New Frames & Inventory Console Features

[Speaker Rob]

1) Sensors! By that I mean I want upgrades, and advanced windows for scanning foreign objects in space, and for that matter more foreign objects in space! I'd like to see proximity sensors, deep space scanners (narrow and wide beam), various modes of scanning something (i.e. topographic, heat, etc). I'd like to see situations where someone is hiding in an asteroid and my weak sensors can't find them, but if I had a high power narrow beam sensor array it could penetrate the rock. This could also open up avenues of realism such as object material densities affecting certain types of scanners or slowing their scan, etc. I just think it would be neat in a space Sim and it's something I've never seen in a game to date.

I was thinking about this again today and talking with my friend (who really hates the lack of interesting missions) and we thought if you had sensors that could make topographic maps there could be missions to go survey planets for would-be colonists (all the cities had to get there somehow, right?). You would be required to orbit while having your sensors active and it would literally pull the topography from the mesh and show you a little planet slowly being mapped.

On another note, he suggested that it would be cool if instead of just blowing up you had to pay to be rescued from your escape pod and then buy a new ship with whatever funds you had before your ship got destroyed. Just an idea for a more persistent experience, not every players cup of tea I'm sure. He also was really bummed that stations had no defense turrets or permanent shielding. I thought that would be a neat idea too.

Ah! So many ideas, too little space! (pun intended!)

Thanks everyone for thumbs-upping my ideas! I've been reading through this thread on other peoples' ideas and saying to myself: "why didn't I think of that one!?"

[Sinbad]

Great idea of surveying planets. Perhaps with a Science Officer you could also have detailed scans of mineral resources with different minerals being concentrated in different regions of the planet.

The escape pod idea has come up many times before... I think it would be a popular feature. Would also make dying in-game less frivolous.

[DaveK]

If Vice made player created cities destructible, use the same model, and limited 1-3 per planet then that would be a freaking awesome idea.

Nuke the site from orbit...it's the only way to be sure.

Game over man, GAME OVER!

Nuke the site from orbit...it's the only way to be sure.

That's a quote from Aliens

"Game over, man!" is from Aliens2 as well

[Edited on 19-8-2012 by DaveK]

[DaveK]

Have cargo stack when you beam it onboard. Right now I can beam a crate of 12 cargo and one with 14 cargo and instead of taking up one slot with 25 and one slot with 1 it separates them each in their own slot. This is frustrating if I just killed a bunch of bandits and their is more than five containers floating around.

I am sure there is a way to combine partly filled cargo containers in the inventory screen but I can't remember it! I'll see if I can find the reference - perhaps someone with a better memory than mine can post the answer!


EDIT From Vice, no less!

Be docked at a station, city, or carrier, then hold the Alt key, then Right Mouse Click on the cargo you want to consolidate.



[Edited on 19-8-2012 by DaveK]

[Marvin]

IIRC. After docking, use the Alt key in conjunction with right-clicking. If right-clicking doesn't work, then try left-clicking. But always in conjunction with the Alt key. Else you either jettison or sell the items in question.

[spinblade]

Hi,

Really new to the Evochron world, and I'm keeping my powder dry on buying it until the big expansion drops, but still wanted to just put something out there regarding ship safety when in the walker.

As a big fan of Elite growing up, I always wanted to land on planets and get out of the ship, so I've been following the discussions on the walkers quite keenly. I'm not sure where you've settled on the question of ship safety when in the walker, but like I said, I'm just putting this out there.

If you've settled on some kind of solution that makes the ship impervious to attack in some way, would that affect immersion to some extent? If there's some kind of technology in the Evochron universe that makes ships invulnerable to attack when you're in the walker, then surely the *denizens* of the Evochron universe would have long ago agitated for a similar solution when in flight. That would obviously be impossible and not much fun . But nevertheless, if you know you're completely safe when landed, but it's not a technology that's extended to flight, it's maybe a bit of an immersion killer. Also, not being able to attack other landed AI or MP ships because they're invisible or protected by some kind of impervious shield that only appears when the ship is landed and empty might also similarly be an immersion breaker.

To my way of thinking, in a real world scenario, it would be up to the pilot to make smart decisions about landing environments and it would be up to you to have a ship strong enough to handle you being away from it for a while before you even start thinking about landing and leaving the ship. A proximity warning that goes off in the walker alerting the pilot that a third-party ship is in the area might be cool. That gives you some time to get back. However, if you've chosen a bad landing site and then strayed too far, maybe that should be the way the cookie crumbles. That would be the case in a real world scenario.

There could perhaps be some kind of insurance you pay monthly or weekly or whatever the case may be that you can choose to take when you purchase a walker that insures your ship up to a certain amount, and if the ship gets taken out, it gets taken out and the insured amount is credited to you, upon which you take the long, lonely trek to purchase another ship.

