Grouchy Ferrian suggestions

[F50]

Might as well start a thread for them since that seems to be one reoccurring suggestion.

My idea:

Add the ferrian warships from the friendly ferrian mod and have a pair of them guard the base.

Shoot a ferrian, it follows until dead.

kill a ferrian, all ferrians within 20 ls follow you until half of them are dead.

Hit base, ferrian warships follow you until dead. All other ferrains follow you like now.

Destroy base, ferrains form a circle to prevent current behavior where the ferrians won't shoot if they surround the player due to others getting in the way.

[dvlenk6]

I updated that warship.
I gave the 'Plasma Lance' more damage and a little higher fire rate.
Gave the ship AdvancedPlasteelPlates instead of HeavyPlasteelPlates.
Gave them the noFriendlyFire="true" attribute. Makes it so you can't just waltz up and sit on the colony without taking out the warships first.
I have the warships patrolling around the colony. They don't have the controller=ferian attribute, so they attack on perception.

Put an omni PlasmaTorch on the colony.

Gave the Warship a new graphic too. Same model, just rerendered.

[Sponge]

That's really nice looking. Any ETA on a download?

[dvlenk6]

That's really nice looking. Any ETA on a download?

It was for FAD, who is making a playership out of it. Whenever he is satisfied with it and decides he wants to release it.
- - - - -
There is a non-player warship in the playership mod, with the altered ferian colony and a couple plasma based weapons.

[dvlenk6]

Back to the grouchy Ferians.
I've often thought the ferians are like cattle now; a docile herd.

But their behavior reminds of bees. They won't really bother you unless you threaten them; then they can sting you. Their ships look like bees to me also.
Carrying that metaphor along, I thought there could be a soldier caste among them (the warship) that protects the hive (colony). Anything approaching the colony is a threat to the soldier caste, they attack on sight.

I was in favor of trading with them a while back; the rin economy was in bad shape at one point. It isn't so bad now, a lot more fleshed out usage of the rin currency. So, I don't think that it is needed to trade with the Ferians anymore.

They are too cool to take out of the game.
But I agree it is too simple to exploit them for loads of cash (either credits or rins), and the supply is basically unlimited. So it sort of ruins the economy structure.
What I'd really like to do is have some aggresive warships cruising around among the docile miners as they work, attacking on sight/perception.
If you hit a miner, I think the miner should attack too; maybe even if you hit a miner, all ferians within a certain radius should attack.
Don't now about to the death. Nothing else does that, unless you keep hitting a ship on patrol or dock orders, it will turn back at some point.

[OddBob]

I think that there should be a tolerance for hitting Ferians as so:

You can kill one unsuspecting Ferian with no penalty.
However, any Ferians around it will become "agitated" for a while.
Agitated Ferians might attack you for getting too close - or they might run or ignore you.

If you kill a relaxed Ferian and an agitated Ferian sees it, it will attack.
If you attack an agitated Ferian, it will defend itself (and maybe other agitated ones around it will as well)

Approaching the hive will agitate all Ferians within a large radius.

This makes it possible to farm them with a bit of effort but you can't just sit next to the hive and point your fusion fire outwards, hit autopilot and go get a snack.

[Fossaman]

Incidentally, you CAN actually herd Ferians. I had some fun earlier making them run past a tinker and get blown up.

It's always seemed to me that Ferians were very single minded. Time to sit by an asteroid? Okay. I can do that. Oh, a ship's coming? Better run away. Stay away from the ship! Get back to the asteroid you want to sit by! Someone's shooting me? Whatever. As long as I can sit by my asteroid. Uh oh, someone's shooting the hive! DESTROY! They blew it up! DESTROY X 2!

Any sort of warship they had would need to be similarly singleminded, I think. Patrolling in a random sort of pattern, maybe like the 'traderoute' order or whatever it is, only with asteroids. Attacking anything that shoots them, a miner, or the hive until the threat dies or leaves.

I would keep the miners as passive as they are now.

[Sponge]

Ehh... I don't know. I agree they should be simpleminded, but they don't have to be 100% passive. The warships should be mean, and attack on sight. The miners should let you alone unless you hit the hive or one of them. They need to be a strong force, not s source of easy rins.

