Schedule regular (though infrequent) Kobayashi Maru-style events.

[Kintsugi]

It's pretty straightforward. Once a month at the most, we should have a canon event that takes place in virtual reality, wherein the Horizon is pitted up against a hostile ship. It would be relatively easy to run (you only need 3~ volunteers to play the enemy crew, though more makes it easier), and it would allow the playerbase to actually get an understanding for how ship-to-ship combat works.

The fact of the matter is that ship-to-ship combat, for better or worse, is largely relegated to canon events, extremely infrequent scuffles between the Horizon and a third party ship, or still infrequent fights between non-Horizon ships. This means that very few people actually have a feel for ship-to-ship combat, which creates a problem when ship to ship combat is actually used for an event or it comes up naturally ingame. The few times where ship to ship combat has occurred, the Horizon has struggled to be effective, largely due to inexperience.

This is essentially the only way to increase the frequency of ship to ship combat that I am aware of. I have been told that a hostile third party ship will not be allowed until the dynamic gamemode is implemented, and it seems like dynamic is still a long ways off, if it isn't shelved for the time being, and that an overmap-capable mercenary shuttle isn't something that's guaranteed to be added at all, even if PR'd.

[SilverSZ]

Personally I'm quite a fan of this idea. Ship to Ship combat for how cool it is and the effort put into it goes woefully underused as it is now for the reasons already stated by Danse and as Danse also says it is likely going to remain that way for a while.

 

I think regardless of even giving people a chance to learn the system so long as someone is willing to take it up and run it on the staff team it would be a pretty good way to make use of a fun and engaging part of our gameplay until it starts seeing more regular day to day use.

[Roostercat]

I like this idea a lot. It fits as a simulation lore wise (especially since we've done this before) and it solves the blatant issue of infrequent ship combat plaguing new BC/Xo/Captain players. It's a shame to have so many ship guns and cool things and not use them because it simply doesn't make sense for some random pirate to go FUCK IT and launch a flak barrage at a ship 20x its size. Plus we'd actually get to use the battleship sprite that is in the overmap ships dmi. 

[kermit]

I do like this idea, however I think if we're to make these events regular, then it'd be a necessity to have a proper opposing force ship, instead of having what looks like something slapped together in 5 minutes lol. The current ship we've had used for shipcombat events ends up being held together with duct tape and BuildMode because it's so exceptionally easy for the ammo room to blow up, the helm consoles to be destroyed, and the event-running admins have to work overtime to replenish ammo, rejuvinate the opposing volunteers, etc, just to prevent the event ending too early. Shipcombat events really don't work without admin intervention as they are right now.

[Peppermint]

This would be much easier to do if we didn't have to build the ship each time

[greenjoe]

perhaps a premade one could be PR'd, then?

[Garnascus]

Is there a way i could do this with current tools on the server? Can i "Spawn" a ship?

[Loorey]

1 hour ago, Garnascus said:

Is there a way i could do this with current tools on the server? Can i "Spawn" a ship?

Yeah you can @Garnascus, there's admin Verbs to Upload Map Templates and also to place them. I have not toyed around with the Map Template stuff except for some small and really basic things, but I do not see why it should not work with a ship.

[greenjoe]

The only issue I can see would be getting the spawned ship onto the overmap

[Kintsugi]

9 hours ago, Peppermint said:

This would be much easier to do if we didn't have to build the ship each time

We could use the Solarian cruiser @WickedCybs mapped for Dreary Futures 2. I plan on making it into an away site as well, but it can be used for these events too.

[WickedCybs]

3 hours ago, DanseMacabre said:

We could use the Solarian cruiser @WickedCybs mapped for Dreary Futures 2. I plan on making it into an away site as well, but it can be used for these events too.

Permission to use the map to fight the Horizon again would have to be given by lore. I would want to tweak it a bit if it is going to be used to test fights though.

[Kaizr]

Sounds like an awesome idea, and we don't exactly NEED a new ship every time given the fact that we could just fight a space brick unless boarding is within the scope of these events. I'm certain there are plenty of people willing to put together simple space-boats for the crew to battle during these sim-events. I'd be more than happy to do it if need be.

[DeadLantern]

Can we revive this btw? This is still an excellent idea in lieu of the dynamic game mode. 

[greenjoe]

This may be good to do now overmap drifting is in. See how that goes on a real combat scenario.

[Caelphon]

This is in discussion amongst the Lore Team. Once it has been vetoed or assented, we'll move forward with scheduling with the Maintainers/Developers on how to move forward. 

[ARandoDude]

sounds like this could be a load of fun and useful information 

[Nagito Komaeda]

As it came up in the Discord, is there any interest in reviving this?