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[Izawwlgood]

Just want to chime in with a "Oh man industry potential in this game is huge".

I'm not sure to what extent the devs are planning to run with this game in terms of industry/crafting/resource management/gathering, but I see such insane potential for a game with the awesome groundwork of ship-environment interaction. Maybe we'll have to wait for a modder to do something with it, but I think it'd be supremely awesome if it was possible to embark on non-ship combat paths to success in this game.

[comham]

I'm a huge fan of crafting/resource gathering in games; making things from scratch.

[Flare]

Comparing a game like M&B, the combat in that game trumps trading on so many levels. It's to the point where it isn't as fun as combat. The main reason why is due to the loot that the player can acquire from the defeated. One problem with this is the equipment that you get sells for as much as brand new equipment even though said equipment's owners died from attacks through the armor, shields, and to a less extent the weapons.

Conflict should be expensive, the only viable course that takes the player to conflict could be one that fights over resources. A disabled ship with holes through and through might cost more money to repair than simply building a new one. The "loot" gained from a defeated enemy shouldn't outweigh the costs of simply going to fight in the first place. Only then can trading or mining be viable.

[Alendor]

one option to spice up mining entertainment, could be shifting some of the focus from actually extracting the resources, to surveying for a good mining site.  have resource richness shift through the world, forcing you to sometime go out into some pretty remote areas to mine the resources.  where as most games just have you shoot a laser at a asteroid, you could have more than one type of gameplay for the process.  ex. finding the resources, getting there, extracting them.  as opposed to just going and extracting

star wars galaxy had an interesting system where resources shifted, one week you may have a rich resource site right near town.  then next week you may end up having to go explore deep in the outskirts to find a rich resource site.  the actual mining was done through an automated harvester, however the shifting resources made it entertaining, as it involved exploring, and going out on a survey expedition.  the richer the site, the more you gained mining it.  the nice part is it was dynamic, so you could just look up a wiki or guide for the best place to mine. 

it would be neat to put together a small survey/mining fleet with escorts to go explore and look for a good place to build a mining outpost

something similar could be adapted upon here, especially due to asteroids moving through space, people wouldn't question it

[RooksBailey]

Just want to chime in with a "Oh man industry potential in this game is huge".

I'm not sure to what extent the devs are planning to run with this game in terms of industry/crafting/resource management/gathering, but I see such insane potential for a game with the awesome groundwork of ship-environment interaction. Maybe we'll have to wait for a modder to do something with it, but I think it'd be supremely awesome if it was possible to embark on non-ship combat paths to success in this game.

Well said!  I would love deep trading/mining/industry gameplay along the lines of a SP Eve Online.  I don't know why, but I find the ability to pursue non-combat goals serves to make a game more immersive and believable for me.  I guess its because in the real world, you don't routinely get involved in shoot-outs. 

[Flare]

It certainly gives it a history and change of pace. If the economy of the setting is hit by a depression of some kind, it would be very interesting to see the majority of the fleets flying around in corvettes or frigates with their capital ships put on ice and the number of carriers severely limited.

[RooksBailey]

It certainly gives it a history and change of pace. If the economy of the setting is hit by a depression of some kind, it would be very interesting to see the majority of the fleets flying around in corvettes or frigates with their capital ships put on ice and the number of carriers severely limited.

I like that idea!

I was thinking that one thing I would REALLY like to see in SF at some point is an in-game news service.  It would be really cool if periodically, or perhaps only at certain locations, you could read some news stories.  Like, to use your example, a headline about a depression hitting the sector.  Or a viral outbreak on a colony.  Or a battle being fought somewhere.  Ideally, these headlines would serve to point the player in the direction of new economic opportunities.  Also, it would make the galaxy seem much more alive because you would have a real sense of a vibrant world where things are happening outside of your current area.

[Alex]

I was thinking that one thing I would REALLY like to see in SF at some point is an in-game news service.  It would be really cool if periodically, or perhaps only at certain locations, you could read some news stories.  Like, to use your example, a headline about a depression hitting the sector.  Or a viral outbreak on a colony.  Or a battle being fought somewhere.  Ideally, these headlines would serve to point the player in the direction of new economic opportunities.  Also, it would make the galaxy seem much more alive because you would have a real sense of a vibrant world where things are happening outside of your current area.

In my mind, this is extremely important. Getting good information should be crucial to making an impact in the sector, especially if you have to do much with limited forces - and as you mentioned, awareness of happenings outside your vicinity makes the world feel more alive. I don't want to go into the details, as they may change, but this is something we're considering very closely in the design.

[RooksBailey]

I was thinking that one thing I would REALLY like to see in SF at some point is an in-game news service.  It would be really cool if periodically, or perhaps only at certain locations, you could read some news stories.  Like, to use your example, a headline about a depression hitting the sector.  Or a viral outbreak on a colony.  Or a battle being fought somewhere.  Ideally, these headlines would serve to point the player in the direction of new economic opportunities.  Also, it would make the galaxy seem much more alive because you would have a real sense of a vibrant world where things are happening outside of your current area.

In my mind, this is extremely important. Getting good information should be crucial to making an impact in the sector, especially if you have to do much with limited forces - and as you mentioned, awareness of happenings outside your vicinity makes the world feel more alive. I don't want to go into the details, as they may change, but this is something we're considering very closely in the design.

And that makes me even more excited for the game! 

[SeaBee]

I was thinking that one thing I would REALLY like to see in SF at some point is an in-game news service.  It would be really cool if periodically, or perhaps only at certain locations, you could read some news stories.  Like, to use your example, a headline about a depression hitting the sector.  Or a viral outbreak on a colony.  Or a battle being fought somewhere.  Ideally, these headlines would serve to point the player in the direction of new economic opportunities.  Also, it would make the galaxy seem much more alive because you would have a real sense of a vibrant world where things are happening outside of your current area.

In my mind, this is extremely important. Getting good information should be crucial to making an impact in the sector, especially if you have to do much with limited forces - and as you mentioned, awareness of happenings outside your vicinity makes the world feel more alive. I don't want to go into the details, as they may change, but this is something we're considering very closely in the design.

And that makes me even more excited for the game! 

Me too. Me too. Sounds like a lot of thought is being put into making the game environment as immersive as practical. I love everything about that.

[Durandal4532]

As to the newsfeed thing, that was used to great effect in a limited fashion in the Escape Velocity games.

If I remember correctly it was basically either a random non gameplay affecting event or "[random thing] has caused [a commodity] to [rise/fall] at [planet]."

It wasn't exactly a masterpiece, but it gave the sense that something happened between jumps.

[RooksBailey]

In-game news seems to be a feature that was much more popular with 8-bit games than it is in the modern world of gaming.  I guess back then devs used it as a way of ramping up the realism factor as they couldn't fall back on graphics and such.  

I've always found the lack of in-game news to be a strange omission.   I mean, in the modern world, we're all pretty much news junkies with multiple streams coming in via the internet, over smart phones, on the radio, etc.  It is strange that so many sci-fi games that shoot for immersion seem to forget about this essential ingredient for a functioning civilization, especially civilizations that depend so heavily on combat and trade - two areas that depend heavily on reliable news.  Weird.  

[Erebos]

An interesting way to add realism to the game would be to make the news services biased; that is, to hear a different version of events depending on which system you're in. For example, a recent battle may be reported as a great victory or a humiliating defeat. And negative events might be blamed on the bogeymen du jour. So instead of just saying "The price of Industrial Machinery has risen by 16%", they might also attribute it to the work of Cult of Lud "fanatics" or Tri-Tachyon "saboteurs".