One-Week Adventure

Freeform discussion about anything related to modding Transcendence.
Post Reply

What would you want to see an adventure about?

Freeworlds (Anarchists)
5
42%
Abbasid
0
No votes
Order of Saint Josephine (Sisters of Domina)
0
No votes
COMSOC (Fleet special forces)
1
8%
Komoro Station (CW Militia)
6
50%
Other (Please describe)
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 12
User avatar
Xephyr
Militia Captain
Militia Captain
Posts: 857
Joined: Fri Dec 14, 2007 1:52 am
Location: Orion Arm, Milky Way
Contact:

I've always wanted to see more adventure extensions. The trouble is that they're quite easily the hardest kind of extension to make. I've got one or two on the back burner stuck in development hell (but will definitely be out after I fix just one more little thing...)

Sometime this year I am going to try to dedicate about a week to developing a complete adventure. Working with that kind of restraint 1. Sounds like fun, and 2. Means I'll actually get off my ass and release an adventure this time. This means it will be a short adventure, but it will be complete, and it should be easy to build it in "chapters" after the first release.

I've included a few older adventure ideas in the poll to gauge interest. If there's another sovereign in the game you want to see an adventure about, feel free to suggest it.
Project Renegade (Beta) : "The Poor Man's Corporate Command!"
Real programmers count from 0. And sometimes I do, too.
Derakon
Militia Lieutenant
Militia Lieutenant
Posts: 175
Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2017 2:53 am

I voted for the Anarchists, but in general I favor fleshing out the random factions that are just "there" that nobody really talks about. So Abbasids, Urak, Ranx, etc. would also be good candidates.
User avatar
AssumedPseudonym
Fleet Officer
Fleet Officer
Posts: 1190
Joined: Thu Aug 29, 2013 5:18 am
Location: On the other side of the screen.

 Ranx already has content planned by Wolfy (once they get the engine support they need to really get into it), and the Commonwealth already has the majority of what currently in the game. I voted Anarchists, too.
Image

Mod prefixes: 0xA010 (registered) and 0xDCC8 (miscellaneous)

My mods on Xelerus: Click here!

Of all the things I’ve lost in life, I miss my mind the least. (I’m having a lot more fun without it!)
User avatar
Song
Fleet Admiral
Fleet Admiral
Posts: 2801
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 4:27 am

I'm biased, because I'm doing some Freeworlds stuff myself. But I'd like to see more fleshing out of the Militia, and I think you can get more done quickly without needing new assets.... so I voted for Komoro. Obviously, however, I will enjoy whatever you end up doing.*




*As long as it doesn't wipe out my precious, precious headcanon.
Mischievous local moderator. She/Her pronouns.
Derakon
Militia Lieutenant
Militia Lieutenant
Posts: 175
Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2017 2:53 am

Shrike wrote:
Thu May 18, 2017 10:30 am
*As long as it doesn't wipe out my precious, precious headcanon.
I kind of want to see a faction that flies around in ships shaped like human heads, armed with kinetic/blast/thermo weapons.
User avatar
Song
Fleet Admiral
Fleet Admiral
Posts: 2801
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 4:27 am

Derakon wrote:
Thu May 18, 2017 2:51 pm
Shrike wrote:
Thu May 18, 2017 10:30 am
*As long as it doesn't wipe out my precious, precious headcanon.
I kind of want to see a faction that flies around in ships shaped like human heads, armed with kinetic/blast/thermo weapons.
Head-canon, not head-cannon.
Mischievous local moderator. She/Her pronouns.
User avatar
0xABCDEF
Militia Lieutenant
Militia Lieutenant
Posts: 124
Joined: Thu May 19, 2016 12:58 am
Location: Was destroyed by a Phobos-class dreadnought in the Eridani system

Hey, would you mind reviving my dead March of the Heretic adventure for me? I have some lore planned out for the Penitents but lately I haven't been able to get any work done on it. In fact, I haven't been able to get anything done this month.

Komoro Station

Please.

I've been waiting for someone (not me) to actually make it.
User avatar
Xephyr
Militia Captain
Militia Captain
Posts: 857
Joined: Fri Dec 14, 2007 1:52 am
Location: Orion Arm, Milky Way
Contact:

The poll is still ongoing, but Komoro is the most popular right now; I'll consider switching if we end up with a clear winner.

For this adventure I'm going to have the prep-work laid out ahead of time. This is similar to how I've been working on the dev wiki, but for this I'm going to try to keep things open so everyone can see the steps involved. All the story, game mechanics, and specifications will be tracked on this wiki page here: http://wiki.kronosaur.com/community/pro ... ro_station

Feel free to get involved, I'd love to hear your ideas about Komoro. There's room for new ships, stations, minor factions, etc. as well as game mechanics and stories.
Project Renegade (Beta) : "The Poor Man's Corporate Command!"
Real programmers count from 0. And sometimes I do, too.
shanejfilomena
Fleet Officer
Fleet Officer
Posts: 1533
Joined: Tue Mar 22, 2011 8:43 pm
Location: Alaska
Contact:

Tie :
I like the Freeworlds (Anarchists) , an under funded and explored faction.
Last edited by shanejfilomena on Sun May 21, 2017 8:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
Flying Irresponsibly In Eridani......

I don't like to kill pirates in cold blood ..I do it.. but I don't like it..
JohnBWatson
Fleet Officer
Fleet Officer
Posts: 1452
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2014 10:17 pm

Xephyr wrote:
Fri May 19, 2017 5:41 am
The poll is still ongoing, but Komoro is the most popular right now; I'll consider switching if we end up with a clear winner.

For this adventure I'm going to have the prep-work laid out ahead of time. This is similar to how I've been working on the dev wiki, but for this I'm going to try to keep things open so everyone can see the steps involved. All the story, game mechanics, and specifications will be tracked on this wiki page here: http://wiki.kronosaur.com/community/pro ... ro_station

Feel free to get involved, I'd love to hear your ideas about Komoro. There's room for new ships, stations, minor factions, etc. as well as game mechanics and stories.
How do people around here navigate that wiki? I can't find a single link to those obscure, useful pages aside from lucky google searches.

Anyways, this sounds like a really cool project. Here's what I've got:

- From what I understand, the refugees are Commonwealth citizens fleeing the warzone. Given that this takes place in the Outer Realm and the Fleet has retreated from the system, potential Commonwealth refugees would make up pretty much everyone in the system. Settlements made up of CW citizens who lost everything trying to settle the Outer Realm might be interesting fluff in the New Beyond and Ungoverned Territories, though. It'd add some explanation with regard to exactly where those convoys we escort are headed.

- In my opinion, the governor and militia commander would benefit from having some degree of depth, coming across as reasonable people with different priorities rather than senselessly obstructive incompetents. I imagine the governor would be most concerned with the long term strategic fate of his system, and be focused on being prepared to fight off attempts by the Ares and Ranx to expand their territory. Having a high Fleet rank could help with alleviating those worries, but might also bring resentment from some of the locals, who could feel betrayed by the Fleet's abandonment of their system. The militia commander might be of the latter opinion, believing that the fate of his home system shouldn't be laid in the hands of someone with no stake in the matter, and holding a special degree of distrust for those who obviously have other goals and concerns. Naturally, Militia rank should be referenced when dealing with the commander, though the Outer Realm is far enough from Militia territory that it need not be more than a line of dialogue.

- Unless the traitor is a major part of the plot, including some randomness might be worth the extra coding work for the sake of replayability. After all, I imagine it'd be exhausting to have to watch helplessly as the person you know is going to betray you carries out their plans unobstructed. I'm not sure how you plan to implement the saboteur, but a few potential motivations are below. These motivations can easily be applied to either the governor or the commander, if that's your intention.
  • The traitor has sympathies for the Ranx, either sharing their resentment at being 'forgotten' by the Commonwealth or having some attachment to the original miners' rebellion. In either case, our traitor wants the system to be crippled by the warlords and Xenophobes so that the Ranx empire can come in and win the peoples' hearts and minds by restoring order.
  • The traitor has been paid off by the Kobol warlords, and has been promised safety and/or a cut of the proceeds if they assist in looting the system. To make for a more complex or sympathetic character(if desired), their family could be in danger, or they could have been promised the safety of an entire station.
  • The traitor is involved in a political scheme to force Parliament to return the Fleet. By ensuring the success of the Kobol raids and directing media attention to them, additional considerations and defense funding can be secured. Could justify their actions by explaining that only a grand deception could convince the Powers That Be to care about the residents of an economically unimportant backwater system.
  • The traitor could be a servant of Oracus, either willingly or unwillingly. A deep cover agent could have been waiting for the most destructive time to make a move, or a once loyal citizen could have been mentally broken by months of vivid nightmares.
- For the sake of simplicity(which, working within a single week, is very valuable), I imagine the structure would work like this:
  • Introduction. Meet the two main characters, get introduced to the conflict, and potentially receive a reconnaissance mission or carry out an initial fight with the enemy factions. The initial mission could help show that the system's defenders are hopelessly outmatched.
  • Fundraising. The player goes around the system collecting credits to organize the defense. Perhaps there's a tradeoff, where the player can get some funds from the governor to help meet requirements if he's got a trait or makes a decision that will make recruitment harder.
  • Recruitment. The player goes around recruiting pilots to defend the system. Each successful recruitment task should give the player a few ships in the final battle.
  • Pre - final battle. Something happens before the climactic fight to add depth/length to the expansion. Maybe the traitor makes their move or the commander makes a play for power, or some other mission regarding one of the enemy factions is given.
  • Climactic fight. Like Point Juno for the Fleet, Charon for Korolov, or the raid on Cyclops HQ for CHOC. The player fights alongside his allies against a threat to the system.
  • Conclusion. Just some dialogue wrapping up the expansion and telling the player how he did. Presumably there's some sort of reward if everything goes particularly well.

