Exploration : an Aircraft Carrier / Mobile Base could be fun

[Warker]

Hi.
I have a dream (okay it's dejà-vu ^^)...
I am an old Eve Online Player and I love to bring all my stuff where I go. Elite Dangerous offer us a lot of opportunities...
So many unknown systems to discover... so many evil opponents to pod... sorry to destroy ^^

So what do you think about this :

A big MF ship (XXXL) in which one you can store a few ships (one Adder to mine, one Cobra to explorer and fight, one Python for dealing with heavy dudes... and on more ship perhaps ?), some fuel and ammo to resupply, and have a few empty decks (see below)

Your aircraft carrier can deploy itself when immobile, so it becames a kinf of base... with some turrets perhaps...

Let's go further...

No you have your own base in the middle of nowhere, new players are coming... need some fuel ? Ammo ? OK let's dock dudes !
I am looking for someone to provides gear, food, fuel ... what about working together ?

What do you think about my idea dudes ? I know Elite Dangerous is not Eve Online and there is no need to create the same game, but I think if Frontiers allows us to have Carriers and to conquers systems, it could be very very fun !

Cya,

Warker

 

[DocLooshkin]

As much fun as it might be, the devs have said many times that they don't want any one player to become too powerful in the game. They want the game to be about ship-to-ship dogfights, not empire-building. Fair enough, so. Still, everybody's hoping for some limited aircraft-carrying ability to eventually appear for the Anaconda (it sometimes carried Sidewinders in the original, IIRC). This seems to be at the upper limit of what FD are willing to do, if they do it at all.

 

[Psycho Romeo]

I really like the mothership - fighter relationship. Not in the Battlestar Galactica sense, but more so the SPaZ sense.

The mothership was this pretty frail thing that was more a hanger and an ore processor than a weapon.

Someday, I'd love to see some modules that can make an Anaconda be able to turn metal in its cargo hold into hull/module repairs and ammo refills for docked sidewinders/haulers.

I would be a god among new players.

 

[Tryst]

A really big cap ship (mothership) would be nice, something that can take even a single a smaller ship like a Cobra but still have a huge jump range. With so many systems to explore, we can find systems with considerable resources that we can mine. The smaller ship can be used to mine the ore and the mothership to transport it. The mothership would of course store things like spare retrieval drones if we get disposable ones so we can stock up before we leave to rearm the smaller ship.

Horrendously expensive, has the biggest FSD in the game (size 10 or such so it has a 100Ly jump range fully loaded) and capacity for 1,000 cargo space. Too big to dock anywhere so it means parking it near a station at a ship relay or such to unload. Unloading is done with the smaller ship back and forth to the station until the mothership is empty. Cannot refuel using scoops due to lack of agility so refuelling has to be done by the smaller ship launching, scooping and returning with the scooped fuel repeatedly until the mothership is full. This messing about to load and unload it makes it practically useless for short distance trading but a major benefit for long distance mining.

When you buy it, you have to fly the smaller ship to the relay to dock in the mothership before you can fly the mothership. Refuel, repair and rearm at the relays. the relay could quite easily be situated at the back of the station.

The smaller ship is used to mine and return to the larger one to dump the refined goods. Rinse and repeat until the motherships cargo bay is full. Then dock the smaller one and jump back to civilisation to sell what you've mined.

Not really much point in having so many metal rich deposits so far away if we can't actually mine it is there?

 

[RadimentriX]

because i'm waaaay too lazy to wright my oppinion on carriers again, my post from this thread https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=133628&p=2048194&viewfull=1#post2048194

you, sir, YOU!

when i was at work some hours ago, i thought "how frickin awesome would it be to have a "small" carrier where i could put some ships into and then just switch to one of my docked ships and start flying around with it while there's a small "mobile base" with some weapons above me"
i thought that it could/should have:
2 large landing bays (for anaconda/t9 etc)
2 medium landing bays (Asp etc)
~5 small landing bays (Cobra etc)
1 "escape pod" which is located on top of the carrier and not inside the hangar, with a door similar to the one the Eagle has to shield its top heat sinks. and in this special escape pod bay sits a sidewinder (no other ship should be able to park there)
it only has one internal compartment for a shield generator. scanners, fuel scoops etc shouldn't work in there but fueling could be done through a docked ship, so one just refuels on a star with a ship (for example with an Asp explorer, which also scans everything in the system), flies back to the carrier, transfers the fuel and flies out to refuel again until the carrier and the fuel-ship are full.
weapon-wise i thought about large turrets, 2 on top, 2 on bottom 2-3 on left and right and a single one to the back and then maybe 3 huge weapon slots for fights against other carriers

this ship would be interesting for many people i guess. it makes relocating to another star system/constellation easier, traders could fill it up with T9s, T7s etc and could max their cargo because the docked ships wouldn't need shield generators and for doing missions/bounty hunting it'd be cool too because it doesn't matter where you have to go or how far you fly, you always have the stuff you need with you, especially if you leave colonised space.

