a solution to homebase invincibility

[jayman38]

I'd hate to be the vulnerable, new-to-the-game little brother who gets blamed for getting the homebase blasted while the rest of the faction was offline. Ouch! Sorry kid, but that's life in the 'verse....

 

[NeonSturm]

why not just have it so that homebases are invincible unless someones of that faction is online?

Thought of it.
Once you get a "home-base attacked message" you log out :p


I like the shop/factory disable option the most currently. But please without exploits

 

[starhaiden]

I said if the station is destroyed or the faction block is destroyed then then the station doesn't count towards the home base invincibility

 

[jzimmerman4]

I would suggest keeping faction bases they way they are but have turrets and/or docked ships vulnerable to allow factions to still destroy enemy supplies if their base is poorly designed. This will also decrease the amount and size of ships spawned as you need an interior dock to have them fully protected instead of just spamming some docks for your multiple titans. This also will work well with the new faction system (when ever it comes) because it will require more members to have a larger base to have some titans, leading to larger factions and less smaller one man troll armies.

 

[Aridhol]

^

This, a million times..

 

[Lecic]

I would suggest keeping faction bases they way they are but have turrets and/or docked ships vulnerable to allow factions to still destroy enemy supplies if their base is poorly designed. This will also decrease the amount and size of ships spawned as you need an interior dock to have them fully protected instead of just spamming some docks for your multiple titans. This also will work well with the new faction system (when ever it comes) because it will require more members to have a larger base to have some titans, leading to larger factions and less smaller one man troll armies.

So, someone shows up with a jammer on and vaporizes all of your turrets? No thanks.

I like the disabling of factories and such most.

 

[K10wN]

I would suggest keeping faction bases they way they are but have turrets and/or docked ships vulnerable to allow factions to still destroy enemy supplies if their base is poorly designed. This will also decrease the amount and size of ships spawned as you need an interior dock to have them fully protected instead of just spamming some docks for your multiple titans. This also will work well with the new faction system (when ever it comes) because it will require more members to have a larger base to have some titans, leading to larger factions and less smaller one man troll armies.

You've never been shot through the walls of your protected homebase? Indoor docks in this situation would be no different than outside docks. Before, when turrets on docked ships (chain docked) were bugged and not protected when docked at homebases, I had many turrets blown off of ships that were docked inside the protected station or planet. Much of the time the damage was from my own defence turrets which were outside of the station.

It's like homebases are invisible to shots much of the time, not to mention how the blast radius of missiles passes through walls and the bounds of what is meant to be the shields.

The factories in the unloaded sector are not producing while the faction members are offline. An enemy visiting the sector (or near it) will cause the sector to be loaded and production will start again. If you want to hinder their production, stay away.

Unprotected homebases is a step backwards in the game. May as well make the shops able to be destroyed again too so you can remove your enemies easy access to shops.

 

[jzimmerman4]

Disabling factories is an interesting idea but only takes a whole of a few credits and minutes to fix. You can always create plexdoor "shields" around the turrets so that they are protected by the homebase when you log off then easily activated by hooking the plexdoors to a button. @Lecic

And perhaps that bug gets fixed or homebases have infinite shields instead. @K10wN

 

[NeonSturm]

PlexDoors block shots even if open

 

[jzimmerman4]

PlexDoors block shots even if open

Sounds like a bug that needs to be reported to me!

 

[Achriel]

Leave the bases invulnerable but make them use 'fuel' to keep powered. Something that has to be topped up and maintained not left and forgotten. The more stuff there (drawing power or docked) the greater the fuel consumption.

When the fuel runs out have it become less invulnerable over time.. say it only blocks 99% damage after 1 day.. then 97% etc... until it's just like every other base.

Oh.. and as for the fuel let's pretend it's fusion and can burn any type of block but based on the 'value' of the block so rock is cheap and a faction block is not. Just put them in and 'poof' then disappear into this 'fuel' which you cannot get back. Have the maximum fuel storage based on the power draw of the base (not including docked ships) for say 10 days or so.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

I think that there should be a config for everything, so I also think that you should have a config option to make faction home bases invulnerable, so you don't have to worry too much about pirates in single player.

On a side note to the 'make everything configurable' mentality:
I like that players and servers can create their own experience. However, I agree that nothing is more annoying than ships not working when you go to a different server. So I believe that it should be requirement that servers list the changes they made to the config that will impact ships.

 

[jayman38]

...So I believe that it should be requirement that servers list the changes they made to the config that will impact ships.

