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[Gothars]

What does the "lock" check box do?

Makes it so that you can't change the skills. Basically, so that an accidental left (or right) click on the bar doesn't bring up a skill selection dropdown. Well, drop *up*, but, you know.

I see! And, how does this dropdown work? You just choose which of your abilities are presented in the ten quick-slots? Or can you configure multiple quick slots and change between them, depending on the situation?

Mh, how many abilities (magnitude) do you expect to end up in the game anyway?

Will they be primarily unlocked via the skill tree? I could also imagine items or special ships to enable certain abilities, e.g. you'd need tankers to lay down an Infernium screen.

Thanks again for answering our questions, btw.

red alert is cool.

The issue is, how do you prevent it from being activated when the encounter is inevitable, thus removing the the risk of a "misfire"? There's pretty much always a half a second or so when you know it's going to happen.

While red alert does sound good, a red alert a la Star Trek should occur before every battle and thus doesn't make much sense as an ability.

But if you imagine it as extensive battle preparations of a big fleet, I could imagine it to go like this: You anticipate an enemy and order battle preparations. Your burn speed drops by half, your sensor range decreases and your sensor profile increases while preparations are under way. After that period (half a day?) your speed is slightly increased and your CR significantly. So is your supply usage, though. After some time the effect ends and you get a CR penalty.  

My concern with something like that would be, how do you prevent it from being "defeat any fleet without fighting if you have the money"? Hmm. Limiting where they're useful might help, as might a lengthy cooldown...

The normal game design way of approaching this would be to limit the ability, so that you you can only have one minefield at any time, and/or it would only stay active for a short duration. I'm not a friend of that solution though, especially when it stands in conflict with the established lore/mechanics of the gameworld. (I have seen too many games littered with ancient traps or mines or whatever, only to tell you that your traps somehow evaporated while you looked in the other direction for a moment.)

I'd much rather see cool in-world solutions. Mhh.
-A minefield could lead to an investigation (like a food glut/comm sniffer detection) if found by local authority, endangering you reputation.
-As suggested, mines should only be potent in limited situations and when tactically positioned.
-Maybe they would lose effectiveness over time (but please not completely), due micrometeorite impacts and so on, unless regular maintenance occurred. Which would stop you from filling some remote system up with mines.
- Mines should probably be inactive while you're very close, so you can't hide/play cat and mouse with the help of your own minefield.
- Maaaybe you could require the player to buy mines in markets and thus limit their availability.


I like Wyvern's idea to treat them as combat condition modifiers, too. Then again, maybe that could be better implemented with something like static weapon platforms.

[Alex]

Make it take a couple seconds to ramp up to full bonus, so that you have to activate it far enough in advance that you can't have 100% certainity.

Yep, that could work. But then you end up with something like, "activate this ability, wait a few seconds, and engage in an short time window for optimal results". Which could very well be fine, but I think goes against the "slower and tactical" approach... although that really depends on the timings involved, and is pretty subjective. I mean, if it takes 2 seconds to ramp up, and then you have a 10 second window, then it's probably not an issue. If it's a half second ramp-up with a .2 second window, then you've got problems.

I see! And, how does this dropdown work? You just choose which of your abilities are presented in the ten quick-slots? Or can you configure multiple quick slots and change between them, depending on the situation?

Right-click a slot, and you get a dropdown - immediately above the icon - of the various abilities you have. There's also a button in the dropdown to clear the slot.

There are 5 ability bars, that can be switched between using the prev/next buttons, Ctrl-1 through Ctrl-5, and Q/W for the first two bars.

Mh, how many abilities (magnitude) do you expect to end up in the game anyway?

I don't even want to guess at this point. While more abilities are a distinct possibility, I want to stay away from anything that even looks like a promise or a plan to add more. A lot of this is going to get sorted out along with the skill revamp, I suspect.

(The reason there are that many slots/bars is building for the future/mod support.)

