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A few ideas

Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 8:26 pm
by LukeX717
Hello! Just a few ideas:

1. Intergalactical insurance: If you break your ship, you get an identical new one for free ;-) (Well, as long as you reach a base alive.)
Several variants possible! At least you are not ruined! :-)

2. More warnings: Collision warnings and enemy approach warnings! (improvements: give evasive direction, tell how many enemy ships approach)
Do you remember the tie fighter warning sound in Star Wars where the tie fighter lures Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Obi-Wan to the "little moon" which in fact is the death star? ;-))
Han Solo: "Maybe I can shoot it before it reaches the little moon!"

3. Some speed acceleration for autopilot-spec at beginning/end for the impatient.
(lets say that it contains a time compression phase, but I don't mean the original time compression feature)

4. Autopilot for beautiful docking maneuvers! (just press "d") ;-)
Possible improvements: Autopilot also flies into a base, and the well known landing wish on planets.

5. Mission maps: (navigation computer like view) before and after accepting a mission.

6. Moons! :) Most every real planet has at least one! And as you know, it can be beautiful to watch!

Hopefully, somebody gets inspired! :)

Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 10:13 pm
by loki1950
There are several moons :D a look at sol/sol would show Jupiter,Saturn and Uranus with the proper compliment. as well as several minor planetoids.

Enjoy the Choice :)

Posted: Thu May 22, 2008 10:17 pm
by safemode
Taking into account that we're currently following a much stricter roadmap...

I like the idea of having a "junk yard" on bases. Where, the game can allocate "junked ships" with minimal components and possible come pre-damaged for little or no charge for the lone capsule pilot. (they would trade the pod for it + money if they had any).

What determines the junked ships could be unsold ships at bases after some time, get scrapped, or just a randomizer.


Warnings: based on what? Level of radar? difficulty settings? Who is an enemy? In VS, there are only degrees of friends and enemies.


3. I think the problem with our spec is that it's not flashy enough to distract the user from the fact that nothing is going on, nothing can really effect them and nothing is going to happen until they slow down. We either have to add hazards to spec travel, or make it flashy. Time compression screws things up.

4. Making the user and ai dock and (for the ai) fly better, is already on the roadmap.

5. I like that idea, redoing the nav comp is something on everyone's Want to do list. Though it's taking a back seat for a while.

6. We cant make every system as demanding as the Sol system. Though, obviously there is room for some additions of moons, it's far far down the list of things we want to get implemented in the system. I think before moons you'd have to consider nebulas.


Keep the ideas coming. Even though we are trying to adhere to a stricter roadmap, we are still listening to the ideas put forth here. Though, I think you'll get much more mileage with listing some issues you have with playing the game that aren't necessarily bugs, but make playing difficult to do tasks you want to do. Having a list of player peeves, may prove much more useful to us than more lists of player wants and wishes. :)

Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 4:04 pm
by LukeX717
@loki1950: Really? :) There is a planet "Terra" in the card systen, but I didn't find sol/sol in Vegastrike 0.5.0, is it in SVN? I'm not there yet.

@safemode:

1. The insurance was meant as a quick fix of beeing not able to continue the game also after ejecting. Junk yard is an interesting idea! But the pod should stay mandatory equipment for pilot safety! :wink:

2. Warnings - based on what:
- The collision warning would need some collision detection code. Evasive direction (possible improvement) also some good code. I often crashed into bases. One strange thing is that by changing the direction of the ship it becomes somehow faster.
- The attack warning, simplest version: If a fighter aims and fires at me for the first time, make a warning message with sound. The enemy number (possible improvement, printed near radar) is then the ammount of close ships of same fraction(s) as the attacking ship(s).

3. Because nothing happens: Just make the beginning/ending flight phase of autopilot faster and shorter. I didn't mean a real "time compression".

Did I miss something? Where is the roadmap? ;-)

Well, I didn't want it sound too much like peeves. Maybe I should have added that I often crashed/ejected or even was killed in unexpected moments and therfore wanted -->Warnings
Other peeves: Still time consuming interstelar flight with autopilot --> Make it shorter; Cannot continue game without ship --> insurance;

Because this is the place for feature request, I wrote my ideas. I fully understand that you folks have many other goals and fixes on your own!

Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 2:19 am
by bgaskey
An audible 'enemy target lock' or 'enemy firing' warning is a nice idea.

By make spec ramp faster, you could just decrease the factor that gravity wells effect spec (it may even be a config option)

There is and has been for a while now a Sol system in sol sector much like our own solar system for your exploring joy :wink:

Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 12:59 pm
by LukeX717
Thanks! Now I even know that many stars in the 'sectors' screen are not listed there by default! :) Sol/Sol is really hard to find because Sol is just too huge! I therefore did the save file edit trick. :wink:

Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 1:51 pm
by safemode