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Messages - Mercurio

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1
Suggestions / Re: Crew mechanics
« on: July 01, 2011, 07:25:37 AM »
I always envisioned it where crews started off green and uninteresting, but as they gained skill/rank, the good ones/high-potential crews gained bonuses that can be chosen from.  This way, the amount of management is reduced as only some crews have bonuses while the rest are fairly generic but can still be blanket-trained for greater overall efficiency.  This also adds the dynamic of choosing between inexperienced but talented crews that you could rank up and tailor to your needs, or looking for already-skilled crews that have bonuses that may not be ideal but are still significantly better at first.


I was thinking of this, like if you have a mining ship with 50 recruits on it, and you let it bust asteroids for some time, you can choose whether you want to upgrade the crew to dedicated miners, which net you more profit, or if you want to convert those 1200 mining exp into 400 generic exp and just level up a smaller amount of people to a generic higher rank.

It greatly depends on how the crew mechanics would work out. If it was on a per-ship basis, where every ship gains experience and skills, and if you rescue the "crew" you rescue the exp, or if it would track down your crew members in numbers, like assets. Then you could "buy" a level 1 soldier in exchange for 1 recruit and 20 xp, or a level 2 soldier for 1 lvl1 soldier and 40 xp.
Whereas a soldier would be better than a recruit in every aspect, but would only really make a difference if it comes to boarding actions. It would be stupid if you made all of your recruits into soldiers and would have to buy new recruits because they are better in overall performance.

If anyone knows Evil Genius, it should kinda be like there, but without the harsh limitations for any given tier. It sucked that your bio-engineers and nuclearphysicists were too stupid to handle a fire extinguisher...

2
Suggestions / Re: EMP Weapons
« on: June 30, 2011, 06:51:03 PM »
Wouldn't all the electronics on a starship already be shielded from electromagnetic interference? There's a massive amount of it in space, and even today, almost all modern battle tanks are shielded to protect them from emp attacks.
So you say that, because in reality ships are immune against electromagnetism, in game it should be the same?

You don't have to abandon an idea just because it runs against reality, all you need to do is think of an explanation of why it would work in the setting ;).  Perhaps, you can't protect the electronics portion of the shields due to the nature of it. The ballistic kick back is countered by anti-kinetic thrusters. And the sounds you hear are from the insides of the ship, or perhaps a cheap device that is placed on the ships themselves that transmit vibration frequencies into sound and broadcast them on a certain frequency.

So you say that, despite in reality ships are immune against electromagnetism, in game it should be different?...

I just dont get what you're trying to ask/say/do here  ???

I was just implying that you shouldn't think about that kind of things if you are going to play sci-fi games xD

3
Suggestions / Re: Crew mechanics
« on: June 30, 2011, 06:06:27 PM »
War academies will always exist so long as there is a need for a military provided that the society wants to preserve itself.

So why should they "sell" their especially trained people to, say, a freelancing miner or trader, like the player? I was implying that experienced people are hard to come by and you wouldnt be able to just casually buy a ton of them and staff all your ships with them, but rather have to rely on training noobs on your own.
Being able to just get elite blokes everywhere would render them a bit useless.. Why waste time and money to rescue your veterans if there are fresh ones on sale next door?  ;D


Military academies take up a massive amount of resources. Equipment, talented teachers, a good pool of manpower, as well as the traditions that make up the academy. I think the only place these few places can exist is on planets or very large orbital stations where a fresh recruits are available.

Aren't we supposed to be able to build our own stations and maybe even colonies? I was implying that (being an incredibly powerful supervillain), you could as well order some of your more experienced men to organize regular training in one of your hideouts, while you supply them with "fresh meat" from your raids or recruitment trips :3


Also, the off-the-street recruits in Aurora don't have randomly designated experience levels, they have none. That being the case, in that game, it might take the lesser ones a day to full react to orders if put in charge of a ship.

