X4, wish list.

[Andaius]

You can already hire "crew" and pilots for your ships. Try out the exellent Terracorp pilots script! Also IIRC cycrow has a ship crew script too.

[xTemon]

I would likethe whole game to be Online, Thats right ONLINE. Do you know how amazingly good that would be. True, it would be extremely competitive, and you couldnt get from Point A to B without being attacked by a Clan of M1 Ships. But hey, it'd be darn fun for the more experienced players with a bit of cash.

Bahh:

http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart7_files/S ... age001.gif

Financial suicide!

However, I am not opposed to multiplayer; albiet... disconnected from my 'personal' game.

You're right; the number of twelve year olds playing World of Warcraft is phenomenal

[destyre]

I would likethe whole game to be Online, Thats right ONLINE. Do you know how amazingly good that would be. True, it would be extremely competitive, and you couldnt get from Point A to B without being attacked by a Clan of M1 Ships. But hey, it'd be darn fun for the more experienced players with a bit of cash.

Bahh:

http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart7_files/S ... age001.gif

Financial suicide!

However, I am not opposed to multiplayer; albiet... disconnected from my 'personal' game.

You're right; the number of twelve year olds playing World of Warcraft is phenomenal

Could you imagine the amount of idiots camping at gates with a Python, flakking players who have just entered the game in M4s? "OMG lolz! Dei noob! go und bui a pyfon! Im so l33t lolz0rs"

[Kazuma]

Not to get too much on the MMO theory bandwagon, but I will.

X in its present state dosnt really lend itself to a static 'shared experience' that dominates the MMO world today... what I mean by this is, there are very few 'random' things in an MMO; very nearly everything is set to some form of script, or zone-al spawn ratio; ie. you camp x critter to get y lewt; or this area 'always' has this creature type in it... and typically follows 'this' path. In this sense an MMO is a shared experience POV when story telling... no matter what level you are; everyone killed rats in zone x, or did quest y.

X does use alot of "ut" logic with a good bit of the trade and civi traffic... looking for the best deal, buying stuff; upgrading over time... to a fault, its actually quite good... (it slows you down in the late overpopulated game but thats another thread). This would be a first in an MMO; and I just dont think networks are there to pass this world from 10,000 machines simultaneously. Instead of doing what passes for a zone check in MMO's today;

you enter a zone, the zone list you have locally is checked against the active state of the zone; and populated according to very specific rules... and then its dropped.

X dosnt really work like that, as anyone with 30 or so nav sats dropped all over the universe can attest too. Pretty much 'everything' is moving all the time, with or without you. (seta overnight anyone?)

Now, this may be changing... dunno cause I havnt tried this yet but:

http://www.burningsea.com/

One thing some peeps may not remember some years ago when Eve-Online was first being developed... (i think my account was the 64thish one created on the forums). Was that its supposed list of features (I still have this list), and what actually made it into the game where very very different list... its not that ccp didnt know what they where doing, more to the point; they where just very over-optimistic as to what current software and networking techniques could actually provide (too a lessor extent as a dev team they had very little experience in game software). Years later its finally worth playing... but beta/alpha... rubbish; in a big way. Just take a look at Vanguard; and its dev team allready had a very popular mmo under there belt... end result... rubbish (attempting to make this 'hard core' multifacited variable expereince)...

Even on the topic of 'space games online' there have been several that have come and gone... some still out there... like jumpgate, of course eve... some others... who knows; probably havnt heard of em, for good reason. (cant even remember the westwood studios entry into the market with there piece of flaming skull riff raff.)

I suppose as gamers we want 'the best of all worlds', the mmo with dynamic change and property ownership, the living universe and all that... ultimately though, the experience invariably will cater to the static presentation, the level up grind, and a very static universe.

If not you WILL get this...

Could you imagine the amount of idiots camping at gates with a Python, flakking players who have just entered the game in M4s? "OMG lolz! Dei noob! go und bui a pyfon! Im so l33t lolz0rs"

Pretty confident that I can find that in just about ANY mmo with pvp today.

.Ed. Read this through again and feel like it came off a little harsh, wanted to add that while not opposed to MMO's, X in and of itself; may not remain X as we think of it in the mm online realm; once some of the above can be addressed it may be worthwhile to look into... never know?

