Part 4: Making Guild Capital Ships: Would it not be great if guilds could craft and own their own capital ships? We already know that Bioware has mentioned guild capital ship before but there are no details around it. Here are a few ideas how it could work. The capital ships I talk about above in the previous sections are all “generic” with predetermined weapons mounts and so on and very basic bonuses to their components (think of it as if you were wearing “white” armor instead of greens, blues and epics we all want in game). The concept is that guild ships would be craftable and customizable just like player armor is now complete with green, blue and epic components/ weapons and so on that are far superior then the standard capital ship components. Crafting guild ships would tie in with the existing crafting system and trade skills with an effort to make each skills useful for crafting ships. I envision this as being one of the main end products of the crafting system. Something that player would really want to make up and fight in. Guild capital ships would be focused on end game content given the time and effort needed to make them and the difficulty of having different level ranges of guild capital ship that players would outgrow as they leveled up. Now while the guild ship is end game content the creation of the ship requires input from players of all level ranges Here are a few ideas as to how that could work: 1. Armormech: would make up the ship’s armor plating and structural components. 2. Armstech: would make up the components used in large caliber capital ship weaponary and missles. 3. Synthweaving: admittedly this is harder to come with a use for but perhaps they would make up some sub components for shield generators or weapons etc like the shield gen they make now. 4. BioChem: would make up some components for capital ship weapons (perhaps combustible gas etc) 5. Artifice: would make up capital ship weapon and shield components. All the existing mission skills would be useful to obtain mats as would all the gathering professions so this gives the game another way to make crafting more useful and fun. In addition the craftable components need to make a ship would require a few sub components that are lower level so that lower level mats and lower level recipes are useful in the game and not just high end mats are needed. For example you want to make a weapon mount for your capital ship: Weapon Mount: would require several end game (grade 6) mats plus a mix of some lower level / higher level components to fill it out: 1. Structural component: would need grade 6 mats and be crafted via armormech 2. A couple of low voltage capacitors: made by cybertech using say grade 2 mats and the recipe for this could be reverse engineered to prototype or artifact level (giving the game a use for blue and purple mats at grade 2 and giving lower level crafters something worthwhile to craft up and something usable at end game in an item that remains in demand in game) 3. A couple of high voltage capacitors: made by cybertech using grade 5 mats. 4. Power cables / coupling: made by synthweaving using say grade 3 mats. 5. Targeting control and command module: made by armstech using grade 6 mats Once the weapons mount is build then weapons of the players choice could be added with the same idea in mind (requiring different levels of input from different crafting skill sets, crafting levels and mats.

Part 3: Capital Ships: Much like the group missions on the ground ships would be crewed by groups of players who would together control one or more capital ships. Ship sizes could be arranged as follows: 1. Frigate: a small 4 player ship: 1 pilot, 2 weapons officers, 1 engineer. Would contain 2 weapons mounts. 2. Destroyer: a medium size 8 player ship: 1 pilot, 5 weapons officers, 2 engineers Would contains 5 weapons mounts. 3. Light Carrier: a medium size 8 player ship: 1 pilot, 5 weapons officers, 2 engineers. Would contain 1 weapons mount and 4 hanger bays. 4. Cruiser: a large size 12 player ship: 1 pilot, 8 weapons officers, 3 engineers. Would contain 8 weapons mounts. 5. Carrier: a larger size 12 player ship 1 pilot, 8 weapons officers, 3 engineers. Would contains 2 weapons mounts and 6 hanger bays. Capital Ship Weapon Options: All capital ships would have either weapons mounts and or hanger bays which the weapons officer player would controls. Weapon mounts would consider of 4 individual weapons (with various configurations) of two types: heavy (ion cannons, missiles or heavy blaster cannons and light which would consist of anti fighter turbo lasers). The player would have a duel control over the heavy and light weapons within the mount. If firing the main guns the player would use the controls for them and their special weapons attacks (ion cannon would act as a stun, missiles as burst damage