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[miro]

Perhaps It should be named a Cruise drive? (Flash Frozen's glorious "Unsung")

[kl]

I think the boarding mechanics encourage players to grind. Player will fight many easy battles for small reward because in one hard battle he will lose 2/3 of his ships and MAYBE get one ship in return. I think game should bring an equally strong battles to player for equal reward.

[JT]

I'm going to break with the mold here and suggest the perfect lore handwave for the battlefields -- disruptor missiles. Upon detonation, these create a field which inhibits travel drives. These would be assumed to be a part of every ship's arsenal, but due to the amount of interference they produce, any given fleet can only maintain a single disruptor missile ready to launch at any given time, and it takes several hours to prepare another for launch -- if a fleet attempted to maintain several disruptor missiles it would disrupt its own travel drives enough that it couldn't manoeuvre with anything other than reaction thrusters, giving them a practical maximum acceleration of 3-5 g or so (not nearly enough for practical manoeuvring within the game's context and only viable in fan fiction and theatrics).

Anyway, the idea is that when fleets move to engage, one fleet or the other (or both) launches its disruptor missile, which creates a "dead spot" in space that lasts for hours. At the scales on the strategic map it's easy as sin to avoid these areas, but on the tactical map it's another story -- and why once a pursuer launches their disruptor at your fleet, they wind up disabling their own drives as well as yours, until of course you can manage to get out of range of the initial impact point.

To help cover the "well, if we save our missile, we can just launch ours at the enemy after we manage to get out of range in order to disrupt them while we escape" scenario (q.v. Independence War 2, where launching an LD missile was a viable escape tactic), it's not difficult at all to justify that launching a disruptor missile also disrupts all other ready disruptor missiles in the area -- so that even if another fleet kept its disruptor missile in reserve, it would be knocked offline by the detonation of the first missile launched in the conflict. The existence of these disruptor missiles also explains away why you can't use "interstellar scale" missiles, since these missiles could easily be intercepted by disruptor missiles anyway (as "close enough" rather than "direct hit" actually counts in their regard, giving a vastly unfair favour to the disruptor missile).

When fleets meet head on, the launched disruptor missile is instead detonated in between the fleets in order to reduce the likelihood that they can alter their manoeuvres, and prevent any "sudden" moves on the part of the enemy. Only fighters and light frigates are manoeuvrable enough (and small enough) to avoid the initial disruption effect and attempt flanking manoeuvres -- larger ships are stopped dead on the initial detonation, forcing them to reinforce from the side they came in from.

The final piece of the puzzle is the simplest: that disruptor missiles are a dime a dozen as the technology is ultimately extremely simple, and that the disruption they produce isn't some fantastic ultra-high energy radiation source, but simply more akin to a puff of chaff or some such. Each of the little "chafflets" is simply an electronic jammer that disrupts drives nearby -- once it burns out, natural travel speeds can resume. (Heck, this can even be used to explain what the "space dust" is in every battlefield.) The initial "burn" is the strongest, knocking travel drives (and other jammers) offline all around. Those jammers that survive the initial burn then persist in maintaining a disrupted area until their power cells finally go and/or the chaff disperses enough that it no longer has enough strength to maintain a dead spot. Therefore all ships simply have disruptor missiles abstracted in their Supplies.



As for the name, well... The problem with games that feature "dropping out of warp" is that in reality, "combat" speed is "as fast as you can go" and "travel" speed is "as efficiently as you can go" -- e.g., an Iowa class battleship would travel at its cruising speed of 15 knots for best range, but jump to flank speed of 32 knots if it detected a threat. With "warp" style gameplay, this logic is reversed -- you can go very very fast and then all of a sudden for reasons inexplicable you have to reduce your speed in order to be able to fight? Why would you not attempt to capitalise on your enhanced mobility and make use of your extreme speed to launch long-range missiles that will come screaming in at ridiculous velocities?

Based on that, I think anything that emphasises speed might be irrelevant -- making it more likely for me to lean towards "travel drive" as the best option. But if we want to change the name to represent the technology rather than the semantic/conceptual purpose of it, I might lean towards "tensor drive".


Now on to boarding... to be honest, I don't see why boarding should be more expensive than buying ships. I think the cost should approach that of buying a new ship, but if the entire universe is all about "making do with what you've got", then boarding seems like it'd be *the* way to obtain "new" ships, not something to be discouraged. I don't like the gamey restriction of one per conflict either -- if you specialise in boarding, you should be more than capable of boarding multiple vessels in an enemy fleet, but of course you're going to suffer a lot of losses and would have needed to sink considerable assets into boarding.

