New Frames & Inventory Console Features

oni14128 · Post by **oni14128** » Sun Sep 16, 2012 1:15 am

I'm sure its been said before but a more indepth faction system. Make it so that increasing your rep in one system impacts the neighboring systems? Also add some new missions or more thourough versions of the existing ones. For example have escort missions that actually lead somewhere. Like make several jumps to the vicinity of a station or escort it across more than one system. I appreciate everything vice gives us but sometimes it just feels a little dull completing one mission after another with no real direction or sense that their is a greater goal. Unfortunately I don't have time to commit to a clan online.

EN4CER · Post by **EN4CER** » Mon Sep 17, 2012 2:09 pm

From post: 144675, Topic: tid=9376, author=Destro wrote: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]

That has bothered me. A military Evoch should be a slim tiny little thing compared to a civilian Leviathan.

The escape pods would be awesome especially if the save system were revamped. All of the sudden now people are logging into MP just to get a rescue. I assume you could ask AI to do it for a price but it would probably be slow.

Insurance would be a nice give and take for a revamped save system. I like the salvage idea too. Pay 1/2 of the rebuild cost if you salvage a little floating pile of junk that was once your ship.

-splosives- · Post by **-splosives-** » Mon Sep 17, 2012 4:29 pm

The only thing wrong with the save system is that you can enter esc menu and save in the middle of combat, so you can exploit it to your benefit.
In the expansion, you can only press the esc menu when there's no combat going on, and even then, it will take 10 seconds untill you get in the esc menu.

oni14128 · Post by **oni14128** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 12:00 am

I want to buy a carrier to hold my spare ships and equipment that I can order to different locations

Letoras · Post by **Letoras** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 11:37 am

From post: 145257, Topic: tid=9376, author=oni14128 wrote:I want to buy a carrier to hold my spare ships and equipment that I can order to different locations

That would be a very nice touch indeed.
A carrier to put your stuff in (equip, ships, rocks, finding, etc.)
Ordering it to stay put, follow, go somewhere and wait for you.....and ofcourse other can destroy it and take your goodies unless you defend it.

oni14128 · Post by **oni14128** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 2:51 pm

From post: 145274, Topic: tid=9376, author=Letoras wrote:
From post: 145257, Topic: tid=9376, author=oni14128 wrote:I want to buy a carrier to hold my spare ships and equipment that I can order to different locations
That would be a very nice touch indeed.
A carrier to put your stuff in (equip, ships, rocks, finding, etc.)
Ordering it to stay put, follow, go somewhere and wait for you.....and ofcourse other can destroy it and take your goodies unless you defend it.

Be able to outfit the carrier with better cargo, shields weapons. Even if you can't take direct control of it. At the very least allow us to make our own caches and mine fields to protect them.

hank · Post by **hank** » Sun Nov 11, 2012 4:16 pm

This is a simple request. A button in the Nav screen to allow you to Zoom Full Out (to 8x). You can zoom in fully but I don't see a way to zoom out fully without multiple clicks.

thanks again for the wonderful game

(sorry if this has been already posted)

[Edited on 11-11-2012 by hank]

Post by **Marvin** » Sun Nov 11, 2012 4:39 pm

From post: 148419, Topic: tid=9376, author=hank wrote:A button in the Nav screen to allow you to Zoom Full Out (to 8x). You can zoom in fully but I don't see a way to zoom out fully without multiple clicks.

I'm not certain this will work ... but try using the mouse wheel.

hank · Post by **hank** » Sun Nov 11, 2012 9:27 pm

If I used a mouse with a wheel, I would try it. But, I use a marble mouse with 2 or 4 buttons; no wheel. I use this for practically every sim I play except airplane sims.

If its not possible, its not a deal breaker. I won't abandon my marble mouse for anything.

good thought though ... I wonder now if it zooms with the wheel

have a nice day

Post by **DaveK** » Mon Nov 12, 2012 5:38 pm

From post: 148484, Topic: tid=9376, author=hank wrote:If I used a mouse with a wheel, I would try it.

good thought though ... I wonder now if it zooms with the wheel

have a nice day

It certainly does! And its - EDIT: ooops - good - because you can stop on any on the way from x1 to x8

[Edited on 13-11-2012 by DaveK]

DynamicRanger · Post by **DynamicRanger** » Tue Nov 13, 2012 11:27 am

I searched this thread for some keywords to make sure I wasn't double-posting a bunch of ideas, but I apologize if this stuff has been covered before. Most of these ideas apply equally to SP and MP, but I came up with most of them with SP in mind.

