Space - 'I saw it coming' - both bad and good!

Hi folks,
two levels of approach here:
What problems will be caused in the first run into space that (will) have been pointed out here beforehand and thus show lack of thinking capacity on the dev side?
What will they actually implement quite well? (sorry for the word 'actually' dear devs - this is, for many and myself, the half of the topic that has more capacity to surprise us...!)

Label problems as P: , success as S:
So, based on ZERO knowledge, just my thoughts on possibilities,

P: if you log off or crash while on a mothership it will carry on without you as they forgot to program in 'carried' status to avatars and just still logged them on current position. Result: log back in in space and be revived possibly on an asteroid or other 'remote revive' with no transport available...

P: some mats to make spaceships will be new mats from space itself. Watch the markets go crazy as even mothership owners decide it is better to do asteroid mining than transfer ppl around.

P: Some spaceships won't have range to planet-hop in theory. In practise, motherships (at least 2 required) will sit at spots (1/3 along?) the 'green non pvp' lanes to allow refuelling between two planets. These will get paid a toll rate instead of a transfer rate. As they will be able to handle a 'rolling' rate of short range ships, there will be no need for more than about 10 motherships in the game.

The last two P's contradict each other a bit, but have the devs got both bases covered I ask?

S: the devs have used the event booking system for booking flights. There is an estimated departure time which can be seen in the info and clear info on how many bookings are required for the flight to take place. The devs even programmed in that motherships have to stay in orbit around the leaving planet while timetabled - the list thus stays short-term and the offered flightplans are more likely to be serious. The 'participants' get time-limited access to the ship, as opposed to crew, who the owner grants more permanent access to being on board.

S: if a flight is routed as 'green zone' the pilot cannot leave the lanes and go into pvp space by 'accident' or design to get pirated.

S: Reputation works really well and happy passengers are able to recommend their favourite pilots.

So, it's up to you... some negative possibilities, some positive. What do you think in the week BEFORE it all happens about what WILL happen? (Plus discussion afterwards lol)

reserved for some of the best pre-seen problems...

so far some of the 'problems' are seen as intentional ways of draining peds, such as oxygen requirement or orbit 'decay' !
I was actually hoping more for the unplanned problems which could easily be foreseen by a thoughtful hamster on his coffee break!

Special praise to John B Knight with post #13 for pointing out quite a few - a brilliant 20 minutes of effort there... here, do have another cup of coffee!

and yes, failed,failed,failed shows that even working systems can be screwed up - and MA are a looong way from reimplementing what has long been promised too....

reserved for some of the best positive forecasts...

Mac at #11 has an Atrox on board. It died on takeoff back then as it couldn't sit down, but maybe a bit of fun will be possible now with virtual virtual troxies on the mothership holodeck ... with virtual loot coupons for virtual drinks at the bar, or other fun stuff...

reserved for some of the best conclusions to come in later on....

Orbit decay tax : Your ship has lost orbit so now you pay to be put back into proper orbit.
The space ship comes with its own transporter so now you just beam mob up to your hanger for processing the added weight of the mob however causes you to lose orbit.You guessed it ,more Orbit tax!
Bug : You go mining and when you return to space all the ore floats out of your inventory and then rattles around inside your ship causing . . . you guessed it ...a warning ...."your orbit has decayed".

Oxygen available from the trade terminal.

Could happen....

Preparing to enter orbit...
Failed
Failed
Failed
Failed
Failed
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Failed
You have been killed by another avatar. Please go to the repair terminal for 500 PED vehicle repair.

Dear Participant,

Using motherships to avoid damage by brainsquid is an exploit. Your account has been locked and all your ship r belong to us.

i just want to fill my cargo holds up with live atrox and cart them off to rocktropia for feeding time.

jetsina said:

there will be no need for more than about 10 motherships in the game.

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this would be pathetic if it was limited to this many.

we have a comunity in the thousands and you want only 10? id like a zero added to the end of that to start with...

Nihilist said:

i just want to fill my cargo holds up with live atrox and cart them off to rocktropia for feeding time.

Click to expand...

