Breaking change to ship changes in pub

[Rab]

People have always been able to change ships and expect the result to be in a WORKING SHIP !!!

This long-standing game feature has been BROKEN.

Imagine being a noob trying different ships and the game just breaks your ship so it doesn't work anymore!

It can be that simple, or it can be changing ship for tactical reasons, e.g.:

Shark has always been able to change ships to reset mines.

Shark lays a risky mine.
Shark doesn't want to TK, or just wants mines reset.
Shark changes to WB.
WB changes back to Shark.

but now there are extra steps...

Game does:
Repeller Lost
Repeller Lost
Repeller Lost
Energy Depleted

So now you're in a useless shark.

So you change again, to wb and back,

Repeller Lost
Repeller Lost
Repeller Lost
Energy Depleted

hmmm...

Rab> ?help why is the game removing my reps ?

BIET> it was mainly to combat terrs which would shipchange for bursts, and item regain in general

Rab> i changed to avoid tking with bad mines
Rab> and it made my ship unplayable

BIET> well, maybe try mining in better spots in the future? and I also wanted a clear mines command, just haven't got round to that

cLay> yeah if you change ships to fast
cLay> say i want to reload on reps in shark
cLay> it puts you empty on specials
cLay> biet did that because of me
cLay> i would change from terrier to wb or whatever to get in mid quickly
cLay> and i would do it in shark say to reload on reps
cLay> this is a new thing

Rab> but now I can't play at all
Rab> how do I fix it
BIET> change ship, wait 10 seconds, change back
Rab> christ
Rab> that's awful
BIET> thats the idea

[bounty]

This feature was rather shocking and confusing to me upon returning to TW... I can imagine what a newb would think. Seems a bit harsh for a low population game now-a-days. Just sayin.

[Bosshawk]

Sadly like any game... those that play it enough find ways to abuse certain aspects of the game... yes theres methods of using those for good.. ie removing bad mines... but if you want the items bad enough i think u can still buy them or earn them through greens...

like clay said he would do it to manipulate the game and get back to mid faster...

as for a noob doing it... why would he do it? if hes that new he would have no idea of the concept of manipulating the game... so highly doubtful he would even be attempting it

perhaps a message on shipchanging might be able to be implemented where it alerts you "you have changed ship and you have no specials available to you for 10 seconds" might be feasible...

[BIET]

The initial idea was to reprize the items from before the ship change so if you change with 2 reps, you would get 2 reps back instead of the default 3. Unfortunately this didn?t work as the packages with the item info aren?t reliably sent. So changing ships, then going back to a previous ship you were in before, in the last 10 seconds, will deprize all items and prize you an energy deplete to make it feel more like a warp.

You still got a few options to regain items. Buy them, green them, or die.

I?m open to change some aspects like ship specific rulings. As of now all ships are treated equal, but looking at the results that?s not the case. Ships with items are obviously hit harder that ships that don?t have items. The ships that benefit most from changing ships back and forth are shark, terrier, and maybe javelin. Combine the items they have plus spawning in mid and you quickly get a situation that just isn?t fun to play in. For those ships I could remove the energy deplete. For the other ships a ship change would probably have been to avoid anti warp or to spawn mid base. I think for those ships the deplete is fine and in line with a regular warp.

[Rab]

Just change it back to how it was, it wasn't broken.

[qan]

I put in a couple of hours sharking yesterday, and did find this a little annoying when doing it to reset mines. However, it's not terribly difficult to simply die...

I guess the question to ask is, what undesired behavior is this designed to curb? Is it abused often enough that it's worth the annoyance for legitimate uses of ship switching? (Admittedly, the only one I can really think of is clearing mines, though arguably it's a legitimate strategy for refreshing burst/port on a terr, unless it's used excessively.)

[Rab]

Just change it back to how it was, it wasn't broken.

qft.

[BIET]

OK, changed a few things. Wb, spid, and lanc are still receiving an energy deplete upon switching back to wb within 10s. All other ships don't receive an energy deplete anymore. For the ships with items only the less disruptive items are given back. Jav loses its rocket. Levi doesn't lose any items. Terrier loses it's burst but keeps the portal. Weasel loses its repel. Shark loses two reps. This should disrupt the game play far less while still making it less good compared to dying due to the item loss for some ships.

[Rab]

You've still broken a long standing feature of the game IMO. I don't see why you're pushing this change on us when it wasn't asked for and wasn't being abused. Remove it completely.