space beacon's

[Loran]

just posting this as a reminder for the discussion on space beacons we had tonight as space is a !recall area

purchasable for 1 bronze or for 50TP at the travel agency

activate the beacon and be taken to a space station after a time 5 min+
and also space pirates hunting you( possibly)

feel free to add to this or flame.

[Tocharaeh]

dont forget the follwing ideas molly liked in addiotion to it:

Chance of beacon drawing space pirates (would be esgemented)
Zone echo stating "Spaceman marooned at coordinate x10, y:40 z:00'

[Molly]

We are working on this feature, or rather Diandra is, so it will be implemented soon.

There are a couple of issues, that makes it more complicated than expected.
One is that all space rooms are set as !Recall !Teleport out, and a script cannot override those flags.
Consequently we have to send a real ship that the marooned person has to enter.

This is fine in a way, because it adds more realism to the feature.
However, I've thought for a long time that scripts should be able to override a !teleport out flag.
Perhaps the coders can do something about this, since scripts can override a lot of other coded things already?

Another issue is that the space rooms along the edges of the spacegrids don't have coordinates. This was intentional, since the spacegrids are linked in circles, and the suddenly changed coordinate when you pass an edge would look strange. Anyhow, it means that the zone echo would be either this:
Spaceman marooned in Outer Space   x;01, y;03, z;00
or just
Spaceman marooned in Outer Space

Another issue - and I'm not really sure if it even is an issue - is that the suggested waiting time of 5+ minutes seems a bit long to me. It gives the time for the space pirates, and possibly players wanting to help or kill and loot the marooned person, to arrive and act. But if neither kind arrives, the 5 minutes wait will be a bit boring. Also the marooned guy will die long before that, if he/she is stupid enough to not wear a spacesuit. (Then again, nobody in 4D would be stupid enough to do that... or?)

Anyhow - I'd like some input on this.
Is 5 minutes waiting time too long? Too short?
Should the beacon load a spacesuit, when dropped?
Should the rescue ship check if the player is in a fight or not, or get him/her into the ship anyhow?

[Loran]

Is 5 minutes waiting time too long? Too short?

usually I've flailed around for 5 mins before i've called for help anyways so 5 seems fine to me

Should the beacon load a spacesuit, when dropped?

instead of loading a suit and (somehow) forcing a player into it, was thinking of a mini forcefield with a timer/flag the player with a effect like the martian no suit required for 5-10 mins? you still can't really move as it still  burns your move points, but at least your not dying of exposure anymore.

Should the rescue ship check if the player is in a fight or not, or get him/her into the ship anyhow?

well if your going the whole space pirate/monster side, for realism unless were talking the roger young space cadets rescuing you are they really going to want to tangle with a battle in progress?
if yes you paid your $$ to be rescued their gonna bubble you and get out of there..


edit ---
thinking on this later instead of the whole load a ship at location, what about loading a portal, give the player a minimum of 100 move if needed and force them through it on a timer?
are portals teleports?, or just a direct connection to another room?

on the pirates/space monster thing, i thought this was a way to get you to safety? or just a way to load large mobs to abuse you more and spend the 16 mil gold on a recover (double payment?) or wait out the corpse timer (mine is allmost 1.5 hours allready)
i can see the whole pirate/space monster load justified if your ship was just blown up and it automatically activates a beacon with  "victim  at (insert cords here) come get me "

[Estidn]

Space beacon drop a spacesuit.. Bwahaha....you're kidding right. Point isn't to make space a nice country club. It's so players aren't stuck in space for hours. Death solves that problem. So if they forget one it's their fault.

[kitolani]

Anyhow - I'd like some input on this.
Is 5 minutes waiting time too long? Too short?
Should the beacon load a spacesuit, when dropped?
Should the rescue ship check if the player is in a fight or not, or get him/her into the ship anyhow?

Is five minutes too long? No, it's much shorter than waiting to suffocate slowly and then waiting another hour or so for automeld.

Should the beacon drop a space suit? I may sound mean and callouse, but I'd say no. They weigh 1lb, and
fit snuggly into any purse, pouch, satchel, or travellers backpack. After one trip to space where you suffer slowly, bleed and die you'll not soon forget to be prepared.

If the rescue ship does come and you've been intercepted by pirates, it should be a possibility that the rescue would fail miserably, splatting your hopes of rescue and forcing you once again to call for help. C'mon, how long was Giligan on that damned island before he was rescued? Or...did he die there...I forget.

[Prometheus]

I don't see a reason why a dg_remove_room_flag could be added and then add an add_room_flag so you can strip the !teleport then put it back once the script is done. I would think Mozilla or Nauzhror would know best since they are our script gods

Prometheus.

[Molly]

Don't worry about the beacons, we have them covered, and they will be in soon.
We'll use a rescue ship though, that seems most IC.

The reason I asked about the waiting time is that we'd like to supply enough time for spacepirates - (whether PC or mobs) - to arrive and attack. The chance of mobs arriving will be set pretty low in the script, but a beacon WOULD be observed by other actors than the rescue crew, so the risk should be there.  OOCly you could also regard the spacepirates as a diversion, while you are waiting for the ship. Most likely we'll also put in a check for if_fighting to prevent from entering a spaceship in the middle of combat.

As for Estidn's comment; if you really want to take the quick way out by dying, there is always the option to remove the space suit, in case you are wearing one.
I like the idea of a forcefield instead of a spacesuit though, so maybe we'll go for that instead.

[Estidn]

Will other players be able to shoot down the rescue ships. Cause i'm gonna make it a goal to shoot em all down