Next official expansion?

Post ideas & suggestions you have pertaining to the game here.

What should the next official expansion be about?

Black Market
1
4%
COMSOC (CSS Changeling + more Fleet missions)
6
25%
Sung Slavers (+ more Ungoverned Territory missions)
8
33%
Ranx Empire (+ more Outer Realm missions)
7
29%
Other (please post a response)
2
8%
 
Total votes: 24
george moromisato
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My primary goal for 2017 is to finish Part II. But sometime during the year I'll want to start production on a new official expansion. This is a (non-binding) poll to see what people are interested in seeing. Vote for one and only one choice.

If you have suggestions not on this poll, or if you have specific ideas, please post a response.
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AssumedPseudonym
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 Voting Sung, because they’re one of the more neglected factions. Ranx already has ORE (or at least will, theoretically (and I have no idea if your Ranx expansion would incorporate it, be separate from it, retcon it in its entirety, or some combination thereof (yay for nested parenthetical comments (I think TLisp has corrupted me)))), Fleet already has a fairly solid foundation, and both Pixelfck and Watson have done a bit of Sindikat work already. Sung doesn’t have a lot of material outside of the Huari storyline.
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Xephyr
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I voted Sung as well. Partly because OR/UG area is underdeveloped (and in my side of space!) and partly because I want to see a capitol station at Jiang's.

Now, I would like to see an extension that covers several sovereigns in one go, but maybe I'll take that on as a mod later this year
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I have also voted sung, particularly because what is called sung space sometimes hardly contains enough sung stations to enter into the Huaramarca system. Would be nice to have a little bit of expansion there.
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I'd like to see an expansion where we can join the pirates.
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I voted for Ranx, though Sung would also be a good choice. Difficulty's the primary factor here, as Ranx territory being outside of the vanilla path makes it much easier to implement without causing any compatibility issues down the road. Given that the Sung capitol is in the SoTP mainline, some decisions would have to be made there regarding what goes where.

Fleet and Black Market are already vanilla content with their own mission chains - I can't really see a way of dividing them up without causing some issues and potentially making them much more difficult for modders to interact with. Black Market in particular is a bit threadbare, having only one mission, so it might be awkward having a vestigial mission chain next to a complete one. What I liked about CC and EP was that they created and explored entirely new organizations and parts of the universe. This made them more exciting to explore and much more unpredictable, and made it easy to mod and expand upon both the extension and the vanilla content. It also helped build the idea that SoTP is a complete game, rather than a demo, which is an advertising model that has historically been very successful. A lot more people come in that way, and it's a huge part of the reason why people decide to pick up the game.
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Some rambling thoughts:

Sung is THE arc villain of Ungoverned Territories, much like Charon Pirates are in New Beyond and Ares in the Outer Realm. Ranx seems minor compared to Ares, a bit like Dwarg or Marauders are to the Sung.

Sung could be a good choice, but it seems like content that should be in the base game, given scattered lore than hints Jiang's Star being the Sung capital yet it is just yet another random system. It should be a major plot event like Charon and Point Juno, yet it is not. The player must pass through Jiang's Star to reach the Outer Realm (either to fight Iocrym or Luminous, depending on adventure). Of course, if a Sung expansion means that the base game must have a little more content (such as a fully fleshed out Jiang's Star) as a byproduct, that could be good.
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I agree with PM.....it's tricky to give the Sung more stuff in an expansion without hurting the base game in the long term. I do want to see more things about the Sung......but not if it means locking it behind an extra paywall that hurts the Hauramarca line.

Plus, honestly? The only plotline that would really make sense for a Sung expansion would be the Hauri arc. Unless you want to completely devalue it. If saving an entire civilisation and getting what was once the endgame gun (and what used to be enigmatic hints about the future until you flat out up and told peeps about it in more recent content) is only secondary to a more mundane story....it's going to hurt that line even more than everything else that's come along to hurt it over the years.

ORE is already a thing, it's got a schedule that's slipped more times than I can count, and combining your talents with Wolfy would 1: get it completed and 2: result in some very interesting work (especially if you let some of the other regdevs tag along)*. Thus I'm firmly in support of a Ranx expansion.






*And far better balance than Wolfy will do alone. :P
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PM wrote:Some rambling thoughts:

Sung is THE arc villain of Ungoverned Territories, much like Charon Pirates are in New Beyond and Ares in the Outer Realm. Ranx seems minor compared to Ares, a bit like Dwarg or Marauders are to the Sung.

