(emphasis added)
Why do you think this will/should be the case? I don’t. The non-capital ship gameplay must be fun in and of itself.
The capital ships aren’t ‘the best ship’ or even ‘the goal’. They are just another tool in the arsenal.
IMO if you pilot a cruiser and bombard a facility from orbit, you shouldn’t receive any ‘reward’ that the guy in the little interceptor who’s defending you from bombers doesn’t also receive.
I think you are right that people are looking at capital ships as some kind of loot/goal of playing. If anything cap ship pilots should get less rewards than everyone else to help prevent that view of them.
Firs of all I think I showed that but will type that out again: “I think every player, no matter how casual or hardcore, how social or antisocial, how little or much he plays the game should get a chance to see every part of the game by just playing the game.”
This is why there are tanks and jets literally standing around in Battlefield, why you are asked if you want to play the Hero Unit in Star Wars: Battlefront and can just pick up new gameplay from the ground in the new Battlefront.
Those things are gameplay the Devs put in a lot of effort and they are fun. Some a lot of fun. Limiting access of that to certain kinds of players isn’t fun.
Things like Tactics, Strategies, Compositions are all stuff the game can be a basis off, but isn’t programmed by the devs. That stuff has and always will come from individuals and groups who play the game, because they create it. There’s a difference in the two. Both are fun and can coexist.
@77wisher77 This won’t be an RPG. Ships aren’t loot. They are Vehicles with certain skills. They are not comparable to loot. They aren’t dropped, they are build. Someone/something has to build/spawn them.
You could implement a loot system where every succesfull transport “drops” a capital ship. But do you really want to bring the same problematic here?
Even without the “Lottery” systems all players will have access to all ships. (not confirmed by devs)
The devs want to add economy in combination with high ship prices while still catering to the 30 minutes of fun casuals. This creates a problem.
If an individual can buy a capital ship in 20 minutes of play, this would never be a problem. But the devs themselves said, they want for players to have to pool resources. This means that a capital ship will probably take 5 players 20 minutes. This means that a single player would need to play 100 minutes. Depending on how long a match lasts, this may never happen. A contradiction to the casual goal.
On top of that is that there will be balancing issues because of how groups will be able to deploy forces a lot faster and better, not only will they dominate tactically, skill wise and strategically but also tool wise. I’m not talking about balancing inside of teams, I’m talking about balancing between teams.
Everyone would profit if different sized Casual groups on the different facitions could defend/attack with all the tools the game has instead of relying on groups for a whole branch of warfare.
In order to give the devs freedom on how expensive to make capitals, the lottery idea came into fruition to try to have everything by only sacrificing a small percentage of casual player income. It’s not just about helping the casuals get ships, it’s about helping the team even while being a casual.
It also solves the problem of shorter game times. I’m sure there will be some sort of modifier that will make acquisition of capitals easier the shorter the game gets. But it could be that some people might never scrap together the money and just fall short at the end of the match virtually every time. The lottery gives them a chances that out of the ten 30 minute matches they might play in a week with that server setting. One or two will have them fly a capital instead of zero.
Freedom of grouping stays intact, freedom of balancing ship prices is given and all group tactics still would work.
I really don’t see what problem there is, except for the “casuals should need to be forced to socialize” which is a view I can accept, but not a flaw of the system, but another requirement/condition for it.
Another sidenote. I can’t think of a single game that wanted to combine those attributes (economy, valuable drivable vehicles and casual play).
But I rambled enough. I think I made my point. This has to be the topic with my longest posts in a long time. Was fun tough. 
I can understand why most FPS just go with First Come First Serve without any or near to no economy.
You’re arguing for the ability to let casual players, without much time to progress, to throw their money into the possible chance of getting hold of a capital ship rather than putting what little they have into a ship and weapons they can use right now.
And you don’t see what the problem is. OK I guess.
Nope. I believe what was said was ‘to get access to those ships sooner’ or words to that effect.
No one knows how long a solo player would have to spend to get themselves a capital ship. 20 minutes may be well within the realms of possibility and the number will probably be decided by play-testing.
Until the prototype build is up and there’s some placeholder gameplay for this sort of thing, we’re not going to know one way or the other. What’s a few months wait to start claiming what additional systems are needed?
I can’t remember an Idea that long. That’s why I posted it here and now. It is based on assumption but less than what it was back in the day on the old forums.
Yes they would be able to do so if they choose, but so do group players choose to save up and sacrifice on stuff they could do now. Casuals aren’t encouraged to “pledge” more or even manually at all, it doesn’t discourage them either. It’s a neutral tool that allows them to further customize their playstyle.
