ideas

posted on July 30th, 2012, 9:13 pm

haven't posted much lately, had some odd ball ideas.

one was for voices overs: I was thinking damage and offensives

for instance (related to a hit point correlation, loss of 5 is one, loss of 50 is a more severe voice over, and with a little marker to let you know what ship is setting off the alarm):

damage reported on all decks, engines are disabled, weapons are not functioning, casualties reported on decks 9 and 11,

and for those big behemoths out there who would like to mock there adversaries, after a round of bouting the tactical officer can just state 'minor damage to shields' or a whole bunch of other fun stuff we can think up. and perhaps a little blue swirl around the ship that is receiving these. so you can sort of gage how severe the voice overs are, and locate the ship that is either sustaining very light or very heavy damage. I.e. if a blue swirl engulfs your Sabre, and it says "captain one more shot and our hull is done' it might be fair warning that you should retreat to a yard. anyways that was a thought for that.

and then some more aggressive voice overs for offensives. like : "all ships converge on that location, there may be a way to create a weakness in their fleets formation.." maybe thats a little bland or too long. but yeah. always always fun to hear voice overs.

for some reason, i was thinking back to when i first joined FO, couple years ago maybe, and i was blown away mostly by the sound effects of all the ships and stations tiny things, but compared to A2, big noticeable difference.

and unrelatedly, i was thinking for some Avatars, not whole factions, the option for a black market extension either in the form of an actual station, or off the main SB. this would be built or researched or i dunno, and it would drain a certain amount of supply over a consistent amount of time, your officers need to expend supplies to gain good connections. anyways, a whole whack of things can be thought up here, from legit new ideas, to research taken right out from real research posts.

basically a slot system, and over time up to three 'upgrades', or 'transactions' appear of varying kind for varying underhand costs

particularly: for instance let's say for taq, section 31, or sela (is she upcoming?) at a mid point in the game you can buy for cheap a research that is only available generally in late game, without even having to build the research station, and for only 75 percent cost. which still might be substantial.

also, steal an enemies research. playing against a klingon opponent? perhaps go about stealing an engine speed increase as sela.

i was thinking we separate how these upgrades appear by an allocation system of say 5 officers. 1 allotment being for research for cheap, stealing enemy research, 1 time shot to build a ship that is not yet unlocked (so build akira without the necessary tech up, that is build one akira, it costs a certain amount and automatically begins building after selecting a yard after choosing the ability). maybe the first one is a really gimme, that just says build a miner for either 75 percent cost, or 75 percent regular build time.

in order to get really strong options, all five officers have to be in the same one, or put a couple officers in all, and get low level buys for a number of things, etc

and yeah. maybe for one of the factions, you have two avatars with this. but one gets the black market out of star base to begin with, while other have to pay for it. but having to start means everything is a bit more expensive.

anyways. yeh

posted on July 30th, 2012, 10:59 pm

one was for voices overs: I was thinking damage and offensives

for instance (related to a hit point correlation, loss of 5 is one, loss of 50 is a more severe voice over, and with a little marker to let you know what ship is setting off the alarm):

damage reported on all decks, engines are disabled, weapons are not functioning, casualties reported on decks 9 and 11,

and for those big behemoths out there who would like to mock there adversaries, after a round of bouting the tactical officer can just state 'minor damage to shields' or a whole bunch of other fun stuff we can think up. and perhaps a little blue swirl around the ship that is receiving these. so you can sort of gage how severe the voice overs are, and locate the ship that is either sustaining very light or very heavy damage. I.e. if a blue swirl engulfs your Sabre, and it says "captain one more shot and our hull is done' it might be fair warning that you should retreat to a yard. anyways that was a thought for that.

and then some more aggressive voice overs for offensives. like : "all ships converge on that location, there may be a way to create a weakness in their fleets formation.." maybe thats a little bland or too long. but yeah. always always fun to hear voice overs.

