| Author |
interdictors |
jedi42
Grand Admiral
Evil Empires Inc.
Joined: February 25, 2002
Posts: 478
From: jedi42
|  Posted: 2009-03-08 00:52
I've been really enjoying playing without interdictors. Seriously. It livens up the MV so much. I played tonight in what Bash described as a "Worm hole battle" (or something to that effect). It was really interesting, a lot of different tactics were used, the fighting was very balanced, and we all seemed to have a good time (people in all three factions), in spite of there being big ships (and many stations) and smaller ships involved, and in different systems over the course of the battles. (FWIW, I RESUBBED, simply because of the battle tonight and the way the gameplay feels like it used to + NO LAG).
I'm still cleaning the rust off my play-style from years of nearly complete inactivity, but as I learn the new differences, this has the "feel" of Darkspace I remember from the "old days". I am much more instinctive and capable in this version (1.5+) than the previous several. Those felt, well, laggy, clunky, tedious, and removed. This latest version feels involved, gritty, relentless, fast-paced, exciting.
Part of that excitement is not having to spend inordinate amounts of time being concerned with jump vectors, planetary-based dictors, and the surprise of a ship interdictor. It leaves a lot more time for strategy, getting wolf-packs together, and working as a team. There's only so much a group of 6 people are willing to put up with to mount an attack. Amidst the disarray, if there is a capable and experienced player calling out targets and indicating when to fall back (and where to fall back to) that watches and manages the battlefield (From a station or otherwise), you've got just enough time to spend 20 minutes or 30 minutes setting up a good strategy to assault an enemy force of nearly the same size.
If a dictor comes into play, you remove much of the assault capacity of an attacking force, meaning you have to spend much longer to get more people together, and not everyone has an hour to sit around while you try to get 10 folks to attack a planet with a shipyard that has 3 stations and some dreads around it, which can just pop back into existence and then chase down your stations and kill them before you can get out of dictor range.
For these reasons, the only acceptable way (imo) to bring back a dictor but retain the current fun-play (where planet-hugging is only done to resupply, not to be "super-invincible safe", is to make the dictors affect everyone equally.
I didn't read all 7 pages (nor much of it), but here's another idea. What about a fall-off range / graded effects?
0gu - 150gu from dictor = No movement from a jump. You're stuck.
151gu-500gu from a dictor = a 1000gu maximum jump
501gu-1000gu from a dictor = a 20000 gu maximum jump
Or tweak the gradients and include a spin-up time, as was mentioned before. The dictor shouldn't be 100% effective from 0gu to 1000gu (or some other range). And it should hit friendlies just as hard as enemies.
This would make player-dictors have to try harder, and camping dictor planets more dangerous for less mobile ships (like stations). Either that, or exempt stations from dictors entirely, since they only affect jump drives, not wormholes.
Aside from my suggestions (should they *have* to be reimplemented), I'm really with MrSparkle on this one. Leaving dictors out restores a good portion of what made the old DS so great.
I'm 100% against 0gu-1000gu dictors that only effect the "red guys", planetary or ship based. A compromise of adding spin-up time, grading the effects based on distance to the dictor, eliminating ship-based dictors altogether, and/or making dictors "omnipotent", would be reasonable, but not really desired imo.
What if the Interdictor was a weapon instead of a constant effect? I.e. you can discharge it on a particular ship and it has adds a 20 second "recharge" to the ships jump drive? Planets would target the closest ship (or at random within range), and players would have to decide who to target. Instead of this blanket-uber power of stopping whole fleets dead in their tracks.
[ This Message was edited by: dj42 {C?} on 2009-03-08 01:08 ]
_________________
jedi42, darkjedi42, [drunk], hoid o' toitles, evil, rum, cl2k drainer, gdi, {C?}, hive teets, fusion mating, perfect cloud formation, death star, point jump, tractor scout, torp det, def cluster, cloaked elf
|
Meko
Grand Admiral
Joined: March 03, 2004
Posts: 1956
From: Vancouver
| Posted: 2009-03-08 02:08
Quote:
| For these reasons, the only acceptable way (imo) to bring back a dictor but retain the current fun-play (where planet-hugging is only done to resupply, not to be "super-invincible safe", is to make the dictors affect everyone equally. |
|
this has been agreed apon by both sides of the debate already
Quote:
| I didn't read all 7 pages (nor much of it) |
|
then dont post untill you have?
_________________
|
jedi42
Grand Admiral
Evil Empires Inc.
Joined: February 25, 2002
Posts: 478
From: jedi42
| Posted: 2009-03-08 05:04
Go find someone else to pick-apart.
I made some valid points. If you don't like them, contradict them. But this isn't a 2-sided, black vs white thread.
I'm not sure why you can't see that.
A severe confusion of ideas has led you to believe I agreed with "both sides" here... when there are many varying perspectives.