Like I said, very new to the game and I'm not sure which direction you're taking regarding ship safety on-planet, but just wanted to put a few thoughts I've been having out there.

Best,

spinblade

[Vice]

Walkers are currently designed to work much like the gun turret mode in terms of ship protection. Protecting/hiding the ship may be an immersion killer for you, but for many other players, it is a requirement for them to even consider using the option. You can review the poll and discussions that took place regarding this decision here: http://www.starwraith.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8991

[spinblade]

So it's going to be some kind of magic device that cloaks you from all perils whilst on-planet, but you can't use it in any other scenario? And so, by extension, if someone's hunting you, you can just land, disembark and you're magically safe?

[Vice]

No, you can still be destroyed in the walker.

[DaveK]

So it's going to be some kind of magic device that cloaks you from all perils whilst on-planet, but you can't use it in any other scenario? And so, by extension, if someone's hunting you, you can just land, disembark and you're magically safe?

In combat I think I'd rather fight in a ship that can jump, fly fast and has lots of weapons than trying to land in a battle and then go plodding around on the surface of the planet like a tinned sitting duck!!



As I understand it from the thread discussion Vice mentioned the options discussed included stealthing the ship in some way as opposed to making it invulnerable - you can already stealth your ship in space either using one shot 60sec generators in your secondary weapons slots or (if you can find one) a reusable stealth generator that takes up an equipment slot so the technology is available to ships

And apparently a walker isn't invulnerable anyway.

Perhaps the walker/ship hiding system requires gravimetric energy and so only works in a gravity field on a planet!

[spinblade]

Perhaps the walker/ship hiding system requires gravimetric energy and so only works in a gravity field on a planet!

Ha. I'll see if I can trick myself into believing that

It's just that walkers are such a necessary and exciting extension to the space sim genre, but one that is also very ambitious, that one doesn't want the overall immersive experience that they add to to be diluted by their presence or, rather, diluted by a safe, plastic scissors implementation of the lifestyle walkers would bring to the Evochron universe so as to protect another aspect of the game, especially if that implementation is kind of hacky and obvious.

[Letoras]

I would like to log in one day into mp and found out that pearl (example) has been taken by the vonari, the place is filled with vonari stations that are heavily guarded by numerous vonari fighters, i want to see from that area of the map capital ships full of fighters expanding the vonari empire to next eras, destroying user stations, i want to see all clans cooperating in a unique enemy, fight or you are dead.
Making global incidents ( i wonder if this is the correct word) would be a nice touch.

[Austin]

I'd still like to see the compass adjust to a planetary mode, like the pitch ladder does

[Destro]

I'm a late comer to this thread, so I apologize if someone's already suggested it, but...

I would like to see more variety in terrestrial planets. I haven't even begun to scratch the surface in terms of exploring the universe, but almost all of the terrestrial planets I've checked out seem to be very close to the same size and have very similar biospheres. It seems to me that it would be more likely to encounter barren rocks with no atmosphere of all shapes and sizes, and those that do have atmospheres would be comprised of all different types of gasses and such. That combined with the various spectral types of their parent stars should mean a whole rainbow of different colored skies and cloud formations, weather patterns, etc. Flora and fauna should be a rarity except on terraformed or Earthlike worlds.

Gravity seems to be pretty arbitrary as well, and as a game that boasts Newtonian physics, it would be awesome to see gravity applied in a similar vein to Elite 2 (i.e., gravity is constantly acting on your ship regardless of whether you are flying under power or not).

If I'm allowed to go a little nuts with the requests, it would be even cooler if some ships were aerodynamically viable and some not. That is, in order to fly in an atmosphere, you would have to have an aerodynamic frame to stay aloft or else you would just plummet like a rock or burn up on reentry unless you burn through an entire fuel tank just to descend slow enough to thump to the ground. Atmospheric reentry should be tricky as well, but that might be a little too far in the "too realistic to be fun" realm. But having some frames/configurations viable for planetside flight and the rest restricted to spaceborne docks would add to the richness of the world for me. Maybe something tied to the scaling of the particular wingset that you have on your ship?

Finally, I know Vice has mentioned possibly implementing it in his future updates, but planetary rotation (day/night cycle) and revolution around their parent star would be awesome also. Seasons depending on axial tilt would be a plus too.

I know, this is probably asking a bit much. The game is awesome as is. Just throwing some more ideas out there for consideration in the future.

[Edited on 9-5-2012 by Destro]

[Edited on 9-5-2012 by Destro]

[Destro]

This is my first post. I love the game and would like to offer my thoughts for whatever they're worth as to features which may benefit the single-player experience. I apologise if these ideas have been discussed before.