[cools71]

Remember the old side scroller from Williams? Yeah you do. I would like to see something from that appear in X4, if that ever happens, don't laugh the concept is the same, the delivery a whole lot different...

Remember when the landers gathered the cannisters from the mountains, there were threee possibilities in that secnario. 1. You kill the lander, and the cannister falls back to the ground. 2. You kill the lander and catch the cannister for a bonus, nice! 3. You missed the lander all together and the cannister dissappeared of the top of the screen to be repaced with an interceptor! This hunted you relentlessly, until defeat in either direction.

This would be a good addition to X4. Revenge. What about all the astronaughts that you just leave after they abandoned there ships due to you? Most of the time I just leave them to make their way to the nearest station. I would be a little p'd off if i had to eject after loosing my ship, and to be honest I would hunt the assailant until he suffered the same fate as me or worse.

So, just like the relentless interceptors in defender, you would have relentless pilots chasing you, or attacking your assets, fuelled with the fury of revenge. It would certainly make you finish the job! (obviously the cannisters from Defender are replaced by the shipless astronaughts)


After all in X3, if you have a UT attacked and it makes a run for it, you get a mesage and a reg no for the responsible ship...the rest is for the developers I feel...

[biggie1447]

alright before anyone starts to bash this post, i am only using star treck Deep Space 9 as an example,

Why would I bash your post? Sounds like a great idea!

http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 9&start=45

Gatta get about 3/4 the way down (page 4); seems like where on the same page.

well you know there is usualy someone who has problem relating X games to Star Treck, or who just hate it outright

but as far as your post goes, yes that is exactly what i mean, a fighter shouldnt be the end all kill all solution to everything, yes fighters can (if given the appropriate cirumstances) kill capital ships, but it shouldnt happen often

and i agree with everything you said about capital ships and their class characteristics as well

[Kazuma]

Two part reply,

This would be a good addition to X4. Revenge.

The latest DDRS mod comes complete with a 'anti-player' bounty hunter script which when fire'd off, people/races you have perturbed launch some very very rough attacks against your person. Definately for the advanced player (lots of MD toating badguys, complete with there own version of the M7). Mind you its a script sure, and for full effect you need to be modded; but its a nice proof of concept and works out quite nicely; highly recommend!

Follows suit with something ive been tinkering with myself as part of a proper 'action-reaction' world that I would like to play in ala an X4. Mayhap even a seperate 'status bar' that gives the player an 'at a glance' over-all world perception of the player... ie... is the player generally good or bad... or self serving... as the slider falls, your chance of becoming a victom of some form of retaliation increases. This of course would be fantastic if there where other 'corporations' out there, rather then the nameless AI traders milling around; always nice to see an AI that has goals.

but as far as your post goes, yes that is exactly what i mean, a fighter shouldnt be the end all kill all solution to everything, yes fighters can (if given the appropriate cirumstances) kill capital ships, but it shouldnt happen often

DS9 (imo) was exactly where the show needed to go, unfortunately, as with alot of stuff (in a genre), the ST cannon allready in place there was alot of internal issue during its filming and whatnot; interestingly enough Bradley Thompson (editor/writer) for DS9 works on the new BSG Tv series, which is appropriate, as the new BSG in many ways, is what Thompson wanted to do with Voyager (as I understand it)... before the 'pureist' had multiple herds of cows. Funny how stuff works out! by the by, Voyager is terrible... just thought I would share.

X in terms of capitol ships as it stands, is pretty anti-climatic; once you get one... put some kit on it, and turn it loose... it's sorta... 'wow... thats one expensive flying expletive-deleted'. Not surprising though, as the game in reguards to the single player 'campaign-story' is "X3: The Reunion". What I mean by that is... the single player start to finish, is the story (and/or intended game experience); the fact that the player can use very nearly all the assets within the game is all but anscillary to the plot game. (which is -to me- one of the weakest elements of the gameplay). Being that many people who 'just pick up' X will never-ever use a ship bigger then a TL, conceiving of systems and balance/purpose for there use is pretty low on the 'to do' list. This is illustrated in Bala-Gi; with the Hype., an often complained about ship which feels as out of place as a Klingon BoP in boron space, a capitol ship that cripples gameplay (in this case in the players favor), theres hardly not much point left to bother doing anything in the game once its in possession. From a general gameplay standpoint, this does not include the 'die hards' who need mega-fabs, and fleets of M2's.

