Yes but only for one gameplay loop that we don't have since redoing the entire economy already in place isn't happening. Maybe something related to powerplay, or the next big thargoid-esque threat. Not a rework of a the whole economy, just one new loop.
Vanguards / Squadron rework screencaps from stream......
- Thread starter Rubbernuke
- Start date
Agree. I just don't get what could it be ?
It requires something really new to be added. Even "boss fight" didn't work. It was a lot of solo players fighting Titans.
Agree. I just don't get what could it be ?
Can only speak from my own experience, but it was during the Titan-slaying phase of the Thargoid invasion that I joined a squadron and got involved in more stuff happening in Open/PG with other Commanders. Attacking Titans or defending ground ports have been some of the most fun things I have done with other players in this game. If FDev can recapitulate that kind of experience outside of the Thargoid context, that would be great.
Noone spotted this - you could infer that the player limit on squadrons will be increased from the 500 it is today.
The above left grab, seen in OP's post as well, is in-steam at 42:52. Another, the right grab above, can be seen at 48m in-steam.
It wasn't explicitly mentioned at all, so - might be something that needs clarification since it'd be a very popular thing for quite a few large squadrons out there.
You see the ten top ranked CMDRs in the squadron, then "+591" and in the other it shows "504" playercount for the "Squadron Name" squadron.
It wasn't explicitly mentioned at all, so - might be something that needs clarification since it'd be a very popular thing for quite a few large squadrons out there.
You see the ten top ranked CMDRs in the squadron, then "+591" and in the other it shows "504" playercount for the "Squadron Name" squadron.
I'm all for that too, but magic Squadron mining spells? What's an in-universe way to explain it?
The same space magic that allows you to store 40 ships on a fleet carrier.
Agree. I just don't get what could it be ?
Titans were very much designed that you can also take on them in solo instance. Let's start small scale, how to make that one multiplayer: Just imagine both the vents and the heart were vulnerable for half as long as they were. So all but the best pilots would not have managed to make the circle on time by themselves, but would have needed a second or third player to cover it. Yes, it would have been a shortcut, but it would have taken the very content there was and merely by the vents and heart being so far apart, would have changed it to require minimal player cooperation.
Yet i also agree, that for one, it would have been the lazy option. And it would have boiled down to: each player parks at one corner, does one job, then lets the other one do his job. That's uninspired, so let me just paint an extreme-opposite picture. Imagine that the Titan is even bigger than now. Basically the size of an Orbis station. (That size picked due to it clearly being feasible in the engine. ) Now we add some features:
- You have kind of the starport section on either side, but of course much more organic looking, with lots of stuff floating around in there. One of them is so cramped that only small ships can navigate inside there.
- One side is open from the start. To open the other gate, you have to fly in there and uses your built in scanner tool (or a new tool just for that) on that node. As the inside of that place i more of a beehive and not visible from outside, you have to get in there.
- When using that thing, the entrance for the other pod open. But only for like 10 seconds.
- The other thing also has such a panel inside. Which has to be used within very short time. So, one player has no chance to go from one panel to the other in the given time.
- Once the second panel i activated, the thing exposes another target on the outide and initiates a purge protocol. So, everybody has to rush out. Hit the outside target. Rinse and repeat. Up to now, this is very much what the Titans were, except that it already requires two ships.
Now add:
- The areas inside also have drones. And they respawn. Being hit by a drone resets your manipulation progress. So you either are extremely fast in killing them, or you better have a buddy along to cover your back.
- The Titan has contact rods outside. Once a ship is inside one of the two areas, scout ships spawn and try to activate those rods. If that happens, an energy blast is activated, destroying any human ships in a 20 km range. This means that you urgently need some more competent fighters, who intercept and destroy those scouts, before they manage to interact with that rod. Maintaining a good fighter screen requires competent fighters. More than one, because no matter how good the people outside are, there are several of those rods, so you need more pilots to cover them all.
Bonus points, if you want to also include Odyssey:
The
Would it be work to implement that? Yes.
Would it be possible to implement it? Also yes, most of the things described already exist in the game in one form or another, albeit some are in CQC and thus completely forgotten. Only the part of the nearby station including ground combat could currently be impossible, due to how instancing work. But alas, if could also be possible that the ship landing in the second area is actually a troop carrier, so people would have to get in on foot to reach some switch.
If you then still recycle some other already existing Thargoid content, SRVs might also still become necessary. Thus the scenario i painted would required both big and very potent combat ships, small and nimble combat ships, SRVs, a ship able to carry several players (there might be just one landing pad, and the content inside the station is designed to require more than one person on foot. And if it's just as you have to hit three switches at three different locations at the same time. ).
And if i wanted to push the limit, i could still describe some part where a healing beam, railgun and plasma accelerator are needed for different things, along with different kinds of scanners and limpets. In cramped space, on small ships with a limited number of hardpoints available. Which increases the number of ships and thus players needed.
I came up with that in no time. The real time consuming part here was to type this text. And yes, providing the right look and feel would be some work. While we have a lot of the described mechanics already in game, it's on CQC assets. Thargoid-style visual counterparts would have to be built. It's not done on a lazy afternoon. But it clearly would be possible. And keep in mind, what I now made up here might be a bit extreme. You would probably need 15 to 20 players, perhaps more, to get through that scenario. Most of the tasks would not be too hard for a mediocre player, but so many different places would have to be covered at the same time, that any less players will drive up the challenge ration a lot.
