Cosmpiercers (org v org conflict system)

Aurelius

Just put up a short page on them here: https://www.starmourn.com/cosmpiercers/

Malash

Information is power.

Aurelius

And money!

Kaedok

This system is vaguely reminiscent of Aetolia's old landmarks, which I dearly miss. I am excite!

Aurelius

Kaedok said:

This system is vaguely reminiscent of Aetolia's old landmarks, which I dearly miss. I am excite!

Those came from Achaea originally - I designed them too!

Malash

Since it's just sensor data, can the faction that controls a given 'piercer choose to share that info with other factions, or people, for a price?

Satomi

One of the biggest draws to Star Citizen, back when the hype was real, was the idea of info-gathering and selling that information.

Aurelius

Sure, there's nothing stopping you from making a deal with whomever for whatever information for a price. 

Vaak

Are you going to be able to be a rogue? If so, and you capture a cosmpiercer, will you get significant direct payments? Finally, if players from different factions work together to capture a cosmpiercer, which faction does it go to?

Tecton

Vaak said:

Are you going to be able to be a rogue? If so, and you capture a cosmpiercer, will you get significant direct payments? Finally, if players from different factions work together to capture a cosmpiercer, which faction does it go to?

You could be a rogue, yes. You won't be able to capture a cosmpiercer if you don't have a faction though, as all members attempting to capture need to be from the same faction.

Satomi

I imagine the RP reasoning behind that is that Cosmpiercers are such big, resource-intensive things that a single person is unable to mobilize the capital required to manage such a device..

Or some nonsense like that :P

Traveler

If a clan became big enough, would they be able to count as a faction capture it? 

Aurelius

No, a clan would never be that big. Scatterhome, Song Dominion, Celestine Ascendancy are entire civilizations. If the game gets big enough, we'd let players found more civilizations though.

Groot

I know one of the reasons that Achaea's landmark system was removed was because of the positive feedback loop. The group that always captured landmarks got stronger, enabling them to better capture landmarks and get stronger, etc etc.

How do you plan on preventing something similar in Starmourn from happening? There is a personal and organizational interest in keeping as many Cosmpiercers in control as possible, with tangible rewards from the Y'saar, making you richer and thus able to build infrastructure (or to pay others to grind stuff out) to make you stronger and able capture more Cosmpiercers.

I feel that if there's no limiting factor (like diminishing returns beyond a certain number of CP's captured) then it'll just lead to one Civ. owning something like 70% of them and forever shutting the other two out.

Aurelius

It might. We'll see! There's a positive feedback loop there, but not a super strong one. It's much less convenient to try to maintain all the Cosmpiercers in the game given travel times in ships and such vs 9 landmarks (for those who don't know what the landmarking system in Achaea was, see here: http://wiki.achaea.com/Category:Landmarks) that were easy and quick to get to. It's also significantly less meaningful in terms of consequences than landmarking was (for the affected classes at least).

The main reason landmarking got removed in Achaea wasn't because of positive feedback loops though. It was because when it was initially 24/7, people got tired of the constant pressure given how important and consequential it was to each side. Then when we limited the time during which you can affect the landmarks, people got burned out on that too. Some people were just not logging in during that time because they didn't want to deal with their city and/or guild harassing them to focus hardcore on landmarking. 

We'll see how this system goes. One thing I can guarantee is that it will need changes at some point. What type? Who knows. We'll see when you guys get your hands on it.

Satomi

Cosmpiercers = 1 costs X to maintain. 2 costs X + Y to maintain. 3+ costs X + Y x # to maintain.

Better hope  your city can afford it!

(probably a terrible way to balance it)

Malash

Aren't the Cleax drawn to places like that...? Might be best to limit your exposure.

Sairys

Do you expect the easier ones (two control rooms?) would be doable during "off hours"? (maybe the low end of the average for the other games?)

Gotta have something to do when few people are around :P

Aurelius

As long as you can get two people, yep. 

Tecton

Aurelius said:

As long as you can get two people, yep. 

*two people who can beat the defences!

Indi

Aurelius said:

The main reason landmarking got removed in Achaea wasn't because of positive feedback loops though. It was because when it was initially 24/7, people got tired of the constant pressure given how important and consequential it was to each side. Then when we limited the time during which you can affect the landmarks, people got burned out on that too. Some people were just not logging in during that time because they didn't want to deal with their city and/or guild harassing them to focus hardcore on landmarking. 

We'll see how this system goes. One thing I can guarantee is that it will need changes at some point. What type? Who knows. We'll see when you guys get your hands on it.

That's true not just for that landmarking system, but any number of other conflict-generating systems implemented by each of the IRE muds over the years. The landmark system was implemented in... early 2000s? I can still remember a handful of clashes over those landmarks, so it was certainly fun and intense for it to have burned itself into my long term memory like that. But, as you said, it eventually turned into a grind, even when it was only once a fortnight.

That's true for most similar systems over the years and the big shame in all that is that these systems take time and effort to write, and like a good album, only get thrown out if people listen to it too much.

It has occurred to me that implementing the "next new thing" BEFORE the existing becomes old and tedious, may have allowed systems that were fun, to continue to have a place in the game. Perhaps landmarks could have been relegated to being manually initiated by the game producer on rare occasions, with less important effects. 

Quean

Indi said:

Perhaps landmarks could have been relegated to being manually initiated by the game producer on rare occasions, with less important effects.

Personally, I hope Starmourn mechanics do not go this way. Yes, every large-scale conflict has a potential to turn into a grind. Many, many years I used to enjoy Ragnarok Online, where territory battles were activated twice a week. Yes, after several months holding on to the castles was becoming a chore. The dynamic was simple: a guild that was too tired to defend, lost the ground along with the profits. I don't see it as a flaw of such systems. Of course, steps can be taken in order to make battles less repetitive. But we need to see how cosmpiercers actually work. They are one of the aspects of the game I am most looking forward to, as I have always loved Realm versus Realm :-) And even if the system is imperfect, I really want it to be meaningful.

Kaedok

Are player-made props and the like useable on cosmpiercers? And if so, are they cleared away when it's up for grabs again? I'm curious if engineers who can "establish networks of turrets (that other engineers can splice into) that must be powered with a QPC - quantum power cell." from the class page can set up controlling influence in anticipation of competition on the cosmpiercer each cycle.

Qitorien

Will Cosmpiercers always be in the same location or will they change when they go active or just periodically or not at all? Are they always visible or only when active?

ETA: The website page info suggests they're always active, so that makes that aspect of my questions moot, if so.

Teotwauki

I'm guessing organisations will also have some way of getting notified when a cosmpiercer they control is getting attacked so you can show up and defend?

Interested to see how things play out, how long they take to capture etc...

Alishia

The other issue with landmarks was the spam then the pop was at its peak simply wasn't an enjoyable experience for many.

Rothare

Will there be a setting to simplify or even remove all the visual inputs(like N,W,S,E) and descriptions of each room when you use landmarks? I always got so frustrated with the walls of text that would completely cut off conversations and the like, and I would have to sift through everything just to see what was going on.