Motherships and Space - suggestions

[John B Knight]

After a few travels with my new Mothership there came up some questions and ideas for improvement, see below:

Docking often fails, which happens partly because of the inaccurate borders of the blue zones.
Please make those borders reliable and maybe put in a button for captains/owners to manually restart docking/undocking procedure.

Unreliable borders in the blue zones have resultet in my mothership being attacked while unable to shoot back as we were still very much in the middle of a blue zone. Please correct those boarders.

Base structure of Motherships with only 500 SI can be killed of using just 2 quadwings within seconds. Is this working as intended ? Can the protection levels of the mothership be advanced to make those 500 point worth more ?

Friendly fire can be a huge risk for motherships, please implement a feature to assign fighters to a mothership and make them unable to attack it when assigned. Same please in regards to mothership gunners and fighters, please make it impossible to fire a shot when you aim at an friendly target - modern spaceship computers should be able to provide that kind of security.

Please allow an extended guest list, where the mothership owners can assign rights like in a soc terminal. It should be possible to assign captains who have the right to summon passengers when the owner is not present.

Currently a space trip can be quite boring for the repaircrew, if the mothership isnt attacked. Asside from pilot,co-pilot and mothership gunners noone can see what happens outside. Please include a monitoring network interface in the ship so people and watch space while traveling.

The lounge is nice but the windows dont show real space, please make the windows really transparent to allow passengers to view space and space battles when in the lounge. Please make this possible for the small and the large lounge.

Please display avatars when in pilot/co-pilot/gunner seats so you know who sits where. I know this might be difficult since the avatar is actually not onboard but in space when on his seat but there should be a solution to this - you could still just display a second virtual picture of the avatar inside if that the only way.

Please extend force channel to all fighters that get assigned to the mothership, regardless if they inside or outside.
Please allow an onboard voicechat system to be configured by the captain.

Please allow mothership teleporters to connect to teleporters of other motherships directly, if guest are listed on both of these ships. Please consider a docking feature for motherships between each other when in deep space to allow passenger exchange or crew rescue when under attack. Docking in deep space should still require both ships to stop.

 

[Dr.D.C.]

it would be nice (if already there si not) if fighter can land inside a larger ship............ battlestar docet

 

[Chrome]

Nice wish list, John.

Base structure of Motherships with only 500 SI can be killed of using just 2 quadwings within seconds.
Is this working as intended ?

If it means you will be encouraged to spend more ped on upgrading the tissue paper hull of your mothership...
Then yes.

 

[John B Knight]

Nice wish list, John.




If it means you will be encouraged to spend more ped on upgrading the tissue paper hull of your mothership...
Then yes.

Thanks Chrome

And yeah im already safing up for the upgrades, but i still think that the base level structure should provide a tad more security. Its just not ok if 10-20 people are busy working in a mothership and it takes only 2 quadwing pilots to boot them all to space


Dr DC fighter can already land in the mothership hangars.

 

[sbi]

After a few travels with my new Mothership there came up some questions and ideas for improvement, see below:...

What he said, agree!

 

[Norbert]

................................................

 

[xWandererx]

Here's a screeny for u John-B4 we got blown away

 

[Audrey Cheerful]

I'd love to get joystick support so I have a justification to buy the Fighterstick and the Pro Throttle from CH Products.

 

[Norbert]

........................................

 

[Ludvig|MindArk]

I'd love to get joystick support so I have a justification to buy the Fighterstick and the Pro Throttle from CH Products.

we are supposed to be able to use joysticks in the future, or at least some MA official mentioned that in a video I saw (think it was Starfinders? ya should be able to find it on youtube)

 

[Talania]

Currently a space trip can be quite boring for the repaircrew, if the mothership isnt attacked. Asside from pilot,co-pilot and mothership gunners noone can see what happens outside. Please include a monitoring network interface in the ship so people and watch space while traveling.

The lounge is nice but the windows dont show real space, please make the windows really transparent to allow passengers to view space and space battles when in the lounge. Please make this possible for the small and the large lounge.

Think the only way you can see out into the same space the MS is flying is to be locked into a station where your view changes from being inside the MS(basicly an instance like the space stations but mobile), to the location of the outside of the MS where it actually is in space.

