February Vault Feedback

Everything looks really cool in the update. I have the feeling the planet types will get redundant quite quick - there was a nice suggestion adding variety by simply adding new colors to the existing planet types.

I really do hope there is a possibility for adding custom events in the galaxy that add variety to the gameplay (similar to Stellaris) and more individual feel to certain stars.

A bit disappointed about the small number of melee keys getting distributed, as I am not involved in xml I will probably have to wait for a couple of months to half an year to get my hands on it.

 About the super melee I recommend following the exact same model as in SC2 with dots representing the crew and and energy, with the capitan being in different color

About the custom events, SC2 wise I mean something like Burvixe or Androsynth story - finding an energy source that appears only on a single planet and looks unique, or the Vux beast quest - finding a unique lifeform, etc..

Infinite replayability is always one of the best qualities that any game can have, and the top down space shooter genre is a perfect medium in which to achieve that. There was very little to Subspace and yet there were literally thousands of people who practically lived in that game for nearly a decade. It's something that, once you are into it, you never permanently tire of it. You only might take a break now and then. Exactly like a first person shooter. Top down space combat shares many of the same important qualities of a successful commercial game, another being that just like an FPS game you can enter a top down space combat game, play for 5 minutes and then leave, and nobody will even notice let alone care. There is no commitment too it at all, nobody expects you to stay and keep playing for any length of time.

As for the “infinite universe” aspect I don't know who Rick & Morty are... but Kevin Siembieda kind of showed how well this concept worked with Rifts. It's not an untested idea, it is most definitely a great idea and means that Star Control is, like Rifts and my own thing, absolutely anything it wants to be. I really would like to see Rodney Dangerfield as Flash Gordon, one of you modders should get on that Flash Gordon universe!

I agree on not dropping reality in such a big way for the sake of the game with the magic ability to teleport between starbases. But, of course, the game always comes first and the story second in the end. Especially with an arcade game. I would create and pseudo-scientific explanation for this. Part of good game design, a big part, is “representation”. This goes both ways, back and forth, with the game and story. Have an early quest to acquire the technology to have some type of jump gate/artificial wormhole creation that only a Starbase is large enough to do. You might say it has to be outside of a gravity well, so Starbases at planets can not do this... or not. You can also limit the range if you want, or have be a galactic-wide capability if that is what the game needs. It's an easy thing to explain, and the audience likes an explination (“representation”) more than “Hey, give us a break... it's an arcade game”. That can be a valid answer, but there is no reason to use it when it is so easy to avoid.

“Inertial Dampeners” don't slow a ship down, they mitigate or eliminate the effects of G-force on the people and objects inside of the ship. The trekkies will call you “wrong” for using this term this way. I think you mean what might be called “breaking thrusters”, or you could use the term “lateral thrusters” or even make up something similar that is unique to your universe. I assume this is simply the effect of pushing backward on the gamepad. This is a good stat to be able to affect, “breaking power” is as important as acceleration in some situations. But you are using what a lot of people will call the “wrong” term for it.

I would call “equipment storage” something like “hull extension”. Something along those lines. Adding more “storage” capacity would take up more space on the ship, not make more available. It's not like you add a cargo bay, than some other system inside the cargo bay that there was no room for before you put a cargo bay there.

I would then call “extender” a “refit” or “overhaul”... “extender” kind of sounds like a Japanese cartoon for children.

Instead of a general “superior HyperDrive”, I bet it was the engines that got better while the rest of it's components remained the same. I'd call it an engine (“nacelle” in Star Trek terminology) upgrade.

I didn't realize you were going to have an editor that would make it easy to create and modify the ships.  I've done a lot of that kind of thing, if it lets me do it I will probably re-work your super melee ships to a different balance to give everyone something to talk about rather than trying to explain so much in writing.

You're right, of course. Something as simple as making it be "stargates" (especially if I have to actually fly into them, and then see myself flying out of the corresponding one at the other starbase) would totally fix my issues with it. My only concern is that it be like waypoints in an RPG where I'm at one horse post and suddenly I'm at another one. That kind of works in an RPG because I can imagine I rode between them (or whatever) but somehow I can't suspend that disbelief in a Space Sim unless you give a reason for it. Hell, at the very very least charge me fuel for the transfer, then I'll imagine I have flown all the way there (but how did I avoid encounters along the way, and why didn't I spot that new system I could have explored, and... yeah, make it be a stargate and be done with it).