X is finding itself standing alone in a genre that is all but dissapeared over the past few years; alot of times I see it being refered to as an 'empire builder', sure you can trade, and build stuff... but was that not simply a vehicle to move the plot game along? Really as far as the 4x games go, the only one worth a rats mangy tail (of recent note) is Galactic Civ II, which is a great little game... although for everything it has... its no MOO; for many reasons. I can't help but feel like for myself and I am sure others... it is the lack of interest within the (sci-fi) game/simulation publication industry which is causing a gravitation of players to X; its shown remarkable aftermarket resiliancy for a game that never broke a 7 out of 10 on any worthwhile game publication. The only other hope I had was with Digital Reality and CDV with Imperium Galactica 3; which long story short, was sold 'as is' under the name 'nexus the jupiter incident' by Vivendi Games (ala. Sierra Entertainment... no real stretch there... they also published Homeworld from Relic). Unfortunately, the industry of gaming dosnt seem to follow the notion that 'nature abhores a void', so asside from a few indie developers/modders/scripters... theres about nothing being worked on as far as the 1st/3rd person 4x game... sadly, if there is going to be an X4 I am of the mind it will remain rather story centric with a pre-fab sim-city like universe to play around in... but like X3, lacking much of the depth fans of the 4x genre are craving. Worst of all, if it goes backwards and drops the features it presently has to make room for even more eye candy... a common quest nowadays, to get a 'fresh' marketshare... all but alienating the current fanbase.

note: 4x, eXplore eXpand eXploit eXterminate - normally refering to any 'builder' type game... from rts to tbs; figured I would mention it, as 4x and X4 could be seen as a typo

[craigww22]

...

I agree with everything you said. Here's a thought though...what about an MMO X-like game, but without the 3d engine? A simple-but-pretty 2d top-down engine? That's certainly doable, and it's the kind of game I'd love to create if I actually knew how.

Funny thing is I was over a year ahead of everyone else in my class when we did programming at school, but I had absolutely no interest in it beyond that.

I think the main flaw in X3's economy is that its sole purpose seems to be to supply the player with weapons, shields and money. The best way to improve it for X4 would be to make planets (or perhaps large habitation stations?) consume large quantities of many goods. The production of weapons, shields and so on should be secondary, and a healthy general economy would facilitate efficient production of those goods. It has to be less abstract, less simplistic and more realistic, in other words. Graphics are secondary.

[xTemon]

Losing the 3D engine would be a little drastic; half the reason I enjoy this game is because it all happens in a visual 3D environment. If MMO it would go, I'd much prefer they keep, and possibly enhance, the 3D aspects of the game and avoid making it a look alike of so many other common games.

STARTREK and X3

I can't say as I would appreciate it all that much. I do like some of the ship designs, but I have a thing for changing names, descriptions, and anything un-X'ish. I like X3, the X-universe, and the way it's set up. If anything enters the game from outside source, I believe it should either be made to fit, or be purchaseable from an independent source. I like the idea of independant shipyards and engineering corporations myself; and no, I'm not referring to Corellian Engineering Corporation.

MMO

Absolutely right, I can't say as I would enjoy having the, "I've been playing for six years and I am God of this universe," types wrecking my X3 experience. People in online multiplayer games that just keep going have this absurd tendacy to exercise their arrogance in such settings. I don't know if I can handle getting advice from some idiot who's devoted fifteen years to playing a game and now get's his kicks out of playing tricks on new players, or arranging things with his cronies so that everything happens in a fashion of their choosing and as a result of their guidance. Nothing like controlling the economy, rigging the auctions, and making sure all the new players are in a neatly packed, blind bundle so you can tell them what you want and get away with it; the ultimate pyramid scheme

I've had more than enough of that thanks; it really is a load of crap

I could go on...

