Topic: "Radical" new OOB concept

[Julin Eurthyr]

Okay.  All this recent talk about the OOB system, along with my plans on one day running a server, has led me to the following concept.

OOB rules:

Build Cycles:  Every Thursday (prepare for weekend) and Monday (prepare for week).
Each player is granted 4 "lives", and can earn a 5th with the acheivement of Rear Admiral rank on the server.  A CL-CA "specialty" ship costs 1 life, BCH costs 2 lives, DN costs 3 lives, BB costs 4 lives.  Carriers, including full PF tenders, cost +1 life.  IE, a straight up CA-Carrier costs 1 life, but a CVF (fast carrier) costs 2 lives.  A CVA costs 4 lives (3 for DN-hull, +1 for carrier)
Ship prices are dropped to "rediculously low" levels across the board, to allow casual players the chance to afford them.  BBs, and BBVs though, typically a staple of Rear Admirals only, will retain their rediculously high pricetags

Now, here's how it works.  At first, any player can freely buy a restricted ship, but the loss of the ship in combat also results in the loss of lifes.  Also, a player who's been killed in a restricted ship can't buy a new one till the next "build cycle".   VCs can, and should, remain attached to the heavy heavy iron.
Once players reach "Commodore" rank on the server, further restrictions will come into play.  Only 3 Commodores (or higher) can possess a BCH at one time online, and 2 Commodores may posess DNs online at one time.  As more and more players reach higher ranks, this will change.  Once 25% of a race's player base makes Rear Admiral (at least 5), then Commodores are no longer bound by these slot limits, and only the "Admiralty" will be restricted. To make this rule effective, the utilities that show the active player roster would go a long way in settling disuptes, and should be a staple on servers with this ruleset.

This way, anybody can buy the fancy ships.  Destruction of them thins out the field during the latter part of each build cycle.  People may be willing to risk their ship when they have enough lives left to spend one life per remaining build cycle.  Pricing allows anyone, from the semi-dedicated casual player to the hardest nutter case we have, the ability to fly big iron.  Conservation of lives etc., will keep people in smaller line ships for significant chunks of the server.

Thoughts...

[Kroma BaSyl]

So basically, a BP/CP system based on the pilot not the team. Not a bad idea, but would have to account for how much cheese each team is allowed to field as well to maintain balance if numbers aren't, otherwise not without merit.

[FPF-SCM_TraceyG_XC]

Hmmmm, interesting, worth considering.

[Julin Eurthyr]

I'm trying to keep this real simple.

Checking to see if you can get a "limited" ship when you log in could prove to be a bit of a hastle.  Also sort-of defeats the purpose of shifting the emphasis from the team (global stock of BPs / CPs) to the pilot.  Also, how do we make sure that the main goal (near universal ability to spend individual points) occurs when ace pilots are going to be asked / expected to tie up the limited specialty ship slots during 90% of the prime-time hours, or have so many specialty ship slots that there's no need to count slots?

I'm also counting on "self policing" to help out...

For example, let's use GW4 as a basis for one theory, and expand on the multiple lives per ship system...

Losing a GW4 "CP" ship = 1 life
Losing a BCH = 2 lives
Losing a DN = 3 lives
Losing a BB = 4 lives
Losing a carrier = +1 life lost

Start with 4 lives, get a 5th life with Rear Admiral rank.  BBVs therefore restricted to nutters only, who either kept good care of their lives or didn't fly anything fancy till late-late era.

And here's a line for you:  "It ain't cheese unless it's being tasted by the enemy".

Not many people are willing to lose 3 of their 4 life allotment by scrapping a DN on day 1.  Also, when you only get 2 BCHs in a server, I don't see the 2275 BCH fest lasting too long, even if 90% of the server jumped into one as soon as they found 'em.  I don't care if a BCH or super-duper hex-flipper drone escort is working behind the lines.  All it's doing is making the drudge work of maintaining space easier, a job that the AI extra ships from the shipyard should be theoretically doing... .  The cheese ships are only a problem on the front lines, where it's death is meaningful and often can be arrainged... :p

And, when the clock ticks down to the end of a server, and people are spending their lives freely, don't you think that perhaps the couple of days of freedom would hurt after a long server of restrictions?  This is also on the off chance that a significant population of the server's still got lives to spend at the end of the party...

Also, there's still VCs attached to big ships.  Losing DNs, BCHs and Carriers still helps out the other team...

This is a real, real early proposal.  Let's see what we can do with it...

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

Now thats a nice piece of out of the box thinking Jules 

Just remember all felines get 9 lives  , might want to double that for Hexx as he will need them 

[Julin Eurthyr]

Now thats a nice piece of out of the box thinking Jules 

Just remember all felines get 9 lives  , might want to double that for Hexx as he will need them 

And loading all that 'nip means that your typical cat loses twice as many lives in the explosion of their ship...

