Must say I'm continually pleased by everything I see coming out of these blogs. I hope everything pans out or at least leads to interesting new possibilities. I like the idea of running in after a Hegemony defense fleet saves me and rescuing some of the stranded crew.
:-[ guess this means we can not have 0.7.3a sooner.
Also, is that a dark star I see in the first pic? Or a jumpgate?.
Cool new systems with two suns, a black hole, and a tiny planet --> would never happen in vanilla :) .
Exciting salvage and "free stuff" at every planet!
Eventually leads up to outposts ... will we encounter outposts of other factions?
Do the outposts make factions stronger?
"In Starsector, Derelict salvages you"= WIN
Debris fields are a great idea to help ease early game supply/money woes! I also love that exploration can have you running into unique enemies/defenses/whatever else! Procedural generation can work, but only if you've got enough unique content to seed it with, yeah. Repeating the same 5-10 chunks of content across 100 star systems is hopefully not the route you intend to take for exploration...
An FTL: Faster than Light total conversion is looking more and more possible with the addition of a salvage system! Custom wrecks simulating random events and randomly generated sectors... hohoho.
Nothing motivates me to buckle down on modding like knowing more about how you're going to break whatever I work on with the next update :).
This is really good; having more stuff to do than cruise around looking for fights with other fleets and trade is compelling, especially salvage.
I have nothing useful to add other than the more I read, the more excited I get!!!
What I mean by that is currently there's no real end game challenge that relies on anything other than numerical advantage, and numerical advantage doesn't really hold up well when the player can solo defense fleets with a single frigate. The implied parity between AI ships and player ships then fall apart simply because the player becomes too good for the AI. That, to me, is the source of a huge disconnect.
I wonder how much of a challenge the procedural generation is being for you Alex. I mean, when I install mods that makes my game have over 30 systems it already makes the journey between one end of the sector to another take forever, even with time dilation. If procedural generation is going to allow us to have hundreds of star systems, are you looking into changing the speed in which the player traverses hyperspace? I can't imagine forcing myself to go really far off to established outposts in order to defend them. It might take a full month to get there especially if I'm fielding capitals.
Another thing is, have you addressed the memory and performance issues of having too many populated systems? Again, if we have hundreds of systems and players decide to make an outpost in every one of them, wouldn't the economy and fleet simulation boggle down?
Now what makes me the most excited about what you showed is the possibility of exploration elements inside the combat gameplay. You've already shown defense mechanisms, I suppose they fly out like ships (?), but part of me wishes that in the middle of the field there is this huge derelict ship with a few active guns with their own HP and you have to go there shoot them down. This would be great in scenarios like defending or attacking outposts, I would love if those battles are different from regular battles. As in, if I'm assaulting the station, I want to physically shoot at it and its defenses during combat, not just deal with defense fleets. Kinda like SPAZ in that regard but I always felt that their stations were too small.
something that entails a choicedoes that hint at overarching quests, or ones that can start on a discovery?
Will salvaging salvagefields take time ingame? or is it instant?
Aside from Missile Specialization, I focus on skills that give more speed (top speed, maneuverability, venting), range, and OP to afford everything my ships need. Kiting with long range weapons and fast dissipation is what works best. Add hull regeneration from Damage Control 10, and the flagship can stay as long as CR is high enough. The Ordnance Expert skill is useful mostly for Optimized Assembly perk at 10, which frees a ton of OP for ships, effectively making it an +OP skill. The faster shots perk is only useful for an IPDAI combo. The damage increase from Ordnance Expert is just a minor bonus to the Optimized Assembly perk. Target Analysis, a pure damage skill, is one of the very last skills I would touch.What I mean by that is currently there's no real end game challenge that relies on anything other than numerical advantage, and numerical advantage doesn't really hold up well when the player can solo defense fleets with a single frigate. The implied parity between AI ships and player ships then fall apart simply because the player becomes too good for the AI. That, to me, is the source of a huge disconnect.
Yeah, this is a very good point, but I think this will be largely addressed by the skill revamp.
