From post: 163344, Topic: tid=10221, author=capt_cronic wrote:
while im here, what are the chances of some kind of pvp score keeping ?
At the moment a kill score is logged - I guess you're asking for an AI kill score and Player kill score separately, with the sum going towards your civilian rank. With the number of things Vice manages to output to the savedata.txt file I wouldn't think it impossible (says the great non programmer )
Callsign: Incoming
Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. - Bob Newhart
Hell is being in a pure platinum asteroid field... with a diamond mining beam
I wish you had the option of joining the Vonari so you could attack pilots without being attacked. You would fly only Vonari ships and they would be your wingmen if your rank was high enough.
LOL, Marv, I think Navy and Federation ships only attack Vonari when they have been shot at or when they are ordered to attack, or when you have a good reputation and you are being attacked by Vonari some will come to defend you!. But you are right you can not be expected not to be attacked by Navy or Federation when attacking them as a Vonari!.....
Arvoch Alliance Stat:
Evochron Legends Stats:
Evochron Mercenary Stats:
Darkness is the absence of Light as Evil is the absence of Good
I've got a few ideas about NPC behavior. I've ordered them by order of how difficult I think they would be to implement. I'm no programmer, so I may be wrong about that.
Assassination Missions
As it stands, assassination missions are basically the same as single waypoints in a patrol, or basic combat missions. How about changing the objective of assassination missions from defeating a group of enemies, to simply taking down the target? This would make the missions easier, so the rewards could be reduced, but it would provide a good stepping stone for new pilots into tougher combat missions.
Another possibility is altering the behavior of assassination targets. In the current version of the game, when a player arrives at the mission waypoint, the target taunts the player and launches into full attack mode. If the target would attempt to escape, however, the player would have to chase him down. Once the target reaches a set distance either from the player or from the mission starting point, the contract is failed. If the target decides to run, the player still has to deal with the threat posed by his lackeys, even if destroying them isn't essential to completing the contract.
Combining the two could also be interesting: when first warping in to the mission location, the player would not know whether the target would stick around for a fight (and possibly be destroyed in a single missile volley, making the mission brief and simple), or if they'll have to chase the target while dodging fire from his goons.
Anti-Smuggling Missions
When a smuggler is scanned, they go about their business as usual. I'd like to see the smuggler react, by attempting to escape or becoming hostile and attacking the player. This would make the choice of cargo scanner a more strategic one: if the player thinks they have nothing to fear from a hostile smuggler, then they can use a shorter range scanner to avoid tipping him off until they are close to firing range. A longer range scanner still puts the player within missile firing range, but gives a fleeing smuggler a bit of a head start.
Enemy Behavior
Both of these modest mission tweaks point toward something more fundamental I'd like to see, but might take more new code: enemy self-preservation. Every hostile in the game seems hell-bent on destroying the player (or other target) at any cost. They don't retreat or surrender, they simply attack with complete enthusiasm. This seems strange in a world with mercenaries, pirates and thugs. Only a few of the enemies are part of an organized military force, so it seems like many of the enemies would logically cut their losses and run if they felt they couldn't win. A heavily damaged enemy may have a chance of fleeing while remaining hostile (red) or signaling surrender (turn yellow, reduce speed to zero and jettison all cargo).
The damage "tolerance" of enemies could vary, depending on the star system, faction, player rank and rep and possibly random factors (enemy pilot "bravery"). Military enemies would have a very high damage tolerance, whereas an independent trader might surrender at the first scratch. Pirates and mercenaries would be somewhere in between, as they are more comfortable with violence and danger. The enemy pilot's decision to surrender/retreat could be randomized to an extent and until they have received enough damage to put them over the threshold, they wouldn't even roll on the retreat table (excuse the pen and paper terms).
Enemies Ejecting
Lastly (sorry that this post got out of hand, but these ideas all seem interrelated to me), a pilot ejection mechanic would be cool. Wing Commander: Privateer had the kind of system I'm imagining--sometimes, when an enemy ship is destroyed, a cargo pod will be left behind with the pilot inside. Some missions may require recovering the pod and taking it to a station or waiting ship (arresting the target). Other times, the pod would simply be a piece of cargo, tradeable like any other commodity (ahem... slavery). Of course, you could add insult to injury (and severely affect your standing with the relevant faction) by destroying the lifepod.
Perhaps when enemies reach the damage threshold mentioned above and are subject to the retreat table, they have a chance of being flagged (in code, behind-the-scenes) as ejecting if and when they are destroyed. This would mean that destroying enemies more quickly would reduce their chances of ejecting, and hardened combat pilots are less likely to eject overall (they see the battle through to the bitter end).
Being able to bind a couple of keys to the volume control would be nice. Or at least having the current one a slider bar or something, so I don't have to cycle past max volume to get to the lower ones again.
From post: 163484, Topic: tid=10221, author=DynamicRanger wrote:Enemy Behavior
Both of these modest mission tweaks point toward something more fundamental I'd like to see, but might take more new code: enemy self-preservation. Every hostile in the game seems hell-bent on destroying the player (or other target) at any cost. They don't retreat or surrender, they simply attack with complete enthusiasm.
