From: fadden@uts.amdahl.com (Andy McFadden)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: Changes for Netrek...
Date: 14 Sep 92 20:21:21 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

In article <79565@ut-emx.uucp> davidt@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (David Teo) writes:
>1)  Ship to ship beaming of armies :-
>
>	Ships should be able to beam armies into another ship.  When a ship's
>shield is down (because it is more than 50% damaged (I'll explain this
>below)), an enemy ship that is carrying and is able to go near it
>(transporter range) is able to beam its armies into the damaged ship. 
>If successful, the damaged ship will be forced by the server to join the
>enemy ship's team because it has been taken over.  

Why take planets?  Just gang up on the enemy one at a time and beam them to
death.  Ever play in a game matched 9-7?  Once it's lopsided, it's all over.
12 vs 4 will never recover.

>	Army beaming can also be done between ships of the same team.  (Not
>just the Starbase).  

Would be interesting to implement.  You'd either have to allow docking on
normal ships (a server mod which would change the way "lock on" works now)
or beam them through space (which would require both client and server
changes to specify the destination).

The main problem I see is that you can do the Netrek version of The Play.
(For those who aren't from Cal or Stanfurd, The Play was a field-long kickoff
return in which the ball was handled by about half the Cal team.  They kept
passing it backward whenever they were about to be tackled.  The cool part
was when they nailed the Satanfurd band guy... :-) ).

>2)  Ships with more than 50% (or some figure) damage should not be able
>to raise shields.  (More realistic this way).

Forget realism.  How does it enhance play?  Gee great, I get 50% damage and
now I'm a gonner.  Sometimes with lag I'll end up eating a torp or two before
I can raise them; now I'm fully dead because the next shot will kill me since
I can't raise my shields.

(I got taken out on Calvin a week or so ago by an SC... got a fast-motion
display of eating a bunch of torps with my shields down.  I decided to go
play somewhere else...)

>3)  Ship collision :-  Ships should be able to bounce off one another if
>they collide.  Both ships will take some damage in the process.  The

This is in the FOCS.

>4)  Escape pods :- If a ship explodes, the player may be turned into
>plasma torp travelling at warp 4.

Great, more powerful ogging.  First you want realism, now you want escape
pods that have the look and feel of plasma torps.  Call them "suicide death
pods", and then forget about them, because avoiding an ogg will be even
harder.

>5)  Borg instead of HunterKiller :- Like what Travis said, Borgs are the
>enemies of all races.

Funny, I didn't see anything about borgs in the Netrek manual.  Heavens,
you aren't trying to import ideas from Star Trek are you?

If you want to propose a feature like the one you describe, fine, but don't
suggest it with the reason being, "Borgs are the enemies of all races."
Justify it with reasons why it would be good and how it would enhance the
game, and THEN say "this sounds a lot like the Borg from ST:TNG, so let's
make it sounds like it."

Netrek has ideas from a lot of different places.  Ever been killed by Ensign
TERMINATOR?

-- 
fadden@uts.amdahl.com (Andy McFadden)
[ Above opinions are mine, Amdahl has nothing to do with them, etc, etc. ]
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek