be reintroduced. Still, thats not bad either.
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All a construction time would serve to do is bog down the gameplay more - the idea is to keep the game working fluidly without having to stop for extended periods of time to grind away at AI for them.
Minor and Limited Enhancements do become useless though, you are right.
So just get rid of them. Just have Standard, Enhanced and Advanced. Standard would be found on Barren planets, (and every planet in homeservers), Enhanced would be found on Arid, Ice, and Water planets, and Advanced would only be found on Terrans.
In order to make it so that you can't capture a simple structureless planet and get them, they would require Tech, Resources, and factories. Or perhaps a specific structure of their own. (Modification Centers? Hm.) Which of course you would also need a specific number of.
As for anything above enhanced? Well thats down to everyone else. It wouldn't bother me particularly though.
-Ent
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