A few ideas, open for discussion.

[Blackthorne]

Ah well, here's a couple of things that went through my head while playing mercenary recently. They're not feature requests per se, but more some things I'd like to toss into the room for discussion. Feel free to comment.

1. Cargo Storage

I have one hell of a time trying to change my Shrike's equipment loadout at a station. Basically, it boils down to the following sequence...

a) Dock Military Ship.
b) Switch to Civilian Ship.
c) Move unwanted equipment to cargo bay.
d) Move desired equipment from hangar storage to cargo bay.
e) Install equipment from the cargo bay.
f) Move unwanted equipment to hangar storage
g) Switch back to Military Ship

My proposal here would be to allow direct transfer from the equipment list to the hangar storage and back, which would shorten the process above considerably.


2. External Fuel Tanks

Admittingly, more of a brain fart than anything else. How about an external drop tank for the missile hardpoints? Basically, a one-shot "missile" that adds an amount of X fuel units to one's own fuel supply, up to the possible maximum dictated by the onboard tank.


3. One-Shot Excaliburs

We know them, we loved them, and right now I don't feel they're worth the 8 missile slots anymore. In fact, they're probably more useful as an expensive trading good by now.
I pondered a bit about how it would be if they were converted into a one-use weapon, consumed upon firing just like any other missile.
Reduce the price to about 10%-15%, maybe reduce their warhead yield or the number of missiles fired as well, but have them take up less hardpoints (one or maybe 2, depending on efficiency.
I'm unsure if the program code could handle that, though, but I thought I'd bounce the idea around. The visuals are still nice, even though they're no longer as useful between the longer reload time and the excessive use of countermeasures by the AI.

Discuss.

-Blackthorne

[Scavenger4711]

At first I have to say your ideas are really interesting.

I totally agree with your first idea. That would be a nice option that would save a lot of time.

Your second idea is also okay. But I would prefer if you could install extra fuel-tanks into your equipment/missile hardpoints, which increase the amount of fuel you can carry. (Of course they should be quite expensive then )

About the Excalibur: I would prefer if you just would decrease the amount of missiles which are shot at one time (maybe to four) and increase the costs for this weapon. Because I think the excalibur is a good thing for those who are tired of always buying new missiles again and again. I wouldn't throw that idea of an "unlimited missile" away.
Perhaps (if it's still balanced then) you could also decrease the number of the 8 free required missile hardpoints to let's say 6.

That would be my opinion so far

[soulsacrifice]

I never liked the excaliburs being unlimited use. You only had to buy them once and never had to buy or use any of the other missiles again. I also don't like the new system of waiting for 3 minutes before being able to use them again. Ideally, i'd like them to have the 30 seconds reload time like in Legends but run out after 8 or so shots.

The fuel idea doesn't really appeal to me either. Putting fuel tanks on your ship is totally uneccessary now because you can simply build a station before you run out anywhere in space and refuel.

[BraveHart]

"Excaliber missiles use to be a favorite of mine to use, but now with the longer time limit before reloading well lets just say I only use them if it's the only missile system left in the menu, which has happened a few times....as for the other Fuel tanks and cargo issue I have no opinion as I prefer the military ships"

[Zenith]

I have to say, your first idea is definitely appealing. I'm not so sure about external tanks, but it is a realistic approach to carrying additional fuel, but perhaps this should be an equipment slot?

As you said, Excaliburs do seem somewhat worthless these days, but I'm not sure making them a one shot weapon would be the solution. Perhaps limited to say 32 missiles, after which you need to purchase a new pack? That way, you could still justify the cost, and get more than one use out of them, but you won't be able to spam the hell out of them as before.

[alpha45]

Yeah, I had a couple ideas too. A buildable beacon. All it would do is create blip on the map, that can be seen from very large distances. Players can use it to mark points of interest, meeting points, and other things. Giving them the ability to have custom text "billboards" would be awesome, since you could place a marker, and have it display a message to any curious pilots, explaining it's purpose. You could even put a bunch of them in a line, creating a "highway" of sorts.