etc). The player would use the lighter weapons when attempting to shoot down smaller enemy fighter/bomber craft that come into range on the screen from time to time during the battle. In addition, for guild build ships weapons mounts could be configurable and with different types of weapons up to the max of four per mount thus allowing players making the guild ships to outfit them with combinations of capital ship weapons as they saw fit. Hanger bays would represent the individual star fighter weapon class carried aboard the carrier ship. Tthe weapons officer would control a wing of 4 attack fighters and 4 attack bombers per hanger bay. The interface for this would be like a table with a 3D tactical map of the zone and enemy ships on it and the player would direct the fighters and bombers to targets, bombers to target enemy capital ships and fighters to intercept enemy fighters etc. Capital Ship Missions: Missions (up to full raids for the larger ships/groups) would be given out and the players could choose to fill them as they pleased. For example a 12 man raid could be a single cruiser or carrier, 3 frigates or 12 players in their individual ships or any combination that equaled 12 players. Capital Ship Components: Ships would be split up into components which could be damaged and in some cases targetable and would have different damage effects within the ship. The idea would be that components / sections of the ship are damageable and repairable but eventually enough damage will accumulate that would cause them to be destroyed for the duration of the combat (but fully repairable post combat). Think of them like the armor we have now, a weapons mount is the “armor” and the weapons in it are the “mods” etc. Player could target the enemies bridge to try to knock out their ship’s command and control movement etc, or target the engines to slow movement, or target the individual weapons batteries and so on until the ships defences are down and then players could destroy the ship or even board it.

Part 2: Space Skills and the Holy Trinity in Space: The idea is to recreate the tank, healer, dps grouping dynamic in space to match with the ground game grouping dynamic. This trinity would be for the capital ship grouped play which will be feature players working together to control the same capital ship and or players grouping together with their individual ships to complete missions. To start with players would gain space combat xp from space missions which are separate from ground xp. This xp would raise their space combat level and there would be space combat skills and space combat skill trees similar to those on the ground. These space skills would apply to individual ship combat as well as the grouped encounters in space as well. There would be three roles in space in which players can invest their skill points: 1. “tank” (pilot): in space combat this would be the player who pilots capital ships and control them in space selecting the targets etc. there would be skills involved with targeting ships and, speed buffs, special space maneuvers etc (“dodge” in space to avoid damage so to speak). In individual space combat this is the class that would attempt to hold the aggro of enemy NPC ships by distracting them from attacking allies via debuffs and blocking “jamming” their attacks against allies etc. 2. “DPS” (Weapons Officer): in space combat these would be players who man the capital ships guns, missile batteries and fighter / bomber wings. There would be skills to allow players to overload guns for extra damage, raise critical chance etc. The players would be responsible for targeting enemy capital ships and targeting certain parts of the enemy’s ships (engines, bridge, guns, shield generators etc). In individual ship space combat this player would be the dps class much like on the ground. 3. “healer” (engineer): the healer in space combat on capital ships would be like an engineer and would be responsible for sending out damage control parties (which would be a limited resource available to the engineer) to fix damaged systems and components (perhaps the starboard gun battery emplacement is damaged and cannot rotate so the DPS player cannot aim his guns etc). The engineer would also manage power distribution moving limited power between shields, weapons and engines depending on the needs of the ship. Power would be a limited resource as well like the damage control teams. In individual ship space missions the healer would deploy repair probes etc to “heal” allies ships and buff up allies and things of that nature. Rather than have “space classes” like those on the ground we could simply have a space combat skill tree with one tree for each type (pilot, weapons officer, engineer) that way all players could freely invest points in depending on what play style they wanted to pursue in space.

