was thinking it would be nice to be able to form ships into a convoy. All ships in the convoy would move at the speed of the slowest ship, but they would stick together.
A stellar charge would probably apply to the formation (similar to GPS) and then a few simple orders could be given to the unit as a whole.
We already have to wait for TUs order, but if you issue a weeks worth of orders in advance for some things then speedy warship / escorts will leave the freighters they are supposed to be protecting lagging a few jumps behind.
For example:
Form Convoy [ship number]
Add to convoy [more ship numbers]
Then simple logistical orders might be handy such as:
Convoy move to starbase A;
Convoy [ship number] pick up X;
Convoy [shipnumber2] pick up Y;
Convoy move to Starbase B
deliver etc
job finished
[Disband Convoy]
I've few enough ships to be able to do wihout this for now, but might save a bit of real life time for those players who've built up significant fleets? If not then I guess there's no use for it - what do you think?
The ship you form the convoy with could then incur a greater crew factor... Maybe double to reflect the extra control needed to co-ordinate the fleet. Or maybe a % of the crew factors of the fleet... This way large fleets would need special control ships with very large crews (It also limits fleet sizes)...
Maybe you could also use fleet pickup & deliver orders and have the cargo divided between ship....?
Jason
its no different to how the navy operates now, the carrier generally has the extra crew on it to carry out operational duties and keep the rest of the fleet in order.
this should surely be capable in these times of greater technology on these space vessels.
It certainly makes sense to be able to group ships into fleets. Would be a very useful addition.
Dave
Mica's final thoughts were to have a Copy and Paste feature in the front page of the Order Editor. You would fill in the turn for a cargo ship, and then Copy it.
There would then be options to either "Paste as Freighter" or "Paste as Warship". Both of these would include a mechanism whereby the escorting ships would automatically scan the escorted ship, and stop when they reached its position. The order would also sort out sequencing (so the escorted ship runs first) The "Paste as Warship" order would also strip out any buy/sell/pickup/deliver orders.
That way you just have the "escorted" ship as the slowest ship, and all the rest will stop as soon as they reach it.
Note that this is just what I discussed with Mica a couple fo months ago, so I don't know if his plans along these lines have changed or delevoped since :-).
Richard
AFT
| QUOTE (MasterTrader @ Sep 23 2003, 09:47 PM) |
| Note that this is just what I discussed with Mica a couple fo months ago, so I don't know if his plans along these lines have changed or delevoped since :-). |
We have thought about this since and keep coming to the same point. If established players can run convoys, there is even less incentive to hand ships over to new players.
Anything we do to remove the time and effort constraint to running large numbers of ships proves to be one less incentive to give them to new players.
In fact there are cases where some players have ships that have been sitting around for months doing nothing while new players in the same affiliation have been complaining about the lack of ships.
Would it be better to implement a system such that affiliation owned ships automatically transferred if they were not being used? Then there would be no reason for convoys as there would be no spare ships.
| QUOTE (Mica Goldstone @ Sep 24 2003, 08:36 AM) |
| We have thought about this since and keep coming to the same point. If established players can run convoys, there is even less incentive to hand ships over to new players. |
yep - ok, thats a great arguement against the whole idea.
next: would have been nice if someone had done a brief write-up of what issues were discussed at the july meet so the attendees dont have to spend the next 12 months repeating temsleves every two weeks
| QUOTE (Mica Goldstone @ Sep 24 2003, 07:36 AM) |
| Would it be better to implement a system such that affiliation owned ships automatically transferred if they were not being used? Then there would be no reason for convoys as there would be no spare ships. |
I get calls from PD's stating that some of their players have dropped of the face of the Earth and that starbases ships may not be being run. Should there be a section in the political report - position inactive, captain/governor looking for new patrol political. Then it is a first come first served political request for the position.
There have also been questions about player owned positions. Should they become the property of an affiliation if they are not being run?
There is also a question of timing. How long before the ship becomes available. Warships can sit around doing nothing but patrolling their region of space for months at a time wheras unused cargo ships should be reallocated quicker.
I also think there should be a flag set by the PD on politicals who are active and those that are inactive. Those politcials which are active in the game should not have their ships but up for auction.
I have the odd ship knocking about that are used for very specific purposes which I may only use once a year eg cloaking abilities but that dosn't mean I want to get rid of that ship or should have that ship transfered from me.
| QUOTE (Mica Goldstone @ Sep 24 2003, 07:36 AM) |
| Should there be a section in the political report - position inactive, captain/governor looking for new patrol political. |
I suggested something like this a while back.
I think the player section of the political report should include the dat of the last submitted turn for any of that player's positions.
I don't think we need to go into each specific position in that, but it would be useful to know at a glance that Joe Smith hasn't put in any turns for 3 months.
The bigger question is what to do about it once you know that. (i.e. more mechanics to expel players/transfer positions)
| QUOTE (Steve-Law @ Sep 25 2003, 08:04 AM) |
| I think the player section of the political report should include the dat of the last submitted turn for any of that player's positions. I don't think we need to go into each specific position in that, but it would be useful to know at a glance that Joe Smith hasn't put in any turns for 3 months. |
There is this functionality already in quest for the PD positions there. I found it really useful as you could tell if a player was active and therefore email them to find out why.
You could argue that with the mailing lists we have now for each aff it should be easy to tell if a player is active or not. The problem arises when you have a load of players eg 30+. It becomes much more difficult.
I'm sure in the future we will get those 30+ players to an aff. I'm sure some have that now.
Andy
| QUOTE (Andy @ Sep 25 2003, 10:52 AM) |
| You could argue that with the mailing lists we have now for each aff it should be easy to tell if a player is active or not. |
Not very well though. Many players do not want to join mailing lists, or do not post when they are on. They may still be very active players (in the actual game, not the politics etc).
Conversely you may have someone posting to a mailing list who is not actually submitting any turns.
| QUOTE (Steve-Law @ Sep 25 2003, 11:49 AM) |
| Conversely you may have someone posting to a mailing list who is not actually submitting any turns. |
Good point, we do need some sort of "last turn processed on"
Perhaps this should also be restricted to ship / GPs. If a player runs a small starbase but does not do anything with it and also does not submit any ship turns then that would mean he is inactive as well. The starbase will always show he is havinga turn processed however he could be running up a larger debt with KJC.
Andy
| QUOTE (Andy @ Sep 25 2003, 12:58 PM) |
| Good point, we do need some sort of "last turn processed on" |
Like the extra bit at the bottom of an alliance head's turn in Quest?
| QUOTE |
| There have also been questions about player owned positions. Should they become the property of an affiliation if they are not being run? |
To take over a player-owned outpost seems reasonable, provided it's done with the same seriousness as say, transferring an affiliation position out of affiliation control.
How about a new political order, to create an issue to take over an affiliation-flagged outpost, but one which would automatically fail if the position (or owning account if any) had run any turns in the last three/six months? The outpost would then become affiliation-owned, and controlled by the petitioning political. There's a case for a payment of the outpost's nominal 'stellar value' to the EEM.
As for IND outposts - how about having them become pirate automatically, after six-months inaction? A chance for some military action for smaller players without having to go pirate themselves.
Ships are another matter though, they dont block opportunities for other players.
TonyH
| QUOTE (finalstryke @ Sep 25 2003, 12:17 PM) | ||
Like the extra bit at the bottom of an alliance head's turn in Quest? |
Yes exactly that