New Frames & Inventory Console Features

Rush · Post by **Rush** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 4:12 pm

I wrote it in another thread: update the AI to make it stronger in warzones and very hostile systems.
And maybe design a human-like AI for the "ace" missions

I would really like to see some players teaming up to fight a group of super-AI Vonari aces

:D:D

Post by **Marvin** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 4:43 pm

From post: 108148, Topic: tid=7616, author=Rush wrote:I would really like to see some players teaming up to fight a group of super-AI Vonari aces :D

It exists. You just need to abandon the mapped sectors of the galaxy and its jump gates to find it.

Rush · Post by **Rush** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 4:54 pm

Really? There are super-aces somewhere? Argh... I didn't know...
I want to find them! But...where do I begin? I'm very bad at exploring... (and I'm in the explorers clan

)

Post by **Marvin** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 4:55 pm

Stand by for a new quest that will, in the end, lead you to such a place. Probably this week. If all goes well.

Rush · Post by **Rush** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 4:58 pm

I'll be the first one to download it and play!

Post by **Marvin** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 5:20 pm

In most cases, the quest mod wonâ€™t require you to complete difficult contracts. But it will eventually take you to a location where the choice between fight and flight is a choice I personally make using the following proverb:

â€œHe who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.â€�

Think of Custerâ€™s Last Stand. Or the Alamo. Then ask yourself why youâ€™d want to be in either of those places.

Post by **DaveK** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 6:16 pm

EM doen't have "missions" but it does have "contracts" and it does have (moddable) "quests" - could either/both be adapted to do what we would like to see?

Adapting what is there should be fairly easy - adding a mission editor (if contracts are not the same as missions) would require the coding for missions to be added - I suppose it depends on what we mean by a mission as compared to a contract.

In other games that are mission based, the game is driven (ie controlled and directed) by doing one mission after another. Contracts are free based - you do them or you don't as you choose and in whatever order and from whatever location.

It seems to be a matter of semantics - I-War and FreeLancer are mission based ; EM is completely free sandbox with a quest (plus some modded quests appearing (thanks SeeJay)) and optional contracts (available at nearly every station and city)

Jack Dandy · Post by **Jack Dandy** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 6:48 pm

Here's another idea- multiple missions of different types that all count as the same contract. And it can be randomized as well.

For example, a race with a rival. It can end up with both of you ending up in a warzone and having to fight your way out, or maybe the rival's a jerk and summon some of his lackeys to blow you up once he loses.
And you'll get greater rewards for that.

Or maybe a special battle inside a radar-jamming nebula, that grants you more money among completion.. Right now, it happens only by chance. And nebulae don't really interrupt your radar.

There are many possibilities to use existing assets in the game to a greater degree, and thus make the it much more exciting and fun for everyone.

Rush · Post by **Rush** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 7:29 pm

Yes Jack Dandy, I expressed the same idea somewhere in one of the maaany posts of this thread

so I totally agree. Any way of improving/enhancing/extending the contract variety is desirable.

And to Marvin: if I have my powerful F9 to quick save, I can go anywhere and take any challenge

:D:D

Also shipping between different systems could be nice, like the passenger system, but with also enemies chasing you (some sort of VIP hot passenger)

Post by **DaveK** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 9:29 pm

It's an interesting idea having hostiles hunting you but how could they follow you if you jump to a random coordinate (like jumping out of a fight now)?

Multiple part contracts can use the oppresent building blocks but merged in ways that make them a bit less repetitive - examples might be

mine a certain ore, deliver it to a specific processing station and then deliver the finished product to a particular ship that you escort to a gate.

go to a particuar station/city in particular system to pick up specific medicines and deliver them (perhaps through a blockade) to a city in a different part of the system or a different system that is suffering a plague
(or simpler)
go and find a particular piece of technology (wherever you can find it) and deliver it through a blockade to a particular city/station or even ship that is stranded with equipment failure

Having bounty hunter contracts would be a great boon - either track down a particular hostile or go to a named system and earn credits for each hostile you take out. One simple development would be to pay for every Vonari that you destroyed in a warzone iutside specific military contracts - bonuses for hitting them in their home system -

One issue with hostiles is that they aren't really baddies, they are just hostile to you - they actually think of you as the baddy so we would need a new class of "pirates" who prey on the weak everywhere and hence everyone thinks that they should be taken out and hence would be willing to pay a bounty.

Could we have a contract for "developing a newly discovered system by building a mix of stations that increase its tech level and make its planets worth visiting - a bit like clans do - it might work well in SP since the cost would be exhorbitant and you would need an incentive to develop the system.

Possibly a contract could be to create stations in a chain between systems that aren't connected by gates so that people could refuel easily without having to build a fuel constructor and wait around to be bounced by random hostiles

:P:P

Rush · Post by **Rush** » Sun Jun 05, 2011 9:37 pm

Bounty hunting...good idea. Something like "go in that system and look for X, it should be near one of the stations or the cities". It's like the "ace contract" we already have, but the hunt across the system would be very nice

Probably a new frontier of contract is the multi-contract and the different sector/system contract

Jack Dandy · Post by **Jack Dandy** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 2:48 am

I like that bounty-hunting thing as well. From some experimental quests I tried, I saw that "searching" for stuff yourself (visually) can be a very fun experience as well.

Bounties that don't just include zooming right into the battle would be very refreshing.

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Mon Jun 06, 2011 6:13 am

I've played a few games that offer bounty hunting options: Terminus, Hardwar, X2, etc. I think the best realized, though was Terminus. The reason it was the best is that tracking the enemy was the hard part, whereas in the other games, the enemy was either right where the mission takes you or immediately visible on your scanner.

