Best Of
Re: Tweets!
When you go from the starting interceptor to a destroyer and things stop existing because you turned in their direction. Prime.
Kovac
3
Re: Cosmpiercers: Problems and an Ambitious Proposal
I realize that we're still at a developmental stage in Starmourn and that future content may better supplement the current cosmpiercer system, but I just wanted to highlight some challenges with it and consider some changes. There's a mixture of low-hanging fruit and more ambitious propositions here, but it's worthwhile to start some dialogue anyway.
Hot take: Changing the guard and control mechanics was a step in the right direction to encourage PVP, but there are still some fundamental shortcomings as related to cosmpiercer accessibility and incentives to participate.
Travel and Accessibility
By intrinsic design, your faction-mates should be scattered across the Sector at any given time, making unanticipated "grouping up" to defend a cosmpiercer a non-trivial affair. As such, aggressors will always have the advantage by initiating conflict. The shield generator phase affords some delay, but as compared to the time it takes to muster a defense and to travel, this is insufficient. Moreover, a prepared aggressor who can use Engineer Wormholes has an even bigger advantage. Having at least two online engineers is effectively becoming an entry requirement to remote PVP, and this places too much bias and need on this class for a game with fluctuating population and with no classflex option. Presently, it's far better to just attack another cosmpiercer instead of defending your own, which is also a pretty undesirable tactic.
This is just my take on some possible solutions and mitigations.
1. Consider a portal mechanic on cosmpiercers, for ships or for players (latter probably preferable). I'd propose a teleportation station that links to and can only be used by the controlling faction that deposits in or outside the cosmpiercer, depending on the player or ship version. This would give much-needed help to defenders, and would also help dissuade factions from just responding to attacks by attacking somewhere else. This may need some limitations, like a cooldown on use. If you want to get fancy, allow the teleporter to be hacked by aggressors to disable it for a 5-min reboot.
1. Consider a portal mechanic on cosmpiercers, for ships or for players (latter probably preferable). I'd propose a teleportation station that links to and can only be used by the controlling faction that deposits in or outside the cosmpiercer, depending on the player or ship version. This would give much-needed help to defenders, and would also help dissuade factions from just responding to attacks by attacking somewhere else. This may need some limitations, like a cooldown on use. If you want to get fancy, allow the teleporter to be hacked by aggressors to disable it for a 5-min reboot.
2. Enable installing cloning facilities on ships to allow for local redeploy. If implemented with the above, this would be a comparable counter to a defender portal. May also need some limitations - longer cloning time, number of uses, etc.
3. Create an item that may be deployed in a room and targeted for an Engineer's wormhole, destroyed after 30 mins or some duration - removes requirement for two Engineers, and enables the wormhole target to be other classes.
4. Introduce some ship-to-ship (or basically space-to-space) wormhole mechanic - allows one pilot to reach the destination and to facilitate grouping/coordinated engagement from a common point back home. (This could be a cool consumable reward from the Y'saari, maybe - like a portable voidgate tech thingo, hey)
5. Add classflex - better enables accessibility to Engineer/Wormhole.
6. Add a teleportation mechanic to return players to their faction's station from anywhere. Alternatively but preferably additionally, create a command to voluntarily kill your current clone.
Cost vs Rewards
In the current system, given the investment into ships, ship supplies, ship insurance, and cloning fees, the marks trickle from capturing cosmpiercers is not even remotely worthwhile. Cosmpiercer surveying is also not an apparently useful benefit.
1. If not increasing the marks for economy reasons, consider adding other rewards: discounted voidgates, extended ship beacon in controlled zones, faction xp boost, TBD cool shiz???
2. Faction influence: This currently only applies to Song and Scatterhome, but I imagine this is rarely utilized in either case. Consider some active benefit to influence; e.g., allow spending influence to earn a faction favor. I'd also be a proponent for decaying faction influence for other reasons, but won't get into that here.
3. Enable COSMPIERCER SURVEY [FULL] to be used remotely to locate mining resources, and/or create a command to ping all controlled CPs to search for a particular resource.
4. I have to believe that there is some future vision for cosmpiercers that further incentivizes the "sensor station" element of it - something like having rare/fleeting resources that are reported to the controlling faction if it appears within CP sensor range. But, it'd be nice to give meaning to controlling or monitoring the CP space that ties into future conflict events or other content.
Azlyn
3
Re: Announcements post #54: Cosmpiercer Updates.
Don't think you have to remove guards or a bonus for defenders altogether.
Maybe a guard pack/a straightup buff to all combat parameters/something like that scaling to CP level and population. Or a teleporter room with a shortish (~5m) cooldown that takes defending troops to the CP (offensive side can still leave a wormhole in a docked ship).
Instead, now the attackers have an (almost) automatic point lead for the KotH. Put that on top of battle time selection, and it's gonna be heavily attack-favoured.