I would like to feel more nerves in the black vacuum of space.
I want to be at the mercy of the fickle randomness of the galaxy.

1) The persistent threat of anomalies and events in space e.g
- unusual objects/floating cargo
- derelict space hulks for our recently serviced mechs to explore
- random wormholes which may take you to God knows where
- random asteroid fields comprised of unique properies
- other phenomena which could be surveyed and reported (for a fee)
- Space lifeforms with random characteristics
- System specific phenomena which may affect the ship/crew
- odd missions/quests only available via NPCs in deep space

2) I think crew management could be expanded in a way I've never seen in any other game (someone please tell me otherwise).

- Clashing crew personalities which affect performance and crew harmony
- The ability to reward/punish your crew
- The ability to canvas the crew's opinion on what task/objective to do next (causing potential conflict or increasd morale)
- The ability to send away teams to moons/planets for specific purposes
- Crew moral/alignment development

3) It would be great if there were a few issues aboard your vessel to manage during general flight:
- Maintenance levels on all main systems
- Random failures based on your efficiency and crew
- Smaller/less well equipped ships to require less management

I think the seamlessness of this gargantuan space sim ought to be used so that when you dare to venture out into the void, you simply don't know what you're going to face next and that a good pilot or good captain is well prepared to deal with threats or exploit whatever opportunity arises.
The core game is great, but the spaces in between might benefit from more attention.

I really like these ideas. The idea of exploring uncharted space should be a daunting and frightening concept to all but the most intrepid (or stupid) captains. Long-range vessels should have to contend with more problems other than just having enough gas to make the trip.

Maintenance on ship systems alone would make exploration much more terrifying and rewarding because:
A) you know that if you break down in the void, you're basically screwed
B) your crew would start to go stir crazy and turn on each other if they're cooped up in tight quarters for too long
C) if you don't have a support crew, your own well being could begin to suffer due to the extreme isolation and stress of managing everything yourself (barring some form of suspended animation)

I understand why the savegame mechanic works the way it does - the game is tough enough to learn without losing hours of progress because you made a rookie mistake. But to me it seems like death should carry a more severe penalty. I've seen it mentioned a couple places about restricting saving to while you're docked - that alone could take care of it and is reasonable enough to be a good balance between realism and fun.

Maybe have some form of towing ability or a way to send out a distress signal while you're in civilized space ("Help, I'm under attack!" "Help, my engines are failing!" "Uh... I'm out of gas...")

The general spirit of this (to me) is basically that straying too far from civilization in the cold, unforgiving, unfathomable blackness of space should be a dire and threatening prospect, and should only be undertaken when an experienced pilot/captain makes all of the necessary preparations to face all of the risks and potentially fatal things that could go wrong.

[Destro]

One more thing, and I swear I'm done (for now)

A significant size difference between the smaller frames and more massive frames would be great as well. The way I see it, the smallest civ frames would be around the same size as a little fighter, and the bigger frames would be closer to the size of something like Serenity from the Firefly series.

I don't like the idea of commanding huge capital ships (too much like X3 and presents a giant logistical suspension of disbelief problem), but big civilian ships should be large enough to require a crew to run. Running a big ship with a skeleton crew (or without one altogether) should impose certain operational penalties like reduced weapon damage, reduced engine thrust or maneuverability, stunted shield regeneration, or more susceptibility to damage in an attack.

Military frames (since they don't allow a crew) should be no bigger than something like an A-10 or a little bigger since they're all one-man fighting vessels, with little to no long-range capability unless they're supported by a larger vessel or transported/towed somehow to a far off destination.

[Destro]

OK, I lied.

The idea was tossed around a little bit on this thread already, but I thought I might offer some thoughts to expand on it: escape pods and insurance.

As I mentioned before, the dangers of space travel should be serious enough so as even the most jaded veteran players would be forced to excercise a certain degree of caution, and ALL players would think twice before diving headfirst into a dogfight or wandering out into the uncharted, unforgiving expanse of nothingness. I understand, however, that realism and immersion shouldn't be so heavy-handed that it would cause players to become so fed up with dying that they just quit playing altogether.

First, the matter of escape pods. All ships should be equipped with some manner of escape pod (required by law or something - would be just plain stupid to venture out into space without some form of backup security if something were to go wrong). When your ship's computer realizes that the ship's destruction is imminent, it automatically ejects the pod (pilot only, maybe one crew member, maybe all, whatever the case) and activates an emergency jump in the safest possible direction at maximum distance (probably one or two sectors, since the pod wouldn't have a super-beefy Fulcrum drive aboard).

When safe distance is reached, a distress beacon is activated (though if the pilot is conscious, they have the option to override it if they want to stay hidden until rescue comes along). In civilized systems, eventually a rescue ship would come pick them up and bring them back to the nearest station. In deep space this might be a little hairier, and I confess I'm not 100% sure of a good way to handle this to balance fun/playability with realism, but I'm sure such a method would exist.