Depending on how the experience system (if there ever will be one), plays out, maybe one or two people from the local colony know how to operate a mining ship, because they're former employees of a big company or something. I agree, tho. It would be a bit weird to have a clutter of randomly experienced people upon recruitment. I hated it in Mount and Blade when I wanted fresh recruits and got some mediocre Archers instead.

Quote
How might you propose that you do that with every single ship in your fleet without it being monotonous?
Depends on how big your fleets will be. I think with a good GUI there shouldn't be much of a problem. You could split your crew in groups, like troop tiers from other games.

Might as well just handle it like:

Noob -> Recruit-> Semi-Elite -> Pro

And have a box where you can tick "Always use best/worst crew", and a slider to adjust the loadout in detail.

Though I agree that every ounce of depth you add to a mechanic, might force the player to more and more tedious micromanaging. It shouldn't be too in-depth if youre going to handle a ton of ships, but it should allow you to fine-tune everything IF you want to. Better give the player some freedom that he might never use, instead of tying up his hands so he can't even try what he wants to.

If it comes to perks and skills, you might dedicate captains and officers to that. Let their bonuses influence whole fleets or certain ships. A captain with lvl 8 mining in your armada won't help much, but if you're going to crack some asteroids with your ships he will make you rich..

4
Suggestions / Re: EMP Weapons
« on: June 30, 2011, 05:32:49 PM »
Wouldn't all the electronics on a starship already be shielded from electromagnetic interference? There's a massive amount of it in space, and even today, almost all modern battle tanks are shielded to protect them from emp attacks.

I don't know how far you wanna push the realism but "In space, nobody can hear you scream", pretty much sums it up...
Might as well mute the sound and make it impossible to fire ballistic weapons because of the knockback and whatnot...

A 100% realistic space game would probably take years to play, let alone because of Einstein's funny lightspeed thing...

5
Suggestions / Re: Internal Security and Boarding Parties.
« on: June 30, 2011, 09:11:55 AM »
We need automated on-board turrets and forcefields in the hallways of our ships then  ;D

Would be nice if you could give certain orders to your boarding parties, as in : "Disable ship", "Capture ship (so you or your AI can fly it)", "Capture crew/VIP" or "Destroy ship"...

In some games it's just useless to board ships because it doesn't do anything except, say, slightly slowing it down or destroying it completely. You might as well just shoot it to achieve that.

6
Suggestions / Re: Crew mechanics
« on: June 30, 2011, 09:04:07 AM »
I just don't know if it fits into the story of Starfarer.. It looks like a fairly dystopian future and (please don't be mad), but I think it should be a bit like in SPAZ  ;D
Experienced crews should be hard to come by, maybe you could only hire them from military academies if you have a good relation to a certain faction, or you'd have to pick up random blokes from the streets, with random experience levels(as you said) and train them in your own academies or on your ships and adventures. Going one step further, you might as well have the possibility to let your experienced officers train the new recruits, just like the companions in Mount and Blade do.




Leveling crews with perks and skills anyone?  ::)

7
Suggestions / Re: Random battle options
« on: June 28, 2011, 06:16:57 PM »
Will we be able to modify the loadout of the ships too? Or will that be handled by modifying some files or not possible at all  ???

8
Suggestions / Re: Crew mechanics
« on: June 28, 2011, 11:47:16 AM »
I was just implying that you could use random crap-crews for suicide missions since they should be cheap and readily available, while you would have to treat the experienced (and expensive) people a bit better.

Like in Mount and Blade where you might be able to hire just a few experienced mercenaries for a ton of cash, that would otherwise allow you to recruit billions of stick-and-torch wielding peasants. Recruiting prisoners anyone? xD

9
Suggestions / Re: EMP Weapons
« on: June 28, 2011, 10:18:00 AM »
Will the EMP be like a shockwave that affects friendly ships and missiles too?  Or will it be like in GSB where a tiny missile hits your cruiser's shields and it knocks you out for decades?..