- Recruitment and fundraising could function similarly to Heretic, where the player has a choice of several different missions that can be easier or harder depending on the ship setup that's been chosen. For the former, the player could have to go around the system petitioning various stations for large amounts of funding(on the scale of hundreds of thousands of credits each), and potentially having to perform tasks or meet requirements in order to receive it. The residents of a small colony might expect the player to clear out some nearby threat in exchange for the credits allocated to short term defense, and the owner of an isolated Corporate enclave might want the player to match his contributions in order to show commitment. A wealthy player could simply put forward the funding required, or make up the difference after failing to secure enough. Similarly, the stations in the system could each have recruitment options, each of which provide some friendly ships of an expected class in the climactic fight(and, presumably, draw on the funding collected earlier).
  • Having recruitment and fundraising be made up of a handful of simple(~2 minute), randomly selected tasks each allows for a good amount of content per game and high replayability without a lot of codework.
  • The commander could be competition here, though that'd require much more complex code and might not be worth the effort. He could go around to a handful stations, grabbing their funding and recruitable allies. More simply, a die roll could pick ~30% of stations and lock the player out of their resources under the explanation that the commander got there first, taking a larger or smaller percentage of stations depending on tradeoffs the player has made.
  • Optionally, fundraising could allow for the player to run off with the money. The economy's generous enough that I don't really see any players taking such an option other than to test it out, but it'd be interesting as polish or additional content.
  • Recruiting Rogue Fleet personnel is an interesting concept. An encounter at a bar or meeting hall in one of the stations in the system could introduce the player to a contact within the Rogue Fleet, but only if he hasn't razed too many of their stations(or, perhaps, if he doesn't have a very high Fleet rank). This could turn Rogue Fleet stations in the system temporarily neutral, allowing recruitment(and perhaps even fundraising - they have a stake in keeping out two factions they aren't on good terms with) to be carried out at their stations.
- The final fight shouldn't be something that the player can just power through without allies, as this would make the plot somewhat moot. Having enemies come from many different directions and attack different targets simultaneously(which the player's recruited allies would then defend) could help here. Fending off the Iocrym at Heretic and fending off the Chimeras at Gunsan seem like good bases to work from here. My (albeit not particularly creative) idea is below:
  • The location of multiple Kobol strongholds coordinating their organization's future in Heian have been discovered due to the player's intervention, and, thanks to the traitor, the Kobol are aware of this. 3 - 4 reasonably well fortified Kobol stations are highlighted on the player's map, and the player is given a squadron of ships whose size and composition is determined by the stations he recruited from. 1 - 2 ships per station seems reasonable, assuming a normal sized system.
  • Having lost their chance at quietly dominating a disorganized, terrified system incapable of fighting back, the Kobol decide to reclaim their power in a massive show of force. Across the system, 1 - 3 Kobol squadrons are generated to carry this out, and these squadrons are replaced every few minutes.
  • The task forces go after the stations that agreed to help the player(or the commander), attacking Komoro station once they've destroyed the last of them. Each station where recruitment succeeded spawns a squadron of ships which will guard it and move to aid any other friendly station that comes under attack. The Commander spawns and patrols around Komoro station, perhaps with a handful of ships he's recruited.
  • Should Komoro station be destroyed, the expansion's campaign has failed. Otherwise, the mission succeeds once all of the Kobol strongholds have been pacified. The ending dialogue is determined by the number of surviving stations that have helped the defense efforts in some way.
  • Reasonably, we'd need to handle 3 situations. The first two can occur if the player gets help from a fair amount of stations(>=3). If most of them survive, the player gets a reward and everyone's happy. If most are dead, the situation is more bittersweet, with anyone you're not on good terms with treating this as a vindication of their doubts in you, but the threat at hand being eliminated. The third situation occurs if none or few stations agree to help the player, but he somehow manages to protect Komoro and fend off the attacks despite this. I imagine the player would still get the reward and be fully accepted, but there'd be doubt as to whether Heian is prepared for future hardships.
Last edited by JohnBWatson on Sat May 20, 2017 1:56 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Ferdinand
Militia Lieutenant
Militia Lieutenant
Posts: 220
Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2015 2:35 pm
Location: Dancing in the universe
Contact:

I voted for the Anarchists, simply because in the vanilla game they are just cannon fodder. Much like the Centauri warlords. And their backstory is vague.
Derakon
Militia Lieutenant
Militia Lieutenant
Posts: 175
Joined: Sat Jan 21, 2017 2:53 am

Ferdinand wrote:
Tue May 23, 2017 7:44 am
I voted for the Anarchists, simply because in the vanilla game they are just cannon fodder. Much like the Centauri warlords. And their backstory is vague.
I do find it amusing how probably the most trivial faction in this videogame apparently makes their money via software piracy. :) ROMs are the primary loot on their stations, and in CC they get wrecked when they run some unvetted software they nicked from a cracked comms channel.
Post Reply