Will they be primarily unlocked via the skill tree? I could also imagine items or special ships to enable certain abilities, e.g. you'd need tankers to lay down an Infernium screen.

Maybe!

While red alert does sound good, a red alert a la Star Trek should occur before every battle and thus doesn't make much sense as an ability.

I hear what you're saying, but it can be a neat thing nonetheless. Part of it is naming an ability in a way where using it is a cool part of a "player story", and saying to yourself, "I put my ships on red alert" is neat. The fact that you'd probably realistically do that before every battle... I don't think it matters all that much. Those times did happen, in-fiction, but they're not part of the story.

The normal game design way of approaching this would be to limit the ability, so that you you can only have one minefield at any time, and/or it would only stay active for a short duration. I'm not a friend of that solution though, especially when it stands in conflict with the established lore/mechanics of the gameworld. (I have seen too many games littered with ancient traps or mines or whatever, only to tell you that your traps somehow evaporated while you looked in the other direction for a moment.)

I'd much rather see cool in-world solutions. Mhh.
-A minefield could lead to an investigation (like a food glut/comm sniffer detection) if found by local authority, endangering you reputation.
-As suggested, mines should only be potent in limited situations and when tactically positioned.
-Maybe they would lose effectiveness over time (but please not completely), due micrometeorite impacts and so on, unless regular maintenance occurred. Which would stop you from filling some remote system up with mines.
- Mines should probably be inactive while you're very close, so you can't hide/play cat and mouse with the help of your own minefield.
- Maaaybe you could require the player to buy mines in markets and thus limit their availability.


I like Wyvern's idea to treat them as combat condition modifiers, too. Then again, maybe that could be better implemented with something like static weapon platforms.

... in other words, what a can of worms Possibly a worthwhile one, but I want to be suuuper careful about any campaign ways to do direct damage to enemies - that has the potential to undermine the combat portion of the game. Not to say none of it will be there (star corona effect, maybe? that sort of thing), but still. It seems like a danger zone, design-wise.

On the minefield idea: I'd say a minefield just slows a fleet down - if you're not in combat conditions, you can take your time and go around / destroy mines safely.  No damage, no CR cost.

...However, if you're in an enemy minefield, and you get attacked by the enemy that placed that minefield?  Then you get a combat map with mines on it; I'd probably treat these as small, immobile ships, each armed with a single-shot missile launcher; usually a harpoon, but (depending on the skill level or perhaps resources spent by the mine layer) maybe a torpedo.

Yeah, that's probably the most workable thing - no danger of undermining combat. Although I'm also wary of adding that sort of thing to the combat layer, and feel-wise, it could get odd if your ships are deploying mines that are pretty much ship-sized...

[Clockwork Owl]

Spoiler

The simplest way to treat mines is to make them hostile to all, but these are Advanced Future Space Mines^TM, not the dumb mines of land warfare. It's easy to link mine targeting to transponders, so as long as you have the right transponder on they won't attack you. But that brings up a question: do ships use transponders during battle? If not, then there's no such thing as a friendly mine once battle is joined.

I imagine, to keep the mines from blowing each other up too, each mine would have to have a transponder. This wouldn't make them as detectable at the campaign level as you'd think, since transponders only double the range at which something can be detected, and mines would have a short detection range to begin with. But it would make official faction minefields more official and, on the lore side, easier to maintain, since it would be easy to keep tabs on the mines and get in to replace them.

Maybe if mines were deployed without a transponder they might attack each other in combat. The minefield would also probably degrade much faster at the campaign level than a minefield that has transponders. That might be desirable in some cases, though.

[close]

It seems ships do have another kind of IFF, if not transponder. Look at how guided missiles works.

[TheHengeProphet]

I have to say that I am rather against the concept of allowing minefields for a couple reasons.

The amount of resources required to mine up a 3D space sufficiently would be prohibitively expensive, and would take a very long time to set up one that meant anything.

