Yes, the idea is an addition for a possible escape scenario to not loose uninsured bots. Since module get lost - the most expensive loss (on most used bots) is already there.

So another freezing penalty would make no sense. The opponent gave up and tries to withdraw - he should hav a slight chance to do so at least.

I don't see the speed gap as a problem, rather then the missing special features of the other bot classes being able to be used as reliable as EWs speed.

The speed gap must be of this size for EW to be viable interceptors.

To balance the other way would and make them viable would be to reduce their speed generally to just have a ~10% speed advantage plus having a special module to boosts their speed temporarily, so that they can intercept or flee once in let's say within 5 minutes - but can't use it in that reliable way they do right now to enter/evade fights at will.

The major difference to EVE is that - besides similar class roles and interceptor speeds and possibilities to counter - EWs here still have the LoS advantage - they can hide a lot quicker in infights in comparison to slower other bot types + plus having the constant speed advantage.

Countering this playstyle at current state is more of a nice achievement rather then an excuse for the imbalances. Great if its possible, but thats not the way a designer would or should look at it.

The counter roles/class and playstyle wise should be as obvious in quality as the measure to counter - the EWs speed ability - and also be an active ability - like their speed!

An example would be, to make bots more vulnerable to dmg as their moving faster to reflect loosing control over their vehicle more easily being fired at at high speed. This would be an appropriate counter-ability of the same active and reliable quality the EWs have as speed ability.

Another, possibly more logical approach would be to increase the chance of being hit critically at high speeds drastically, since the EWs engines run on max and are hardly armored. Result would be the same.

Your right on the impact of course - id quit myself if all was open ffa pvp. I think nowbody has any interest to do so - and this wont happen im sure.

But see - a system like the above has the current alpha and beta like they are now - and doesnt force you to go anywhere else. You can keep those playstyles entirely and this is expected by the system, because it would be the easiest way to go - combining green and red players each in their extreme. Co-operation as the key.

It has also some pros added for pure farmers/traders, since the color-system would allow them to go even industry wise, since their green would compensate the lower lvl facilities in B)(alphas).

But you also could try and reach for more and try to even increase you industrie skills by reaching out for C) (betas) at the expense of having to travel through A) a more dangerous area then B) but still not as dangerous as C)

Same goes for the pure OP fighting corporations. They already have lots of benefits there and now have to decide wether they wanna be able to trade on safe B) or have to be happy with trading on A) or even must reside in C).

All of these possibilities and changes require a certain responsability concerning your playstyle because it doesnt only affect you, but also your corp in a long term. Also it can make smaller corporations able to compete with the sheer numbers of bigger corps.

One example would is, they can influence their corp standing in a more effective way and thus be able to compete on all 3 areas. Another one would be: to stay green as a small pvp corp, refrain from any forced pvp on A) and benefit from the green addition to their defense values on C) as opposed to the big corporations who have a harder task to not go red but cannot reach green if they want to maintain OPs.

You could still choose to go any else direction, be it big pvp corp or as a trader or small corp - but theres always the need on having to keep an eye on who you attack and where.

A) would clearly be the boiling point, which you can reside in - you don't have to. The gains there are not necessary for the game itself - but fee-free trading or housing at the expense of being able to be attacked is a price you may wanna pay or not.

It is an area lots of people are waiting for - as my personal experience. All interconnected other features add the necessary dynamics, gains and restrictions.

Anyone trying to use A) as a griefing or ganking spot won't have that much fun - it can work 1 or 2 times depending on your color - but you will die yourself most likely and in the case you get away - you cannot access A) until you loose your red again - which is only possible in A) and thus makes you a target without consequences for greens and yellow. Or - you have to get back to yellow waiting on C) while your corp mates indirectly reduce your PS through grinding up their CS to yellow again, which would require dedication and work.

And yes - there would be those peolpe investing all their time to kill somone on A) and invest all their time to go yellow again and repeat this over and over - but - A) is exactly about that possibility!

I will update the above posting with some modifications concerning zoning with PVP/PWF and infight flag.

I welcome anybody to test any careers and playstyles and see possibilities of very different pros and cons thus making that system more solid they way it is intended.

That's also where i'd start.

So Wraith, here goes. Feel free to criticize or ask - i hope you can improve this very basic concept i'm gonna start. I making it easy in numbers and transitions to criticize it more easily.

The rather complicated looking rules are pretty easy to understand if visualy integrated and they are very easy to implement in software.

There are 3 Zones:

A(sanctioned/restricted pvp) - the common starting zone (yes, life can be tricky, so make a decision where to go)
B(safezone) - current alphas
C(ffa pvp without sanctioning consequences) current betas

of which A connects to B and C but B and C are not connected.

A)
- is the melting pot of players coming from B and C
- to do direct trades without any fees
- there are instanced player housings or can be built
- guards in form of flying observers are in place
- there is a mediocre mix of ressource grinding/farming and PVE to do here
-some special random spawns to spice up usuall robot day life

B)
- is the center of megacorp commerce and station trading
- its a safezone generally similar to current alphas
- it's the only access to high lvl market terminals

C)
- are the badlands, a warzone with outposts
- similar to the current betas
- the only access to highest lvl production facilities

1. Besides the NPC faction standing there will be 2 more standing indicators:

- a personal standing (PS)
- a corp standing (CS)
- available status are green, yellow, red / G, Y, R

- PS and CS status-colors are not visible to anyone but oneself/corp
- whenever a person joins or leaves a corp, the PS is adjusted to the CS standing, unless the PS is lesser then
the CS(cant improve by leaving or joining) and G can only join G or Y corps, Y only Y or R, R only R
- starting color is Y
- PS de/increase by missions, playerkills(something higher then an arkhe2) only
- whereas CS decreases each time you successfully claim an OP in C)

- to decrease from Y to R or G to Y, you need to kill a non-R player in A)
- to increase from R to Y you need missions in A) higher gain or in C) lower gain
- to increase from Y to G, you need missions in B) lower gain or in C) higher gain, kill an R in A) lower gain
- positive changes to the PS translate in a 0.1/member count ratio to the CS, reflecting back again only 0.01/member count to each member
- increase of PS through missions and kills and thereby CS is limited by diminishing returns/timewindow
- decrease of CS through indirect player PS affection is limited by diminishing returns/timewindow

- negative changes on the PS through agressive attacking a target depend on the color-difference
- an R attacks a G results in the largest difference, R on R, Y on Y, G on G in the smallest
- negative changes to the PS translate in a 1/0.01 ratio to the CS, reflecting back again 1/1
- changes to PS and CS are listed in personal/corp menu like transactions

- the PS/CS colors are a modifiers to certain interactions:
- PS comes into play for players without corporation and as a personal modifier
- the lesser color of PS or CS overrides the higher one in means of sanctional effects
- the higher color of PS or CS overrides the lesser one in means of rewarding effects

- rewarding effects:
- they give a bonus to industrie skills where G gives the highest bonus, Y gives a small one and R gives none
- they also modify the defensive values (shield/armor) on either A), B) or C), where G gives a higher bonus then Y and R no bonus(current state)
- they increase the chance against lower value color enemies of not being looted when being killed in A) B) and C)

- sanctional effects:
- the colors define, who and how much someone will be indirectly protected by guards on A)
- R also excludes players from entering B)
- R auto-enables pvp-flag on A) and B)
- R disables protection by guards on A)
- R also nullifying any insurance on A)
- R increase the chances of being fully looted by higher value colored players in A) B) C)
- Y reduces insurances effects in A)
- dying as an R in A) results in stackable temporal-kernel dis-integrity reducing speed
- colors can only do trades with their own color and yellow. G and R cannot trade and need Y as a transition

2. PWF-flag:
- besides the usual PVP-flag there is a personal warfare flag
- this flag flags the PVP attacker on A) only visible to the victim, in addition to the normal PVP-flag
- or generally if a player issued an offensive EVP(economy versus player) attack
- this flag is stackable
- this flag reduces the PS
- this PWF-flag enables the victim(G, Y, R) to attack the wearer in A) without enabling the PVP-flag(except R) and guards taking no action
to attack the wearer even in safezone B) (only G and Y)
- the PWF-flag reduces by 1 layer (if stacked) when being attacked by the original victim by:
- means of PVP on A) or generally by means of EVP(economy versus player)
- the PWF-flag can also be reduced by a fee being payed to the victim if the victim asks for it similar to a trade

