https://forums.starcontrol.com/447576/page/1/

https://forums.starcontrol.com/468147/page/1/

I've also personally corresponded with Niklas (originally wrote to him seven years ago) and while he is a big SC fan, he works on a huge variety of art projects and didn't seem to show much interest in getting involved on these forums when I asked him last year. I'd like to think he'd turn up some day, but not holding my breath.

I have the feeling SCR is running counter to his feelings on the series anyways. But his input would be hugely invaluable.

Awkbird and Lone_Utwig - I think what you're not really getting is the fact that Star Control 2 was an arcade-shooter. Its combat isn't going to be Elite:Dangerous or Star Citizen, or practically any other game out there. It's fun, fast-paced combat for anyone to pick up and enjoy for a minute or an hour. There's a certain simplicity to the crew/battery readings that levels the playing field for all ships and that was some of the beauty. 

I think a good example is Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat - those characters don't have armor, don't have shields, don't have advantages over the other fighters - EXCEPT their unique moves/fighting style. And that helps, rather than hinders it. It's a level playing field for all fighters and all players and puts the focus on fighting style and moves. I'd much rather put effort into fighting defensively/offensively, learning moves, being quick to turn, quick to speed away, going in for strafing runs and escaping before a bigger ship can turn around... 

Rather than stat-based shield and armor values. It's much more fun and more Star Control to have a fluid, mobile, exciting, fast technique based battle - than Stat based, if only I had a +20% shield regen and +15% armor thickness I might have won battles. 

It's takes the focus away from the fun and exciting parts! 

The only thing I could see myself getting behind is arcade action powers... Like a shield that, if someone bumps into you, they go flying through space in the opposite direction. Or armor plating that can heat up with the push of a button and you slam into the enemy ship, causing burn damage. Oraybe it's so hot, it repels Orz boarding parties Specific action-packed counters would be fun to equip. 

Stats like hull thickness and shield regen rate - NO THANK YOU. 

Look, I`ve been just contemplating this idea (ShieldArmorHealth). I thought that SAH could bring a bit more edge but I am perfectly fine w/o it. But i definitely think that something like this can be considered for the flagship/bosses and landers/critters/robots and other planet-based lifeforms/vehicles.

Why do you assume mechanics like shields and armor would automatically mean a stat based system favoring munchkins? I think it would be interesting if some ships were balanced around very unique defensive and offensive capabilities. Like, say, a slower bulky ship with heavy armor (limited damage immunity) in the front, but an Achilles heel in the back.

Besides, weren't some ships in SC2 counters to others? Player combat skill wasn't the only factor involved and picking the right ship for the job made things easier, all ships were not balanced to have a fair shot against every other ship. Some had more crew, some less, Syreen could steal crew, Umgah could regen crew, Orz could sabotage your crew. All that already falls outside of what the balance of Mortal Kombat allowed, with (afaik) every fighter having roughly the same endurance, and no way to regenerate or steal it.

I'm on the bandwagon with urging the devs to rethink alien themes playing prior to meeting the race for the first time.  I think it introduces a 'cheat' mechanic and hurts the sense of exploration. 

That said, I do like the races specific music playing after first contact.  It adds personality.

Quoting prodigalmaster, reply 30

Quoting cuorebrave,

reply 28

Awkbird and Lone_Utwig - I think what you're not really getting is the fact that Star Control 2 was an arcade-shooter. Its combat isn't going to be Elite:Dangerous or Star Citizen, or practically any other game out there. It's fun, fast-paced combat for anyone to pick up and enjoy for a minute or an hour. There's a certain simplicity to the crew/battery readings that levels the playing field for all ships and that was some of the beauty. 


I think a good example is Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat - those characters don't have armor, don't have shields, don't have advantages over the other fighters - EXCEPT their unique moves/fighting style. And that helps, rather than hinders it. It's a level playing field for all fighters and all players and puts the focus on fighting style and moves. I'd much rather put effort into fighting defensively/offensively, learning moves, being quick to turn, quick to speed away, going in for strafing runs and escaping before a bigger ship can turn around... 

Rather than stat-based shield and armor values. It's much more fun and more Star Control to have a fluid, mobile, exciting, fast technique based battle - than Stat based, if only I had a +20% shield regen and +15% armor thickness I might have won battles. 

It's takes the focus away from the fun and exciting parts! 

The only thing I could see myself getting behind is arcade action powers... Like a shield that, if someone bumps into you, they go flying through space in the opposite direction. Or armor plating that can heat up with the push of a button and you slam into the enemy ship, causing burn damage. Oraybe it's so hot, it repels Orz boarding parties Specific action-packed counters would be fun to equip. 

Stats like hull thickness and shield regen rate - NO THANK YOU. 