This is exactly like what I suggested in my last post here. I had the same idea, though I had figured that the 'after the battle' part wouldn't be nessesary.
Also, your suggestion of a 'blue swirl' sound like what they used in another game. (cant think of the title right now) Whenever a unit 'spoke', a sprite, similer to, but not quite like, the selection sprite was used so you knew what unit had spoken.

i was thinking for some Avatars, not whole factions, the option for a black market extension either in the form of an actual station, or off the main SB. this would be built or researched or i dunno, and it would drain a certain amount of supply over a consistent amount of time, your officers need to expend supplies to gain good connections. anyways, a whole whack of things can be thought up here, from legit new ideas, to research taken right out from real research posts.

Thought of that too, but it seems silly that a respected Star Fleet officer would, in front of his entire staff and all of Star Fleet, purchase Black Market items that were probably stolen from a Federation Research Station 'last week'. (though the idea is great for the other races)

Maybe for one of the factions, you have two avatars with this. but one gets the black market out of star base to begin with, while other have to pay for it. but having to start means everything is a bit more expensive.

Well, if a Black Market is added, then this would be a great idea. Spend all your resources on expensive weapons and have only a few powerful ships, or build up a weak fleet and have too few funds for weapons. Hmm. Decisions, decisions...

also, steal an enemies research. playing against a klingon opponent? perhaps go about stealing an engine speed increase as sela.

Now that's an idea. Only problem is, you need to figure out how the damn thing works. That will take time, plus you may need to keep the ship as a prototype for a bit, so on top of taking the ship and getting it back home, you need to hold it near a research station until research is complete and a prototype is made inside the station. Would add a bit to gameplay.

posted on July 31st, 2012, 12:33 pm

I like this ideas, and add that the game need a crew alert warning (visual and sound), the only way of knowing your crew situation is to pass your mouse over every ship, and in the middle of a battle you don't have time for that, an icon would be helpful.

The other thing is when you are scouting your enemy base, there is no way to know the researches the other guy have done, because you just see the science station or equivalent but not the advance of his techtree it should be like the yard where you can see the ship production queue and the type of ship that yard produce and it's avatar.

In Armada 2 there were extension to the science station that you can target to damage the techtree of your opponent something like that.

posted on July 31st, 2012, 2:34 pm

more active low crew warning: yes

see enemy researches: no, why would you know what research the enemy has before they deploy it in the field? the research is done in a station, at war time, so presumably some secrecy is used by the researchers. when the ship is finished you can see the tech that it has and know what has been researched.

posted on July 31st, 2012, 4:42 pm

@Myles: you have a valid point there, although I can argue that the scout must have a way to "infiltrate" the station a get that information but I see your point.

posted on July 31st, 2012, 5:45 pm

@Myles: you have a valid point there, although I can argue that the scout must have a way to "infiltrate" the station a get that information but I see your point.

scouts do not work that way. the borg don't do sneaky. the klingons aren't brilliant at it either. even as a race specific thing, i would think it would work in later game than scout. maybe a talshiar spy (combine with talshiar/intel buildings) or a changeling, maybe SFI could do it weaker.

posted on July 31st, 2012, 7:34 pm

the borg don't do sneaky.

posted on July 31st, 2012, 8:38 pm

out of context that looks like a constipated redshirt.

posted on August 1st, 2012, 1:22 am

I think you don't even have to go out of context for that...

posted on August 1st, 2012, 1:52 am

@destroyer

I thought section 31 for star fleet would be fair game. Some outpost 12 parsecs away from where the map and battle is being staged,ground breaking research is being conducted on new weapons etc, but it hasn't yet been fully tested or officially released for widespread use. Your agents captured the material, had it ratified and implemented through questionable methods, and got it into service far quicker than the federation normal protocols would allow. Of course, section 31 wouldn't necessarily undermine or destroy the outpost, nothing like that, they want federation to have this, but they need it more immediately.

The larger problem I thought was the borg. The borg are not going to have a black market. I was thinking the devs might enjoy complete creative freedoms for the borg. Something like, the borg collective has assimilated a new species in sector 431 of the delta quadrant which offers up a new piece of technology that the queen deems appropriate for use in the battle underway against the klingons etc etc.