3. PVP-flag:
- works like the current one
- has the addition of PWF-flag on A)

4. EVP: economy versus player
- traders have the possibility to sell fake/malicious/low quality loot anonymously via the market(terminals exclusively) to make more profit
- this is an offensive EVP attack, an untargeted/unspecific action without the need of having been attacked
- this action flags the creator and the seller for only the buyer and user with the PWF-flag
- traders additionally have the possibility to issue retaliating EVP attacks to people wearing the PWF-flag to them from an earlier attack
- this defensive attack means having the posibility to sell an malicious item via the market only visible to the one with the according PWF-flag
- and by issuing megacorp-prosecution, resulting in decreasing their PS and indirectly their CS in addition to the normal increase through the attack on A)

5. Mechanics are people who can disasemble and loot mechs better then others. They gain more loot from NPCs and have higher chances
   to loot a player corpse allthough the victim has a higher PS. They can also modify looted modules and sell them as prerequisite
   for EVPers. And, you can build houses!

6. Guards:
- work only in A)
- are instanced objects popping up in the sky out of nowhere, 1 for each attacker thus having no LoS or availability issues
- attack the attacker except an R is being attacked or an PWF-flagged player is being attacked by the victim
- also attack supporters of an attacker
- don't attack R players if they are being attacked
- continue fire until target is dead or zoned

- guards attack strength is derived from the difference of their colors favoring G over Y over R according to PS and CS as described earlier
- maximum dmg = accum+effective HP(armor+resistances)+1 = insta kill independant of target HP, EQ and support

- G1 attacks G2: normal dmg to G1
- G attacks Y: normal dmg to G
- G attacks R: no guard dmg to G
- Y attacks G: increased dmg to Y
- Y1 attacks Y2: normal dmg to Y1
- Y attacks R: no guard dmg to Y
- R attacks G: maximum dmg to R
- R attacks Y: increased dmg to R
- R attacks R: normal dmg to R

7. Results and dynamics:

Given the different roles generally being assigned by the game goals you have traders, pvers and pvpers.
These roles are now multiplied by their PS values allowing different careers.
And in combination with their CS values again some more intensive specialisations.
Also Corporation size can affect these roles again.

I find it necessary to start on the not-so-safe A) to make people think about what they want to do. If they already know,
everybody can do as he does now.

1)
As a trader you can head from A) to B) - farm resources, grind some mob, do missions on your way to PS-green, trade, build a green Corp,
whatever you like.

If your a bit of a Marshall Braveheart guy You could also pay A) a visit to do some direct trades, with the possibility of a yellow attacking you,
because he doesnt know that you are deep-green and your protection is better then normal and watch the guards rip him apart and even loot him in the end
because your green favors you over his yellow. I'm sure you dont wanna risk your hard earned green, go yellow and attack someone here - but you can still do
that on C) - allthough a lot more reds are likely to be found in this warzone. But if you make it - you could use your deep-green bonus plus the highest lvl
facilities to build the best stuff possible! Sure it's not easy on C) as a green-scientist but its worth the try.

But - you could also stay on B) in your terminal and become a fierce EVPer - someone who sells low quality goods and even more cash. Going to A) now or just
leaving the B) terminal could now be more of a problem! If a victim or you EVP skills finds you - he can just kick your *** unharmed.

Of course - you mustnt stay in B) as an EVPer, you could aswell go to C) but those terminals there arent as good as the ones in B) - so maybe you stay on
B) and and just avoid going red there and wait until a leet PvP-Corp seeks some leet-EVPers.

2)
You are a leet PvPer and have a big *** corp? Ok then directly head for C) and do anything you like there. Kill everybody and everything, you have awesome
resources and good quality mob there. Also with these facilities your red scientists can build as effective as the green guys from far over in B) but yeah,
trading probably isnt that easy located in C).

And if you joined one of those big mega corps you prolly cant go back trade your good stuff that easily on A) or even B) because big corps easily go red
and hardly go green again - unless they support each other and do missions so you can become their transporter guy.

So get yellow. This way you can still kill some other reds on A) or some yellows - but beware of trying to have a go at a green transporter on A) with 10 of
your buddies, because maybe with that 1 kill you are whoops back to red because all your 10 friends alpha striked that guy and made your corp go red again,
because they all reflect their PS on your corp.

