Some ideas

[Blinzler]

Hi there,

just got my activation and wanted to add my little share of ideas.
Should there be anything that was mentioned before - please refrain from ripping me a new one

Here we go:
1. Pirates
I remember - a long long time ago *cough* - when I was playing star control 2 there were nifty little things like:
the Ur-Quan with their *Space-Marines*/ the Urq who send some of their crew to come over for a *Party*
Well couldn't that be slighty modified an implemented, say as a group of *uhm* Space Pirates? Nasty little buggers comming over after ripping through your shields and disabling you to search your cargohold for some nice little booty?
Just as a basic idea, I'm sure this has potential to add-on to.

2. RPG Element
Seeing how I'm somewaht of an RPG nut I always like to see some experience going up up... and then just tweeking around to get a little better in this or that. Well, seeing how I'm ripping through system after system punching holes through ships, killing throusands (on a mission of some *Goddess* or *Deity* - that much for being an ascended being and stuff ) wouldn't it be fun to add a little of that?
I kinda miss that
Maybe you could split your area of expertise and go three different ways as you *level-up*. Maybe Scout, Trader and Fighter. Scout obviously goes for speed and stealth. Trader gets some better prices or even more (interesting or just plain more) things to buy, maybe even could order more then once at the trading stations. Fighter could get bonus to the damage output, being trained in hitting the sweet spot or some other convenient explanation...

3. Sideways drive
Well, why not a a drive that lets you thrust sideways, keeping your target in front, but still being easily able to circle it without the hassle of turning away all the time? would make the non-omni weapon systems a little more attractive IMHO.

4. Sideways weapons
Why not *cough* borrow a little more form Star Control - the Pkunk had these sideways weapons, nice for fly-by shootings

5. Making Solarcells more usefull
Just a thought, but if solar cells were self-equip then I might be more inclined to carrying them around, should the occasion arise that I'd be in a tough spot without fuel I could kinda plug them in for a quick recharge around the next star. Maybe make them more of a usable device instead of a plug-in using one of the precious slots.

6. One more annoying Star Con reference
Well, one of my alltime favorite ships to fly was the thraddash ship with it's nice little afterburner. Now that was a nice *weapon*

So much for now, probably more later...

Blinzler

[Burzmali]

Hi there,

just got my activation and wanted to add my little share of ideas.
Should there be anything that was mentioned before - please refrain from ripping me a new one

Welcome abroad! I promise I'll be gently

Here we go:
1. Pirates

The scale of a battle is in light minutes, so I think that individual suits making the trek would be hard to justify. However, it might be interesting to have a particle cloud weapon that "knocks" stuff out of your hold. For example, a pirate ship would fire a cloud of them at you and if your shield is down, each particles that hits has a 5% chance of knocking an item out of your inventory and into a crate floating in space. The pirate is programmed to scavenge, so it races to recover the crate before you can.

2. RPG Element

That's tricky. It's hard to justify your ship moving faster because you killed abunch of stuff. It's like in other RPGs, where if you kill enough monsters, suddenly you can make cooler armor, how does that work? Of course, I would love to see an away mission built for the game, where your character's person abilities would play a larger part (a la Hard Nova) but that is more of a feature for a sequel, I think.

3. Sideways drive

Two problems, first is scale, engines that can push you from -.25c to .25c in under 20 minutes are modestly unrealistic, but manuevering thrusters that can push you to even .01c in a reasonable amount of time? That is really stretching it. Unless you drastically reduced the scale of battles, that is.

Second, the AI. Getting an AI to manuever like that without acting like a bullseye is a nightmare. That would mean that a directional thruster system would be a huge advantage for the player who can use it.

I suppose you could make it an alien drive, that is expensive and fuel hungry, but it comes close to being a game breaker in experienced hands.

4. Sideways weapons

Omnis and weapon configuration can do this now

5. Making Solarcells more usefull

George is working on this, personally, I think having suns that grant invinciblity and unlimited fuel are a bad idea, but hey, whatever floats your boat. I don't use them now and I will not use them then either.