For people to see out, I think that guests would have to sit in a seat. That would lock the avatar and give them the same view as maybe the Captain/Co-Pilot? I doubt it would be possible to create the view of the same space that the MS is flying in for people walking around in the ship.

StarWars Galaxies did this though, they had space ships that you could walk around in while seeing outside.
But for 30 or more people to be walking around inside while seeing outside in space I think the lag would cause too many constant disconnects and crashes.

 

[billairboy]

Thanks Chrome

And yeah im already safing up for the upgrades, but i still think that the base level structure should provide a tad more security. Its just not ok if 10-20 people are busy working in a mothership and it takes only 2 quadwing pilots to boot them all to space


Dr DC fighter can already land in the mothership hangars.

It's the fire power that should protect the ship, fighters attacking the ship should be blow to pieces by your crew and your own fighter jets. But i can agree it a bit week protection But again, in real life if two fighterjets/bombers got a free chance to open fire on a hangarship......

 

[John B Knight]

It's the fire power that should protect the ship, fighters attacking the ship should be blow to pieces by your crew and your own fighter jets. But i can agree it a bit week protection But again, in real life if two fighterjets/bombers got a free chance to open fire on a hangarship......

You are right Billairboy, but in real life there wont be such things as safe zones. The actual issue with getting the motherships into space is that pirates can stay in the safe zone until mothership leaves and then attack from behind - enough time for them to land 2-4 shots and kill the mothership before the motherships fighters can engage on them.
I would have no issue with the motherships hitpoints if docking to a spacestation would be the only thing making ships invulnerable. A manual dock/undock button with a few seconds delay would be all that is needed for safety issues then.

 

[Audrey Cheerful]

we are supposed to be able to use joysticks in the future, or at least some MA official mentioned that in a video I saw (think it was Starfinders? ya should be able to find it on youtube)

That's awesome news!

 

[Strash]

FIX DOCKING!!!!!
i spent 40min and STILL can't get it to work

 

[John B Knight]

FIX DOCKING!!!!!
i spent 40min and STILL can't get it to work

That is actually the point why i asked for manual docking - i think it would work a whole lot better if not the system but the player decides when docking possibilities are checked.

A few more suggestions.
Implement single person summon.
Show the name of the mothership that wants to summon the respective person.

 

[sbi]

We also need the option to send a customized message along with each summoning... I.e. to state purpose of summoning, any fees associated with the trip, duration etc.

This is especially important since we can atm. only summon all persons on the guest list (while we actually may only wish to summon one person - fix this also please )

It would also be VERY cool if it was possible for owner of ship to add a fee (paid to MS/priovateer owner) if passenger accepts the summoning - that would remove all the annoying work for captain and and passengers related to gathering peds for service.

Finally it would be SWEET if we were told precisely what seat crew members occupy when they sit down... It is a hassle to figure out now and it will only get WAY worse as more guns/seats etc. open up.

/Sbi

 

[kobar]

Wow, some really great ideas and suggestions for improvment

 

[John B Knight]

I already got a pm that the first part of the suggestions has been forwarded to the dev team.
I will compile further suggestions in this thread and post them over in EF in a second part. So please keep your ideas comming.

 

[Azrael]

...If you could hang the large screens that store owners use for advertising, in some of the compartments (ie Propulsion), and stream outside video to them...that would allow for crew members not near windows to see what is happening outside and relieve some of the tedious boredom associated with those jobs. Plus make another market for view screen for some people not owning shops or houses/apartments.

...Would be nice if all the seat in these bad bears, could actually allow for sitting.

... Allow the captain to sound a short klaxon for alert condition or battle stations. Allow for a boatswain's pipe sound for captains use...ie alert crew ship is docking/undocking etc.

... Have a visible alert condition light in every section, controlled by captain or his appointed crew member. Three colors should be adequate...ie green for condition safe, in safe zones...yellow for alert condition, entering pvp zone....red for battle conditions...high probability of attack.

... The entire ship should not blow up, because one section has been destroyed except in the case of the reactor section. ALL sections should have to put the attacking ship in the visibility, line of sight of several gunner positions. Of course these positions will need to be manned.

(a) If reactor section is destroyed....entire ship is destroyed. same scenario as happens now.