Space Combat Ideas: Part 1: Redefining Space Combat: We know that a space combat expansion is something that Bioware would like to do in the future. Here are some ideas as to how that can work out. First we start out with some general ideas about changing the nature of space combat before getting into the more detailed ideas that will follow in further posts (this will be a series of suggestions). 1. Free form space combat: allowing us to move outside the constraints of the tunnel shooter and allowing us free form 3D space combat that would allow us to dogfight, move around and maneuver all over the “zone” 2. Grouping: grouping up with friends to play space missions would be a key part of the new system. These could be small group missions with 2 players, larger 4 player missions and larger raid type scenarios. Grouping would be at the individual ship level or within capital ships. 3. Capital Ships: capital ship and missions involving capital ships would be a key feature of the space expansion. Players would group together and would be assigned a generic ship (for their level range from their faction’s military) to complete a mission with or guilds could craft up a ship (which would give them better components and bonueses than a generic vessel) to use for capital ship missions. 4. PVP in space: yes, full on ship to ship (our individual ships that we have now and also capital ship versus capital ship. The broader idea would expand out to include full on sector space battles with players competing for control of whole planets and their resources. 5. In game voice chat: this would be added in to allow players and teams to better coordinate during these space battles, plus it will also benefit the existing ground game too. This is something I can see being needed especially in capital ship battles

It has been almost three months since launch and I have thought that I best write up a review of the game, the good and the bad. The Good: 1. The story is well done and engaging I am actually interested in the story and working through it as opposed to just skimming a bunch of text and running out to achieve the missions without caring about the story as in other games. 2. Content: there is a fair amount of content and different content to explore in game such as companion storylines, the class quests, planet storylines. This allows the player to earn xp from a variety of different ways. 3. Graphics: the environment graphics and instances are well done and look great especially with the recent improvements. The Bad: 1. Lack of UI customization: same comments here as others have made. 2. Lack of a decent GTN with proper search functions: same comments as others have made in this space. 3. Texturing: armor and gear especially look “flat” and dull which bring down things a notch from the otherwise decent environmental graphics in game. 4. Missions: is does not seem to matter which options you choose as you cannot fail a mission. 5. Linearity: the game feels like it is holding our hands and guiding us though the game. Some more randomness and more dynamic events and ways for players to actually influence the environment would be welcome. Wish List: Short term: 1. Fix the existing bugs in the game, fix up the UI to make it more customizable. Improve the exchange so that searching for items is easier. Perhaps add a “trade board” that crafters could announce what they are WTS and others can post up requests for items that they would be WTB etc to help promote the economy. Announcements on this board would last for a few hours and save the player population for constantly spamming general chat to try to buy or sell something. Players would be able to go off and quest etc while the ad remains up and await another player to contact them. 2. Removal of some of the loading screens and instancing. I do not think that we should have to go through several loading screens when going planet to planet (space station to orbital station etc) Mid term: 1. Additional content and the fleshing out of some of the underdeveloped systems like the legacy system (glad to see that this is coming) and more viable crafting across all levels so that crafting is actually useful (across all levels and end game) instead of like in that other game. 2. Better gear textures so that armor does not look so flat and dull. Maybe more bump mapping and shine to the gear models would help. 3. Missions: actual consequences based on the choice you make so that you could actually fail a mission based on the answers you choose (this makes it more fun as we would have to think through some of the answers). The revanite quest chain on DK is an example of a quest you should be able to fail as it gives us the options of insulting the group we are trying to infiltrate but you cannot fail the mission in spite of being insulting to them. So far I have not found much of this in game. Also it would be good to have a few small puzzles to missions to make them more than the underlying “go and kill things” which are present in all MMOs 3. More random elements and special mobs/drops etc that make it worthwhile and fun to explore the game environment. These elements would be random so that they would appear at any time and place in the game as opposed to “fixed” special items like datacrons. This makes finding one special; and unique. Long term: 1. Space Combat: I would like to see more in depth space combat with full freedom of movement to allow full on maneuverability. Additionally, a space combat skill tree would be nice along with co-operative capital ship battles. 2. More openness in the game and less hand holding in terms of leading us through the game planet to planet. Perhaps class quests could be based on branching story lines in that the player pursues one branch based on their choices and go through the game that way rather than being told to go to planet x then planet y.

