Fleets

Siege · Post by **Siege** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 2:43 am

My thoughts on fleets

Some of this maybe already in the game, I've not tested the limitations yet. I'm thinking of a little empire building here as you can tell but I have to admit I like that in a game. Kinda like building a corporation here where you start off poor build yourself up and then put together a fleet that helps you to make more money. I honestly think this would be a welcome addition to the game. Solo fliers could stay solo after all but people like me could add to their little empire and so on.

having this in mp might tip the balance a little, but perhaps you could make it that your AI fleet wouldn't attack a human pilot leaving pvp up to the pvp'ers. Or go the route of pitting them and yourself against another persons fleet.

Some thoughts:-

* When they mine you should get a higher percentage of the money of the sale, they are after all working for you.

* More control over fleets would be good, like telling them to do other things
- Trade
- Contracts (Could be calculated with random chance they fail/die ( a return to Riftspace type thing here

Can be calculated in much the same way in fact.
- Attack my target
- Defend My Target
- Follow me

* Currently Fleet's are VERY expensive and without a good way for them to earn some money they aren't really economically viable to keep around. Can we lower the price somewhat please, and/or make them work for their wage.

* How big can a fleet be? A large-ish fleet could be useful for all sorts of things like making money, protecting you through dangerous trade routes etc. ( I now know this to be 30-40 odd) Such a large number would be useful if you can get them doing things for you and get more money from this. i for one have been sequestered in a asteroid field with my 10 strong fleet all doing mining at the same time as myself around me. Was WAY cool, but they didn't earn nearly enough money to make it worthwhile, which they should imho.

* Perm fleets would be great, that you essentially have a little like crew, they gain loyalty according to how much you pay them etc, these should have a name, like you do already for crew would be fine

* Having fleets in MP would be excellent, though tricky I would imagine, I spend most of my time in MP and miss my little friend
Waged Fleet, something else to spend your money on and you can balance the size of the fleet with how much money you earn.

* Perhaps inside the station you could have a fleet management screen? This would allow you to see where they were and their current orders, and change those orders and/or bring them to your position for maneuvers.

* Fleet members could have a skill rating like crew and loyalty ratings too. This skill rating would help calculating how Successful they were at contracts etc.

* In regard to doing missions for you, they should be separate allowing you to also run a mission while they do their thing (Calculated again) All this is in a way is better management for fleets and giving them ways of making money and being more useful.

More will probably occur to me, I'll update as it does, I'm actually quite excited about what could be done with a fleet system like this and for me it would really expand the game play, either sp or mp (MP would be really cool lol, then we could indeed pit our fleets against each other and join the fun for real some real nice furballs)

p.s. I know I'm asking for a fairly big overhaul of the fleet system, but I honestly believe that it would be worth it. One could essentially create a company of merc's that work for the one big Merc, (You) and work the game that way also.

[Edited on 24-1-2011 by Siege]

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 2:53 am

LOL, as it is some systems have a hard time coping with the frame rate and complexity of the game.....!
And then you have the complexity of keeping track of fleets, reputations and status of empires in single play and online play....

:P

Siege · Post by **Siege** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 2:59 am

I never said it was easy, but then anything worthwhile rarely is. As it stands you wouldn't need to add much to handling close fleets, and everything else can be timer based and worked out rather than rendered in any fashion, like everything else it would only be rendered if you were close enough to take note of it anyway, visually I mean. Flying a contract, or even a trade mission would mostly be done (off screen) so to speak and wouldn't require too much more processing power that a common system couldn't cope with anyway. of course i had what, 15 strong fleet working around me on my laptop and my frame rate didn't really change from the god awful reading it normally gets. If my laptop can handle that with them in the same system as me and being rendered then any computer system could cope with the extra calculated stuff. Timer resolution wouldn't need to be that high as to make the game slow down any either.

The ones that could be nasty are some of the commands I mentioned like Defend target/attack target.

Also i was just thinking the mp aspect might not even be possible, it would be nice if it was but it might not due to the control of all those AI and player ships in the universe. It would be a nice feature, but not essential to my mind.

[Edited on 24-1-2011 by Siege]

Ravenfeeder · Post by **Ravenfeeder** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 12:58 pm

The MP aspect of your suggestions: Think of, say, 5 members of the same clan, all with fleets of, say, 12 ships - they'd just sweep the board! IMHO, fleets are only useful to newbies until they gain more experience/confidence!

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 2:26 pm

I don't think the server could handle sixty ships, tbh. >_>

Siege · Post by **Siege** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 2:30 pm

The newbie comment wouldn't apply if there was more you could do with them, such as contracts better return on mining etc.

The other command I thought of to give fleet is :-

Pick up cargo.

When mining I often use probes and the canisters soon build up, it would be good to have the fleet pick them all up and sell at nearest station.

MP perhaps wouldn't work within the limitations of dbp multiplayer.

[Edited on 24-1-2011 by Siege]

Ravenfeeder · Post by **Ravenfeeder** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 8:21 pm

It's an awful lazy way of mining. Siege. Why not just fly to Lost Rucker, use a Plat mining tool, and make money hand over fist? The hidden planet, in the fuzzy blue thing, if you can find it, pays the best.

Siege · Post by **Siege** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 10:44 am

It's not lazy it's efficient

Either way there's hardly anything wrong with being lazy lol. It's also netted me a LOT of money along with arms trading so I don't see a problem with it. I will shortly be starting some real exploration now I'm happy with the resources at my beck and call so all over I'm doing alright in the game.

End of the day, Fleets cost more than they make,so what I would like to see at the most basic is a way for fleets to pay for themselves and make a profit making them more economically viable to have.

I have also put other ideas up on ways that fleets could be used to add another layer to the game but at it's most basic I want my fleet to be viable to keep around. I play quite a lot of SP these days along with MP, and having them is great but they cost me more than they earn. That doesn't make sense to me.

TGS · Post by **TGS** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 7:59 pm

I think what Siege is really getting at is something that has been hinted at a few times on the forums and that's just the feel that you are greater than just your single ship. That you actually do have "command" over other entities in the game and thus feel as part of a bigger whole. Sure in multiplayer you can take part in the Clan's and Clan interaction but aside from the forum roleplay that goes along with it there isn't a great deal in-game to provide that "fleet" feeling.

But I honestly think that has more to do with the fact that everyone is flying smaller ships than anything else.

Siege · Post by **Siege** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 8:03 pm

Yes that and I would like those entities to be working for me rather than me them, I mean look at their prices let's take mining as an example for a small fleet. I have to mine constantly with probes too and them at it just to break even-ish. No way a contract covers them either if you have more than a couple of fleet.

It's lonely out there in space ya know it's good to have some back up in the form of your fleet, and you can 'roleplay' being the boss too lol.

darcsyde83 · Post by **darcsyde83** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:02 am

you never know vice may 1 day come up with a eureka moment and figure a way to maintain the current performance or improve it wile massively revamping up the game

Siege · Post by **Siege** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:10 am

From post: 100904, Topic: tid=7193, author=darcsyde83 wrote:you never know vice may 1 day come up with a eureka moment and figure a way to maintain the current performance or improve it wile massively revamping up the game

Not sure that's physically possible but it's a nice thought

darcsyde83 · Post by **darcsyde83** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 6:40 am

From post: 100905, Topic: tid=7193, author=Siege wrote:
From post: 100904, Topic: tid=7193, author=darcsyde83 wrote:you never know vice may 1 day come up with a eureka moment and figure a way to maintain the current performance or improve it wile massively revamping up the game
Not sure that's physically possible but it's a nice thought

possibility ends when your imagination ends