For example, hypothetically speaking, let's say the revamp involved 1) increasing all base ship OP by 10%, and 2) limiting the OP gain from skills to 10%. And then optionally giving access to that 10% bonus to some AI fleets. That by itself would go a long way towards bringing some parity back - the player is always going to be better, right, but the goal is just to make sure that deploying allies is a good option.
And then if you emphasize defensive skills a bit more in the revamp, while scaling the total impact of skills back a bit, it helps with that (allied ships survive better), and it also helps rein in the amount of damage a lone player ship can do, while at the same time making high-end combat a little slower-paced and more tactical.
- Are you planning to replace the current post-battle salvage screen with debris field salvage operations?
- Do you intend to allow the player to interrupt the salvage operation and get a partial haul, or do you want the player to have to complete a full operation in order to recover stuff from a debris field or derelict?
I totally approve of the intend to make the salvaging a time consuming task on the campaign map: I think it will be great to build tension while balancing the fact that being able to salvage other fleets remains make the game much easier (as we saw with the old Tradewind mod)
Also, I'm assuming the old salvage screen is totally replaced by scavenging debris field? So you have to invest some time after each battle to get the spoils?
Will salvaging salvagefields take time ingame? or is it instant?
- Are debris fields going to stick around for a while even after the player or a computer-controlled fleet salvages the field, and is this dependent upon whether or not there is still salvage left in the field after a fleet completes a salvage operation? E.g. I complete a salvage operation and decide I don't want everything, or am unable to fit everything I collected into my cargo bays; will this stuff vanish instantly, or does the debris field stick around for a little while?
- Will computer-controlled fleets be competing with the player in some fashion for the salvage from debris fields (e.g. attempt to get to the most recent fields first, attempt to chase the player away from fields that both the player and the computer fleet are aware of, etc)?
- Will certain factions feel a degree of 'possessiveness' about debris fields, particularly if those fields are in "their" space or include derelicts which were once part of the faction's fleet? E.g. will Hegemony patrols attempt to chase off scavengers attempting to loot a debris field which was formerly a System Defense Fleet or something like that?
- Does exploration implies reworking the codex too?
- I see the radar is back, is it related to a skill or hullmod??? Or a permanent UI element? Can it be improved by skills and hullmods?
-Quotesomething that entails a choicedoes that hint at overarching quests, or ones that can start on a discovery?
- 200 systems, the hyper map must have grown a hell of a lot. But will there be some "shortcuts"? The game mentioned whormhole could connect to hyperspace "or other places" so will we see super whormholes that directly send you to another part of the sector? Some form of optional hyper-lanes connecting constellations together??? Or will the performances issues force you to cut the sector in a few separate instances connected by hyper-wormholes?
Do black holes actively pull you in?
If so is touching a black hole instant death? ( while this might seem harsh i think generally the population, especially those interested in sci fi games, know what black holes do by default, no tutorial needed on that one.)
Do black holes cause time dilation the closer you get to them?
Do automated security forces default to hostile? or can they be neutral/allied as well?
I'll hold the rest of my questions until we get to talk about outposts since I know you want to leave a lot about exploration for us to discover ourselves.
Now that we'll be braving the space-wilds and robbing space-tombs, will we also get cool ship equipment to find (in addition to commodities and those mysterious outpost/survey related items)?
It's always bugged me that there are no "rare drop" weapons in Starsector, nothing that would be exciting to find a provide a substantial advantage, because even the rarest and most powerful weapons are only moderately more difficult to acquire and more effective than the common junk. But digging through ancient derelicts means a lot of opportunities for finding powerful lost technology.
What about proper automated stations that fire at you. And will we ever get use of the gates? I assume they act like supergates passing between systems.
My guess for the new items: Neural skill-implants, red for combat-, yellow-green for leadership- and blue for technology-aptitude. Those little tails remind me of neuron dendrites :)
The mini map seems like a huge QOL improvement, pausing to game just to get your bearings is pretty annoying. Although I hope it's not the final design, doesn't look as polished as the TRIPAD UI (and why is it so often this WW2 era radar interface?).
