Would it be possible to make a server plugin/addon that encourages staying near spawn?

[KuramaFox]

Ways of doing this logically, but with uncertain actually feasibility code-wise, could include:

1. periodically delete and reset all sectors with a value greater then X in their coordinates every Y amount of time (every 1-3 days would work well). That is to say, sectors a certain distance out, if players go there, they can do what they want, but they had best not try and set up a base there. Unless they like their ships and bases getting deleted. On the plus side, abandoned stations, pirate stations, and the like would also be deleted and would regenerate upon the area getting reset to default.

2. Block the ability to build somehow past a certain point. If people can't build far out, they won't make a base 50 sectors from spawn.



Why is this good? People spread out. Given a chance, some will fly out 50 sectors, even with a speed limit of 50, just to do their own thing. That's all well and good on some servers, but others actually try to have player interaction (particularly PvP). They end up being effectively ghost towns eventually due to people just flying off where no one ever goes. And for long-running servers, the first option at least would prevent early comers from having some sort of advantage due to being the ones able to clear out all the nearby stations and pirate fortresses, since the area past a certain point would be refreshed every couple days.



What about protection? Well, unless they decide to change how factions work, that works quite fine. Even if you were to set the limits to 10 sectors out, that is still 1000 sectors available in the positives, and 7000 in the various negative combinations (it would go to -10 as well). That means up to 8000 players could create a personal faction with docks to store their stuff nice and safely at. Theoretically. Odds are, you won't get even a 1000 different players. Either way, its entirely possible to keep your stuff perfectly safe a mere 3 or 4 sectors from spawn if you want to. I've done it plenty of times. Aside from one incident where an unfactioned turret testing base was blown to bits. But that was by my main base's own turrets.



Naturally, if a server owner didn't WANT to limit things, they wouldn't need to use whatever server plugin was involved with this. But something that allows this sort of thing would be a very good idea for basically any server that wants people to actually be together.

 

[Sir_William_V]

To answer your question, but not really, I suppose it\'s possible. I couldn\'t begin to tell you how or who to go to for this sort of thing.

However, When you say \"People would spread out\" I don\'t agree. You\'re limiting space, so there\'s much less space to spread out into. However I do agree that this limiting space would (obviously) incite PvP. I feel sorry for the admin who has to listen to kids complaining about getting shot up, though.

 

[KuramaFox]

The problem of people spreading out is something that happens on servers a lot already, even WITHOUT this proposed plugin. This includes ones that actively try to have PvP in them, and even ones that attempt to offer incentives to building within a certain distance of spawn.

Limiting the perminance of sectors past a certain point would discourage people from basing their operations out where no one will ever see them again (or at least not until we get a proper jump drive). It would prevent people from going past that point except to mine, salvage stations, or buy from shops.



And if kids complain, then they should play on a server that DOESN\'T use it. Which would likely be more then half of them, if Minecraft server plugins are anything to go by. Even the most commonly used plugins are present on less then half of servers there. Heck, I\'m not sure even that Bukket thing is on more then half, and that\'s just an enhancement system that lets servers use more plugins and give admins more commands as far as I can tell. So let builder-centric and peaceful folks have their limitless servers, and let people who don\'t mind a bit of danger have that danger.

 

[TheGreenGiant99]

I read this and it\'s seems like a good idea in concept; I like the idea of deleting outer sectors and refreshing them. I would like to propose a few more possible ways of either limiting wandering or enticing players to stay closer to spawn.

1) Frequency of stations (abandoned and pirate) and other resources -- if you decreased the amount of resources (shops, stations, asteroids exc.) as you went further from spawn, this would help keep people more centralised as they would have more access to easy resources if they stayed nearer to spawn. To defeat the problem of depleating all the resources; refresh sectors within a certain radius from spawn which have very little or no activity (e.g. Absolutely nothing or just a flying through would be deem refresh-able); this would also include secotors containing shops, stations ect.

2) Amount of items in shops -- a trickier task to accomplish but if so very effective. What this idea entails is the amount of purchase-able loot in shops. As you go further from spawn, shops will gradually stock less items; a rough percentage decrease per sector. You may get the odd shop with a large stock as you do already but it would be increasing rare and you would struggle to sustain yourself as you ventured further into the abyss. Shops could also get less abundant as you went further out.

3) PIRATES! -- Using pirates to your advantage! The idea is to have a certain safe border around spawn; no pirates would spawn or enter the area; but this would change as you travelled further out. For example, the first ten sectors in each direction are safe - the next ring of two sectors you may encounter a lone pirate, then the next ring you would encounter pairs. This would use a spawning model similar to the Fibonacci sequence; each ring having to total of the two previous rings - 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21 etc. this would require a lot of skill / preparation to venture out as it would be a VERY DANGEROUS environment as numbers increase rapidly. There may need to be a cap set on spawn limits (decided by the admin(s)) as in the end it will get out of hand.

I hope this has helped in presenting some new ideas and I would be happy to help in coming up with a concept for a possible plugin!

Happy Edventuring - Green

 

[Planr]

Excellent points GreenGiant. I agree, and to sum all of your points up:



Increase entropy and danger in a progressive radius outward from the spawn region

 

[Nootau]

For this to work, don\'t use basic pirates. Use MOG pirates, using battle cruiser, battle ships.. titans? Fully armed and deadly things to run into. Otherwise they are too easy to farm to sustain staying that far out.

 

[Doomsider]

Yes you can do this. I would write a script to export the sectors you want to save and then reset the universe and import the sectors back.

 

[DracoNB]

Schema mentioned in the interview from CoopY that he was planning on some features like making it harder the farther you left the original spawn area. So that would help keep people closer in, or make them work together when exploring far sectors.

 

[Dire Badger]

Another option would be to simply improve the map. \'Label\' sectors. If someone builds a permanent structure in a sector, that sector becomes their \'property\' (The property of their faction?) and shows up on the map... The upshot is that no one can build permanent structures in a sector that already contains one, (or mine!?) and the downside is that an \'owned\' sector shows up on the map.



That way you would keep people sorta together, and distance would not be as much protection...people would still tend to clump up in the populated areas for protection, and everyone would KNOW where you are hiding.



Of course, to make it worthwhile, there would have to be things that require permanent structures to be valuable.... such as tier 2 recipes that can only be built in factories and the like.



You could also influence pirate spawns. count the number of times per day a sector is used... this becomes a \'trade route\'. pirates will spawn more frequently on trade routes.



also, reducing the number of shops as you move outwards. More pirates, less shops.



I am hoping that he introduces \'specialty\' shops as well, to give people reasons to clump in certain areas.