[Frits]

Ferians used to be big trouble when they were just introduced, i must have used lesser tactics too but they were persistent, if they had decided you had to be obliterated they would all gather and go for it.
Two things were changed correct me if i'm wrong, their ships were faster then, just a little slower than my sapphire i think.
They would act as a swarm and not think individually as they seem to do now. They would just mine, or attack the playership when it had shot at the hive or disappear thru a gate when the hive was destroyed and a timer had elapsed.
That's just a bit of reminiscing but the attack the playership-part was excellent.

[F50]

As said above: more like bees than cattle. Simpleminded but able to care if they survive or not.

I often herd ferrians into a CSC, ringers, or Taikon.

Ferrians should avoid stations.

I like the docile/agitated mode though. I would extend it a bit farther and have four states: docile/annoyed/agitated/destroy.

A ferrian bent on destroying the player follows until dead. An agitated ferrain should shoot the player on sight (following you 30 ls) and make all docile ferrains it gets close to (2-3 ls) annoyed. Annoyed ferrians shoot at the player if they are disturbed (instead of running away as they do now). That way, destroying a single ship will make a hive slowly wary. Docile ferrains behave as the do now (running away if the player gets close).

And...

Shooting a ferrian annoys it. Killing a ferrian annoys docile ferrains within 20-30 ls, agitates annoyed ferrians within 20-30 ls and may set an already agitated ferrian on destroying you if said agitated ferrian is closer. Shooting the hive agitates all members of the hive. Destroying the hive sets all ferrains in the system to annoyed all annoyed ferrians in the system to agitated, and all ferrians belonging to that hive become set on destroying the player.

The warships would have the same behavior with the differences being:

1. That warships communicate. (All warships have the same state except...)
2. When the base is hit and not destroyed then half the base's guard takes the stance of "eliminate at all costs."

Don't care (docile): don't shoot
Slight threat (annoyed): Shoot, but don't interrupt patrol.
Threat: Shoot and follow 30-40 ls.
Eliminate at all costs: Follow indefinitely.

[Sponge]

Nice job. That's a good mix of a lot of suggestions, and seems realistic. However, I'm pretty sure that can't be done in a mod so we'll have to wait for a later release.

I would hope the warships would be a tough enemy. Perhaps weak shields, as the Ferians don't use shields, but strong weaponry. Maybe two Omni Plasma Torches and some sort of special plasma ball weapon that does some serious damage.

[dvlenk6]

I gave the warship version I made:
-An omni Plasma Torch
A "Plasma Lance" (+50% damage, +50% fire rate, a little more particle spread, a little more range)
A classIII shield (without the shield they would need massive armor to hold any ground against the playership, was my thinking)
AdvancedPlasteelPlate Armors - I didn't want to go out of the plasteel armor family for them.

I can't say I've actual ever seen them using the omni torch, they seem only ever to use the lance weapon. They can cut you down pretty quick with the lance though; and they can shoot you when you are on top of the Ferian colony (which has an omni Torch also).

[Sponge]

That seems really balanced. The shield is perfect, if you ask me. Not very strong, but not wimpy either. Advanced Plasteel isn't bad at all, and with that Plasma Lance, they will certainly keep the unprepared away from the colony.

[dvlenk6]

I have no idea how to make the behaviors discussed here work.
I just have some of them patrolling, some docked.
Could have some wandering too, I suppose.
I didn't originally have any reinforcements for them; just a set random number for each colony. FAD put reinforcements into it, and I'm trying that out now to see how it works.

[FAD]

I think D6's Ferian mod is exactly what the game needs in that it does curb the easy Ferian farming and the player must use strategy and tactics in order to farm them at all.
That Warship is well balanced and makes a decent defender, depending on what level the player may be rigged at when running into them.

As for the Ferian Warship playership mod, it's toned down a lot in order to balance it out in EGP so it's not as powerful as the Warships that patrol or guard the hives. D6 has combined both mods into one sweet package so once he gives the go-ahead (hoping that the reinforcments work), it will be released if anyone is interested.