6. One more annoying Star Con reference

People have modded in afterburners, but, the concept of afterburners in space is a little silly. Afterburners let you reach higher speeds in atmosphere, but in space your speed is only limited by your acceleration (IRL at least) so Boosters would be a better idea.

[Blinzler]

1. Pirates
Hmm, I really thought along the line of them using some kind of weapon system to knock you or more likely your ship out. Then you're a sitting duck and the get on with, well, looting you for the good stuff.
Now, obviously you would need some kind of defense, which we could offer in several flavours. a) a shield that is invulnerable or at least resistent to whatever knocks you out. b) an installed security system that effectively makes it so much harder for them to succesfully get on with looting, but doesn't really do a thing about knocking you out in the first place. (well, that would effectively piss off the rest of the nasties, which kinda could get ugly . On the other hand - if you pop in the RPG here you could be quite efficient at taking them out on your own as a Fighter, for example. And you could even upgrade the idea of somebody looting you to include stations. With a security system on board your far better protected from being mugged.) c) Have some disguised containers of explosives that look like something valuable and let them loot it - then switch a little button. Get ready to loot them.

2. RPG Element
I don't know Hard Nova (guess I am googling that later ).
But there's still room for RPG. Now taking the Scout/ Recon - he's just better at using his electronics to get out that little bit more of information, knows where to get that little piece of software that makes the static in nebulas a little less, sees a little further with his enhanced display. I don't think that's far from realism. Take a sub - the guy at the sonar knows to differentiate between all this blobs and pings the regular *unexperienced* guy knows as nothing else but blobs and pings.
Now that a trader has some better sources, knows to haggle better - Well, darn me, but I think that should be a given. He's a trader after all.
And the fighter - well, always go for the weak point. But knowing where it is? If you take real life - Kung-Fu dude and regular guy will fight quite differently, even given the same waepons. Comes all down to experience.
Never said anything bout better armor or the likes.
Also - you could split missions based on the path of the character - the fighter gets the missions with all the fighting, the trader gets to be a convoy himself, trying to get essential supplies to that station in dire, the scout gets to go and find the enemy station or some lost cargo... well you get my drift. Each to his specialty.

3. Sideways drive/ directional drives
Well, seeing how there are many many different factions and likely to be more - we wouldn't have everyone using the same thing and tactics.
Regarding realism - I don't really know, never been to space myself and all (hope this didn't sound condescending (hope this is the right word, english is not my first language))
Either way - I guess if you can have thrust at one end - why not at any of the other. Now - I see the argument of engineering comming up, with all the things I really don't have the slightest clue about - but let me counter-argue or questions: So what? I'm sure if you can make it one end, you can make it any other way, too, if the price is right.
Even if you scale down the thrust to a third from main thrust for the sidewards (and forwards - there should really be counterthrust) it would be a great improvement for one-directional weapon systems. From personal experience and I'm sure you will agree with me here - when you use a one-directional weapon and, e.g. have the enemy follow you theres always the situation where he's just that little bit off from your weaponsaxle to the side. Now a little thrust sideways and it would be helped.

As for the AI - don't got a clue about this, so *shrug*.

4. Sideways weapons
*ugh* Which ones?

5. Solarcells
Well, I personally don't think the solarcells are in any way overpowered of even remotely close to being so atm. I just think to make them something worth looking at is the option to use them when you need them. Personally I think it is more than likely that if you install some solar cell *hard* in a specific slot that would mean they are plastered to the outside of the ship *d'uh* and therefore if ever you drop your shield and get hit by something - there gone or done for. So I'd rather see them as a deployable sort of array you whip out in dire situations of no-fuel/ reactor failure etc. Maybe it would be wise to make them only produce just enough juice for the bare minimum - lifesupport an just enough engine thrust to get you to the next station.
I have to admit, the first time I played I got into the situation where I had nothing left and died a freezing death in a wide open space.

