OMG Admin Triggered podfight mode when?

[vampirate]

SO friends... we were talking in Discord and we had a collective idea I put forth to you now....

Pod Fighter Mode.

Allow me to outline the basic concept.  
Two, may be three teams in a mode triggered by admins on a specialized map. 

Very basic supplies.  Small little base with a huge podbay for each team...  tiny medbay,  miners magnet sticking out the back with miner equipment and such.   Podbay has tons of mechanics supplies.   Everyone starts out with a set amount of spacebux.

And there are some starter pods, may be like... wizman pod strength.   Different colors for each team. 

Mechanics start the round and they get to building new pods.

Miners start to mining

Medics can chill and do medic things in the medbay. (the beginning of the round would see you choose your role with limited nonpod fighter slots)

Then the exit ship.  There are six zones to hold. the one right outside your podbay which is always yours has and has defenses.   Each non team-zone produces a random part at set intervals, be it armor, weapon, or some special function.... 

Whoever holds a zone gets the part AND credits plus space credits for each kill.  You can spend your credits to buy cool stuff like weapon modifiers, paint jobs, extra parts or whatever.   Put it together yourself or have a mechanic work on it for ya while you park.  Mechanic bypass locks so they can do what they need to on other people's pods.       

And ya just a mega pod battle mode admins can trigger as a fun different game type when they feel like.

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Totally feel like I left something out so if anyone was part of that discussion or anyone else really feel free to chime in. I think it'd be so awesome.

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Early versions might wanna shed the zone control for just basic pod fighting, with adding in layers later.

[Nebulacrity]

When you code it. 

But yeah, sounds fun.

[kyle2143]

I really like the concept. And I'd definitely be willing to try it out as an admin round. For a test, there really wouldn't be any code changes needed, but I can think of some small desirable ones like:
- showing pods that contain a friendly pilot or different standard pod colour.
-Defense turrets for hostile pods/spacemen on each ship (I think this could actually be necessary to prevent easy stomps).
- Possibly remove warp drives, or change them a bit so they are harder to cheese escape with.
- Slow down pods considerably, and don't add any jetpacks to the maps or fabricators.
- Spawn everyone pre-clone scanned with a medical implant.

It could be like NTSO vs Syndicate, but remove jetpacks and powerful guns/weapons so it HAS to use pods.

But the only thing we'd actually *need* to test it out is a map. I don't muck about with mapping, but the contruction mode ship could be a good base to copy for the two ships.

Another bigger update to make it more playable, would be designing more pod equipment to make combat more enjoyable. MBC's pod inertia change helped a lot, but weapons are pretty bland, I wanted to add sheilds to pods, but things always got in the way.

But all that aside, pod combat is rather bland. Pods move too fast and the screen view is too small. And there's not enough variety in offensive/defensive/movement options for pods. But if we tried this out, maybe we'll get some cool ideas for what to improve.

[Tribaja]

But all that aside, pod combat is rather bland. Pods move too fast and the screen view is too small. And there's not enough variety in offensive/defensive/movement options for pods. But if we tried this out, maybe we'll get some cool ideas for what to improve.

IIRC, admins have(or at least had many moons ago) the power to change the view range people have to be a lot larger. How feasible would that be to implement in some fashion when in pods? (Though probably better to keep it just for this mode, might be a tad OP in normal modes)

I've toyed around with building a pod combat area a few times on station and it's kind of ok, but the fights always ended too quickly. This was mostly because of the small area I'd build for it, but also because of the low pod health. For this reason I'd suggest making the pod mode armor quite a bit more robust, even more robust than the sec/syndi armors that currently exist. Shield would of course be preferrable, but I think that just generally more tough pod armor would be a good compromise.

There could also be some room for a support pod that had less armor and no weapons, but had its weapons replaced with a welder kind of repair tool that could be used to repair a friendly pod that's next to you. Maybe there could even be some room for the mining drill pod as a kind of frontline, "melee" role tank to charge ahead.

And maybe instead of having just a bare space, the fighting area between the rival stations the stations could be situated in the kind of randomly generated asteroid area that is on space maps now. Asteroids could bring some interesting tactics in play, defending choke points and perphaps mining through asteroids to flank, make FOB's, repair/healing area inside one, maybe even tie the warp mechanic to player built spots only.

With the asteroid building in mind, adding a modified RCD that could only reinforce asteroid walls could be cool too to pick and choose the areas you want to stay somewhat safe and prevent flanking. (The normal RCD's treat asteroid/trench walls as normal walls and when you use it on them with the wall mode it'll reinforce it and turn it into a normal reinforced wall.) Having the random area could also bring some other points of interest to fight over since the random asteroid mining area can have some cool loot that the factions could fight over.