Sung could be a good choice, but it seems like content that should be in the base game, given scattered lore than hints Jiang's Star being the Sung capital yet it is just yet another random system. It should be a major plot event like Charon and Point Juno, yet it is not. The player must pass through Jiang's Star to reach the Outer Realm (either to fight Iocrym or Luminous, depending on adventure). Of course, if a Sung expansion means that the base game must have a little more content (such as a fully fleshed out Jiang's Star) as a byproduct, that could be good.
Exactly my reasoning. George also seems to want to do something with the Ranx, given his remodeling of the RDN and his use of it as the first ship the player encounters in Part II. They're an interesting faction and it'd be nice to see them get some extra content.
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Song
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JohnBWatson wrote:
PM wrote:Some rambling thoughts:

Sung is THE arc villain of Ungoverned Territories, much like Charon Pirates are in New Beyond and Ares in the Outer Realm. Ranx seems minor compared to Ares, a bit like Dwarg or Marauders are to the Sung.

Sung could be a good choice, but it seems like content that should be in the base game, given scattered lore than hints Jiang's Star being the Sung capital yet it is just yet another random system. It should be a major plot event like Charon and Point Juno, yet it is not. The player must pass through Jiang's Star to reach the Outer Realm (either to fight Iocrym or Luminous, depending on adventure). Of course, if a Sung expansion means that the base game must have a little more content (such as a fully fleshed out Jiang's Star) as a byproduct, that could be good.
Exactly my reasoning. George also seems to want to do something with the Ranx, given his remodeling of the RDN and his use of it as the first ship the player encounters in Part II. They're an interesting faction and it'd be nice to see them get some extra content.
Keep in mind that the Ranx ship in Part II is 1: Heavily modified to use non-human tech and 2: possibly from the Ranx Republic rather than the Empire. Depending on how long it's been stuck there. Point is still valid though.
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I vote for all of these:
  • Penitents Mine.
  • New Europa
  • Concatenated Digital Metropolis
  • Syrtis War
  • Komoro Station
  • Freeworlds
  • First Hunters
  • Gorons
  • Kobol Warlords
  • Dwarg Raiders
  • Order of Saint Josephine
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Shrike wrote:Keep in mind that the Ranx ship in Part II is 1: Heavily modified to use non-human tech and 2: possibly from the Ranx Republic rather than the Empire. Depending on how long it's been stuck there. Point is still valid though.
He also remodeled the standard RDN and showed it to us in one of his recent streams. It's not in the game yet, but I imagine it will show up in the next beta.
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Shrike wrote:ORE is already a thing, it's got a schedule that's slipped more times than I can count, and combining your talents with Wolfy would 1: get it completed and 2: result in some very interesting work (especially if you let some of the other regdevs tag along)*. Thus I'm firmly in support of a Ranx expansion.
 My vote would have gone to Ranx, hands down, if I knew for certain that it would be incorporating and expanding upon existing ORE material, and doubly so if it was a collaborative effort of the regdev team (with its contents subject, of course, to your approval, Boss).
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I'm not sure what COMSOC means but more Fleet missions sound good. A couple of CSC's with Aquilas and Brits smashing enemy strongholds or something similar. I like the Fleet missions with Cent and Brit escorts. Stick an Aquila or two or even a CSC in the missions as well along with a couple of different attack commands (like flank attack or standoff) and things would be interesting.

But really, its all good!
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Xephyr
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relanat wrote:I'm not sure what COMSOC means but more Fleet missions sound good.
COMmonwealth Special Operations Corps

It's a character class in RPGCharacterClasses.xml and it's one of the old adventure ideas from this Neurohack page.
When a job is too hard for the Militia and requires more finesse than the Fleet can muster, the men and women of the Special Operations Corps step in. In the Ungoverned Territories the COMSOC is involved in everything from rescuing slaves from the Sung, to locating and neutralizing high-value Sapiens targets. After a tour of duty in the Militia, the player might get recruited by COMSOC.
I imagine it's evolved to be more of an Outer Realm centric thing, since that's where Fleet presence is the highest.

I would prefer it as an adventure, which is why I voted against it, but it'd still be a cool expansion. If it meant that we'd get to see Ares space then I would probably change my vote, though.
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