How many Limpets are we talking about allowing to attach to a ship?

If limpets are still allowed to fall off when entering a sector with limpets are we really accomplishing our goals?

OK, how's this? Once you have a limpet belonging to another player or Corp, that limpet is there to stay until you do clean it at the Zero ports. But, you will also be allowed to pickup an unlimited number of limpets belonging to other players or corps. Once you have a limpet on belonging to another player or corp, you cannot pick-up another one of theirs without scrubbing first at the Zero port.

Scrubbing in the sector is no longer possible, and having a "friendly" limpet on will not prevent you from picking up an enemy limpet.

I think this will bring back the "intent" of the limpet and if we keep the cost of removal reasonable, say 5000 for one with additional 500 credits for each additional mine. So, if you have 3 corps and 10 players you could only max carry 12 limpets. One from each corp, and one from each player. But, typically you'll only see corp owned limpets deployed in open space.

Ok , now that is something to consider , multi limpit attachment.
But the price for removal cost * limpits attached.
Since the price for removal is so low anyways , it would be one way to pump it up.
This also opens up more possibilities to tracking and better corp/player hunting and fighting.

John just told me these ideas are just for discussions and if anything , may go into V4 but will never see light of day in the current version.
So I'm hoping all the projects he has been working on with limpits and aliens
is also saved for that version as well.

This way maybe WE all can see the final 'near bug free v3' that we all have been waiting for for so long.

But please do continue this discussion , maybe another new idea can surface.

p.s. Cruncher , I will put your idea in my notes on limpits & functions.
But I will include the removal price to be cost * limpits attached.

Vid

Thank you, good discussion!

I wouldn't go so far as to say "never", Vid, but the reality is, it seems like any change requires many other changes, and I'd have to feel pretty confident that we could improve this without opening a can of worms. And of course, being optional would make any change low-impact, because if it doesn't work well, nobody would use it. So it's worth discussing. I'm just saying that I'm willing to discuss any new approach to Limpets because that might be applicable to other versions where bigger changes would be appropriate.

Cruncher, your last description is basically what I was thinking. You can pick up only one Limpet per player or corp. I've done some prototyping of how the system would work in code and it is feasible. If there's a consensus that such a change would be worthwhile (as an option), or some other simple change, I would consider it. But I'm not looking at any change as major, however interesting, as adding new hardware, mine types, etc.

If you're ready, go ahead and put it in the next time you have a chance to work on TW.

I'm sure some creative game-ops will have fun creating a TWA around "sticky limpets".

I will probably implement and test it in the prototype I'm building for the remake, which is what I've been doing with a lot of different "features" lately, and then if it seems like a good option for this version, I can just enable it at some point.

Actually, I think to balance this since we are making limpets more powerful would be to increase the cost of the limpets but lower the cost of removal for multiple limpet removal.

And that can already be done in tedit. If that's all that would be required to maintain balance, it might be worth trying an option or two to increase Limpet effectiveness.

I think the cost for removal should be multiplied by the amount of limpits it has picked up.
But the price for limpits should be able to go higher then what it can max to today .. and removal should also go just a bit higher .. even if its not used by the sysop.

I'd be interested in how this could play out.
As someone had mentioned , the sector should also have a limit on how many can be deployed , set by tedit (0 to 250)

Vid

Yeah, and I think with a behavior change like this we can utilize the Announce ANSI screen to alert players to this new setting being used. If those options are in the next release, I'll run a "Sticky Limpet" game.

OK to summize, let's see if we have everything:

1) Limpets can only be removed at SD, Terra, Rylos and Alpha
2) All ships can have multiple limpets attached, but only one per player/corp.
3) Already available - Tedit change the price of Limpets AND cost of removing Limpets. I believe Vid is suggesting we change the default prices of sticky limpets & removal.
4) Allow a different price of removal of first Limpet and each additional. I.E. 5000 for first limpet, 500 for each additional - sysop config both prices.
5) Tedit a limit on number of Limpets that may be deployed in a sector.

Is that everything?

#3 - I only suggested to increase both max prices barriers.
#4 - removal price * how many limpits on ship. no discount.

These were what I was saying.

I had started this thread with ship can only collect one limpit (based on corp/personal) till it was scrubbed by another limp from someone else or a class 0. This was to remove the clearing of a sector with multi exit enters to pick up all limps for the price of one scrub.

That was all.

Yeah, what you're suggesting is just fixing the bug where Limpets get cleared on exit/enter, and it is a bug. I think that should be an option as well, whether or not this other functionality gets added. Because what we're talking about here is a change in behavior, but what Vid is requesting is just a basic bug fix.

Ah... but this thread is in feature requests, not bug fixes.

Sorry for the confusion.

Well, any time a bug has become an accepted part of the game, like with Limpet clearing, any "fix" is really more like a feature, because it has to be an option.

I'm interested in the broader discussion of how to make Limpets behave more like intended, not just fixing the bug. But I'm also saying, as far as options go, it's probably best to support both the simple bug fix and the "sticky limpet" option.