Topic: Order of Battle Idea - Ship Restriction Idea

[TotensBurntCorpse]

Comments...

Two suggestions for thought....wrt Heavy Iron and Restriction Ships

1) Make heavy iron and specials non-VC ships BUT limit the number of each type allowed on the server at one time, and make them reasonably priced.  For example make DNs etc about 40K or so.  However make the disengagement penalty apply to the player AND the ship for that hex.  For example if player Joe dies in a DN in hex X,Y then he's lost the right to the DN AND he cannot go back into the hex for a specifc period of time.   ANNNNDDD if player Jane buys a DN upon Joe's demise she is also NOT allowed into hex X,Y for a longer disengagement time period, say twice as long as a general disengagement.  In this manner a race could be limited to say 1 DN, 3 BCs, and say 6 specials online at a time.  All have no VCs tied to them but they have the disengagement penalties applied to them.  ie the replacement purchased is banned from the hex the previous died in for the disengagment penalty.
Benefits - everyone can fly iron or specials
Cons - Policing is very honour bound

2) Make up several accounts that have the OoB ships in them but restrict from the server side to eliminate the general purchase and/or availability of these ships.  Prior to the server start make the ships to be restricted available at Year 0, allow accounts to be make to purchase the ships to be "built" later.  The name of the "character" on the account is the ship class.  For example Player Named C8VK1, if this "player" is killed in combat the ship will be replaced with a ship other than the C8VK (the 1 is if there are to be several C8VKs made then continue the numbering scheme).  In this manner cheating is immediately obvious if this player is caught in combat as his/her "name" will no longer match the ship flown.  Once the ship is destroyed, that account can no longer be used.  It would be up to the RM and ARMs to distribute the account information for each such restricted ship with proper FY available being adhered to.  Disengagement rules could then continue per normal, application of VCs to killing these accounts could also be done or not as needed.  (cf loknar account set up from RDSL)
In this manner several early mid and late era accounts can be made which are only to be activated upon specific time according to the year of the game.  As the ships are destroyed in combat they are gone and the account is no longer used.  The accounts can be open to anyone AND since only these accounts can have the restricted ships then the overall number of such ships is effectively preset before the server even starts.  It would only require input and some peoples time for an hour or so to set up the accounts for each race once the builds are selected.

Personally I would like to see option 2 tried some time.  I think a true order of battle could be replicated this way pertaining to costly or rare ships.

Other ideas...
1) Remove all defensive weapons from planets.  This would help quite a bit with planet assaults for some races.
2) Remove all non-starbases from the ship list but reduce the firepower of starbases some what to compensate (pertains to station assault hexes).  I think this would help with the utility of placing bases that morph in missions to base station flea traps, as well as increase the difficulty of such missions.
3) Make bases reasonably priced but destroyable (goes hand in hand with 2), poping a guaranteed harder base would be worth the trouble I think.
4) Overhaul the romulans in early with better ships and reduce the cloaking cost for them by about 1/3
5) Change out missions, shiplists, fighter lists etc as the eras advance (it is doable but requires some work)  a potential item would be for instance seeing in late era AI ships with early era fighters, or even seeing early era ships showing up in mid and late eras.

self serving bump

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

Was almost like pulling my teeth out with a spoon to finally get Toten to post these excellent ideas, but damn well worth it

  TOTEN!!!!

[Lepton]

Option 1: As you said policing is honor system.  Makes it difficult.  It's also a more complicated version of the disengagement rule that would require communication and coordination among players  It seems people are having a hard enough time with the disengagement rule for some reason now.  That same vocal minority wouldn't be likely to support this.

Option 2:  Great idea.  Interesting system but is it overly complicated?  We have honor-based OoBs now.  They seem to work pretty well.  No cheating that I am aware of.

The other ideas:  I am not sure what issues they are meant to address, but I am all for balance.  I have seen the idea of reducing cloak costs being reduced before.  What exactly is this meant to do?  Are people actually going to use the cloak if it is cheaper and for what (chuck and duck??)??

[alfman]

....
  What exactly is this meant to do?  Are people actually going to use the cloak if it is cheaper and for what (chuck and duck??)??

Have you fought Corbomite as a Rom lately?

[FPF-DieHard]

....
  What exactly is this meant to do?  Are people actually going to use the cloak if it is cheaper and for what (chuck and duck??)??

Have you fought Corbomite as a Rom lately?

Having just played Rom for 3 weeks on LB5, i can say that the cloak is NOT useless.

[Lepton]

Hey, hey, don't get me wrong.  The working cloak is great, but are people actually using it and if so, how and to what effect?  I did a little testing when the patches were released that improved the cloak so I do have some stake in people using it, i.e. I hope they are using it.  Someone care to give me a demonstration.  I find it to be so-so versus the AI, and I haven't dared use it in PvP, too risky.

[FPF-DieHard]

Think of it as un-limited Wild Weasels.

