(Cross-posted from reddit)
So, it's no small secret that people are a bit disgruntled atm. And honestly, while it is a bit annoying to see the same argument being made everywhere en masse, it's understandable where they're coming from. PvP in its current state is hard to find, isn't profitable compared to safe-zone mining, and is subject to its own slew of balancing issues. With these ideas, I hope to provide ***relatively easy-to-implement solutions*** to these problems.
But enough context, have at you!
**Idea 1: Derelict Ships**
**tl;dr - Randomly spawning derelict ships with lots of goodies that broadcast their position in a large radius for fun times to be had.**
This one is pretty simple in theory, and a lot of people have already suggested similar mechanics before. Essentially, every so often, a derelict shipwreck will randomly spawn throughout the belt and announce its location via a super wide-range transceiver, perhaps ranging along the lines of 25-100km or so.
- The derelict will vary in size from smaller fighter-class ships to large hulking capital-class corpses that'll provide ample opportunity for combat on foot. Smaller derelicts will spawn more often in the early zones, and larger ones will spawn more often further away. There should be the occasional outlier, though, if only to spice things up every now than then.
- The distance at which their transponders will broadcast will also scale with size, with smaller ships have shorter broadcast ranges than larger ones. This ensures that smaller derelicts will have equally smaller-scale conflicts, allowing smaller parties and solo players to have their fair share of action.
- The derelicts themselves will have a variety of goodies to attract all kinds of players to them, including things like rare ores (perhaps even small amounts of currently unobtainable ones like xhalium), high-tier weapons, machinery, devices, professional yolol chips, enhancers, hand/ship-mounted weapons, etc. The surrounding area will also be saturated with larger asteroids than normal, allowing even miners to get in on the action, as well as let conflict continue for a little while even after the derelict has been fully looted. Of course, these are just suggestions for rewards, the devs could just as easily have different stuff spawn instead if those would just break the game's balance. In my opinion, though, I think the game could stand to have more unique and hard-to-get items that people can fight over.
- Alongside these rewards, special "black box" transponders will spawn once per derelict. These special transponders will broadcast their location in a much larger radius than normal transponders. They cannot be put into inventories and must be bolted to your ship if you wish to transport one. If you somehow manage to bring one back to origin while fleeing the onslaught of competitors also vying for the black box, you'll be able to turn it in for a large sum of credits. After the derelict's transponder has been looted, the derelict will despawn if no players enter the area for some amount of time.
- These derelict ships will be in part designed by the playerbase in a similar vein to how the ship shops are currently being repopulated with new designs. This allows SSC players to also have a part in the process while they toil away at building their own ships. By making a community event out of the whole thing, it's my hope that it'll also do something to breathe a little life into the declining player count while we all wait for capital ships and moon mining to come out.
**Idea 2: Transponders for Cash**
**tl;dr - Transponders now track distance traveled and can be sold for a large sum scaling with it, making piracy much more profitable.**
Since every ship can only have one transponder, how about having them track how far the ship has traveled over its lifespan, acting kind of like a space odometer or a black box.
- Then, add a special NPC shop, whether it be at origin or the planned pvp station that just buys looted transponders and pays out scaling with the transponder's distance traveled. This would allow pirates to actually make some decent money off their trade instead of it being a pretty sub-par career choice compared to mining in the safe zone 24/7. It would also add a bit of prestige to long-lived ships that were able to travel long distances without being destroyed.
- This would also make seal-clubbing (hunting newbies) rather inefficient, as their transponders wouldn't have very much distance traveled to them compared to larger and more experienced targets. The distance-to-money scale will also be similar to that of an S-curve, meaning that small amounts of distance wouldn't pay out much, but also that extremely large amounts of distance wouldn't crash the market by creating absurd amounts of credits.
- One problem with this idea, however, is that there would have to be some kind of way to prevent farming credits with this method, as I could easily see someone just having throwaway ships meant to just roam around until they accrue enough distance to sell. I'm not entirely sure yet what a solution to this problem would be, but it should be noted nonetheless. One idea of mine includes tracking how many new sectors of space have been visited instead of just distance, but I'm not sure how difficult that would be to implement since I don't know how that part of the code functions. Suggestions on how to curb this issue are welcome, though.
**Idea 3: Safe Zone Dueling**
**tl;dr - Fully insured low-stakes combat option for new pilots, testing of ships, and casual/recreational purposes.**
At the moment, if you want to ever try out pvp, the only way to do so is to risk the ship you've potentially sunk tens of hours of progress into. My suggestion comes in the form of a traditional mmo player duel system, where two parties can agree to fight in a fully insured match where both ships are restored to their original state afterward. As the name suggests, duels can only occur within a safe zone, whether it be near the origins or by a player-made station.