Also (this is a big one, just a idea that came to me, doubt it can ever be implemented), Evochron is somewhat of an MMO. It can be played alone, but is best when played with a large number of players. However, unlike MMOs, it lacks the "hub" areas. In many MMOs, you'd have a big central city, where you can find nearly all standard items at standard prices, as well as be a great meeting point for friends. It would have many business areas, places to play, and maybe even auction houses. It wouldn't take away from the fun of exploring, because only mainstream items can be found, at slightly above regular prices. For that ultrarare item, or that awesome deal, you'd still need to go exploring.

How this could work would be a massive city in space. The thing would be pretty massive, several times the size of a regular station. It's architectural design would be somewhat like the stations on Freelancer, lots of bits and doodads hanging about. It wouldn't necessarily be one big model, but a lot of standard station sized sections placed very close to each other, like blocks in a real life city. Each one would be different. You could leave spaces between them, which could be called the "roads". You'd have a large open docking area in the center, that people can directly warp into (if they right-click the city on the map) it would have several different docking bays (AKA "Shops") as well as different services for players, such as areas to play the space rugby game, a combat training area, a couple constructs here and there, and lots of different things. The city would be a refreshing escape from the harsh darkness of deep space. It would give some very low risk missions ("deliver this box to that district" or "we are out of stock, travel to x station, pick up the shipment, and bring it to us") and maybe some high risk, high paying missions ("We've got an important shipment on the way, but they've reported incoming pirates, go help them" or some sneakier ones "I want this company to go out of business, destroy their cargo ships to prevent them from restocking"). There would be flashy lights, corporate presences, lots of "eye candy" areas, such as big entertainment districts, darker, seedier districts, advertisements to join the Alliance Navy, big corporate holographic ads (The EvoCorp Fulcrum Torpedo. For there is a madman in all of us.), etc. It's basically a futuristic New York City. In space.

Don't get me wrong, Mercenaries doesn't need anything like this, I just think it would be such an awesome thing to have. You may ask, "why should we add this?". I would say, "Why not?".

[TGS]

I like this idea... but I think right now considering chat is 'universe wide" I think it would be rather redundant for the most part.

If chat were to be divided up into sections based on location perhaps it would be great especially if other things could be accessible while you're there.

Though I'm not sure how the game would even handle having too many people all in one area at this point?

Originally posted by alpha45
Yeah, I had a couple ideas too. A buildable beacon. All it would do is create blip on the map, that can be seen from very large distances. Players can use it to mark points of interest, meeting points, and other things. Giving them the ability to have custom text "billboards" would be awesome, since you could place a marker, and have it display a message to any curious pilots, explaining it's purpose. You could even put a bunch of them in a line, creating a "highway" of sorts.

Also (this is a big one, just a idea that came to me, doubt it can ever be implemented), Evochron is somewhat of an MMO. It can be played alone, but is best when played with a large number of players. However, unlike MMOs, it lacks the "hub" areas. In many MMOs, you'd have a big central city, where you can find nearly all standard items at standard prices, as well as be a great meeting point for friends. It would have many business areas, places to play, and maybe even auction houses. It wouldn't take away from the fun of exploring, because only mainstream items can be found, at slightly above regular prices. For that ultrarare item, or that awesome deal, you'd still need to go exploring.

How this could work would be a massive city in space. The thing would be pretty massive, several times the size of a regular station. It's architectural design would be somewhat like the stations on Freelancer, lots of bits and doodads hanging about. It wouldn't necessarily be one big model, but a lot of standard station sized sections placed very close to each other, like blocks in a real life city. Each one would be different. You could leave spaces between them, which could be called the "roads". You'd have a large open docking area in the center, that people can directly warp into (if they right-click the city on the map) it would have several different docking bays (AKA "Shops") as well as different services for players, such as areas to play the space rugby game, a combat training area, a couple constructs here and there, and lots of different things. The city would be a refreshing escape from the harsh darkness of deep space. It would give some very low risk missions ("deliver this box to that district" or "we are out of stock, travel to x station, pick up the shipment, and bring it to us") and maybe some high risk, high paying missions ("We've got an important shipment on the way, but they've reported incoming pirates, go help them" or some sneakier ones "I want this company to go out of business, destroy their cargo ships to prevent them from restocking"). There would be flashy lights, corporate presences, lots of "eye candy" areas, such as big entertainment districts, darker, seedier districts, advertisements to join the Alliance Navy, big corporate holographic ads (The EvoCorp Fulcrum Torpedo. For there is a madman in all of us.), etc. It's basically a futuristic New York City. In space.