Instead I'll say that, should X go online, I hope it avoids such blunders as those well represented by other Mmorpg's and keeps it's high resolution 3D environment for everone to play in instead of devolving into a 2D strategy game that loses the feel of racing along at high speed through a twisting course of shipwrecks, asteroids, and high velocity plasma trails.

Ok, so X3 doesn't have these things; maybe the next X will

[biggie1447]

STARTREK and X3

I can't say as I would appreciate it all that much. I do like some of the ship designs, but I have a thing for changing names, descriptions, and anything un-X'ish. I like X3, the X-universe, and the way it's set up. If anything enters the game from outside source, I believe it should either be made to fit, or be purchaseable from an independent source. I like the idea of independant shipyards and engineering corporations myself; and no, I'm not referring to Corellian Engineering Corporation.

I wasnt refering to the use of Star Trek ship designs in X4, i was refering to the vessel class structure, in the entire 40 some odd years of star trek there was essentially only one "fighter" class ship, and that was seen in DS9, it seems that almost every ship that is used in the genre has a crew compliment larger than 1, thats what i would like to see, fewer fighters more big things

and anywan, i dont know of any cargo ship/trader, that has a crew compliment of 1, the requirements of shiping just dont permit that, and i am talking about real world just as much as sci-fi.

if you look at Starwars, the only cargo ship with a crew of two was the melinium falcon, and she was a smuggler ship carying high price low bulk goods, just to keep people from pointing that out later

and because i mentioned it, in starwars there are still dozens of capital ships however there are more fighters and they are more powerful, kind of like the fighters in the X games, but it still takes a dozen of them using high powered missles to do much damage to capital ships, in X3 missles prety much suck against anything, and only ships of corvett size can carry and launch ship killers

i will stop my rant now to give others a chance to post as well, but please let this discussion continue, i feel like this is so far the best topic discussing ship design i have seen yet

[Kazuma]

I agree with everything you said. Here's a thought though...what about an MMO X-like game, but without the 3d engine? A simple-but-pretty 2d top-down engine? That's certainly doable, and it's the kind of game I'd love to create if I actually knew how.

Alot of work has allready been done on stuff like this... as it goes, before a big name company plunks down that sack of gold bullion to get a game made, you have to show em 'sumthin' that resembles a game; it all began here... atleast I remember it for the first time in any online sense here... pre-internet...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradewars

I think the main flaw in X3's economy is that its sole purpose seems to be to supply the player with weapons, shields and money

If I where to take this one step further... I would add, that it is a supply side economy (player), and bottomless demand (AI) distribution. I am not even sure if the player can 'loose' money on the deal once the thing (fabs/plexes) are built, even buying in on local resources... unless you just 'give' the stuff away for next to free (a tactic sometimes employed to get race rep). Theres alot of room for exploration here for future titles... Ultimately, there is just not that much 'risk' involved in becoming active in the games economy, so long as you start in commodity wares and work your way up SI/ORE.

The production of weapons, shields and so on should be secondary, and a healthy general economy would facilitate efficient production of those goods. It has to be less abstract, less simplistic and more realistic, in other words. Graphics are secondary.

This would entail that the world needs things supplied to it to function... or rather, big picture 'ai' (such as goals an empire would have), must have certain maximums met before they 'went to war', or certain minimums for that matter. Being that while expansive... the universe is very static, theres no need for a shortfall biased economy, the only (aI) is the player... so the economy revolves around him/her. As we are the only ones that really feel 'shortfalls', when AFLAKs are scarce. Or do we? As there is nothing that the player can be challanged with, other then decimating all the sectors in game (which is its own little reward I spose).

As far as graphics the last 2 GDC's had conferences about the state of the industry, the general consensus is that AI, Gameplay, Replay have all taken a backseat to the 3d engine and it's proliferation as a device for story telling. It's an interesting divergence, as back in the day a good game had to have good writing or a good setup... as visual representation left alot to the imagination. Dev's can now visually craft a world that dosnt need much explanation... a big gun, looks very much like a big gun... unfortunately, this works on two levels...

