Tech Rewrites

Commissar Brett

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So, with the new timeline, I figured we'd need a pretty good size tech base for everyone to use. Since there is a great lack of canon stuff in the current time period, I was thinking that maybe we could take most of the ships from The Old Republic and do one of two things:
A) we rewrite things that are already well-defined to be more up-to-date with technology in terms of hyperdrives and shields. (Like the Hammerhead-Class Cruiser or Defender-Class Light Corvette)
B) we more clearly define rather vague write-ups to make them less ambiguous in-game (like the Fortitude-Class Assault Shuttle)

Thoughts?
 

Tsunami

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I think for me personally, I tend to use a lot of the old republic kit as a starting point/blueprint for almost all of my tech creations. Especially ship tech.

What I think would be good is having shell tech. What I mean by that is you have a tech write out for say, a star fighter. So everything is the same, but writers can pick up the shell, and much like when you buy a new car you can switch and pick different features, sometimes at the cost of other things.

Example:

Armament:
- Heavy Laser Cannons (4)
- Anti - Vehicle Missile Platform

Other options:
- Cloaking (Adding this option makes laser cannons light instead of heavy.)
- Military Grade Deflector Shields (Replaces Missile Platform)

Personally I feel like that would be something good, especially for people who want to jump straight in with a half decent set-up that suits their character.

I have made a few things for my character, Armour, Weapons, Ship, Droid etc so far.
 

Commissar Brett

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I think for me personally, I tend to use a lot of the old republic kit as a starting point/blueprint for almost all of my tech creations. Especially ship tech.

What I think would be good is having shell tech. What I mean by that is you have a tech write out for say, a star fighter. So everything is the same, but writers can pick up the shell, and much like when you buy a new car you can switch and pick different features, sometimes at the cost of other things.

Example:

Armament:
- Heavy Laser Cannons (4)
- Anti - Vehicle Missile Platform

Other options:
- Cloaking (Adding this option makes laser cannons light instead of heavy.)
- Military Grade Deflector Shields (Replaces Missile Platform)

Personally I feel like that would be something good, especially for people who want to jump straight in with a half decent set-up that suits their character.

I have made a few things for my character, Armour, Weapons, Ship, Droid etc so far.
That's another good idea. I like that. I just think the older ships make for good base content.
 

Marcus

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Tsunami

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From what i understand from other members, ships and possessions outside your PC is often fluff, it has no real bearing so unless its totally off the ball. As far as I'm aware you can submit it for tech?
 

Saul

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I don't plan to do a writeup for my ships. I'm just going to say "Imagine the Slave I. That, but it looks like this." Really, if the ship has a canon parallel and the only purpose of the writeup is to put words to a fancy picture, you don't need a writeup.
 

Marcus

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But but... I used fancybox and everything! Nah, you're right @Saul. I would just append anything not standard (like a comm device, code cylinder, "cloak", medkit, etc) to the bottom of the character's profile and not make a big deal out of it unless it needed approval, which should hopefully be less necessary in this TL.
 

Saul

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People don't do writeups for their lightsabers, but they post pictures quite often. You don't need a writeup for a blaster pistol - it works the same as every other one. You don't need a writeup for a starfighter if it works just like a TIE/X-Wing/A-Wing/whatever. I really think tech submissions should focus on the ships "Role" and "Class" to determine their capabilities, rather than a writeup. It's an "Assault Frigate?" or a "Support Frigate"? "Escort Frigate"? Vanilla "Corvette" or "Assault Corvette"? Writing about the thirty turbolasers on it is pointless, who cares. Writeups should be for unique things, or things that might be questionable and need approval.
 

MasterTyvokka

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People don't do writeups for their lightsabers, but they post pictures quite often. You don't need a writeup for a blaster pistol - it works the same as every other one. You don't need a writeup for a starfighter if it works just like a TIE/X-Wing/A-Wing/whatever. I really think tech submissions should focus on the ships "Role" and "Class" to determine their capabilities, rather than a writeup. It's an "Assault Frigate?" or a "Support Frigate"? "Escort Frigate"? Vanilla "Corvette" or "Assault Corvette"? Writing about the thirty turbolasers on it is pointless, who cares. Writeups should be for unique things, or things that might be questionable and need approval.