Second, there's the matter of insurance. I can't think of a greater incentive to avoid death than the potential loss of your ship, so I propose this: when you are destroyed and forced to eject, your ship is GONE. It would be really cool if the wreck was salvagable (either for the vultures to pick clean or for the player to go back and see what he could rescue if the opportunity arose).

For the purpose of game balance, I think an exponentially sliding scale for the cost of insurance would keep new players from getting screwed while also keeping the pressure on the "big boys" to watch their six just as well.

Every mercenary would automatically hold a very basic insurance policy for a negligible per-cycle cost that would ensure that if the unthinkable should happen, they would be reimbursed with the cheapest, oldest model ship available in game, just so there is no possibility of suddenly finding yourself permanently grounded due to lack of funds. Players would have the option to purchase more comprehensive policies that would cover a greater and greater damage value. They would be reimbursed the market value of their ship in that sector in cash, and it would be up to them to go about rebuilding their vessel.

[Edited on 9-7-2012 by Destro]

[Edited on 9-7-2012 by Destro]

[EN4CER]

I would really like to see flying defense platforms that activate only on AI and any player attempting to detonate similarly owned stations. Nothing but a platform with a little particle or laser on it. It would be cool and would finally give a defense for those millions of poor spare faring station dwellers even if it's minimal.

[Edited on 9-10-2012 by EN4CER]

[tjohnman]

I would definitely like:
- To be able to manage capital ships (even if I can't control them directly).
- More in-depth crew management and uses.
- Ship interior exploration. Also seating in other places besides the helm, taking the place of, say, the science officer, with a special set of tools for that purpose.
- Directly related to the above, player-manned crew stations in multiplayer.
- Different cockpits for different frames.
- The ability to leave the ship, EVA and transfer to another ship (either as crew or pilot).

But of course I'm not going to complain. This is the best space sim I've ever played, hands down. Only the X series is comparable, and although X-Rebirth certainly looks like it's going to be something, I doubt it can achieve the superb level of immersion Evochron makes me feel.

EDIT:
By the way, I love the no-bull approach of the save system. I'd rather not see any of that insurance nonsense the X games have. I like not losing hours of hard work because of a stupid mistake.

[Edited on 2012-9-12 by tjohnman]

[Marvin]

- Directly related to the above, player-manned crew stations in multiplayer.

Try out the turret gunner position if you haven't already. At least one experienced PvP player says a two-man ship can't be beat.

[EN4CER]

I really dislike the save system in multiplayer (Single player who cares). Since you can build your own stations I don't understand why station saving isn't enforced. Even the argument of not being able to build stations anywhere can be resolved by allowing you to build and save from a temporary structure like a refuel station. Same goes for using ESC to pull yourself out of the game. It really hurts the immersion to know hitting escape completely pulls you out of the simulation. I would really like to see the escape menu allow you to remain in-game. I believe this has been debated before and that my opinion was the minority but that's still my 2 cents

[EN4CER]

I would really like to see flying defense platforms that activate only on AI and any player attempting to detonate similarly owned stations. Nothing but a platform with a little particle or laser on it. It would be cool and would finally give a defense for those millions of poor spare faring station dwellers even if it's minimal.

And thinking about this more it would also be really cool to see a couple of fighters scramble from a station when you attempt to detonate it. That would require little changes to code (I'm pretty sure) and would really improve immersion for those of us that regularly destroy stations.

[Marvin]

Same goes for using ESC to pull yourself out of the game. It really hurts the immersion to know hitting escape completely pulls you out of the simulation. I would really like to see the escape menu allow you to remain in-game.

Discussions with Vice indicate you will probably get your wish on this one ... leastwise, in part (the important part).

[Marvin]

That would require little changes to code (I'm pretty sure) ....

Please don't say that. As an old-time programmer (who couldn't keep up with the influx of programming languages), that's gotta be the most ... well, it's simply not true. When you have thousands upon thousands of lines of code, all interdependent upon one another, all squeezed into as small a download package as possible, adding a whole new module and then successfully intergrating it into a game is never a little thing.

[oni14128]

I would definitely like:
- To be able to manage capital ships (even if I can't control them directly).
- More in-depth crew management and uses.
- Ship interior exploration. Also seating in other places besides the helm, taking the place of, say, the science officer, with a special set of tools for that purpose.

[Edited on 2012-9-12 by tjohnman]

Has anyone played the original Independence War. Each crew station had its own function and controls. I don't need separate consoles but an engineering screen would be nice to have more control over power settings. Like being able to divert power from shields to the cloaking device. Or reducing overall power to reduce the range you show up on sensors.