The only thing I don't like is how many things to me, feel very OOC.

I Kind of wish you kept the whole Aetheric creature feel to it, instead of a Spaceship feel to it. Calling the things some sort of bird, or balloon.

I like the touch with the gnomes, but I don't like the sci-fi aspects of it.. but thats just me.

On the one hand it looks like Aetherships can be used to really build up the feeling of Celest as having a navy, and having exploration teams, and on the other hand I feel like many of the things that are found are just novelty and 'crazy'.. IT reminds me a lot of the 3Kingdoms mud.

But thats just me.

The whole mechanics and the fact that it costs absurds amount of money to get something working well, I think is great. I would also like to hope that the mechanics don't assume too many crew members, and don't allows a group of 3 people who link up thier ships into an armada to "own" the aetherways and make living hell for people.

It's near to impossible to find other ships in the Aetherways at the moment, so I don't think the Armada thing is an issue for now. I am sort of against the sci-fi feel too, but like it at the same time. I can't decide which angle I want to go with, heh.

I just want to say I LOVE the idea but I am with Dags...I would like to see some of the terms used made a bit less "techno" or "IT" we made the leap from pre-siegeengine technology to aetherspace traveling and machine turret weaponry in...2 months or so ICLY? Maybe if we could change some of the terms around? And maybe the divinities could forcefead us some ic epxlination or like.."This is the way it is because..." post in the news?
Its a lovely Idea but it did kind of take alot out of the Icness of Lusty...but than again, that is just me..
love-mimi

Just a few cosmetic ideas...

Remove the word Module and replace it with installment or construction.

Use the word Algontherine entity, much more often in the help scrolls and skill listings.

Change the commander chair, into Pyschic reigns.

When we were told to buy eggs, I thought for sure they were going to be some kind of Aetheric bird.

Make the Empath Grid, into an Empath fulcrux.

I was going to make a suggestion about the SHIP commands, but I relized thats a change thats almost impossible to make at this point.

ICly, one thing that I think can give you a good hint about why I'm suggesting these things is that Glomdoring is really pushing this whole thing down. "It doesn't affect us, who cares"... But it would be nice if it was something that even Glomdoring could wish to explore.

Yes, I'd prefer we don't go in the scifi direction. (I freely admit to being guilty of falling into space fantasies myself.) We have tried to stay away from techno terms, such as we do not refer to anything as gunnery turrets or the combat position as gunner. We don't have "machine turret weaponry" (whatever that is) and certainly I disagree that we went form "pre-siegeengine technology" to some super techno advanced technology. Indeed, I have ALWAYS maintained that the "magic technology" in Lusternia is just as (or more) advanced as any industrial technology we may know (yes, I was thinking of aetherships even back then). Why would machine guns ever develop when you can just as easily learn to blast away with elemental blasts or cosmic fire?

I believe there's absolutely no reason to make an IC post to "explain" what aetherships are nor "forcefeed some IC explanation" because the events explain everything perfectly adequately. (I'm rather insulted anyone thinks we actually would need to do that.) Aetherships are sentient creatures bonded to their owners. Modules are magical constructs that merge with the aethership and provide use of specialized services of the algontherine within, such as the battle turret able to cosmicly blast hostiles. It is based on advanced magical technology and planar theory.

That said, aetherships are not spaceships. Aetherspace is not outer space. Battle turrets do not fire lasers or machine guns. The empathic grid is not the engineering station (sorry, Scottie, but those aren't engines). And the gnomes are not ferengi.

I actually like the idea of this being made pretty important.

Right now it's low-reward high-risk (of getting lost.) Presumably that'll change in time though. But I always envisioned Lusternia having parallel worlds and real planes. THIS whole aethership thing fits that perfectly. The other planes never really cut it before. They're too small and not very relevant. This is a whole new school of fish.

Although I could do without "spaceships" as such too, but whatever. I used to play spelljammer, so it's nothing new.

That said, aetherships are not spaceships. Aetherspace is not outer space. Battle turrets do not fire lasers or machine guns. The empathic grid is not the engineering station (sorry, Scottie, but those aren't engines). And the gnomes are not ferengi

....90% of that joke was lost on me....hee
OMG! NO NO NO! I was ---NOT--- trying to give the impression I gave.... I was just looking for what you said...namely...
*Aetherships are sentient creatures bonded to their owners. Modules are magical constructs that merge with the aethership and provide specialized of service the algontherine within, such as the battle turret able to cosmicly blast hostiles. It is based on advanced magical technology and planar theory*
IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!!
Sorry that all came out wrong but like...you right, ofcourse as always...
sorry again!
You hun!
love-mimi

At this point, unless there's a huge movement to do so, I'm not inclined to change the names of things. But point taken that in the future we will try to be less "techno".

Regarding Glomdoring, the one thing that may interest it is the fact that you can collect power in aetherspace and siphon it into the nexus. Potentially, dedicated aetherships could generate a LOT of power for cities and communes (if that's a concern to them). Beyond that, I don't think aetherships actually offer any benefits directly to cities or communes (except maybe fees to use their portals). While this may change in the future, I'd have to say that aetherships are more for the benefit of individuals rather than cities and communes.

While I can handle most of the techno talk and explain it as magic somehow, I really don't like the word 'hull'. It implies a solid, metallic casing, which really doesn't necessarily apply to an aetherbubble.

I'm also a fan of emphasising a more magical/organic feel than spaceships flying around, and I'm hoping that in the specializations that is more tangible when they are released. (Ie, the empath having empathic skills, not mechanical engineer/radio tech).

