CUV discussion

Originally posted by Second Chance


Did you think I meant look for reasons to pilot the CUV? I meant look for reasons to use the CUV, for repairs and such, instead of flying back to the carrier or base. I'm sure the CUV is an awsome ship to fly.

Apparently I did missunderstand, and I'm still not too sure what you mean []

Did you mean increase the uses for it? Or, increase it's appeal to the potential players (i.e create a higher level of compulsion to use it?)

If its the latter I agree: I am concerned too, that it may be be disregarded and turn out to be a sleeping beauty in the hanger.


Iwar2 Multiplayer Fan Site

Don't worry about that! I'm the kind of player that would really rather fly the CUV most of the time. Weird, maybe, but there you are. I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one.

In my LAN gaming experiences, teams that play well together tend to rotate around through roles often enough for everyone to get a crack at being in each role, but tend to settle into the roles that reflect the different strengths and fun factors for the players. I often like being the engineer/medic. You can still fight/play, but there are usually a few unique and very cool sneaky things you can do that screw up the perception that the sole basis of the game is a run and gun shoot out type of thing.

--
Hot4Darmat

No, no, no, that's not what I meant at all. I'm trying (still) to say it would be nice if there were better, more realistic reasons for the CUVs to exist at all (reflected in the coding of their game role); and why the fighters should repair/rearm with them instead of with the carrier/base. My whole point, several posts ago, was to suggest that the current reasons for the CUVs existence were rather dubious. To reiterate:

---

A cuv is around 30% faster than most fighters at top, head-on speed.

Although it's armed defensivly, it's much too heavily armored and sluggish to dogfight

?!?!?!?! This is terrible! These two statements are contradictory. And completely expose the CUV for what it actually is: A pointless vehicle added for variety. We should focus on creating better reasons for the fighter player to make use of the CUV.

. . .serving others is not the only purpose in the life of a CUV pilot

Again, this shoots holes in the purpose of the CUV. When a soldier cries out "Medic!", the medic doesn't say, "Sorry, I'm too busy mine-sweeping to help you right now, maybe later." Normally, the multiple tasks you've assigned would be handled by different vehicles. Maybe they should be. That would give us the opportunity to introduce another playable ship, one to handle the gunstars. Just a suggestion.

---

My point in the first statement was that; although a CUV is supposedly heavily armored and sluggish, it's still 30% faster than a fighter?!?! Aside from being contradictory, the whole purpose of a fighter is to be able to take your offensive capability to the enemy; fast. A fighters value is in its speed over other vehicles. Take that away, and you might as well just arm the CUVs, because they can get there faster and carry more firepower. Making the CUVs faster than the fighters just to give them a use in the game makes their role seem contrived. I say we can come up with a better way to make the CUVs absolutely essential without resorting to rationalizations.

My point in the last statment was that; realistically, two such disparate roles as emergency field repair and the setup and operation of field combat weapons would never be handled by the same individual. Either vital function could easily and frequently interfere with the other vital function, hence my suggestion for a new playable ship. Using one ship type (or avatar) as the CUV works fine, but you would have one CUV group fitted out for gunstar deployment and another fitted out for field repair. Both ship types would be variants of the standard CUV utility vessel, so only one ship model is required.

It's addressing little details like this that make a game that makes sense, versus one that seems contrived. But again, these are only suggestions, MajorTom has to be the one to decide how things actually work. I will, of course, endeavor to make his decisions work in any way I can.

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
.

I'm fully open on this point and now understand what you mean in reference to contrived.

The speed of the CUV looks no doubt contrived: make it faster to get back to base with it than with a fighter, thus increasing it's use as a gofor supply vehicle. However, there are also realistic game aspects.
If it takes the cuv too long, it's going to be boring (and/or too late for the fighters) to wait around and also be boring for the guy making the trip. We don't have LDS in MP and the distance can be a good 120 km to the base: At a max speed of 1200m/s it will take nearly 5 min. to go in, get docked and get back!
What are the options?
Perhaps make it as fast as a fighter, and then say: well it takes the same amount of time but it can repair several fighters?
Note: it's speed is only in Z-direction, it's manouverability just plain sucks except when it moves very slowly during docking.

I also agree on the multiroll issue in general. It would be no problem to copy the ini file and make two different ships: a medic and a gunstar deployer. The script code would support this with no problem. Our realistic limitation here is however:
a) the netcode: We have to supply the most fun activity without requiring a team size larger than the netcode can handle.

b) the player potential: We cannot expect to see many players at the beginning. If we don't expect many players we shouldn't offer too many specific rolls. We can always add (or separate) rolls later by popular demand.

The gunstar capability allows the CUV pilot to actually have a direct influence on the game and not just be a medic only.
There is nothing to prevent a team from deciding to split the rolls between 2 players in 2 CUVs if they wish (assuming they have enough player potential and bandwidth).
They can just as well opt to use the CUV only as a medic (or only the gunstar function) and still benefit from it.


Last not least: atm, I can't think of any way to distinguish 2 different CUVs enough. Just drop 3 gunstars and wait around until one gets damaged so you can dock to it and repair it, is probably too boring. What else should a gunstar variant of the CUV be able to do?





Iwar2 Multiplayer Fan Site