Crowd Funding .. How about DLC Packs

[Bullock]

please close

[Edited on 8-31-2014 by Bullock]

[DaveK]

please close

[Edited on 8-31-2014 by Bullock]

??????

[DaveK]

As for the need for extra player made Jump Gates, no need.

On this point I must disagree. IM has two territories which are located off the beaten path. One of them is a 20-minute trip with a Mantis drive and the other ... well, Titto pretty much keeps that system up to speed by himself. If we could purchase and position our own jumpgates* then it would be a lot easier to maintain our current territory and even expand into other, currently unexplored, systems.

* Either that or find some container hidden far out in the boondocks filled with extremely long-range hyper-drives ... the kind which uses 3x the fuel but, heck, it's a trade-off.

In the past I have been persuaded by the argument against that it would 'litter' the Evoverse with gates and change to game play by a making everywhere eventually easy to get to. System to system travel reverts to 'rooms'. Marvin's argument awoke my brain from its slumber!

(The following happened during a 'dark time' when system attacks when no defenders were online was rife and consequently parts the forum were a bit less friendly than usual! )

I maintained a few HB uncharted systems and I'd invested a lot of time and money setting up three systems next to each other, fully stationed before I realised that even the short regular commute was a bind. Gates would have been nice! I got round it by 'cheating' - losing immersion in the process. , so I set up three 'janitor' profiles one for each location. I felt smug for a week or so until I realised that having clan systems that were simply pizza delivery opportunities was pointless - the 101K per system 5 times an hour wasn't actually a major game goal!

Here's a compromise . .

Allow clans (only) to create and maintain a pair of gates; one in their own system(s) and one in either another specified same-clan system or the nearest gated system. Indie's could still fly clan tags but to create a gate they would need a home (or several) to do so. If a clan abandoned a system or another clan took the system the gates would be removed automatically. You could even charge gate users a fee which would be added to the system pay.

Advantages:

1: solve Marvin's bugbear
2: encourage uncharted systems to be claimed (especially if the gates' locations are known only to the clan who can publicise them or not . . . though people can always search them out if they are desperate)
3: make owning a system a bit more fun and profitable and enhance system security a bit. (Attacking clans may have to seek out the inbound gate location in order to organise a mass attack!
4: avoid littering the Evoverse with gates and making inter-system travel resemble 'rooms' as in so many other games

[CS-ACI-]

Hello,

the 101K per system 5 times an hour wasn't actually a major game goal!

Here's a compromise . .

Allow clans (only) to create and maintain a pair of gates; one in their own system(s) and one in either another specified same-clan system or the nearest gated system. Indie's could still fly clan tags but to create a gate they would need a home (or several) to do so. If a clan abandoned a system or another clan took the system the gates would be removed automatically. You could even charge gate users a fee which would be added to the system pay.

Advantages:

1: solve Marvin's bugbear
2: encourage uncharted systems to be claimed (especially if the gates' locations are known only to the clan who can publicise them or not . . . though people can always search them out if they are desperate)
3: make owning a system a bit more fun and profitable and enhance system security a bit. (Attacking clans may have to seek out the inbound gate location in order to organise a mass attack!
4: avoid littering the Evoverse with gates and making inter-system travel resemble 'rooms' as in so many other games

I can actually see an advantage to getting the income from systems. It could remove the need to worry about "running" costs allowing you concentrate on Quests, exploration and or conquest.

When you say allow clans to have the gates, this might be hard to enforce as you can have any clan tag you want just by adding one. There is as far as I know, no ingame registry system for clans.

I do however see that it would be handy to have a private jump gate or even wormhole.

There is also the chance that a teleporter could be added to the deployable equipment list. This would work by building a new type of station that acts as a receiver. The deployed device would want to know which station to transport you too and then transport you. This could be implemented on both SP and MP.

This means that you still need to travel ( or a member of a clan in MP ) too the destination to create the receiver station. Keeps the game spirit going, and may even add some more too it from a clans perspective. As you could assign members different areas to explore.

Could limit the number of receiver stations any one player or clan tag could have, this stops any one player/clan becoming too dominant. Could still be a good number like 10.

If teleporters are a welcome idea as described above, then they should be added to the wish list and see what Vice says. As we may have the ideas but he has to put them in to practice.

Steve

[Maarschalk]

I have been playing these games for almost 6 years from the time of Renegades and still find plenty to do! The only reason I have not played recently is because of time constrained and not because I succeeded in all the End Game goals and more that DaveK mentioned in an earlier post!.........As for player buildable gates, that was possible in the earlier games using the customizing kit, and it became and was used as an exploit to build a pair of gates one right in front of your buying Station or free secret crates with High end equipment and one right in front of your Selling Station in a far away System and all you had to do was jump and trade sliding right from the gate into the Station or in front of the secret crates with a mining beam!.......:P

[Edited on 8-31-2014 by Maarschalk]

[DaveK]

Hello,

the 101K per system 5 times an hour wasn't actually a major game goal!

Here's a compromise . .

Allow clans (only) to create and maintain a pair of gates; one in their own system(s) and one in either another specified same-clan system or the nearest gated system. Indie's could still fly clan tags but to create a gate they would need a home (or several) to do so. If a clan abandoned a system or another clan took the system the gates would be removed automatically. You could even charge gate users a fee which would be added to the system pay.