6. Afterburner
I guess I didn't really get to the point on this one. In SCII the thraddash have this afterburner weapon which - if I rmember this correctly - is a booster that speeds up the ship and ignites some fuel leaving behind the ship a sort of plasma cloud that damages anything that touches is. Kinda a do-it-yourself mind with added bonusses
It's pretty usefull when you have some nasties on your tail and leave them a friendly reminder, that you don't appreciate this. Kinda.

[TedStudley]

for the pirates, why not instead of suits, use individual little pods with guys in them that, when they hit your ship, break in and let the guys out. The enemy ship could launch the pods at your ship, which would get rid of the problem of distance (I think )

[Blinzler]

sort of like a manned torpedo, with a surprise warhead?
Well, sounds like fun, running through the ships targeting scanner trying to get all the pods killed before they start getting in

[OddBob]

About "character classes":

In general, I'm not very fond of them, nor do I like RPG style stat systems (you can't use the Assault Rifle, your Standard Weapons isn't level 6. You can't eat this fillet mignon, your Cutlery skill level isn't 12.) Let the player decide by their actions what 'class' they are. No, I'm not talking about having the game see what you're doing and label you a class, I'm saying don't even add classes.

I'd prefer it if there were just the opportunities for many different playstyles, but no part of the game telling you "you are now a trader/fighter/etc". Example: you want to be a trader, do Korolev missions. Tired of that? Do some militia work. You're now a fighter. The structures are already set up in game, and they can be expanded.

If you picked "trader" at the beginning of the game, then all of a sudden the militia is giving you cargo runs and everyone in the bars asks you how the shipping is going.

But if we fail to define it, then you can be a trader by buying a cargo expansion and selling food to hotels. Or you can say "I'm a smuggler" and get a drive enhancement as well and deal in illegals. You can say "I'm a fighter" and get a kiloton, or "I'm a hacker" and get a CPU. Or you can say "I'm a freedom fighter" and devote your life to freeing slaves.

[Blinzler]

It never really occured to me to see character classes as limitations to the freedom of acting/ choices.
Rather I see them as a specialization into an area of expertise, giving one an advantage in just that area.
On the other hand I wouldn't like the idea of giving you unlimited freedom - then it's likely to end in the I-know-everything, have-all-the-best etc. powermongering.
I see your point though. Theorizing that some RPG-element might be possible in the game one could always add a jack-of-all-trades, who doesn't specialize, just drifts whereever he feels like going next. An adventurer
I said it before somewhere - I prefer to have strenghts and weaknesses.
Life is about choices, why shouldn't a game represent that, too.

[Betelgeuse]

there is a point for classes though. You see it in alot of final fantasy games where you can make everyone master of everything and when characters get like that there isn't anything you can do to balance the game. A effect of that in this game is that everyone has tons of credits.
Weather classes are the answer I don't know but they do serve a useful purpose.

[Burzmali]

Character classes must be good, just look how have all of the paper RPGs have run away from them kicking and screaming (D&D included)

As computer RPGs are usually around 5 to 10 years behind paper RPGs, character classes are still gold!

[OddBob]

there is a point for classes though. You see it in alot of final fantasy games where you can make everyone master of everything and when characters get like that there isn't anything you can do to balance the game. A effect of that in this game is that everyone has tons of credits.

Currently, "leveling up" is handled by having better equipment become available or affordable. Skills are replaced with equipment, and you can only have so much equipment, as opposed to skills, which you can improve as much as you have time or cash for. I propose this continue to be the case. For fighting, hacking, scouting and sneaking you need the best equipment to be the best at it, and if your ship is all decked out as a gunship, you have no room for the electronic equipment required to be a hacker. You can, however, get mediocre hacking equipment and mediocre weaponry and be a fighter/hacker, okay at both but excelling at neither.

The problem here is trading, as it's really the weak point. You can always buy low and sell high even if you only have a 1 ton cargo hold, and loot is the major source of income, so basically, everyone will be able to trade a little bit. Trading is something you can do and focus on, but it never restricts you much from other thigns.