In Terminus, though, the mission tells you where the target was last reported. You go there, and the target isn't there. From that point, you need to find the target and hunt him/her down. You can get powerful long-range scanners to help, but if the target used a jump gate, those scanners will not be powerful enough.

That is where the sniffer comes in. You can actually buy a component to add to your ship called a sniffer. It hacks into the jump gate system and downloads a list of who used the gate. You can then see if your target has used the gate and then the destination. Each gate can go to several others, so before you can use a gate, you need to specify your destination. So, once you find your target registered in a gate, you can follow.

Couple of issues here:

1. The sniffer is marginally legal, meaning that if you dock at a station with high security standards, it will be confiscated.

2. There are also gate hacking devices that mask your signature, so that you can go through gates undetected (and free of charge).

3. I think it is possible to slip through a gate after another ship has opened it. I am not sure if you are charged or registered when you go through the gate this way, though. I imagine not, which means that if you wait long enough, and you don't care where you end up, you could go through a gate undetected (and free). A fleeing criminal might choose this option.

Terminus also had a Newtonian physics model in which the mass of every ship component (and cargo) affected the performance of the ship.

So, cool things about another game, but I think that Vice might not want to add features from other games into Evochron, but instead to add new features that are not seen elsewhere.

Post by **DaveK** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 8:08 am

I wonder what it would do to the feel of the game if gates had multi-destinations? Perhaps, instead of having two or three gates in a system (one for each of the adjoining systems), you had one gate with two or three destinations, so gates still only popped you to the next system, but it would become possible to introduce the sniffer and system to system tracking and gate hacking - it sounds like a lot of fun. It would also work in MP with PvP - you could play tag!

From a quick look on the web, I take it that terminus is gone - it appeared to be a web based game, but it's a bit hazy on details

Rush · Post by **Rush** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 8:16 am

To play tag in MP, press the tilde key. Best sniffer ever

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 11:13 pm

Here is a smallish update that I think would be cool.

I think that star stations should have little rotating signs telling you their names. It's mainly for visual effect, but it would make the stations kind of neater.

The text color could be a function of the faction of the station or maybe whatever they want. I don't know how hard it would be to code, but I suspect it should be possible to have the name display when you build a station like that.

Dingo · Post by **Dingo** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 11:21 pm

second on above

Post by **Marvin** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 3:28 am

From post: 108285, Topic: tid=7616, author=Nigel_Strange wrote:I think that star stations should have little rotating signs telling you their names.

It's possible. But would take a lot of work on Vice's part because he'd need to place a beacon directly above every station with a name to it. Kind of like when SW was stacking stations.

Nigel_Strange · Post by **Nigel_Strange** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 5:30 am

Marvin: I think that is how a modder would do it, but Vice, being the owner of the source code, could probably find a way to do it more efficiently.

Post by **DaveK** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 12:02 pm

From post: 108285, Topic: tid=7616, author=Nigel_Strange wrote:Here is a smallish update that I think would be cool.

I think that star stations should have little rotating signs telling you their names. It's mainly for visual effect, but it would make the stations kind of neater.

The text color could be a function of the faction of the station or maybe whatever they want. I don't know how hard it would be to code, but I suspect it should be possible to have the name display when you build a station like that.

Great idea in SP and MP - there are already visual candy stations (e.g. near gates) so that code seems to be there already

Jack Dandy · Post by **Jack Dandy** » Thu Jun 09, 2011 10:09 pm

Here are 2 issues I'd like to bring up again:

1. Some faction polishing- Why do they hate you in some regions and love you in others? It's never really explained...
Once time I was assigned to a capital ship protection contract, and the very ship I tried to protect was hostile...

2. Exploration- needs more visual cues! With all that space, there really isn't a clue on where you should start searching.

Post by **Marvin** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 1:57 am

1. That should only happen if you've accidentally fired on a good guy ... or hit him with a wayward Excal (it happens if your target is destroyed prior to all 8 missiles hitting). Else, you might've been protecting the wrong ship.

2. Use either MapMan's or Atollski's program to seek out new planets and uncharted star systems.

Jack Dandy · Post by **Jack Dandy** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 7:14 am

As I've said before- that kind of program should be part of the game itself IMO.
And besides, those are basically cheat programs, eliminating the need for exploration.

Players should enjoy exploring themselves, but not without any sort of clue-based systems.

[Edited on 6-10-2011 by Jack Dandy]

Post by **Marvin** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 7:26 am

From post: 108416, Topic: tid=7616, author=Jack Dandy wrote:And besides, those are basically cheat programs, eliminating the need for exploration.

Bad assumption.

MMaggio · Post by **MMaggio** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 10:51 am

Uh, sorry Marvin but I kinda have to go along with Jack on that last point.
I am lousy at exploration, but as has been discussed before, I would like to see the game provide some clues. I too think MapMan's & Atollski's programs are a form of cheating.
Don't pat yourself on the back just yet Jack Dandy! I don't know what happened or how, but there is no such thing as a contract to protect a hostile ship!
I'm not suggesting you are lying, I am saying you are confused about the contract and/or what happened. I repeat, there is no contract to protect a hostile cap ship.
And as for the random hostile systems, that's just the way the game is designed. Even the so called "Fair" systems has it's share of reds. The only system that does not have any reds is Sapphire and that's because it is considered a learning system, but if you start blasting ships there, they will turn red on you quickly.
I don't understand your complaint. Your nav map will tell you your status of every system you enter. Would you rather there were no hostile systems at all? At what point & how would you introduce any reds at all? This is just how the Author designed the game, with some systems more hostile than others. Personally, and apparently so do all the other players, I have no problem with it.
Good Hunting