Concerning debris fields and scaveneging; any plans to try an weave the boarding mechanic into it? Seems like a good place for a more active boarding scenario/decisions between salvaging hulls or cargo.
E.G, imagine you actually see when a chunk of the debris field suddenly re-activates engines and tries to leave it, instead of just reading it. And then you have to get to it and board/shoot it before it reaches the edge of the field or it becomes a real fleet again.
(BTW, the second paragraph of "What makes exploration fun?" ends with a ",.".)
I would love to try and play as/encounter a professional scavenger even in later game, someone with a big but really slow fleet that can't chase anything down, but lumbers near whenever a big battle took place any scares off all smaller vultures.
Aside from Missile Specialization, I focus on skills that give more speed (top speed, maneuverability, venting), range, and OP to afford everything my ships need. Kiting with long range weapons and fast dissipation is what works best. Add hull regeneration from Damage Control 10, and the flagship can stay as long as CR is high enough. The Ordnance Expert skill is useful mostly for Optimized Assembly perk at 10, which frees a ton of OP for ships, effectively making it an +OP skill. The faster shots perk is only useful for an IPDAI combo. The damage increase from Ordnance Expert is just a minor bonus to the Optimized Assembly perk. Target Analysis, a pure damage skill, is one of the very last skills I would touch.
Huge numerical advantage of the enemy means my AI ships will die; they get overwhelmed. This is like back in the day when I try to kill Hegemony Defense fleets with 40 OP worth of frigates, and the only way I could pull it off was to chain-flagship the frigates. Deploying all as a fleet got the frigates killed quickly by Onslaughts or what not.
- I see the radar is back, is it related to a skill or hullmod??? Or a permanent UI element? Can it be improved by skills and hullmods?
"Back"?
What is that thing you boarded in the second screenshot by the way? Some kind of colony ship? It clearly got some kind of engines tubes-things, plus it's huge compared to your little Medusa. Or just a placeholder?
One of my favorite parts of the Escape Velocity games was the feeling of exploring off into unknown systems, with a limited fuel supply, wondering if you would find something interesting.
Are you procedurally generating markets as well?
Working through the icons ("exactly the same as the map" doesn't quite seem to work well), but wasn't thinking of updating the widget itself. Maybe David will come up with something, though.
WW2 radar: well, it needs to be round. And then the concentric circles indicate range - in the radar, they're spaced at 2000 unit increments, same as the map grid. Once you've got those things, that's pretty much the design right there... just seems entirely driven by its function.
What is that thing you boarded in the second screenshot by the way? Some kind of colony ship? It clearly got some kind of engines tubes-things, plus it's huge compared to your little Medusa. Or just a placeholder?
It's just, the campaign UI we have is in-universe, with the little metal bits holding it in place, and the buttons, and the information parts being "projected" and the TRIPAD writing and all. The radar on the other hand just floats there. Some little metal parts framing the text and projecting the radar could really help to sell it.
However, hypothetically speaking, this would be something less than an 8% overall reduction - not all *that* much. Plus, I feel like having a few less OP on the high end will make the choices more interesting. The way it is now, too many things are "must have" in large part because there's enough OP to get all of them.Not sure about this. I would certainly dump the luxuries (e.g., more capacitors, bigger missiles, extra weapons), but the critical stuff like Augmented Engines, ITU, and (maybe) Hardened Subsystems will stay. Also, may gravitate toward cheap but effective weapons (e.g., Tactical Laser over Graviton Beam, Heavy Mauler or Hellbore over HAG, Heavy AC instead of Heavy Needler, etc.) and dump the missiles (especially if Missile Specialization gets whacked hard). It would also make the Flux Dynamics perks a joke (I almost never take advantage of double max vents because there is not enough OP to take advantage without giving up more important stuff). If anything, I think less OP would reduce interesting choices, not expand them, unless the must-haves are weakened enough, integrated into ships (e.g., shot range builtin for all ships like in some mods), or changed into skill bonuses.
If anything, I think less OP would reduce interesting choices, not expand them, unless the must-haves are weakened enough, integrated into ships (e.g., shot range builtin for all ships like in some mods), or changed into skill bonuses.