- A zoom on reticule/target feature. I'm thinking a hold or toggle button that would bring up a small window with a set magnification. The window could be static like X3, or follow the reticule/mouse pointer, like MechWarrior 3. This is a mostly cosmetic request, but it would help in getting a good feel for enemy formations at a distance, instead of inferring formations from range data. It would also help in approaching space stations at a distance, since the blue tractor fields don't appear until you're pretty close.
* A possible variation is a simple telescope in mouse look mode. While exploring an asteroid field or planetary ring, it might be very useful to closely scan a distant area.

- Multi-stage item recovery missions, in two general varieties:
* "Get this thing in this area, then I'll update you with co-ords for the next thing," etc.
* "Get this thing and bring it to me," but the item in question is one part of a much larger and more valuable item. If you run off with one of the components and take on the scavenger hunt yourself, it will negatively impact faction reputation, or the mission giver may dispatch an attack wing directly. The combined items will require 3 or more parts, and each individual part will have little or no value and take up one cargo slot, so you'll have to commit to finding each component, wherever they are hidden. A constructor station may be necessary to combine the parts. Each component will provide clues to the location of the next one. Clues may include incomplete coordinates, general locations ("the rings of Cerluean B"), or names of ships to follow, destroy or trade with to get the next part's location. A science officer would help a lot here, spotting clues and picking up components on sensors at much greater range. These missions may often take the player to planetary surfaces to search for artifacts or crashed ships.

- Take on multiple contracts simultaneously. It would be nice to line up a few contracts and reduce trips back to stations. Perhaps the number of assignments you can take on at once can be a function of customer confidence: the higher your pilot rating or military rank, the more contracts you can take on for a given category.

- Open calls for escorts. When in range of large transports affiliated with friendly factions, they may send out random calls for escorts to certain locations. The pay would depend on the risk and distance of the escort.

- A burst thruster that can be equipped to replace normal afterburners. Burst thrusters can be charged for varying amounts of time to produce a sudden change in velocity. It would take some tuning to work out the mechanics, but I'm thinking it would take a fifth as long to charge a thruster to reach a certain velocity as it would building the speed gradually with afterburners. Burst thrusters, however, would be a lot less fuel efficient, using two or three times as much fuel per velocity unit as afterburners.

- Secondary fire modes for missiles. Each missile type could have an alternate configuration: trade speed for range, or damage for speed, or overall damage for damage against shield or hull specifically. Special weapons would have special alternate fire modes. The Excalibur for instance, may be set to an alternate targeting mode that divides the spread of missiles equally among the enemy ships nearest to the target (and also within range). There's a missile in HAWX that does this, and of course it's a mainstay of sci-fi anime.

- Having an engineer onboard allows you to swap equipment into and out of cargo.

- Having a weapons officer allows you to load missiles from cargo.

- Electronic warfare. With a science officer onboard (or a new type of crewmate, like a comms officer) a variety of effects may randomly occur, such as an enemy's shields dropping for a brief time (1 to 3 seconds) or incoming missiles detonating early or switching targets. These effects would be random, not targeted, and might occur to any enemy ship in detection range. Even at the highest crew skill level, they would not be overly common--every other minute perhaps? Some tuning would be required to balance it out.

- And of course, more content of any sort is awesome!

Viper · Post by **Viper** » Tue Nov 13, 2012 12:53 pm

Some really good ideas there, good thinking!
I have one remark concerning any idea that involves officers of any kind though: there are a lot of players, like yours truly, who never fly civilian ships, but only military. Military ships can't hold officers, so those players will not be able to benefit from any of the ideas involving officers you are suggesting. Any ideas to have those work for players who use military ships?

[Edited on 11-13-2012 by Viper]

-splosives- · Post by **-splosives-** » Tue Nov 13, 2012 1:01 pm

The burst thruster is basically an afterburner drive. But the way you describe it would be physically impossible to achieve I think. It would also destroy one of the beautiful aspects of the game mechanics: the momentum you have to compensate for.

SeeJay · Post by **SeeJay** » Tue Nov 13, 2012 1:01 pm

From post: 148626, Topic: tid=9376, author=Viper wrote:Some really good ideas there, good thinking!
I have one remark concerning any idea that involves officers of any kind though: there are a lot of players, like yours truly, who never fly civilian ships, but only military. Military ships can't hold officers, so those players will not be able to benefit from any of the ideas involving officers you are suggesting. Any ideas to have those work for players who use military ships?

[Edited on 11-13-2012 by Viper]

That will make an excellent way to chose your path.
Military frames with some boosted systems or a Civilian Frame
with other benefits.

All depending on what you want to do or how you fight.

Post by **Marvin** » Tue Nov 13, 2012 4:28 pm

Multi-stage missions are part of the quest. And you can script your own quest if you so choose. As for the afterburner ... there is an A/B thingy. Have you tried it?

hank · Post by **hank** » Tue Nov 13, 2012 11:06 pm

I mentioned this before but I still think the larger frame military ships should have at least one or two crew members.