Sometimes they do retreat. Which makes it difficult to track them down unless you're capable of deploying a sensor array. Varied AI behavior would be cool, though ... assuming they behave like movie villians and brag about how they're going to do what it is they eventually do.
There are some interesting ideas from DynamicRanger - It would improve game player overall and make interactions with AI more 'interesting'.
Callsign: Incoming
Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. - Bob Newhart
Hell is being in a pure platinum asteroid field... with a diamond mining beam
This idea is probably a little more to ask for than most of the stuff I mentioned in the NPC behavior post, but a system of contraband and a police force or trade commission to regulate it would be interesting. I thought of it when reading the contract details for anti-smuggling missions; they mentioned embargoes on various commodities. As far as I know, those descriptions are just flavor text--you can take out the target, pick up the cargo and sell the exact same "contraband" without consequence.
I'd like to see a category of trade goods that may or may not be legal to transport and trade. I'm not sure if the ban would be system-wide, or vary from station to station, but the principle would be that illegal goods have a much wider profit margin. Places where the goods in question aren't illegal would buy and sell them cheaply, like any other low- to mid-grade trade good. Weapons could also fall into this category. Any trade bans/embargoes in effect would show up in the system info console. If the bans are system-wide, then the ban would be clear to see. If it's station to station, then a vaguer description would be used, like "few stations will trade narcotics," etc.. If contraband is determined on a station to station basis, then players building trade stations could decide whether or not certain goods are contraband, driving the cost of specific goods up or down for specific economic effect.
Contraband couldn't be sold in the default docking menu; you'd have to enter the station and sell directly. Your reputation and rank might affect the profit margin you can expect. A given buyer of contraband might be an undercover cop. If you're caught trying to sell contraband, one or more hostiles will meet you when you depart the station.
Depending on the level of development and trade density, stations would have larger or smaller police patrols around the station. If you pass too close to a police ship, they will scan your cargo and become hostile. If you jettison the contraband, they return to yellow status. Maybe "flying casual" would reduce your chances of being spotted, so you'd want to approach well-policed stations giving off the least amount of heat possible.
Another possibility (which doesn't strictly require a contraband game mechanic) would be planetary dead drops for cargo. Instead of jettisoning cargo to be picked up by a large ship waiting in space, you need to jettison cargo into a designated zone on the surface of a planet. With practice, you could drop the cargo from quite high and still land it in the bullseye. If there are fighters waiting for you, you might have an atmospheric fight on your hands, which is always refreshing.
That last bit is probably the more reasonable suggestion, but if Vice reads this thread, it can't hurt to put ideas out there.
From post: 163494, Topic: tid=10221, author=DynamicRanger wrote:Smuggling and Police
Contraband couldn't be sold in the default docking menu; you'd have to enter the station and sell directly.
That idea has possibilities. Especially since, currently, I doubt many players actually trade with AI pilots. This would be a real incentive to use that option.
I hadn't even considered that, but ad hoc ship-to-ship trades would be a great way to move contraband. NPCs will unload "contraband" pretty frequently when you use the request info feature, anyway. In areas with heavy police presence, less skilled or brave smugglers might chicken out and offer contraband cheaply or for free, netting a player some high priced goods near a good place to sell them, but opening them up to risk.
From post: 162563, Topic: tid=10221, author=Rubber Chicken wrote:The ability to open communication with friendly cap ships and take contracts from them. Ie; Escort, Patrol, Deliver from ship to station, recover cargo from station - bring back to ship, etc.
This simple tweak would add a lot of mission options, even in deep space. This is a great example of a modest change really expanding the game, without requiring excessive balancing or changes to other features. There's nothing wrong with more ambitious suggestions, but this is the kind of thing Vice could probably work into the next update.
From post: 163494, Topic: tid=10221, author=DynamicRanger wrote:Smuggling and Police
Hmmm: Scene: Smoky bar in Al's Quay. Tired merc leaning on the bar, chatting to the bartender.
Barman says "Same again?" Pours drink. "So what do you do for a living, then?"
I reply "I'm an intersystem chemicals translocation operative - I shift illicit mood altering custom substances, from one system to another, my friend . . . cheers!"
A new career option is born!
Callsign: Incoming
Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. - Bob Newhart
Hell is being in a pure platinum asteroid field... with a diamond mining beam
I'd like specific frame for each kind of profiles, and some of them only available to this kind of profile
like the mil frame only available to military
we shale have frame for racers, for trader/miner, and so on
new frames and much more specific
and then according to those new frame a lots of bunch of new items to build up the ship
racer profile should access much more kind of wings and motors for exemple
trader/miner should access frame which can handle much more cargo and more crew associated
i'd like to have a trading/exploring frame with 20 cargo slot and 15 crew members if i can pay for it
and new equipments dedicated to those profiles
double mining beam for miners
radar range expender for explorers
...
this x8 radar is ok for all frames but explorer/trader could maybe upgrade that to x10 x12 x?? why not ? bigger ship better radar 2 or 3 navigation officers... that could be logical to have even a ship with a x50 radar area... if upgraded correctly
From post: 107922, Topic: tid=10221, author=Jack Dandy wrote:The planets should also have more unique content and stuff to find.