In Cape Corinth way back when, I used to have quite a few space cadet mobs waiting for a ride in my ship when I wanted to go to CP. I tried to take this Atrox for a ride but he couldn't figure out how to work the seats so he died on take off, there were many noobs who died for the same reason if they took too long to try and figure it out. I'd arrive at CP and get a PM, "Hey, somehow I died, I'm back here at Cape Corinth " ok, some other time then

Paulhe: I didn't say I wanted only 10, I foresee a possible problem that owners will park motherships in suitable places to be filling stations and ppl will thus transport themselves in otherwise low-range spacecraft.
It's just one thing that 'could' dramatically affect the value of a mothership downwards unless MA have thought of that (e.g. motherships don't have refuelling facilities for short range space vehicles).

Then smart ppl will take a spare in inventory for the second leg of the journey and hop across while on the mothership.... leading to MA banning more than one ship per type in inventory at a time..... who knows where the story will go - I'm just thinking about how I'd think if I were designing, and can then compare to what things really become. I just wanted to write some of it down and ask others BEFORE we all beome 'wiser'

Issues that i fear were not thought of:
- people getting disconnected during space flight with no update of vehicle guest list leading to filled up list of people who are not on board and block the slot for someone else
- unhappy customers due to pilots who cleaned the guest list, thinking the passengers arrived
- disconnect during space flight leading to log back into empty space with no ability to move / closest not guest list restricted revival with no connection to any planet and no spaceships nearby to make a transport
- revivals on motherships being not guest list restricted and people dying in space who are not on the motherships guest list become revived on it -> could lead to cheating the system to transport more then 50 passengers -> could lead to people travelling with the ship without paying
- players getting lost in non-planetpartner-owned serverspace and direct support line by mindark not yet set up
- chat in space still being tied to calypsos twin peaks when it goes live
- spaceships counting as vehicles and can be flown through - leading to alot of pilots from smaller spaceships hiding in mothership target box making them invulnerable to others and at the same time able to kill of a mothership over time without the motherships gunners being able to shoot back - pirate socs hiding with dozends of smaller ships in the structure of a mothership and launching their assault whenever someone leaves safety zone
- change of vehicles back to non passable massive structures to avoid target box issues - leading to mothership pilots being able to use their ships as bulldozers when aproaching smaller vessels.
- spaceships colliding for serious damage with invisible objects/server boarders
- no security check for motherships aproaching server zone towards planet - leading to motherships flying down to a planet they are not able to enter and becoming stuck
- movement speed of spaceships being as slow as planetside making spacebattles pointless and boring with motherships being the kings and others being the virgins
- viewing range in space being as low as planetside, leading to gunners not being able to see their targets while their shooting range is 10-100 times higher then their viewing range
- oxygen used by mindark to make spaceship owners pay per hour regardless of if they use the ship or not / or make them pay per passenger
- space being lootable pvp and players need to put specific item categories into spaceship storage to take them with them, storage can be lootet and ship owners can view what is in storage - leading to geedy shipowners giving hints to pirates when to bring up their ship - in the above case of storage management of shipowners it is very important to only show the weight/itemcount and not the item info in detail
- pvp decay not going into lootpool making space pvp extremely expensive - i hope they have considered decreasing pvp decay and ammunition costs in space by 99% in regards to planet side pvp - as im quite sure space ship connons will use even higher amounts of ammo then mounted vehicle weapons currently do.
- texturizing/coloring update not in place when space is opened - making it inpossible of customizing spaceships as they cant be handed over into inventory
- people being able eject themself out of their spacecraft and setup spys in space on frequent traderoutes, because mindark forgot that space has no air and players should die when leaving the spacevessel
- security check: recall vehicle button pressed in space - to which planet storage is the vehicle returned if you are not on a planet
- mothership owner/pilot gets disconnected in space pvp and cant log back in for several hours due to provider issues e.g. - are crew and passengers now doomed ? does the ship make its way on autopilot ? if there is a function implemented to handle such an issue, was it thought of if that could be used to cheat in pvp to retreat safely ?
- with the implementation of hyperspace later on, will it be a real hyperspace or only some color effects to make it look like one ? in the later case i fear that players could figure out the exact flight route between two planets and park a ship there to bump ships out of hyperspace (if ship structures got changed to massive non-passable again) and launch a pirate attack on them.