I think there's a lot that can be done with the flux mechanics, too. Just make a flux bomb that overloads every ship and structure in a certain radius. Every freighter could use one of those to fend off incoming pirates  ;D

10
Suggestions / Re: Crew mechanics
« on: June 28, 2011, 10:12:02 AM »

Or maybe even ransom them, I can't imagine there being too many experienced spacemen during the time of degradation in the game's setting.
Exactly..
Also, if the game supports it, you might let those prisoners work in your sweatshops/colonies as slaves, instead of a paid workforce. Maybe implement riots or prisoners trying to escape. There could as well be a VIP, say, a politician in the ranks of the captured people. That would lead to all kinds of fun stuff like bounty hunters or even armies trying to track you down before you could sell the poor sod to their arch-nemesis faction.

The crewmen would slowly get more experienced as you play, which is why you would want to be able to save them if the ship is destroyed. I think Mercurio's suggestion makes a lot of sense, but it will make MORE sense once the campaign layer is implemented.

Of course there's not much to experience and long-term game mechanics if you only have single battles, but you could as well be able to hire trained people from some kind of academy, station or whatnot. Either hire a good crew and buy a decent ship, or hire a horde of goons for a penny to let them pilot your army of TIE-fighters...

11
Suggestions / Re: Crew mechanics
« on: June 28, 2011, 10:03:22 AM »
Or maybe even ransom them, I can't imagine there being too many experienced spacemen during the time of degradation in the game's setting.
Exactly..
Also, if the game supports it, you might let those prisoners work in your sweatshops/colonies as slaves, instead of a paid workforce. Maybe implement riots or prisoners trying to escape.

The crewmen would slowly get more experienced as you play, which is why you would want to be able to save them if the ship is destroyed. I think Mercurio's suggestion makes a lot of sense, but it will make MORE sense once the campaign layer is implemented.

Of course there's not much to experience and long-term game mechanics if you only have single battles, but you could as well be able to hire trained people from some kind of academy, station or whatnot. Either hire a good crew and buy a decent ship, or hire a horde of goons for a penny to let them pilot your army of TIE-fighters...

12
Suggestions / Re: Boost
« on: June 27, 2011, 02:05:36 PM »
Actually I was looking at the plausibility of 100% efficient (damagewise) shields, but they have over 100% upkeep (so they generate flux when active), just as a hull attribute in itself - not sure how well the AI would be able to manage that though.

Like an universal invulnerability field that builds up flux and doesnt allow you to shoot?

13
Suggestions / Re: Boost
« on: June 27, 2011, 08:25:37 AM »
you got THE DAILY DOUBLE!

the question: Because your ship is so slow, your fleet has left you behind to attack, only to find an onslaught waiting for them. They are getting torn apart while you are forced to simply sit and wait as your ship slowly catches up.

What can you do to mitigate this scenario?

Get the hell outta there, let them die and use their burnt, wrecked hulks to cover your retreat?

14
Suggestions / Crew mechanics
« on: June 27, 2011, 08:19:01 AM »
Alright, I don't know if it has been mentioned elsewhere on the forums but the mechanics of escaping ships and the shuttle that transfers command to other vessels gave me an idea...

If you plan on having crew members as a resource or maybe as a part of an experience system (veteran crew -> better performance in battle), you could add escape pods to the game.
As soon as a ship is severely damaged or disabled, it could eject the surviving members of the crew in speedy little pods that try to escape from the battlefield or to the closest friendly ship. You could even be able to order them to abandon ship manually, to keep the crew alive or to surrender a certain ship to pirates, to activate a self-destruct-sequence that blows everything up or something similar.

You could even capture the surviving crew members of the enemy fleet and enslave/sell them (if you are a pirate of sorts), or hand them over to justice for bounty (if THEY are pirates).

I don't exactly know about your plans for boarding actions or AI behaviour, but it would be fun to see a puny freighter jettison all of his crew in speedy pods to "get the hell outta there", before you might board it and slaughter or enslave everyone on the ship.


15
Suggestions / Re: continuous 'burst fire' option
« on: June 14, 2011, 12:14:11 PM »
You mean, like a minigun with a certain spinup time?

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