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

And all Veltrassi lose 4 times as many 

[Hexx]

Now thats a nice piece of out of the box thinking Jules 

Just remember all felines get 9 lives  , might want to double that for Hexx as he will need them 

And loading all that 'nip means that your typical cat loses twice as many lives in the explosion of their ship...

Actually when the nip goes it just feels like you've died twice...

[Hexx]

It is an interesting idea though, if I ever actually get a server set up, I may just steal it.

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

So basically, a BP/CP system based on the pilot not the team. Not a bad idea, but would have to account for how much cheese each team is allowed to field as well to maintain balance if numbers aren't, otherwise not without merit.

Too bad sign-ups don't work well, otherwise we could actually make lives correspond to player numbers, so that you could allow more lives for underplayed races so that total lives could equal out, and that the underplayed races might act more agressively in defending their interests.  Might also help keep Hexx out of flying a freighter.....

[Julin Eurthyr]

And all Veltrassi lose 4 times as many 

Yeah, but if I get the normal allotment of lives per body, it evens out in the end.  To be simple, I'll just count the lives given to the "core" of my consciousness, and not worry  how many lives my individual bodies have...

Might also help keep Hexx out of flying a freighter.....

Line ships of up to just under BCH level (including Heavy Command types) should be completely unrestricted under this system, and probably fairly cheap.  Hexx should probably be able to afford more CCH's than Kroma spends CBs in a server...   And before anyone jumps on me, think of this:  Considering the average number of AI ships per racial fleet that gets blown up in the course of a server, every "human" captain (yes, even Hexx) is probably considered one of the "elite" officers of their fleet, and should have access to the CCHs that are supposedly commanding these thousands of cheap AI CAs...

[el-Karnak]

You can achieve the same effect by making restricted ships mucho expensive (ie. start with BCH costing 5 times as a CA, DN costs 15 times as CA, etc.) and letting casual player get restricted ships assigned by lottery.  Then just have the lottery-assigned ships only get 1 to 2 lives per bi-weekly period.  Put in max cap of 5 lives restrictions for the heavy iron bought by nutters in the shipyard. They deserve to have the extra lives.

[IAF Lyrkiller]

I IMHO, like this idea. of course. why would my opinion count when everyone else has there own adjenda and egos to tend to.

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

One thing to note with your propossal Julian is that these assigned lottery ships would have the same price tag in the yards so would have to be done by a data base edit likely.


I do like the idea of Lives and perhaps a combination of this along with restricting only the number of heavy iron online could work well together.  No assigned ships or build points, just only allow players 1 or 2 lives per cycle.  If they lose their ships the other side gets the VCs and they have to fly at under the BCH or DN level till the next cycle. This would keep you from having to continually face the same player in the same capital ship, provided you were able to kill them, while still opening up the list to all.

[FPF-DieHard]

I IMHO, like this idea. of course. why would my opinion count when everyone else has there own adjenda and egos to tend to.

Hey, it's hard work grooming this aggenda!! 

[Julin Eurthyr]

Karnak:

The Lottery requires either:
Specific days where the shipyard prices are dropped to el-cheapo prices
DB Edits to add PP

Cause otherwise, the casual players can't afford the ships at inflated prices.

Also, this plan is supposed to encourage casual play.  We're not going to get nights with 50+ people if only nutters play, it was the casual peeps that really filled out the rosters.

The main reason I'm against any kind of comprehensive per race / per team slot limits, is because of the tendency to fill slots with the best and brightest players, ie, those that won't lose the VCs and their ships.  Obviously, 90% of these players are nutters, and it defeats the purpose of opening up the shiplist for casual players if you turn around and effectively re-limit it again.
Also, a number of slot systems aimed at allowing casual players at the expense of nutters gets complicated real quick.  Since simplicity seems to be the operative rule, we're almost back at square 1...

I could resurrect my previous OOBs concept of the limiting slots for Commodore-ranked pilots and leaving the Captain's etc. unrestricted...  Once a handful of people make Rear Admiral, we can un-restrict Commodore and make the RAs under the slot rules...

[FPF-DieHard]

What about "Fisbin Order of Battle?"   Specialty ships are available on Tuesdays and Thurdays, and when the moon is full.   

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

What about "Fisbin Order of Battle?"   Specialty ships are available on Tuesdays and Thurdays, and when the moon is full.   

I thought that was the GW4 OOB after reading through all those OOB assignment posts 

[el-Karnak]

Karnak:

The Lottery requires either:

DB Edits to add PP

That's right.  PP edits in the DB, even the flatfile one, is butt-simple to do. 

I am a big fan of automatic no-brainer fixes.

[Julin Eurthyr]

Karnak:

Not every Admin is a pro with Hex like you are, oh great programmer-type...