"Economy and Supplies -"
Being able to move items from one colony inventory to another without physically picking it up yourself would be nice.
Supplies are, as described in the game, everything a starship fleet needs to maintain and repair itself. You're advocating for adding a ton of specific supplies instead of having the one catch-all, which I can only see drastically increasing the tedium of the game to make sure you're topped up on ten different things. Not fun or interesting gameplay for me - maybe it is for you, but I think the response you've gotten here shows that most people are not interested in this.
I broke this down a bit better on another post. It's definitely not 'add a bunch of new items'. Most of them are already there! ^_^ If anything, it would be 'add a bunch of new Support Skills' so that Combat oriented folks can get one sort of experience, and Exploration folks can get another. I definitely know what the official explanation is supposed to be on what Supplies are. And if the AI actually used them, the current implementation would be PERFECT for a quick-and-dirty, good-enough AI stat. But as a Player concern? It just feels rough. Like the game has moved past that point. Now that we've got Ship Parts, and still more Fuel that we could possibly ever use (except for when we don't) it wouldn't be hard to move some of the current, flat Supply requirement into Fuel, Metal, Ship Parts, etc.
Maybe laser weapons run on Volitiles. Maybe kinetics run on Metal. And maybe crew run on Food.
Sure, there'd still be Supplies floating around, but from a Player standpoint it should be a lot, lot less. That's just my opinion.
Only because when you run OUT of something right now, especially Fuel or Supplies, the penalty for it just... doesn't... quite... make sense if you really think about it.
Unless Supplies is something like 'anti-psychosis space drugs', and crew will just go off the rails if they don't get 'em! **LAUGHS**
Time - again, most of the suggestions here just increase the tedium of the game without offering interesting gameplay options. One thing I do agree on is fetch quests - they're not very interesting to do and after you've read through all the flavor text, it's very tedious to go through the story.
Ahhh, see? But this is one of the better ones. Quests that are DEPENDANT on flavor text. Where if you just click through it... you simply can't make it happen, or have to go 'the long way' on another fetch quest. I mean, yes. Starsector has a LOT of tedium. But it's... diverse tedium. You get a little thrill when you find something. It's interesting when you see something you haven't seen. That breaks up the tedium a bit, and makes it more manageable.
I had tried not to get too much into 'offering interesting options', as that would have increased the 'word salad' portion.
But if we use EV:Nova as a good baseline... there's a lot of room for Flavor Text to keep developing, and even get us emotionally attached to those pixels! ^_^
Mods - I can only see the suggestions here being harmful to the mod community and I'm not clear on the logic of why exactly you want official mods. To make them closer to vanilla balance? It's up to you to curate what mods you play with, if something is too far out of balance, don't use it.
I could offer a LOT of examples of exactly the opposite. **shrugs** You're right... it would be harmful to what is currently the setup for modding. ANY change would.
But there's ALREADY a version checker built into the game. There's already a warning for outdated mods. And there's an Official Mod page that adds or removes mods from its listing.
So... to lean on one of my favorite quotes... We're not talking about the morality of this. We're negotiating on price. HOW much is too much? How much is not enough? There's obviously a need for SOME framework... but would a 'You're playing a modded game! Boo on you!' warning that you get in other games work? I think absolutely not. BUUUUUUTTT... as you mentioned in your next point!
Story points - Agents/diplomats are Nex features, no? Three out of the five bullets here have no bearing to vanilla and shouldn't even be in this thread.
Are we trying to make the game more interesting/engaging/full of life, or not? ^_~ 'Cause Nexerlin is featured in its own little category, and adds SUCH flavor to the game! WHY is it simply a mod? It's ALREADY got a special shelf. It's already right on top. And it add features and dynamics to the game WITHOUT having to go reinvent the wheel.
Why have 'official mods'..? Because some of this stuff SCREAMS to be Vanilla, takes nothing AWAY from Vanilla, and does nothing but take away from the empty spaces in Vanilla.
And that means that any Dev attempt to fill those spaces (so well covered by Nexerlin, for example) would mean direct COMPETITION with Nexerlin, which would be devastating to everyone!
So! Do you stay at a stalemate, avoid developing certain parts of the game because your most popular mods cover it, and to do anything with it would cause friction?
.... or do you bring them on-board, reward them for their work (in one way or another) and get Starsector closer to something that pleases a new person?
Because Toggling OFF Official Mods is easy, and still leaves the control in the players hands.
Everyone seem to think that's a threat. Some sort of Mod Nazi is gonna stomp around tell them they don't get soup.
I say break the stalemate.
At the end of the day, Starsector is Alex's baby and love project. I get you want the updates and content faster and I certainly wouldn't mind it either, but I think the most important thing is that Alex does what he wants with the project. What I'm interested in is his unique vision for the game, not a team struggling to push out frilly updates to meet a schedule.
Oh man, please don't think I'm suggesting this because I personally want more updates! ^_^;; That was an EXAMPLE of how to earn serious, valuable Social Credit, which can THEN be spend on elevating the game to new audiences and markets. Doing things like 'Having an insanely quick, insanely reliable update schedule' is NOT required, not even SUGGESTED...
... buuuuuuutttt! If they could DO it, they'd have the same financial and success opportunities that some of those Studios that CAN get. It's a choice! And, of course, there are other ways.
The amusing part is where folks immediately assume that Official Mods means tyranny.
They don't consider the stalemate that a FANTASTIC mod creates for the base game!
They assume that 'You could try updates like the Trese Brothers do!' would suddenly mean garbage.
It's valuable because they do it, and it's NOT garbage. It wouldn't be worth mentioning if it was! ^_^ It's a way to add zeros to the number of players currently online. To make an impression.
I hope that clears up my intention a bit, and.. thank you.
That's good feedback!