(b) If hangar section is destroyed....all avatars in that section are ejected as now, but no one can use TP and craft can not be launched or landed until its repaired.

(c) If propulsion section is destroyed....all avatars in that section are ejected as now, but ship is "dead in the water" until its repaired.

(d) If Command Center section is destroyed....all avatars in that section are ejected as now, but all section health bars are eliminated, lights get dim, almost dark on entire ship and view screen if implemented go black, People cannot be summoned, the ship's televators become unusable, (not sure what else to put here..as I'm just sort of thinking out loud here). If this section and either hanager or propulsion are both destroyed, entire ship is destroyed until its repaired in dock.


I know there are going to be other sections of the ship. Like I've seen a sort of launch tower in the hangar, which has some future use control panel in it, so ideas would be determined to the funtion of said new areas.


I dont own a large ship. So of course my ideas are subjective. If some owners like these ideas, or part of them, they can elaborate.

I post here because I think if Space can be more of an adventure, more folks will play there. More people anywhere in this game is a plus.

EDIT: some new features will probably be forth comming with new or existing upgrades...so all this was without knowing funtionality of those upgrades..

 

[Nukem]

Alot of great Ideas in this thread, i definitely +1 the added management ability. Certain people on the guest list should be given the rights to be able to manage the ship same as the person that hold the deed does.

 

[Parlog]

- especially the docking is a serious problem, even more for a Privateer pilot, sicne we have no hangar to simply fly off. When the docking fails the captain and his crew are imprisoned in the Privateer. The only way to get the crew out is to kick them from the ships guestlist, now thats easy... I as a captain are currently imprisoned in my own Privateer ship without any means to leave. Docking seems to fail in 50% of the cases then i got a huge problem.

- i like many ideas of the OP but some cant be copied for a Privateer ship. There is no real distinction between the four parts, we only have reactor and propulsion SI-bars and both repair points lie directly next to each other.

- i like the screen idea and i guess it came up in every repair crew ive been in so far. I thought i might hire some gorgeous female dancers to dance on the propulsions, that might do the trick too.

- unlike in a mothership in Privateer ship are no sounds, no fire, no explosions when attacked. All the crew has to find out that they are under attack are the 2 health bars..

- seats would be nice for passengers, maybe even a simple tabletop game like inHan Solos Millenium Falcron (lol). I seriously got asked by a crafter if there is a crafting machine on board, where he can beat down the waiting time.

As it is now, its nice, but far from perfect...

 

[sbi]

- The option to set up different crews and crewsettings and change between these instantly... I.e. one crew for hunt, one for travel, one for pvp etc.

 

[John B Knight]

I forwarded another collection of our suggestions to Mindark - please find a copy of a crosspost i did on EF below:

Dear David, Kim,

or whoever from Mindark team may read this.
With some more time and thought put on the needs of motherships and others spacecraft - i would like to ask you to forward the following suggestions to the dev team for consideration. Alot of players have shared their ideas with me and i hope this gives you a good feedback on our view and wishes
--------------------------------------------------------------
Soc like guestlist management including:
- assignment rights for every station on board (pilot, co-pilot, gunners (please each chair individually))
- include a captain / commander rank - make them able to summon passengers / crew
- give officers the right to assign rights within their responsibility - e.g. Lead gunner can assign all gunner seats
- give captain / commander a crew terminal to see if every crew member is at the assigned station
- implement a 'ready' button for captain / commander to sent a ready question to all crewmembers which they have to click to show green on crewterminal (with timer)
- display crew job titles while on board of a mothership