So maybe you just stay red better hire some guys to do that eh? Some of those guys lurking around everywhere - on A), B) and C) and they kinda seem to know
what they're doing. They cant prevail on C) because they're too small and small isnt good to hold OPs. But being a small corp favors guys accidently going
red because unlike others they can do missions or kill reds and re-gain yellow faster because their PS increases their CS more effective then in those kickass
big sized corps you control C) outposts with.

3)
You like trading? Go to B) and farm a bit while your jelly-pizza is waiting for you. You wanna grind some good mob and hang around the trading hub where
lotsa strange guys are at? And you also feel a bit strange because you eat jelly-pizza? Aight do it. Or go to C) and grind some bigger mobs. Or yes,
if you can go everywhere that easy, why dont you get some stuff from the green guys to the reds over there or vice versa? And if someone pisses you off, well,
shoot him, loot him - your chances to loot a green on A) are better then the chances of a red. And if that red doesnt pay - yeah - shoot him also! And loot back
the stuff you just sold. But beware - they now can attack you or sell you some bad machinery - and maybe you even prepared that malicous weapon that doesnt fire
or that shield that only empties you accumulator and doesnt work.

Easy, no reason to run away - you can build your house here. Neighbours are nice - there's that green guy only wanting a house for his bot collection
and yeah - from time to time you see a red sneak into the other door.

But over all its a nice place here - you can decide tomorrow if you like the green guys more or go with the red ones.

Short self-test:

-Ganking/Griefing noobs: oops your red - say byebye civilisation.

-Spies wanting to damage the CS of a corp by over and over killing an allied: cant do this with arkhes, you will die each time and have a timer-based disintegrity
on A) the only place where you can do this. Also - you go red long before you have your corp red and even if your trying - your corp has an eye on your PS/CS
actions.

-Self-assigning different roles with alts as in using your private green EVPer or producer for a red corp on C): yes you can do that, have fun transferring goods
and running around untagged on c).

-Pushing green PS by killing a red alt: yes, but doing missions is prolly faster and easier to do.

-ambushing a green hauler on A) with some untagged greens, a yellow mechanic and some red firepower - yes - but you still all get attacked by guards, the reds
insta pop, the yellow go red, the green yellow - you must really be dedicated to this. But over all A) is not their safe heaven so what.

Yes, Wraith didnt even read properly - so he assumes every system being proposed and designed is open to gankers and hides behind the DEV vs. ganker arms race, traders being driven off and because he thinks this logic is evident - he implies everybody here promoting any change is a griefer.

If your accepting Wraith - let's do an experiment - ill post a simple ruleset which gives some more opportunities and you attack it - and tell me where it fails for you - aight?

I totally agree Other. It should be the community and the summ of all those small choices players make within their playtime that defines, reduces or increases their possibilities - not a fixed set as soon as the char is created. This contradicts sandbox idea.

"Perpetuum was built around the concept of people playing together, not simply next to each other in the same world." DEV BoyC

http://blog.perpetuum-online.com/posts/ … uit-codes/

Agreed to varying missions and more specific missions. Also agreed on problems of being successfull on beta.

Getting there is easy - also getting rid of a scout as a group - but just a few minutes later there will be 1 or 2 counter setup groups whereas you cannot adapt anymore - but the local party can.

You cant even jump out if you try to defend yourself - so theres vast room for improvements concerning ways how to loose scouts and/or have means to create ambushes even as intruder.

Yes, these 2 last paragraphs concern PVE, PVE on beta.

Setting:

Since there are 3 different factions it would be nice to make use of that setting as mentioned several times.

a) Home islands are invaded by the two hostile factions and are at war. The state of war is dynamically defined by agressing that faction the most which is dominating the 2 others factored by values coming from the most progressed/RE'd/produced robot families on the market and the most used by players. Intensity of these NPC wars varies according to that.

b) Attacking robots of the same family as oneself is results in faction standing loss, though it would be the easiest since the 2 other factions join in on these battles.

This would require the faction standing to have an impact on the difficulty of PVE fights - the better a standing is - the lesser the NPC of that family will engange you. If you engange him, its powers are dimished by your faction standing - but your faction standing would be reduced quickly.