A non-social player that only likes to fly the default interceptor and a carrier could put all 90% of his funds into the “war bonds” system. A player that likes to constatly load up on heavy bomb/missiles and just loves his bomber could leave it at the default even though he already learnt the system and knows its his money but he actively chooses to support the “war effort” … etc. etc. …
The default would be only a small amount of their income that would be deducted as optional “tax” or “war bond” to “crowdfund” capital ship for the “war effort” that a selected “recruit pilots” could fly.
Are you implying the problem is that it could have psychological effects similar to a real lottery, making people start “gambling” instead of just playing and thus that’s the problem?
Because I still don’t see a problem, I see win/win as I detailed above …
There are a lot of ways to call it. “Capital Academy”, “Corporate Infrastructure Fund”, “Captain Support Program”. Doesn’t need to imply that it’s a “gamble”.
I can see a whole bunch of people just sitting there, not playing the game, leaving their computer and waiting for themselves to get handed a capital ship. Yes.
*(I would be happier to see a dice-roll on certain achievements, like a number of kills around an important target or getting yourself killed after defending someplace particularly well. That is, if such a system really was needed. (**And yes, I know that would move into ‘pain-in-the-ass to implement’ category in terms of accomplishment tracking.))
Everything else depends on how much it takes to fit out your ship with equipment and how much that equipment helps you in the fight, and again, a solo player could well be able to get hold of a capital ship within the sort of time frame you’re talking about.
I also severely dislike how this takes away from any sense of achievement. Casual players like to feel like they’re progressing too, at least short-term. If you say ‘you’re more likely to get to what you view as being ‘top tier’ by not bothering with the progression entirely.’ that’s a bit of a cruddy move for everyone involved. Personal preference I guess.
I see another problem there: If we assume that casual players don’t have the time to read background information, they might not get what this “capital ship lottery” does and might just spend their money on it assuming they get to drive around in a capital ship then. It might start some confusion for new players.
Indeed that could be a problem. Thanks for bringing that up. If you don’t give those players any money tough or just kick them, that wouldn’t be a problem. It’s income that’s deducted. If they don’t have any income, they don’t have any chance to get a capital.
We have seen that some people consider capitals as “higher tier” while others as “another tool”. I’m one of the later.
Like a tank or a jet in Battlefield or Planetside. There is no achievement in getting in a vehicle in those games. Neither will it be one in Battlescape if you can save up to one in 10 minutes of casual play in Battlescape. You are right tough that some of the achievement and vallue that is added trough making ships more expensive that would require the “lottery” system to be worth it would be removed by the “lottery” system again.
We’ll see. I said it wouldn’t be a problem in that case and I don’t see why the devs need to implement the idea in that case too. Capitals would be like the Vehicles in Planetside, easily obtainable. But only if they keep the price low, as soon as they would higher it so group pooling is a lot faste, we start to hit the problems I outlined.
That’s why it is important to make it look like a “common good tax” on first glance instead of a “get something tax”. So if they spend all their spare cash on it, it would be out of the assumption it would help the team, which is true.
Huge battle games like Planetside 2 and I:B tend to have teams with uneven distributed numbers of casual and more or less organized players. While the game mechanics should strongly encourage even casual players to work together, it can not strictly enforce higher level of organization (like communication and leaders). The developers have to balance the game so it grants the organized groups meaningful tactical choices without punishing the unorganized groups twofold.
If I understand the vision of I-Novae Studios for I:B correctly, capital ships will be a necessary part of most battles. From my experiences “actively donating credits” requires more organization, than you may expect from the majority of the players.
This thread already mentions some important problems, solutions and arguments. I would like to contribute my ideas for a system to finance capital ships to the discussion:
Beside the normal Credits, which should be used primary for buying small ships and upgrades, there could be a second currency called “Capital-Ship-Resources”, which can only be used to build capital ships. The developers could easily tune the quantity of these CS-Resources to ensure there will always be healthy numbers of capital ships in the game.
These CS-Resources could be similar produced like Credits by NPC mines, factories and transports. One half of these resources would be equally divided between the active playing players the other half would be split by the cooperation team between a “Destroyer-Fund” a “Cruiser-Fund” and a “Carrier-Fund”. Players would only be able to stockpile a fixed number of CS-Resources in there personal deposit, which should be big enough so that groups of players can buy capital ships in a timely manner if they need them. Surplus player resources would automatically overflow back to finance the common war effort.
