The Glade 4.0

Everything the Powers that Be are putting out about the games make me think that the people who think they are going to be able to podkill single seat fighters 1v1 in their irdis M are going to be in for a surprise. Not that they can't, but that the game mechanics either won't give them much opportunity, punish them mightily, or likely both.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I think soloing in large ships like an Idris is definitely going to be limited.. as in i think an Idris is about the LARGEST ship with practical solo capability, and in that one it'll be limited. Any idiot looking to fly a battlecruiser without support will suffer the consequences.

EVE is like that also, except in EVE a battlecruiser is (intuitively, at least) about what an Idris would be in SC. It's the border ship between smaller and larger ships. While people do solo PVP in battleships, it takes grreat skill and is very risky indeed. Granted, the pirate faction battleships, specifically the Machariel and Vindicator are the most powerful PVP ships in the game outside of the capital ship classes, but they're also among the most costly. I have never been able to afford one of either.. or at least I could, but I save my blingy ships for PVE where there's more of a return on the investment and I don't have enough left over to throw into a PVP monster. Even if I did, I wouldn't take a BB into PVP solo. I have cheaper BBs for PVP, but I only use them in fleets.

(People in EVE do sometimes do solo PVE in carriers and supercarriers, and regularly in battleships, but PVE is a totally different animal and you don't want to get jumped by gankers in a carrier! That's an expensive loss.)

If what I'm saying is true, then an Idris or comparable ship in SC, much like a battlecruiser or battleship, isn't seriously threatened by single smaller opponents, or even 2 or 3 ships like say Hornets, or 325As, but once the numbers start piling up it will rapidly tilt in favor of the small ships. Pilot skill is important here; if some idiot takes his expensive Idris out and gets in fights with a highly skilled solo fighter pilot with no regard for proper tactics and expects sheer weight of metal to crush him, then the solo fighter pilot ought to get credit for an Idris kill. Similarly, if half a dozen fools come in on an Idris piloted by a smart guy who set up to deal with them and think simple weight of numbers ought to be a win button, then the Idris pilot ought to singlehandedly smash aside all opposition and harvest the tears.

As for optional PVP, I expect that the less risk of PVP you take, the harder it will be to get the best rewards out of PVE. That said, even in EVE if you play it smart and maintain situational awareness it's pretty hard to get caught by anything other than a well-coordinated enemy in lowsec space (nullsec makes it easier, but that's a long story). There's a big difference between "I don't want to PVP so I won't engage when I see an attack coming" and "I want to be protected from PVP magically by the servers." The latter is possible, but it can't happen in conjunction with being able to do all the other risky stuff without totally throwing risk-reward out of balance.

Mus - dude, get a WINGMAN! PVP is a lot less scary with friends. There's at least 4 of us here that would happily fly along with you, probably more.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Flying a small single seater, there are probably a lot of things (PC and AI) that I will be running from when I'm moving cargo on my own. Playing to your strengths and picking your battles doesn't mean you are anti-pvp IMO (though many will disagree).

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I'm kind of in the camp that doesn't mind a couple PvP battles (as long as it's not a case of "oh that guy spent a thousand bucks in real cash on the game and can exterminate me handily", which it sounds like SC is working hard to prevent), but would definitely like the option to just run my cargo without being attacked 75 times inbetween two ports. I'm hoping the stealth/low noise options will be effective for the standard cargo running/mining/getting moneys operations that most of us will take part in to some degree to fund our activities.

I get the impression that running cargo will fall on a spectrum, with milk runs between Terra and a neighboring planet/system for a slim margin on one end, and pulling exotic materials and goods out of distant, unpoliced space for big bucks (if you make it) at the other.

The former should be plenty viable, and really just about putting the time in. The latter is where you're scheduling a run with your friends (or hiring mercenaries) and splitting the profits. The former will probably not result in a lot of hostile encounters regardless of your slider setting (because the majority of PCs will be loathe to engage in piracy in well-policed space), and the latter will probably result in fending off dozens of pirates regardless of your slider setting.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I'm wondering what the safe trade routes are going to look like. Is it a common trade lane that goes from one jump point to the next and many ships can be seen to pass on by sort of like a highway. Or is the route between planets going to be the trade lane and the actual path of two ships might be very different?

This is a good question. Some of the early (like, during the initial crowdfunding campaign month) fiction -- I think it was the Cal Mason one -- suggested that at one particularly busy jump point, traffic lined up and went through the jump point one at a time, making it a convenient inspection point, too. Not sure how far that would extend to trade lanes themselves.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

It would definitely be fun to load up one of those Kaffis cruisers with goods and escort that bad boy through the evil space for a huge payoff for everyone. Why isn't this game out already!

For running in very outer regions it may be the case that running a large cruiser without much stealth with perhaps an escort or two as a decoy while our high stealth transports run through as well would be more cost effective knowing that we will lose the large transport. (if it has no frills or low upgrades then the insurance replacement would make it zero cost) and the escorts may buy time necessary for our less obvious parcel delivery to make it.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Lol.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I hope most people are keeping a cool head about it. His reasoning sounds perfect, and it's the choice I would prefer. However, with my much more limited game time these days, I'm not a big alpha or beta person. I would much rather spend my time on a featured complete product, or testing systems that will make the final release much more robust, than a throwaway.

I'd stay away from the RSI forums unless you like having your hopes dashed then. Seriously though most people probably are but the community is sadly showing a large capacity of whiners on the both sides of the issue. I'm kinda on the fence about it. I understand it will be done when it's right. Bur its poor form to use the phrase "no matter what" then. Backpedal

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Yeah, my only real consternation is that I figured we'd be apprised of such a delay sooner. I mean, we'd already had the hacked together multiplayer now vs. more robust and future-feature-supporting backend later discussion, but the undertone to that was that we'd still see some primitive AI we could host locally and fly solo against.

I get why that's not an option offered now, but why was it suggested/implied/offered as recently as a few weeks ago if single player runs on the same server structure the MMO-esque multiplayer does?

I'm not really broken up over it, but this is the sort of last-minute delay announcement I'd expect to see for something publisher-funded rather than the open-development community interactive process we've been getting otherwise.

It's easy to get me to forgive by offering to show me live footage of them playing in-engine at its current status, though. I was desperately hoping to see that during the livestream, after all. Really, I think the chance to see what they've got before they give it to us is a great opportunity for the community to give feedback before they fully commit to and deliver some design principles, like UI, control inputs, etc. Would we be able to offer slightly more on-point feedback if we were *playing* it? Yes, but then there's also a level of momentum attained by virtue of offering a playable (even pre-alpha) product. We're less likely to get divided over and (worse) invested in specific game mechanics if they change before we get the playable builds.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

*hugs Kaffis all better*

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

But.. I *was* all better!

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Freelancer variants would make ME better.

Mmm. Hehe. I'm good waiting for the new year, lol. Christmas plans have me pretty tightly budgeted right now.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

They are still putting out more content on a weekly basis than 90% of my webcomic reading list put together.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

That's the idea That's why I took the SWACS version. I'm a support guy

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Holy shitsnacks!

Lemme guess.. Order of the Stick is in there?

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Yes but they are hardly the only offender

Sent from my GT-P3113 using Tapatalk

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Scott Kurtz has developed a case of the Richard Burlews.

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Cutting his hand so severely that there was question as to if he would be able to still draw?

Rich Burlew had a reputation for flakiness and completely unpredictable updates long before he injured his hand. I got sick enough of having no idea when to check his site that I stopped reading Order of the Stick years ago.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades