I read this post recently, Threadbare's farewell




It made me wonder how great it would be for rank 1000+ players to be able to retire their ship.
This would be similar to account resetting. Except doing so would create an exceptionaly (Caelon) rare NPC with your ships current stats image and name. Your account would then be reset as normal.


I think that normally an NPC carries data only about;
its name,
image,
defense,
attack,
shield,
hull,
scan,
cloak,
abilities.

So stats such as; researchers, energy, cargo and decks might have to be incorporated in some way.

Scientists (research)
Perhaps this value could be used as part of the disable reward. Like killing RSL.

Cargo
Similar to above, artifact or mineral points.

Decks
I am guessing this would be used to calculate damage cap.

Energy
Perhaps this could be used to determine xp reward?

+1 to this idea , but I dont think it should be a race I think it should be like the ancient ones from babylon5 that went past the edge of known space and the encounter should be a rare event .
an event with a few possible outcomes based on your actions or a series of msgs between the player ship and the ancient one .
example of positive outcome:
ancient ship of species and profession x player of same species say vygoid outcome 1 a dump of a massive amount of research points to the player or a completed level of research on one of the players current research trees .

negative outcome : ancient ship attacks or retaliates to attack by player dealing damage and loss of rp or slowed rp for 24 hrs

the benefits being dependant upon the ancient ones race and profession bonus's and -+ 20% if the player is or isnt of the same race .

negative outcomes also based upon ancient ones race and players actions .

player should get several options to attack attempt hack or try to communicate with the ancient one

just my thoughts Im sure it could be fleshed out even more

this is actually a pretty cool Idea, I like it! +1

I think it would be a great Idea if it were fleshed out and introduced , but it would have to be reserved for those who had passed level 1k and had played for more than a year

I love this idea. I think the reward should be something like when you kill them you find a world they used to own or something since many of the high ranking players have several 15X or better planets in their system. And yes I think it should include worlds that have since then been found and taken by others. But if that is to hard to do then something based on what race they where. Or maybe you get like a new mod with their name in it to put on your ship so others know who you have taken down of the old players.

I like this idea, gives us something to remember people like Threadbare by.

I would think if you kill them there ships registry plaque with the ship name type and old player name would be sufficient . 0 space to install like a tier award but with whatever bonus attached for the species and legendary player ,

the old planet should come from a successful hack of there database I would think and its planet name should be {planet name} homeworld of legendary {race} {profession}{legends name }

or as an option of a successful raid given a choice to pilfer either there map storage or there cargo hold

definitely.




this would be a great concept for a new non playable NPC race, one that acted more like a legion, perhaps they could have bases.




Exactly. Essentially the same mechanics of a critical hack



Both these should be part of the disable reward actions.

Planets are not completely exclusive property of a player.
With that said, to be fair:
only planets that are NOT scanned by any other players that are in the DB of the specific "ancient one" can be given out as rewards. And the reward is removed from the "list" if they are recieved this way or scanned naturally.

Maybe but if you do it that way then the planet list could be all taken and then no one would get the planet scan from that player any more. At least my way you all ways know you will get a planet be it good or bad. But maybe if you do it my way you should only be able to find worlds with a 2X or higher rating since most players over the rank of 1K have dozens of these. I'm at 163 worlds with over a 2X rating right now and that can easily change daily.

i'm saying that it is unfair to the current owner of the planets that were once scanned by the big ones.
For example, before a big one quit, he SOLD his planets to some other guy, payment would be used after his restart.
Now, the buyer, knowing that only 2 scans(his own and the one going to reset) are on the planet, did not flux the planet. And he proceed to super-cloak the planet.

With the implmentiation of the suggested system, the buyer might lose the planet due to no fault of his own for no good reason.

That's why I say only those that are unscanned by others.

A middle-of-the-way option would be the "looted" ones does not count against the system(meaning u can "loot" a planet multiple times as long as it is not fluxed), but natural scanning of the planets need to take it off the list.

And besides, there can be other rewards to disabling a ancient, it doesn't have to drop planets every time forever and ever.
It's good enough that they all get handed out so that they are not wasted

in order to supercloak you will use Isolation Bureau... to use it properly you need "clean" planet... i Orbed all planets i bought so i can properly use few artis which requires "not scanned by any other ship"

u dont NEED iso bureau to super cloak a planet
and if you have acuired multiple planets at the same time, u might not have enough orb and bureau for all of them right away, and it would take a period of time for that to get done slowly.
Do realise the purchaser could be a lower leveled player and this process would take longer for them, while it is harder for them to super-cloak, it's not impossible with a bit more space used (and it is defintely worth the cost in the long run)

I guess a compromise is to make ancients to have at least a 2 month delay between the reset and becoming the NPC.

Interesting idea here. Followed it a bit before I commented. I think the best way to handle it would be to create a new NPC faction wherein all the "resets" are members. All the other NPC factions have multiple characters, for example the Crimson Blades include Hawks, Tyrants, Scythe, Harvesters, etc. All members of this new faction should have at least Uncommon if not Rare status.

I think the best way to handle the "loot" would be for these ships to have 2 or 3 possible drops depending on whether they are classed as UC or R. If they are Uncommon, a common drop could be something on the order of a Crimson Amplifier (which are difficult for 1k+ to get), an uncommon drop could be a Terraformer, and a rare drop could be something like the Titancore Data (obviously redefining "decent" to VL 1x minimum). If they are Rare, a Terraformer, Quasi and "Ancient Star Chart" I think would suffice. Drop rate could be 80/15/5 or 85/10/5 or some such. Of course those are just examples of possible loot. A little more on that later...

Basic NPC stats would be what the ship had at the time of reset. Attack, Defense, Hull, Shield. Abilities could include a variety of what are normally PvP actions. KVT effect, attack buff equal to the 3 reds, a grid console effect, nanite swarm and shield amplifier, stacking EMP-ish effect.... To make things even more interesting, they could have shield recharge and a very small chance of a shield restore or repair nanodrone type event. It could be almost like fighting a live player while online. Obviously though, the more stuff you pile on, the greater the reward should be.

that was how I was interpreting this Idea as well.

NPC Faction full of "ghost" ships. all should be uncommon or rarer.

They should probably all be elites or bosses.

they should drop items either related to the stuff the player had already uncovered** or just high end artifacts that already exist in game.

I would love for this to be a way to receive additional copies of limited artifacts like titan-core data.


** (like specialized version of ship modules and artifacts in their hold so they aren't a waste to get like a specialized version of quasi chaotic blaster with a +100 hull or an upgraded zolazin jammer that does 50 cloak for the same amount of space)

and using the arts PvP use as abilities would be good, except they would need to be specialized so you can remove them w/ containment cages, and no halycons.

Oh, just came up with a plan for the effect of the cargo/energy of those ships
energy: the probability and quantity of energy using artifact the target can use (this includes EMP, disarming bombs and any kind of self-buff)
cargo: the probability and quantity of artifacts to be used in general.

So given the same cargo, the total # of artifact use would be the same. Higher energy will lean heavier on energy consuming types while lower energy will lean the other way
ofc, 100k cargo doesnt mean it will use 100k artifact, or u can never kill it. I would lean toward some kinda ratio, for example:
proc to use an energy consuming artifact=
log(energy)*5%
stack size(where apply, like emp etc)=random(1, sqrt(energy)/10)
limit=energy/100

proc to use non-energy based artifact=
(1-(e-proc))^2*log(cargo)*5%
stack is always 1 (all non-energy ones cant stack as far as I know)
limit=cargo/1000, energy artifacts also count toward this limit


example:
10k energy
100k cargo
energy artifact
proc=20%
can use 1 to 10 artifact at a time
limit 100 uses
max usage
non-energy artifact
.64*5*5%=16%
limit 100 uses

expect: ~4(avg is 5.5 for those that can stack, but some cant) energy used for each 1 non-energy used, total of 5 per share, 100 is 20 shares, so the ship will apply ~20 non-energy artifacts(~10 traps, 5 CM/cage and 5 repair/recharge), ~10 buffs and ~70 debuffs in ~10 proc stacks

There can be many types artifacts used, mostly AP pulled, from traps to debuff to buff to repairs. But if the cargo is large enough, it might pull out a crux or gift of naughty etc.

ofc, as suggested before, cargo will affect the amount of MP/AP/artifact drops and energy affect the exp bonus on kill. So the bigger the cargo and energy bar of the target ship, while it is a harder kill, it is also more rewarding.

How does that sound? ofc the numbers are up for adjustments

That's just over-complicating things.

Uy23e really likes his Maths. A lot

I do enjoy this idea but lets not do planets or other such just a ghost ship maybe minerals, artifacts and research from destroying based on how much they made per hour when retired.

I would agree with that, but it doesn't really give any incentive to shoot them down. Disabling a rank 1000+ takes a good bit of energy so a little bit of mineral points isn't really worth it.