Istvan's Update:
Patch 1.0099: Bounties, Insurance
and N00bships . . . Oh My!
As Jumpgate begins to suffer the
changes needed to support factional warfare, several areas of the game are seeing
preliminary love in patch 1.0099. The bounty system has been completely retooled, with the
twofold objective of raising the formerly unimpressive payouts and making it much easier
to work with when I tie in the effects of a war situation on a kill. Additionally, I've
taken action to reduce the pejorative nature of a bounty by creation of a new, separate
framework for an actual enforcement system. When someday your faction may be doing
something like bountying every member of an opposing faction during a war, it becomes
important for the game to distinguish more clearly between "an opponent for fun"
and a grief player. Perhaps idealistically, I am hopeful that if there are more fun,
consensual occasions for combat, incidents of what have been called "grief play"
in Jumpgate will be less frequent.
One of the most overt changes happening right now affects insurance, though this is only
the vanguard of more serious changes that I can't do until other pieces are ready. From
now on, insurance should not be thought of as "coming from TRI". Instead, it is
factional. For the time being, a pilot will only lose insurance if he possesses a negative
PR with his home faction. Further insurance changes to expect with the warfare system will
be even more profound: I intend to distinguish between a faction's Military and Civilian
pilots. Military pilots will operate with full insurance as long as they obey their rules
of engagement. Civilian pilots will pay for insurance, and can choose to save money by
going without if they consider it safe to do so. The objective with this systemic change
is to reduce losses incurred by PvP pilots, while simultaneously providing the Civilian
pilots with a new "fiddle-factor" in the form of a risk vs. reward decision that
they personally control.
A series of other events catalyzed a third major category of work for the current patch.
First of all, various suggestions and proposals relating to new pilots reached critical
mass and were starting to look like a good theme for a single patch. Secondly, advertising
arranged by Themis has generated another surge of new pilots on the US server. Lastly, I
realized several of the changes needed for new pilots would affect systems also needing
attention to get ready for the warfare system. Since helping new pilots is extremely
important to the game's future, I elected to move on this material now. The alternative
would have been to put it off for several more months in order to concentrate solely on
the warfare system, and I decided with new players continually looking at the game such a
delay would be a foolish move.
Two big problems facing new pilots are being addressed in 1.0099: money and ships. It has
been axiomatic that our new pilots are short on cash, and it's common practice for rich
veterans to give credits to newbies. Long overdue research into the earning power of
low-rank pilots proved to me that the issue is very real and of crisis proportions.
Therefore, I've reduced a number of costs faced by low-rank players, while also boosting
earned credits in several ways. Because the missions payouts were too complex a problem to
tackle this month, I doubt I am finished addressing the newbie cash problem. I do hope
this was an solid start at making the situation better.
While other groups of ships have received attempts over the past two years to make them
more useful and fun to fly, most of the ships flown by our new players (Rank 0 - Rank 6
craft) have gone untouched. As a result, I think our newest players were faced with some
of the most dull or frustrating gameplay in Jumpgate, making it harder to convince them to
stay with us. To begin changing this, I set aside many of the old rules about what we
should expect from the low-rank ships, including factional strengths and weaknesses. My
reasoning is that the ranks below Rank 9 are effectively a "training period"
used by new pilots to become familiar with the game, so making these early ships similar
to each other is justified. I grouped the nine lowbie ships into three categories:
"Patrol/Escort", "Utility", and "Shuttles". The Premia,
Storm and Albatross are the "Utility" ships. They all now have a uniform cargo
capacity of 4 units and have had topspeeds increased. The Premia XL, Apteryx, and Gust are
"Patrol/Escort" ships. These are now able to keep pace with the factional Tows
and Transports. Ideally, new pilots working with a mentor could fly flux escort duties in
these craft while mentors conduct typical mining or hauling operations. The Premia SC,
Buzzard, and Breeze all have been assigned a uniform cargo capacity of 8 units and now can
keep pace with the factional Freighters. The objective of these speed and cargo changes is
to increase the general cash-earning power of the new pilots of all factions, and above
all to make flying the first ships dramatically more fun.
Quite a few other changes and fixes are entering the game in 1.0099, including a new
registry Tag tied to newbie-related features. The time spent on these things helped me
start changing or at least get familiar with important parts of the game code I'll be
working on further in the next few months. In my next column, I'll go into more detail
about what I plan to add as the warfare system is implemented.
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