IDEA: Starships can be player housing and more intuitive. Genuine idea to fix ships!

[Chevex]

NOTE: If you like this idea please reply. Make some noise. Maybe BioWare will take notice.

 

I think it's pretty much a common consensus that orbital stations are generally disliked. At least from what I've heard on the forums here. Here is what I want to happen instead:

 

Rather than have a pointless orbital station around every planet I want each planet to have a hangar, but instead of a generic shuttle inside I want separate rooms; one room for each different kind of class starship. So there would be a room for the jedi ship, a room for the smuggler ship, etc. Each of these rooms would be instanced (like story areas) so that you can go into the bay with your ship and not have a bunch of other players crowding around the same ship model.

 

Inside this bay you're ship's door would be open (no loading screen if possible) and you can simply walk on and off your ship at will (NO LAUNCHING!). This would be a great little personal place to go while on a planet with no need to launch into space only to re-land on the same planet. It seems silly to have to launch into space to have a conversation with a companion and then have to re-land on the same planet we just left.

 

So far this solves a lot of things related to ships but it's not quite player housing. In addition to all this I want the ability to group with people and bring them into my instanced bay area just like you would into a story area. First person to enter the bay would make that instance "his/her" bay with "his/her" ship just like how the first person to enter a heroic or story area makes it "his/her" instance. So if a Jedi Knight and a Consular both share the same bay because they have the same ship then they would just walk out of the bay, reset their local phases or whatever, and then walk back in (the person who's ship they'd like to visit being the first to walk back in).

 

This allows you to have a pseudo-house in the game. Nobody could just go walking through your house whenever they felt like it. You would have to group with them and "invite" them to come see your ship. More customization of the interior of the ship would be desired obviously so that you would have more to show off inside, but that can all be added in over time.

 

Wouldn't it be cool to group with a friend and go see their customized ship which shows off their progress and achievements so far in the game. Then after that you can go to your bay and show him your ship as well! This would be so cool in my opinion.

 

What do you guys think? I will ask politely not to be flamed if you don't like the idea. Doesn't guarantee anything I know, but I will ask anyway. Thanks guys!

Edited January 11, 2012 by Chevex

[austringer]

Sounds sesible to me. Why do you need a house when you have a mobile home!

[Yhor]

I like the idea, but there are things I like more that need to be done first.

 

Good idea.

[Hydranova]

That bit about instanced hangars is already in place. But in addition to what you said, maybe have ops groups be able to enter a single ship?

[Sabarok]

That's pretty similar to an idea I also had, but never got around to posting.

 

A Legacy Light Carrier. A small capital ship with a docking port that returns a player to their ship that is unlocked through the Legacy System and then purchased. Shared among other characters through the legacy, upgrades to the ship can be extremely expensive, but they only need to be purchased once for the entire legacy. Purchasing the ship separately will allow players to choose the specific ship design they want, rather than being restricted based on class.

 

To get to the Legacy Light Carrier, a player needs to be in their personal ship, and their Legacy ship is one of the possible destinations.

 

Other possible features/ideas to extend it:

 

A designated "parking zone", perhaps either by galactic co-ordinates or a directory. Combine this with a security terminal and players could allow others to visit their Legacy ship.

 

Missions designed for the Legacy Light Carrier. Imagine a team space mission where 1 player flies their Light Carrier, and 3 others fly escort in their personal ship.

 

8 rooms for the player's characters. Each room could have the portrait of the character above it.

 

A shared storage on the Legacy Light Carrier

 

I suppose if Bioware were to do this, they'd probably also implement limitations for whatever their intentions are on cross-factional content. Either by requiring separate legacy ships for Empire & Republic, or splitting the shared-storage into an Empire-only and Republic-only bins, or if possible, flagging the items as being stored by a Republic/Empire character and only allowing withdrawals from the same faction.

 

Perhaps it could be as part of the design of the purchased ship. Factional specific ships are cheapest, but only allow players from the same faction to use and could have 4 bays to handle the classes. The cross-faction ships could be the most expensive (but still wouldn't allow cross-faction item transfers). The cross-faction ship would have 8 bays to handle all the different classes.

 

 

Guilds can use a similar system, only with a larger Carrier. Player's ships could choose their guild carrier as a destination from their personal ship. An alternative to a carrier, guilds could own a small starbase. The location of this can either be done through the same "parking" system suggested in the Legacy Light Carrier section (allowing cross-guild visits), or by having a fixed (or undefined) location (such as having a separate button on the galactic map for "Guild Flagship"), making it only possible to visit the carrier/station of one's own guild.

 

This can also make available the possibility of a Guild Operation, where one (or several) players control the guild flagship, while other players fill various roles. Consider a big space Operation where 2 players control different aspects of the guild ship, 2 players control their Legacy Cruisers, and 4 players fly their personal ship. To implement this would require a new UI where the ops leader can assign the roles of the participants.

 

 

One way that visiting the ships of other players can be implemented is the same way class quest instances are implemented: If you are in a team and you try to enter a ship instance, you are given a pop-up to either enter an existing one (the ship of another player) or to enter your own ship.

[Jessabeans]

I would like to be able to decorate my ship, or have some sort of player housing.

[JessieColt]

The biggest thing about the Ships in game that bugs me is that every time you enter your ship, it launches you.

 

What if I don't want to be launched? What if I just wanted to enter the ship to see what Space Battle Dailies were up?

 

The ship shouldn't launch until I select a different location from the Galaxy Map.

 

What if I need to go to the ship to talk to a companion but I am not ready to leave the zone because I still have quests to do? It launches.

[Selfishmonkey]

The OP's idea is sensible, well thought out, and has a lot of promise. With the additional ability of customising said starship of course. Maybe quest unlocked trophies at first - like in X-Wing Alliance, but later on skins, different color schemes, interactive items like seats, mini games and the like.

Especially the part where every planet has a hangar, instead of a spaceport you have to wander through in order to grab a shuttle to the surface (which is sometimes, although always the case) - that seems like a timesink imo. Let us just be able to return to the ship, use the holocommunicator, talk with our companions or put things in storage - all of it without taking off. You shouldn't take off until you go to the cockpit, navigate the star charts and give the order to set at course.