Mines are very difficult to clean up, even if you can see where they are.  Indeed, they are deliberately difficult to clean up, as were they easy, they wouldn't be much an obstacle.  In effect, minefields are relatively permanent installations.  If the player were able to deposit mine fields, I would hope there would be a significant, damaging, rep hit from all factions for being denied passage through that area; particularly considering they are blockading trade, piracy, civilian travel, and military operability.


On another note.

Some ships are equipped with sensor drones, to my memory.  I typically don't end up using said ships, so I'm not terribly sure...  Anyways, I figure that ships with sensor drones should confer a fleet ability to send out sensor drones, allowing you to probe outside of your typical sensory range without increasing your sensor profile.


On "Red Alert"s.

Red Alert is what they go into when they are in eminent danger or in combat (eminent danger).  An anticipatory alert (as far as Star Trek goes) would be a "Yellow Alert", which is used to make sure the ship's crew is at ready for whenever something happens.

I figure that using this would cause some degree of fatigue amongst the crew, but would allow for a mild burn boost (maybe 1 or 2) or some sort of tangible in-combat bonus for being adequately prepared.  A moderate warm-up for the ability makes sense, with a fair duration, but should never be held for more than an in-game day as it would exhaust crews, and should in-end cost CR and as such supplies.

[SafariJohn]

Yeah, that's probably the most workable thing - no danger of undermining combat. Although I'm also wary of adding that sort of thing to the combat layer, and feel-wise, it could get odd if your ships are deploying mines that are pretty much ship-sized...

There are drones with phase cloak and fighters with missiles/torpedoes, so I don't see any reason for any mines to be ship sized.

It seems ships do have another kind of IFF, if not transponder. Look at how guided missiles works.

The missiles definitely have on-board guidance systems, and given the explanation for Command Points they can't be getting much guidance from ship-board systems. So yeah, if not simply transponders, ships and fighters must have some other kind of IFF.

[Clockwork Owl]

@HartLord
...What was the explanation for CP lore-wise?

[SafariJohn]

@HartLord
...What was the explanation for CP lore-wise?

Damnit, you called me out on that.

Now I can't even remember whether or not there's ever been an official explanation. I'm leaning towards not.


Eh, I think this is what I was thinking of: Linky

Now that I think about it, I think short range sensors in combat due to jamming isn't official, either...


Bleh!

[DM818]

I really like the idea of distress beacons being a great way to improve relations as well as being able to possibly replicate another faction's distress beacon and the transponder of another ship.  Say you see a hegemony trader that is sending out a distress beacon but it turns out to be a pirate fleet which had scrapped the traders and activated their transponders while themselves remaining dark.

[Steven Shi]

I feel like the combat portion is getting progressively cluttered with too much good ideas. All the new additions are nice but feel gimmicky. I'll probably enjoy fiddling around with IFF etc at the start but if the current world AI behaves the same way it does right now, bee-line-to-target will still be the default play style once the player got a decent size fleet.

It's nice having the extra options to actively affect the environment around you but all the bells and whistles will quickly loose their shines when player realize the world behaves pretty much the same regardless.

For example, will being able to run silent really matter to a trade fleet compared to how things are handled now? How would sensor add more thrills to bounty hunting? If I have to press icon A every time I want to do B for no reason other than to activate A's mechanic, then that's busy work. Silent Hunter's sonar (sensor) mechanic worked because it ties into the tracking, intercepting and positioning of being an ambusher. I just don't see how the last two blog additions will add to the overall gameplay of Starfarer at the present state.   

I hope Alex will take a break from the polishing and give us a more robust economy/trading/manufacturing/mission module in the coming version.

[Thaago]

@SQW

I think you might have misunderstood - the last 2 posts were both about out of combat things. They seem to me the largest change enhancing SS I've ever seen, to be honest.