Big budget, massive art teams eat... well, most of your budget. Your project becomes secondary to the art (now you are working around the art and not the game itself); attempting to please an aging gamer population with a fairly high expectation, without loosing a 'possible' emmergent player base (the kiddies). Graphics sell, theres no doubt about that... ultimately, the industry is going to continue on the 3d kick till it gets it to a science, rather then 3d blocks with nice textures tossed on it. (deformable tesselations, the whole bang) would be a nice start though... Could be a sign of the times, there is just less and less of a player base interested in micro/macro economies, and open ended experiences... I tend to call it the 'blockbuster' generation, where if you want a game... you went to the local BB rented it, knocked it out, and returned it; there are darn few games today that you may sit back and go 'hugh...'-scratch head- and contemplate your next move. X is very much like this your first or second run through... although, again, the lack of anything dynamic makes it a fairly routine experience; booze and weed ALWAYS make money, no matter who's game its in.

I wasnt refering to the use of Star Trek ship designs in X4, i was refering to the vessel class structure, in the entire 40 some odd years of star trek there was essentially only one "fighter" class ship, and that was seen in DS9, it seems that almost every ship that is used in the genre has a crew compliment larger than 1, thats what i would like to see, fewer fighters more big things

The ST universe and X universe have one (imo) distinct difference... X has abit of a deus ex machina; the jumpgates... I mean, there everywhere; atleast everywhere you can go... as far as I am aware, only twice in the story/setup/cannon of the X universe was FTL travel done without the use of a gate... The opening scene of X (which I am sure you can still find floating around in demo format); and I guess, the Khaak... which seem to just 'appear'. (feel free to offer up a correction on this, too late to research it further). Ship design in X follows the gate principle, similar to how ship builders for years built around the dimensions of the panama canal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panamax

As in life, this will have to change/alter to get the bigger ships and ergo mitigate ship classes to roles simply based on what the player is willing to accept as 'plausible' for that craft to do on its own steam. ST is a good one though, as throughout most of the shows history, standard issue (none plot device/setup) travel is done over a period of time, while at ludicrous speed (warp drive)...

Piccard on X "...you have the helm, I only hope we make it in time... -starts to walk to cabin to read a book/write a personal log-... 'interupted', err... captain, where there allready." -enterprise poops out of a gate.

I find this concept kinda wonky though... as X takes a 'good hot minute' to get from low rent civi bum in a buster/discoverer/mercury; where distance is critical -man thats 3 sectors away... checks wallet... checks Ecells... ugggg- to finishing an XI, or a big Assasin mission... now going from Argon Prime to Maelstrom is a couple clicks of the keyboard. To explain, the start is extremely rough, but once you get a little cash... everything opens up in a big way... soon after that, theres not much left to do. (yes you can RE ships, build em, get rep... ermm, other then too see how much stuff you can own... theres no viable 'use' for it; even the use of a wingman is financial suicide till you got 'lewts'; but once you have lewts... you dont need em anymore.

Just ask how many people still have 'favorite ship' = nova/mamba raider, and own dozens of stations and fleet of ships... the start is very slow... once started; the game experience of 'explore' evaporates almost instantaneously. (this statement excludes lots of use of SETA). It amazes me that soooo much time is spent in a fighter... with so little, and how quickly you gain, once you get a few creds. Take away the ability to go from A to Z and back in a fighter, and there will be reason enough for capitols.

[craigww22]

STARTREK and X3 ...

It's a difference I always notice between things like Star Trek and Star Wars - the "navy" in Star Trek consists of battleships, like real fleets from a century ago, while the ships in Star Wars tend to be fighters, with "Star Destroyers" being like very well armed aircraft carriers. I think if we eventually have real space fleets, they will be more like Star Trek than Star Wars. The reason the basis of naval power today is the aircraft carrier as opposed to the battleship is that battleships can't withstand attack from the air, while carriers have the range, via her air wing/air group, can attack targets beyond visual range. Is all that still true when you have energy shields? Also, the fighters in DS9 should be getting destroyed in seconds when they attack bigger ships...

If you watch those space battles in DS9, they're visually impressive (for the time) but totally unrealistic. Hundreds of huge battleships only spaced apart by a few meters? If one explodes it'll take the rest with it! More realistically they should be many miles apart, and should use "line of battle" tactics, albiet in 3 dimensions.