other features:
- Onboard screens to display custom messages / onboard adscreen terminal (ship internal).
- Shipname in summon message / custom text in summon message
- Single person summon / summon list to assignwho gets a group summon
- transparent windows on board / more windows on board to allow repaircrew & passengers to view actual space
(a solution to 'transparent windows' could be to add an 'npc'-item on the outside part of the wall where the window is located, that has a static first person view and streams that view on the window(calculation for the view could still be clientsided))
- customizable mothership - let us texture/color them
- allow areas on board where items can be dropped by the ships owner (can only be picked by the owner)
- manual docking/undocking feature please - to be controlled by the pilot
- optional first person view with onscreen coords for mothership pilot please (currently they have to navigate spamming the 'position'-key)
- allow fighters to be assigned to motherships
- make assigned fighters join the forcechat
- tactical display for mothership co-pilots with the right to assign waypoints and escort positions
- increase viewable range of mothership they currently can be attacked from quadwings from out of sight while the large mothership guns should have a range advantage by nature
- disable dragging healthbars in space, its to easy for pirates to navigate by healthbar and staying out of sight, there should be no indication for the presence of other ships except what you can spot in viewable area or using some kind of short range radar still to be implemented
- The kill of a mothership currently leads to a disconnect of most of its crew, please make dying of a large number of avatars in one place a smoother process - maybe with delayed spacestation respawn timers to keep us all online.
- add maximum carried weight limitations to all kinds of spacecraft and have it impact speed when succeeded, that will give motherships the role of mass transport they were promoted with
- increase the size of space alot when implementing warp drives to give motherships an edge over current fighter transports

destroying one section of a mothership should not lead to destruction of the whole ship:
- destroying propulsion should only kill the ships maneuverability and boot the crew of that section into space
- destroying hangar should just kill the possibility to launch ships from it and boot the crew of that section into space
- destroying reactor should boot the crew of that section into space and trigger a timer for complete destruction of the ship - should still leave the crew the possibility to launch shuttles into space using hangar if intact
- destroying bridge should boot the crew of that section into space and disable all guns
- repairing all sections should still be possible except reactor
- please add selfdestruct button with 1 minute counter to ship to avoid the ship being 'trapped' by pirates

more ideas:
- add comlink terminal for future use of assigning and navigating fleets (should include, tactical screen of space including all ships of a fleet, and have an assignment function to promote one of them to command ship)
- remove the 1 minutes spawn timer while in space, this will allow crewmember of a mothership to spawn fighters for other crewmembers who may not own one
- allow a fixed maximum number of spawned fighters to stay online 24/7 when in hangar bay or close range to mothership, regardless of the owner being online - number to be defined in regards to balancing
- allow a motherships owner/commander/captain to clear the hangar deck with a despawn button
- tractor beam for corpses/wrecks to loot them from onboard
- onboard lights and sounds for red alert when in / approching battle - to be activated/deactivated from captain/commander
- allow battlespeed (120%-150% of normal speed) at the cost of damaging propulsion modified by speed increase and duration of speed increase to not be used extensivly for normal travel
- when reactor and shield upgrades are on their way, please allow them to be upgraded in a way like SI.
- please allow upgrade steps for motherships on lower amounts of minerals (maybe decrease step value by 10 and increase number of steps by 10)
- when drones are on their way for motherships, please think of a way that players can repair them like fighters ( there is already a room in the ship that might be used for drone launch and repair
- please allow mothership & privateer teleporters to interconnect with each other when ships are docked close by
- allow docking between motherships in deep space
- allow docking between motherships and privateers in deep space

Being able to target a team leader and summon the whole team would be a nice way for target summoning. Together with the possibility to charge people already with the summon message if they accept (second accept for payment) and get them automatically added to guest list.

A nice way to reduce the spam factor of summon messages would be to change them to appear like achievments 'The Mothership XXX is trying to summon you...' and with a message in the message box that you can open at will and approve to be summoned.

- add an 'inactive guest' list book that is client sided where you can copy the whole guest list over and back and manage them either ingame or in an external file

- inactive guest list should not be limited in the amount of names that can have an entry - when copying over the lists you could still implement a delay in name processing to keep serverload stable - e.g. 1 second per name

Crew benefits:
Traveling from orbit back planetside is getting quite expensive for a standard mothershipcrew or every regularly traveling passenger.
Please add an option to subscribe to a monthly teleporter flatrate to utilize spacestationTP->planet transport for those players who regularly travel space like mothership crewmates.
In case the orbit pvp zone over calypso is intented for balancing needs - the teleporter could have a mass limitation (eg. only useable without stackables).
Regular traders would then still need fighter pilots for landing.


allow mothership owners to buy more upgrades to their ship:
- onboard biodome
- onboard crafting terminal

---------------------------------------------------------------
Its a long list i know and some of those listed requests are urgently needed improvements while others are just wishes for a 'once upon a time' scenario.

Thanks for taking your time to read all these suggestions

Kind regards
John