I tend to agree with you. Especially given the number of ship write-ups there are. I am sure it would make it a lot easier on Clayton as well if people could just post pictures of their ship and list what class it is. Especially since tech isn't supposed to matter so much in the new timeline. However... I, and I am sure others, actually enjoy doing the write ups for the ships. I like writing details about the things my character owns (especially ships) and giving them unique touches and a "personality." Although that doesn't mean it needs a write-up, but there may be more chance for abuse without them.
 

Commissar Brett

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I tend to agree with you. Especially given the number of ship write-ups there are. I am sure it would make it a lot easier on Clayton as well if people could just post pictures of their ship and list what class it is. Especially since tech isn't supposed to matter so much in the new timeline. However... I, and I am sure others, actually enjoy doing the write ups for the ships. I like writing details about the things my character owns (especially ships) and giving them unique touches and a "personality." Although that doesn't mean it needs a write-up, but there may be more chance for abuse without them.
Same, I like doing tech write-ups, but the painful part is approval. I just hope there is a Generic Techc Board and people can be sensible enough to know when & where it applies.
 

Saul

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I tend to agree with you. Especially given the number of ship write-ups there are. I am sure it would make it a lot easier on Clayton as well if people could just post pictures of their ship and list what class it is. Especially since tech isn't supposed to matter so much in the new timeline. However... I, and I am sure others, actually enjoy doing the write ups for the ships. I like writing details about the things my character owns (especially ships) and giving them unique touches and a "personality." Although that doesn't mean it needs a write-up, but there may be more chance for abuse without them.

Same, I like doing tech write-ups, but the painful part is approval. I just hope there is a Generic Techc Board and people can be sensible enough to know when & where it applies.
That's great. However, the current timeline had an enormous backlog on tech approval for stuff that really only 1 person ever ended up using (the creator), which really meant the stuff was really just an unnecessary waste of Admin time that could have just been put into the Character Profile. There should be some sort of proof of interest - some sort of investment, a guarantee of wider use, for tech approvals. For example, for a tech submission to be approved, perhaps 2 other PC's should pledge their support and use of the product.

If anything, there should be a "General Tech Board", wherein none of the tech is actually approved, and we assume it's all roughly balanced based on the guidelines set forth by the Tech Mod. Instead, if someone has a concern with the technology (either because it's being misused in a thread or some random reader thinks its abusive) they tag Clayton, say their opinion, and the tech is moved to a "Contested Tech Board" where it awaits approval. Then, once thus approved, it's moved to another "Approved Tech Board."

What do you think @Clayton, since this is really your realm.
 

Commissar Brett

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That's great. However, the current timeline had an enormous backlog on tech approval for stuff that really only 1 person ever ended up using (the creator), which really meant the stuff was really just an unnecessary waste of Admin time that could have just been put into the Character Profile. There should be some sort of proof of interest - some sort of investment, a guarantee of wider use, for tech approvals. For example, for a tech submission to be approved, perhaps 2 other PC's should pledge their support and use of the product.

If anything, there should be a "General Tech Board", wherein none of the tech is actually approved, and we assume it's all roughly balanced based on the guidelines set forth by the Tech Mod. Instead, if someone has a concern with the technology (either because it's being misused in a thread or some random reader thinks its abusive) they tag Clayton, say their opinion, and the tech is moved to a "Contested Tech Board" where it awaits approval. Then, once thus approved, it's moved to another "Approved Tech Board."

What do you think @Clayton, since this is really your realm.
This is what I was saying, but I really like how you put it. All tech is considered balanced until someone admits concern, at which point it is put under review. I like it a lot. That way the admin only has to go through shit when someone gets pissy and not during every hour spent on the forum.

@Clayton, you might actually get to RP like the rest of us!
 

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Personally, I feel like tech should be proven sufficiently unique or to serve a specific purpose, as well as being created for the use of or by a faction. That way, you wipe a lot of the overtly generic gear, as well as guaranteeing at least some people will be using it.
 