such a carrier would be a real goal to reach for me

the only problem would be: if you die with the carrier, everything that's docked is gone. and if you die while outside of the carrier: you respawn at the last visited base while your carrier still waits in space. you can see in which system but if you've been flying to USSs, you're probably in for the search for a needle in a haystack

 

[Warker]

Hi dudes and thanks for yours answers.
Well, I undestand the "mobile base" may be a problem, but the carrier is, IMAO, something we will need in the future.
Imagine : you have 4 or 5 ships and you want to move far far away in the galaxy... Will you do it for every ship ... it will be boring...
So if we can buy a carrier in order to move all the ships at once, it could be nice !

I love the ideas of Radimentrix too ^^

 

[Shadow_]

support the idea with carriers but think it is just too much for one player. i think we will need carriers when we have proper clan, corp system. i imagine for these carriers to be very expensive (will require combinations of resourses from clan members) hence very powerfull with huge cargo bay and controlled in two possible ways i see
1) literally by several (5-6 etc.. high rank trusted clan members players (multicrew) and this requires literally all crewmembers onbard at the same time for it to work or
2) NPC controlled in strategy like style. for example clan/corp can call in for this ship during battles when needed. it will be NPC controlled but still be part of the clan, fight the enemy and still act as mobile base for clan members to be able to dock with it for repair, refuel, store cargo.
in this way - we will not give to much power into one hands as frontiers want it while players stay in a ship to ship dogfight mode but still get interesting gameplay

 

[DocLooshkin]

I really like the mothership - fighter relationship. Not in the Battlestar Galactica sense, but more so the SPaZ sense.

Excellent reference. If FD or anyone else wants an example of how carriers (and other multi-ship implementations, such as NPC wings) can work in the context of a game like ED, we needn't look much further than SPaZ, especially mid- to late-game.

For those who haven't played it, SPaZ (Space Pirates and Zombies) is a surprisingly well-developed indie game, a 2D top-down space-shooter which allows you to control several spaceships at once, switching freely between them, with the AI controlling any ships not currently in focus. The player can either use the off-the-peg designs or design their own in a simple editor and they can be optimised for roles such as combat, mining, etc, in similar fashion to ED. The ships are then spawned by the carrier and can be set to automatically respawn on destruction.

While not all of its ideas are likely to be ED material, it does show how a system can be implemented without it becoming too powerful: at various points during battles, both construction materials and time are scarce resources, making it non-trivial to respawn all but the smallest ships. While it's possible to outgrind the game at times, on the whole, SPaZ keeps its challenge up. In ED, it's not hard to think of factors that could be applied - recruiting from a highly limited, server-controlled stock of NPC pilots would seem like the most plausible mechanism for achieving this, I think, especially if losing ships damages your reputation and makes it harder to find good pilots.

 

[M3SS3NG3R]

Personally I am leaning more towards BSG style capital ships (ie: capital ships owned by power factions like the Federation & Empire and controlled by AI with players hired as mercenaries/enlisted pilots), but I'm going to find a copy of SPaZ just to make sure how it works.

 

[Soto Banaris]

I say ship these capital ships along with certain limitations to them to make them more balanced. If they can be balanced, there is speaking less against them.

Step 1 - Allowance:
Since we roam the space of several factions such as the federation or the empire, one will need a certain allowance to even FLY such a ship. So you better be on the good side of a faction in order for them to trust you enough not to misuse such a big thing. Flying such a thing without allowance... Let's say a nice hefty bounty should do the trick. If you roam about with such a thing without an actual proper allowance, you can bet your frameshift drive that they will come for you in swarms. System Security as well as bounty hunters.

Step 2 - Armaments:
This is a carrier/mothership. It does nothing but carrying a huge frameshift drive and cargo-, ammo- and fuel storage in order to replenish the wings in its belly in the hangar bay. As such, the weapons of this ship... are the ships docked on it. Yes, you read that right! NO weapons whatsoever for this thing! It's carrying fighters and bombers already, it shouldn't need to carry weapons due to it not joining the actual battle. Scanners and electronics go OK, but nothing that can fire a projectile, missile or laser. This leaves option enough for interdiction with the ship, making it a mobile pirate nest or bounty hunter ship.

Step 3 - Dry dock:
Even this gargantuan ship will need to dock somewhere. We all can agree that this will need a new kind of stations since the current ones would be too small. Terminals rotate and outposts can't maintain/repair/refit such a juggernaut of a ship. The dry dock is the only place to dock such a big ship. Also these docks are scarce, appearing once every 100 to 200 Ly.