If you wouldnt attack your family - it would automatically boost your PVE chances against the other 2 families, since they are at war. But you would need to find another player from another faction to kill those bots for you, you need most.

This way the faction standing is also something usefull in PvP situations since one could hide in a PVE family type spawn.

c) Spawns only spawn 1 faction type. If this particular spawn isnt being farmed(for missions or loot) in a certain ratio, the spawn will grow over several days. When a certain amount is reached - the double or triple sized group of bots start roaming as a group aiming at primnarily at the hostile NPC faction(shown above) - but also attack players depending on faction standing.

There would be some fix roaming routes to hostile NPC spawns - but also the most used paths are being frequented.

Spawns that grow according to above - have the possibility to breed a boss type NPC.

d) As soon as there are player made assets on alphas (could be instanced entry points to not cover the alphas totally accessible for Corps with an alliance feature(to be developed)) roaming NPC would attack those according to their family status type. All those housings would have an indicator defined by its members families. The higher that indicator points to a certain family, the more likely the housing will be attacked by hostile roaming NPC as described above.

These ideas just need evaluation of the most used paths(already there), evaluation of the most used/advanced robot family(easy to do via the market and player origins) and evaluation of the housing indicator(factored by its members).

The AI changes needed are minor ones, since each action on its own isnt complex. Same with the faction standing influencing the possibility of being attacked or indirectly supported. Overall its a: "if x > then" - its thecomplexity and diversity of players which makes this system 'seem' unpredictable or non-linear - but its not of course.

Complexity:

Speaking of AI - some minor changes in small PVE encounters would be nice, without having to re-build logics which is a hard task and still easy to exploit. Developing advanced AI is a profession and project for itself - but some minor, rather random events like extending the agression range or making NPC follow a player for longer distances then normal, could add a tiny bit of spice.

Features:

I'd like to see more features concerning player/NPC interaction.
-make scanning an NPC advance your scientific progress a bit(if your an RE guy)
-make NPC corpses hackable yielding a better kernel result or with a chance of a higher tiered item as normally
-implement hacking those corpses as minigames letting you not see what happens aroubnd you while doing it. If you trie too long, other NPC might spawn and already attack you, while your hacking

No, we're talking about extending posssibilities and content in a rather stereotype and sterile game right now.

Small amount of players? 90% of the players i know already unsubbed - and those are pvers mainly.

And you should just refrain from making wrong implications - i and we never talked about being able to attack anyone everywhere. Read ffs before posting...

And again - arena fightings are even more artificial and non-related to natural conflicts we're talking about.

And furthermore - the above system wouldnt favor pvpers or pvers - it would allow for both - but just gave more freedom to decide as opposed to now.

And your talking about the pvp crown as a niche in this game while its clearly being advertised as a pvp focussing game throughout all its structures - but in a not coherent way in practice. PVE and economy is also terribly stereotype and linear.

So what we're trtying to achieve is - improve the gameplay for everybody by interconnecting playstyles and giving non-pvpers some serious means of protection and playstyle related counter and even economic attack tools.

You just skipped the what this is all about. 2/3 of the ideas above only focus on economic and pve players - while the last 3rd only reflects or adjusts the gameplay for pvp players.

Also you imply im solely a pvper - where im clearly not. If there was some more interesting pve features or crafting economic and or fluff things - id be doing this aswell. And the stuff above is an idea just to making a more versatile and dynamic ruleset.

Id favor more fluff and interesting pve in the same way and hopefully this will come but its a whole different point were takling about.

Lets try this example:

I have no interest in attacking players allthough i could(on beta) if i wouldnt have a conflict with them other then - woho i can shoot you.

So lets say Savin and i dont like each other very much. So with a system like above - Savin could sell me crap items which could be seen as the normal fluctuation of item quality on the market and i would need to try and find reliable suppliers.

If Savin wanted to harm me in specifics it (;D) would need to apply a risk on himself of being harmed in pve areas with lesser consequences to me - same goes the other way it (:P) could react on my agression and target me unharmned and specificly. Moreover he/she would need to work together with a pve player to supply him re-programmed modules.

With every sort of first attack onto each other - be it pvp or eco-warfare - the attacker invests in it on purpose and has something to lose in exchange - economical consequences for both, direct loss of equipment for the pvper additionally - and loss of freedom to wander around for both again.