This is what I want, posted it up earlier. It I am bored at work so I thought I would share again. It is long so sorry........ * The idea: * A large scale dynamic PVP zone with fleet actions and ground actions. This zone would be created between the Empire and the Republic zones (as seen on the current space map) and would contain 5-7 neutral planets (with some degree of random leaning toward the Empire or the Republic to start when the zone first opens in game). The players in the factions would then be able to try to sway the planets to their side either with diplomacy or an outright invasion. Diplomacy would obviously take longer but would give benefits in that you would capture the planet’s facilities intact, military actions would mean that you have to rebuild what is on the planet to help defend it against the other faction (if you so choose). In addition you would not have to deal with the potential of a rebellion (more on that below). * The whole reason for taking over these planets is that there are special resources (for crafting or tokens for better gear, things like this etc) on these planets that would be desireable for the players to get their hands on. One other idea would be to allow for a sector bonus based on how many planets a faction controls in this sector further increasing the desire to control all the planets. * The collective actions / decisions of the players in each faction would determine what happens to those planets. It would require players on the whole server to decide which planets to invade or which to sway with diplomacy. Obviously it would make sense to target the planets that lean towardR your faction with diplomacy first etc. Players could somehow vote on which planets to do what with so the general population is aware of what the strategy is and join in the missions to get those planets. (If this proves too complicated the game could have a mechanic that opens planets to invasion or diplomacy only but I would prefer it to be left to the player community to decide allowing them the choice to impact the game world on their server). * So how do we interact with these neutral planets then, where does the PVP come into play? I propose two methods: * Diplomacy: Players would be able to run some diplomacy type missions (player based missions not companion based like those in the diplomacy crew skill) with story elements that would bring them into contact with Republic players running the same missions for some one on one or small group PVP actions or also PVE type missions so that PVE players could join in this as well. The results of these would move the planets diplomacy one way or the other allowing players to influence an otherwise static game world plus open up new story elements for players to enjoy. * Military: Instead of diplomacy a player faction could mount various raids (or covert action missions perhaps) to take out the defenses of the neutral planet over time and eventually capture it. Perhaps the players would knock out the orbital defense stations one day in advance of a big ground invasion action the next day. Likewise players from the opposite side could rush to defend the planet and gain favourable diplomacy in doing so which results in a huge PVP space and or ground battle with the NPC neutral planet ground and space defences pitching in. Invading a planet would also have consequences in that other planets would start to fear the faction that invaded them depending on relations (which ties back to diplomacy, and also some neutral planets could dislike other neutral planets so that invading their enemy increase relationships with them, dynamics like this could be added in as well). Military actions by players would involve those “guild capital ships” we have been hearing about plus your own personal ship in dogfighting actions (hopefully this would be doable with the work they are doing on space combat that we have heard about). Once the planet is captured the faction would have the option to rebuild the defences on the planet (think guild space stations, guild ground bases etc which would take resources to repair damaged gun emplacements, shield generators or create elite battle droids for base defense etc) or leave them as is. This would hopefully give more meaning to crafting too. Also a final point is that the neutral planets military defenses would regenerate over time too making it a good strategy for the community to focus on taking out a planet and capturing It over a campaign that might take a few days of real life time (some covert actions to lower defenses, then some raids to remove any remaining defense while a final raid comes in to invade the planet a few days later). * Over the course of a few weeks after this zone first opens all the neutral planets would have been captured by one of the factions and then the strategy would be to of course try to capture the planets from the other faction. This could be accomplished by outright military action (again large scale PVP fleets actions and invasion) or by running covert missions to ferment a rebellion on the target planet. The result of running these covert missions would increase rebel activity and at the same time open up missions for the faction that holds the planet to put down the rebellion (these could be PVE missions as in “kill the rebel leader” or PVP as in “kill the other factions covert team” so that the PVE and PVP players could both enjoy the content in this zone). Ignore the opposing factions covert actions long enough and the planet starts to rebel and the owning faction loses the bonuses on the planet and uprisings occur and start to damage the defense facilities and bases on the planet. If it lasts long enough the planet would revert to neutral status. * Finally, all of these space battles, planetary invasions, diplomacy