I think the experience of aether creatures -really- needs to be looked at, because it just isn't worth it in any shape or form to hunt them. I'm not saying it should be more profitable than anywhere else, but you should be able to spend several hours trapped in aetherspace and expect to gain a similar amount of experience as if you were hunting infrequently on Astral throughout that time. The risks are much greater, the preparation more expensive, and the ability to instantly leave when you are ahead impossible.

Finally, would it be possible to allow multiple empaths on the ship? It seems to be a really popular choice (at least in Serenwilde), and it means that only one person gets to help out in that manner (and its not often me! ). What if there were two or three empath grids allowed, say... but if you have two each will only work at 2/3 the effectiveness of a single station, and if you have three each will only work at 1/2 that of a single station. Or something to that effect.

Agreed with Elryn. Maybe it won't work out with the empath skills you have planned, but having more than one empath and more than one gunner just leads to empathic dead weight, so to speak. Which is kind of sad.

On the note of the experience, yeah, I think that needs upped. There don't seem to be many tangible benefits involved in this...of course, I haven't fully explored the bubbles yet.

In regard to the "elitist" comments, I would like to add that aethercrafts go beyond just flying out into some uncharted territory and shooting stuff. I think it would be neat to establish (once I learn my way around) a transporation service where I could safely transport people who want to visit other aetherbubbles and such (perhaps with a small fee).

There really is no currency requirement to be a "passenger." You can even invest say >15 lessons to get aethercraft. Once you have this, I believe you can opperate the cloaking cube... so I really think everyone has the potential to enjoy this.

And finally as for the idea that 30cr is an excessive amount given the importance of other skillsets, that's not true at all. If you want to be a member of a crew on a ship and that's what you *really* want to do, you can always learn combat or resilience or something else later. Hell, I didn't have credits on me at the time so I forgot influence/arts/magic so I'd have lessons to blow in it.








I 100% disagree. There is no "cost" to bashing in aetherspace. You have infinite healing potential. You have infinite ammo. And any ship can move fast enough to hit/move, hit/move, etc. In fact testing Diamante's ship, I can pretty much keep us from getting hit period once the turrets are locked.

If empathy abilities drained mana and being hit by a creature also drained health (a sort of mental assault given you are mentally locked in to the module) then I would agree... but right now, there is no reason that the experience should be up-to-par

EDIT:

I apologize if you read this initially and it was all crazy. Whatever changed on forums (I had to change it back to default) was really screwing things up.

EDIT #2:

So everytime I try to post 2 separate posts back-to-back, they merge into a single post. Grr!

Actually, there is a very slight cost... power. You also gain no gold or corpses from bashing in an Aethership. Really, if they are only meant to be annoyances that you just zip past, its fine they way they are, but I think since gunners/empaths are supposed to be important members of crew it would be nice if hunting was actually a worthwhile pursuit.

Edit: I also forgot the most important cost - time. There is no other cost to completing most quests, yet the rewards are extremely significant, because they require time and dedication to get done.

I'm not actually sure how aether combat is done, but i would say, if the monsters got close enough there should be a chance for some of them to board your ship, and have those, unlocked in modules to have to combat them, like your marines, or passengers, which would increase the crews to include a few free people so your turrets and empath dont die.

Forgot to mention, those monsters that swarm onto the ship, drop gold, if they have any, and have the corpse.

When we were being attacked by Ialie's ship, I had mentioned in the IRC room that I hope Aetherspace creatures give lots of XP.

The cost of the aethership itself is more than anyone would ever spend on vials in the entirity of thier bashing to level 80. (or atleast more than I have spent on vials)

I don't disagree that the hunting could be more wortwhile, but I feel that if it is to become more worthwhile, there should be some cost. I think it would be totally fair for the crew to be damaged as the ship is damaged because of the mental link between the two. I think it would also be equally fair if mana was somehow incorporated into empathy/combateer actions (basically, given you will the ship to respond, it should be taxing to you as a person).

In this were to happen, I think it would definately be reasonable to make the experience more worthwhile, but not until then.


As for time, that's iffy. You may spend a great deal of time doing a quest to have someone botch it and you get nothing. Furthermore after testing a 5 room ship, they move so incredibly fast that time is more a matter of speed versus hull strength.

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Right, but you also have to consider how easy it is to kill stuff without ever being remotely in danger. Malicia, Grom, Munsia, and I just tested Diamante's ship. We got swarmed at one point with 3 gorgogs, 3 pyrinnes, and a cloiter on us. I just stayed in range for them to fire and as soon as something entered to attack, I moved a single space away. We took all them out without being hit more than 1-2 times, to which we were instantly cured by Munsia doing repairs.

4 People hunting gorgogs or even astral without linking, arn't really ever in danger either....

Taking personal damage in addition to ship damage would be stupid. There's enough danger in the ship getting to zero hull strength and imploding which kills -everyone- on board.

The answer is to have monsters than can entangle the ship, requiring the empaths/commander to unentangle and escape before they can move again.

I was more meaning, maybe one or two mobs, which would give reason to have some people on the crew there to hunt them down, everyone was always complaining that they dont give gold or corpses, i was just trying to provide a means to and end.

This would help, but you still basically have near infinite ammo and healing potential. It would totally undermine bashing outside of aetherspace if it was up to par.

Hell, you could go in a ship with someone and do NOTHING and get experience. That's lame.

Thats true of regular bashing also...

I think it would be GREAT if normal bashing areas were discarded infavour of aetherspace for the people who can afford to spend time and money on it.

More place for the lowerlevel people to hunt and not worry about some titan clearing out the place.