Realistic Repairs after Death
Upon the death of a capital ship, have it re spawn in an isolated system not unlike the Bastille.
Here, the ship will be docked at a repair station - a base which offers all the amenities of a normal base (ammo, bots, bats) as well as a commodity called "Repair Crew."
This "Repair Crew" commodity must be purchased in order for a server command to move the Capital ship to the house space of its origin to operate, though after no less than four hours have passed since death.
This "Repair Crew" commodity should be prohibitively expensive.
An alternative for this might also be to require all cap ships to carry around an unmountable item which instantly is destroyed as soon as it is dropped and is required to be carried at all times (forcing repurchasing every time the Cap Ship is destroyed).
Another alternative for this might be forced renaming of cap ships that have died (IE, USS ENTERPRISE is renamed to USS ENTERPRISE [X] to signify that it has not been "repaired" yet and thus cannot partake in RP or undock from the base from which it respawned until an expensive server command other than the /renameme server command is used to fix this. The forced rename will count as a /renameme meaning that the ship must wait seven days before renaming the conventional way at just 2 mil. Until then, undocking from a base on a death marked ship would be a sanctionable offense.
Realistic Fuel Consumption
Have all ships carry a source of fuel, something which decays, at all times. The ship may engage in any normal activities while there is fuel within the cargo holds of the cap ship, but must replenish said fuel stocks or risk a sanction for operating without fuel.
Added on:
This would result in a game play mechanic that introduces a limit on the range of operations of the capital ship and dependency on refueling supply ships during incursions into enemy territory (leaving a supply line for enemies to attack). Also, bases which provide fuel can become contested territory as they are strategically important areas.
Realistic Ammo Consumption
Have all capital ship weapons converted to ammunition based weapons. It wouldn't hurt to strengthen said weapons quite a bit, <strike> but also make ammunition replenishment expensive. (also, drastically increase the capacity for ammunition, or have up to 18 versions of the same weapon (seems to be the highest occurring turret count for capital ships though this would be ridiculous).</strike> make ammunition capacity large enough for practicality, but low enough to require resupply in the middle of engagements.
Added on:
This will serve as another limiter on the operation time of a capital ship, but on combat rather than traveling range. Also adds on a logistics supply line mechanic during enemy incursions.
The purpose of these suggestions is to:
A) Add another measure of realism to the game which is always welcome
B) Make capital ships more expensive to maintain, and more difficult to maintain without support from others, especially for combat (fuel and ammo may be big areas of required cooperation between the capital ship and several support ships for the required maintaining supplies)
The original point of the cap ship was to be another way to bring players together as a junction for RP - not the massively spammed solo-ing indie ridden mess it is now (that coming from a soloing pvp woring indie cap like me, that has to count for something).
Having this system could potentially remove the retardely nerfed version of the Capital ship, and allow it to actually be used for something. The current system of keeping the capital ships in check is to make it ineffectual against most things - this makes soloing just stupid. The system that i am suggesting keeps captial ships in check by making it utterly dependent on the cooperation of other players, and that of a good pool of resources. If this is implemented, there is no reason for the capital ship to be just bomber fodder - weapons can be made more effective so the capital ship can actually be very useful in combat, but only when accompanied by a fleet for support (for replenishing fuel and ammo). This not only makes indie soloing of capital ships stupid, but downright impossible.
Implimenting a system of dependancy for fuel and ammo also introduces so much more depth for fleet combat (as logistics for supply ships must be addressed, as must the defense of said supply ships -and the targeting of enemy supply ships).
Wow no thanks, if it's going to be like that make the BShips much more powerfull since they ALWAYS die the way theya re right now. Fuel thing is good, not the sanction part, but make it for EVERY ship in game.
The idea of an item that must be carried in the cargo hold is a good idea, actually. It does take a goodly amount of resources to field capital ships, and a faction or players should have to question whether or not it's resource-effective to deploy a capital ship.
It would certainly allow for some more strategic gameplay....
You mean it's fine how a completely random person can procure a capital ship and fly around in it blasting everything at a whim?
It makes no sense. IRP, you'd think that the factions would, I don't know... control the number of capital ships in operation?
Short of restricting capital ships to official factions, this seems to be a way to fix the problem.
So no. It's not fine how it is, not in the least.
' Wrote:The idea of an item that must be carried in the cargo hold is a good idea, actually. It does take a goodly amount of resources to field capital ships, and a faction or players should have to question whether or not it's resource-effective to deploy a capital ship.
It would certainly allow for some more strategic gameplay....
Could add in a gameplay mechanic where fuel rich systems can be contested by means of events to dictate where fuel could come from. This would be a good in-game way of dictating the effective range of capital ships IRP
Main issue for the fuel mechanic would be setting a balance... It would require a ton of tweaking to find the right balance between capitalships being worth just enough to bother the fuss with organizing fuel logistics. Also, if fuel were to be implimented for all ships, it would require cargo size balancing on a massive scale, as well as setting up a painfully complicated series of what ship uses what fuel for balance issues.
