Equippable Small Rip device

Adept · Post by **Adept** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 4:23 pm

I'd post this in the Community Core forum, but I suspect it needs work on the code level.

As we all know, assault ships are rendered almost useless in PuG's and event games because somebody will almost inevitably rip to them when they are trying to sneak. To a lesser degree this can be a problem with Rix SR scouts too.

The obvious solution would be the ability to turn SR on / off. How I'd do it, so that the controls are familiar to us all, would be for the SR receiver to be a piece of equipment one mount in the gun slot, like GT's Rocket Targeting unit. Have the SR unit cost 500, and Rix scouts be able to mount it, and we'll have a delicious situation there. We'd get rid of having separate SR scouts, where all the enemies can always see which scout they should chase. A balancing limitation of not being able to fire your gat with the SR device equipped sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

As a large bonus, this would make the Ass ship much easier to use. Just unmount the SR device when you don't want people ripping to you.

Don't know how difficult this would be to implement, but it looks really good to me,

Dark_Sponge · Post by **Dark_Sponge** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 5:13 pm

Adept wrote:QUOTE (Adept @ Dec 4 2008, 08:23 AM) The obvious solution...would be for the SR receiver to be a piece of equipment one mount in the gun slot, like GT's Rocket Targeting unit.

That's a fine idea, but it doesn't have to be a piece of equipment for the gun slot. It could be mounted anywhere. Booster slot, cloak slot, whatever. The cloak slot makes the most sense to me (and how often is an ass ship cloaking and ripping in ships at the same time?)

Compellor · Post by **Compellor** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 5:16 pm

It's certainly an interesting idea, and perhaps worth a try, at least for the assault ship.

The trouble with not having a separate rip scout is that it's impossible to tell which scouts you can rip to and which ones you can't. Instead of just being able to look at the minimap and see where your rip scouts are, you'd have to see who just said, "need fighters," check F6 to find out where he is, and then rip. Sort of a pain. Also, it would involve rebalancing Rix, because:
1) The opposing team have to chase down every scout they see instead of just rip scouts.
2) As currently balanced, rip scouts have higher signature and slower energy recharge than regular scouts. Current code does not allow items in the gun slot to increase signature just by being there.

Dark_Sponge · Post by **Dark_Sponge** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 5:21 pm

Compellor wrote:QUOTE (Compellor @ Dec 4 2008, 09:16 AM) The trouble with not having a separate rip scout is that it's impossible to tell which scouts you can rip to and which ones you can't.

You could still have a separate rip scout. You'd just have one scout that could mount the rip device and one that couldn't. The one that could would still be marked as a smallrip. Problem solved.

Andon · Post by **Andon** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 5:24 pm

Well, the minimap would lilkely still function like it does with regular rip scouts.

Also - Gun slot isn't a good idea. Cloak slot, on the other hand, is a great idea. It has energy drain (Therefore slower energy regen), and signature modifiers when on (On would mean that the ships can rip to it).

redavian · Post by **redavian** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 5:30 pm

Dark_Sponge wrote:QUOTE (Dark_Sponge @ Dec 4 2008, 05:21 PM) You could still have a separate rip scout. You'd just have one scout that could mount the rip device and one that couldn't. The one that could would still be marked as a smallrip. Problem solved.

if you implement this make sure it is the sr scout and not the equipment that costs money or there will be hundreds of srs at the start and none of them are rippable.

noone seems to have mentioned it yet, so ill ask:
is this a code change???

Dark_Sponge · Post by **Dark_Sponge** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 5:37 pm

RedAvian wrote:QUOTE (RedAvian @ Dec 4 2008, 09:30 AM) is this a code change???

yes

redavian · Post by **redavian** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 5:50 pm

Sushi · Post by **Sushi** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 6:15 pm

This would also be nice for the problem of multiple SRs in a sector. Right now, it's a real pain to coordinate ripping to multiple SRs in the same sector, since there's no easy way to select who you are ripping to. As a result, everyone tries to rip to the SR that's out of energy, and the one that isn't doesn't get any customers. If the SRs could swap their ripcord in and out of cargo so that only one of them was the "active" SR at a time, they could much more efficiently share the rip-in-to-sector load.

juckto · Post by **juckto** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:16 pm

That's the fault of the SR pilot.

If you are full of energy you should be giving your team the order "Go to Me" (enter ctrl-g m e enter). If they accept they will target you. And when you rip you rip to the closest rip point to your target* - which happens to be you in both cases.

* Overridden by teleport stations, as you know. Although if there are two teleport stations in the same sector you will rip to the station closest to your target, so my point stands.