New Frames & Inventory Console Features

Sinbad · Post by **Sinbad** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 2:23 am

In fact Atollski's Navdat app is very effective at locating unknown planets if you know how to use it. It was a great feeling when I accompanied him on one of his early voyages. After some calculations we set off across the black... after a while he spoke over the comm "right we should be approaching the coordinates about.. now" and whaddya know, some uncharted planets suddenly came up on the nav map! Amazing stuff!

Anyway for those who can't get thier head around numbers (i'm one of them!) I definitely endorse the hint system idea.

One way like this: Out in the depths of space you happen to pass by a lone ship. You send a trade request and open the console. Instead of offering a sale you ask for any information. If your reputation is low he asks for some payment first. In return he tells you about a rumoured location/direction with coords which may or may not be accurate.

I think this would add to the interaction/immersion and could work both in MP and SP.

Post by **Marvin** » Sun Jun 19, 2011 3:55 am

There's a new quest mod that has hints and helps round out the various factions. And more quests could do it even better.

LeadCommando65 · Post by **LeadCommando65** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 11:34 am

Like others, I also have the feeling, that the exploration part is a bit "loose" and very time consuming (which I dont have much of). I think, there should be some more possibilities, which make you aware, when you come near such places. I like the ideas from MMaggio and MCCON, that there could be the maps/hints from destroyed ships or that you could buy informations from other pilots (money sink!).

Also the patrols I suggested would be of some use here: You can follow them and they could bring you near the place on their route and you will eventually discover the hidden planet/station/etc. This could also work for the pirate stations (e. g. police patrols check out this places).

Patrols could also create small battles (e. g. system police vs. pirates), where you have the choice which side you take (or leave them alone).

I could not find any topic about the following: What about making the game available on steam? I dont know the conditions, but as I saw so many Indy games on steam last time, I thought this could also happen to Evochron. It would reach a far greater number and the game would become more popular. Even updates are devilered very easy (at least for clients). Just an idea...

Sinbad · Post by **Sinbad** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 6:45 pm

I like your idea about following patrols. As it is now AI ships seem to spawn fairly randomly out in deep space. It would be great if you noticed a pattern or a convoy of freighters travelling in a particular direction, then following them to discover some secret colony.

Post by **Marvin** » Mon Jun 20, 2011 11:28 pm

Yeah, that was one of the things I liked about X-3 ... following a string of radar blips to a far-away jump gate.

Jack Dandy · Post by **Jack Dandy** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 6:36 pm

A question for Vice if he's watching-

What are the general plans for the future?

Post by **Vice** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 7:39 pm

It ('general plans') is always 'up in the air'. I work on what players ask for (popular/repeat requests, feedback I get in e-mail, etc) and what can fit within the codebase framework and gameplay design goals/focus of the game.

Jack Dandy · Post by **Jack Dandy** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 11:10 am

Got it!
But still- are there any immediate plans/things you plan to imlement in the game after the next update? I'm curious about that kinda stuff

[Edited on 6-26-2011 by Jack Dandy]

d3drocks · Post by **d3drocks** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 6:58 pm

antialaising.

Jack Dandy · Post by **Jack Dandy** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 10:36 pm

Oh! And another question- I noticed that when you go over about 3000 speed, the blurring starlets that fly by the cockpit just disappear when you look forward.

Is it supposed to be that way? It kind of eliminates the sense of speed.
I noticed how you use that "tube" technique to emulate speeding objects (like in the warp gates, rainstorms, etc). How about that when you reach a higher speed quota, a new starlet "tube" will be added around the ship to signify your high velocity?

Psycho · Post by **Psycho** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 8:33 pm

Also perhaps some way of determining where someone jumped ? or some indication they just did jump? some kind of vapour trail perhaps? it bugs me a little that i never know where someone goes...

Dingo · Post by **Dingo** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 8:36 pm

hit the tilde key you psycho

Psycho · Post by **Psycho** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 9:04 pm

haha, silly me. that totally works...when i see cylon again... *evil look**

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 9:19 pm

LOL......

:P:P:P:P:P:P

Dingo · Post by **Dingo** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 9:57 pm

i would like for the fuel processor to work faster. As is its faster to build a station to refuel, which leaves a bit of station clutter.

Mecingo · Post by **Mecingo** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 10:26 pm

From post: 109406, Topic: tid=7616, author=Dingo79 wrote:i would like for the fuel processor to work faster. As is its faster to build a station to refuel, which leaves a bit of station clutter.

I know, it takes forever to fill the tank. O_O

[Edited on 6-28-2011 by Mecingo]

Post by **Marvin** » Tue Jun 28, 2011 10:56 pm

It helps to have somebody watching your back while you refuel.

