Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I'm not sure the bridge is always removed or replaced for capsuleer vessels, the pod could easily be stored in some other location. I'd assume in that scenario the bridge could be converted into a observation gallery for the crew. I always figured that one of the draws for people to work on capsuleer ships was that compared to normal ones, it's not nearly as crowded onboard.

I havent read any of the books or all of the Lore on the website, but does it say anywhere that ships that are piloted by Capsuleers dont have bridges or have the bridge gutted to make room for the capsule?

I think even Capsuleer ships have a bridge. You still need a place for the ships X-O to relay orders to the crew. I mean a battleship sizxed ship still has the capacity for thousands of crew members. You would need a central hub to relay orders/information to the crew. What if the Pod had a major malfunction and left the capsuller incapacitated or dead? What happes then? How can the XO or crew take control of the ship in these situations?

Well I don't recall reading anything about capsuleer ships not having bridges, though I haven't read all the fiction.

I'm going to assume that they do have bridges and if some fiction says somewhere that they don't, then regardless MINE do, and I have much more advanced pod technology that allows me to remain out of pod until I plug in to my captain's chair for a battle at which point the pod encapsulates me & chair should a hull breach seem imminent. I'll even still permit it to fill with a protective (chicken flavored) 'goo'.

Though how I still wind up naked in space after a podding, I've yet to explain.

My biggest concern with including bridges in game for our avatars would be them all looking the same regardless of which ship we are in. I already hate that EVERY empire's docking bays look identical no matter how different the station looks on the outside.

As for ship crews. I did read somewhere the crew compliment of various ship sizes. Capitals can have thousands of crew members to operate such a complex ship. And usually when a ship is destroyed a certain percentage of crew are able to escape in escape pods. Sadly though, the one's who die do not have clones to be reanimated into.

The pod allows you to fly, by yourself, a ship that would normally take a crew of thousands. It's the storyline. They could change it, but it's pretty pivotal to 10 years worth of fiction.

I dont' see the need to really change it.

your "bridge" could simply be a holographic virtual user-interface that you've chosen to represent your mind-link with your vessel.

All it takes is some creativity and everyone can be happy, except.....


The backlash of CCP spending time programming this nonsense would make CQ-gate look like a walk-in-the-park by comparison. So best to use your imagination and build yourself a cardboard-and-paint bridge to surround your desktop PC. Then you can youtube it and link it and receive the admiration of your peers!

If you check out the CSM minutes, (Art segment as I recall,) the art team is V3ing station interiors, multiple interiors per race are on the horizon. And apparently the one with the big fan is awesome...

Also, given that capsuleer ships are controlled by the pods interfacing with its command centre, should the capsuleer die by some means, the crew are adrift. In the depths of space, no one can hear your crew starve to death...
Some ships actually have no crew at all aside from the capsuleer, though they are frigates. Gallente ships are also mainly crewed by drones.

Anyway, I have referenced the chronicle "Jita 4-4" a couple of times, mainly because its my favorite. In it is described a means to use a clone that does not possess the full memory of a pod clone. It was suggested these clones be used for walking around in stations and the like. If it were possible to wander around a ship, I would think this would be the direction to go.
Disposable clones used for WiS that can be activated on ship. But that would leave no one at the helm, only an unconscious clone held in stasis. Your ship would be defenceless, no active modules running, no access to scan data or the overview, simply drifting.
At least you would not be vulnerable to being boarded, your pod would still be blocking entry by anyone else.

This is not my understanding. Even capsuleer piloted ships have fair sized crews depending on ship size. Capitals still have hundreds if not thousands of crew members. You're certainly not flying around a 14 km long spacecraft and taking care of the functions of something the size of a small city, by yourself.

I also don't see any reason why it's bad to not be plugged-in to the ship when you are not in battle. For other non-combat functions that may be impacted by your implants, I'm sure wireless interfacing works fine.

The whole pod-system can work just fine if it incorporates a captains chair on the bridge (that you plug into) which is then encapsulated by the pod when a hull-breach seems imminent. You plug into your captains chair when you are about to engage in combat, not simply because the direct plug-in works better than wireless interfacing, but because you are then ready for escape if needed.

At any rate, that is how *I* choose to view the whole pod concept, because while others may find being encased in a goo-pod awesome and immersive, I don't. I don't relish seeing this huge awesome ship with many intricate aspects to it, rooms, sections, bays, mechanics, windows, transportation mechanisms, crew quarters, dining & recreation facilities for crew down time, you name it, and think that I can't enjoy any of those aspects of my ship because I'm just some ship component embedded in it.

As far as I'm concerned whenever I'm not engaged in battle, I'm walking around my ship interacting with my crew. And even while in battle I don't need to be in goo. Plugged into my captain's chair on the bridge works just as well. The pod is only my escape mechanism.

So what you are actually asking is for CCP to add non capsuleer pilots to the game (i.e. someone that doesn't have to be plugged into the ship systems to control it) interesting...

Would it be perma-death for these players?

Seriously though, nice idea but it isn't going to happen.

am pretty sure that CCP find some way that you instant enter the pod if your ship explode.. its not that..
it's just the experience itself that you re able to walk around you ship or just the bridge.. and beside, only a fool would activate the bridge if you are flying for some risky area...
like Captains Quarters, you should be able active or diactivate the bridge. so if you are a pvp player then no need for a bridge, but a full time miner, hauler, freighter or JF pilot would maby have the opportunity to change to the bridge while they wait for a jump OR haulers flying those 30 jump on auto pilot or waiting for minerals in astroid belts

remember, its still not real life so there could not be a problem beeing in a ship that explode and instant jump in to the pod... its only graphic magic

I'm pretty glad none of you people run any important part of CCP. By "important", I mean "anything that has an effect on the game." Maybe some of you would make good HR managers or something, but I'm glad you don't have any input into the game itself.

"It's not real life, so we can make totally impossible things happen" is a lame excuse for lazy game design brought about by uncreative/incompetent dev teams and we should leave such things to other games.

CCP has used the extremely futuristic nature of EVE as license to do things that are otherwise hard to explain, but for the most part they try to keep things at least roughly explainable by some kind of realistic physics - as they should. Once you start saying "It's not real life, so we can just do literally anything and suspension of disbelief be damned", then you start turning the game into some kind of Chinese MMO where it's pretty blatant they only care about money and immersion isn't even on the radar. Cutting corners is for the Chinese. Cutting corners is fine for Blizzard. Cutting corners is fine in games that aren't EVE. It's fine and well if your standards are so low that even things that can't happen in the most unrealistic of movies are totally okay, but I think a lot of us have slightly higher standards. However, if you'd like to cast "Pod of Protection III" on yourself, maybe CCP will add it to the NeX store for you.

In regards to "only plugging into your ship when you're in battle", maybe you've never read a single chronicle since you started playing the game. It's laid out pretty well how pods work, where they came from and what the Capsuleer does when they're connected to the ship. You don't control only the fitted modules. You control every aspect of the ship. You become part of the ship's computer.

What happens when you're out in space and you rip out the main computer? That's what happens when you have no capsuleer connected to a capsuleer-capable ship. The ship may be able to keep the power running and it may be able to manage some amount of shield integrity, but that's all the ship will be doing and those things will be done at far more inferior levels than when a capsuleer is connected to the ship. Ships intended for capsuleer command simply lack the controls needed to operate the ship without one.

To address another issue of wandering around your ship "unplugged", I wonder if you're remotely aware of how the "new clone after podding" process works. If you aren't in your pod when you're killed, your brain doesn't get scanned (since the methodology required to properly scan all the data at the level required would kill you anyway and thus isn't done until the moment of death). If your brain isn't scanned, that data's not beamed across space to be uploaded into your medclone. No data to upload? No waking up in a clone. Permanent death. If not permanent death, the very best you could possibly expect is to have old backup data used, but this would mean that unless you somehow made a backup recently, you'd lose tons of memories and skill training - probably worse than if you'd been podded into an insufficient clone. Even DUST bunnies have their brains scanned, courtesy of the scanning equipment being in their helmets. Their scanning equipment is smaller though, so I doubt it would have the full functionality and/or power of capsuleer's scanners. Actually, "Jita 4-4" talks about what happens when you're not in your egg when "Bad Things (tm)" happen. It's in Part II.

With regards to bridges and crew, if you haven't read them yet then go read "The Jovian Wetgrave". Neural chairs are addressed, as they do exist. However, they're simply not sufficient. The Jovians explain in detail to the Caldari exactly what the pod does and why. They also establish the existence of crew. Frigates are controlled by the capsuleer alone, cruisers by the capsuleer and a "handful of crew".

Also read "All These Lives are Fit to Ruin" A battleship has a crew complement of roughly 6,000 people, even with an egger in place doing his "God of Destruction" thing. Maybe less on a Gallente battleship where drones tend to handle some crew functions.

TL;DR - You've got ten years of persistent universe telling you "No, that isn't how things work," with plenty of CCP-authored backstory to anchor and explain it. You're obviously free to keep whatever personal notions you wish, but don't expect CCP to cater to them.

Walking in Stations is a good thing. Flying in Space is a good thing. Walking in Space? If you really need it that badly, STO is waiting for you.

Only a portion of my admittedly long-winded post relates to realism as a design feature, be it a primary one or otherwise (which I didn't actually speculate on).

With regards to your commentary on various real-world speeds, I want to point out to you that CCP has stated the New Eden universe runs on a "Fluid Dynamics" model for practicality's sake. Things like navigation (including actually stopping the ship) would be a tremendous pain otherwise, or so they've said.

Concerning the disparity between warp and subwarp speeds, I direct you to "FTL Travel - How?" and urge you to remember that "Jump Drive", as it is used in this particular article, actually references the Warp Drive, as the context will demonstrate. Why the drives are referred to as "Jump" instead of "Warp", I cannot speculate.

EDIT: It seems to me that we're starting to go off on something that's not related to the actual topic of this thread. As such, I'll simply re-iterate my opinion on the matter: Keep whatever personal fiction you like that makes the game enjoyable for you, but don't expect CCP to crap all over ten years of their own established official fiction in order to enhance your personal experience. If the lack of walking around inside your ship is killing you that much, STO exists.