Features?

Shotglass said:
And what about space stations? Can you own space stations? Or BUILD them! Wouldn't that be cool? Ah daydreams . . .

Pioneer just isn't that kind of game. Space stations are fine in the right situation, but that goes beyond the scope of what they're doing here.
 
Shotglass said:
So, what has been decided on the ability to purchase and pilot large transport ships (ie old-school Drayman class) I would understand if that was decided against, but it would be cool to see shipping become viable on a massive scale.

IIRC in addition to whatever your piloted ship can carry, you can hire a cargo ship (Camel or Drayman) to carry additional cargo for you, and you will fly escort for it, Privateer 2 style.

BTW: any hints on how much cargo each ship will carry? My personal choice would be to give the Hunchback and Tarsus 100 (plus expansion), the Hydra and Phoenix 50 or less (non-expandable for the Phoenix), the Camel 200-400 (plus expansion), and the hired Drayman 1000+.
 
And will there be definite/insurmountable limits on the number of cargo ships you can hire? Can I just fly with one? Or could I hire a few, along with some wingmen/women, and fly them all together as a convoy, making each trip more lucrative?
 
Shotglass said:
And will there be definite/insurmountable limits on the number of cargo ships you can hire? Can I just fly with one? Or could I hire a few, along with some wingmen/women, and fly them all together as a convoy, making each trip more lucrative?
About wingmen, if I remember correctly it's just wingmen, even if it's a girl.
 
howdy folks, been a long time since i last posted on any of this. but to clear some things up:

in so far as stations go, three of the three groups allow you to pick up an asteroid base, or mining/refinery base.

As a mercenary, you can form a group. You setup a base of operations and work out of said base. you can have up to 15 pilots working for you. They can fly any of the player purchasable ships, its pretty well randomized. You'll meet them in the bar, they'll tell you what they fly and all that. Also, you can eventually buy a transport you can convert to a carrier (think zach banfeld).

As a merchant, you'll start off with just your ship and eventually work up to being able to purchase drayman, mining, refinery, and eventually setting up an operation on a planet. Be a big fat cat merchant smokin stogies ruling his little empire. you'll be able to own 6 of each type of base and 6 drayman. you will have to hire mercenaries to work convoy defense for you.

If you elect to become a pirate, you can work your way up to being able to have a max of 4 asteroid bases with 15 pilots at your command. you can set your bases up anywhere, each one holds 4 pilots.

Hopefully that clears that up.

BradMick
 
Also, you can eventually buy a transport you can convert to a carrier (think zach banfeld).

That doesn't really seem reasonable -- it's a strange/unusual/impossible thing when it happens twenty years later... not something everyone with means eventually accomplishes.
 
Besides which, the one Banfeld (sp?) had was actually a cast-off from a Landreich government project that didn't pan out for financial reasons, not something he cobbled together on his own without government assistance
 
It would be reasonable if we were talking about two or three fighters (so that this "carrier" would be more like the Bonnie Heather than Banfield's ship), but if we're talking about all 15 of those pilots operating from this ship, that's definitely pretty crazy.

(mind you, when I say "reasonable", I mean in terms of staying true to the WC universe... but as far as gameplay goes, I tend to think that this sort of stuff just gets in the way, by making the game less like Priv and more like X:BTF)
 
Yup, probably shuld have clarified. not all 15 ships go along on the 'carrier'. You can have 3 other ships aboard not including yours.
 
BradMick said:
Yup, probably shuld have clarified. not all 15 ships go along on the 'carrier'. You can have 3 other ships aboard not including yours.
Will these carriers have launch tubes or just the standard bays? Another question, will you be able to rearm and repair your ships while they're docked?
 
Well I was expecting more along the lines of how before destroyers had launch bays they would dock fighters to the outer hull, as detailed in End Run. In this case I would envision something like a Drayman with a sort of "repair bay" for its cargo package and the fighters would have to be recovered via air lock if they needed repair and perhaps dock to the exterior otherwise. Four fighters sounds like a good balance--it gives you an effective wing, but not a whole squadron that can devastate enemies--killing a Fralthi would still be an iffy proposition.