would contains various story elements that are changeable and that randomly open up new things for players to access such as a new type of crafting schematic or a new special resource etc. I am really hoping that we would see some real different outcomes from the dialogue choices we are given in game and I would support having some random surprises put in as well so that replaying the mission might result in different outcomes even if the same choices are chosen. Having said this I do understand that this would be a lot of work to do and would take a lot of time to create such rich system of options and outcomes in game. * So then, we have this zone with PVP fleets actions and so but how to we balance it, how do we get balance with such large battles and then not have to wait in ques for enough players on both sides to join? After all these would not be 10 nor 20 man raids but large raids potentially consisting of 100s of players. The idea to balance this is that to launch an attack you would need a minimum amount of say 15-20 players but more could join in the attack later on with no limit. The defending side would get a chance to muster defenses via a general alert in game … “Spies have found an incoming raid headed for planet xxx!” “Our monitoring station has spotted a large enemy fleet inbound to* planet xxx” . Defending players would be able to join the battle as it starts and also during the during too (in game a shuttle would come and pick them up and take them to the zone similar to the quick travel function we have now). Any defending PC players would receive NPC reinforcements to help them out and balance it if there are too many PC attackers. If no defending players join in then if becomes a PVE type raid. If lots of enemy players respond and they actually end up outnumbering the attacking PCs then the attackers get some reinforcements to help them out. Also as mentioned, during the battle defending and attacking players would join in and the NPC reinforcements would be added or subtracted from the battle as needed to help keep the balance of player strength roughly even. This should help keep these epic battles balanced and fair and at the same time ensure that players do not have to wait too long to participate in these battles because NPC players are going to fill in when there is a lack of PC players. The last point to make is that rewards given to players in the battle would depend on how much time they played that particular battle (and how much they contributed) thus allowing late comers to get some reward but not as much as those who got in early. In addition this helps prevent someone from jumping to a battle near the end and sitting there doing nothing and collecting a reward. The system should be designed to reward contribution to your faction.

We all remember the battle of Hoth, the Empire comes along with the fleet and invades Hoth while the rebels try to defend it. We all remember the opening space battle from Episode III, now imagine having something like that in the game with fleet actions, invasions, planetary defenses etc. * The idea: * A large scale dynamic PVP zone with fleet actions and ground actions. This zone would be created between the Empire and the Republic zones (as seen on the current space map) and would contain 5-7 neutral planets (with some degree of random leaning toward the Empire or the Republic to start when the zone first opens in game). The players in the factions would then be able to try to sway the planets to their side either with diplomacy or an outright invasion. Diplomacy would obviously take longer but would give benefits in that you would capture the planet’s facilities intact, military actions would mean that you have to rebuild what is on the planet to help defend it against the other faction (if you so choose). In addition you would not have to deal with the potential of a rebellion (more on that below). * The whole reason for taking over these planets is that there are special resources (for crafting or tokens for better gear, things like this etc) on these planets that would be desireable for the players to get their hands on. One other idea would be to allow for a sector bonus based on how many planets a faction controls in this sector further increasing the desire to control all the planets. * The collective actions / decisions of the players in each faction would determine what happens to those planets. It would require players on the whole server to decide which planets to invade or which to sway with diplomacy. Obviously it would make sense to target the planets that lean toward your faction with diplomacy first etc. Players could somehow vote on which planets to do what with so the general population is aware of what the strategy is and join in the missions to get those planets. (If this proves too complicated the game could have a mechanic that opens planets to invasion or diplomacy only but I would prefer it to be left to the player community to decide allowing them the choice to impact the game world on their server). * So how do we interact with these neutral planets then, where does the PVP come into play? I propose two methods: * Diplomacy: Players would be able to run some diplomacy type missions (player based missions not companion based like those in the diplomacy crew skill) with story elements that would bring them into contact with Republic players running the same missions for some one on one or small group PVP actions or also PVE type missions so that PVE players could join in this as well. The results of these would move the planets diplomacy one way or the other allowing players to influence an otherwise static game world plus open up new story elements for players to enjoy. * Military: Instead of diplomacy a player faction could mount various raids (or covert