While valid, I don't think that's what Thoros refers to. What he means is that if you ram someone, there's presumably some way to get the ship to move off the ram with the enemy crew trapped on your ship, and they can't pilot the ship themselves in order to ram their own one back and reenter, right?

Also, couldn't you just have reinforced doors everywhere? It hits a random room.

I tried on a non-prime dock and it did not work. So it is not really a 4th flashpoint, it also can not cross planes, so semi-useful for swapping in a crew member and freeing up one flashpoint.

I still think basic flashpoints and fusing should be available to anyone locked to the command chair (and I say that as a commander).

I wouldn't mind that at this point as it seems (this is an untested theory based on hypothesized effects of combateer criticals) you are going to need specialized combateers in your aether hunting crew to make the xp/hour remotely worth it. Most people aren't going to want to spec combateer as fusion makes commanders far more useful. Of course if the criticals don't significantly cut down the numbers of hits it takes to take down a black dragon (for example) it's still not going to be worth it.

When I got home and pulleed up my surfing documents, I discovered that its wasn't as complete as I had thought, mistly just an unordered list of skills names with notes on what they do that would completly unintelligible to anyone except me. So i quickly threw stuff together and typed up explanations which I hope makes sense.

And, yes, it is based on the idea of Silver Surfer. You could also think of them as one-man shuttles, like in Star Trek where they leave the big ships in little ones, except with moch more range.

An aetherboard is a module bought for a an aethership, but it is special in that it is a dawrf species of algoranthine that live in a symbiotic reationship with its host algoranthine. Its pretty useless 'docked' with the ship, but can leave the host, in which it is basically a fast one-room ship with its own health. The board is small, long and flat, and the surfer stands on top of it, the ship extends a silver-toned sheath over its wearer, to protect the surfer from aetherspace, attach him securly to itself, and divert damage into its own health. The skillset is a spec of aethercraft.

New skill for Aethercraft:
Surfing Basic use of an aetherboard.
You can use certain PILOT or GRID abilities you know at an aetherboard.
Abilities that can be used:
PILOT launch
steer
dock (to dock to ship)
transverse
glide

GRID repair


Surfer
Aetherboard Superior abilities on an aetherboard.
Slipslide Slide gracefully through the slipstream.
ParticleStream Damage others with particles.
Fluxride Ride the wave of flux with style.
Retrograde Return to whence you came.
Nova A bright aurinosphere that blinds.
Sideshift Ride the shifting waves with skill.
Pulsar A pulsing aurionosphere that disrupts.
Fission Travel to your ship's flashpoints.
Slingshot Slingshot around a dangerous vortex.
Starseeds (Commune) Tap into the energy of the ether.
Powercosmic (City) Tap into the energy of the cosmos.
Stormchaser A pastime that is dangerous but fun.
Supernova A superbright aurinosphere that stuns.
Herald Prepare the way for your ship.
Stardust Tap into the energy of the very stars.
Slipgate Travel faster than speed itself.
Darkhole A dark aurionosphere that conceals.

Aetherboard Superior abilities on an aetherboard.
Faster balance on aetherboard module.

Slipslide Slide gracefully through the slipstream.
Allows you to speedglide in slipstream, which speeds up over time to double the speed of gliding, but requires constant yaw corrections to maintain speed. Cannot change direction. Aurinidion particles will be slowly generated based on your speed.

ParticleStream Damage others with particles.
Damages other surfers, costs auronidion particles, damage dependant on number of particles you use up.

Fluxride Ride the wave of flux with style.
Allows you to speedglide in flux which speeds up over time, to double the speed of gliding, but requires constant yaw and roll corrections to maintain speed. Cannot change direction. Aurinidion particles will be generated based on your speed, faster than in slipstream.

Retrograde Return to whence you came.
You can fuse to your ship's location (even if it is docked)

Nova A bright aurinosphere that blinds.
Stuns aetherbeasts for a short time, requires aurionisphere, uses sphere power.

Sideshift Ride the shifting waves with skill.
Allows you to speedglide in flux, which speeds up, over time, to double the speed of gliding, but requires constant yaw, roll and pitch corrections to maintain speed. Cannot change direction. Aurinidion particles will be generated based on your speed, faster than in flux.

Pulsar A pulsing aurionosphere that disrupts.
Disrupts shields for a short time (possibly cloaks?)

Fission Travel to your ship's flashpoints.
If you are in the same room as your ship, you may fuse to one of it's flashpoints.

Slingshot Slingshot around a dangerous vortex.
Requires you to be speedgliding towards a vortex at close to full speed. When you reach it you will begin to speedglide at double speed in the opposite direction for a very long distance without need for course correction.

Starseeds Tap into the energy of the ether.
Commune nexus only: 50% extra particles gathered in ethereal
Powercosmic Tap into the energy of the cosmos.
City nexus only: 50% extra particles gathered in elemental/cosmic

Stormchaser A pastime that is dangerous but fun.
Allows you to speedglide in tempest, which requires constant yaw, roll and pitch corrections to prevent damage, and does not increase speed much. Cannot change direction. Aurinidion particles will be generated based on your speed, much faster than in any other environment.

Supernova A superbright aurinosphere that stuns.
Stuns aetherbeasts for a long time, disrupts surfer and empath module balance, requires aurionosphere, uses sphere power.

Herald Prepare the way for your ship.
Aetherboards can place fusion points for ship.

Stardust Tap into the energy of the very stars.
Double particles gathered on astral.

Slipgate Travel faster than speed itself.
Requires you to be speedgliding through slipstream at close to full speed. Teleports you a random number of rooms in the direction you are speedgliding.