Thats my 20 min of thoughts for now, im sure there are many more i havent thought of yet.

jetsina said:

.... there will be no need for more than about 10 motherships in the game.

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there will be as many as is required to refill MA's bank balance.

Hyperspace will be like tp'ing. How it'll work in 3d though is anyone's guess or its just a way to get between the space regions for each planet.

Motherships will likely be permanent, i.e. you can't pick it up and it won't disappear when a pilot logs out, as it also supposedly has a tp then that it becomes even more likely.

Has it been confirmed that space is lootable? I've not seen a confirmation or denial from MA or SDS.

Biggest problem of all I see.

MA is introducting a completely new system before they've completed the previous systems.

If they can't manage to finish and resolve bugs in previous systems first, why in the hell are they going to make something else that will add more problems to their list?

MA is trying to add more content to increase interest in the universe which is great. BUT. Without first completing their TO DO LIST, they are just adding more fuck ups!

I've already lost faith in them because of their lack of resolve to repair and maintain things.

They just want to build build build. I gues it's all about if they keep adding more eye candy that'll keep people distracted from all the crap they ignore to address. How about those beacons, and pet deeds people have laying around. YEAH SPACE IS HERE .

Just One

Hunting of Space mobs will all be done from vehicles with mounted weapons - (because there is no air)

Which leads to many more, but I'll just go with this one.



Miles

Thoughts on John B Knight #13:
solid ships v transparent ships: that's a biggie, yes! You mention problems with both. I think there will be more problems with transparent ships, but it could be that 'walkable' ones will be like permanent 'buildings', although mobile, while pocketable ones will stay transparent. Even so, will turrets have blindspots etc,etc?

I imagine both versions will be colliding with stuff out there.....

Avatar transportation: I'm hoping you will book a seat via 'event' functions and the pilot receives a 'mission' to fulfil his/her promise. If the ship doesn't go where stated the booking peds will be returned to players after 1 hour, or whatever time period. If the booked seat isn't filled in the 15 mins before takeoff, then bad luck for the person booking.

You make good points on things like vehicle speed and viewing distances too...
Revival and recall: yes, also important areas which can be screwed up.

Storage: will people take dung with them to automatically hide clues as to what they are actually carrying? Will it weigh down motherships? Will MA introduce a 'danger: pvp lootable' folder to inventories and make everyone click 'yes to board ship' in full knowledge of what they have on them?

I look forward to more thoughts....

I'm also getting more and more worried about the lootable pvp side....
It's one thing to lose some of a mining claim before you can get it out of lootable pvp, but to have your cargo of maybe k's of peds at risk, and not even fully under your own control if on a foreign ship!!!???
I imagine there will simply HAVE to be green routes, which will be made intentionally longer and will increase fuel use, but by how much (i.e. what factor of fuel and time) and how much will goods transporters transport anyway?

I could envision something like a safe storage terminal on space ships with limited item count and amount, for which spaceship owners could set a fee related to space used.
This safe storage could be unlootable and it would be left to the players to pay the fee or travel taking the risk.

More things i fear:
Burried / Non-burried radar in space with or without autotarget - there are just so many ways that could be hard to balance when ships of different size and guns of different strenght are involved
I hope mindark thought about implementing a 3D radar and possibilities to mark targets for gunners.
Also i hope space will be huge in all dimensions, not just something like a corridor with some space between, otherwise this could leed to pilots flying along the borders just to make sure they only need to watch 180degrees and not 360.
Another important thing will be ammo usage, will the ammo be supplied by the ship or by the gunners themselfs ?
If its the ship - its owner could have to pay alot if he lets the wrong gunners in the seats, if its the gunners - what do they have to win spending their ammo to make the flight more safe for others ?
And another issue i see when it comes to massive spaceships - in case you cant bump other away - has mindark forseen the possibility of others blocking a mothership in safe zone with smaller ships to make it impossible to move ?
Will it still be possible to mount items in midspace and generate protection walls and blocking zones that way ?

jetsina said:

P: if you log off or crash while on a mothership it will carry on without you as they forgot to program in 'carried' status to avatars and just still logged them on current position. Result: log back in in space and be revived possibly on an asteroid or other 'remote revive' with no transport available...