Of course, I suppose the main reason they didn't do it that way was because you can't show all those ships on screen if they're miles apart...

Anyway, X3 is not Star Trek, and you can't very well scurry around the universe and dock with trading stations in your Battlecruiser Harbinger of Doom and Awesomeness. It's not supposed to be realistic in that sense.

[pjknibbs]

It's a difference I always notice between things like Star Trek and Star Wars - the "navy" in Star Trek consists of battleships, like real fleets from a century ago, while the ships in Star Wars tend to be fighters, with "Star Destroyers" being like very well armed aircraft carriers.

I'd argue with that. Most battle scenes in Star Wars show capital ships exchanging fire, while fighters have their own little battles elsewhere. There are many examples of this: just off the top of my head, we have the Empire so confident that fighters posed no threat to the Death Star that they didn't equip it with anti-fighter turbolasers. The opening scene of the first film shows a Star Destroyer chasing down a Corellian Corvette (at 150m long, hardly a fighter) with no fighter support whatsoever. Also during the same film we saw the Millennium Falcon being chased away from Tattooine by three Star Destroyers, again with no fighter support at all.

In fact, there is only one example in the entire original trilogy where a fighter has any influence on a capital ship, and that's when Green Leader's A-wing crashes into the bridge of the Executor. Even then, it's clear that the shields of the big ship have already partially collapsed under the concentrated assault from the Rebel capital ships (the large sphere on top of the bridge is NOT a shield generator, despite what many people think), and it's largely a fluke that he managed to crash his ship into the single most vital point on the entire 17km battleship!

[biggie1447]

It's a difference I always notice between things like Star Trek and Star Wars - the "navy" in Star Trek consists of battleships, like real fleets from a century ago, while the ships in Star Wars tend to be fighters, with "Star Destroyers" being like very well armed aircraft carriers.

I'd argue with that. Most battle scenes in Star Wars show capital ships exchanging fire, while fighters have their own little battles elsewhere. There are many examples of this: just off the top of my head, we have the Empire so confident that fighters posed no threat to the Death Star that they didn't equip it with anti-fighter turbolasers. The opening scene of the first film shows a Star Destroyer chasing down a Corellian Corvette (at 150m long, hardly a fighter) with no fighter support whatsoever. Also during the same film we saw the Millennium Falcon being chased away from Tattooine by three Star Destroyers, again with no fighter support at all.

As pjknibbs pointed out not all the time... and in the battle over endor, there were all the capitol ships there, true they did have fighters but they wernt seen shooting capital ships normaly, mostly they had dogfights around and thru the capital ship formations shooting at each other.

In fact, there is only one example in the entire original trilogy where a fighter has any influence on a capital ship, and that's when Green Leader's A-wing crashes into the bridge of the Executor. Even then, it's clear that the shields of the big ship have already partially collapsed under the concentrated assault from the Rebel capital ships (the large sphere on top of the bridge is NOT a shield generator, despite what many people think), and it's largely a fluke that he managed to crash his ship into the single most vital point on the entire 17km battleship!

according to the x-wing series of books, the only way for a fighter squadron to serioulsy hurt a destroyer was by launching 24 torpedos at the ship and have them hit the same section of shielding, ther by overloading them and destroying the generator, and that required fairly precise timing and aiming with powerful torpedos, not lasers mounted onboard

[krakhtonslip]

How about a variable space weather?


Imagine an entire sector locked out because of it's main star is having a bad day. Or a solar flare causing the onboard computer to go nuts and the player would have no choice but to go and repair the systems in the nearest trade station.

The game game takes place in space, the most hostile medium known, we could think of thousands of random variables to dynamically change the navigation between sectors. It would be nice to have some odd gas cloud to hideout your presence (or pirates presence) making it easier to go through a Xenon sector. The effects could vary depending on the class of the ship affected: A small M6 could suffer severe damage from a flare while the M1, would only notice minor disturbances. It could influence how the trade routes are chosen i.e: a very stable sector would be preferred to a sector prone to a great space weather variability. We can even think of forms of partial shielding (in exchange of money) to these events.