Any agression allows a countermeasure - repeating any agression from any side will result in locking yourself out from the free world with the need to reside in beta only or safezones only - taking away the possibility to go on with your malicious actions.

Its like o longterm ignore function from players who have a conflict with each other and are willing to sacrifice for that.

Yes.

Just out of nothing lets split the number of playstyles/roles, major ruleset areal zones and pvp means into 3:

a) economical/crafting/trading characters
-residing mainly in safezones(non pvp), sometimes in pve, lesser in pvp zones

1. having the additional pvp means of creating and selling degraded quality wares unnoticed and untargeted plus a means of generally decreasing the price only for targeted hostile corporations (resulting in a flag invisible to the eco-warfare player, but visible to the victim  granting a financial/economical more desastrous death when being killed by those specific players/corps in pve zones ) and an even more consequence stuffed death when being killed in warzones. this flag increases in quality of consequences by repeated usage and results in a less sanctioned death in pve zones from these players and an increase in economical costs for the eco-warfare attacker

2. having the major eco-pvp ability to do create/sell degraded quality and harmful wares to targeted characters, to embargo them or buy stuff ftom them cheaper when having been attacked by them in pve zones, resulting in a visible eco-warfare flag for both sides

3. no variation or consequences or specific possibilities in warzones since they're not likely to go there and could use this luring the enemy to attack to easy and exploit wars

b) pve
-residing mainly in pve (sanctionable pvp), sometimes in economical and pvp zones

1. having the ability hack PVE corpses in a more profitable way, having the possibility to reprogram only looted warez to malfunction and or being harmfull, selling them on their own resulting in the eco-pvp flag scenario a)1. from above or sell them to eco-pvpers which use them against their targets as described above resulting in no eco-pvp flag

2. having the ability to hack OPs in warzones more efficient then pvpers with a module but mainly being able to re-program targeted OPs economic trade systems to harm them and gain money from enemies transactions resulting in the eco-pvp flag above in a)2.

3. no specials in safezones

c) pvp
-residing in warzones(ffa pvp), sometimes in pve and lesser in economical zones

1. having to ability to attack anyone without consequences in warzones
2. having the ability to attack players in protected PVE zones without consequences if the attacker wears the eco-warflag as a result of a first eco-pvp tag by the a)eco-pvper or b) pve-hacker, while always having the negative effect of the general pvp-flag/guards system

3. no other special features in war or safezones

This system or something similar, just briefly outlined above) would require 1 more exclusive extension for each role negativly reducing fighting extensions on the eco-player, eco-extensions on the pvper and both in a reduced way on the pve-hacker.

Aditionally it would require the stackable/increasing modifier of sanctions of the eco-warfare flag (minor financial sanctions/loosing securing priviledges in pve zones/being attacked by guards in pve zones), same increasing effects go for the pvp flag (temporary ffa target/ffa for guards in pve zones/not being able to enter safezones)

The eco-pvp flag ouldnt go off immediately after using a degraded/manipulated module but rather after24h to make it not directly detectable. Same goes for turning it off - it wouldnt turn ofter being unequipped, so the victim couldnt find out which item it is. eco-pvpers themselves could identify malfunctioned items if the extension of the attacker is minor to his extension lvl. This way - a targeted player could at least let his whole inventory be checked by an allied eco-pvper - but not be sure. Maybe analysis if items would be a time based process like every other production is too.

It would also require an item flag making a programmed malicious charge able to go of on targeted players or corp members.

And would require the improved hacking/reprogramming feature of OPs, PVE corpses and modules.

Its not that complicated, just not well written An implementation also isnt a big deal since its rather modifyable rulesets and additions to codebase elements already in use.

Would be handy.

Speaking of GUI elements - be it chat character icons, or terminal storages - they dont auto-update/refresh.

Its not about that - its about a better interconnected game world.

ATM PO is: a) you mine or b) you join a blob

That isnt much of a game at all - esp not in an MMO - and even less in a sandbox. Your "solution" isnt one since it would be an artificial conflict.

Instances, closed systems and pvp flags are about artificial conflicts. Most pvpers arent interested in that - theyre after conflicts which arouse because of player behaviour.

Im not the guy to shoot someone just for fun - but because he behaved like an ***. This is what were talking about.