There's also the problem of people calling their algowhatzie 'The S.S. Yahtzee' and making the alias 'Phenolenaline'.

Not sure how you target that.

perhaps ship titles will need to include their name? This way ships can actually be hit

One Final Idea.

One possibility for a quest would be have some gnome pirate on prime give you a treasure map or something. A buried treasure chest would then be hidden somewhere in space--the map is not very detailed, but if you found the chest, it would contain a lot of stuff--perhaps akin to the divine presents that we've seen during the Holidays/the Anniversary.

divine pies, we should be able to find divine pies with treasure maps!

I don't think you can "bury" anything in the aether like that...especially not with hordes of ravenous beasties attacking and eating inanimate objects for no given reason.

Heh, was thinking more along the lines of tons of herbs/poisons/gems, or maybe some unmarked artifacts, or a ton of gold.

Maybe this quest only spawns once a Lusternian Year or something.

Shiri, I meant in the bubbles, not in space.

erm not with the items you suggest, I can see it once a lusty year for a divine pie, as thats just a nice buffn or maybe a more normal amount like 5k - 10k gold. But artifacts, mass golds, poisons and stuff should be reserved for holiday things. (Imagine the impact on IRE's credit sales if you find an artifact once every month, or you get tons of gold once a month)

I personally don't mind the slight lean towards a bit of technobabble here and there. It adds some spunk. Anyways, until I can get my own personal Heart of Gold, I'm going to suggest that adding some greater functionality to the "Ship Personality" aspect would be greatly enjoyable, such as being able to key in and issue voice commands to the ship.

For those who don't like sci-fi allusions, note that originally the positions were commander (pilot), engineer (empath), and gunner (combateer). they were dropped to avoid the sci-fi. But because sci-fi has so dominated the flying ship idea (Star Trek, Star Wars, Andromeda and its aetherspace-like slipstream), it is impossible to not have some thoughts of sci-fi unless you either have flying ships like Terry Brooks' recent Shannara series or ocean sailing ships like Pirates of the Carribbean. Both of those options are dull and have less room for expansion IMO compared to aetherships. I don't think there has been any prominant fantasy with ships that move (note I didn't say "fly") through a magical sort of substance, so perhaps we are breaking new ground!

Yay for aetherships!

I had thought of this when programming it, but the reason I left it is that it is analogous to being in someone's entourage. In all IRE games, the entourage shares XP gained from the bashing of any members, and a common way to get newbs level has been to get your protege to follow you while you bash the level 80 bashing grounds (except those with aggro NPCs so the newbie is 100% safe from attack). So it is the construct as entourages and bashing, except its a crew instead of an entourage.


Turrets do support ranged attacks. Your aim gets worse as the distance grows, though.


SHIP LOOK INFO will show you the alias name.

I understand the reason. It makes perfect sense; I was just trying to argue why the experience shouldn't be as viable as some people wish it to be. In Lusternia, there are currently no high end areas (on the top of my mind) where you can just follow someone around and gain experience with the exception of Shallach (and I'm not sure how well it works).

I feel the less viable it is to do nothing and gain something, the better.

Actually Roark, the closest thing to Aetherships I can see was TSR's former Spelljammer setting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelljammer

Yeah, I thought they were intended as a spoof of Spelljammer - made by gnomes, travel the aether between the planes... The basis of the Lusternian planar system is already directly taken from TSR, after all.

I don't know about a spoof, but the system was directly influenced by Spelljammer, as per Estarra's commentary on the subject.

Keep in mind Spelljammer itself was influenced by several fantasy novels as well...

So you mean we're going to have Giant Space Hamsters?

Oh crap, we do have Hamster Hunts, and Squibbles...

Heh, yea, Spelljammer is the first thing I thought of when I heard about Aetherships. They are controlled by a magical helm that flies and moves the ship, and there are some 'living' ships. Like the nautiloids and things of some spacefaring races. They also move through the whateveritis between the different spheres of reality, somewhat akin to the aetherships. All in all, very cool. Now, I need someone to give me a million gold.

Er, this would break things up even more along city lines, but what about Aether Colonization - village influencing evolved?