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Not quite the same but as I was leaving a Mothership on a Space Vtol piloted by a MA representative my PC froze then ctd'd (insufficient ram, now remedied).

When I logged back in a few minutes later I was at the target destination of Port Atlantis.

Ok well thee biggest problem i see with the whole idea of making players use this service is the speed of the "service" itself.If were going to be standing around waiting for pilots to be online so we can travel between planets people will stop going all together.
And i really hope that the facilities in space wont be built with alot of useless waisted "dead area" so you have to run all over the place and waist time.

John B: your comments are exactly the sort of thing I hope have long been brainstormed already, but fear, like you, that they have not been!
3d radar is a must, yes, but could be implemented with dots on thin lines leading to the plane of the horizontal. As you get further from the centre the lines have to be shorter anyway, as you are reaching the edge of the radar sphere. If a long way above you, the tag line will be close to centre of the radar, but with a long line. Lifting the nose up towards it will shorten the line, but send the line and the point further out towards the edge. People would quickly get used to it I think...

Who pays for ammo is more of a problem, yes. I imagine there will have to be 'valuable' points to be gained from hitting the right targets - maybe the owner will have to 'fertilise' the points fund. Players use their own ammo, but get rewarded for success from the fund. That would be my first idea for a solution at any rate...

I imagine bigger ships will have a much bigger 'grip' on space than smaller ships and will be able to 'bump' them out of the way when under power.

Thank you for taking the time again to write more thoughts. It makes the thread worth it, Thanks to the others too ofc, but I think we agree that John has had by far the best thoughts so far!

A simple request.

I see a lot of people complaining that MA are developing "new systems" when old systems still are missing and have yet to be restored to the game.

What most of these people are forgetting is that space itself *IS* one of those old systems that's being restored. Perhaps you've missed all of the hangar and ship owners wondering when they could get back to business?

And it seems to me that this space component is expanding this game's potentential by exponential factors, and is critical to the idea of expanding planets and more environments and creatures to hunt.

Just a thought...

Kuber said:

A simple request.

I see a lot of people complaining that MA are developing "new systems" when old systems still are missing and have yet to be restored to the game.

What most of these people are forgetting is that space itself *IS* one of those old systems that's being restored. Perhaps you've missed all of the hangar and ship owners wondering when they could get back to business?
And it seems to me that this space component is expanding this game's potentential by exponential factors, and is critical to the idea of expanding planets and more environments and creatures to hunt.

Just a thought...

Click to expand...

What the hell are you smoking?

Space IS NOT ONE OF THE OLD SYSTEMS.

Hangars/ships were simply in effect a PLAYER OWNED TELEPORTER. Nothing more, nothing less. To believe anything else is nonsense.

Yes I do agree space is expanding the game's potential by an exponential factor.

And THERE IN LIES THE PROBLEM. If MA is unable to adequatly handle the current issues and problems, what makes you think they can handle the list of problems associated once it's increased by an EXPONENTIAL FACTOR?

Shew said:

What the hell are you smoking?

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That's my business.

Shew said:

Space IS NOT ONE OF THE OLD SYSTEMS.

Hangars/ships were simply in effect a PLAYER OWNED TELEPORTER. Nothing more, nothing less. To believe anything else is nonsense.

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Yes, I see your point. They were a player owned teleporter, which looked like a SPACECRAFT which could only land in a SPACECRAFT HANGAR, had a GUEST LIST and used SPACE SHIP PARTS to function and required amounts of OIL AS FUEL, which you climbed on board, sat in a SPACECRAFT SEAT and waited for the PILOT to LAUNCH THE FREAKING TELEPORTER INTO... SPACE... WHERE IT TOLD YOU, ON YOUR SCREEN, THAT YOU WERE FLYING THROUGH SPACE... and then of course when you ARRIVED AT SPACE PORT HANGARS or the HANGAR THAT YOU FLEW OUT OF IN THE FIRST PLACE... then you CLIMBED BACK OUT OF THE FARKING SPACECRAFT and told the pilot THANK YOU FOR FLYING US IN YOUR FARKING SPACECRAFT...

