Topic: Gameplay

[Infernal]

Ship to ship combat, The funnest part of any game ( =.

Missle lock: If you are in a certain range of a ship (x) and have you cross hair on a target ship for a certain amount of time ( y) (x,y based on the technology you are using on your wepons system) You gain a missle lock.  With a missle lock you may send missles at the target which home in on it and try to destroy it.  Ships with missles following them my manuever and try to get rid of the missle.

Energy Management: You can manage your energy usage.  You would be able to increase power to the engines making you go faster by decreasing power from wepons and sheilds ( Usefull for making a quick get away) or you could decrease all wepons powers and engines power and attempt to crash into the enemies ship.

Research: I think you should gain a certain amount of income, some of which you can put into "Research".  Every user would start out with a certain amount of available research material ( eg. Plasma guns, Transdimentional sheilds).  The reasearch would take a certain amount of time based on the amount of money put toward researching.  New research oppertunities can be opened up by exploring different regions which have different technologies, and perhaps some can be opened up by quests.  This would add a whole different unique aspect to the game which i beleive would improve it alot.

Bases: I think you should also be able to create bases and mining bases.  These bases would produce you income and make you be able to manufacture ships and ship accesories ( Missles, Ship upgrades).  It would make it fun if the bases were conquestable so enemies could attempt to attack you and take your base.

Multi-player ships: Large ships where more the one player works together, If the freighter gets attacked all the people on the freighter will work together to protect it.  This will add an even larger multiplayer aspect to it creating "teams".
hehe well those are my ideas
-Infernal

[contingencyplan]

Well, good ideas all, and I agree with most of them, at least in principle.

However, I think that the research and base things are going to be more team-oriented - you have to have a really big group to have a research team that's constantly researching, for instance. That's not to say that an individual may be able to research some things, but most stuff like that is going to be relegated to larger groups.

Same goes for mining - it's costly to build, maintain, and protect a mine, so much so that only major groups can afford it.

Another thing with research - doing research on ground-breaking, game-changing stuff (e.g., the transdimensional shields you refer to) are going to be so complex that they are only going to be researched by the highest-powered teams out there. Further, such research is going to take time, and lots of it (not just a few days, but perhaps 2 or 3 weeks). However, after researching the field, the team that succeeds first can patent the idea or something so that they can generate potloads of revenue from it. But once that research is complete, nobody else is going to be conducting the research in quite the same way. Thus, some of the idea that everyone is going to be researching the exact same set of things is erroneous - while a few basic things may be researched, the major stuff is going to be done once.

That's my view, personally.

[ryguy_1617]

...I'm not sure about research though, how would it be made realistic?  If you think about it, you wouldn't have to have everyone do research to get certain upgrades in real life, in reality, only a few people would conduct the research and then the rest of the researchers' allies would reap the rewards as well.  I like the idea, but how to make it realistic...

[Infernal]

Well I agree with what you guys said, but I would rather not have the revenue part because its usefull to have a research item that no one else has.  Hehe and yes transdimentional sheilds should take while .  I like the idea that you can change the game with a research and then of cource your accosiated with the research making you a "Legend" In the game.

[ryguy_1617]

OO ok, yea that would be cool.  Like, there are ways to research things that make your arsenal unique.  Ok I gotcha.

[contingencyplan]

Well, to post quickly, we could have two sets of research areas - one that can be customized enough that everybody researches it (leading to particular tweaks and such for different groups), and one that is so major and takes so long that while everybody's researching it, the first to get it is the main one to reap the benefits. Alpha Centauri had something like that, though I forget the name of them at the moment.

But those major things are few and far between, since they modify the face of the game SIGNIFICANTLY. However, I could definitely see where people could research different things out of the same set as everybody, but be able to tweak that research. Perhaps having a static set of research would be a bad idea, anyways - you have areas you can conduct research in (and you actually conduct research), so you can really research the hell out of shields, for instance, and come up with advances that no one else has.

Okay, I'm going to stop my ramblings now. But seriously, what do y'all think? Feasible? Possible? Enjoyable?

[ryguy_1617]

Well... I will leave it up to the developers to decide if it is feasable or not, but it would most definitely make the game more enjoyable.  Yeah, and I like the idea of being able to research things in more depth and come up with more results.  Like, perhaps, there could be a way to experiment with different materials collected on different planets, asteroids, etc. to get better or completely different results.  Maybe in order to do this, you would have to upgrade your ship to have a certain on-ship laboratory level to research specific things, and maybe make it to where, for some research areas, money AND rare materials are required.  These are just some of my thoughts about how to make it uniqe.

[contingencyplan]

Well... I will leave it up to the developers to decide if it is feasable or not [snip]

One thing to keep in mind - even if it's on something techical (like programming), we want the input from EVERYONE, ESPECIALLY non-programmers. Programmers / Computer Scientists usually have a certain mode that their minds work in. Having a fresh perspective from someone with a different mindset can sometimes knock something loose up there, showing us something we would have never thought of.

Just thought I'd throw that out. Carry on.

[Caenus]

As a mathematician, I've found that there are two basic types of research.  Public and private.  Why not incorporate that?  Have a base research (public) that can be purchased, and then several different upgrades based upon the research dedicated to whatever by the player (private).

This way, no one has a MASSIVE advantage, but everyone is unique.