Darkhole A dark aurionosphere that conceals.
Gives cloak, requires auriniosphere, constant drain on sphere.
-------------------

When speedgliding, you would start speeding up, and then begin to recieve the follwing kind of messages, depending on environment:
You yaw clockwise/anticlockwise
You roll to the left/right
You pitch forward/backward

To correct syntax would be to torn the board in the oppsite direction, so:
BOARD TURN

Failing to do so in time will cause the board to slow down to figure out how to correct itself (they're intelligent, but not too intelligent these creatures). Slowing down too much will drop you down into glide.
Your board slows down and corrects its direction.
Your board slows down and begins to glide.

Not too sure on what good particle creation speed would be. Aurinosphere powers would require wielding the sphere (or perhaps attaching the sphere to the board), and when the ability is used it uses up power from the sphere to make the sphere send out a spherical nova or pulse. Darkhold would draing the sphere over time to create a sphere of negative cloaking energy.

Fission, Retrograde and Hearld need powercosts, all other 'power' abilites use Auronisphere power.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, you'd be able to launch and dock even if your ship is docked, so you can go out and surf and collect particles, or speeed off to a aetherbubble by yourself. You do need a ship to have a surfing module though, and they have certain benefits to combat, such as disrupting shields and and stunning aetherbeasts to prevent them interfereing.

I LOVE that idea! Design table, here I come!

Yea, I love this idea, as well. It would add some nice spice to aetherspace.

I don't know how feasible this idea is, but I like the idea of aetherpiracy. You could have a couple of new bubbles (the pirates and the good guys) and they're constantly at war with one another. You can choose which to help. Now the difficult coding idea is to have a few pirate/good ships floating around that are capable of rudimentary battle (couple of afflictions, some damage). You could be sent on a quest for the side you choose, find, engage, and bring down the enemy ship, board it, and retrieve and item or something to bring it back.

This would really add some flavor and give us a reason to be out around aetherspace and with a full crew.

Edit: Much love for the recent Aetherspace changes. Speaking as a trans'd Commander, I would also like to see flashpoints/fuse be moved into the common skill. It's just too useful!

I like the "crashed ships" thing too, but I'm wary: the size of aetherspace being what it is, sounds like a lot of work to set something up that no one will even be able to find, let alone find when they want to (and are prepared to). There would need to be something added that made it feasible to know there was one out there and about where -- maybe clues in some S.O.S. broadcasts the empath would pick up scattered parts of, for instance.

Maybe the crashed ships could be found near Nexii only...

Crash beacons or emergency messages would work. Maybe as you get nearer it would show up on your landmarks (like S.S. Crashed Ship is to the northeast.)

I'd expect you'd see them like you do gnome ships, but even so, more than that would be good to make the idea really work. Besides, wouldn't it be so cool to be the empath who hears the fragmented bits of an SOS with half the words missing, trying to figure out where the signal's coming from based on the words that get through?

This crashed ship thing is a great idea. It provides something to wander around in aetherspace for as well as increasing the odds you might actually encounter another player ship in your travels. If there is a ship wreck somewhere, chances are it will draw more than just you!

Having an S.O.S. the empath can hear in addition to the standard directional guiders would be rather neat. Alternatively or additionally it would be nice to have some sort of ledger in the facility that gives general locations of known crashed ships. I'm not sure why I'm so big on the Facility being the respository for all current state aetherspace knowledge. Just seems to make sense!

I always wondered why the facility didn't have more than slugs and gnomes. I mean, the gnomes are, as far as we know, the masters of aetherspace. Yet both the facility and aetherspace seem oddly empty.

It would be pretty cool if they weren't all crashed ships... but some of them you have to engage and "sink" to make them crashed ships.

I don't quite know how boarding other ships work, but, from what I hear making it easier to do would make my idea really plausible!

Oh! Oh! What if there's a way to make it so that an enemy's guns fire at himself? An aethercraft version of clumsiness? And an aethercraft version of blindness. I don't know. I could imagine everyone being mindlinked to the ship and then the ship getting fired at a certain way. Or something.

As for crashed Aetherships...

---

Far away: A faint staticy noise fills your ears.
Away: ... S... PL..SE H..P
Nearby: SOS! THIS IS THE (shipname)! PLEASE HELP!

---

The crashed hulk of The (shipname) floats here.

---

Your hull is fired at by an unknown vessel.

(Ship) A voice says, "Hand over your goods and be killed!"



---

Different Pirate Ships have different names. Maybe you can board a gnome ship if they're being raided by pirates, and for like an hour they'll give you discounted prices or something.

Hmm. Is there a grappling hook/tractor beam option to keep enemy docked ships together?

That'd be even more amazing than sharks with lasers on their heads.

Another thing: weakenings are more boring than church. Fix it so that during the weakening, maybe powerful monsters start to appear above the skies of an organization's nexus, and can be shot apart for larger quantities of particles than normal. Sound like a plan? They'd also keep the crews awake during the weakening.

No! That does not sound like a plan! Players have to sit still for bombard, which already puts them at a massive advantage against incoming ships. They don't need to have monsters gather and pwn them while they're stuck there too.

Well, I'd change bombard too. In the new system, one combateer on a ship would charge the ship up, which would take a significant amount of time. Once done, they can fire the burst at any point- as long as the ship doesn't dock or get destroyed. The time between bombards would remain the same. This way, you can keep bombards spaced appropriately, while giving the ship and crew the opportunity to do other things than just stand in one spot on the aethermap.

EDIT: Neglected to add, the charging will be done as background noise as long as the ship remains intact in aetherspace. So you're not sacrificing a turret and advanced combateer the whole time.

Bombard damages people at the construct you're firing at. You'd be able to chain them this way- bad idea. The current way is fine. :S