action missions perhaps) to take out the defenses of the neutral planet over time and eventually capture it. Perhaps the players would knock out the orbital defense stations one day in advance of a big ground invasion action the next day. Likewise players from the opposite side could rush to defend the planet and gain favourable diplomacy in doing so which results in a huge PVP space and or ground battle with the NPC neutral planet ground and space defences pitching in. Invading a planet would also have consequences in that other planets would start to fear the faction that invaded them depending on relations (which ties back to diplomacy, and also some neutral planets could dislike other neutral planets so that invading their enemy increase relationships with them, dynamics like this could be added in as well). Military actions by players would involve those “guild capital ships” we have been hearing about plus your own personal ship in dogfighting actions (hopefully this would be doable with the work they are doing on space combat that we have heard about). Once the planet is captured the faction would have the option to rebuild the defences on the planet (think guild space stations, guild ground bases etc which would take resources to repair damaged gun emplacements, shield generators or create elite battle droids for base defense etc) or leave them as is. This would hopefully give more meaning to crafting too. Also a final point is that the neutral planets military defenses would regenerate over time too making it a good strategy for the community to focus on taking out a planet and capturing It over a campaign that might take a few days of real life time (some covert actions to lower defenses, then some raids to remove any remaining defense while a final raid comes in to invade the planet a few days later). * Over the course of a few weeks after this zone first opens all the neutral planets would have been captured by one of the factions and then the strategy would be to of course try to capture the planets from the other faction. This could be accomplished by outright military action (again large scale PVP fleets actions and invasion) or by running covert missions to ferment a rebellion on the target planet. The result of running these covert missions would increase rebel activity and at the same time open up missions for the faction that holds the planet to put down the rebellion (these could be PVE missions as in “kill the rebel leader” or PVP as in “kill the other factions covert team” so that the PVE and PVP players could both enjoy the content in this zone). Ignore the opposing factions covert actions long enough and the planet starts to rebel and the owning faction loses the bonuses on the planet and uprisings occur and start to damage the defense facilities and bases on the planet. If it lasts long enough the planet would revert to neutral status. * Finally, all of these space battles, planetary invasions, diplomacy would contains various story elements that are changeable and that randomly open up new things for players to access such as a new type of crafting schematic or a new special resource etc. I am really hoping that we would see some real different outcomes from the dialogue choices we are given in game and I would support having some random surprises put in as well so that replaying the mission might result in different outcomes even if the same choices are chosen. Having said this I do understand that this would be a lot of work to do and would take a lot of time to create such rich system of options and outcomes in game. * So then, we have this zone with PVP fleets actions and so but how to we balance it, how do we get balance with such large battles and then not have to wait in ques for enough players on both sides to join? After all these would not be 10 nor 20 man raids but large raids potentially consisting of 100s of players. The idea to balance this is that to launch an attack you would need a minimum amount of say 15-20 players but more could join in the attack later on with no limit. The defending side would get a chance to muster defenses via a general alert in game … “Spies have found an incoming raid headed for planet xxx!” “Our monitoring station has spotted a large enemy fleet inbound to* planet xxx” . Defending players would be able to join the battle as it starts and also during the during too (in game a shuttle would come and pick them up and take them to the zone similar to the quick travel function we have now). Any defending PC players would receive NPC reinforcements to help them out and balance it if there are too many PC attackers. If no defending players join in then if becomes a PVE type raid. If lots of enemy players respond and they actually end up outnumbering the attacking PCs then the attackers get some reinforcements to help them out. Also as mentioned, during the battle defending and attacking players would join in and the NPC reinforcements would be added or subtracted from the battle as needed to help keep the balance of player strength roughly even. This should help keep these epic battles balanced and fair and at the same time ensure that players do not have to wait too long to participate in these battles because NPC players are going to fill in when there is a lack of PC players. The last point to make is that rewards given to players in the battle would depend on how much time they played that particular battle (and how much they contributed) thus allowing late comers to get some reward but not as much as those who got in early. In addition this helps prevent someone from jumping to a battle near the end and sitting there doing nothing and collecting a reward. The system should be designed to reward contribution to your faction. * Well this is about the entire idea. I hope that you like it.