Well, I know a couple people have said that they could see Deep Night as something of a Deep Space 9, well, here's just a rought thought I had about how that might be possible. I thought of it as a response in another thread, but thought, instead of hijacking, I'd post it here.

Carrier Module
Place in an empty room of your aethership

Your Aethership can encompass smaller ships within its hull. The size/number of the aetherships able to be carried is equal to the number of Carrier modules installed on your ship.

For instance, if you have 2 Carrier Modules installed, you can carry either a single 2-room ship, or two 1-room ships.

These ships can serve as escape pods, skirmishers, or simple decoys. The commander would get the ability to 'launch' these carried ships without commanders of their own. {Edit: To clarify, they can eject them from the bigger ship and let them just float there. Not actually launch and control them.}

The ships are also tied in to the main ship's empathic grid, so, while the smaller ships would in no way benefit the main ship with their hull, turrets, or grid, the Empath of the larger ship would be able to repair the carried ships. The ships would also be able to transfer power between eachother.

Anyway, that's just something I had been thinking of - a massive but slow ship coming in to a fight then unleashing a few smaller fighters ala Protoss.

Comments?

Hrm, not quite sure what to think of that idea, has potential though.

On a kind of related idea, could manses get docks? That way they -can- chill around my place like Deep Space Nine, and manses are already in aetherspace, and they'd just launch into aetherspace... sounds cool to me.

I don't really think its too sci-fi. I mean, the manses are basically bubbles. The carrier modules would just allow parts of that bubble to open up and swallow another, smaller bubble.

Hrm, neat idea, ungodly costly though if it works the way I think it works. I thought it would be neat for them to join Voltron style, personally.

And to combat the whole sci-fi thing, I think I'll put like... spikes on my ship. Or something, I don't know, the whole thing feels very strange. Keep up the ideas.

The problem I see with that is that it would defeat the purpose of armadas. You'd instead have a single ship with super hull, weapons, and healing. Not only that, but the commander chairs would get tricky.

This way, you still have to take advantage of armadas to communicate with the ships once they've launched from the main carrier. Its just a way of allowing you to move a fleet in unision (albeit slower - coordination can be much more powerful than speed) and give a base to work from, which would add more strategy to ship battles in my opinion.

Sounds interesting though

The problem I would have is that the difference in number of rooms doesn't necessarily correspond to an equivalent difference in physical size.

Also, would the 'mother ship' drain power twice as fast, or would the inner ship still have a chance of imploding and returning to the owner?

Number of rooms may not corespond to physical size, but it obviously has an effect on Aether size, or else more rooms wouldn't necessarily create more drag. So, if a smaller ship (in terms of room number) is faster, in terms of Aether size and distance (which is obviously different than physical size and distance) it is smaller as well.

As for your second comment, if the 'mother ship' implodes, any ships inside of it would implode.

I think the docks should be fairly expensive, but simply have each one dock one ship. It just wouldn't logically work that you can have one part of the dock inside the tree, and one part of the dock on the other side of the lake, and have them both dock the same ship. Additionally, you would need to buy a rediculous ammount of these to dock a decently sized ship.

I like docking ships, however.

But the modules wouldn't be docks themselves, they're simply a module that allows your manse to open to swallow another bubble. The more carrier modules you have, larger the opening you can create in your hull. The modules, however, could be placed anywhere since we aren't dealing with actual physical hulls that need to be opened and closed via machinery.

If you're thinking like that, then the carrier modules could be located anywhere in the manse, because its not actually those rooms that are holding the other ships, they'd be sort of outside the boundaries of your manse, but still insides its hull - like how the aetherways exist between the planes.

I'm not sure what would be the main benefit, though, and how it would leave armadas/commandeer trailing useful.

I also have to admit I don't like that it encourages mega-manses that benefit from ignoring organizational differences. I think its great that neutral characters now can create totally neutral vessels to live in, but I don't think its a good idea to encourage diffusing of the idealogical conflict.

Edit: To clarify, the last paragraph is directed towards what could happen with the implementation of this idea - making larger aetherships more profitable for unaligned characters to hire out - not what is currently implemented. Just in case that was confusing.

Well an advantage of a huge ship that could dock could be that you could place it out in the far reaches of aetherspace and its a handy port of call, hmm would it be posiable to actually make it so you could kind of build aetherstations that would be quite interesting, you'd get aether hermits with one room ships pretty much living there hunting at the various places and never leaving the aetherways wich would be amazingly cool.

If nothing else, I will always be your friend for your love of Voltron.

Dibs on Black Lion.

The ability to cary multiple smaller ships would just make it easier to get to a battle field, it would have practically nothing to do with an acctual battle involving multiple ships.

As for making it so mega-manses and stuff encouraging the diffusion of idealogical conflict... I'm really fighting the urge to tell you off. The people who have those manses, or the ideology to be on their own or be pacifists have nothing to do with the damned manses, clans, or any other thing. It has to do with the route their characters took, I'm sick and tired of you people in communes and cities being all pissy with Rogues being forced to have a rough deal. We've FINALLY got something that we can enjoy. If you people start bitchin about it, I'm going to slap you.

Besides, there are too many people in the world who are obsessed with non-stop agression and destruction. Not to mention all the societys have their ideological idiocys that force them to hate one side and like another. I personally find that whole situation just as distastefull as a place that has no conflict what-so-ever. The conflicts are forced by the Elder Gods, and the spirits or half-formeds controlled by the administration. It annoys me to no end that they've pretty much forced certain conflicts and made it impossible for things to fluxuate. This is the stuff that stagnation is made of.

Ps: Sorry for the massive hijack, seriously needed to vent.

By all means man, get to slappin'

SUHNAYE! You daaaamn right.

Docks would be more than alright... Carriers would be weird, although I do hope we can make Aether stations sometime.

Hrm I accually think carriers wouldn't be that good an idea. It seems to me these ships would be extremely slow in maneuvering (as real life carriers are) and would just get picked off by the creatures (I'm thinking deepnight size here by the way). So in terms of assault, I think just moving in seperate ships will be a lot faster, and for most of the crews probably also safer. (also I think Roark said that there will only be the ramming module to board other ships)

I think you can put the idea of making a 'station' in the middle of aetherspace out of your head. Every ship that is in aetherspace has a constant powerdrain, and can be attacked at any time. You would need enough people to man turrets, a grid and bring in power 24/7, if you don't the station would just implode, seeing the playerbase it's unlikely you'll find that many people. At best you might get permission to make an aetherbubble, though I don't think I would enjoy 100 aetherbubbles I can't enter because they privately owned.

Okay, let's run with the idea of an aetherstation. Cities and communes always have a relatively significant number of people on. Suppose you had a Manse that was deepnight sized, with a population dedicated to it that was comparable to that of a city. Basically, let's imagine Magnagora became an Aethership.

There are always Magnagorans online, 24/7, and they're all at least in theory devoted to the cause of Magnagora. In fact, there are usually at least a couple leaders online to direct everything. If you had a population devoted to it as more than a convenience, but as an org just like a city or commune, you could make it work.

I know this is getting a little bit out there, but it really would be like Deep Space 9 or some other large space station. Everyone would have a rank, a role, it would have a clan like Noctus Altus. Fighting off Aethercreatures would be a constant concern of course, as would be collecting energy, but if people saw it as an org it would be like doing pixies or spikes or supplicants, a civic duty.

It's not impossible, it just requires a level of commitment that we already see with our cities and communes. If there's a will there's a way

P.S. Hint Hint Richter