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[Dri]

EDIT: Updated to be made more relevant to how the game has progressed thus far.

First post on the forums here!

Anyways, I'm really excited about this game's future as I see it having TONS of potential, but at the moment I am most interested in how the RPG side of the game is gonna turn out. I really REALLY hope officers don't turn out to be some procedurally generated "super" crewman that you just purchase at stations and slap into some slot somewhere. Would be very awesome if the officers were actual characters set in the game world somewhere that you could discover, speak with and do some sort of quest or mission to eventually recruit them.

Heres my personal hope on how officers, or perhaps specialists, will work out:

• Tibicena System -- Tri-Tachyon Corp station cantina

Since the player is a character in the world you should be able to dock with places and explore (nothing fancy needed, perhaps just paintings of the different scenes/locations). So, you choose to go to the cantina to relax or get some info on the locals and you notice a dark beauty sitting alone near the back. You decide to talk to the barkeep and ask him about the woman - turns out shes actually well known in the system as being both an ice queen AND an ace fighter pilot who works mostly as a merc for the rich Tri Corp.

Armed with a bit of knowledge about her you decide to click on her and start a conversation. Being an elite pilot, gorgeous AND a ***** she sneers at you and doesn't even want to give you the time of day (perhaps some character skills under leadership could be speechcraft/charisma and you'd need to make a successful check here?). Assuming you pass the check you end up telling her you're an up-and-coming fleet admiral and you're looking to create an excellent officer core. Being a merc, shes interested, but not before she tests you! 10,000 credits for a duel! (expensive yes, but shes found can be found early in the Tibicena system and hey, a girls gotta make a living).

So, shes piloting a souped up Xyphos wing and you're limited to a provided (D) Lasher. The duel's set just outside the station (station could even be a sort of backdrop to the battle map!) and after some awesome maneuvering and getting super lucky with firing your harpoons through her 360 shields just before she raises them, you win! Shes ******, real ******. You toasted her custom Xyphos, her baby. She demands not only the 10,000 creds for the duel but also a new fighter craft! With a bit of silver tongue magic you get her to "join" your fleet as an officer, namely, a fighter wing specialist!

• Sevine Ebonlocke

Officer, Fighter wing specialist, Level 5. (higher level cause shes suppose to be well known and skilled - levels are used to boost perks)

* Improvements: +10% to all fighter wing's speed/agility, fighter wings repair and refit during battle 20% faster
* Special Ability: Seduce. Once per battle Sevine can charm one nearby, non-drone enemy fighter wing to fight for your side. Lasts 60 seconds or until you attack the charmed fighter wing with a direct order. (This might be too RPGish as it can't really be explained well via science like the ship systems can be but w/e)

Also, it would surely be great if each officer had a few unique perks you could level up. NOTHING as major as the main character but a little something officers would get for leveling and allow the player to customize his fleet even more. Each officers perks coild be themed around who they are. For example Sevine is all about speed and guile. Some of her perks could be:

Glamour (1/3) - Each rank of Glamour grants Sevine's personal fighter wing a 5/10/15% chance of avoiding any source of damage. This effect cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds.

And perhaps for her FINAL perk:

Irresistible Allure - All fighter wings now have 1 additional craft in them. However, supplies per day cost and CR recovery time is increased by 50%.

• The Wrap-up

Okay, so I probably had too much fun typing this all out. Imo, you should be only be able to have one officer of each type in your fleet: fighter officer, frigate officer, destroyer etc. BUT, even though you're pretty limited in the number you can have, they'd be powerful and unique! Quality over quantity! Sevine Ebonlocke could be just one of perhaps 3-4 fighter wing officers in total to be found in all the sector - another fighter wing officer could favor the heavy fighters like the broadswords and warthogs and buff fighter wing durability and dmg output.

BUT, it'd be possible to assign officers to fleets you're not "controlling". If, of course, Alex decides to let us have multiple fleets with the AI controlling the ones you arn't.

But, yeah. Thems my ideas. You'd have a relationship bar with all your officers - they'd be the supporting cast of the game. They'd have their own personalities and has you gain rep with them they'll open up to you more. Friendships, romance, rivalries. As rep increases further you could unlock special quests/missions and help them out to gain special skills for the officer or to just gain phat lewts!

So many possibilities! So much potential! Please, Alex and whoever else on the Starfarer team, flesh out the officers and don't just make them randomly generated! ;_; So, WHAT DO ALL of you think?! And please, this is all something I just made up as I'm enjoying my dinner and listening to music, something to put words to my thoughts and hopes - don't take it too seriously!

TL,DR -- See the first paragraph.


 

[Uomoz]

I like the general idea but,

romance

wait what? I think that's a little bit too much RPGish for this kind of game.

[Vandala]

Well typed out, but I spot some details that I really don't like.

I really don't want to see skill point needing to be put into stuff just to unlock a part of the game or option, that has always bin a terrible idea.
If you need influence have it come from winning/losing battle against the various factions, and perhaps doing special mission.
Not like, oh I put a point in charisma you suddenly like me now. Skill checks are even worse since they offer unstable results.

