Whilst I'm not going to deny that it would be great to get player wings for release, the development process we've been through means that it's not going to happen. But it is one of our top priorities for post-release; the interface, the mechanics and supporting gameplay. It's probably a massive understatement to say we're committed to carrying on development. Wings is the ability to mechanically group up with a small number of other players to share rewards and risk. So we are looking at:
* enhanced matchmaking for wingmen
* enhanced/clear feedback for who and where wingmen are
* shared information within the wing
* shared bounties and mission rewards
* on-going mission support for wing gameplay
To be absolutely clear, this is not anything to do with NPC wingmen (though they do sound similar).And as an added caveat! This is what we are looking at, the final result *may* have more or less bits! To be absolutely, lutely-abso clear. Wings should be extremely fast to set up (we want it to basically be an invitation/accept affair), though there will almost certainly have to be a cool down timer after leaving a wing to prevent "wing hopping" exploits, and joining a wing will have some risk (in that some or all crimes between wingmen will be deactivated).Yes, wings are ad-hoc, though the idea is that it should be extremely easy to quickly start a wing with game "friends" wherever they are in the galaxy.The concept we are looking at is that a wing is treated as a single entity with regards to bounties and non wing ships, and as an equal share group (assuming that all players at least damage the bounty target) for ships in the wing.So for example, a wing of three ships and a number of police ships are attacking a wanted criminal. If a police ship gets the kill-shot, no bounty is awarded. If any ship in the wing gets the kill shot, all members of the wing who damage the criminal get a bounty claim for an equal share of the bounty.I don't really see this as inconsistent it's just one of the benets of being in a wing (of course, there is an internal trade off in the wing you accept lower bounty rewards because you share the bounty, but you increase the chance that you will get at least something, as there is an increased chance that the kill shot will be by someone in your wing).
Wings won't be without risk however. As an example, we're looking to do something like, "when you get a bounty issued against you for attacking or destroying a ship, it is multiplied by the difference between the number of ships in your wing and the number of ships in the target 's wing (if any).So this means that if a four ship wing (likely to initially be the maximum wing size) goes around attacking lone ships, the bounties on them would be four times as big. This should make them more appetizing to would be bounty hunters, and pose a bigger credit penalty for paying them off.With regards to voice coms: we already have a group chat capability, which we want to try and finesse for wings, so that a wing has a chat channel that operates over any distance and has an easy to use opt in/out interface.
To clarify: we denitely are doing wings. We're going to make it as good as we possibly can.
HELPING INTERDICTED WINGMEN
If we can make using a wingman's wake as easy as possible (so that's identication, selection and drop out requirements) then I think that might be a nice easy win because: A) it would more or less use rules we already have, and B) there would be a nice modicum of skill and awareness required to minimise time apart.It *might* also create an interesting skill challenge when wings started interdicting each other. Remember, the actual interdiction would be one on one (which seems pretty fair to me), with reinforcements dropping in based on player awareness and skill.