Did you have any particular ideas on how to present that information? All those server configs are a lot for a player to take in. The simplest would be a generic MOTD-style pop-up that shows all the non-secret server settings. Almost anything else would be more easily digestible. Maybe a MOTD pop-up with expandable (+) headers, or maybe multiple tabs so you can go directly to the settings you want to verify. As always, griefers will be on the lookout for sensitive/exploitable settings. Hmm... That might be an efficient way to accelerate bug discoveries.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

I was thinking that it should more be a moral responsibility to put ALL the changes in the server description somewhere, and then also what those changes mean for gameplay.

 

[NeonSturm]

At least: Server speed, required texture packs (extra blocks) such as for super-ultra-heavy armour.

Maybe the server should list everything sorted by derivation in % to the original and try to group things together like:

terrain{ -20% hp}

except rock{ -0% hp } -- exceptions <1/3​

weapon[s | weapon x] 20% more "dps", "damage", "reload"​

with rules like:

if damage and reload change, show it as DPS + reload -or- if you show dps changes, do not show damage changes.​

 

[starhaiden]

with the gates coming soon defending the outpost will be easier. stations should be able to get destroyed but should take time to destroy.

 

[Ithirahad]

It don't solves problem. If Your faction is absent during night, enemies can destroy Your base and outposts until Your people will back.

Sorta, but since the locations of non-base stations aren't recorded on the Faction panel like the home base is, they would probably spend all night trying to locate your stations. :P

...However, making this practical would require the HP system to be extended to stations. Destroying them can be extremely hard otherwise.

 

[NeonSturm]

Sorta, but since the locations of non-base stations aren't recorded on the Faction panel like the home base is, they would probably spend all night trying to locate your stations. :p

Not necessarily.
Peoples will write coordinates into display blocks which they can hide behind open/close-able Plex-Doors of nearby stations (distributed roadmap), on Display blocks in ships, ...

Maybe up to the point that killing the pilot and take over the ship will be much more useful for information than for blocks.

 

[Ithirahad]

Not necessarily.
Peoples will write coordinates into display blocks which they can hide behind open/close-able Plex-Doors of nearby stations (distributed roadmap), on Display blocks in ships, ...

Maybe up to the point that killing the pilot and take over the ship will be much more useful for information than for blocks.

Meh, I'd imagine that some stations wouldn't be recorded anywhere and would just be small outposts for the sole purpose of allowing the faction home base to remain invulnerable. (RP-wise, they'd be exploration outposts or orbital colonies)

 

[Asmael]

Well, let's see...

1 - People A don't like invulnerable bases. Simply because you can do nothing to counter those, no matter what.
2 - People B don't want to have vulnerable bases, because some troll/else will just bring a bigger, meaner ship (or just with radar jammers) and destroy as much as he wants while people are offline, or simply because B peeps didn't have the time to even build a proper station.

After studying a few threads on that specific subject, the issue of one-man-army invincible bases is recurring. Of course, that's annoying to have an indestructible, hostile space station just a sector away from your homebase :3 Darn this dude !

But in a seriousness, you can't make a homebase vulnerable, because people are going, as said before, to bring something fit to ruin everything. Even if you make it so that a station is buffed to death (x1000 the damage, shields, etc), it doesn't matter. Now what is a real pain is to see a one-man faction who built his homebase next to you, and becomes inactive.

For the above issue, it could be possible to add a parameter : basically, if someone doesn't access the faction module at least once every X hours (7 * 24 hours for instance), the base becomes vulnerable. This parameter would be entirely configurable, that way, you can get rid of that pesky newb homebase next to yours for good :3 (ahuehuehuehue).

Of course, if the new player is active, well... he has the right to keep his homebase, no ? Not like you can't discuss with him or else (be a jerk and destroy him whenever he gets out, until he deletes his base).

Next issue is fighting next to a homebase, because clearly, you DON'T want to take a fight next 500 turrets, each capable of dealing a million DPS. I can see some sweet feature with the upcoming HP system. Feature would be as follow :

- Homebase blocks can't be destroyed (and can't be damaged either), however, the station still takes damage, and as soon as it reaches a critical HP level (10%, 0%, whatever as long as you can configure this parameter as well), all turrets become unusable for a given amount of time.

What does it bring to the current gameplay ? Well, if turrets are disabled for some time, you can shoot whatever ships comes out of said homebase, kill players wandering around the station, fancy stuff like that :3 That way,

- As a homebase owner, you don't have to repair blocks (seriously, repairing the damage done is just crazy at the some point).
- As a homebase attacker, you can effectively siege said homebase by cutting all its routes.

This change would also make it so that you can't just put a bunch of turrets on said station, you would also be required to put a lot of hull (to increase armor/HP) and shields (to prevent small random troll ships to disable your station).

Just in case you didn't undestand up to this point, no, I don't agree with destructible homebase :3