And my point basically simply is: i can come up with a scenario which requires player cooperation immediately. I now have put down one, and i basically just did so by stealing from a movie. I right away have several other movies in my head, which i could turn into yet another such cooperative combat scenario. Yet i think that one, for the moment, is enough wall of text.
I am convinced that implementing this would be possible, as i could also, by adding even waaaay more text, explain where in game these mechanics already have been used and thus exit. With, as said, the exception of cross-instance interaction (means, the station a moon nearby), which might be an issue on how the game is implemented. I am not sure about that.
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Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
... and allows an unlimited number of other CMDRs to dock - possibly with full cargo holds.
Really underwhelming. Feels like RNGineers / multipew levels of nothingburger MVP. I really hope FDEV aren't lapsing back to their 2016 version. The winter update must really knock it out of the park, because between this summer update and colonisation (which was originally planned for 2024 and is still in beta), there's not much content really to sustain the momentum the game had last year, which brought back so many players.
My thoughts on what was shown:
My thoughts on what was shown:
- existing squadron features with a new UI / moved around - nothing wrong with that, but is it really what goes around as content these days?
- logo creator - cool I guess, but imho not the most pressing issue. So if you have 1000 players in 10 squadrons, is this gameplay "feature" consumed by 1000 customers or 10 customers?
- squadron roles / permission groups - decent feature. Must be a godsend for large squadron bureaucrats. Not so much for your average Joe though.
- squadron wallet - arguably the best thing coming out of this update. I am really glad to see FDEV shed their fear of zeGoldsellers and implement this. Even if it's 10 years too late.
- perks - feeling two ways about this. It's an interesting take but feels a bit gamey. I'm also afraid it's gonna end up just like PP2.0 rewards, feels aww! in the beginning but once you realise you got a bazillion credits there's no point to it anymore.
- squadron carrier - just an uglier looking carrier layout. Where are my sleek PP2.0 stronghold carrier layouts!?!
- ship bank - you buy a vanilla ship to gift it to someone else? so it's like shipyard + outfitting but with extra steps? can't I just give the money to the guy and let him buy the stuff himself - why would I want to play buttler for him?
- commodity bank - wait, aren't carriers doing that already?
- "people coming together and setting objectives for themselves / other members" - haven't seen anything really where you could set objectives / issue orders etc. that is actually supported by the interface. Setting up a squadron with a mining perk isn't really the same as defining an objective. "You get more fragments - go out there and mine 'till your joystick breaks!" isn't a goal or a mission.
- "compare vanguards within a certain area (e.g. mining)" - can't say I care at all about leaderboards, but even this feature hint seems to be missing. I think I saw separate leaderboards by size but not by activity.
- "onboarding new players / offline communication to get people to join a vanguard" - from what I saw communication was limited to the bulleting board / squadron feed, so not sure that this is still an objective to be ticked off by this update.
- the bank being given as a solution to "onboarding a new player to e.g. AX gameplay" - good luck achieving anything of this sort without the ability to share engineered ships / modules. even ARX pre-built ships come with engineered modules...
- "take the vanguard and push it into the BGS" - was really hoping that one part of this update would be the replacement to PMF submissions, seems not. I think FDEV have a hard time understanding that PMFs are all about roleplay and some players just don't want to roleplay as "Peoples Party of CBX23DS"
Now, question is, do it reward more than solo ?
Yes - do we drop soloers? ...yes/no variants
No - why do we bother to do it ?
But... but... LOGOS!
Yea. Unfortunately i have to agree to most of what you wrote. There's a few nice things in there. I do hope that the squadron carrier will actually be a squadron tool this time. And i hope they still add things to do, for which having a squadron is really helpful. While i have ideas on such things (see above), they unfortunately have not shown anything like that.
What they presented are some small, nice improvements but nothing huge, which makes me go wow and makes me eagerly await it. For me the most positive aspect is that they showed that they have not completely forgotten about squadrons. And maybe, just maybe, (hope dies a slow and painful death, after all), they actually also will still add something which makes an actual squadron, along with other players, worth having.
was kind of hoping I could share cargo space privs on my carrier with my squadron. Not have to buy a whole new one.
In the given scenario: would the Titans have been like that right from the start, there would not have been the question "more reward than solo". It would merely have been "do the new content or do not". And at least for many of the AX people, context as described could have been a very pleasant surprise.
I mean, it seems like your question always is "and why would i play with other people?" In this case, you better stay in solo and be in a squadron of one. But it would then be more than fair that, in the rare chance that content turns up which promotes cooperative gameplay, it would not immediately be asked to convert it to solo content. We do have enough of that. Most of what i do is solo. For the game really promotes solo activity more than cooperative play.
I would so much welcome anything different. Anything worth doing together. Any reason for squadrons to work together. (And sorry, PP even in version 2 is not cutting it. While you coordinate which systems you prepare and undermine, you still best do it solo, so nobody can interecept you. Flying together with somebody else slows you down more than it helps you. Anything changing that would be so awesome. )
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Ye, probably. I had to fly 2 years until all that ended
I like calculated, long tasks. I'm just happy I properly computed charge plan for the carrier for 2 years. It's more fun for me than pew-pew.
I don't understand the rationale behind excluding engineered modules from the squadron ship/module bank. It really doesn't take all that much time or effort to build up the cash to buy A-rated modules, so what's the point in having a squadron hand them out?
I don't understand why would anybody take that ships
This is fun killer. Like, if I get everything made by others, than what left to play ?
That had to be coming...
The CQC one will be the most popular.