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[Nice_Boat]

So, there's a lot of people saying that 2238 sucks when it comes to player interaction. Yeah, we have unguarded mines and the NCR and the occasional rp-project. Oh, and there's the fact that people enjoy their caves perhaps a bit too much and I personally think that this won't change with the introduction of NPC factions.

What can be done? Well, nothing brings out the deepest emotions like a sudden encounter in the desert - an ambush perhaps?

We have an item. It's called a map. It's not used. It could be craftable with enough outdoorsman. What would it do? Well, it'd create an ambush location. Much like what you get with a radio, only that once you leave there's no going back. Once everyone leaves, it disappears - so in terms of scripting, it's the most temporary "base" ever.

So yeah, bases can't be found on the worldmap, so why should we care? Because the rules would be slightly different. Allow me to elaborate:
- every person that enters the square makes some sort of highest outdoor of his party vs outdoor of the creator of an ambush roll. He fails, he gets an encounter, entering the ambush site;
- to keep it from being abusable, we could have every square with a caravan perform a caravan vs ambush site roll every minute or so; if the caravan wins, they enter and immediately engage. Nobody likes raiders setting up on their turf, so you basically get a patrol up your arse the moment you set up in the wrong spot... and the trouble doesn't end there, since patrols tend to have radio operators, and radio operators tend to say silly things like "Alpha, this is Bravo, requesting backup at grid ref Zulu-Echo-6-4" or some other stuff like that. So, a minute after a patrol enters and takes at least single casualty we get a strikeforce going in. Patrols would be like 5-6 guys, strike groups would be like 10-25. Dunno, would have to balance that. Since you can't really re-enter such location, you won't get all this loot even when you're a sole survivor of a mighty 10 man top tier gang squad, so it won't really upset the balance;
- if I didn't make myself clear enough - you may leave, you may not re-enter without making a new spot;
- always real time, no exceptions;
- ambushes do stack, maybe with a roll allowing one group to detect the other every 3 or 5 minutes and some competitive outdoor roll; the group that loses has a few minutes to leave or spawns at the other group's site (optional, not sure how stacked some squares would get).

What this does:
- more action, more fun;
- less single-player users;
- less gung-ho travel - you really need to wear that armor and some squad mates before you leave;
- something to do for the weak gangs;
- roleplaying opportunities when it comes to mercenary and bodyguard services.

Hope you like it.

[shentaoba]

Interesting! way to think outside of the box...

[JustGreat]

Interesting idea to increase random PvP and a really good alternatives for base raids, however I don't understand why we need caravans to attack the ambushers. For example, if setting ambushes near towns would cause a NPC attack (which you are likely not to survive), why should someone set it up? Remember that to travel between towns we have trains, which only costs 100 caps, and the cost can be easily covered by moving boxes. I personally have not taken trains, but I heard they don't run that often, but that can be changed to support this feature.

[Nice_Boat]

Interesting idea to increase random PvP and a really good alternatives for base raids, however I don't understand why we need caravans to attack the ambushers. For example, if setting ambushes near towns would cause a NPC attack (which you are likely not to survive), why should someone set it up? Remember that to travel between towns we have trains, which only costs 100 caps, and the cost can be easily covered by moving boxes. I personally have not taken trains, but I heard they don't run that often, but that can be changed to support this feature.

The idea is to avoid poor people and new players getting butthurt - and for a reason. I can understand your point, but with the global 2238 mindset I think that some level of protection should be provided. Also, if gangs want to play the roulette for some PvE stuff, high stakes - by all means, this would be the way to go. If they all survive they get rich, if half dies they get what they brought in - if most die, too bad, shouldn't have messed with the NCR. I think it can be balanced in a way that wouldn't change the overall experience too much while enhancing it.

[Michaelh139]

Interesting idea to increase random PvP and a really good alternatives for base raids, however I don't understand why we need caravans to attack the ambushers. For example, if setting ambushes near towns would cause a NPC attack (which you are likely not to survive), why should someone set it up? Remember that to travel between towns we have trains, which only costs 100 caps, and the cost can be easily covered by moving boxes. I personally have not taken trains, but I heard they don't run that often, but that can be changed to support this feature.