Maybe a guard pack/a straightup buff to all combat parameters/something like that scaling to CP level and population. Or a teleporter room with a shortish (~5m) cooldown that takes defending troops to the CP (offensive side can still leave a wormhole in a docked ship).
Instead, now the attackers have an (almost) automatic point lead for the KotH. Put that on top of battle time selection, and it's gonna be heavily attack-favoured.
kamyr
1
Re: Tweets!
But where's the subscribe button?Yimh said:Social media in Starmourn? I'd like to hope we'll evolve past that in the distant future. Like and subscribe.
Peiry
1
Re: Cosmpiercers: Problems and an Ambitious Proposal
Deltron you forgot the part of *except you two engineers. you get to sit either in a room or on a ship and make wormholes* like Zhulkarn said, not every part of the raid is a group activity. When i am not making wormholes for a raid i am playing APC which involves long stretches of waiting for the assaulters to die so i can ferry people back in with minimal risk to the factions ships. ti's a group activity but it isn't the kind of group activity where everyone involved does everything together.Deltrion said:Zhulkarn said:Or you can have a naval blockade. It is not like you lacked the number of ships.
I am still puzzled why leaving a watcher is neglected at such scenarios."Hey! You guys wanna go participate in some good ol' fashioned group endgame content together? Cosmpiercers! There's generators to kill together, guards to kill together, terminals to hack together, and maybe even some bad guys to fight off together! And if we succeed, we'll even claim a little bit of the sector for our faction. Should be fun and engaging for everyone!""Great, your job is to not do any of that, sit in your ship outside, and spam beacon. Someone might show up to move guards around. We'll go do all the group stuff.""Oh"Zhulkarn said:@Deltrion
First of all, I am sure all the attackers chose the proper timezone for a balanced fight...but...oh...they did not right? They actually do not care about a fun battle but an easy conquest. So let us stop there pretending that the attack was intended to have fun "together" It was a clear shot to grab a cosmpiercer or two. Clearly it is not fun for our part when waking up to lost cosmpiercers.
Nice satire though I give you that. But it does not change the fact that Ship PvP is part of the game. With your all prettily bolded "together" words you assume that all activities should be done together.
No. Certain roles should be shared. In no side of this activity it is said that you should do all those activities together in succession. This is not a three-stage attack but a three-layer attack. You have to consider pros and cons of all those layers connected to each other. While the tactic in question might be controversial, that does not change the fact that the attacking team deliberately ignored prevention of the landing party.
Kitrana
1
Re: Cosmpiercers: Problems and an Ambitious Proposal
It could be said that leaving someone or a couple of someone's outside of the piercer to prevent defense parties from landing is part of support and logistics, and probably effective at stopping defenders from even being a thing.Deltrion said:
The point was that that its boring and counter-intuitive, and Zhulkarn was seemingly confused why people didn't do it so I tried to point it out. The bolded words distracted him though so he breezed right past the exploiting part, so I'll have to cut that back in the future. Is leaving a watcher a legit strat? Absolutely, and apparently effective. If people want to do it, who am I to stop them? Just like what you're doing. THAT isn't game-breaking.. If thats how you want or like to contribute to piercers then great, more power to ya, and its still part of the teamwork! I've always said that logistics and support is crucial, but I would never force someone unwilling into doing something not fun. I actually do like to see different tactics and approaches to various situations besides the ones we do (or do not) come up with!
I'm excited to see what the dev team comes up with for the future!
Kitrana
1
Re: Cosmpiercers: Problems and an Ambitious Proposal
Cubey said:I'm fed up with the whole "if we're on top then all's a-ok but if we're getting our collective ass kicked then the system is unfun and needs changing" attitude that permeates this whole thread. No, let me fix that: it permeates every cosmpiercer discussion we had on the forums. IC tribalism should be kept IC instead of leaking into out of character discussion.If me calling people out on this is personal attacks then I don't know what to tell you.
If you honestly consider you oocly claiming tribalism when you basically are the one who has habitually brought it up in every thread that anyone from Song has decided to contribute to and or be involved with, then I don't know what to tell you.
We have from start to finish on the forums and on discord been against the way Cosmpiercers have operated, and it can be seen in almost every thread about it. So I'm not sure why you are intentionally trying to spin a fictional narrative, but perhaps you should keep that in character rather than letting it leak into out of character discussion.
We have from start to finish on the forums and on discord been against the way Cosmpiercers have operated, and it can be seen in almost every thread about it. So I'm not sure why you are intentionally trying to spin a fictional narrative, but perhaps you should keep that in character rather than letting it leak into out of character discussion.
I try not to go out of my way to fight with people over stupid shit, but you have literally gone out of your way to do this every single thread, you need to chill.
Vega
1