That's what pirates do, and it's self-balancing -- instead of focusing on the combat aspects, they focus on the boarding aspects. That makes them ruthless against lowly freighters, but easy prey for combat fleets.

[56er]

Can't even really state how much twisted I'm for the new boarding mechanics. I hate to hear, that I can only board one ship per ecounter. That is utterly dumb. I mean, why should I say, hey there are 3 ships floating aside, lets just only board one of them to sell/use them after repairs? That's sounds like the most anoying thing yet to come to this game. I can see the game won't be really funny if you manage to have some luck and cap some big ships right in the start, but with that conclusion it get's my WTF monitors up.

[Uomoz]

I do agree that hardcoded limits in a no-real-limits environment sound a bit weird. We'll see how it plays out.

[Gothars]

It may or may not be a good thing to allow choice here (i.e. pick one, the rest get away!). Perhaps the "engage" option would even engage all of them, while board meant all but the one being boarded got away... hmm.

One problem I could imagine without this is this: If you know in advance that you are not going to capture any enemy ships you have reason to destroy all their disabled ships during the fight. That way there is no chance of them getting away and opposing you later.
That would require you to artificially prolong the battle, a boring tactic.

Being able to automatically engage all enemies after battle would help, but if there's no 100% success rate (which I assume since the player might be able to escape) it's still not perfect, you'd still have reason to destroy all hulls near the end of battle.
Mhhh... Maybe give only disabled ships that floated away from the battlefield a chance to reactive and get away (if you choose "engage")? You could even influence your survival chances that way by pushing disabled allies over the border.



@ only one ship boarding issue: Why not allow a second dice throw after boarding is finished? Some reactivating ships might have been able to get away, some not, so you have another chance with worse cards.

[Trylobot]

This is an excellent idea. It really does cover all the bases. Thoughts, Alex?

I'm going to break with the mold here and suggest the perfect lore handwave for the battlefields -- disruptor missiles.
...

[naufrago]

*disruptor missiles*

You could even take it one step further and say that almost all ship movement is thanks to its warp drive, and the disruption effect limits the top speed a ship can attain. The thrusters on the back of a ship may only useful for light (as in "not heavy") acceleration, which over a long time could amount to crazy velocities, but the size and scale of the battlefield could make the warp drive preferable even despite the disruption. The ships would still use their maneuvering thrusters, but the effect would be minimal.

The benefit to this would be that it explains why bigger ships go slower, since their warp bubbles would be bigger and more prone to disruption. The disruption effect could be proportional to the surface area of the warp bubble, which could also explain why frigates are fast than fighters (bigger warp engine, but still in that sweet spot below where the x^2 graph passes the y=x graph). Would also explain why high tech ships are faster than low tech ones, since their warp drives are more advanced and can resist disruption a little better (as well as having generally faster engines).

[Alex]

I think the boarding mechanics encourage players to grind. Player will fight many easy battles for small reward because in one hard battle he will lose 2/3 of his ships and MAYBE get one ship in return. I think game should bring an equally strong battles to player for equal reward.

It's already safer to attack weaker fleets. I don't think boarding specifically encourages grinding, though, since it should be the more expensive way to get ships. That is to say, if getting more ships is your goal, in the long run you'd be better off not boarding, unless you're perhaps super-specialized in it. Even if you're doing risk-free boarding, such as with an Onslaught against a Hound - it's still more expensive than buying a Hound.

It may or may not be a good thing to allow choice here (i.e. pick one, the rest get away!). Perhaps the "engage" option would even engage all of them, while board meant all but the one being boarded got away... hmm.

One problem I could imagine without this is this: If you know in advance that you are not going to capture any enemy ships you have reason to destroy all their disabled ships during the fight. That way there is no chance of them getting away and opposing you later.
That would require you to artificially prolong the battle, a boring tactic.

Being able to automatically engage all enemies after battle would help, but if there's no 100% success rate (which I assume since the player might be able to escape) it's still not perfect, you'd still have reason to destroy all hulls near the end of battle.
Mhhh... Maybe give only disabled ships that floated away from the battlefield a chance to reactive and get away (if you choose "engage")? You could even influence your survival chances that way by pushing disabled allies over the border.

Interesting point, I hadn't thought about it. I think there are two things that make it a non-issue, though:

1. How would you actually prolong a battle? You'd either expose your ships to extra danger while you're shooting up wrecks instead of killing whatever the're fighting, or, if you're the enemy would retreat if they were reduced enough. It'd be very challenging to pull off, I think - which would also help keep it from being boring, if it was even possible.

2. Destroyed ships grant significantly less loot. Ships you "engage" before they can repair and get away become disabled. So, you'd lose a lot of material by blowing up the wrecks.