[ This Message was edited by: dj42 {C?} on 2009-03-08 05:17 ]
_________________
jedi42, darkjedi42, [drunk], hoid o' toitles, evil, rum, cl2k drainer, gdi, {C?}, hive teets, fusion mating, perfect cloud formation, death star, point jump, tractor scout, torp det, def cluster, cloaked elf
|
Meko
Grand Admiral
Joined: March 03, 2004
Posts: 1956
From: Vancouver
| Posted: 2009-03-08 05:56
Quote:
|
On 2009-03-08 05:04, dj42 {C?} wrote:
Go find someone else to pick-apart. |
|
someone else didnt post in a very on topic, 8 page thread, without reading the other posts.
Quote:
| I made some valid points. If you don't like them, contradict them. But this isn't a 2-sided, black vs white thread. |
|
The bolded part: I dont like some, i do like others, however you would have known that had you read the thread.
The italicised par: Even though everyone feels differently about the dictors, at the end of the day theres 2 sides. "I Want" and "I Dont Want".
So when i say "Both Sides" i dont mean black vs white, good vs evil, i simply mean 'people with varying opinions on the same subject'
kapeesh?
_________________
|
Fatal Rocko Willis
Fleet Admiral
Fatal Squadron
Joined: March 01, 2003
Posts: 1336
From: Kentucky
| Posted: 2009-03-08 06:13
This is MY two cents on dictors....
Dictors should not effect thier own faction. Why is this? Factions simply have different warp signitures. That is how we know a enemy ship when it jumps past us.
The equiptment in a Interdictor knows this and modulates the field accordingly to effect all but the owning factions ships. I belive as has been said earlier that if you want to run an Inderdictor clas ship and have power to run it then you shouldn't be able to run over say 10.
If you run at 10 your power remains constant. Slower and power recharges. faster and power lost becomes faster based on speed. I also think Interdictors should be capped at a slower speed than a normal cruiser becuase of the all the equiptment required to run the interdictor gadget on the ship it would have a smaller engine. Lets say 18-20 max.
This speed of 20 allows basically all but dreads to escape by speed alone. And for those (dreads included) by seperation by speed or jumping add a longer recharge timer on the jump drive of the Interdictor.
Of course if a dictor fires its weapons it would drain its power faster.
As far as planetary based interdictors.... 1200-1500 gu should be the normal range imho... 2000 seems a bit much and 1000 seems to me (after playeing for so long) it has been a bit too little...
and if you are afraid of tranny rushes and what not... then maybe we should beef up the planetary def... Example.
LvL 1 Def = Beam
LvL 2 Def = Beam + Missile
LvL 3 Def = Beam + Missile + Faction Cannon
But I degress..... I think Planetary Interdictors should be fixed first then the ship... and if pirates cannot be effected by dictors its because the have some kind of warp stabilizer where interdictors do not effect them.
_________________
|
Russian Roulette with Muskets
Grand Admiral
Joined: September 04, 2002
Posts: 393
| Posted: 2009-03-08 08:20
Well, if wish to add fluff to explain why the dictor is faction blind, i'll use fluff to explain why it should not be faction blind.
Basically, the dictor generates a large handwavium disturbance. So the handwavium powered tachyon drives cannont create their handwavium ftl fields.
Such a disturbance in the handwavium would of course affect all sides since its a brute foce attempt.
If i throw up a tsunami, it will not care if theres an US navy ship in harbour or an Malaysian fisherboat, both are equaly in trouble.
If you wan't to have a faction blind interdictor, it has to be targeted, otherwise there will always be the question of faction blindness. Think StarWars interdictor cruiser here.
Having it affect both sides is actually beneficial to both sides, in a more stretched view of course.
The Dictor will prevent, or as was discussed, delay the escape or a given target. This means that it could be group jumped and killed way too fast for any help to arrive. This is frustrating for the faction that gets dictored and will lead to desertion of the battlefield because of one fact: Dieing is too costly. So of course ppl will not throw themselves into the same trap again and again and especially not when they have not been in the position to fight on even footing in the first place.
Having a faction blind dictor will at least increase the time needed to finish the escapee, giving everyone on the escapeed team a chance to do something other than watch him die.
Its especially crucial if you throw cloak shenanigans into the mix, which in itself harbour a lot of potential for problems.
[ This Message was edited by: Russian Roulette with Muskets on 2009-03-08 08:28 ]
Please stop using self-censored versions of swear words in your posts. I've edited at least a half dozen out now and I'm getting tired of it.
[ This Message was edited by: Shigernafy on 2009-03-08 08:31 ]
_________________
- In firepower we trust.
- I'm not buying this!