Ah, gotcha, that makes sense. I was thinking that it's in the same style as the ability widget and that'd be enough, but yeah, some bits and bobs in the tripad style probably wouldn't hurt to add. Made a note!
I think interesting choices while refitting a ship should depend more on the intended role of the ship. At the moment you can just build a fleet of general purpose ships that is sufficient to tackle any and all (vanilla) obstacles. That is due to two things, firstly the superior stats of your ships, and secondly the lack of variety in combat scenarios. We have one scenario where special fast ships are required, that is pursuit. For everything else any kind of combat ship will do, be it missile, long-range laser or strike. You just have to make it as generally powerful as you can. Cutting player OP will mitigate the issue, but I think that's only half the rent.Currently, there are only three necessary roles in a fleet: brute force, cargo hauling, and tugs to raise burn speed of capitals to 9 (or 8 in case of Atlas). Of the three, only one is relevant in a fight.
Cutting OP only helps if you cut so much that your combat ships cannot afford all of the necessities. If you cut some OP but leave just enough to get all of the bare necessities, then ships will just get all of the bare necessities and nothing else fun.
Hell I'm already limited since the AI will almost always close to knife fight range so why would I give them long range guns?
Until the AI learns to focus fire on a ship until it is dead (especially with skills becoming more defensive, thus increasing the TTK) and the AI doesn't get to basically IGNORE CR, supply consumption and damage/ losses, OP and skill changes will only HURT ship build diversity.When I used to fight with fleets, I would spend excess CP by selecting every ship in my fleet, and click an enemy I want dead now. There is no kill like overkill. I am not fond of my ships automatically splitting up to engage enemies in multiple duels. If I cannot gang-up on the enemy with superior numbers, it becomes time to leave the fleet undeployed and solo or chain-flagship the enemy.
That's the thing that I'm talking about with the loss of builds! You can't build a ship the way YOU want it, you have to build a ship in a way the AI can use it, meaning that most of the experimental builds can only happen on your ship even though they really only work/ are fun to use on AI shipsHell I'm already limited since the AI will almost always close to knife fight range so why would I give them long range guns?
I think you got it the wrong way, the engagement range the AI chooses is dependent on it's weapon loadout. If you only give it long range weapons it will keep its distance (sufficient mobility provided).
I know that you are not a fan of hard-counters, Alex, and that's not what I'm suggesting. You can still beat those opponents with a general purpose fleet, but it would take much more ships on your side. At least some dashes of the stone-paper-scissors principle would help to mix things up in a good way, I believe.
You mentioned the core worlds will be "set" but as we explore further and further out, are there (for lack of better term) "levels" or "depth" of just how far out from inhabited space you are? For example, you have the core worlds, the vicinity just beyond them (that the player needs to explore for their own information), the region beyond that where the current factions may still be exploring/exploiting, and then perhaps a swath of systems that haven't been touched since the Domain-era and no one really knows about.
A part of me wants both the comfort of knowing that I haven't "gone off the map" yet (i.e. still colonies/outposts to trade with and whatnot) but if I really want to, I can be the "first" to explore a system, perhaps even planting a Hegemony flag on it if I were so incentivized. If the procedural generation doesn't have an internal logic to it, it breaks the immersion. I wouldn't want to go from a system that seems unexplored, travel seemingly further from civilization and find a system teeming with every faction.
If that makes sense.
Just imagine it: you're exploring one of the most distant, hard to reach systems in game and your exploration/salvage fleet flies up to a planet and suddenly something blips into sensor range! A capital sized ship, long dormant! With your max salvage skills you manage to successfully board and reactive its essential systems! It's revealed the ship was a part of some hyperspace jumping experiment gone wrong!
BAM! After dumping hundreds of supplies to repair it you are now the proud owner of an ancient, powerful and unique capital ship from a long lost era! Man, that'd be totally awsome for something like that to be one of the high-end rewards for exploration/salvage!
:D
Are salvaged/found items going to be random commodities, or is there going to be equipment in there as well?
