Design Feedback Poll - Transferring from ship to terrain walker...

Munshine · Post by **Munshine** » Sun Feb 26, 2012 12:45 pm

Well the new gameplay core for the walker is exploring and searching for hidden objects /artefacts, fighting against other walkers or firing back at air attacks. Ship invisiblity doesn't mean the Walker itself is safe or invulnerable.
Creating a lot of features just for protecting the ship is quite a hassle and not even fun.

I will prefer investing in new equipments dedicated to the Walker, upgrading with new Walker frames, new Walker parts. It's quite possible to create specific missions for the Walker in the future in some outposts.

BraveHart · Post by **BraveHart** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 9:41 am

"I voted for number 1, Cloak the ship but don't bury it...then leave a marker so the pilot would know where he parked his ship"

Post by **DaveK** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 5:01 pm

I like Bravehart's idea of cloaked but not buried. I'm assuming that this means the a ship could be spotted by an eyeball Mk I, line of sight from a short distance as well as giving a scrambled beacon call for the walker allowing other ships to register the hidden ship if close enough - it would add a frisson of excitement to exploring without constantly having to worry that your ship would be gone at any moment to every passing hostile.

Given a walker's restrictions I assume a relatively limited range making a round the world stroll a major event, especially on the larger planets expected soon. I can't see a "Six Million Dollar Man" effect of "walking" at 100+ km/h across the landscape.

Planning a tour would be an interesting exercise if the homing beacon has a limited range.

Will the walkers be detectable by other ships or will they be line of sight only?

Will ships actually land to disembark the walker? If not, what fuel use would there be for hovering (as they do now)?

Like many others I think that the walker experience would be greatly diminished if our ship is vulnerable to everyone in orbit. However some risk is the norm in EM (even when mining!) so allowing a ship to be detected from a few hundred decameters away might add a "fun"(?) element for planning and exploration

If the ships are to be invisible to eyeballs as well as radar perhaps a ship could detect incoming intruders and close down it's homing beacon until they leave - the ship would be safe but the walker would have the buzz of having to wait until it was safe to return - unless the pilot has planned for some dead reckoning to return (including for example parking near a distinctive surface feature)

The other option to a beacon (which really should be available to the bad guys as well) would be to set your own map marker, as suggested earlier. That way ships could be fully stealthed and their safety guaranteed (though I predict it would be a very short time before people we asking for such unlimited stealth options to be available in space as well!

)

Whichever way the decision goes I'm sure the walkers will greatly add to the EM experience!

soulsacrifice · Post by **soulsacrifice** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 5:40 pm

From post: 131959, Topic: tid=8991, author=Raynor wrote:
From post: 131868, Topic: tid=8991, author=soulsacrifice wrote:

There are ways to balance it so your ship isn't totally defenseless, for example:
- Ability to switch to remote control I sugestted above (similar to how pilots of AH-1Z Viper pilots today can fly and control unmanned littlebirds to target without putting themselves in the firing line).
- Have automatted air defenses like the 360 degree turret that can be used in co-op but AI controlled when you leave your ship.
- Alerts when hostile ships come within target range of your parked ship.
- Use of fuel to power the ships shields to 4-5 times their current levels (after all you're not ussing your engines so fuel could be diverted to over-power shields - which along with target alerts above would give you plenty of time to return and defend your ship.
- Ability to have a crew member to fly the ship to you mech as someone listed above.

If your ship gets stolen there could be an option to call for a nearby friendly ship and hire the ship to use it to try and retrieve your ship - maybe give the player ten minutes or so of the ability to track stolens ship coordinates and if they get away you can fly the hired ship to the nearest station to buy a new one.
Well basically then, option 3 implies that vice will have loads of work to do on implementing a ton of complementary features just for the walker. It doesn't seem worth it.

Maarschalk's idea of making a cloaking/burying device an equipment to buy is interesting but what will then happen is soon enough everybody will have that equipment and then it will be back to option 1 anyway so I say....just make it option 1.

Just so you know, I wasn't suggesting that that ALL these suggestions should be implement. Just listing some ways to get around problems you and others think would be inherent with option 3.

I don't think choosing "the path of least resistence" is the right way to go about it when discussing what we would like to see in the expansion. Limiting our ideas to what's "easy" to implement could damage the potential for the update.

In the end Vice will decide if something is worthy of his time. Besides, most of the stuff i've listed is already in or will feature in game e.g. you will already be able to switch from ship to walker and back so remote control would be pretty much the exact same thing but you would be able to do it from further away. Increasing ships shields whilst out in the walker is as simple as multiplying a variable by 5. The game already detects when a hostile ship is within range of your Targets systems etc.

[Edited on 27-2-2012 by soulsacrifice]

Munshine · Post by **Munshine** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 9:32 pm

From post: 132051, Topic: tid=8991, author=soulsacrifice wrote: I don't think choosing "the path of least resistence" is the right way to go about it when discussing what we would like to see in the expansion. Limiting our ideas to what's "easy" to implement could damage the potential for the update.

