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Concept for Space - "Guild Fleets"


Mossesman

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One of the most asked for content updates for TOR is a 3D space simulator. I am one of those people who definatley want to see 3D space, ever since i played the space game in SWG.

 

After playing through the SWG space game and the space mini games on TOR, i have decided to come up with a few ideas which could really make the space game a fun and interesting experience. I did have a bit of inspiration from EvE as well so expect to find a reference or two in here :csw_destroyer:

 

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What are Guild Fleets?

 

Guild Fleets are small fleets which can be deployed by guilds (duh). Each guild can have a total of five ships in there fleet, one of them is there capital ship, whilst the remaining four are a smaller frigate class.

 

The capital ships are the Valor-class Cruiser for the Republic, and the Harrower-class Dreadnaught for the Empire

 

The frigates are the Thranta-class corvette for the Republic and the Terminus-class destroyer for the Empire

 

Currently, both the Republic and the Empire have these two types of ships which appears in game, so for now i will just be using these two for the thread. There is potential for new ships to be added though, so players will have more of a choice

 

What are the requirements?

 

There are only two requirements for forming your guild fleet. Firstly, you must have at least 10 active members in the guild, who must be online at the same time and grouped together in an OPs group (the guild leader must be grouped as well). Secondly, each ship requires a hefty some of money. You can either pay in one bulk sum of money (2 million per frigate, and 5 million per capital ship), or pay smaller amounts per week.

 

The ships take 24 hours to complete to construct. Once it is complete, it will sit in orbit above the planet, and cannot be activated until a ship Captain in elected. Any member can be made a captain, regardless of guild rank. The guild leader can choose to be a captain if he/she wishes. When the captain is online, they can activate the ship and it can move around freely. If the Captain isn't online, then guild members can still enter and leave the ship, they just cannot operate it.

 

A Captain can choose to remove themselves from there role whenever they wish. The guild leader and guild officers can also remove them.

 

Operating the Ship

 

To operate the ships to full effectiveness, you will need a number of people along side the ships captain. Although the captain can effectively control the whole ship and its systems by themselves, it requires a lot of micro managing and can be quite stressful and hectic. This includes moving the ship, setting targets, using the weaponry and the defensive systems; in a fight this could get overwhelming for some people.

 

There are four main control systems that players will be able to operate

 

Command Systems (Captain only) - This system is operated by the captain of the ship, and focuses on giving orders to the rest of the crew. This includes setting destinations for the Navigators and setting targets for the weapon operators. If all other control systems are not being used, then the Captain will be able to operate most of the systems from the Command Console, but will be limited with how effective the ship can be. This includes the weapons being AI controlled instead of player controlled, which results in slower reaction times.

 

Navigation - The navigation system is in charged of the movement of the ship. Its fairly basic, the Captain can give you a location to fly to or a ship to follow, and you simply fly there.

 

Power Systems - This role focuses on the power output on the ship. The person who is in this role is in charge of adjusting the where the power of the reactor is being focused to and in what situation. For example, if you want to get somewhere fast, you divert some power from the weapon and shielding systems to the engine, or if you are under heavy fire you will divert some engine power to shields etc.

 

Weapon Systems - The are a number of weapon consoles on the bridge depending on how many weapons your ship has equipped. A Frigate would have 8 weapon slots, whilst a Capital ship would have 20. Depending on what type of weapon you have, you will receive a command/target from the Captain and you fire on that target. You will also need to identify certain components on the ship and attack the priority targets.

 

Equipping and Specializing

 

Each ship can be equipped in a certain way so they specialize in certain roles. For example, your Frigate can be used as a hit and run ship, focusing on long range missiles and engine speed whilst sacrificing shielding power, whilst it can also be specced for hunting down star fighters. There are a number of different components that you need to equip:

 

  • Engines - Stats include top speed, how long it takes to get to the top speed, and how much energy it uses
  • Reactor - Generates power for the entire ship and its systems
  • Capacitors - A sort of mini reactor for the weapons, the more you fire the weapons the more energy is used. Stats include recharge rate, energy costs etc
  • Shield Generator - Defensive barrier which covers the ship, stats include how much damage it can take and the recharge rate
  • Armor - Stats include how much damage it takes etc
  • Hull - The basic structure of the ship
  • Weaponry - There are three types of weaponry. Turrets, Cannons and Missiles. Turrets are anti star fighter weapons, as they are capable of quickly tracking the targets and having a high rate of fire. Cannons are used against other ships, they can be specced to be effective against shields or armor. Missiles can be used against either starfighters, other ships, or intercepting incoming missiles.

