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[Gothars]

I speculate that, if it is a "base" mechanic, then it'll be fleet-to-fleet interactions.  In a somewhat-recent screenshot on Alex's twitter (at least, recent in Starsector terms with it's long development cycles), it shows the "Recon" command from combat map,

That screenshot is probably too old to be related to a feature Alex only just begun toying with, but other than that I like your theory best so far "Hacking" indeed seems to relate to the change of an existing feature more than the addition of something totally new.

[Doom101]

gah, im always late to find out about new things, regardless this looks impressive, i'm so glad hyperspace is getting special terrain, although im curious just how bad does a storm impact CR? like, will it start destroying ships in a large storm or would any given ship survive any given storm and just be slightly in danger of malfunctioning if it got in a fight?

Oh that's another thing, if we get in a fight IN a storm does the combat arena reflect that? fighting an enemy who wants to kill you, in an arena that wants to kill both of you, would be pretty awesome.

Edit: just finished catching up on this thread, my bet for the secret project is what i posted above, that the terrain is integrated into fights, Unless alex responds to my initial question, this is my final answer.

[Madao]

Release sort of kinda a bit inbound, so excite! 

[Clockwork Owl]

How about keeping the wavefront, making it narrower and slower(to the point they are slightly slower than most fleet), and make them cancel out the effects of hyperspace storm? You'll occasionally get faster and safer travel route.

Keep in mind, however, that I don't know the overall shape, frequency, and location of waves. I assumed that they are linear, not reliably frequent, and occuring randomly.

[CrashToDesktop]

Oh, forgot to add on to that rampant speculation post - I have this itching feeling that a release will happen in early to mid October.  Not that Alex knows right now (since he has no idea how long it'll take to make something, hacking or not, and how long testing will go on).

[Alex]

I must say, I approve of the the amount and quality of rampant speculation going on here.

Get well soon man!

Thanks! Starting to feel a bit better today. I think.

gah, im always late to find out about new things, regardless this looks impressive, i'm so glad hyperspace is getting special terrain, although im curious just how bad does a storm impact CR? like, will it start destroying ships in a large storm or would any given ship survive any given storm and just be slightly in danger of malfunctioning if it got in a fight?

It's not going to do actual damage, but it could take CR down to zero, though that'd take some very poor navigating indeed. Or just starting at very low CR, I suppose.

Oh that's another thing, if we get in a fight IN a storm does the combat arena reflect that? fighting an enemy who wants to kill you, in an arena that wants to kill both of you, would be pretty awesome.

It currently doesn't. Most other terrain already does, btw (as, I think, is mentioned in the patch notes). I do have a TODO item to do something about this, but it's fairly low priority because, well, things work without that. But yeah, more tie-ins like this between the layers are great.

How about keeping the wavefront, making it narrower and slower(to the point they are slightly slower than most fleet), and make them cancel out the effects of hyperspace storm? You'll occasionally get faster and safer travel route.

Keep in mind, however, that I don't know the overall shape, frequency, and location of waves. I assumed that they are linear, not reliably frequent, and occuring randomly.

Hmm. I mean, in theory, that could be neat, but I think it comes back to (as things often do) to whether the mechanic would pull its own weight. Does unreliably being able to skip out on being stuck in a storm add much? Is it even a positive, design-wise? The idea behind the storms mechanic was, in part, to have a minimal amount of mechanics that accomplish the design goal ("travel can be done poorly or well"). Now, it's definitely not *strictly* minimal, but it still does the job with only one type of terrain.

I think the question to ask when adding more mechanics on top of this base is, "what design issue does <new mechanic> solve?". And to get to that point, I think it'll require some playtesting (probably in the form of a release) to identify what those issues are.

[orost]

Maybe the wavefront thing could work if the choice of using one involved more than just speed. Say, it's always faster to take the wavefront than not, but they're a cripplingly hostile enviroment to fight in and there could be pirates lurking along common wavefront-paths with ships adapted to fighting in them, or maybe using the wavefronts would mean a risk of getting dragged into the heart of a large hyperspace storm and having the wavefront fizzle out under you leaving you in a pickle, if you don't react fast enough to bail before that happens.

That would give three ways of travel: slow, boring, along established shallow hyperspace paths, faster, directly through deep hyperspace with risk of storms or ambush, and fastest but hold-my-beer-I'm-doing-this risky wavefront travel.

[pigreko]

The only thing I keep thinking about is how this terrain could somehow shape ever-changing flight routes. And then you bug a satellite and discover the safe route of a lot of traders in clear space; or that a cargo with precious and rare stuff is risking deep hyperspace to take a shortcut. So you can plan ambushes or blockades.

Of course there could be something like that for normal space too, who knows. I like the idea. Maybe it is not relevant but who knows

[Linnis]

So hyperspace storm will also hide fleets...?

Talking about hidden stuff, there will be AI fleets taking advantage or built to use the campaign layer terrain right? Hidden pirates, hidden bases, hidden SYSTEMS.

[CrashToDesktop]

So hyperspace storm will also hide fleets...?

Quite the opposite - it'll make your fleet stick out like a sore thumb in the middle of hyperspace.

Nebula however, which I don't think form in Hyperspace (and are usually found around gas giants) will hide your fleet without affecting your own sensors.

[Linnis]

Well how does that make sense, both the storms and nebulae. Storms being essentially active nebulas and they should e around early star systems, and be in clumps and or rings spread around a star or "center"

[Thaago]

I don't think the storms are related at all to nebulae - they are made of hyperspace phlebtonium .

I forgot my rampant speculation! Lets see... campaign layer... hyperspace stuff... I'm going to go with space dragons that live in deep hyperspace. Their eyes shoot phase beams and they belch torpedoes. They occasionally chase down and rip ships apart for treasure. If you can find their lairs you can raid them, but be careful because they keep pet space amoebas. That also eat ships.


This post brought to you by the committee for Alex feeling better by playing MOOII. You know you want to...

[SafariJohn]

[ridiculousspeculation]

[/ridiculousspeculation]

[Nick XR]

Rampant speculation?

Multi-player. 

Co-op: One person plays the game per-normal, the other gets to join in for battles by controlling a friendly ship using the associated ship captain's skills.  Under the hood this is done by setting some AI type to "remote", the host relaying game state and the remote client just rendering it.
Vs: Pretty obvious, either fixed symmetrical fleets or "build a fleet from points"

They have something like this for M&B as a mod, my friends and I can't get enough of it.  Multi-player is a great way to leverage a social aspect and get a lot more sales IMO.

[CrashToDesktop]

Rampant speculation?

Multi-player. 

Co-op: One person plays the game per-normal, the other gets to join in for battles by controlling a friendly ship using the associated ship captain's skills.  Under the hood this is done by setting some AI type to "remote", the host relaying game state and the remote client just rendering it.
Vs: Pretty obvious, either fixed symmetrical fleets or "build a fleet from points"

They have something like this for M&B as a mod, my friends and I can't get enough of it.  Multi-player is a great way to leverage a social aspect and get a lot more sales IMO.

We've been asking for that for a long time now, and I think Alex has effecitvely said "never."  It'd just take too much time and effort for something that's not guaranteed to even work. let alone work well.