Dingo · Post by **Dingo** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 11:01 am

any chance player built station could appear as a different color in the nav map? nothing drastic, maybe a green or yellow

d3drocks · Post by **d3drocks** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 7:38 pm

Time compression for single player would be nice.

Post by **DaveK** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 8:33 pm

From post: 109485, Topic: tid=7616, author=d3drocks wrote:Time compression for single player would be nice.

optional though - I like the real time aspect - even getting to Earth takes less than a couple of hours

Post by **DaveK** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 8:41 pm

From post: 109406, Topic: tid=7616, author=Dingo79 wrote:i would like for the fuel processor to work faster. As is its faster to build a station to refuel, which leaves a bit of station clutter.

I agree - however you can deploy a force field so that you can sit safely inside the fuel processor and go and have a coffee while you get topped up

- it does take a knack to do it though - often the message is that the processor is in the way or you create the filed bubble with the fuel processor outside it!!

If there are baddies waiting outside head in the opposite direction and jump away or (if you are so inclined) blast the varmints

As you say, if money is no object you can create a station and top up instantly

Dingo · Post by **Dingo** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 8:48 pm

DaveK, I forgot about the money difference. Don't pay much attention to cash nowdays, that makes it a little beter a trade-off, speed or cost...hrm...

Flying Brick · Post by **Flying Brick** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 3:57 am

I know I'm a very late comer, but I still would like to post a few thoughts about a few things...just because this is such a great game, and even though it is, and feels, complete, it also has tremendous potential...

Since these games have been around for such a long time, I am sure that some of my ideas have been proposed, debated, and likely shot down before (repeatedly

). So I've tried not to post anything that I've noticed proposed before during my lurking, with one exception.

Alright, things I'd like to see:

Some small fixes/changes, not important, but perhaps nice-to-have:

- for missions where you have to kill x fighters at each waypoint (including single-waypoint missions), I'd like to see the number of remaining kills to be made, if possible. I find it hard to keep count, myself, what with all the missiles flying around me

- would it be possible to change one's callsign? perhaps for a cost - this is a _mercenary_ universe after all, so there is a cost for everything. Perhaps in money, or, even more realistically, in reputation; after all, if you change your identity, the factions won't know the new persona, so you lose all or some of the reputation you've built; perhaps in only the current system, perhaps in all...

- confirmation before jettisoning one's cargo: I know it's been requested and discussed before (http://www.starwraith.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4620)...my problem is not the key shortcut, but inadvertent clicking while docked on the Jettison Cargo option, which is between two other options that I click on rather frequently (News, in particular). And I don't think you can recover your cargo if you jettison it while docked...

Ok, now for some features, which is more in the spirit of this thread.

First, let me add my vote to the idea that perhaps we can make at least part of exploration a bit easier and less time-consuming, less of a brute-force approach.
I'm thinking along the following lines:

- hint-based system coordinates, as already mentioned; perhaps in a bar/restaurant

- another option is this: perhaps we could have missions where the reward is the coordinates of a random system; it doesn't have to be the _exact_ coordinates, and it doesn't even have to be _full_ coordinates; perhaps you get "half a scrap of paper" now, with only the approximate SX, and you get the SZ with another mission, later on. Then you put the two together, and go to that location and start jumping around (such that we don't completely eliminate the element of chance, nor the actual exploration)

- not all planets need to be covered by such quests, of course. But it would be so rewarding to discover a new system, without spending hours of blind jumping around, even if there isn't anything new or special about that system, but _you_ discovered it!
(And this is why I think exploration is such a cool feature in this game - kudos again, Vice!)

Another thing I'd really like, especially as a new(ish) player, is more history/background.
Look, this is gonna sound more critical than it is intended, and I apologize in advance for that, because the last thing I want is for it to be interpreted that I like this game less than enormously.

Basically, it's like this: I get into the game, and there are several factions - alliance, federation, some alien (?) race, then vonari...and I have no idea what the difference is between the alliance and the federation, I have no idea about the "Arvoch conflict" which is mentioned in several places, and so on.
Who are the Vonari? What do they want? What do they look like?

I've read a bit of the history on SeeJay's site (evochron.junholt.se, iirc), and that helped a bit - but, like others have said before, why is that not in the game?
I'd love to read bits of history and info on the universe like that in the game - I guess I'm the kind of person for whom that would help immersion considerably...

Now, I realize that for older players, who DO know what happened in the previous games, Arvoch, Renegades & Legends, things might be redundant. But we can probably make it such that the information is not in-your-face, it's just somewhere where it can be found, if you _want_ to look for it.

I realize writing long text is boring and tedious and perhaps Vice doesn't want to spend his time doing that, and I think that's perfectly reasonable, but I also have a solution for that: let the players do it. Perhaps in the wiki, perhaps make a contest of sorts where players submit entries, and so on; sure, you'd still have to spend time to _read_ the entries and perhaps to fix a few things, but it'd still be much easier and less time-consuming than writing them all from scratch...

Yet another possibility is that you could get some bits and pieces from the aforementioned bars...

Similarly, to continue with the things that might be a bit obscure to the new player, if I hadn't read it on the forums, I would have had no idea about the IMG quest. As a new player, it's not obvious that there's anything special about it (I know the mission entry does make it different from the others, but in the beginning you are not familiar enough to figure that out). Who are the IMG and what do they want from me ?

I'd also like to know about Riftspace. What is it? What is its history? Yes, I realize I can probably dig up info on it like I found the history of Evochron Legends on SeeJay's site, but, again, the idea is that perhaps that info can appear in the game itself...

Another feature I think could be cool, is races in the atmosphere. I'm sure this has been proposed before, but I just haven't found any posts on it... I mean races just like the ones you have in space, but this time in the planet's atmosphere. The idea, of course, is that it's a lot more challenging because of the planets with unfavourable conditions such as very strong winds, or weird magnetic anomalies that continuously affect your direction, and so on.

Another idea, somewhat related to this, is the following: the shipyard, and the whole concept of designing your ship, assembly points and so on, is REALLY cool and I love the way it is implemented, and all the flexibility it allows you to customize your frames; would it be possible for the arrangement of frame parts (engines, shield, etc), to make a difference in either or both of the following ways?

a) first, the actual placement of components affects drag; in space this is less important, but it becomes crucial in atmosphere, and it would make things really interesting in the above-mentioned atmospheric races. How is it not cool to design your frame for maximum sleekness and to thump the AI's sluggish frame?

b) second, and this might be stretching it too far, but hey, it's ideas, right?
Still related to the placement of frame components, and also to how targeting works.
It's easier to explain by a reference to Privateer, which probably most of you were familiar with at some point. Privateer also featured an alien race called Kilrathi. The Kilrathi ships had a very specific design in that they were _extremely_ flat, almost two-dimensional. As a consequence, in dogfights, when they were coming at you head-on, it was very difficult to actually hit them - the only time they were really vulnerable was when they turned 90 degrees from you, exposing the entire surface of their ship for a brief interval.
I'd like to throw that idea out there. I don't know how feasible it is, but I'd like for the frame design to make a difference in how easy it is to target/hit a ship; naturally, it's much easier to hit a huge ovoidal blob, than a sleek and streamlined thing.

The main obstacle in this case seems to be the aid that you get when targeting something, which more or less directs hits at the enemy ship even if you're not very accurate - I'm not explaining it well, but most of you should know what I mean.

Again, it's just a thought. In Privateer, I had a much harder time killing Kilrathi than non-Kilrathi ships of any other kind...

Anyway, I want to conclude by repeating that these aren't criticisms, and that I am utterly in love with the game and would like to turn back time so I could have experienced the entire sequence (and I am jealous of those of you lucky enough to have done so).

And Vice, thank you again for such a wonderful game, and for your dedication and support and overall friendliness and openness!

cheers, Flying Brick signing out to kill some more of those pesky rebels - Pearl won't pacify itself, you know...

Rush · Post by **Rush** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 10:53 am

Vice would be (even more) my hero, if instead of the MDTS he programs a funnel

A funnel is the best way existent in modern fighters to predict the trajectory of your gunfire. In this way the ability needed to hit your targets would be reeeeeally demanding.

For example you could leave all the guns like they are (with MDTS) but make powerful and low-energy consuming gun with funnels, and not MDTS (for some in-game reason

)
In this way a pilot could choose an easy-to-use and reliable but not very performing gun which uses MDTS, others could choose more powerful and at the same time low-energy consuming guns, which are very hard to use (have you ever tried a military flight simulator? If yes, you know what I mean with hard

:D:D).

Just an idea. The necessity I feel in these days is to make combat and especially PvP more asymmetric. It tends to become a little repetitive, based more on few-seconds ability instead of something more, like in real air engagements

Also a signal-jammer would be very useful. Something that makes detection and locking harder. Locking with MDTS and missiles could become less easy and your target would be less predictable. In this way MDTS would be less effective, and pilots could maybe migrate to the funnel-system.
In fact there's the possibility to deactivate the MDTS, but why? Right now it's only a problem if you accidentally press L button and deactivate it

However, the key concept is "more asymmetry"

[Edited on 2-7-2011 by Rush]

Jack Dandy · Post by **Jack Dandy** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 11:24 am

Agree with Brick! The universe should be fleshed out more for us newcomers to the Starwraith games.

Also, Rush has a good idea. It also reminds me something- the Armored Core series of games have something similar to MDTS- a targeting computer. They have all sorts of ranges, and forms they can follow the targets in (small squares with long range, wide squares with med range..). I think it would be a better edition to the game then the current one, and would also allow for better costumization!