[Edited on 27-2-2012 by soulsacrifice]

I agree with that we must not limit our ideas for the expansion and you 're perfectly right to defend your point .

But it's from the viewpoint I disagree with you.

When you are telling that stealing player's own ship is fun. No that's frustrating .

But if you were telling that a player could steal some faction 's advanced ship or some Vonari's unknown hightech ship , that's fun as I'm not aware that such feature exists at the moment in the game.
If you were telling why couldn't be some new online feature where some clan must capture some new advanced ship and defend it against another clan . That would be fun.

I almost choose option 1 so that the Walker feature is implemented as fast as possible due to Starwraith's limited resources in mind.

[Edited on 2-27-2012 by Munshine]

god-demis · Post by **god-demis** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 10:04 am

Actually, personally I would prefer to see some more detail in planets(mountains with snow/ice, forests) and hidden treasures in some of them( like maybe a different color for your ship or special equipment), but if I have to chose an option, I would go with number 1. I would hate to lose my ship while landwalking... Too much the risk..

9T9 · Post by **9T9** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 4:04 pm

Voted #4.
How about the ship uses it's auto pilot to protect itself by flying (cloaked) to a nearby city or even space station after you entered the walker anywhere on the surface? If you want to go back to the ship, you can call it to your location. It still may require some time to get to your location.

Hope you understand what I want to say.

Otherwise I would choose option #1.

[Edited on 5.3.2012 by 9T9]

Post by **DaveK** » Mon Mar 05, 2012 6:20 pm

From post: 132513, Topic: tid=8991, author=9T9 wrote:Voted #4.
How about the ship uses it's auto pilot to protect itself by flying (cloaked) to a nearby city or even space station after you entered the walker anywhere on the surface? If you want to go back to the ship, you can call it to your location. It still may require some time to get to your location.

Hope you understand what I want to say.

Otherwise I would choose option #1.

[Edited on 5.3.2012 by 9T9]

Like in Aliens 2!!

Dhuran · Post by **Dhuran** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 6:47 am

I voted other.

Really, I'm thinking leave from cities. For planets without cities, you could add cave systems that you can park in like a city, but are there for the sole purpose of hiding your ship so you can deploy a walker.

You could also make it possible to hide your ship underwater to deploy a walker?

Just some random brainstorming. . .

TGS · Post by **TGS** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 10:35 am

I went with option 3 because quite frankly I don't think there is enough risk in this game. I know some people simply don't like risk and don't want there to be any risk of losing ships/money/etc but to go as far as to say "If you apply risk to this feature noone will use it" is swinging the hammer far far FAR into the other direction. People will use this feature no matter what if it interests them.

That being said though this isn't so much an issue of just having your ship stolen or destroyed... what happens if you are on a planet that doesn't have a city and your ship was stolen their ship was left but they destroyed it. Now you've got no way off the planet unless you self-destruct which puts you back at your last "save" anyway which if it ends up with you back at your ship then you've unintentionally allowed ship/item duplication.

Really short of changing the entire saving system with consideration to these possibilities option 3, as awesome as it is cannot really be possible with how the game currently operates with regards to saving. As much as I like the idea of the cloaking and/or burying, that almost puts ships as an out of sight out of mind as soon as you pop into the walker. Personally if that route is taken please allow the "device" to be toggled rather than you simply having it installed and it becoming active as soon as you jump into the walker.

You could take it one step further and make it so that when you deploy the Terrain walker your ship becomes a small outpost or base with a functional shield surrounding the ship (Similar to the deployable shield) and that protects the ship and the Walker if you remain within the field. Though that again would reduce "danger" down to nothing because people could simply do that to become invulnerable. Though planetside outposts that could be attacked/defended and stuff would be nifty. It's certainly a tricky question though.

ijon · Post by **ijon** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:29 pm

although i voted for 1:

i like the idea with the ship defence once the pilot left the ship. there could be different ones for different prices.
the basic ones inform the pilot that his ship is under attack.
even better systems could have a proximity alert, forwarded to the pilot. so that you can react. increased radar range and defence capabilities after that.
one could plant antennas to not loose contact to your ship, (which increases your 'quick response' range). on the other hand these antennas could lead enemies to your ship. decisions. decisions and risk.

if things are developed further over time one could add nifty devices to the walkers in exchange for firepower, for example.
there could be mines surrounding your ship to defend against dedicated hijacking attempts. and so on.

balance wise it needs to be hard to steal a ship. keep risk rather low for casual players and who ever comes will have to make a decision how to fit the walker: hijacking or survivability / combat. which may result in only teams beeing able to steal a ship at all.

a walker's weapons could be to weak to destroy the ship. hijack or fight the pilote. if you are equipped with hijacking mods and your victim is in a combat suite, you have a problem.

maybe make it so, that only ground forces are capable of spotting landet ships at all. (some camou net/jammer is easyly imaginable)
and price wise i'd put it in line with current mods. not to hard but it requires some effort to explore planets 'more safely'

some more:
what would be cool if the thief would actually have the higher risk. people complain about the risk of loosing the ship; what about the attackers risk of loosing his walker + life?
the defence could shoot back. taking the team approach, someone has to tank the defence, while the hacker has to find a random blind angle to approach the ship, giving the pilot time to head back and fight.
if this happens (pilote in combat suite + appropriate ship defence), the attackers will loose.

if you manage to kill the pilote, the ship is yours.
establish a link and order it to fly to X.

the most simple approach could be: kill the pilote (find him) or get nothing. get to close to his ship without having him killed before; you die. it would turn the ship into a reward for successfull ground combat.
the victim can avoid it by fleeing into the ship (which should also make camping the ship rather difficult)
so the attackers chances grow, the further the pilote is away from ship.