-we ran out of firepower.
|
Shigernafy
Admiral
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 5726
From: The Land of Taxation without Representation
| Posted: 2009-03-08 08:40
Meko: Its not necessary to read the entire thing you share your opinion. And in the end everything is an opinion, so don't pretend that your opinions are fact and thus more important than someone else's.
There also aren't two sides. The two main antagonists of the thread, you and Sparkle, have agreed on a resolution you would both like to see, but that does not mean that everything is resolved and agreed upon. There have been multiple other suggestions on how to balance dictors, and even if there are two large camps of "keep" and "remove", the keep camp has multiple opinions on the best form for the dictors upon their return.
Not that this post is a shining example of the opposite, but all you were basically doing was shooting him down because he shared his opinion after coming into the conversation late - but there's no harm in doing so.
I am convinced that dictors can add strategic and tactical depth to the game and alleviate the frustration of point jumping and effortless escapes. But I also still believe that there is an equally valid opposite to this frustration that deters play as much as your (plural, just the pro-dictor group) disappointment in your inability to shape the battlefield frustrates you. I don't think its clear cut.
Faction-blind dictors may fix some of these problems.
Side note: I think the dictor should have a more prominent visual effect within its range. There's a small red-dot swirl coming toward the user already, but it doesn't extend very far and isn't very noticeable. Some sort of visual disturbance out to the full range would be interesting so you know that you're dictored AND know exactly where the edge of that field is.
_________________
* [S.W]AdmBito @55321 Sent \"I dunno; the French had a few missteps. But they're on the right track, one headbutt at a time.\"
|
Sens [R33]
Admiral
Joined: September 27, 2008
Posts: 1020
From: Edge of th...
| Posted: 2009-03-08 09:32
although faction blind dictors would require teamwork to determine when to toggle the device on and off, it would be counter-productive without a reasonable range (1k-1.2k)
_________________
Proud member of the Order of the Gaifen
Founder and former Club chair of the Shigernafy Fan Club
Co-founder of the Doran Judication Comittee
|
MrSparkle
Marshal
Joined: August 13, 2001
Posts: 1912
From: mrsparkle
| Posted: 2009-03-08 10:22
First, I need everyone to know that I'm talking ONLY about ship dictors when I say I don't want them fixed. I do not believe that PLANET dictors should affect friendlies too, only SHIP dictors. What in the world would be the point in building planet dictors if they prevented friendly ships from jumping to or away from the planet?
Quote:
|
There also aren't two sides. The two main antagonists of the thread, you and Sparkle, have agreed on a resolution you would both like to see, but that does not mean that everything is resolved and agreed upon. There have been multiple other suggestions on how to balance dictors, and even if there are two large camps of "keep" and "remove", the keep camp has multiple opinions on the best form for the dictors upon their return. |
|
I'm an antagonist on this issue because I'm seeing just how fun the game is right now without dictors, AND I remember how fun the game used to be long ago when there was no such thing. I do not see the need to reintroduce them when the game is fun just the way it is? All it would do is add frustration when currently the frustration factor is absent...people are having fun and that's what matters.
That's assuming dictors - ship dictors - would be as they used to be.
Quote:
| I am convinced that dictors can add strategic and tactical depth to the game and alleviate the frustration of point jumping and effortless escapes. But I also still believe that there is an equally valid opposite to this frustration that deters play as much as your (plural, just the pro-dictor group) disappointment in your inability to shape the battlefield frustrates you. I don't think its clear cut.
Faction-blind dictors may fix some of these problems.
Side note: I think the dictor should have a more prominent visual effect within its range. There's a small red-dot swirl coming toward the user already, but it doesn't extend very far and isn't very noticeable. Some sort of visual disturbance out to the full range would be interesting so you know that you're dictored AND know exactly where the edge of that field is.
|
|
Yes I like the idea of a more prominent visual effect. Could help.
Can dictors add strategic value? Yes. But a game where there's multiple dictors on both sides would deter combat. The negatives of that outweigh the positives of the dictor's strategic value. Even adding just 1 dictor to a battle completely changes how people then play. We've all seen it, someone grabs a dictor and suddenly everything changes. Right now we don't care about that dictor since chances are it won't work (sometimes it does), so combat and the game stays fluid and action-packed, with people jumping in and out.
And worse: Right now we have no respawn timer after death. How easy is it for that dictor you just killed to come back in a brand new one? We see this all the time with other ships (dj42 knows what I mean after last night! Nearly got killed by a dread who jumped back into the fight immediately after losing his station). But imagine it with dictors? You can theoretically remain perpetually dictored until you die, because after killing that dictor you have a precious few seconds to get the hell out of there before he returns in a new one. And that's assuming there's just 1 dictor to worry about
What about the broken dictor's positive side effect of making tracking your escaped enemy a valuable skill again? Tracking right now is very valuable skill, a skill that small ships are useful for with their fast recharging jumpdrives. I can track any escaped enemy in a destroyer with a scanner. If I was a frigate or scout, it would be even faster. I can jump all over the place and it won't be long before I'm a few thousand gu away from him (scanner range). That benefits your team and gives small ships an extremely helpful role (remember when we were wondering how we could make small ships useful? Here's one way)
I'm telling you, the game is better without them. I can think of a lot of benefits to not having them in game, but few benefits from adding them back in; and a couple glaring, game-breaking problems like the lack of a respawn timer makes it even less wise to add them back in.