Is it going to be possible to "find" usable/repairable hulls?
Is there going to be "unique" things to find that can't be obtained any other way?
But overall, just imagine me turning purple then jumping round in a circle saying "yes" repeatedly. I might even knock some things over, but I won't even notice because yes.
Also the inferral of perhaps more powerful drones that you may come across in, say, more Special Circumstances.
I've just re-read almost all the Culture Series books, I can't stop myself thinking like this anymore.
Several like this in the blog post - nice, simple additions that hit bang-on with the current flavour of the world and the game and should only add to the experience.
The thing I don't want to do is force the player to redesign their ships often due to this kind of thing. If you go to war with, say, the Luddic Church and their fleets are light on shields - that's one thing. If you're encouraged to redesign from encounter to encounter, that's something else.
Just imagine it: you're exploring one of the most distant, hard to reach systems in game and your exploration/salvage fleet flies up to a planet and suddenly something blips into sensor range! A capital sized ship, long dormant! With your max salvage skills you manage to successfully board and reactive its essential systems! It's revealed the ship was a part of some hyperspace jumping experiment gone wrong!
BAM! After dumping hundreds of supplies to repair it you are now the proud owner of an ancient, powerful and unique capital ship from a long lost era! Man, that'd be totally awsome for something like that to be one of the high-end rewards for exploration/salvage!
:D
Makes sense. So, you're saying the factions will be further differentiated in their loadouts and fleet compositions?
An approach I could imagine is that for battles where you need a fleet (e.g. faction wars) loadouts have to rarely change, but battles where you only need a ship (if you do it right) can require more variation, since you can just select the most apropriate ship. For example, while big pirate fleets remain relatively well-rounded, small pirate fleets could be very specialzed in different ways (missile, fighter, . Then you can of course take out those small fleet with your whole fleet, but you can also be more cost-efficient and choose just the one of your specialist ships thats strong against their special. That would give those specialzed ships a reason to exist, without requiering frequent re-design.
For me at least the cases were I defeated an enemy very efficiently because I had just the right tools were a lot of fun.
Ancient Ceremonial Onslaught.
Rather than find ancient ships and weapons of domination, I prefer to find blueprints or autofactories that let me build modern ships and weapons of domination.
Ahhh yes. Those are some good books; I should re-read them. (Have you read "Against a Dark Background"? Also Banks, and also really good; read it due to David recommending it a while back.)It would be p. cool (and amusing) if you could work in a band of solopsist mercenaries somewhere.
Several like this in the blog post - nice, simple additions that hit bang-on with the current flavour of the world and the game and should only add to the experience.
Not quite sure what you mean here - maybe there's a word missing or something? I mean, I get the general drift, but even so.
(Have you read "Against a Dark Background"? Also Banks, and also really good; read it due to David recommending it a while back.)
Right now, the low-end pirate ships are designed so that each variant is different to play against, with different strengths and weaknesses, but stuff that's meant to be (mostly) overcome tactically. I think that turned out pretty well, especially if one looks at pirates as sort of an introduction to tougher fights. Changing small pirate fleets to be specialized would largely throw this out.
Maybe I have always been a chat-bot?
It was just that the new features; of themselves; don't appear particularly complicated additions (at face value, at least). They don't really add much content or change the game too much when taken individually and treated simply.
Like the debris field; big deal it's just a different way to get to the salvage screen.
Automated drones; big deal it's just another poxy new entry-level enemy.
Procedural systems; whatever we got mods to do that.
&c.
But in each point - there is something in addition to just being simple new toys ... in that they are implemented sufficiently cleverly and carefully that you can almost feel the self-reinforcing, reverberant nature of all the new things bouncing off each other AND the current iteration of the game as we know it.
There's kind of a feeling about it ... It just makes me feel like it's all going to 'work'.
You know what, I haven't. I read 'The Algebraist' (awesome) pretty much immediately after David's literary blog-post; but then that just got me sucked in to finishing off all the Culture stuff after remembering how much I enjoyed Banks. It'll go next on the list though, cos why not?
The only thing pirate fleets need is unique Buffalo IIs with their own annoying all-in loadouts.
