DevTracker: About Wings

So we are looking at:

1. enhanced matchmaking for wingmen
2. enhanced/clear feedback for who and where wingmen are
3. shared information within the wing
4. shared bounties and mission rewards
5. 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 benefits 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 definitely are doing wings. We're going to make it as good as we possibly can.

First let’s look at some more details on the Wings functionality – Wing Beacons. Player wings exist to enable cooperative game play. One of the neat features wings use to support this notion is the wing beacon. This nifty little device allows you to send a signal from normal space into the system’s super cruise environment.

Your wing will be able to see the signal - regardless of distance - as long as they are in super cruise in the system; they can use it just like a wake and drop down to your location.

The wing beacon also leaves the door open for future updates to trigger game events from it, such as distress calls to nearby Commanders and AI ships for example. But right now it makes all the difference when you drop into your wing’s system; with a simple flick of a switch, your team members will be able to instantly lead you to their position.

Wings also brings an overhaul for comms. The most obvious change is the ability to transmit open broadcasts. Such text messages will now be received by all ships nearby. Of course, you can toggle your ship’s ability to receive such broadcasts at will.

Bounties are divided equally. Trading receives a small bonus for other members of the wing when trading in the same system. No sharing on missions yet. You can of course still ad hoc share trade goods via the jettison mechanism.

Exploration data works the same as before, first person to sell it gets the reward, but others can still sell the data. However - if you're in a wing then you automatically share exploration for that system.

Helping interdicted wingmen

If we can make using a wingman's wake as easy as possible (so that's identification, 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.

Unique colours for wings (including sensor contacts, FSD wakes, chat, any additonal telemetry we pass around) – that's a given.

Wing Size and Lock

One aspect was the why we selected four pilots as being the wing size. When it came to deciding on a maximum wing size, we decided that four was, in this particular case, the magic number. In addition to the obvious benefits of getting multiple wings into a single session and ensuring that a single wing can always be outnumbered, there was the less sexy, but equally real issue of making sure the feedback for wings integrated well with the HUD.

Interface is always important and with Elite: Dangerous, we’ve ensured the ship’s HUD is kept “in-world”. This improves the player experience, but it also makes it much more challenging to update. With wings, we’ve kept to the tenet of a “clear combat view”, updating the Comms and Info panels to allow us to bring in wing elements without compromising canopy visibility.

One of the new additions with Wings is the ability to lock-on to your wing mates. The lock-on is a new feature specifically for wings. It lets you lock the details of a wingman’s ship into your nav-computer and “soft-slave” your frame shift drive to theirs. Even though we’ve relaxed the limits for using wakes of wingmen (you can be travelling faster and farther away and still drop in/out of super cruise), a wing lock-on automates FSD use – all you need to do is fly close enough. You still need to make sure you’re eligible to make the jump, but it should dramatically help in time critical situations, such as when your wingman is being interdicted.

The lock-on will also hopefully generate some interesting choices, as each member of the wing can only lock-on to a single target. So you might, as a wing, favour a “closed loop” array, where each wingman locks on to a different member, ensuring that eventually all of the wing will be able to use the automatic soft-slave effect, or you might decide to “protect the weak”, where all members lock-on to the same wingman, potentially speeding up process: if the target drops from super cruise, all lock-on member will be able to drop out at the same time, rather than follow each other in sequence.

As well as the multiplayer centric Wings there will be additions that apply to everyone whether you play in multiplayer or in solo. Changes to USSs are being made so you can scan them in advance to gain an impression of the scale of the signal – beware the larger scale USSs as they might be too dangerous, especially if you’re alone!

The Wings update doesn’t just aid players – NPCs get the ability to fly in groups of their own, so while flying in supercruise you can encounter flights of authority ships, pirates or a trader groups.

You can join other wings if they invite you. You'd leave the current wing in doing so. You can only ever be a member of one wing. You can fight each other without committing a crime within same wing. You can encounter AI groups.

Wing Trading Dividents

It's set to 5% at the moment, it may need balancing down!

The trade dividend is aimed at being a minor benefit for players that want to wing up anyway. Once we're happy with how wings are working, we have various plans to improve the variety and value of benefits - we're always interested in looking at ways to encourage player -to-player interaction.

It's 5% of the profit. Note that this is a dividend reflecting a loyalty style bonus from the system - it is not deducted from the original trader's profit. Currently you can cash these in anywhere, but that will be changed so that you have to cash them in the same system where they are issued. Wingmen have to be in the same system to receive the dividend.

The benefit applies to players working together so there isn't a comparable bonus for single player. For the trade dividend it is intended to attract groups of players back to the system as a payment from the system itself. If it encourages players to form wings then that is fine with us.

It doesn't apply to black market trades, although whether it should be or not is being discussed.