As for reloading/rearming, I think that to balance it you should have to clear out the enemies on your radar before being able to land outside of story missions that expect you to ignore the enemies and land anyway. Being able to rearm at will would be a bit too powerful IMO.
 
If you land when enemies are around, you're vulnerable to the enemy. Also, there isn't an infinite amount of ammo laying about, at most there is one full reload for each ship. as for what it is, its basically a big cargo module with a landing bay in it. its just wide enough to fit the ships length nose to tail and just long enough to fit the four ships side by side, well...that is if you're all flying Phalanx.
 
so, to further elaborate.

Essentially, the carrier module is small, it's not to advantagous to put a bunch of big ships in it, as you'll be able to carry fewer the max it will hold. so, it will require you to pick your mercenary band with care. And, as I said earlier, you the player will pick your group from folks standing around in bars. You'll ask them what they fly, if they want to join, blah-blah. Now, it's not so easy running these groups as you have to make enough money to keep funding it. Pilots aren't cheap. And in addtion to having to pay them, you also pay for the upkeep of equipment, one of your guys or a couple of your guys gets their ships blown up and you can't afford to fix them, well...you're kind of in trouble at that point.
 
I was with you till you said the player will need to pay for pilots dumb enough to get themselves fragged. In all my memory of WC or any game for that matter, I cant remember ANYONE short of the confeds willing to pay for a new ship should you lose yours. A hired pilot losing his ship is kind of like that pilot breaking contract, since he needs a ship to fly. Any smaller scale repairs/weapon reloads should be done out of the kindness of the player's heart to keep a good pilot on board, but if the pilot loses his ship, any merc I've ever heard of would tell him to take a hike and then hire a new one. I guess all I really know is that the Mercenaries Guild never bought ME a new ship, let alone repairs and ammo.
 
I seeee . . . much better!

So are kitty cap ships going to be much harder to sink in this than they were in other games, say WC1. Because that really was far too easy to be interesting. The only times I got hurt assaulting a cap ship were when I got in my wingman's line of fire. Will you need wingmen to draw the cap ship's fire? or a wingman's added firepower to punch through the shields?

And how about scale? Will the big ships truly be massive, like on a Freespace scale?
 
capital ships will definately be a beast to tackle, and as far as scaling goes, everything is scaled according to their measurements.
 
BradMick said:
i said fix, not buy. if he looses his ship, he's gone, fired. but if his ships shot up, you fix it.
If he's a really great pilot (and got unlucky) will you be able to tractor him in and buy him a new ship so he'll keep working for you? (assuming you want to)

Also will you ever get a chance to find a small ship docked to a fuel tanker (externally) and thus shoot the sitting duck (with the possibility of destroying the fuel tanker)?
 
Ijuin said:
Well I was expecting more along the lines of how before destroyers had launch bays they would dock fighters to the outer hull, as detailed in End Run. In this case I would envision something like a Drayman with a sort of "repair bay" for its cargo package and the fighters would have to be recovered via air lock if they needed repair and perhaps dock to the exterior otherwise. Four fighters sounds like a good balance--it gives you an effective wing, but not a whole squadron that can devastate enemies--killing a Fralthi would still be an iffy proposition.

Killing a Fralthi should be a lot worse than 'iffy'.
 
Killing even a Ralari is a lot worse than "iffy". Especially if you're alone. Anyhow - I wanted to speak to the stuff Brad's been talking about - the grand plans for ownership of spacestations, Drayman-carriers, and the rest of it. These are plans for a higher-level of gameplay - plans that will not come to pass any time soon... Before we even speculate on this stuff I'd be much more comfortable having a basic playable gameplay demo. This is what we're working on right now - the rest of this stuff falls directly under the heading of things we would like to do - but realize that they may be more than we can chew. We have sooo much work to do before we have even a reasonable expectation of looking at this high-level gameplay. We've got characters to do - base interiors - final space effects and graphics - all the character animation - the list goes on. This is not stuff that prevents us from releasing a gameplay demo - but it definately comes before any of the spacestation ownership stuff.
Just trying to put some of these concepts into perspective.
 
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