The Capital-Funds make sure that ships are frequently build. Every time the collected CS-Resources in a construction order together with the appropriate Capital-Fund exceed the price of the capital, the Resources from the order and fund are spend and the ship is build. (If two construction orders have saved up equal numbers of Resources the fund would first support the older construction order.)
After completing the funding the happy new capital owners will be informed, that they have 1-2 minutes time to dock or kamikaze there old ship before they can man the bridge of there shiny new capital ship.
According to the demand for capital ships a “solo” player would have to save a shorter or longer time for his capital. Ideally the typical waiting period is less then the play time of a casual gamer. (If the waiting period is typical longer, the only fair solution from my point of view would be also a lottery for “Capital-Funds” with better chances for construction orders, witch have already collected more resources.)
tl;dr: Add a special capital currency, which has to be used to finance capital ships for oneself or a chosen player or it will automatically spend for the next capital ship in line.
Eh, giving a mobile spawn and re-supply point to someone who’s going to drop out of the game in a few minutes still seems… borked.
I can see the appeal of giving new players to the game the chance to nuke something from orbit, It just feels like the way to do that would be through some form of in-game ‘you done good’ thing (with a hidden diceroll) rather than a ‘you waited and a dice-roll happened and here is your ship now if you want it’ thing.
As a side-note, I wonder how disconnects are going to be handled.
*I’d also be viewing capital ships kinda like Titans from Battlefield 2142.
I was going to post something very similar, but I was going to go broader.
Split awarded money into personal and shared funds. The shared funds are to be used to crowdfund projects. There should be a constant stream of projects such as facility upgrades (which would be myriad) as well as things like building capitals. Such projects would not be defined by players, but by the game, just like an RTS. That is, once 3cm Helion Armor is available at a factory, players can put money into 6cm Helion Armor. After that, 9cm Helion Armor. First Unguided Missiles. Then Guided Missiles. Then some other improvement.
The resulting pattern becomes one of a vote-based RTS. Instead of one player deciding which factories to upgrade and such, players are voting about the progression, and then spending personal funds to get personal gear out of the factories. Players also work to change the topology of the factories, exploring to find them, fighting to capture them, and so forth.
A capital becomes a mobile equivalent. A cruiser is driven to a siege location, then supplied with stuff, has gun directors to aim the weapons, perhaps tugs to move it around locally, etc.
One thing that a capital cannot be is a personal ship with big guns. It would redirect player interest from team goals and into the personal goal of getting a capital for themselves, likely meaning that battles always end with everyone in a capital ship. Progression should be focused on skill progression. Players are going to see the same gear over and over again during a game, so it is their ability to use that gear across games that can feed their desire for a sense of progress.
RTS style tech-trees may be out of scope for initial release (I dunno though) but would love to see that at some point.
Hopefully in a way that doesn’t see important assets just vanish in battle.
It makes sense that capital ships should be nowhere near as powerful without proper support. Not just defensively but offensively too. Having to have supply lines would be fantastic imo. Make it so a team has to work to keep a cap ship fully operational over long battles (So long as cap ships are rare enough that it isn’t easier just to replace it)
Supply runs would be the perfect job for the (peace loving) space-truckers out there, also the noobs who are still learning to fly.
Taking supplies to a capital ship rather than the capital ship needing to leave the battle to go and re-supply sounds like fun gameplay choice.
‘Risk having your capital’s supplies intercepted by the enemy and end up fighting with a toothless capital’
vs
‘Loose the use of the capital while it flies off to stock-up at a station and comes back full.’
Nice little risk-vs-reward choice for everyone involved that could end up well balanced with play testing. 
Also,
‘siege location’? Why would you need a specific location? Why would the ship have to park there? Doesn’t that defeat the point of having a huge open seamless environment if you’re going to limit operational activity as if you were still dealing with instances?
Doesn’t ‘wherever the cruiser pilot happens to have their ship over the planet within targeting range of enemy ground installations at the time’ become that location?
Oh, and I’m still in the pro single-pilot-control-for / stupidly-tough-to-knock-out capitals camp right now. If you’re going to have a 3rd person point&click RTS style control scheme for those things like the developers want, it’s going to need to let whoever’s flying have full control over it’s systems, especially weapons, to stop things having the fun sapped out.
Bah. I’m getting way off topic now.
Yes. That would be the known as ‘a siege location’.