- Before the duel, the surrounding area will be marked a "duel zone." All non-participating ships currently in the zone will be asked to leave or be forcibly ejected, and while the duel is in progress, no players, ships, or items can enter the zone.
- For the duration of the duel, both party's ships will be temporarily replaced with non-lootable versions to prevent any duping. After either party has no remaining members or concedes, the duel is over and ships are reverted back to their pre-duel state. All debris created during the duel is also deleted.
- Optionally, a bet can be wagered before the beginning of the duel after which the winner will claim the pot. This serves to spice up the duel by giving it stakes, while not forcing one party to suffer a full loss on their ship in the event of defeat.
- This system would allow for a more casual-friendly pvp experience than the current all-or-nothing wild west pvp in open space. It would also allow the chance for people to have friendly bouts without having to suffer a net loss every time for no reason. If one wanted to test out their ships if they were pvp-capable without having to lose everything on the first encounter, the dueling system would allow that as well. While one could make the argument that one shouldn't be risking ships they're not ready to lose or to only use really cheap ships, I think that being forced to potentially take a major loss on progress every time you want to try out pvp is also a pretty bad deal as well. That, and not many would be willing to risk larger or more expensive ships in battle, even though those would probably be the among the most fun to watch in combat. Everyone fighting in only cost-effective fighters is cool and all, but it'd be a bit sad if the game based around building cool ships never saw any in combat because they were too precious to ever risk.
- While I'm sure a lot of people are fine with the current state of pvp in terms of risk/reward, there are bound to be many others that want to get their feet wet with pvp, but not have to sink potentially hours of progress whenever they lose a ship. A low-stakes dueling system will allow novice pilots to learn the ropes of combat before they're ready to go out for the real thing, as well as allow those who don't want to interact with the all-or-nothing nature of pvp to still enjoy that part of the game.
Something, something, thanks for reading and all that, and if you have any issues with these suggestions, please leave a comment instead of just downvoting and moving on. If I were perfect, I'd be working on my ship instead of spending an hour writing this thing.
So, it's no small secret that people are a bit disgruntled atm. And honestly, while it is a bit annoying to see the same argument being made everywhere en masse, it's understandable where they're coming from. PvP in its current state is hard to find, isn't profitable compared to safe-zone mining, and is subject to its own slew of balancing issues. With these ideas, I hope to provide ***relatively easy-to-implement solutions*** to these problems.
But enough context, have at you!
**Idea 1: Derelict Ships**
**tl;dr - Randomly spawning derelict ships with lots of goodies that broadcast their position in a large radius for fun times to be had.**
This one is pretty simple in theory, and a lot of people have already suggested similar mechanics before. Essentially, every so often, a derelict shipwreck will randomly spawn throughout the belt and announce its location via a super wide-range transceiver, perhaps ranging along the lines of 25-100km or so.
- The derelict will vary in size from smaller fighter-class ships to large hulking capital-class corpses that'll provide ample opportunity for combat on foot. Smaller derelicts will spawn more often in the early zones, and larger ones will spawn more often further away. There should be the occasional outlier, though, if only to spice things up every now than then.
- The distance at which their transponders will broadcast will also scale with size, with smaller ships have shorter broadcast ranges than larger ones. This ensures that smaller derelicts will have equally smaller-scale conflicts, allowing smaller parties and solo players to have their fair share of action.
- The derelicts themselves will have a variety of goodies to attract all kinds of players to them, including things like rare ores (perhaps even small amounts of currently unobtainable ones like xhalium), high-tier weapons, machinery, devices, professional yolol chips, enhancers, hand/ship-mounted weapons, etc. The surrounding area will also be saturated with larger asteroids than normal, allowing even miners to get in on the action, as well as let conflict continue for a little while even after the derelict has been fully looted. Of course, these are just suggestions for rewards, the devs could just as easily have different stuff spawn instead if those would just break the game's balance. In my opinion, though, I think the game could stand to have more unique and hard-to-get items that people can fight over.
- Alongside these rewards, special "black box" transponders will spawn once per derelict. These special transponders will broadcast their location in a much larger radius than normal transponders. They cannot be put into inventories and must be bolted to your ship if you wish to transport one. If you somehow manage to bring one back to origin while fleeing the onslaught of competitors also vying for the black box, you'll be able to turn it in for a large sum of credits. After the derelict's transponder has been looted, the derelict will despawn if no players enter the area for some amount of time.
