I suggested mini-games to illustrate a point, and it was treated with horror, so if that is what you want you had better have a firm argument for your side. More implement-able of my thoughts are power management, actionable in-flight news, and SOS messages.
Safe and un-safe areas are also heavaly discussed.
There are doubtless areas of overlap here, but the intent is to establish what can and should be done in-flight as opposed to any one feature.Deus Siddis wrote:Basically I am thinking the game currently isn't doing anything with navigation and that is why it is as dull as it is. We have three big categories of navigation game play mechanics which remain undeveloped:travists wrote: I simply do not see how navigation can be made more engaging. . .
. . .what are you thinking Deus Siddis?
Hazards. Asteroid belts, debri fields, mine fields, ambushes, raiders, uprisings (or riots), nebulae, black hole and magnetar systems.
Exploration. Unexplored systems, partially explored systems, derelicts, salvageable scrap, mining and colonization opportunities, alien artifacts, undiscovered alien species, theoretical (or unimagined) anomalies.
Internal. Things happening inside your own ship or fleet, mid-flight. Vessel systems maintenance or systems inspection, crew interaction, crew psych assessment and crew task assignment, mystery and code deciphering, course and strategy planning and logging, fighting hostile or handling neutral stowaways, boarders, rescued victims and other 'guests' inside your vessel.
Tangentially, if you had more things to do and deal with when you arrived at a destination, getting back into deep space navigation might seem more like a relatively relaxing break from the action. Imagine if you just barely made it out of the docks with ship and cargo intact, after the station was taken by an ISO lead riot (who equally fortunately, only gained access to the station weapon controls after you had made SPEC). I don't know about you, but I might feel great if nothing more happened during the deep space navigation to a nearby safe haven.