[Steven Shi]

I'm not saying they are bad additions or inconsequential changes; we really don't need more combat mechanics now when everything else are basically placeholders.

The 'pew pew' in this game is already the best in the genre and I can't shake the feeling that Alex is becoming too fixated on the nice, comfy land of combat and avoiding the mess that's economy and the non-existent galaxy module. Personally, I'd be completely happy to go back to 0.45a if it meant the open world part of the game is at the same level as combat.

I'm pretty sure Alex didn't plan for a 6+ year development cycle of Starfarer when he first quit his job so I'm a little worried at the current pace. Give how much back and forth CR introduction and weapon re-balancing took (not to mention all the new additions in the pipeline), an equally detailed galaxy where you can build, trade and able to interact with everything in a meaningful way is probably another 2-3 years away.   

[Solinarius]

Again, of those 3 blogs, only officers are announced to have a direct contribution to the tactical map. Everything else is centered on revising the campaign gameplay to be at least as fun as the tactical map. A fully realized economy can wait, honestly. We've already waited this long. At least this campaign revision will attempt to make the entire game exciting, as compared to the rather mind-numbing lows of the current campaign with the mind-blowing highs of combat.

[Thaago]

@SQW

Errmm... I'm actually not sure if you are trolling here . I'm kind of leaning towards that you are.

Officers will have an impact on combat. The other stuff is NOT combat mechanics. Repeat: NOT combat mechanics. In fact, they are dedicated, along with the 'quest' things, to bring the open world stuff up to par with the combat. Ie: simply flying around on the main map becomes exciting and fun, as opposed to its current state.

[heskey30]

SQW has a good point, he is obviously not trolling. We all want to see some nice dynamic industry/political stuff going on. Battle is already a strong point in the game. Officers might make it even better, but they also add problems - it is another thing the AI and fleet generation is going to have to match the player over before the game can realize its potential.

Sensors and abilities will do some to bring the campaign map to life, but they aren't really the emergent, meaty goodness of a solid dynamic world that many of us bought the game for. Not that we're sorry, but it is what we are most interested in out of all the upcoming features, and it still stays vaguely 'soon'.

That said, Alex seems to be back at a very productive level (probably because of less playtesting in the battle simulator )  so I am feeling optimistic about the next few updates.

To SQW: I believe Alex did say he was going to change the AI behavior on the campaign map, so it hopefully the world won't behave 'pretty much the same regardless.'

[Gothars]

While red alert does sound good, a red alert a la Star Trek should occur before every battle and thus doesn't make much sense as an ability.

I hear what you're saying, but it can be a neat thing nonetheless. Part of it is naming an ability in a way where using it is a cool part of a "player story", and saying to yourself, "I put my ships on red alert" is neat. The fact that you'd probably realistically do that before every battle... I don't think it matters all that much. Those times did happen, in-fiction, but they're not part of the story.

I just had an idea. Suppose your fleet would automatically (and noticeably) be set to red alert before every hostile encounter. A good way to indicate that would be a klaxon sound at the beginning of the text-interaction with hostiles.
However, there would also be a way to engage in combat where on of the participants is not on red alert: when he has been surprised. I could imagine several ways for that to happen:

- Attacks by a friendly or neutral fleet
- Sneak attacks out of the cover of nebula, asteroid belts etc. - probably best to just introduce a minimum distance at which an enemy fleet has to be detected for their attack to not count as a surprise
- Maybe sudden attacks by a far smaller, inferior fleet (a way to boost the single ship playstile)
- Attacks by stealth ships

A fleet caught by such an surprise attack could not go to red alert before battle and would suffer a CR penalty.

Now, if the player is for some reason wary of such an attack, he could activate the red alert manually via abilities, with the same klaxon sound being audible. I guess it should be time limited with cool-down and cost a bit CR, but far less than being caught unaware.


I think that idea would open up a lot of potential for all kinds of trap mechanics and enable the cool red alert ability without introducing ways to abuse it.