All the dialog is fine since it can really flesh out the feeling of the world/lore, as long as you are not married to it, don't let it get in the way of the gameplay.
I definably don't want to 'explore' the feelings and lives of my officers ala "mass effect" and all the other crap that company has bin making for a long, long time.
I would much rather have randomly generated officers in combination with hand crafted characters you can encounter on the stations and have short chats with or get missions/jobs from.

Also a really bad idea is specials in combat. It already more then enough fun and engaging with any specials throw into the mix, that will just get confusing.
A different kind of special might be warranted if it was used on the tactical map during combat in the same way you sent for reinforcement and order to capture points. Perhaps calling in bombardment support if you are within reach of your own station for example. Still a little iffy on that but I'd find it acceptable.

Can't think anymore, I have to go to bed, sorry if I come across wronly. Welcome to the starfarer forum, I hope you enjoy your stay here. Goodnight.

[Dri]

Oops, sorry for posting in the wrong forum.

Well, yeah. I knew that some of my ideas would probs lean too much towards RPG for some folks but I was just tossing pretty much everything out there. It IS suppose to have some decent RPG elements though - at least I really hope it is. If its just level up your guy and choose some perks thats probs gonna be a pretty heavy letdown for me. I mean, apparently the sector is gonna be pretty massive, you're gonna have to fill that with more than just battle after battle after battle or making money. Need missions, quests, exploration and random happenings!

Need some decently deep and interesting characters too!

Its got me kinda worried though, haha. Unless Team Starfarer has been working on the game's story and characters for some time now, I fear the game won't be release ready for another year or so. =x

[Shield]

last thing I want for this game is a talent tree.

[Vandala]

Piloting, strategy, tactics, ship/fleet design and later on even more grander scale stuff.

I wouldn't say it just all combat, thats just the most exiting part of it.

Is this not a suggestion to Alex? If so you're right where your supposed to be.

[lordgiza]

Possibly procedurally generated names and backgrounds?

[Vandala]

Let's not make this dwarf fortress in space, poor Alex.

[lordgiza]

Let's not make this dwarf fortress in space, poor Alex.

Not that in-depth. Possibly the Loremaster can do the backgrounds?

[Dreyven]

Let's not make this dwarf fortress in space, poor Alex.

well... i would take the combat of dwarf fortress as an addon...

[Vandala]

*sigh* yeah and for good measure why not use warhammer 40k rules for boarding enemy spaceships as a game within a game. Crazy talk.

[Dri]

So yes, this is an ancient post but it still holds up really well, imo. It appears to have been woefully mistimed though, as it was made back in 2012 when apparently the whole "Officers" thing was barely a twinkling in Alex's eye... haha! But now that we might FINALLY (wow, the 3rd reply had me worried that Starsector wouldn't be done until 2013, lol) be nearing the time that Alex begins work on officers I feel its worthwhile to bump and hopefully rekindle some talk about what we want officers to be.

As I said in the OP, I really, really hope officers arn't just randomly generated that come with a few points in the current skill masteries. I'm really looking forward to unique officers with their own personality, specializations and perks - as in the OP I dreamed up a "Fighter Wing Specialist" officer. I mean, with unique officers you could both have unique quests/missions to aquire their loyalty AND you could work them into the story! Finding all the officers in the game could be a large chunk of content in itself and while I don't really want to use the words "collect'em all", I gotta say players do love hunting down rare and worthwhile things!

Anyways, hopefully this was a justified necro.

PS - What the hell happend to get Vandala banned? The guy was a major contributor back in the day.

[FasterThanSleepyfish]

PS - What the hell happend to get Vandala banned? The guy was a major contributor back in the day.

Spam shenanigans, if I recall correctly.


As for officers, I hope they allow you to set custom AI specs for individual ships.

[Gothars]

As I said in the OP, I really, really hope officers arn't just randomly generated that come with a few points in the current skill masteries.

My guess: just that will be the case, they will have branches of the player skill tree. But I'd also say the additional skills they provide will be very worth it. After all, the skill tree will (apparently) be twice the size it is now when it's finished, forcing you to make some very hard decisions where to invest.

Concerning the personalities, I'd like some RPGish dialog, but I also really hope that they will express their personalities in combat. Both for immersion and the more practical management concerns Foxer360 mentioned.
 

Anyways, hopefully this was a justified necro.

You should probably have made a new post, but I'll let it stand.

[CrashToDesktop]

I think officers are going to function a bit like the Player, at least in the fleet screen.  You'll assign certain officers to ships or wings, and that ship/wing will get the benefit of the officer.

I think you might acquire officers in a sort of mix between what you've described and the purchase of officers - the sector is a harsh place to live, and not everyone survives a ship blowing up, for example (except, obviously, the player ).  Officers will die, but not nearly as often as the crew of your ship.  So there will have to be an easy way to get officers after they've died, so the current system of buying crew could be fine.  But after that, all similarities go away.  Launches more into loyalty and increasing their abilities.

Oh, and I can't remember the original reason why Vandala got banned.  But that ban wasn't a perma-ban - the fact that he made a new account and came back to the forums was the kicker that got him perma-banned.