@ only one ship boarding issue: Why not allow a second dice throw after boarding is finished? Some reactivating ships might have been able to get away, some not, so you have another chance with worse cards.

I do agree that hardcoded limits in a no-real-limits environment sound a bit weird. We'll see how it plays out.

Hmm. I have to admit, I'm not surprised by the overall reaction to that particular restriction. I'll definitely keep an eye on it; though I do think it probably works better in practice than it sounds.  A boardable ship is a rare enough occurrence that you're not going to be thinking, "oh, I really should have gotten more than one!".

This is an excellent idea. It really does cover all the bases. Thoughts, Alex?

I'm going to break with the mold here and suggest the perfect lore handwave for the battlefields -- disruptor missiles.
...

Well, since the game doesn't deal with this directly, it might be best not to have a canon explanation. I know for me as a player, coming up with the lore behind in-game situations is part of the fun, and overexplaining everything takes away from that. It would also make the player wonder why they don't have control over the specifics (in this case, the distruptor missiles).

Now on to boarding... to be honest, I don't see why boarding should be more expensive than buying ships. I think the cost should approach that of buying a new ship, but if the entire universe is all about "making do with what you've got", then boarding seems like it'd be *the* way to obtain "new" ships, not something to be discouraged.

That's a reasonable way to look at it, but it also makes boarding vs not much less of a choice. Why pass up a cheap ship? Even if you don't want to use it, you could always just sell it. I'd rather the cost approach that of buying a new ship, but from above. That way, if you're specialized in boarding, it's much more reasonable - maybe you're set up to not only mitigate the losses in an actual boarding action, but to recover more quickly. Like you mentioned, it could also be self-balancing, since you'd be devoting a lot of your fleet strength to this.



(Re: warp bubble - that's how I picture it, too. Not the exact specifics, perhaps, but that's how I explain away - to myself - the top speeds and other such speed-related artifacts.)

[L33tGuilty]

Sounds good !!

cant wait to try it out.... any rough days of patch ?? week, 2, 3, 4 ??

[KDR_11k]

I'd like the option to loot a ship when boarding instead of capturing it, this would cost less to do than a proper boarding (you just pick targets of opportunity instead of trying to breach the fortified bridge or something) but would only result in additional items being looted rather than actually taking the ship. That way it's a way to play the boarding game with lower stakes when you're just looking for something to sell to vendors.

[icepick37]

I'd like the option to loot a ship when boarding instead of capturing it, this would cost less to do than a proper boarding (you just pick targets of opportunity instead of trying to breach the fortified bridge or something) but would only result in additional items being looted rather than actually taking the ship. That way it's a way to play the boarding game with lower stakes when you're just looking for something to sell to vendors.

That's already a general option, though. You can either choose looting everything or boarding one shop, right?

[ArkAngel]

I personally think the "travel drive" should be named the Mosolov Drive.   

[Gothars]

2. Destroyed ships grant significantly less loot. Ships you "engage" before they can repair and get away become disabled. So, you'd lose a lot of material by blowing up the wrecks.

Ah, did not think of that, sounds like it would be sufficient to stop my approach.

It's already safer to attack weaker fleets. I don't think boarding specifically encourages grinding, though, since it should be the more expensive way to get ships. That is to say, if getting more ships is your goal, in the long run you'd be better off not boarding, unless you're perhaps super-specialized in it. Even if you're doing risk-free boarding, such as with an Onslaught against a Hound - it's still more expensive than buying a Hound.

You have plans for when boarding turns out too powerful, what about the reverse case? If boarding really is that uneconomical now, will the sometimes better availability of boardable ships be enough, or might players stop boarding altogether? Having a specialized boarding fleet just to approach the same investment/reward level that simply buying ships has seems like a bad idea since it reduces your combat/trade power.
Maybe in the real campaign timing and availability will have such an impact that boarding is worth it?

The only other possible advantage of boarding over buying I can think of would be that hullmods stay intact, so you can get your hands on those you can't install yourself. Or maybe something about cargo that stays intact...which could play very nice in the situational approach; Imagine EG boarding a passing vaccine freighter to help a nearby plagued planet. Or just some freighter on the end of a long voyage, full with cargo that is very valuable in the current system.


Oh, btw, what about boarding of not combat ready ships that fly around alone? At the moment you get them for free just by catching them (they surrender), will they get the new boarding mechanics, too?

[Doom101]

i had high hopes for the illusive and mysterious boarding you mentioned last weeks, well lets just say i'm not disappointed and with everything thats going into the next patch.. well... *drool*
_{we really need a drool emoticon what with these updates}