 

Why do you assume mechanics like shields and armor would automatically mean a stat based system favoring munchkins? I think it would be interesting if some ships were balanced around very unique defensive and offensive capabilities. Like, say, a slower bulky ship with heavy armor (limited damage immunity) in the front, but an Achilles heel in the back.

Besides, weren't some ships in SC2 counters to others? Player combat skill wasn't the only factor involved and picking the right ship for the job made things easier, all ships were not balanced to have a fair shot against every other ship. Some had more crew, some less, Syreen could steal crew, Umgah could regen crew, Orz could sabotage your crew. All that already falls outside of what the balance of Mortal Kombat allowed, with (afaik) every fighter having roughly the same endurance, and no way to regenerate or steal it.

 

 

 

THIS IS EXACTLY RIGHT! a unique defensive trait that blocks incoming fire from the front, but is weak if you get behind him! Holy crap, that's ingenious! And perfectly in line with the star control spirit. That'd an arcade action mechanic, TOTALLY! I think it would add an incredible level of depth to fight a ship like that... You'd have to pick your fastest shop to get behind him. 

I mean, maybe you think you were arguing with me? But you literally proved we have the same exact vision. I'm not against a purposeful shield or armor. How about a shield that if activated at the right moment, bounces weapons-fire back at the shooter! Or armor that's so tough in the rear, heat can't affect it (making it a food cowardly runner like the Spathi)? But there would be other good ships to counter it. That's the whole point! 

But having a straight up value for general armor or shield. Blocking a certain % of damage and recharging at a certain speed. Around the whole ship in general. Not Star Control. 

Yeah, I might have worded myself in too confrontational a manner. That said, I wouldn't be against a ship having regenerating shields (or some other alternative health gimmick), as long as there would be some exploitable twist involved, simply because it would be nice to have something else than just crew "hp" on a ship or two. In a way, the crew regeneration ability of the Mycon spore ships (mistook them with the Umgah in my last post) might as well have been an ability to generate weak shields, the ship would play the same. On the other hand, I agree with you that needlessly making things too complicated by stats and additional shields/armor bars isn't a good idea.

I can't see the big OGG files, it wants some type of converter that I don't have.

One thing that you need to keep in mind is how Star Control works.  The fact that you only have a little bit of life, and it doesn't regenerate, is actually a part of how Star Control works.  You have a line-up of ships, you are expected to lose ships.  The whole idea is that you can only sustain yourself away from the base as long as you can keep your supply of ships alive.  In SuperMelee you have a lineup of ships.  The design is specifically that you will have "fast action" killing and dieing often.

Regen is very powerful with these simple ships.  For example, with any significant amount of regen you could never kill me in a Spathi.  I might never kill you flying that way either, but you are definitely not killing me.  And that balance isn't fun.  Star Control works differently than modern games this way, the low life/survivablity is one of the things that makes it so fun.  It is easy to lose the fun factor of this kind of game by making the ships too durable, especially with the way SuperMelee works in this game.

You want to die regularly in this kind of game no matter how good you are, that's a big part of what makes it so fun.

Well, unless you are Indra and go 367-0 in Chaos Zone... but you can't go designing around a single living god of a Subspace player:-)

That just gave me a hilarious idea that you could have a race that procreates at alarming speeds to have the unique ability to regenerate crew at like 1 per 4 seconds, and when they are already at max crew every 4 seconds the oldest crew member gets jettisoned out the airlock uttering something random like "i regret nothiiiiing" or "Made it to 4 minutes old!" sounding like old men/women.

They should either resemble rabbits (obviously) or mayflies (some mayflies only live for 5 minutes)....maybe a rabbit/mayfly mix?

That is good...

There are a lot of things you can do with it.  It goes against the grain of modern thinking in game design in many ways, but it really is a good thing that you can use in a lot of ways.  The point system for SuperMelee is a good example.  You buy a lineup of ships, so you get to pick which ships you will cycle through.  But the balance should be that even if, for example, I am an ace veteran and you are a noob, you are still going to kill me at least a few times.  No matter how good I am, I am not going to take down 12 of your ships on the 6-18 or so life I might have on one ship.  It is a great skill equalizer, for one thing, where even in the greatest of mismatches the weaker player is still almost certain to get to kill the other guy a few times.  And then even losing is often a fun experience.

SCII did not take advantage of this is the strategic game.  And if you are going to have the mothership always be an option as a "super ship safety valve" then this doesn't work.  But I would like a balance where the satellite ships you are carrying determine how long you can stay away from base questing/exploring before you need to return for "resupply".  This is why I suggested in a previous thread that you might force the player to reconfigure the mothership from a "battleship" for "normal range" to a "carrier" for "long range".  This way you get to have both things.  It works the way I, and others who are good at the space ship fighting, like it when going "extended range", while at "normal range" you have the "crutch" of your "battleship" configured mothership to use.  I really like this idea for this SC because it lets the player have both experiences and the designers can control when they are forcing the player into "carrier mode" and never have any primary quest lines require "extended range" missions.