Step 4 - Slooooooooowpoooooooke:
Deal with it: You ain't going to do somersaults with this thing. Due to the sheer size of that thing, the turning circle is so freaking horrendous, turning around in normal space should be a pain. Since the ship is defenseless without protection, the best thing to do would be to hide its signature in the rings of a planet.

Step 5 - Mass lock:
No surprise there. This ship is massive, it has to have this.

 

[Psycho Romeo]

I say ship these capital ships along with certain limitations to them to make them more balanced. If they can be balanced, there is speaking less against them.

Step 1 - Allowance:
Since we roam the space of several factions such as the federation or the empire, one will need a certain allowance to even FLY such a ship. So you better be on the good side of a faction in order for them to trust you enough not to misuse such a big thing. Flying such a thing without allowance... Let's say a nice hefty bounty should do the trick. If you roam about with such a thing without an actual proper allowance, you can bet your frameshift drive that they will come for you in swarms. System Security as well as bounty hunters.

Step 2 - Armaments:
This is a carrier/mothership. It does nothing but carrying a huge frameshift drive and cargo-, ammo- and fuel storage in order to replenish the wings in its belly in the hangar bay. As such, the weapons of this ship... are the ships docked on it. Yes, you read that right! NO weapons whatsoever for this thing! It's carrying fighters and bombers already, it shouldn't need to carry weapons due to it not joining the actual battle. Scanners and electronics go OK, but nothing that can fire a projectile, missile or laser. This leaves option enough for interdiction with the ship, making it a mobile pirate nest or bounty hunter ship.

Step 3 - Dry dock:
Even this gargantuan ship will need to dock somewhere. We all can agree that this will need a new kind of stations since the current ones would be too small. Terminals rotate and outposts can't maintain/repair/refit such a juggernaut of a ship. The dry dock is the only place to dock such a big ship. Also these docks are scarce, appearing once every 100 to 200 Ly.

Step 4 - Slooooooooowpoooooooke:
Deal with it: You ain't going to do somersaults with this thing. Due to the sheer size of that thing, the turning circle is so freaking horrendous, turning around in normal space should be a pain. Since the ship is defenseless without protection, the best thing to do would be to hide its signature in the rings of a planet.

Step 5 - Mass lock:
No surprise there. This ship is massive, it has to have this.

Step one: I think you mean license - allowance is misleading.

Step two: I think more games need to take this kind of risk - motherships should be vulnerable in my opinion, like actual naval aircraft carriers, not battleships.

Step three: See below.

Step four: Slow? Yes. Hide? Never, really. Too big in my opinion.

Step five: A given.

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I don't think any player owned ships should be too big to fit in the mail slot. I think that's a good limitation on size. It would be kind of weird to see something like a majestic class interdictor log out.

 

[Soto Banaris]

Step one: I think you mean license - allowance is misleading.

Step two: I think more games need to take this kind of risk - motherships should be vulnerable in my opinion, like actual naval aircraft carriers, not battleships.

Step three: See below.

Step four: Slow? Yes. Hide? Never, really. Too big in my opinion.

Step five: A given.

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I don't think any player owned ships should be too big to fit in the mail slot. I think that's a good limitation on size. It would be kind of weird to see something like a majestic class interdictor log out.

What I meant with hiding in Step four is hiding inisde the ring of a planet, parking the ship there. It's a fact that you can't be found there if not entering a mining site. Or at least someone has to look for you in normal space very long. I don't know if this would apply if you simply enter normal space when there is nothing around or if there would be this unidentified/weak/strong signal. In FSD space you are a bright lightbulb, easy to spot, easy to scan, easy to identify as defenseless target if the enemy knows your fighters are in the battle right now. But entering normal space you are no longer a lightbulb. So hiding would mean taking the fighters to battle, jumping out again, gaining some distance in FSD and entering normal, empty space and wait for further requests for a rendezvous point.

 

[Psycho Romeo]

What I meant with hiding in Step four is hiding inisde the ring of a planet, parking the ship there. It's a fact that you can't be found there if not entering a mining site. Or at least someone has to look for you in normal space very long. I don't know if this would apply if you simply enter normal space when there is nothing around or if there would be this unidentified/weak/strong signal. In FSD space you are a bright lightbulb, easy to spot, easy to scan, easy to identify as defenseless target if the enemy knows your fighters are in the battle right now. But entering normal space you are no longer a lightbulb. So hiding would mean taking the fighters to battle, jumping out again, gaining some distance in FSD and entering normal, empty space and wait for further requests for a rendezvous point.

Are you implying they wouldn't leave a wake?

 

[Warker]

I love your ideas dudes
For the Step 2, I can't pick... weapons or not .... ? Maybe some missiles launchers and some defenses systems maybe ?
If you look at the current naval aircraft carriers, they have few weaponnery :
- some short range missiles launchers to take down aircraft and cruise missiles
- auto gatling guns for the same purpose
- flares and chaffs.
They relay on escort ships to protect them.