You also have the Hanger. The hangers operate as the launch point for star fighters (which are AI controlled, but can be controlled by the players as well). Frigates have one hanger whilst the capital ships have two, and each hanger can have up to 30 star fighters. Each star fighter costs 100k to add to the hanger, and if they are destroyed, they cost 10k to replace. That means to load a capital ship with star fighters, it will cost 6million credits

 

Modules - Ships also have a module slot. Modules can either improve certain systems in exchange for others or allow you to perform certain abilities. Here are a few examples -

 

Interdiction Module - This module equips your ship with a type of gravity well generator. When used, it uses so much power that, the frigate speed will drop dramatically, and will be unable to fire any of its weapons whilst its active. The gravity well generators, when active, will slow down all enemy ships within a certain radius of the ship, and they will be unable to jump to hyperspace whilst they are in range.

 

Expanded Hanger - This module sacrifices some hull and armor stats and two weapon slots in exchange for enlarging the ships hanger. This will allow an additional 15 star fighters to be deployed on the hanger. In the case of capital ships, they will be able to deploy an extra 30.

 

Long Range Armaments - This module boosts the effective range of all cannons and turrets on your ship whilst firing at close range becomes less effective. Mostly for long ranged fighters.

 

What happens if my ship is destroyed?

 

If your ship is unfortunate enough to be destroyed, there will be a long cool down before it can be deployed again. Each ship will receive one grace per week where it will respawn instantly, but if you lose it again you will have to wait 6 hours for the frigates to respawn and 12 hours for the capital ship to respawn. The time you have to wait can be lowered by paying a sum, depending on how long is left on the cool down.

 

This all sounds kind of expensive...

 

Yeah i know...it does sound like a lot of money you will have to be paying. I will clarify that the numbers aren't final though, and things could possibly change in the future.

 

You will have the opportunity to earn money though, every ship and star fighter you destroy earns you credits. If your assisted by another guilds ship, then you will earn credits based on the amount of damage you done, so there wont be any cases of you doing all the work only for someone to ninja the deathblow and gain all the credit. You will also begin to get a bounty on your ship, which will increase every time you destroy an enemy. This will make you a priority target for the enemy...so take care!

 

Final words

 

So yeah...there is my idea for guild ships. I never really got into much detail in how they will work in PvP and PvE, i might try and make another thread detailing it. This is my personal vision, but it does not mean i am not open to suggestions. If you have any, please go ahead and let me know what you think.

Edited by Mossesman
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It took me some time to finish reading, but I like a good post. I think that this is a good idea. You even expanded on the idea of guild ships to encompass entire fleets. It reminds of the old days of Battlefront, you know, before you needed a PSP or DS to get the newest game. Anyways, I hope that the developers see this thread, I think it's a great idea. Now that server transfers and LFG tools will be added, I think we might get a few more good ideas in the future.
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Awresome ideas - only concern I have is the Captain idea

Too often people need to take off from the game for sometimes weeks

Simpler to have either all officers can be captains or allow the guild leader to give members permission to be captain

Edited by oldaquarian
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Guild Vs Guild battles would be amazing, especially if you could hop into your personal spaceship, and engage in fighter actions against to enemy ships, board them, and sabotage them from within a la Battlefront II.
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Awresome ideas - only concern I have is the Captain idea

Too often people need to take off from the game for sometimes weeks

Simpler to have either all officers can be captains or allow the guild leader to give members permission to be captain

 

Good point. I will update the original post

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Excellent idea! Would take some doing, but an excellent addition to the now "Semi-interesting" space features of the current game.

 

Expand later to allow space RAIDS with 5-8 guild members to fly tie fighters against a republic planet raid or a fleet of x-wing attacking a capital ship.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Sounds fricking epic, these are the main featured components i wanted to see in this game from scratch, would be a major morale boost to get some kind of confirmation that this will be added in the future!
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  • 4 months later...

I don't think it should be as easy as paying credits and having 10 guild members to start. It takes 12 members to have access to be able to buy guild banks.

 

Before something like this happens, BW should implement guild lvls (not sure if they have said there would be guild lvls in the future or not). EQ2 has a decent guild lvling model, in EQ2 you gain guild exp by killing some instance bosses, raid bosses always give exp and by doing repeatable city faction quests. There are other methods but these are the main ones people use. Higher the lvl of your guild, the more ships you can add to your fleet. This would give guilds something to work for and increase content without much effort.

 

But i love the idea and I think a guild fleet would be awesome. great idea and well planned out by the OP.

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