[Edited on 3-6-2012 by ijon]

[Edited on 3-6-2012 by ijon]

sapperhedge · Post by **sapperhedge** » Thu Apr 26, 2012 7:41 pm

I like the idea of your ship being visible and able to be attacked and destroyed. The ship thieving would seem to be tough to implement. Maybe having your cargo able to be stolen while you are about including any equipment you have in your cargo bay, but everything that is attached to your ship stays put unless the ship is destroyed.

It would be nice to have the option to be able to land at a city and leave your ship in safety for a nominal docking fee or take the risk and leave your ship in the open.

If you have a stealth generator for your ship maybe you could activate it and leave it safely hidden, as long as you remember where it is hidden.

Cargo · Post by **Cargo** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 1:13 am

How would someone get to your ship to steal it, I mean wouldn't they have to leave their ship behind?

edit: As I type this I realized that, that is exactly what people would do.

[Edited on 4-27-2012 by Automatic Jack]

Storwiz · Post by **Storwiz** » Sun Apr 29, 2012 8:36 pm

I think better will be to allow the player's ship to remain behind and visible but without the possibility of the ship being destroyed or stolen.

Kristastic · Post by **Kristastic** » Sun Apr 29, 2012 8:38 pm

This is a very new person's opinion, but I really like the idea of requiring one to dock in a city in order to use a walker. However, I also think there should be an option to purchase a separate, personal walker that one can deploy on planets without cities, in which case I believe it should also cloak the ship (part of a safety device that comes part-and-parcel with the walker, mayhap). That way, it's accessible to everyone, but true blue explorers will have to go the extra metaphorical mile.

amtie · Post by **amtie** » Sun Apr 29, 2012 9:01 pm

I think ship theft, as in the actual ship being hijacked and flown, is not a good idea, for the reasons people have already stated (duplication/saving and respawn).
If any ship theft were to be possible, it should be in the form of using the tractor beam to steal any items in the cargo bay.

Also, as a seperate suggestion, instead of cloaking the ship or leaving it behind somewhere, why not just let the ship follow you 3000 distance units (for example) above you, circling slowly? You could therefore have the ship descend to pick you up at the first sight of danger, and also not have the risk of losing where you left it. And the ship is still in danger of being destroyed, just like when you're docked at a station and sadistic NPCs try to fill you with holes. Of course, fuel usage will limit how long your excursions can be. But that's what fuel upgrades are for, right?

frontier204 · Post by **frontier204** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 1:43 am

I picked option 1, but I'm for "bury" rather than cloak, or you run into the issue of why do you have a magic stealth generator for planets but you can't use it in capital ship spy missions. You can allow certain landing sites for ships that "bury" them - caves, cities, bodies of liquid that the ship can sink into for cover and park. From seeing the planets humans have discovered so far, I doubt there would ever be a natural planet that wouldn't have a nice hole to sit a ship in. There are gas giants but you can't walk on them anyway, because their solid cores, if they have one would crush a walker or at least make it unable to walk

I'm not for stealing ships because wouldn't you self-destruct the ship and reload a save before getting it stolen anyway? Also if this option is available on planets, a logical extension is giving people the option to murder you while you're on a city or station and take your ship - not the direction I think we want this game to go in!

Let's instead focus on defending the walker from being strafed, bombed, or tractored - you can hire other ships or police escort in atmospheric fighters for populated worlds. Also I advise you wreck the ship (ship explodes and leaves salvageable wreckage) if the walker is destroyed, or I'm sure MP servers would fill up with ship graveyards. For crewed ships, you'll have to decide if the crew vanishes or flies away with the ship making it an AI ship on such an event.

Dalkeith · Post by **Dalkeith** » Thu May 03, 2012 8:11 pm

This really opens up a lot of options. I personally like the idea of stealing ships. But you could do all sorts of things. Maybe pilots can buy booby traps. Passwords to get into the cockpit / fly it. Or maybe if you get your ship stolen you have to go to the nearest port to buy a new ship. Also maybe get into mechs from stations so you can go out and find ships and not worry about your existing ship. Remember its all very well stealing a ship but if you have to leave your old one behind to do it well it's more like a forced barter.

Pirating and theft historically and currently in Somalia are an integral part of travelling and exploring. You have to have a really strong reason both to attack and defend property and theft or death are the main drivers to that.

I vote for the allowing of theft of property!!!!