_________________
|
Borgie
Chief Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: August 15, 2005
Posts: 2256
From: close by
| Posted: 2009-03-08 10:22
Quote:
|
On 2009-03-03 12:07, Dark-Zero wrote:
in this case, 2 dictors is better then 1
They are needed, its probably the main reason why ICC and UGTO hate the cloak right now,they have no """""Real""""" way to stop them,
|
|
you haven't played luth have you? atm luths take more damage cloaked then when uncloaked pounding on ya
_________________
|
MekosPhone
Cadet
Joined: January 06, 2009
Posts: 10
| Posted: 2009-03-08 20:48
@MrSparkle: again it's the difference of play style; currently u have frustration while many others are full of it because of this very issue. I agree w u on the planet doctors again tho
@Shig: when I said "I like..." etc in the previous post it was due to him directly saying to contractict his points. I think You should know me enough that I don't think my opinions are fact. Secondly I jumped on him cause of the manner he walked in late, not that he did in the first place. I have been civil with sparkle even though he's the main advocate against my opinion yes ? So I obviously don't mind others disagreeing with me. What I do mind is reading the op, then posting in an 8 page thread, guess it doesn't remind u of someone walking into a conversation. And having to repeat yourself.
@rock and Russian, man u two brought up a whole new can o worms with yer crazy science talk  I like that discussion haha
======================
Since star wars has been refferenced twice now I'll pose a question to u peeps. What about gravity wells??? That's the basis of a dictor in starwars. They project artifitial gravity in a cone to prevent the ships ftl drive from spinning up to speed.
So the question would be; how do u feel about gravity wells in darkspace. All planitary bodies would essentially get a ... Say 500 gu 'dictor' that no one could bypass regardless of anything. (this would include gas giants etc...)
Guess I shoulda made a new topic 4 that 1. Sry :-/
_________________
-=Fix Dictors!!=-
|
MrSparkle
Marshal
Joined: August 13, 2001
Posts: 1912
From: mrsparkle
| Posted: 2009-03-08 21:50
The only experience I've had with Star Wars gravity wells and interdictors was thus: Gravity wells screw up incoming projectiles, making them inaccurate, and interdictors prevent the enemy from jumping in to the dictor's area. There's nothing about jumping out.
_________________
|
Bandit
Cadet
Joined: May 25, 2004
Posts: 165
From: Under a rock
| Posted: 2009-03-08 22:11
What about removing the dictor ship and putting the dictor on the support station. That will force them to heavily guard the station so that whoever is flying it wont get busted down a rank really fast..lol. But when the dictor is on, the station can't fire any weapons. This way, you leave the dictors in but make them really think about it and properly group up before they use it.
[ This Message was edited by: Bandit on 2009-03-08 22:13 ]
_________________
|
MekosPhone
Cadet
Joined: January 06, 2009
Posts: 10
| Posted: 2009-03-08 23:33
@MrSparkle: ya got me with the projectile, didn't think of that. But in the SW univers shots can jump in or out of gravity wells, so as long as the interdictor has em they can't jump.
@bandit: I don't think anyone wants dictors to be Stronger. I mean if they put em on stations my fleet would hotdrop that station on a badguy fleet with 3 line stations to cover + kill. That kinda change would kill the game fast ithink :-/
_________________
-=Fix Dictors!!=-
|
Sliverine
1st Rear Admiral
Joined: November 23, 2006
Posts: 29
From: Singapore
| Posted: 2009-03-08 23:34
from my point of view, dictors do add strategic value to the game but it also at the same times seems to discourage people from playing since it is a sort of 'inescapable' thing. Even if we were to make dictors affect both sides and make it weakened and slow and all it still basically does not negate the fact that people will be less willing to field good ships or even ships for combat.
What i think is that we should add some sort of new module in place of the aux reactor called a jd stabilizer or smth (lol) that players can opt to exchange. since aux reactors are only found on the bigger more power intensive ships it also fits in well with the overall gameplay as smaller craft can just outrun the dictor (hence not needing them) and bigger ships can equip those and jump out. In order to nerf it and make it that much less of a god-mode thing we can add in a moderately heavy jump delay despite having a stab and of course we can make it such that one stab counters one field only.
_________________
|
|
English
Deutsch
Nederlands
)
