Owners Manual

[hookoa]

I would think a good way to inform the players of their ship stats is to leave an "owners manual" ROM as starting equipment for their ship. There can be a WolfenROM, E100 Series ROM, sapphireROM etc.

Activating the ROM could open a dialogue screen:
"We at Zubrin Systems would like to thank you for your recent purchase of a 23X6 Sapphire Yacht. Your yacht is capable of travel through stargates. All models come standard with a recoiless cannon and snazzy creme paint job. If you're the paranoid sort, your ship's hull is strong enough to support 6 tons of armor. etc..."

I'll repost this in bugs and brainstorms.

[george moromisato]

That's a good idea.

Another possibility is to have the specs for each ship shown at the beginning of the game (when you get to choose a ship). I really would like to do that for 1.0.

[hookoa]

I think the manual option is more immersive (correct word?). A small stat listing on the ship choosing page would be good too. I think the combination would be best.

[BlackPheonix]

i love this idea, and yes immersive is corect....

[george moromisato]

I'm all for immersive, but how is the player supposed to figure out what ship to get *before* they buy it? Don't you need the specs up front?

[Yugi]

Why not both?

[BlackPheonix]

yeah, that's what hookoa said...

[OddBob]

Why not both?

Because after the first game when I read it I would just have to sell the darn thing. It's already annoying enough to have the "press U to use that item" keep popping up until I use something for the first time, now I have to get rid of an item that's only useful once? Not even once per game, but once period. Leave it on the start screen where it's actually useful (because that' where you need that information to make a choice).

[hookoa]

I think a start screen in a sales office with a salesman and various models of ships in the background would be a cool start. The salesman could rattle off the specs of the ship, but you could just ignore that part and click on the ship you want to start with. This kind of "ship sales lot" would be a good start too if switching ships in the middle of the game was implemented.

[F50]

That would be neat, another thing to think about would be a "test drive" option in which you would fly the ship around doing different training objectives: "fly through obstacle course", "dock", "use item (owner's manual)","use . and reverse thrust to stop", "hit ship", "destroy enemy defense turret", "gate back to office" etc.

[Yugi]

Yeah, that'd be handy for beginners, and there could also be a tutorial on/off option for more experienced players.

[FAD]

That "Test Drive" idea would work great in that it could be where all those "Press U's and A's and D's and such" would be, freeing all that up for when you start the actual game-you wouldn't see them.

[Yugi]

I jut had a thought - if the owner's manual idea is introduced, then the ship description in the PlayerSetting section in ship mods will finally actually do something in the game! It would probably go somewhere below the "thank you for buying this ship.....etc."

[evilbob]

how'd you do it? I want to make them for my ships...