Don't get me wrong, Mercenaries doesn't need anything like this, I just think it would be such an awesome thing to have. You may ask, "why should we add this?". I would say, "Why not?".

By the way in response to blackthorn's ideas

1. That should be put in place asap. The amount of hassle one has to go through in order to swap around equipment/ships without losing things is silly.

2. I love and hate this at the same time but... this is redundant. With the new deployable constructor you can drop a fuel processor which when you enter converts your energy into fuel. So if you maximize your energy you can sit in it and get free fuel. Takes a long time but it's a must have for anyone that burns a lot of fuel.

3. I think excals are fine as they are now. Before in EL they were overpowered and quite frankly made other missile systems pointless. Now they perform the same job they performed before but aren't overpowered in that the reload time balances out the unlimited nature of them. Optimally though if anything Vice should add another weapon system similar to Excal's in the form of a Cluster missile system that is limited but either fires 4-8 missiles or fires one missile that breaks off into multiple missiles.

[Edited on 9-24-2010 by TGS]

[Aures]

1) Yeah I had to do that little dance for the first time this morning, a more direct method would be welcome.

2) Interesting idea but I'm neutral about it. I don't think it is redundant any more than having equipment stealth and consumable stealth is. For civilian frames it would enable a tradoff between assembly and capacity/missle loadout.

3) I think the excaliburs should be changed to one missle fired per salvo and each missle should have its own 3 minute reload. It is pretty easy to press the launch button multiple times if you still want to fire them all at once but this would change it from 1 powerful salvo per 3 minutes to 8 fairly weak but fast missles per 3 minutes. Not overpowered compared to other missles but comes into its own for really long battles. Also prevents you from loading stealth fields etc like it does currently so even lynx missles would still have certain advantages compared to excals.

[VaderShana]

Yeah

I suggest that the pilot is able to climb out of his/her ship in space and on planets as well.



thus, making the spacecraft landable on planets...

[Whytephyre]

1. Cool idea

2. Less cool & game changing, but variety is the spice of life

3. Meh excals are okay, the firing one excal missile at a time and them each having a seperate recharge timer would be cool though like aures said.

4! I liked my idea for buying a carrier
You could command it to a waypoint & it would sit & make jump calculations like the capital ships in missions. Fulcrums would still ruin them of course. It would be fun to blow up other people's carrier

getting out of the spaceship would be meh... Maybe if you could space yourself for fun, or go spacewalking with scissors lol

[Edited on 9-24-2010 by Whytephyre]

[Marvin]

Originally posted by Aures

I think the excaliburs should be changed to one missle fired per salvo and each missle should have its own 3 minute reload.

If they were more powerful, that might make sense. But a single excal is one of the least lethal missiles in the Evochron inventory.

[Aures]

Yeah, but four of them spearing off and hitting a friendly after your target has blown up is plenty damaging and wasteful.

The missiles wouldn't need to be more powerful, they are lethal enough as is. Sure if you want to use them in place of an exodus you will need to fire a couple, but don't underestimatd the advantage of having unlimited missiles ready to fire one at a time. Can be used for opening attack to knock out a chunk of shield, to finish off enemies that are badly damaged, as a quick alternative when your weapons energy has run dry, as a parting gift when you are about to lose cannon/laser range and as a harassment technique to keep your target off balance or keep other ships occupied while you pick them off. Much better than a once/twice in a fight all or nothing salvo which has now made them slightly underpowered (balanced by cost effectiveness and not having to hunt for ammo) compared to the other good missiles. Considering the speed and range of excals, giving them more damage would make them overpowered again.