Overall I like the idea, it could be made into a refined construction mode kind of with a very cool combat element and give a purpose and goal for the people building.

[Sundance]

On the complete flipside of things, I feel some of kyle's suggestions should actually be in main code instead of an offshoot as balance purposes . It'd make pods hella more interesting, where currently they are underutilized. Here's my hot takes:

showing pods that contain a friendly pilot or different standard pod colour.
Defense turrets for hostile pods/spacemen on each ship (I think this could actually be necessary to prevent easy stomps)

This can be grouped together. Defense turrets, which can shoot independently from the forward facing gun, will appear visibly on a pod if there a co-pilot. The damage is small, but co-pilot weaponry could have interesting effects that could give co-pilot pods an edge.

Life-scanners which already in code can now detect WHO is inside a pod (or at least, what they appear as). This could detect if someone is friendly or not.

Possibly remove warp drives, or change them a bit so they are harder to cheese escape with.

Again, I think in main code, warp drives should be nerfed to a degree. What I feel should happen is:
A) The cooldown is increased
B) There is a warm-up period, with a noticeable noise (the same as the escape shuttle charging) and a big red message that the pod is charging up their warp thrusters. 

 Slow down pods considerably, and don't add any jetpacks to the maps or fabricators.

I disagree with this. I feel they should remain the same speeds, but instead
A) Jetpacks need to be slower, somewhat.
B) Pod projectiles need to move faster. PEW PEW. 
They're spaceships for crying out loud. The weapons in them need to feel meaty and no way would someone in a godang jetpack outrun them. That said someone in a jetpack who's armed to the teeth could still do some damage but it's likely they'll get shot. Pick your battles.

As for Tribijas

IIRC, admins have(or at least had many moons ago) the power to change the view range people have to be a lot larger. How feasible would that be to implement in some fashion when in pods? (Though probably better to keep it just for this mode, might be a tad OP in normal modes)

This would not be OP in normal modes. I'd argue that this would be a big game changer and i'd love bigger view range in pods. I don't think it's OP because you're limited to space tiles. 

For this reason I'd suggest making the pod mode armor quite a bit more robust, even more robust than the sec/syndi armors that currently exist. Shield would of course be preferrable, but I think that just generally more tough pod armor would be a good compromise.

Shields would be gnarly, but I also feel pods should be able to tank extra damage also. On the flipside, I do think pods are too easy to repair. I've been in fights where you'd warp, hide, weld, and get straight back into the fight. By nerfing the warp drive, you could also nerf the repair process whilst buffing the health. The repair process should be more involved and take a bit more time, with wires, wrenches, welding, etc.

[kyle2143]

I think we may have to try this out sometime soon. Sord started working on a special map for it that's 500x500 with ships on either side, warc wanted to add more area to debris z level for this round type. I'll make a few changes to pods, making them a bit hardier and have their projectiles travel a bit faster and change warp (which will be for regular rounds too(maybe turn off warping for the mode))

I'd say that making a special fabricator for the map that has all pod related stuff is good too. And I just made fabs for something else too.

Really not sure how it might go, cause pod combat gets wonky, but I'd like for pod combat to be good, and this could be a cool test to gain some insights.

[Wisecrack34]

How about as a VR arena option? Might help increase testing.

[Frank_Stein]

I feel like racing should also be factored in. Maybe somewhat of a course around the perimeter with an open field for combat in the center?

Some obstacles like mines or explosive ores as well

[vampirate]

I think we may have to try this out sometime soon. Sord started working on a special map for it that's 500x500 with ships on either side, warc wanted to add more area to debris z level for this round type. I'll make a few changes to pods, making them a bit hardier and have their projectiles travel a bit faster and change warp (which will be for regular rounds too(maybe turn off warping for the mode))

I'd say that making a special fabricator for the map that has all pod related stuff is good too. And I just made fabs for something else too.

Really not sure how it might go, cause pod combat gets wonky, but I'd like for pod combat to be good, and this could be a cool test to gain some insights.

Ahhhh I'm so excited now!

[Studenterhue]

I guess I'll show off this recently revived thread since it's trendy now.

Also kyle's made a pull request proposing a possible warp drive nerf. This makes it so creating a wormhole requires standing still, after which you move automatically in a set direction before actually creating the wormhole and moving into it. So I'd say you're less likely to miss the wormhole you made like a goofball because you're basically auto-guided into it but you're also more vulnerable in the process.

The same PR also buffs pod health while also making pod projectiles faster and have more range.

[Studenterhue]

Update: said pull request is implemented now.

[vampirate]

Update: said pull request is implemented now.

I was negative on the changes at first, but after a few tweaks I am good with the warp change, and the break for borgs is a good send and even some nonborgos like it