The space presented in x3 is pretty much uniform. The gas clouds present in the different systems are nothing but a visual problem. It would be nice for them to become a real disturbance.

Just ask how many people still have 'favorite ship' = nova/mamba raider, and own dozens of stations and fleet of ships... the start is very slow... once started; the game experience of 'explore' evaporates almost instantaneously. (this statement excludes lots of use of SETA). It amazes me that soooo much time is spent in a fighter... with so little, and how quickly you gain, once you get a few creds. Take away the ability to go from A to Z and back in a fighter, and there will be reason enough for capitols.

Yeap, I agree with that, and you could imagine sector being totally unreachable by fighters, because they couldn't last within. If you're going to cross the pacific in a bout, which one is the safer ? A great cargo ship or a small 10m yacht? In my opinion, fighters are small non-autonomous ships, that need the support of a carrier to survive in deep space.

[pasty11]

JUST LOSE THE MUPPETS.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE X Infinity.

Does anyone like the muppets?

[blazer1121]

So far i've only had time to skim over the first page of this thread. But from what I saw it might be good if someone already signed up for dev-net could get all our ideas and post them in dev-net. So maybe just copy paste, or neaten it all up and fleash out the details from reading multiple posts. If no-one already signed for dev-net wants to do this i'll have to sign up and do it myself. I don't like handing out such specific details of myself though.

[CBJ]

If anyone does plan to sign up for DevNet and post these ideas, then they need to read the rules very carefully. One big post with a load of ideas would be deleted immediately, as would a load of posts containing ideas that were duplicates of those already there. Failing to follow the rules wastes both your time and that of the DevNet moderators. That's why we tell people to sign up and post there themselves, so that no one person has to do so much work. Sadly it seems that people are so intent on what they want to write that they don't bother to read the repeated reminders, however many times they are posted.

[destyre]

It's a difference I always notice between things like Star Trek and Star Wars - the "navy" in Star Trek consists of battleships, like real fleets from a century ago, while the ships in Star Wars tend to be fighters, with "Star Destroyers" being like very well armed aircraft carriers.

I'd argue with that. Most battle scenes in Star Wars show capital ships exchanging fire, while fighters have their own little battles elsewhere. There are many examples of this: just off the top of my head, we have the Empire so confident that fighters posed no threat to the Death Star that they didn't equip it with anti-fighter turbolasers. The opening scene of the first film shows a Star Destroyer chasing down a Corellian Corvette (at 150m long, hardly a fighter) with no fighter support whatsoever. Also during the same film we saw the Millennium Falcon being chased away from Tattooine by three Star Destroyers, again with no fighter support at all.

As pjknibbs pointed out not all the time... and in the battle over endor, there were all the capitol ships there, true they did have fighters but they wernt seen shooting capital ships normaly, mostly they had dogfights around and thru the capital ship formations shooting at each other.

In fact, there is only one example in the entire original trilogy where a fighter has any influence on a capital ship, and that's when Green Leader's A-wing crashes into the bridge of the Executor. Even then, it's clear that the shields of the big ship have already partially collapsed under the concentrated assault from the Rebel capital ships (the large sphere on top of the bridge is NOT a shield generator, despite what many people think), and it's largely a fluke that he managed to crash his ship into the single most vital point on the entire 17km battleship!

according to the x-wing series of books, the only way for a fighter squadron to serioulsy hurt a destroyer was by launching 24 torpedos at the ship and have them hit the same section of shielding, ther by overloading them and destroying the generator, and that required fairly precise timing and aiming with powerful torpedos, not lasers mounted onboard

I'd prefere to believe that its a flaw of george lucas to have battles where fighters are only there to destroy other fighters, making them completely pointless unless there is a magical weakness that only a fighter can exploit like a hole where coincidently a torpedo could slide into and destroy a huge space station.

[craigww22]

I'd prefere to believe that its a flaw of george lucas to have battles where fighters are only there to destroy other fighters, making them completely pointless unless there is a magical weakness that only a fighter can exploit like a hole where coincidently a torpedo could slide into and destroy a huge space station.

Well, Star Wars is fantasy. It's not sci-fi, as some people seem to believe, just because it's set in space. Realism is even less important there.