I don't necessarily mind fast travel between Starbases, but I certainly think there should be an option to turn that functionality off. This is actually accounted for in Fallout, for example, where if you play in Survival mode, you have to take into account the calories you need replenished during fast travel. It's entirely possible to die while fast travelling (at least it was in New Vegas. I was paranoid during my Fallout 4 Survival run and never let any of my meters drop below half if I could help it) of hunger, thirst, sleep deprivation, or disease. I think a sort of Hardcore mode for SC:O could help alleviate the ridiculousness of it.

Multiverse theory has always been a fascination of mine, and seeing an incarnation of it in Star Control is especially gratifying. I always believed that Quasispace hinted at this in Star Control 2.

The critters are certainly interesting, but I hope we see more variety than simple palette swaps. As for the resources, would they be more appealing as veins or other extruding mineral nodes, compared to floating symbols?

The UI certainly has come a long way since the last few updates. This has to do with the introduction of part of your Fences crew, I presume?

My excitement for this project hasn't once faltered, and this update continues to hype me further. I'm especially glad that keys are being prioritized to people with programming and modding experience in this upcoming batch. 

They could also use the starbase generated wormholes to restrict access to the map.  If they want to leave it mostly free, and yet still guide you through a little bit (and for the sake of the story), it can be said to take a while to establish these gates at the starbases after you have set up the first one.  So you can restrict access/guide the player in a general sense with this, and yet still have it be a "sector by sector" process.  This makes it easier to tell a better and more consistent story for one thing.  In the end you might have the last 4 bases or so build their gates all at the same time to open up half the galaxy all at once for the final stage of the game and provide a bigger and "more free" area to play within at the end of the story. 

Or however you want to use them.  These gates are actually useful in a lot of ways for the design of the game if you want them to be.  They don't necessarily have to be gates, either, in fact I kind of see this more as the starbase can generate an artificial wormhole.  The starbase needs to be involved with the process because the explanation for why these "galactic range" gates aren't everywhere is that only the starbases are a large enough platform to mount the equipment needed to generate a wormhole.

Re Starbases:

The Precursor tech folds space.  We have no idea how it works but it lets the player move quickly to other ones.  This is not true, however, if the Earth starbase which does not have this tech.

There is good infinite replayability: 4X strategy games for example

And then there is bad replayability: like drag out sandbox like RPGs, that boast with 100h+ play time but have shallow experience, due to padded fetch quests and gridning. Some think they are replayable due to being so large and full of "conent" and being open world so you can do suff in any order. But in fact, they are boring slugfest due to all this.

In regards to RPGs, I would always take shorter focused engaging RPG then longer one that drags. And if shorter one has many class options and lot of choices and consequences it would become much more superior game, since it would actually be interesting enough to play multuiple times.

Re teleportation between starbases - why not? Btw. I hope that there is an option to switch it on-off completely (and/or you have to have a special device to use teleportation between star bases or some other modifier) or choose if these teleportation things allow teleportation between certain/all starbases. Think OMEGA relay from ME2. Might be a good thing for mods.

My thoughts re Feb update will be posted later on.

P.S. Oh, have just noted that Kavik was basically talking about the same thing. I was rushing to give an answer to the top post.  Stargates are a great asset. Just have stargates as technology type of thing and wormholes|portals as (un)natural phenomena that might be also artificially caused. Then you can easily change wormholes to black-white-green whatever (remember blue and red starlanes in Ascendancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascendancy_(video_game) not 100% the same but you get my idea ) so that some are instant travel, others might still consume time, red can lead only to red, white can lead to any, black can lead to quasi space only and etc. Lots of ideas for various mods and universes. You do not have to implement all right away, but just at least have this option from the onset...

I agree with Lone_Utwig on the P.S. - there should be as many options for such anomalies as possible - even if they don't appear in the main story, let the modders implement them if they want, the way they want. 

Also in my opinion there should be an option for planet buildings placement for modding purposes - this would make a whole new aspect of mods available (base construction / base destruction with the planet lander, offload station for materials for less trips back to the main ship, quest related buildings, quest related base defence, etc)

There's something about the exploration of the planets that has been bothering me, its a planet so it should take some time to explore right?