-splosives- · Post by **-splosives-** » Tue Nov 13, 2012 11:40 pm

That would mess up the balance of the game.

Kikoni · Post by **Kikoni** » Tue Nov 13, 2012 11:41 pm

From post: 148693, Topic: tid=9376, author=hank wrote:I mentioned this before but I still think the larger frame military ships should have at least one or two crew members.

If they did, then the PvP meta-game would go all sorts of wonky, my friend.

I'd be nearly invincible in my avenger with an engineer or weapons op.

DynamicRanger · Post by **DynamicRanger** » Wed Nov 14, 2012 10:36 pm

From post: 148627, Topic: tid=9376, author=-splosives- wrote:The burst thruster is basically an afterburner drive. But the way you describe it would be physically impossible to achieve I think. It would also destroy one of the beautiful aspects of the game mechanics: the momentum you have to compensate for.

The drive is far from physically impossible, it functions like a configurable solid fuel booster or Orion-style nuclear pulse propulsion on a smaller scale. Players would still have to compensate for momentum, but the compensation would involve fewer, precisely timed button presses. Most of the compensation would be planning and timing. I see your point, though--balancing it with the existing game mechanics may be more trouble than it's worth.

hank · Post by **hank** » Wed Nov 14, 2012 11:47 pm

"That would mess up the balance of the game. "

I'm really looking for an education here.

How would that unbalance the game? Military ships can fight against civilian ships with crews (?).

Military ships with crews could (would) fight against other military ships with crews (and w/o). Are military ships really only meant for PvP play?

Just curious ... I really am just looking for why?

The reality is that large military ships of all types have crews (aircraft, naval, land based). If single seat fighters are all that exist in EM that is fine by me.

-splosives- · Post by **-splosives-** » Thu Nov 15, 2012 12:12 am

Because first of all: This would make civ ships even more useless compared to military when it comes to fighting. At least now they have some advantage.
Second: All military class ships from Evoch-E to chimera are meant to be equally good.
But the Evoch-E -> firestar frame are still light fighter frames, while the avenger -> chimera are larger strike craft.
This would mean only those larger get the benefits of crew members which would be imbalanced compared to the Evoch-E -> Firestar.
Giving an Evoch-E crew members would be pretty weird as it is just a small fighter.

Military ships aren't made only for PvP, but the balance around them is based on it.

DynamicRanger · Post by **DynamicRanger** » Thu Nov 15, 2012 4:20 am

While I agree with Splosives about not fixing what ain't broke when it comes to gameplay and balance issues, the lack of system-specific officers in military ships is tricky. As far as lore/RP goes, it doesn't make any sense. If we're using a rough Pacific theater aircraft carrier analogy (like practically any game and most space SF), single-pilot fighters may make up the bulk of the ships, but there is definitely a role for heavy fighters/light bombers with multiple crew members--especially if a given force is sent out to destroy capital ships. IRL attack helicopters often (usually?) have pilot and gunner positions.

It makes more sense for military vehicles to have multiple specialist crew members than a private mercenary craft. Crewmates may work for peanuts in EM, but realistically you'd want to accomplish contracts with the smallest possible team, preferably just yourself.

hank · Post by **hank** » Thu Nov 15, 2012 8:54 am

Thank you gentlemen. All I wanted was to see some dialog on the why's and why not's regarding military ship vs civilian ship, and why one type has crews and the other doesn't. I think its a useful discussion ... imho.

Have a nice day

Post by **Marvin** » Thu Nov 15, 2012 3:17 pm

There is room for one more person on every ship, military and civilian. But that person can't be an AI.

Post by **DaveK** » Thu Nov 15, 2012 11:39 pm

DynamicRanger - some excellent ideas!

I suspect (as has been suggested) the afterburner booster idea already exists

Military ships were upgraded with better engines, shields, weapons etc plus a cargo bay a few game upgrades ago to compensate for civilian ships having crew and multiple cargo bays which meant that most pilots didn't see the advantage of flying a cool pointy military ship unless they were going through a mid-life crisis! - so if you want the crew, swap to a civilian ship - military ships are meant to be solo fighters (think StarWars, BSG etc, (plus the option to have a (real life - non-AI) gunner - think aggressive version of R2D2)

The idea of an evolving multistage contract isn't the same as the present multistage where you know what you are getting into before you opt for it - it has a lot of potential.

I'm not sure that I could keep track of multiple contracts - what would happen if I fail one of them? What would happen if they are in different sectors? However, I'm only speaking for own organisational abilities!