Advantages:

1: solve Marvin's bugbear
2: encourage uncharted systems to be claimed (especially if the gates' locations are known only to the clan who can publicise them or not . . . though people can always search them out if they are desperate)
3: make owning a system a bit more fun and profitable and enhance system security a bit. (Attacking clans may have to seek out the inbound gate location in order to organise a mass attack!
4: avoid littering the Evoverse with gates and making inter-system travel resemble 'rooms' as in so many other games

I can actually see an advantage to getting the income from systems. It could remove the need to worry about "running" costs allowing you concentrate on Quests, exploration and or conquest.

When you say allow clans to have the gates, this might be hard to enforce as you can have any clan tag you want just by adding one. There is as far as I know, no in game registry system for clans. Single person 'clans' are allowed in game. Most single people who fly with a clan tag seem to use it as personal ID rather then as a 'true' clan ID. But if an Indie want their own system joined to the main gate web then they should be free to do so . . . if they can be bothered to maintain system control

I do however see that it would be handy to have a private jump gate or even wormhole. Yep!

There is also the chance that a teleporter could be added to the deployable equipment list. This would work by building a new type of station that acts as a receiver. The deployed device would want to know which station to transport you too and then transport you. This could be implemented on both SP and MP.

This means that you still need to travel ( or a member of a clan in MP ) too the destination to create the receiver station. Keeps the game spirit going, and may even add some more too it from a clans perspective. As you could assign members different areas to explore.

Could limit the number of receiver stations any one player or clan tag could have, this stops any one player/clan becoming too dominant. Could still be a good number like 10.

If teleporters are a welcome idea as described above, then they should be added to the wish list and see what Vice says. As we may have the ideas but he has to put them in to practice. What range are you envisioning? In sector? In system? Anywhere in Evoverse? How do you see it differing from a gate? Is it effectively a gate inside a station (like there's a gate inside one of the asteroid caves? Is it a two way device? - you mention it being a receiver but then say it would transport you to another station

Steve

[CS-ACI-]

Hello,

Teleport station, this would be the receiving point, no out bound travel. Clans/players would travel to where ever they wanted and build the station.

Teleport deploy unit, this would be the send unit, deploy - jump - single use, only to a pre-built receiver station. This could be added to the list of deployable objects, when used you would be asked which receiving station ( yours [SP] / clans [MP] ) you wanted to go to.

Distance not limited unless players or Vice think there should be.

So only one way travel from the deployable sender to the receiving station.

This would make the stations targets for other clans, heating up wars and possibly stranding a clan a long way out.

Steve.

[DaveK]

Hello,

Teleport station, this would be the receiving point, no out bound travel. Clans/players would travel to where ever they wanted and build the station.

Teleport deploy unit, this would be the send unit, deploy - jump - single use, only to a pre-built receiver station. This could be added to the list of deployable objects, when used you would be asked which receiving station ( yours [SP] / clans [MP] ) you wanted to go to.

Distance not limited unless players or Vice think there should be.

So only one way travel from the deployable sender to the receiving station.

This would make the stations targets for other clans, heating up wars and possibly stranding a clan a long way out.

Steve.

So if I read you correctly, I could build a receiver station somewhere safe in a gated system and then set off exploring. Say I get to 50 000 sectors 'out' and decide that there's no point going further, I can deploy a Teleport Sender and jump back to the station. The single use tag suggests that the teleport station won't accept anymore incoming travellers, just reverting to being a 'normal' station so even if I'm part of a group exploration, the rest of the group can't teleport back with me.

There are some interesting implications for play here!

[CS-ACI-]

Hello,

The "Receiver Station" is permanent and can receive unlimited travelers, unless a station detonator is used.

It would make sense to build them off the beaten track, maybe in a hidden sector or unknown sector for safety but the one area that jumps to mind ( excuse the pun ) Rift Space.

They could be used as clan outposts/strongholds.

The sender unit which would be deployed/activated by the player would be one/single use.

So yes, you could build a receiver station or several in known space and when you decided to return to civilization you would just use the deployable device from your ship.

I tend to go 1,000 sectors out, the move 10 sectors of axis and return when hunting for the unknown. With a Mantis Drive you are traveling one scanner section at a time when zoomed out.

Steve

[SeeJay]

When searching for new systems, this is a handy tool if you haven't tried it:
http://evochron2.junholt.se/main/planetsearch3.htm

[Marvin]

I don't think any space game currently allows the player to build his own jump gate ... probably because, in other space games, gates are only a device used to get the player from one “box� to another. The galaxies or universes are not seamless, as they are in Evochron games, ergo players must either use a gate or a faked hyper-drive to exit one star system and instantaneously enter another. Really bad games even add cut scenes to the process of warping “across� the galaxy. In other words, in other games there really is no hyper-drive which allows the player to directly cross multiple sectors of space.

Evochron has three modes of propulsion: (1) standard engines; (2) realistic hyper-drive engines; (3) jump-gates. The first two modes work great when exploring ... but become a bit cumbersome when a clan decides to expand their territory to include a few star systems which, even with a Mantis drive, take twenty minutes or more to reach.

But, if a clan could build their own gates in an Evochron game, the capability to do so should probably be:

• The end product of a quest ...
• Hidden within a star system far beyond the gated community.
• And, even when found, the “jump-gate makerâ€� should require certain minerals to build and operate ...
• And the blueprints for the device should cost a fortune.
• And the star system in question should, at the get-go, be hostile ...
• Forcing the clan to subdue the system and turn it from Hostile to at least Fair.

[Edited on 9-1-2014 by Marvin]

[DaveK]

That would make getting and keeping a system much more interesting that pizza deliveries!