Hardly. The very point of spreading out the responsibilities of operation is to ensure that the workload of coordination and control is greatly increased. The capital driver is going to be maneuvering according to the needs of the gun directors, coordinating with the resupply ships as he moves around, helping the point defense guys identify targets, and otherwise keeping an eye on things. Give him some good sensors and he can provide invaluable intel to everyone in the area. In fact, I hope I’m not overloading the poor guy.
Would you be against the idea of having a shared sensor network?
No real preference at this point, just find that interesting that you might want people to be kept in the dark and directed to places by others. Seems capital pilots are creeping towards the ‘commander’ type role in your eyes, or could be seen to at least.
I guess I’ve been looking at this from a ‘people in a serious organised group organise themselves with a few basic tools and voice-chat outside the game’ and ‘people not in a serious organised group charge in and shoot whatever’s closest BECAUSE EXPLOSIONS! WOO!’ point of view so far. It’s going to be real fun to see how things develop.
Nope. I’m against systems that push the game towards a solo experience. If I don’t have to interact with anyone to find out anything then I can solo that aspect of the game. That continues throughout the gameplay. If I can just fly back to base, rearm, return to the fight, shoot stuff, rearm, shoot, etc, then I’m playing a single player game against difficult opponents. In contrast, if I need to call in support for rearm, figure out a safe spot to have that rearm delivered (so as not to lose the rearm ship), and get to that rearm point with my fighter group, then I have a multiplayer experience.
That said, I’m not totally averse to classes set aside for the solo mindset. Fighters and interceptors are natural enough. Just hop into a ship and shoot. But for those who like something a bit more engaging, with more moving parts, there should be various low-level command responsibilities such as organizing a resupply ‘drop’. There’s a reason that we have both non-commissioned as well as commissioned officers - people with a spectrum of command responsibilities.
And no, I’m not suggesting that such a thing be formalized. People who are motivated to get ammo will simply complain to somebody about their lack.
A commander is just somebody in the game who is followed. There’s no need to create explicit roles in the game for commanders - which is a drum I’ve been beating for a while now. Just make sure that someone who has the ability to command can get the resources to do so. That’s intel in and commands out.
Here’s another off-the-top-of-my-head-idea:
Tie the sensor web to the command structure. If I choose to follow your lead, then I get into your group. Now everything that my sensors can see is available to your sensors, and I can hear your orders, however they get issued. Allow a hierarchy of groups. Play with how many levels a commander can issue orders down and how many levels intel automatically goes up. Play with the maximum practical number of members in a group.
It is the distinctness of the groups that makes it interesting. We may have 20 guys in our group that can all see the same information, but if there are 10 such distinct groups running around, then the group commanders have to talk to each other and manually share information.
I’ve been looking at it from the standpoint of a game with experiences that are ideal for “EXPLOSIONS! WOO!” as well as those that invite something more from players. Experienced players will look for that higher order of gameplay. If it’s not there, they’ll blow stuff up for a while, then move on to the next “EXPLOSIONS! WOO!” game.
If voice cannot be integrated (e.g. using Teamspeak’s free server stuff for the top 32 commanders) then set things up such that players that need to organize have time to talk over things by typing. That we still rely on typing in games is a pretty sad state of affairs.
Love this idea
This is the sort of stuff I would love to see in a game, particularly one of this scale. Communication is one of the most fun parts of such games.
to the replies while i was offline:
I said “expensive ships” not capital ships, i was referring to the lottery as a system where a lottery could be made with a goal, which doesnt have to be a capital ship (but could be) and the lottery would be open for anyone to use while its running, this way the new players have a chance to utilise the lotteries together, without having to communicate to get stuff that they want or are interested in. New players tend to loose interest in a game if it is too hard, complex or difficult to attain items/gear. The lottery wouldn’t make it easy but it would keep them entertained long enough to actually get involved in group play.
I wasn’t referring to them as loot, I meant that many new players will want to try out these different vehicles in multi-player combat to find the type the like most. They will need some kind of assistance for this as many will probably join without friends to play with. Any system which provides some aid towards this should keep people playing the game long enough to start socialising
One way to do this is simply have a distance within which you automatically share sensor data with other players. Maybe have a module you can install to relay data from any players in range to any other players in range. Outside of that range only very basic info gets broadcast.
Have it be possible for the enemy to intercept that data.
How sensors work will be vital to making scouting/stealthing fun. False sensor data would make things interesting.
http://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Battle_Mechanics#Radio_Range
This is exactly what you described it.
I’ll take a cue from Heroes of the Storm and find out that team-base effort feels much better. Here’s my take on how it could possibly work, all numbers are just examples: