NPC ships in conflict zones, and ... some common sense.

[Ancient Forester]

Ok, we get it, most of the ships you face in conflict zones are, and should be, mercenaries. They should to some extent resemble "yourself". But, for simplicity, fdev has elected to follow certain templates.

However. Some of these templates needs some thinking.

I mean.

Since when does federal officers pledge loyalty to her royal animeprincessness of the empire?

Let me rephrase: Since when does a military officer pledge loyalty to an enemy and NOT get shot for treason?

What are "Federal Navy Ship" Pythons doing with prismatic shields?

Can we expect Imperial Navy Clippers with Cytoscramblers and Pacifier frags next? Or Cutters with Retributors and Containment missiles?

I can understand why you reduce data amount by running templates. But, the templates NEED to make sense, and power-specific modules should NOT be in a template when having that module on a naval ship (be that federal, alliance, or imperial) would mean that commander has literally comitted treason.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

It's very easy to pick these up by undermining independent powers, so it is possible to not have a conflict of interest here. Module shopping isn't really a pledge of loyalty given that you're going to defect as soon as you've got your new toy.

Personally I'd argue that prismatics should be in there as you're going to look for any advantage when building your warship. My Cutter has hammers, pacifiers and a prismatic, for example. I don't think you can have a go at FDev for having the NPCs do something that we do.

Now, if we are going to take issues with ships in the CZs, the T-9, Asp Scout and Asp Explorer are present there (The AspX even as a spec ops ship!). Really? Where's the FdL (aside from being a spec ops alpha), Mamba and Kraits?

 

[Ancient Forester]

It's very easy to pick these up by undermining independent powers, so it is possible to not have a conflict of interest here. Module shopping isn't really a pledge of loyalty given that you're going to defect as soon as you've got your new toy.

Personally I'd argue that prismatics should be in there as you're going to look for any advantage when building your warship. My Cutter has hammers, pacifiers and a prismatic, for example. I don't think you can have a go at FDev for having the NPCs do something that we do.

Now, if we are going to take issues with ships in the CZs, the T-9, Asp Scout and Asp Explorer are present there (The AspX even as a spec ops ship!). Really? Where's the FdL (aside from being a spec ops alpha), Mamba and Kraits?

You're not picking up the point here. I'm not complaining that individual CMDRs or the odd NPC Merc has such gear. But. Pythons uniformly carry shields that can only be obtained by pledging to a superpower. And these are NAVAL ships (this week's CG). This would be like the captains of the escort destroyers of the US CVN groups, having pledged loyalty to Li Keqiang, the Premier of the Communist party of China (not same as president). I doubt that carreer would last much longer.

Again: I'm not saying players (who are mercenaries) should be limited in what gear they carry into a conflict zone.

But. When a NAVAL ship (not local security forces, NAVAL) uniformly carries modules only available by pledging loyalty to their enemy, it's time to reconsider the template.

There's a reason the high intensity zones spawns Farraguts for Federation and Majestics for the Empire. And not just spawning any of them randomly.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

Perhaps with other powers. However, since Aisling Duval gains more from Federation and independent factions than Imperial, it's certainly feasible that Federation forces operating out of say, Chandh, would also be supportive of AD exploiting the system.

Powers seem to be more interested in following a particular ethos that fits in with whatever grand plan they have, rather than being bound by superpowers.

 

[Ancient Forester]

Perhaps with other powers. However, since Aisling Duval gains more from Federation and independent factions than Imperial, it's certainly feasible that Federation forces operating out of say, Chandh, would also be supportive of AD exploiting the system.

Powers seem to be more interested in following a particular ethos that fits in with whatever grand plan they have, rather than being bound by superpowers.

It's still "Federal Navy" personell pledging loyalty to an enemy of their "nation". It's immersion-breaking (to put it mildly).

And, let's be honest here:

The REAL reason this is happening, is that someone, long ago, made a template of "these are the ships you will meet in a conflict zone, there are no variances". The ONLY variance is that if the faction is "federal allied", Farraguts spawn at high intensity, and are they Imperials, Majestics spawn.

What I'm calling for is more variance. And variance of the immersion-creating kind.

Imperial navy should almost exclusively fly Gutamaya ships. Similarly the Federal navy should primarily fly Core Dynamics. For lore reasons. You will find some Faulcon Delacey at both of them, but not with pledge-specific gear.

For local factions who happen to be federal-loyalty or imperial-loyalty, that are using mostly MERCENARIES, there should be more variance. And they should not be labelled "XXX Navy Ship" (XXX being Federal, Imperial or Alliance), but "YYY Mercenary Ship" (YYY being the faction, in the CG's case Nova Imperium or League of Mandu, etc). And ... here the templates should include more medium ships than the Python (I find it almost funny none of the Kraits are to be found there. On the other hand, they would give us a lot more resistance than the current templates).

Frontier has enough data on actual player controlled ships participating in conflict zones to be able to create a script that actually makes variance on the templates dynamically, based on what we meatbags are bringing in. And not only the "I melt conflict zones for a living" level ships, but take ALL of the ship types people have brought in (make a snapshot of the ship config, it will only increase immersion for us). This also calls for some adjustment of combat bond values, and use some function based on rebuy-value of the screen. This would be trivial to add serverside, increase immersion, increase variance, and help us get a more "living" galaxy. Hence it's in "suggestions".

 

[ZuluOscarAlpha]

Imperial navy should almost exclusively fly Gutamaya ships. Similarly the Federal navy should primarily fly Core Dynamics. For lore reasons. You will find some Faulcon Delacey at both of them, but not with pledge-specific gear.

Just to chime in with another point in favor of this - keeping Imperial factions at, say, >90% Gutamaya ships w/ strong shields and Federal factions >90% Core Dynamics with their huge hull integrity would create the opportunity for players to prepare their ship loadouts accordingly. Having reliably predictable enemy types would reward players for bringing thermal weapons or railguns w/ feedback cascade when fighting Imperials, or corrosive weaponry when fighting the Feds. This is already sort of the case, but personally I'd like to see it become more extreme. It would also help build personalities for the factions.

 

[Ancient Forester]

Just to chime in with another point in favor of this - keeping Imperial factions at, say, >90% Gutamaya ships w/ strong shields and Federal factions >90% Core Dynamics with their huge hull integrity would create the opportunity for players to prepare their ship loadouts accordingly. Having reliably predictable enemy types would reward players for bringing thermal weapons or railguns w/ feedback cascade when fighting Imperials, or corrosive weaponry when fighting the Feds. This is already sort of the case, but personally I'd like to see it become more extreme. It would also help build personalities for the factions.

This. And it would add "lore realism". You're suddenly fighting a nation, not "just another CZ template, just like all the others". Perhaps fdev could even add "paintjobs" for the navies (that are non-user-obtainable) to make them uniform, etc. It adds immersion.

 

[metatheurgist]

The real problem here was adding exclusive modules in an attempt to make a game mode more popular. Didn't stop it from crashing and burning though. And how about that reboot restores shields to 50 nonsense, I wonder why that came to be?