But the point here is that having to plan your upcoming quest/adventure around how many fights you think you can make it through before needing to return to base adds a *lot* to the player's experience and immersion throughout the entire game.  It would be really cool if it worked that way, or at least worked that way part of the time like in my BB/CV example if my way is "too hardcore" for the game they are making to always work that way.

Question, will melee be seamless as well? I mean in the original star control, when you encountered a ship in a system, it would engage a separate screen were you would chose to fight or talk. Will that be preserved? Or will we be able to fire on them right from the get-go, while we are still in exploring mode?  

And oh, if you want to listen to the ogg files, just download this, it should fix your problem (if your running windows that is): http://www.vorbis.com/setup_windows/

This is being preserved. Having this decision was an important one, and the player will still be able to make this choice in some cases and others will not. Also, there are more choices that occur with going into combat that the player will want to make so it made sense to keep it in place. 

Maybe this is a UI thing that you're messing with for now.

But I really don't like the new UI of the ingame.

I really like the OLD interface where all the ship stuff was on the side of the screen in a vertical box.   The fact that we have wide monitors now, the extra width on the screen gives you more view space.    The overlay on the view space area is just way too distracting and darn ugly.

I disagree somewhat. I feel like, while it certainly isn't right right now, I don't think the old interface will work either. Though if there's options for UI customization, I'd support that 100%.

I am hoping for the June update to give you some video of the feature that we hope will help demonstrate that we're not just taking Star Control 2 and updating it but also expanding on the game play.

As a gamer, one of my complaints is that it seems like new games will try to "streamline" the game to appeal more players.  With the Star Control reboot, we want to preserve what's already excellent and then expand on the parts that weren't super developed (the planet exploration).

Naturally, having thousands of unique planets that you can explore is a technological, artistic challenge. But we are hopeful that this feature will also demonstrate that we "get" what Star Control is about and aren't just an update.

@Frogboy: +1

As a side note, I like the overlay-style UI better than the side-box

Is there any chance of uploading these videos in some kind of standard windows format?  I couldn't see the two from last month because they wanted some type of viewer that I don't have.  Can you put them into a format that Windows Media Player can view?  I don't have any add-ons or whatever it is last months videos were wanting me to have.

EDIT: I just went and checked.  If I try to view them it says that my "trial copy of Switch Sound file converter" has expired.  I never new I had a trial copy of whatever that is to begin with, so it is pretty confusing.

Just download VLC, no?

^ This is better though:

https://mpc-hc.org/

I downloaded the mpc thing, but I still get the same exact message that my trial version of Switch Sound has expired.

Is there some reason this has to be in some kind of non-standard format that Windows Media Player can't use?  I think I'm done downloading unknown things, I don't like doing that.  Now I have 2 things on my computer that I have no idea what they are and aren't doing anything for me.

Ok, I deleted these extra things.  I'll just stick with what Windows Media Player can view.

The one thing that confuses me about the May stuff was the mention that you will send down landers seamlessly from the solar system map.  I must be missing something because if the planets and stars have the comically powerful gravity wells of the genre that they have mentioned before, then you can't really send a lander down from that screen.  If you get near the planet it's gravity will "slingshot" you past it.  That's why I had been envisioning a "planet map" in earlier posts, to get you out of the gravity well of the solar system map so you could interact with the planet "in normal space".

So I seem to be misunderstanding something about how this works, because you can't send a lander down from a solar system map with comically powerful gravity wells.  Unless you do it as you slingshot past the planet, which would be kind of silly and I am sure that is not what they are doing.

@Kavik_Kang:

I think comically powerful gravity wells are only in effect in combat mode. In exploration mode (and by extension planet-lander mode) I'm guessing there isn't gravity to worry about (as in the original SC2).

Kavik - VLC is not an unknown thing, buddy. It's a lightweight, extremely vast media viewer that could replace Windows Media Player entirely. Download and enjoy Star Control's videos in one easy step:

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Henri: That would make sense, I hadn't been thinking of it that way.  There could be two separate map modes with the music change and maybe some "combat HUD" added so you know when you have entered combat mode.  But then it seems odd for the gravity to be toggling on and off.  I don't know, they must have some way around it like my "ED into a planet map" way.  I'm sure however they are doing it works for what they are doing.

Cuorebrave: Yes, I had found that and listened to one of those big files.  I have to pick it manually because I need to find where to associate that file type with it.  I'll figure that out later.