EVE General Discussion

So Fanfest 2012 is over and we showed off a live demo of orbital bombardment followed by a roundtable discussion about some of the design challenges ahead to make this feature complete. I want to start an official thread where people can discuss their ideas for orbital warfare based on what we've already shown, for both ships shooting at the ground and the planet shooting back.

If you havn't already seen, you can watch the live demo here (just look at how excited Soundwave is!)

http://bit.ly/HmrRzy

Recapping some of the things discussed at the roundtable:

- The demo was actually live with real playstations sitting on stage and real EVE clients talking to a cluster in London. No smoke and mirrors.

- Talking specifically for the EVE side of things, we want to make Orbital Bombardment more involved in terms of skills required and weapon variations as well as spectacular in terms of visual effects. There will eventually be larger and smaller bombardments according to ship size (nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure) and these will have suitably scaled skill, isk and complexity investment to match their effect. If you have any specific opinions on how you see that working, reply here.

- One feature that didn't quite make it in time for fanfest is displaying the damage done on the battlefield to people, vehicles and structures. That feedback is especially important when you don't have an EVE and DUST client side by side. I'm interested in ideas here on how you would want that information visualized.

- There have already been a variety of suggestions on how to make sure it isn't one sided or overpowered. I'm sure people have a lot of interesting ideas on how to counter an orbital strike, so feel free to discuss those here too.

Cheers!

Gotta leave some candy for a Dread shot.

It was all very nice... i must say that, good job ppl.
Just, i don't know how immersive is it that usual guns that are for space-space combat are used for space-ground shooting.
I would like to see new guns for that purpose so that all ships cant just come there and start shooting if they have only one extra module. (And you can give that weapons some more powerful graphic and long spool up time during witch we will see the power of that weapon)

And about ground-space weapons,
are you thinking only about huge weapons putted on planet that shoot ships in orbit or are you thinking about some defensive orbital structures too?
I know that the first is so much more cool.
But I really think that EVE have too little structures and its empty with no life in the space, and this could help, and its nice to look danger in the eyes (even if its the little brother of real danger that is looking at us from the ground) - and its nice to do some damage to it too.
(you can putt some other structures in orbit too and in space in general )


And please, put some NICE LOOKING targeting animation which will make us drool.
Why are you guys so cheap with UI in EVE?
(You know that look of UI is more important then look of any other thing in the game - its the thing that will make player feel like he is really flying that ship / really is in the future - it will make player feel cool.)
Make green grid show on the planet, lines that scan it, sound of scanning, narrowing search perimeter... and then after spool up time is near end then make it find the real lock.

Floating combat text popping up from the target on the ground with suitable "ding ding ding" chimes for each kill. Add "mmmmomnsterkill" sounds for added cool factor. Complete the bombardment with a detailed killmail popping up once the carnage is over.

could have some kind of decent size satellite dish on the planet that could project a shield to protect from the orbital bombardment. That way, the attackers will have to neutralize that first

Give the people on the planet Ion Cannons

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN8YIR60Ij0

How about different ammo's for the bombardment effects.
Inferno shells or pure thermal beams that can firestorm an area for a time limiting troop movement without tanks.
EM shells or beams for breaking shields around installations or artillery.
The classic standard beams or kinetics as seen in video.
Its your responsibility to be a Dust solders swiss army knife for hard situations.

My views on orbital strikes

FRIENDLY FIRE ENABLED! I cannot stress this enough this will leave room for backstabbing that eve is accustomed too and Dust 514 needs its fair share.

Orbitally striking a MCC should be hard but not impossible. This will mostly rely on the MCC pilot to be afk at the controls or poorly fitted.

I strongly belive that the orbital strike equires a 'heavy weapon' painting equipment thus this make orbital strikes unable to be fired in fog of war and allows defenders to catch the guy (since its a heavy weapon should be quite apperant hes lugging one around) before he attains lock on the area and launch code request is sent up the chain of command.

Chain of command can set parameters on thier orbital strike requests. Have a fail to safe default however where the eve player requires at least a launch code that is generated by MCC pilot/commander.

On less secure settings individuals on the ground can generate thier own launch codes and send it up.

Launch codes should be generated on demand not preset POS starbase passwords. 3 letter/number code is reasonable enough.

Special Visors and Sensor modules can inform players where orbital strikes are targeted at in a chance to evade the posisble doom.

Eve based and possibly dust based skills dictate accurady of the strike on the painted spot. After all accidents DO happen. Also grouping of the shot for eve based skills only. Highty trained orbtial bombardiers will be able to do more damage in a concentrated area instead of lesser damage over a wider uneffective area.

Districts should be able to get shield generators up to severly reduce the damage an orbital strike could make. Dust 514 marines will have to take it down to be able to use orbital strike to cause wide spread damage.

Battleships should be imo the smallest ship to launch said strike. The damage they bring down should not be pernament or long lasting effects (precision strikes).

Orbital Strike module should be a seige mode. Immobilzation of ship (or ship positioning) during spool up which anchors the ship into sync with the district and cool down only activated once the strike is made. During cool down the ship is mobile again. Transition to cooldown is a albit delayed if module canceled. While in cooldown pilot cannot activate MJDs to escape or thier possible predictament of falling into the planet.

I do like the idea of using anchorable platforms as well but they should be considerably weak on Eve side however I belive its much better for them to be in control (and possibly launched from) the MCCs, if MCC launched the platform would then be self anchored and eventually self expire as well.

For example MCC launches orbital platforms and can direct strikes where needed by his troops upon his approval. However the opposing side could have orbital assests as small as a frig to tear these platforms apart before they get utilized.

Dreadnaughts/Titans : I belive you are going have to get concord involved and have them not allow the titan super weapon to be used at all.

However XL guns should be used for the orbital bombardment if titans get involved.

XL Guns bombardments should cause widespread damage over a very large area and do serious damage to the infastructure there. Requiring the owner after the battle to repair it before they can make use of it again.

On that note scraping a district zone should take more time, cost more money, and even more for a reutilization of the district to avoid the similar eve side problem of scrapping guns selling minerals and installing replacment modules from overheat and salvage.

If titan super weapons are used, make it a nuke it all option. Everything on that map is destroyed and removed and battle is over. The defending side retains ownership regardless who fired. Additional funds must be spent into repairing the land before the district can have a facility installed again. Maps could get an api peramenter to adjust landscape to show scarring from that level of bombardment.

Counter bombardment.

Disctricts should be able to have thier own 'module' slots so to say.

When installing a district you can have these modules installed and they cna help defend the area against either ground forces or orbital assests.

Balance must be struk between the two.

Make various counter orbital weapons in different sizes. Smallest of them will be able to self target battleships and larger. These batteries attempt to 'sink' them. Any battleship that stays in the 'gauntlet' of thier seiged obrital strike module will get sunk by either damage (which could be remote repaired.) All counter orbital weapons should pull the ship closer into the planet as well (which cannot be tanked or remote repaired)

This makes staying in the zone extremly risky and is a commitment based risk.

The new tactical overlay (one shown at fan fest) should show the orbital strike pocket, the hot zone and the point of no return.

Planets (as well as suns) should cause increasing amounts thermal damage if too close to the stellar object in question.

Ships that enter the point of no return (the point where ship cannot escape the gravity well based on ship's speed) will auto inject the pod out of the ship at more than sufficent velocity+ out of the hot zone. Pilots will get to see a neat little animation of thier ship breaking up in orbit.

Larger batteries which can sink dreadnaughts and titans quickly require orbtial assests to lock and direct these systems weapon fire.

Larger the battery the less frequent they can send vollies up so the damage must be high and posisbly aera of effect as well to prevent 'crowding' the bombardment zone which will hopefully force more players to escort the bombarder instead of trying to participate.

Yes, console gamers will really enjoy maps where the results are impacted by faggots on a PC fapping untouchably from space

Im curious to see how the orbital mechanics work

As it stands, all planets have the same warp in spot. I heard you would be able to orbit the planet to get into position to do the orbit strike.

Problem is, BS+ size ships move very slow.

For example sake, lets say 100 m/s (some are much slower, especially caps).

100 m/s = 10 sec to go 1Km so 6km in 1 minute.

For a comparison of size, the earth has a circumference of 40,075.16 km. At ground level. Once you get 1000 miles or more in the sky, this number is going to duplicate many fold.


How would be be able to efficiently warp to the planet, then orbit to get into position on the OPPOSITE side of the planet?

Maybe add a feature of "Warp to Bombardment Location"...