Just because the original "space experience" was hellatiously crappy in appearance doesn't mean it wasn't supposed to be space travel.... to asteroids... and space stations.

Shew said:

Yes I do agree space is expanding the game's potential by an exponential factor.

And THERE IN LIES THE PROBLEM. If MA is unable to adequatly handle the current issues and problems, what makes you think they can handle the list of problems associated once it's increased by an EXPONENTIAL FACTOR?

Click to expand...

Well I was flying around the game universe in my Sleipnir Mk1 TELEPORTER and the world didn't end. Each day this happens, my faith in MA continues.

Well, space has been here for a few days. What did MA get wrong, by design or lack of thinking, or both?

1: log out when you see a potential pirate nearby, wait a bit, then log in again. Result = probably escape being personally looted. Your ship might be destroyed in the 20s, but if you don't put anything lootable in the inventory, no problem. You will then choke (I believe here it's 10 seconds from logging on: confirmation anyone?) and may even complete your journey if past the tp border.

2: If you get killed in space your welding wire gets looted too, so you can't repair your ship without help.

3: Have I seen correctly that to initiate a mothership for movement you need an energy device? That's like selling a car without the keys!!!! There also seems to be no indication of the SI improvement an investment in gold etc will get you, only that it depends on your skill level. Purely on that, or is there a random element too? No knowing what an investment even 'may' get you is just not on MA (not ok!).

4: With a 2D map it seems you can fly over or under 'safe' areas/parking zones.... and from inside a safe area, unless you do the maths, how do you know how far you are from the edge of the sphere if +- 1k units from the z-axis?
Thank G it's only a virtual universe! - oh wait - you can lose real money if you navigate wrong here....!

If I'm wrong on any of these points, then sorry, please correct me - I'll edit.
What else have you spotted?

Edit (simpler than new post...) Question: Are you counted as on board a mothership if you are still on your sleip inside the ship? Even weirder... what if you put passengers in pitbulls lol? Please test this for a laugh and 95% chance of a support case to report it afterwards!

2. Lootable welding wire - according to Kim|MindArk this will be changed so that it behaves like ammo/probes/ped stacks - i.e. - not lootable.



Miles

Ty Miles - I'm glad the welding wire 'error' will be corrected.

We also have a further addition to the pitbull in hanger question I asked.... using it as spawned storage at a space station while you zoom off quickly to the next safe haven. Recalling it to 'storage' when you arrive in the safe zone may then in space atually recall it to your inventory, and you will have transported your goods safely to the next zone. Rinse and repeat...
I still have the question of whether you count as being onboard a mothership if in the hanger in your vehicle unanswered. If the mothership is destroyed do you even land in space in your sleip and can take part in pvp/looting?

Oh, and combining with pitbull - can you fall into space with your pitbull if you were in a destroyed mothership hanger? You can't go anywhere.... but your pitbull has SI 1800, which may even survive you a press 't'....and far more probably a logout - and it's a far safer place for your goods than anywhere else it seems. One of the pictures MA used for space (and client loader pics) has 'hummers' parked in the hanger bay. This must therefore be considered an accepted feature for any vehicles you may have and wish to spawn there.

Oh, and is there any news on using the 'post position' command to see where you are in space while on a mothership, but not in a pilot/gunner seat? (Also useful for spies sending mates their position...)

AND THEN...... there's the karma system! What a crazy implementation of an idea which might be good in theory, but should have been THOUGHT about before being programmed.
Not being able to see the karma of ships in auction is just one of the failings here. Please get rid of the basic good/bad based on first ship kill for starters, MA! And yes, ship-based is also a bit stooopid really anyway, as a pirate won't mind not getting further points in a 'good' ship used for 'badness'.. (if that's how it works at the moment)...