[Lepton]

Yah, I get that, but unless you are cloaking from a distance or are going slow, you're not going to defeat the first lock-on check, then it's basically a crap shoot if seekers loose lock thereafter as that portion of the cloaking system operates in an undocumented fashion.  The best part of the cloak for me is that actual use of the cloak-based reductions in direct-fire weapons damage. The lock-on loss aspect is dodgy and risky.  The direct fire effects have clear percentages attached to them and always work.

[TotensBurntCorpse]

Option 1: As you said policing is honor system.  Makes it difficult.  It's also a more complicated version of the disengagement rule that would require communication and coordination among players  It seems people are having a hard enough time with the disengagement rule for some reason now.  That same vocal minority wouldn't be likely to support this.

Option 2:  Great idea.  Interesting system but is it overly complicated?  We have honor-based OoBs now.  They seem to work pretty well.  No cheating that I am aware of.

The other ideas:  I am not sure what issues they are meant to address, but I am all for balance.  I have seen the idea of reducing cloak costs being reduced before.  What exactly is this meant to do?  Are people actually going to use the cloak if it is cheaper and for what (chuck and duck??)??

Option 1 - its to ban the hull class as well as the pilot.
Option 2 - its very doable, all it requires is the RMs set up the accounts BEFORE the main server start, and activate the account when the correct time occurs on the server clock.  On the last GW server we did have an issue with two players that I am aware of where they bought DNs and flew them for some time, regardless of numerous PMs and general chat warnings.  But for the most part the honour system works.  I am suggesting this as a way to achieve an OoB for just about ANYTHING on the game.  The more ships are added the more tedious the set up of the accounts but it is fully viable for achieving ship restrictions AND OoB at the same time, WITHOUT praying for the gods of code to deliver us from the horrors of flat file (all together now...mmmmmmmm SQL mmmmmmm).

The other ideas are for specific problems with some races doing missions...

No weapons on planets would help races that cannot bombard planets from a standoff distance effectively.

The suggestion for harmonizing the bases deals with the stock taldren mission scanning the shiplist to place the base in the assault missions, however I am lead to believe that the created missions do actually check for the TYPE of base placed rather than give you a base station to fight when the other guy bought and placed a star base.

I really believe that the map should start relatively barren with only planets and it is up to the players to build and defend and subsequently destroy each others infrastructure, wrt to bases of all types.

The last suggestion deals with the fact that for what ever reasons... AI DONT GET WITH THE PROGRAM.... what I mean here is that you will normally (read here ALWAYS) encounter in mid and late AI ships with early fighters.  They morph from early to late drones on a whim.  AI bases should IMHO migrate to all being battle stations in late.  etc.  The only way I can see this happening is to have a juggling act between missions, lists and maps as needed.

Romulans IMHO need an overhaul in early to give them ships that can compete better vs just about anyone else.  Also I have long held the conviction that for the majority of romulan ships the cloak as it works now is not as it should be and as such should be reduced in power cost to operate to increase the effectiveness of the ships.

[FPF-DieHard]

Romulans IMHO need an overhaul in early to give them ships that can compete better vs just about anyone else.  Also I have long held the conviction that for the majority of romulan ships the cloak as it works now is not as it should be and as such should be reduced in power cost to operate to increase the effectiveness of the ships.

huh?  Maybe shave of a few BPV points and do something fo hex-munching.   On a class per class basis, the Romulans are a strong race.

[TotensBurntCorpse]

....
  What exactly is this meant to do?  Are people actually going to use the cloak if it is cheaper and for what (chuck and duck??)??

Have you fought Corbomite as a Rom lately? NO but do you see many others wanting to play romulan?

Having just played Rom for 3 weeks on LB5, i can say that the cloak is NOT useless.

Never said the cloak was useless, just nearly useless.  It is a piece of equipment that barely increases the effectiveness of some of the romulan ships.  Sure there are hulls that work with it but they tend to have great power curves.  In early alot of romulan ships have the options that are ALL mutually exclusive, move arm or cloak pick one because u cannot get all three.  How is this practical?

[TotensBurntCorpse]

Romulans IMHO need an overhaul in early to give them ships that can compete better vs just about anyone else.  Also I have long held the conviction that for the majority of romulan ships the cloak as it works now is not as it should be and as such should be reduced in power cost to operate to increase the effectiveness of the ships.

huh?  Maybe shave of a few BPV points and do something fo hex-munching.   On a class per class basis, the Romulans are a strong race.

I really believe the costs of cloaking both in BPV and power degrade the ships too much.  Dont think of just PvP.

[TotensBurntCorpse]

Other than the footnote ideas....

Any other comments on options 1 and 2 from the community?

[762_XC]

....
  What exactly is this meant to do?  Are people actually going to use the cloak if it is cheaper and for what (chuck and duck??)??

Have you fought Corbomite as a Rom lately? NO but do you see many others wanting to play romulan?

Having just played Rom for 3 weeks on LB5, i can say that the cloak is NOT useless.

