saying they have should have consequences and making those consequences be a real alternative is the hard part though.
You can't just say its criminal to the commonwealth because they have a strangle hold already on the early to mid game equipment. This option can work with a good relationship system but I don't see that coming anytime soon.
You can't have them send bounty hunters after you because all that does is encourage farming of the bounty hunters.
Automatically costing a price may work if they had random loot. Kind of like a lottery but that would seem to encourage farming off of them. Plus if the price was too high no one would use it and it would be an useless feature.
In my suggestion I was trying to reward experience and paying attention but still allow for emergency situations (need those credits for fuel and am willing to take the risk)
hmm... Luminous drones have the <OnDestroy> event, so it can be used in a ship- basically, any ship can have an <OnDestroy> for consequences to make things interesting.
How about some form of more complex random antagonists- you get into a system and suddenly there's some other 'NPC' style ship coming to get you for unstated reasons- however, they aren't a common enemy. Rather than expose themselves, they send 'killer drones' after you, and perhaps a few long range missiles or shots. After a wave or two of robotic attackers, your unknown antagonist seemingly disappears for a while- but now you know that someone is after you- but why? and who? and how to stop them?
This could also work as a protagonist/antagonist encounter- perhaps you run across an intense dog fight between some corporate factions- you choose a side and set the stage for further protag and antag actions from the factions.
Addit- How about more development in the Cargo Container and other space objects that get randomly added to a system- finding the 'right' piece of floating junk could lead you to a variety of mini-adventures.
Such as running across a 'hermit' inventor of some sort who could be 'installed' into your new ship research lab hold extension and make things for you if you find the right parts over the course of exploring.
You know, I've always wanted my very own hermit...
Unusual objects in cargo containers would be an excellent method of introducing 'psuedo-missions' or whatever you want to call it when you're not being led around by the nose. Mysterious map roms, rare halo gems, that sort of thing. The occasional alien device of enigmatic function could be thrown in for good measure.
hmm it might be useful to list out all the ways that a player could conceivably find themselves in a non standard situation.
accept a mission (basic they ask you to do something and you agree to it)
use an item (ammo boxes are a good example of this but this can be expanded much more such as finding someones kid and having to find their partents)
destroy something (like the corp stations and the Charon main station)
loot something (no current examples but like the example I gave earlier)
see something (like you see something and later someone comes along to either silence you or ask what happened)
be someplace (like the forced arena)
timed (stay in a certain system too long and it might happen, kind of like Charon)
dock (like with commonwealth and slaves or illegals)
buying or selling (maybe buy something from a shady dealer and you find its something you didn't expect)
refueling or installing (a dock accident event would be cool or installing an unknown device that triggers a different thing to happen)
becoming powerful (such as once you become too powerful the commonwealth might see you as a threat)
IN addition to looting thing you can leave things - jettisoning cargo might prompt a reaction form someone. A simple example is someone takes offense to littering by their station (also someone might like it - Tinkers and salvagers for example).
Another one is the corollary to becoming powerful - staying weak. Perhaps some kind of domina benefit for humility or some other reward for making it far without upgrading.
Fossa's idea gave me an only somewhat related idea that some enemies might behave differently depending on how you are facing, or whether you are accelerating - for example Heliotropes might ignore anyone near their stations who keeps their ship oriented towards the sun (well I read the official info again and they aren't exactly the sun worshipping cult I thought they were but it's still an interesting idea). Also perhaps something like if you sit still long enough you can lure some ferians into coming over and trying to "mine" you - likewise if you are only drifting ferians might not scatter when you come along as they do now.
It would be neat to have a powerful enemy that doesn't notice you unless you move (accelerate, that is, drifting around is fine). Perhaps some automated Heretic defenses like this or something - it would make a neat puzzle if there were also obstacles of some kind - you have to dodge the obstacles but at the same time make as few movements as possible because every item you move the turrets attack.
having shields up
having devices activated even when not in use
having certain types of a ship (having a freighter might be more attractive to pirates or some enemies don't mind you then)
Ooh...I love the idea of acceleration triggers. This would be a nice alternative to a more complicated detection system. Being able to 'sneak' would be a lot of fun.
Reading the heliotrope snippe in the sovereigns thread on the UTF, it sounds like they would still be radically environmentalist. Conserving fuel through their territory might make them more amicably disposed towards you.
That would be interesting as a friendly station encounter - if you approach the station with your shields up you are fired upon, but if you come with shields down (and approach slowly), you are allowed to dock and trade in powerful items/services. You'd have to weigh the risks of getting attacked en route with the good deals inside.
Being able to 'sneak' would be a lot of fun.
I think it would too - it would be nice if detection was more of a chance than a "once it is in sensor range you can automatically see it" kind of thing, both for you and your enemies.
Conserving fuel through their territory might make them more amicably disposed towards you.
How about having all solar armor and a solar panel?
I think some aspects based around Communications would be interesting- and possibly easy to implement.
Distress Call-
Player enters a system and receives a distress message of some kind recurring every however-many-seconds on the screen.
In the Ship's Interior a new dsCom to handle Communication is available where the player can choose to respond to the signal in some way- such as 'respond' or 'locate origin'- responding means you send your own message back, letting them know help is on the way, locating it just lets you know where the message is coming from.
Most any actions in the dsCom will place a map marker on the origin of the signal- responding may give you more info, such as the actual name of the sender (SoAndSo's Ship, or BurningDown Station) whereas locate would only give you a "Distress Signal" map marker.
---> Once the COM has a lock on the signal, the recurring message can be shut off
Once the location is shown the player can intercept and offer aid or find other ways to take advantage of the situation in progress.
Situations can depend on the imagination of the modders- Centauri occupations to Charon style battles or anything else could be going on at the source of the distress call.
Addit- Oh, yeah- I forgot the whole point to the idea was about creating a method for handling Communication events- the distress signal being only one kind of com you can get. Others could involve docking procedures for some stations, warnings and quarantine zones "do not enter", and more I am sure.
If that kinds of thing could happen dynamically on it's own instead of being scripted - for the freighter example if you set the pirates to occasionally attack freighters on their own (this already happens by accident with Xenophobes and the like, however much of the universe is currently player-centric) then also set freighters to send a distress when they are under attack.
It seems like it would be possible to set up some generic variable distress calls, but we may not want too many of them firing off all the time.
I suppose a method to 'block' incoming transmissions could also easily be set up- keep it optional to turn the thing off entirely.
Perhaps we could make the whole Com system based around various installables- so you can improve your range and sensitivity down the line, or dispense with the systems if you want.
It seems like it would be possible to set up some generic variable distress calls, but we may not want too many of them firing off all the time.
I don't think it's a problem - for one, you can set it up to be either range or chance based, for two you don't have to respond - you can just ignore it.
I think the com system could be simpler - just display the message once (and possibly log it somewhere) like current messages are. If the player wishes to respond he can respond by going to the com menu (be it like autons are now or a "room" in the ship like fuel) and selecting the sender and then sending a message of his own.
It seems like it would be possible to set up some generic variable distress calls, but we may not want too many of them firing off all the time.
I don't think it's a problem - for one, you can set it up to be either range or chance based, for two you don't have to respond - you can just ignore it.
I think the com system could be simpler - just display the message once (and possibly log it somewhere) like current messages are. If the player wishes to respond he can respond by going to the com menu (be it like autons are now or a "room" in the ship like fuel) and selecting the sender and then sending a message of his own.