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This is what I was saying, but I really like how you put it. All tech is considered balanced until someone admits concern, at which point it is put under review. I like it a lot. That way the admin only has to go through shit when someone gets pissy and not during every hour spent on the forum.

@Clayton, you might actually get to RP like the rest of us!

I really disagree with this. We've seen on several occasions that tech out under re-evaluation just goes horribly.

To name an example: When @Loco attempted to use approved mines to attack my character. However, it was ruled that he couldn't use them and that he couldn't deploy them due to a shadow-ban of the mines several years prior and a review of the ship being used to deploy the mines respectively.

Another example would be in the case of items not having writeups, and subsequently being put under scrutiny, which has happened multiple times.

Honestly, reviewing on the fly sounds like PVP hell.
 

MasterTyvokka

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Honestly, reviewing on the fly sounds like PVP hell.

Yea it would be pvp hell. And it would defeat the purpose of the Manaan rules if this happened a lot. But from what I have seen issues only really come up with unique tech which should need approval anyways. But for basic non cannon ships (which we needed write ups for despite not needing them for basic non cannon blasters.) I am not sure approvals are really needed. @Saul I do agree with you. I was just pointing out that many do like to do the write-ups regardless. I concur that a general tech board would be good. That way if an issue does happen to come up with something it could be easily looked up.
 

Saul

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I really disagree with this. We've seen on several occasions that tech out under re-evaluation just goes horribly.

To name an example: When @Loco attempted to use approved mines to attack my character. However, it was ruled that he couldn't use them and that he couldn't deploy them due to a shadow-ban of the mines several years prior and a review of the ship being used to deploy the mines respectively.

Another example would be in the case of items not having writeups, and subsequently being put under scrutiny, which has happened multiple times.

Honestly, reviewing on the fly sounds like PVP hell.
I definitely see your POV, thanks for the input. Do you agree with the idea that approved tech should at least have more than 1 "investor," or person who has pledged to use the tech. As it stands, only 10% of the forum really developed tech, and really the vast majority was only ever used by the developer - that 10% produced way more than 1 thing per person. You'd have some characters walking around using nothing but canon or generic weapons, and then some guy enters the thread with 20 custom creations only he used. This is obviously extreme; while I get that each player wants to customize their character to a point, I can also see where this is the underlying problem for PVP. Had the ship you guys were fighting with been canon, there'd have been no issues.
 

Outlander

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Yea it would be pvp hell. And it would defeat the purpose of the Manaan rules if this happened a lot. But from what I have seen issues only really come up with unique tech which should need approval anyways. But for basic non cannon ships (which we needed write ups for despite not needing them for basic non cannon blasters.) I am not sure approvals are really needed. @Saul I do agree with you. I was just pointing out that many do like to do the write-ups regardless. I concur that a general tech board would be good. That way if an issue does happen to come up with something it could be easily looked up.

I see what you're getting at. But my thoughts are more that a writeup, albeit a stripped down one, is still needed. Because if you have nothing actually outlining what this thing is, we go back into my previous argument about just making stuff up as its needed.
 

Outlander

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I definitely see your POV, thanks for the input. Do you agree with the idea that approved tech should at least have more than 1 "investor," or person who has pledged to use the tech. As it stands, only 10% of the forum really developed tech, and really the vast majority was only ever used by the developer - that 10% produced way more than 1 thing per person. You'd have some characters walking around using nothing but canon or generic weapons, and then some guy enters the thread with 20 custom creations only he used. This is obviously extreme; while I get that each player wants to customize their character to a point, I can also see where this is the underlying problem for PVP. Had the ship you guys were fighting with been canon, there'd have been no issues.

Definitely. I mean, I was a victim of this slightly myself. But I think there are various aspects of this that should be addressed, not just a blanket solution.

For one thing, the tech thread last timeline was so completely bloated without a way to manage it that it was just straight up easier for someone to use a Canon design than to search the archives.

For another, a lot of what was their was fairly controversial in certain scenarios. There where no less than four tech admins approving things throughout the run of that board, meaning a disparity between certain tech in terms of powers, which made custom tech fairly risky.

Basically, it's a complicated issue IMO. But you're definitely on the right track with your sort of signatory idea.
 
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