Yeah, I hear what you're saying here. Counterpoint: by the time you've got multiple ships and can afford to have some of them be specialized (meaning, you're sacrificing total fleet strength!), you're probably not very interested in fighting small pirates. It might still happen, but is it a case worth building for?
In other tweeter news, this. (https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/755585123186159617)
But look closely:Spoiler(http://i.imgur.com/U9a0k4k.jpg)[close]
I see two other new ships in addition to the "Domain era automated defenses" that was shown in the blog post...
I suppose it's not really surprising considering the need for variety though.
Yeah, I hear what you're saying here. Counterpoint: by the time you've got multiple ships and can afford to have some of them be specialized (meaning, you're sacrificing total fleet strength!), you're probably not very interested in fighting small pirates. It might still happen, but is it a case worth building for?
It is so nice to see you can get them on your side. Makes me wonder how though. Not that I want to know, since I like surprises, but makes me wonder.
I think this is just an engine test, I wouldn't draw conclusions from that about drone behavior.
(Sorry I really liked the idea of something that could be really powerful and hard to get XD)
Also maybe debris would attract salvagers (Independent) and Pirates. At least the ones that are large and can spell "profitssss". Obviously I do not mean non stop, but more like random and rarely, just to give a feeling that in this galaxy you are not the only one that would salvage from them when they appear.
In other tweeter news, this. (https://twitter.com/amosolov/status/755585123186159617)
But look closely:Spoiler(http://i.imgur.com/U9a0k4k.jpg)
I see two other new ships in addition to the "Domain era automated defenses" that was shown in the blog post...
I suppose it's not really surprising considering the need for variety though.[close]
Whaaat, you just about doubled combat performance, Alex? Ok then...
I wonder if this has any implications for game mechanics, like a higher standard amount of deployment points or even new combat scenarios...
How about giving each ship a bunch (less than 30% of total?) of 'rotatable hardpoints' where u can place up to 3 weapons in the same hardpoint (config 1, config 2 and config 3) (you have to purchase all the weapons and they are all on the ship even if only 30% of then are usable in each battle, so there is greater risk involved if its lost) and when u deploy the ship you chose which config it uses (config 1: point defence, config 2: missile boat, config 3: EMP for eg. - however the player has labelled them)
this allows for ship flexibility and limitted countering without needing to have a fleet 3x bigger?
maybe even allow players to choose the AI script attached to each config when they label it?
Yeah, I hear what you're saying here. Counterpoint: by the time you've got multiple ships and can afford to have some of them be specialized (meaning, you're sacrificing total fleet strength!), you're probably not very interested in fighting small pirates. It might still happen, but is it a case worth building for?
Ah, but the whole point of the exercise is to motivate the player to have a diverse fleet, which should not "sacrifice total fleet strength". Ideally, the differently specialized ships complement each other (and the generalists) in a fleet context, having no negative or even a small positive (when they can each single out the opponent they were designed for) impact on overall fleet performance. While, and this is the central point, having a great impact on combat diversity and thus making the battles more fun to play and watch.
It is so nice to see you can get them on your side. Makes me wonder how though. Not that I want to know, since I like surprises, but makes me wonder.
I think this is just an engine test, I wouldn't draw conclusions from that about drone behavior.
I miss being able to bring a fleet of forty ships and smashing endgame fleets in a big free-for-all. With only eleven fighting ships at most (and some specialized for pursuit), there is no way I can fight epic fleet vs. fleet battles efficiently. That leaves god-of-war (solo/chain-flagship) vs. 40+ ship enemy fleet.
What makes exploration fun?
On a basic level, exploration is about finding stuff and being rewarded for it in some way. Mechanically, this tells us two things: 1) we need lots of variety, so that the player isn’t finding exactly the same things over and over again, (i.e. a large part of this is content, even if it’s combined procedurally to get more mileage) and 2) there have to be rewards.
Then you’ve got the second-to-second gameplay of exploring new star systems. A lot of that is going to involve flying around; there’s no avoiding that.
