I've been working on my own Sci-Fi Multiplayer game that's an odd combination of various other games.
Lore Inspirations:
Starsector
Firefly
Gameplay Inspirations:
Darkspace
Freelancer
Star Citizen/Squadron 42 (Based on idea, really)
Backstory
The game is set in an outlying system that was cut off 80 years ago during a galactic civil war, due to the blockade of trade routes. New supplies rarely make it to the system, and the local governments have always been uneasy. People in habitat stations are starving, the larger starships have been cannibalized for parts and weapons- pirates and bandit collectives occupy the spaces between patrolled space. Life in the black is not easy, it is unforgiving and 40% of ships leaving the spaceports never reach their destination.
You are a pilot fresh out of the slums. You've fought your way out of the drug cartels and corrupt police, and sold everything you own to buy a starfighter with some weapons and a small cargo hold. Your plan is to run cargo through dangerous space- a usually fatal but high-paying job.
Gameplay
3D graphics, 2D movement. Not really any space physics, lore-wise the ships are fly-by-wire with numerous thrusters so they an turn on a dime (BSG-Viper style). There are standard/medium tech ships that are available to neutral/chaotic characters, and higher-tech ships available to lawful characters.
Medium-style ships have armor, ballistic weapons (mostly miniguns or autocannons), and MRMs that require a lock, but if they're fired they will hit, no question- their hull and armor costs less to repair but they are not very energy-efficient, and ballistic weapons generate a good amount of heat but do not require energy to fire.
Hightech-style ships have low-ish hull and armor, but have minor energy shielding (shields are not available for any of the player-usable ships in game). They use pulse and beam based energy weapons- beams require a lock to fire. Some of the earlier-made high-tech ships have unguided SRMs they can use, but few ships possess these. Energy weapons build up less head than ballistic weapons, but also require energy to fire. Hightech ships are energy efficient but their hull takes more supplies to repair.
All the ships in the game usable by players are between the sizes of fighter and frigate- all larger ships are either inoperable or used exclusively by the remaining military forces. There are a multitude of different fighter types, shuttle-style ships, and corvettes, but very few frigate types (One or two for each tech-level). Supplies are vital to survival but it is not fatal if you run out of them. Supplies are used to regenerate energy when capacitors are emptied (energy normally regenerates slowly, having to restore capacitors is similar to having to vent Flux), repair your hull at stations (No hull-regeneration in combat or while traveling), and when resupplying ammo at a station. Heat builds up when using weapons, and if it reaches a high level needs to vent completely. All ships can use capacitor energy to enter warp (5X their normal speed), when a warp is in progress and you run out of energy the warp will not stop but when you exit warp, your capacitors will need to recharge.
Player reputation is determined by a multitude of stats. Neutral is between 50 and -50 Rep, any change within the neutral levels is determined by how many piracies they perform/cargo runners they kill, and how much trade reputation they receive.. To steal cargo a player has to fly close to another player, have their mouse over the player, and press E. This transports one unit of cargo to the pirating ship (This adds to the player's piracy stat)- different ships have different cargo capacities. This stolen cargo can then be delivered to it's destination for money, but does not count towards the user's 'completed runs' stat.
Cargo runs are randomly generated at stations, in the format of "Pay X$ for 1 unit of Y, destination Z", when a unit is delivered, the player receives three times the amount they paid for the cargo and gets a trade reputation value equal to (#of units delivered * (value of cargo/5)). This rewards players greatly for taking higher-value cargo, but also makes pirates happier if they manage to steal from the cargo-runner. You can also do 'Charity runs' that will cost nothing, and only reward you with a random level of credits (10-50). Low-range normal shipments cost between 80-100 credits per unit, so Charity runs will be the best way for players to get +Rep at the start of the game.
After your Rep is greater than 50 or less than 50, you won't be able to interact with stations of the opposite alignment, you'll receive further rep for killing members of the opposite alignment (+Rep for lawful, -Rep for chaotic), and you'll have access to more ships. Passing 50Rep on either side permanently unlocks a mid-tech ship better than the starting fighter, but after that, for every 50 rep you unlock a better/different ship (High-tech for lawful characters, mid-tech for chaotic characters) until you hit 250 rep, when you unlock the frigate for that alignment. Ships can only be changed when you die at current levels of the game's development, and will likely stay that way unless I miraculously manage to break the engine. After the Frigate is unlocked, your rep will continue to to increase/decrease until you hit 500, when your rep will be capped at 500 and you'll unlock another frigate.
Taking a side on rep will be very difficult to players at the beginning, due to probably doing a mix of runs and piracy, so you will also be able to pay to unlock ships permanently, but only within two tiers of Neutral for a luxurious price. Player's pain jobs will be customizable to an extent- the primary color allowed to be anything, but with current rep level, marking are restricted to rep-related colors. Red, Orange, and Black for -Rep; Gray, Yellow, and Brown for Neutral; and Blue, White, and Green for +Rep.
Ballistic weapons do good damage to shields, and decent damage to armor/hull.
Missiles to huge damage to all but shields.
Energy does low damage to hull, but takes down armor ratings very quickly, but also adds a small amount of heat to it's target. Does half damage to shields.
Damage is dealt based on this equation:
Damage = (WeaponBaseDamage/ArmorRating)
Shields protect against 50% of damage but take 25% out of the ship's energy, with the remaining 25% being absorbed.
Some ships have cloaking devices that stop lockon weapons and block 25% damage.
Damage takes down the armor rating by 25% of the damage.
This game is not meant to be easy, many players will probably find it too difficult to get past neutral. This is the point, I'd rather have a small, dedicated fanbase than a massive, casual one.
It's being (I'm disgusted by the fact I still use it) Roblox due to the free online services and Lua, the game can be found here:
http://www.roblox.com/Starscape-PAID-ALPHA-BETA-ACCESS-place?id=13805169.
I plan to have it done by 2014.
Please post your thoughts/criticisms/insanity accusations, I'd love to get al lot of the of the balancing figured out before release based on speculation. The current idea probably has a lot of issues but IMO it's what I'd like to see from it.
Without lighting.
With lighting.