There is a "Chance"  That npcs will attack the ambush site every minute or so depending on (outdoorsman?) caravan vs ambush set-upper.

[Ned Logan]

This is a very good suggestion.
At first I was thinking like 5 minutes "WTF?" about the caravan part, but then I realized you don't mean player caravan and caravan traps lol... maybe clarify that part.

Only thing I don't like is the outdoors check if the ambush-creators. This way every good ambush would have a taxi char with 300% OD...

RJ: Also don't forget you can radio in any number of friends. even an army of 50 lvl 21...

[RJ]

1. I make character with 300% outdoorsman (to meet as many players as possible), 9-10 charisma. I take 9 buddies (or some mercs with supersledges/rifles) and go in some hunting spot (centaurs/molerats/whatever). I wait and kill lone players that are trying to get exp there.
2. I make character with low outdoorsman (to not meet players too often/at all), 9-10 charisma. I take 9 buddies (some with high CW or take brahmin), I go into crate near some city and wait for caravan/patrol. I killl them, wait for reinforcments, and repeat until I run out of ammo/health. I pack loot on brahmin/friends and leave.
3. I make character with 300% outdoorsman (to meet as many players as possible), 9-10 charisma. I take few buddies with mercs go in some hunting spot or even near city. I use ambush mechanic to bring more buddies with mercs (in the end numbers will only count) also and kill players/patrols that come inside. I leave with loot.

Of course 2. and 3. won't happen if strike force would powerful enough to kill everyone in encounter with first attack (or being unlootable). As you pointed earlier.
What happens if patrol enters location where are players from two groups? The one that made trap and the one that got in later. Are they going to engage both?

Other than that it sounds interesting but due nature of maxed out characters it would be good to have outdoorsman rolls somewhat balanced.

[Nice_Boat]

1. I make character with 300% outdoorsman (to meet as many players as possible), 9-10 charisma. I take 9 buddies (or some mercs with supersledges/rifles) and go in some hunting spot (centaurs/molerats/whatever). I wait and kill lone players that are trying to get exp there.
2. I make character with low outdoorsman (to not meet players too often/at all), 9-10 charisma. I take 9 buddies (some with high CW or take brahmin), I go into crate near some city and wait for caravan/patrol. I killl them, wait for reinforcments, and repeat until I run out of ammo/health. I pack loot on brahmin/friends and leave.

Of course 2. won't happen if strike force would powerful enough to kill everyone on encounter with first attack (or being unlootable). As you pointed earlier.

Other than that it sounds interesting but due nature of maxed out characters it would be good to have outdoorsman rolls somewhat balanced.

2. is a non issue I believe - the strike force would have to be balanced to basically kick everyone's ass and offer a 10-person highest tier gang force a serious challenge. Not really that hard, since strike force npc's can have higher HP and so on, and in real time fighting NPC is a chore anyway.
1. is a problem, but maybe if we made a condition that the highest ambush maker's outdoorsman in a roll is 150 or 200 it'd go away. I mean, if the maker has OD 300, it counts as 150, 200 or whatever the limit is. Most loners are ~150 anyway, so it'd be 50/50. Anyway - it's fairly balancable.

Also, please note that you either take mercs/cows or buddies. It's your personal tactical choice, but you're still restricted to a standard 10 CHA group limit. When it comes to bringing in more people from your own gang (shit, I didn't think of that) to reinforce the ambush, I'd say that we could have two restrictions:
- if a group enters and 5 minutes pass, a timer starts (like 3:00). When it finishes, the ambush is over - everyone lands on WM
- you can't ambush people from one of your gangs... should solve it.

Another idea to make it less of a one-sided affair would be to have larger ambush maps with a few spaced out spawn points. That way the party making an ambush would face a real-life issue each time - should we cover a single approach in force, or space out and rely on communications? It'd make for pretty exciting woodlands combat - given the fact that most fighting happens on flat, boring desert terrain or in towns/cities, I think it's a strong argument for bringing this in.