In the trailer the planet is explored from landing to take off in 12 seconds, that is way too fast is it not? Will the planets vary in size and some take longer to explore than others?

The planet exploration music files are 3 minutes long and granted you probably don't want to spend 3 to 6 minutes exploring each planet but not 12 seconds either.

If you run a scan on a planet and pick up a signature that is quest related then you can obviously launch to land as close as possible to the anomaly, grab it and head back to the ship but there should be hidden items or artifacts that are not picked up by the scanner that rewards the player that actually explores the planets.

But again, the size of the planet and speed at which it is explored will have you spend no more than 30 seconds on each planet, if they  are all the size of the one in the trailer.

If this has been mentioned or discussed somewhere else point me in that direction then and apologies.

Question for you: How long did it take to cross a planet in Star Control II?

Another question for you: How could you be expected to mine 10,000 full planets for resources and check them off your list as "explored" like you did in SCII, if each planet was life-size, a-la-No-Man's-Sky? It's not fulfilling or any sense of accomplishment if you don't get to check them off.

It is very easy to make a space game too big to actually play.  The fully interlinked Star Fleet Universe is a good example.  I haven't played it, but No Man's Sky sounds like a good example of this too from what I have heard of it.  Making the planets too big in Star Control would begin to do this same thing, just like Cuorebrave is saying.  Star Control wouldn't be much fun if it took 30 minutes to explore a planet.  15-30 seconds sounds really good too me.  15 seconds is longer than you think, and there are a lot of planets to land on over the course of Star Control.  If it took 15 minutes to explore each planet I would never wind up finishing Star Control.  I would get so sick of having to "explore" planets that I would stop playing it long before I finished it.  You aren't really "exploring" planets in SC, they are just where you get the resources of the game.  Occasionally there might be some story/quest involving a planet, but really they are "bonus levels" with "prizes".  You vacuum up what is on them, you don't really explore them.

PDU would be another good example, too.

Agreed. Now you can see why I wanted to mod the lander stuff out.

The only problem with this is that when they DO mix in the story/quest/item discoveries with the resource gathering, it compels the player to explore everything. If they were to keep them as resource gathering points and not as artifact pickup zones or sidequest starts, the issue I have would vanish completely.

Both of you are right, but nowhere did I say life size OR 15 to 30 minutes to explore, that would just be ridiculous.

@cuorebrave

Answer to first question : I really don't remember but it didn't feel like only 12 seconds, I think it may just be me being nostalgic.

Wont it be better then to have smaller sized music files that just loop instead of loading a 10MB file each time you land on a planet for 15 to 30 seconds?

Keep in mind I have no idea how resource usage or coding in games work but smaller file sizes make more sense in any event?

Actually the games of the PDU are all very simple compared to the games made by the modern game industry.  Manifest Destiny, in fact, is quite possibly the smallest "grand strategy wargame" that there has ever been.  Exactly the opposite is true.  1 + 1 = Chess.  But we have already established that you are just an ignorant babbling nobody, so you opinion doesn't really count for much... does it?

There doesn't seem to be any reason for me to be here anymore, and I am certainly not going to play your demented psychological games with you.  Seek help, you need it... useless fatbody.

You're right. Not 12 seconds... 18 seconds. I just started a new game, and it took roughly 18 seconds to cross the planet entirely.

HOWEVER - that's not with the lander speed upgrades, which make the lander much faster. I don't know the percentage, but if it's a 50% speed boost? My guess of 12 seconds would be exactly correct.

 well then, I have been proven wrong, I accept defeat   damn nostalgia 

Not wrong, my friend. We are all brothers!

jsboshoff, be sure to give him the karma he is asking for, or you will make him very sad. It's the little thumbs-up button.

Very funny, IBN. People shouldn't feel bad to be a part of "IBN & Co.", this should be *FUN*

Just going to point out that the video we got was a teaser..just because the lander sequence took 12 seconds there doesn't mean that is how long it will be in game.

Agreed. Especially since in the video he clearly didn't cover the entire planet. You don't see everything on a sphere by starting at a single point and going around it once and back to where you started...

Maybe then a good suggestion is to have different planet size for each one?