From: davidt@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (David Teo)
Newsgroups: rec.games.netrek
Subject: Re: Changes for Netrek...
Date: 12 Sep 92 01:31:02 GMT
Reply-To: davidt@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (David Teo)


Travis has somethings going there.  I've been thinking of fresh ideas
for netrek and I was surprised to see notice how similar our ideas are. 
I was discussing with a few of my friends and this is what we came up :-

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.  
        This will add a new dimension into the game because instead of
killing your enemies, you may want to convert their Admiral or any good
players into your team.  However, if they are good players it will be
difficult to just damage them enough just so that you can beam your
armies aboard.  Players can also feign damage and when the enemy ship's
shields are down to beam down their armies, they can shoot and kill
it.(Happened on Star Trek the Next Generation) (Imagine if you manage to
take control of the enemy's SB)! :)
	Army beaming can also be done between ships of the same team.  (Not
just the Starbase).  
	When the all of the players of the opposite team are taken over in this
way, the oposite team will be genocided because they have no more
players.  If this doesnt sound good, maybe the server can set a limit on
the number of ships from each team.  For example, if there is less than
5 players on the team, the enemy can no long take over their players
using this method.  (God will send a msg to all of course)

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

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
damage incurred by the ship will depend on the mass and velocity (or
speed, if you want) of the ship that collided with it.  If the damage is
high enough, the ship will of course explode.

4)  Escape pods :- If a ship explodes, the player may be turned into
plasma torp travelling at warp 4.  The plasma torp can collide with the
enemy ship and the enemy ship will take the damage for a normal plasma
torp or the enemy ship can phaser it and the plasma torp will explode.

5)  Borg instead of HunterKiller :- Like what Travis said, Borgs are the
enemies of all races.  However, I suggest with the added dimension that
the borg will be able to assimilate other players into their team
(similar to 1 above) and they have extra strong tractors for that
purpose.  The first Borg (a robot) will try to take over the first human
player.  When it manages to do so, the robot will turn into an SB and be
the mother borg ship.  Their plasma torps will not be used to kill but
when they hit the enemies, they will slow down the enemy ships.  If they
tractor the ship to the mother borg SB (a robot guarding the center of
the galaxy), they will be upgraded for better phasers or whatever etc. 
(like sturgeon).  Borg ships can also bomb planets (except the SB) and
take over planets (planets join the I team).  If the Borgs win, they
will take over the galaxy.  (Well, that's what they like to do anyway). 
If the mother ship is destroyed all the players that they have taken
over will be returned to their original team and become normal again. 
Once in a while, the Borg mother ship will send msges to all saying "We
are Borgs", "You will be Assimilated", "Resistance is Futile!" or the
like.  If the Borgs manage to assimilate someone, God will send a
message to all saying "R4 has been Assimilated by the Borgs!" or
something similar.  The Borgs decide to assimilate players according to
their rank, distance, ratio, etc.  :)  Maybe if the Borg players bring
in Ensign Clueless, the Borg mother ship may phaser him and blow him up
and send the blown ship a message saying, "Sorry,...we dont assimilate
inferior species!"