New Event Idea: Voyages with Ship Battles!
This is a suggestion for a new event, so it is by nature a little long...
I think most players would like there to be a little more variety in the events on offer, with space battles being a common theme to come up. While some people might want a full space battle event, I was thinking perhaps linking them with voyages could work with some of the game mechanics.
When you send out a voyage, it has 12 crew, 2 in each skill. The battle stations on a ship have no more than 2 of the same skill (that I've noticed so far). If those positions are highlighted at the beginning of the voyage depending on which ship you select, you would know which crew would be fighting in ship to ship battles which occur at the dilemma points.
The skill in this event would be to balance high antimatter crew with strong battle stations, while also logging in at certain times to progress. Event crew and bonus crew could provide an addition to antimatter, similar to or replacing the crew traits (but providing a more significant bonus).
Voyage Mechanincs
The standard voyage would (or should IMO) be modified somewhat. Firstly, needing to log in every 2 hours would be bad, we already do timed events like this for factions, and they have the respite of a 9 hour boost. My suggestion would be an increase in total antimatter, or a slight reduction on how much antimatter is used over time in a voyage, and the option to nominate how long until your next voyage dilemma (2h, 4h, 6h, & 8h, so you can actually get a good night's sleep/go to work, etc.). I would also suggest that after a voyage has returned it builds up a surplus of antimatter, (This could also mean if you can't start right on time, this isn't wasted time. I'd also love it if the voyage was automatically claimed when it returned).
Dilemma (Space Battle) Mechanics
Three ships of different difficulty could be on offer, with different VP rewards. These could be other player's ships of similar rank, (like in the arena), but missing crew to change the difficulty, or it could be event ships which change each hour. A loss could either end your voyage, or force a time and/or antimatter penalty (undergoing repairs, etc.).
Scoring Mechanics
The longer your voyage length, the greater the increase to your VP for both dilemmas and the voyage length (capped after a certain time). The cap on the VP increase gives a diminishing return for long voyages, but value in that if you recall the voyage it takes time, and you need to start a new voyage, with new VP increments. This still incentivises spending, but hopefully not so much that strategy is irrelevant. A balance would need to be found to prevent 2 hour gaps between dilemmas overly advantaging players, perhaps by limiting how much VP is gained during the voyage directly after it (again, time taken to get voyage worthy).
To make the leaderboard at all representative, some VP points from voyages would need to be banked as the voyage continued, but a significant amount still gained upon return. This could be the space battle VP being banked straight away, while the voyage length VP is dependent on return.
This idea clearly needs refining, and play testing could revel it to be heavily biased in some way, but I'd welcome an attempt at a new event (although I fully understand that DB's recent announcements have talked about getting what they are doing right rather than trying new things). I'm not sure if there's been any previous threads on this, (tried running a search, couldn't find anything), but hopefully folks will think it has some potential!
I think most players would like there to be a little more variety in the events on offer, with space battles being a common theme to come up. While some people might want a full space battle event, I was thinking perhaps linking them with voyages could work with some of the game mechanics.
When you send out a voyage, it has 12 crew, 2 in each skill. The battle stations on a ship have no more than 2 of the same skill (that I've noticed so far). If those positions are highlighted at the beginning of the voyage depending on which ship you select, you would know which crew would be fighting in ship to ship battles which occur at the dilemma points.
The skill in this event would be to balance high antimatter crew with strong battle stations, while also logging in at certain times to progress. Event crew and bonus crew could provide an addition to antimatter, similar to or replacing the crew traits (but providing a more significant bonus).
Voyage Mechanincs
The standard voyage would (or should IMO) be modified somewhat. Firstly, needing to log in every 2 hours would be bad, we already do timed events like this for factions, and they have the respite of a 9 hour boost. My suggestion would be an increase in total antimatter, or a slight reduction on how much antimatter is used over time in a voyage, and the option to nominate how long until your next voyage dilemma (2h, 4h, 6h, & 8h, so you can actually get a good night's sleep/go to work, etc.). I would also suggest that after a voyage has returned it builds up a surplus of antimatter, (This could also mean if you can't start right on time, this isn't wasted time. I'd also love it if the voyage was automatically claimed when it returned).
Dilemma (Space Battle) Mechanics
Three ships of different difficulty could be on offer, with different VP rewards. These could be other player's ships of similar rank, (like in the arena), but missing crew to change the difficulty, or it could be event ships which change each hour. A loss could either end your voyage, or force a time and/or antimatter penalty (undergoing repairs, etc.).
Scoring Mechanics
The longer your voyage length, the greater the increase to your VP for both dilemmas and the voyage length (capped after a certain time). The cap on the VP increase gives a diminishing return for long voyages, but value in that if you recall the voyage it takes time, and you need to start a new voyage, with new VP increments. This still incentivises spending, but hopefully not so much that strategy is irrelevant. A balance would need to be found to prevent 2 hour gaps between dilemmas overly advantaging players, perhaps by limiting how much VP is gained during the voyage directly after it (again, time taken to get voyage worthy).
To make the leaderboard at all representative, some VP points from voyages would need to be banked as the voyage continued, but a significant amount still gained upon return. This could be the space battle VP being banked straight away, while the voyage length VP is dependent on return.
This idea clearly needs refining, and play testing could revel it to be heavily biased in some way, but I'd welcome an attempt at a new event (although I fully understand that DB's recent announcements have talked about getting what they are doing right rather than trying new things). I'm not sure if there's been any previous threads on this, (tried running a search, couldn't find anything), but hopefully folks will think it has some potential!
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere out in space, because there's bugger all down here on Earth.
-Monty Python, The Meaning of Life
-Monty Python, The Meaning of Life
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-Monty Python, The Meaning of Life
-Monty Python, The Meaning of Life