For instance: species 9583 has an interesting method of deflecting pulse and torp weapons by releasing small particles into subspace just outside the ships hull that when pulse weapons pass through it largely diminish their damage output, if not completely com lapsing the blast altogether. For a short time, a vessel can be customized so that it appears as though an invisible veil surrounds the ship swallowing all incoming pulse weapons.

This then leads the borg into its alternative black market of new technologies, and adaptations to new technologies. So borg do not use shields, but this new technology is incredibly easy for the borg to implement and is functionally identical to shields, but vastly superior (to create a field that covers a huge borg vessel is not ideal, instead, they have enemy ship in a particular location, they target the space between that ship and the borg ship, and distort the particles so that all fire incoming between enemy target and themselves is intercepted). They are using space to dissipate weapons with some particle combination, instead of generating large force fields. etc. In effect, its assimilation during the battle throughout the collective.

So this particular avatar of borg is more integrated with the collective has it is deployed. for instance directive assimilate, is a borg avatar that is sort of deposited into a system and told to assimilate everything, and the collective doesn't need to worry about maintaining strong ties during this time, there are no priorities other than assimilation of the system. So an avatar could be created that is bent towards 'collective synchronization', where the borg set up a base camp, and use more of the collectives resources to really bash an enemy species by any means necessary. The orders are not so much to assimilate outright, or optimize at all costs, but to bide their time. Create a strong foothold and wait for advances throughout the collective that can then just be immediately deployed in the sector.

And then, the steal research i did not envision as 'steal warship'. It's all done through individuals. A 'spy' but it isn't really a trained or hired spy, it's some thug or criminal, or opportunist who finds schematics etc of what other species have done, find buyers or intermediaries who can adjust the technology for another faction or buyer and reap a reward. So guy as access to research X of faction 'pick one' and knows dude who can incorporate X for faction 'pick different one'. Then you get Klingons who know ferengi who steal sensor research from feds to improve sensor range on the brel and kvort class starships. Maybe stolen researchers can't be acquired and given to the entire klingon fleet, but they notice it can be offered to some specific classes. etc

Edit: So actually I was thinking about it, and i like that idea of directive 'synchronize' or 'confluence' for the collective. When you think of other factions an avatar is what? A person, and that person has a specialty, favoured ships, strategies, and tactics. But borg aren't ilke that, they have directives, how things are organized, but not individually commanded. So why not an avatar that seeks to incorporate outside aspects of the collective into the current system. I think it could offer devs with an alternative to borg gameplay that adds to the fun of the faction with some neat abilities. In the macrocosm of the collective, what projects are underway that end up having effects. So yeah, I think the avatar or directive that might be worth looking into is something like directive 'collective synchronization'. What exactly this entails, well...

devs brainstorm!

posted on August 2nd, 2012, 2:25 pm

And then, the steal research i did not envision as 'steal warship'. It's all done through individuals. A 'spy' but it isn't really a trained or hired spy, it's some thug or criminal, or opportunist who finds schematics etc of what other species have done, find buyers or intermediaries who can adjust the technology for another faction or buyer and reap a reward.

True, it is a little crazy to have to steal a ship when a spy could just grab the design plans, but look at it this way:

With a warship, you have a working model which you can examine and take apart and put back together.
With the design plans, you have problems. The first is: "Are these real, or did the dumba** give me fakes?" The second is: "Is this working like it should? The Klingon 'Poleron Torpedo' should pass through shields. Ours just bounces off the hull." With a spy or a thug, you have no clue if they are being truthful, even if its your spy.

The idea of captured tech only being available to some ships is a great idea. Great example: the Intrepid. While it cant use the Borg's Transwarp Drive, (As the Borg destroy their Transwarp Coils when losing their ship) They can still use other Borg tech, like Cutting Beams, or Gravimetric Torpedoes, or even an Auto-Regeneration Unit.

Speaking of the Borg, I find it annoying that you have to research the same stuff over and over when starting the game. I know its for gameplay reasons, but to me, it seems like the Borg are a little forgetful.