I know it was probably pretty hard to make that entire seamless landing thing, but it isn't really worth it if there isn't anything that's unique to them. Right now, they're just desolate wastelands with 1-3 stations (cities).
Agreed to that. To solve that I would like to see more difficult planet approaches, depending of the gravity e.g. a certain counter thrust and even AB together with different approaching angles on high gravity planets or depending on density of the atmosphere up to planets that are impossible to land on. Then a loot system based on risk vs reward. I also could imagine a 'random artifact' system like in Linley's Dungeon Crawl (my all time favorite game, unfortunately not in space). These so called 'randarts' are random generated after a certain sophisticated system. The better the more rare they are and also with certain side effects (could be e.g. a weapon in Evochron with exceptional high values but also would lower your shields once in a while in unpredictable patterns). With the right system there could be a virtually infinite amount of different devices IF they are strictly random generated, rare (depending on the sum of their good vs bad abilities) and vanish once picked up to make sure they can't be farmed (selling them should be possible though). So everyone should have unique shields, weapons, other devices or even whole unique ships after a while. That would be a giant task of course (Dungeon Crawl is just a single player only game, that's a difference).
//Dreaming Mode OFF
I also could imagine a hardcore version of Evochron, with much harsher physics, e.g. unforgiving collision detection. Unfortunately I don't see the audience for such a version... but probably as an SP variant mostly a matter of tweaking some values?
What I (read 'the roleplayer in me') am also missing, especially in MP, is the lack of 'personality'. On MP-servers you are basically nothing more than the name you introduce as often as you like. Nothing stored server-side, a decent death penalty would be quite impossible to implement to start with.
From post: 169899, Topic: tid=10221, author=Major Grubert wrote:I'd like specific frame for each kind of profiles, and some of them only available to this kind of profile
An interesting idea!
So, if you want to be a racer (for example) there would be wings & engines that only fitted a special racer frame? If so what would be given up in it's place? - no weapons or shields, no cargo bays, no crew?, very small fuel capacity? Or would a cargo frame with lots of extra bays have room for shields and defensive weapons? Perhaps it would have to hire a protective screen to escort it from place to place - which would lead to another career option : close protection! Would a combat frame be basically invulnerable to everything except another combat frame? Another career option - bounty hunter after pilots abusing their combat frame capability
Going back to the first example, what could you do in the racing frame other than racing? Do you see pilots storing many different frames for when they want to do different things? Or having lots of different profiles to swap between? It would certainly bring a whole new level to fine-tuning frames!
One issue to be considered is how to avoid a racer frame or a combat frame (and so on) being unbeatable by anyone not using the same sort of specialist frame. Or perhaps there would be groups who just race and so have racing frames
Callsign: Incoming
Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. - Bob Newhart
Hell is being in a pure platinum asteroid field... with a diamond mining beam
How about this? The ability to set a bounty on YOURSELF that is broadcast server wide basically telling everyone online, not only am I up for PVP but a certain amount of my wealth that I have agreed to will be instantly rewarded to whoever lands the killing blow. COME AT ME BRO!
[Edited on 5-8-2014 by Kkabb]
\"From now on, you forget about gravity before you go through that door. The old gravity is gone, erased. Understand me? Whatever your gravity is when you get to the door, remember -- the enemy\'s gate is down. Your feet are toward the enemy\'s gate. Up is toward your own gate.\" ~ Orson Scott Card - Ender\'s Game - Chapter 10 -- Dragon
From post: 169901, Topic: tid=10221, author=picommander wrote:. . .a decent death penalty would be quite impossible to implement to start with.
'decent' and 'death penalty' don't really go together methinks! Anyway I thought that the civilised world was moving in a different direction.
I play EM for fun and relaxation and sitting on death row doesn't quite fit with my reasons for playing - so I'd want the 'death penalty' to be a player choosable option.
Or even easier - apply it to yourself whenever you think you deserve to die or suffer. Wipe your profile clean - just start a fresh profile. Or don't play for 24 hours or buy and jettison a million credits of equipment or whatever you think is a suitable punishment. You could wear an itchy shirt for a session or stick players could use a mouse only and vice versa (sorry Vice) and so on
Players already have the option to make the game as twitchy as they want - as long as they have the willpower to apply their chosen punishments as appropriate
As for me . . . I'll reload happily with no loss of credit or reputation or title - and carry on my enjoyable way through the Evoverse - afterall RL is always there, waiting in the background, if I need a dose of reality!
Callsign: Incoming
Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. - Bob Newhart
Hell is being in a pure platinum asteroid field... with a diamond mining beam
)
Why wouldn't you be attacked?
And you expect the Navy to just sit back and let you attack Federation and Alliance ships?