I would really like to see the firing method changed or to have another version introduced or some way of switching the number fired at once on the fly, say using the select next and previous secondary weapon buttons. If you think it is a good idea let the forum know, Vice seems to like and to listen to feedback (much rarer in the gaming industry than it should be, another reason Evochron is a gem). I fully support that the reload time was changed, but I think some variation on this idea would tweak the excal balance until it is almost perfect. At the moment it is not really a serious contender for PVP combat, a reversal from Legends where it was a tough choice to use anything but excals.

[Bogusheadbox]

I think the excals are perfect the way they are. Very balanced now.

Pros.

1 Save you a shed load of money never buying missiles again.
2 very powerful weapon
3 with some smart thinking you can take out 2 enemy with one hit

Cons,
1. long reload time
2. you have to choose you target carefully as you can easily waste most of the salvo.

The excals forces you to re-think your load out in your craft, and adjust your attacking style. I think its almost perfectly balanced.


Some other ideas i would like to put forward.

1. AI ships to hire (including cap ships) Make them very expensive but available for times where you want to bring a gun to a knife fight (would be great for clan warfare) The expense of them though would definitely limit their use and perhaps cause clan members to pool money to purchase them.

2. There needs to be money sinks in game. There should be a penalty of about 10-20% of your available money deducted when you die (cost of cloning your pilot and replenishing ship - a percentage will hurt those with loads of money and not really bother those with a little).

Its too easy to make money in game (a lot of money, in fact i remember some people mentioning cash piles in the amounts of billions)

3. This one is for discussion. Enemy Cap ships that warp in on a fight have no problem firing on me, but friendly Cap ships will not fire on enemy fighters, only enemy cap ships. I think this should be changed so you can use tactics to draw a swarm of enemy into the firing range of a cap ship and the enemy can do so as well. This would also tie into a previous point of hiring cap ships.


@blackthorn,

Some good thoughts there, but one comment on external tanks. I agree with others that this is not necessary (unless you can trade in fuel) as you can build a station to refuel and you can purchase an afterburner unit which runs off energy insted of fuel which can theoretically gived you unlimited travel (though a little amount of fuel would be good for manouvering thrusters)

Just my thoughts

[evilroy]

Adding in my two cents on ideas:

First...big fan of the external fuel tank idea. Very cool.

1) afterburner overdrive....useful in some situations, but for the most part not something you want on all the time as it makes the use of your normal afterburner very limited...a separate control to engage the overdrive would be cool.

2) ship management items.....I know, just more to worry about...but, yeah...more to worry about!
---------a) ship oxygen tanks.....manage just like fuel.....if you run out....bad pizza. This would force pilots to drop down into atmospheres more often, or create another need for cash at stations.
---------b) maintenance.....or lack thereof resulting in random system failures...cannon jams, etc....

3) runways for planet landings.....ok, I know I am seriously out to lunch on that one..(especially since the ships have no landing gear......but) how cool would that be! There could be a balance point there as well, such as having to use an equip slot for landing gear to reach smaller settlements without tractor beams that pay big cash for much needed resources or have rare items.

I guess if I didn't like the game as much as I do I wouldn't sit around thinking..."wouldn't it be cool if......."

[Edited on 9-26-2010 by evilroy]

[Aures]

I think the ship management systems are ruled out by lore. I think the oxygen recycling is supposed to be like 100% efficient, so you have some oxygen but you don't need to replace it.

Why would a flying brick need a runway?

[Edited on 26-9-2010 by Aures]

[Sinner6]

Blackthorne,

I agree, there are a couple small workflow issues. Your first suggestion is a good one, this would also allow ships with no cargo bay to move equipment without a bunch of rigamarole. Your drop tanks idea might be of use for "ferry" type missions or long one way flights, it might also an be interesting factor in ship building, as you could go with a smaller tank than you otherwise would. Interesting, but not as crucial as the first item.

I've never used Excalibur, so no comment there.

One thing I would say it that rather than add new features, I would ask that "workflow optimization" be considered the area with the biggest room for improvement. If I were to ask for one thing and one thing only, it would be a way to see an objects price in the shipyard. Right now, I have to drag parts I'm curious about onto my ship to see the price. I must do this individually, in turn, after re-equiping my original part to see individual prices. Am I missing something? If not, this and Blackthorne's first suggestion together, would help a great deal to enhance my enjoyment of this wonderful game/sim.