- These derelict ships will be in part designed by the playerbase in a similar vein to how the ship shops are currently being repopulated with new designs. This allows SSC players to also have a part in the process while they toil away at building their own ships. By making a community event out of the whole thing, it's my hope that it'll also do something to breathe a little life into the declining player count while we all wait for capital ships and moon mining to come out.
**Idea 2: Transponders for Cash**
**tl;dr - Transponders now track distance traveled and can be sold for a large sum scaling with it, making piracy much more profitable.**
Since every ship can only have one transponder, how about having them track how far the ship has traveled over its lifespan, acting kind of like a space odometer or a black box.
- Then, add a special NPC shop, whether it be at origin or the planned pvp station that just buys looted transponders and pays out scaling with the transponder's distance traveled. This would allow pirates to actually make some decent money off their trade instead of it being a pretty sub-par career choice compared to mining in the safe zone 24/7. It would also add a bit of prestige to long-lived ships that were able to travel long distances without being destroyed.
- This would also make seal-clubbing (hunting newbies) rather inefficient, as their transponders wouldn't have very much distance traveled to them compared to larger and more experienced targets. The distance-to-money scale will also be similar to that of an S-curve, meaning that small amounts of distance wouldn't pay out much, but also that extremely large amounts of distance wouldn't crash the market by creating absurd amounts of credits.
- One problem with this idea, however, is that there would have to be some kind of way to prevent farming credits with this method, as I could easily see someone just having throwaway ships meant to just roam around until they accrue enough distance to sell. I'm not entirely sure yet what a solution to this problem would be, but it should be noted nonetheless. One idea of mine includes tracking how many new sectors of space have been visited instead of just distance, but I'm not sure how difficult that would be to implement since I don't know how that part of the code functions. Suggestions on how to curb this issue are welcome, though.
**Idea 3: Safe Zone Dueling**
**tl;dr - Fully insured low-stakes combat option for new pilots, testing of ships, and casual/recreational purposes.**
At the moment, if you want to ever try out pvp, the only way to do so is to risk the ship you've potentially sunk tens of hours of progress into. My suggestion comes in the form of a traditional mmo player duel system, where two parties can agree to fight in a fully insured match where both ships are restored to their original state afterward. As the name suggests, duels can only occur within a safe zone, whether it be near the origins or by a player-made station.
- Before the duel, the surrounding area will be marked a "duel zone." All non-participating ships currently in the zone will be asked to leave or be forcibly ejected, and while the duel is in progress, no players, ships, or items can enter the zone.
- For the duration of the duel, both party's ships will be temporarily replaced with non-lootable versions to prevent any duping. After either party has no remaining members or concedes, the duel is over and ships are reverted back to their pre-duel state. All debris created during the duel is also deleted.
- Optionally, a bet can be wagered before the beginning of the duel after which the winner will claim the pot. This serves to spice up the duel by giving it stakes, while not forcing one party to suffer a full loss on their ship in the event of defeat.
- This system would allow for a more casual-friendly pvp experience than the current all-or-nothing wild west pvp in open space. It would also allow the chance for people to have friendly bouts without having to suffer a net loss every time for no reason. If one wanted to test out their ships if they were pvp-capable without having to lose everything on the first encounter, the dueling system would allow that as well. While one could make the argument that one shouldn't be risking ships they're not ready to lose or to only use really cheap ships, I think that being forced to potentially take a major loss on progress every time you want to try out pvp is also a pretty bad deal as well. That, and not many would be willing to risk larger or more expensive ships in battle, even though those would probably be the among the most fun to watch in combat. Everyone fighting in only cost-effective fighters is cool and all, but it'd be a bit sad if the game based around building cool ships never saw any in combat because they were too precious to ever risk.
- While I'm sure a lot of people are fine with the current state of pvp in terms of risk/reward, there are bound to be many others that want to get their feet wet with pvp, but not have to sink potentially hours of progress whenever they lose a ship. A low-stakes dueling system will allow novice pilots to learn the ropes of combat before they're ready to go out for the real thing, as well as allow those who don't want to interact with the all-or-nothing nature of pvp to still enjoy that part of the game.
Something, something, thanks for reading and all that, and if you have any issues with these suggestions, please leave a comment instead of just downvoting and moving on. If I were perfect, I'd be working on my ship instead of spending an hour writing this thing.