[RJ]

Sorry, I updated my post while you wrote yours. Could you answer to:

3. I make character with 300% outdoorsman (to meet as many players as possible), 9-10 charisma. I take few buddies with mercs go in some hunting spot or even near city. I use ambush mechanic to bring more buddies with mercs (in the end numbers will only count) also and kill players/patrols that come inside. I leave with loot.


What happens if patrol enters location where are players from two groups? The one that made trap and the one that got in later. Are they going to engage both?

So 3. in other words: with ambush mechanic I can actually bring more people inside.

[Nice_Boat]

Sorry, I updated my post while you wrote yours. Could you answer to:

So 3. in other words: with ambush mechanic I can actually bring more people inside.

Well, I updated too. With the timer you'd get a countdown and end with everyone on the WM. Of course 5 minutes is fairly arbitrary and could be fine tuned, I think we could get to the limit that allows for combat to play out and makes reinforcing such a pain in the arse nobody would bother. Of course the timer would be reset if the entering group died before the 5 minute mark. Anyway thanks for pointing this out, it'd be a serious flaw if this ever got implemented.

[RJ]

OK. Thanks for replies.

[avv]

I kinda like this. I mean wasteland is supposed to be a place where one does not simply walk. I'm fed up with the current round the world in 15 minutes system. Players should hang around in their home towns more and rest of the map is more dangerous, harder to access and "here be dragons".

I too have problem with the od roll because of obvious reasons. Why not average outdoorsman of every ambusher vs the ambushed? I mean the leader of this ambusher-group certainly cannot cover every track his dumb friends leave behind.

Another issue is what about counter-ambush? I mean if someone detects you planning an ambush he could ambush the ambushers. But all in all the whole system being too outdoorsman and roll-dependent is bad. Smart wastelander isn't just about his outdoorsman skill, we could have places where ambush would be harder because of no hideaways (death walley). And places where it's easily arranged (mountains, city) so that smart players know which areas to avoid.

[Nice_Boat]

I kinda like this. I mean wasteland is supposed to be a place where one does not simply walk. I'm fed up with the current round the world in 15 minutes system. Players should hang around in their home towns more and rest of the map is more dangerous, harder to access and "here be dragons".

I too have problem with the od roll because of obvious reasons. Why not average outdoorsman of every ambusher vs the ambushed? I mean the leader of this ambusher-group certainly cannot cover every track his dumb friends leave behind.

Another issue is what about counter-ambush? I mean if someone detects you planning an ambush he could ambush the ambushers. But all in all the whole system being too outdoorsman and roll-dependent is bad. Smart wastelander isn't just about his outdoorsman skill, we could have places where ambush would be harder because of no hideaways (death walley). And places where it's easily arranged (mountains, city) so that smart players know which areas to avoid.

Good points. I agree on the average-outdoor. Would make for some nice soldier-partisan variety in builds perhaps.

When it comes to terrain related things - I'm no longer that sure. Maybe it could be solved with the ambush system using ambush-related maps only, with some areas offering easy means of escaping etc. Can't come up with a way to script this easily, and since it's not the most important thing to implement at the moment, I think we should keep it simple.

[Pozzo]

I like the idea and if Lexx is still motivated in creating maps this would be very cool to create ambushes in houses or farms

I agree that this game should be more about desert traveling and we should have more fights in the wastes instead of always in a same street in the same town.
I like the idea but I see one big problem : with the actual to-do list of Devs this won't be implemented until a loooooong time.
One temporary solution would be to change to % of chance to encounter a player in a square. If you walk on a square and a player is currently inside a map of this square then you have 90% chance to get inside this map and encounter the player.
So raiders gangs could create small temporary ambushes and players will meet more often in the wastes.

[avv]

Can't come up with a way to script this easily, and since it's not the most important thing to implement at the moment, I think we should keep it simple.

Just put additional outdoorsman penalties/bonuses in terms of arranging an ambush per each map square depending on its terrain. I think it's pretty important because we're talking about people's lives and stuff here. I mean once you're in that ambush, death is the most likely result even if you're fairly well armed and accompanied. At least with the current settings.