Hmm. Counterpoint! If the specialized variants work in a general fleet context, then it's not necessary to provide specialized opponents for them to be useful.
Come to think of it, I had a lot of fun one playthrough with a 2nd ship being a Vigilance with a cautious officer, unstable injectors, an Ion Beam, and a Salamander Pod. That's a totally specialized support ship and it was super effective early game - best case scenario it disables things all the time, worst case it's a distraction. I'm pretty sure I've seen people talk about using Kites in a similar fashion. Specialized PD ships seem like they could be quite useful as well, as long as there's a priority target that needs guarding. It's probably just not *necessary*, in part due to max skills being good enough to just wipe the floor with anything on your own.
Also a question on the subject of performance, could the time acceleration on the map made faster, even if it makes it more jerky and/or crashy, my desktop has a watercooled i5 with a rather nice overclock but the time acceleration has the same factor on my *** laptop, I am pretty sure it could be somehow made to go faster.
I think one point that could be added here is "anticipation". From what I understand exploration is mostly about flying around and occasionally stumbling about something interesting (the post is a bit vague here). If true, I think that misses the opportunity of having a treasure hunt, where part of the fun comes from the rewards, some might come from the travel through terrain - but a big part comes from finding and following hints and knowing that you're getting closer to something!
Imagine searching through an abandoned station, and finding pre-collapse logs with the last known position and course of an overdue freighter, extrapolating the course data to an asteroid field, and then scavenging that field to discover the wreck and its cargo. Or hearing a rumor about this crazy pirate who again and again ventures into the unknown to come back with a broken ship. So you secretly follow him out of sensor range to find him fighting the drones of a ancient colony ship. Will you ally with him or take all for your self?
Doesn't that sound more fun then just arbitrarily criss-crossing a star system and randomly stumbling over treasure?
Yeah, this is... part of the stuff I didn't want to talk about due to potential ruining etc. Also due to it not being all done, but, yes, "breadcurmbs" for things are something I'm looking at very closely. Spoiler for an example that's in right now:
Come to think of it, I had a lot of fun one playthrough with a 2nd ship being a Vigilance with a cautious officer, unstable injectors, an Ion Beam, and a Salamander Pod. That's a totally specialized support ship and it was super effective early game - best case scenario it disables things all the time, worst case it's a distraction. I'm pretty sure I've seen people talk about using Kites in a similar fashion.
Breadcrumbs should not lread to something trivial or normal bonuses. But rather shouldent they be handcrafted to lead to epic things, even if just lore wise. Like thoes rainbow worlds that lead in starcontrolRainbow worlds in Star Control 2 were nothing more than a big chunk of "credits" (i.e., less lifeform grinding needed) and some resources. Now if the dev encounter at Groombridge actually made it in the game...
Breadcrumbs should not lread to something trivial or normal bonuses. But rather shouldent they be handcrafted to lead to epic things, even if just lore wise. Like thoes rainbow worlds that lead in starcontrol
So is the introduction of automated derelics as low-tier exploration-based foes going to be focused on drones?
... I don't know, who's to say? :-XTruly, it is a mystery.
... I don't know, who's to say? :-XTruly, it is a mystery.
An enigma most perplexing.
A shadow hidden within a riddle buried somewhere beyond the horizon of understanding.
Who are we that attempt to ken that which is not for us - and nay, not of us? Indeed, it is but our fate as mere human beings to grasp for truths we cannot reach.
:-X
The only thing I could *maybe* see doing here is adding a settings.json value for the time multiplier; going to give that a bit of thought.
/me feeds the pet some candy
As a modder, one thing I wanted to ask in regards to the procedural generation portion of exploring and content:
How "easy" do you anticipate it to be for a modder to get their own stuff into the procedural portion of the game? Will this be supported at all?
I had a whole lot before when it was a text file and I could just edit the exact variants that spawned and fairly easily write the code to spawn them wherever I wanted. Now I have to make the 8-12-16 unit group point system try and play nice when certain ships require others to be effective. :-[
Thank you!
(Pet peeve: people calling systems "sectors" :) There's only one Sector in the game! Ahem.)