Never said the cloak was useless, just nearly useless.  It is a piece of equipment that barely increases the effectiveness of some of the romulan ships.  Sure there are hulls that work with it but they tend to have great power curves.  In early alot of romulan ships have the options that are ALL mutually exclusive, move arm or cloak pick one because u cannot get all three.  How is this practical?

It is far from useless or even nearly useless. It gives you the option to castle in situations where it wouldn't be practical otherwise, and that is potentially huge.

[Julin Eurthyr]

On the cloak:

It is an option, just like scatterpacks, that can be used at the pilot's discretion.

Now, with damage reduction and loss of seeking weapon lock-on working, the cloak is about 90 - 100% functional.

And just like all options on a ship, you shouldn't be able to do everything at once.

I'm not intimately familiar with the Roms in early-era, but I always believed the Romulan's early era complaint centers around the speed of their "bird / eagle" designs, I don't think any of the Bird / Eagle designs can even reach speed 31 on Green alert...  The best (War Eagle) I think chugs along at speed 21 - 25 or so...

Once the Kestrels start coming out, then it's a different story for the Romulans, and there are little complaints about Rommies in the "hawk" era...

Early era work, needed.  Cloak reduction, with a now-working cloak, not needed.

On the DN issue, we already have a sort-of "lose a restricted ship, no immediate replacement" method in the Field Marshall system.  I do like opening it up (a-la LB5 with cheaper prices), and the idea that the "replacement" DN is also banned from the hex.  Although, perhaps to make it easier to police, we could go with all DNs (or other restricted ships) from the banished race are banned from the hex.  Although with that limit in place, the time should not be any different than if it was a single ship loss.

In the LB-5 ish restiction system, I'd ban a player from buying a restricted hull for 24 hours from the time of the initial loss...

[TotensBurntCorpse]

any other comments ?

anyone ?

[KBFKrotz]

p00h! I typed up some comments only to hit the wrong button and have it all disappear...oh well. I ain't typing it again.

But I didn't get to anything about cloaks, early-era Roms and such, so I'll just do that.

One idea for early-era Roms I had awhile back was to add some ships I found in an old archive of ADB's Starfleet Times, an article called "Advanced Romulan Eagles" (here's a link for some of those SFB-savvy types: http://www.starfleetgames.com/sfb/sft/sft34.htm )...basically, it has some command versions of the BattleSnipe, BattleHawk, and thing called the KingFalcon (think KingEagle but with a mauler instead of an R-torp, can't remember if it had phasers or not)...Anyways, I figured throwing these ships, along with the KingEagle (heck, even the KingVulture), into the mix in an earlier year would be helpful...as it is, the KingEagle comes out just before the New-Series ships and (non-crappy KR) Kestrels start showing up, which is to say the KingEagle is more-or-less obsolete by the time it shows up...these ships really aren't all-that-and-a-bag-of-chips, but they would add some much needed depth to the early-era Rom fleet, and I think it would represent a fairly conservative approach to addressing shoring up the Roms for that era.

Oh, Toten, thanks for the story about the BattlestarMiraktica, I didn't expect you'd be the Kzin, but it was a better story than hearing something about wiping out the Mirakziniti Star Hegemony and exterminating it down to its last CVS+ 

[FPF-Tobin Dax]

...early era cloaking costs are greatly reduced over later era costs, so power for cloak robbing other areas is not as bad as suggested, at least in early. With the mid-era klink designs, speed is better over cloak costs and then you have all those transporters etc....

WB-1  in 2258   light cruiser
WE-6  in 2262
klink hulls-20 from the ones I checked
late era heavies, 18-20

[Dizzy]

Toten, on part 2.)... I offer that creating accounts for restricted shisp is a great idea. There are many off the beaten path (sp?) ships that are unique enough to warrant only having one ever show up, if at all on a dyna. DH's current 'pure' OPPlus derrivitave sfb shiplist for SG4 has many such ships.

However, the plan for SG4 is to have all ships be on the cheap and only limit the capitol ships such as BC's to a numerical limit of 'x' amount of players who can fly them at once and use FM's as we have in the past which seems to be tried and true for DN's.

The BC approach where you limit each side to say... 4 each will allow anyone who wants one to fly one, a welcomed change for the BC deprived players of the past few servers. 1st come 1st server so to speak. If the coalition has 4 players logged on with BC's then anyone else logging on afterwards will have to sell theirs (econ is robust offering many shipyard choices and the yards run every 4 minutes for quick selections and transitions) or logon using a different account. And since all ships including BC's are cheap, prestige is a thing of the past.

...

On that note, however, long has it been the way of things where the nutters have been pushed aside in favor of the middle class and casual player types on the D2. I see an opportunity now to award these players with something more than just the fact that they have 'flipped more hexes cuz they are nutter'. I propose that if a certain prestige level is reached, the 4 limit BC per side rule is exempt for them and perhaps BB's become available for them to purchase...

[Farfarer]

I like option two.

 

How about giving everyone a DN as a starting ship, but have no more available until each era rollover, or have such a large cost difference that between DN and BC that when you lose the DN it's gone for a long time?  ( Kinda out-of-the-box I know).