I'll try to sum up the reactions so far :
1) Overall there seems to be enough interested people to open a server (even taking into account that people may just try it out for an hour and forget about it)
2) People are more mitigated about trying config changes, a few players would like some specific changes, but a somewhat equal number express concerns about straying away from vanilla (excepted maybe some minor/performance related changes), and most don't say anything on the subject
3) People sometimes mention a bigger cap than 3k mass
4) Jontyfreack is absolutely hyped by this idea and has already planned to scrap the titan he's been working on for months
Because of 1) I'll probably try to open such a server soon. I don't really know when I'll do it since I'll certainly be a bit busy this week-end (there'll be the new mtg set prereleases and I like to attend those) but I'll try to do it by next week's end. As I'm relatively new to server hosting there might however be a couple issues, but it should be playable.
I'm a bit annoyed by 2) as I would have loved experimenting stuff, but this is understandable. So I'll avoid big balance changes and will probably simply change sector sizes a bit (probably adjust weapon ranges to mimic a 1~2km sector size though) and/or buffing warpgates, that kind of things.
I'd however like to try at least one big balance change (unless too many players are adamant about not changing that) : buff power capacity. By that I mean multiplying the power capacity granted by capacitors by 10 to 20. This might sound a lot, but I think this would help solve the following problems:
- Slow-firing-big-guns currently are far less mass-efficient than fast-firing cannons because of the sheer amount of capacitors needed to fire them. While they usually have the advantage of potentially disabling a ship immediately, they won't be as much interesting in a world where everyone might be nimble enough to make "alpha strikes" too risky strategies.
- Set aside missile-beam which benefit greatly from increased server sector sizes due to their homing behaviour (advantadge mitigated by my intention of mimicking 1~2km sector sizes when it comes to weapon ranges), slow-firing-big-guns aren't used that much.
- Power capacitors currently add very little depth to ship building. Usually, when designing a ship's power systems, players add the bare minimum of capacitors needed to fire their biggest weapon and that's all. I feel it'd be more interesting if players would be allowed to build ships with potentially greater consumption per second than their recharge rate but with enough capacity to sustain those expenses during a couple dozens seconds. As a rule of thumb, assuming capacity is multiplied by 10, replacing all your reactor blocks by capacitor blocks would give you enough capacity for about one minute worth of energy (obviously this varies depending on how efficient the original reactors were, this is a mere approximation for most "decent reactor layouts" in this size range).
This is however a questionable change, so -as I previously said- if too many people are against it, capacitors will stay the way they currently are (if I were to open the server so fast that people don't have the time to express their opinion about it -one can dream- I'll keep the vanilla values, it wouldn't be fair to force it)
Set aside that, maybe I could increase warhead damage a bit (so that a single warhead block can destroy an adv. armor block at least) to please the few torpedo afficionados out there :p (I think it's a much more minor change, but I won't do it either if too many people are against it)
Concerning point 3) and the mass cap, like
AtraUnam, I don't want the cap to grow too much. I think that one of the major advantages of such a server would be to allow for small building times of "PvP-capable" ships (meaning you could get up and running quite fast while using your very own design, or repeatedly rebuilding better ships from scratch without having to spend months on building alone).
I understand that bigger ships would allow for a bigger margin of error which could be used to better decorate them, and that 5k~20k mass is a nice sweetspot for efficient, reasonably fast, and not extremely long to build ships. However, I feel like there's a greater power gap between 3k mass and 5k+ mass ships than between 1k mass and 3k mass ships. I mean that while you could expect standing your ground with a 1k mass ship in a world where the biggest fishes in the pond are 3k mass, this would probably require 3k~4k (or greater) mass ships if the big fishes were 5k mass. Therefore, an increase in mass cap would certainly also require a considerably greater time investment, and while I'm sure some players can afford it, others might not have the time, motivation, or skill to build those bigger ships. For instance, newer and/or less experienced players might struggle with a both slightly undersized and badly built first ship then would later hesitate to scrap for a potentially better ship as building takes time
I deem the 12k cap of the BnS tournament too high for that reason: it isn't rare to see players invest weeks in building a single ship for that tournament whereas I'd like ship building on that server to be faster than that without having to compromise too much on quality.
That said, I guess the cap could grow a little depending on how players fare and on how big the smallest useful ship is. For instance, if a difference in ship roles gives an edge to a 1k mass ship and evens the odds against a 5k mass one (an efficient/usable one I mean), then the cap might be raised to 5k mass (same for bigger mass caps).
Still, I'd rather start small and raise the cap if needed than the opposite.
