September Vault Update

So with regards to the living galaxy feature (which is already almost done):

If you have ever played Pirates, you know that when you travel around in your ship, you will see other ships occasionally doing their own thing.  Maybe they're merchants. Maybe they're civilians. Maybe they're other pirates.  But there are  other things happening that are bigger than you.

In Star Control, we're dealing with an area around 100 light years or so in every direction.  A decent chunk of space but it's piddly compared to the galaxy as a whole (same as SC2 btw).  And the idea here is that there's a lot going on that we don't really touch on.  Maybe you run into someone who gives you an extra ship that you didnt' expect. Or maybe another component. Or maybe gives you a little side quest.

The point being that I don't want to see the game as a linear adventure game.  SC2 wasn't very linear but deep down, we all know that as open as things were, you definitely had an end point.  Which made sense in SC2 because once you finished SC2, you were done.

But in SCO, that's not the case.  When you finish SCO, you have your ship and you can travel to other universes with whatever you've found in one universe.  So your game really never ends.  Either modders will keep filling the universe with more places to visit or we will.

But to make that happen, we have to make sure it's *easy* for people to make their own aliens, ships, planets, buildings, etc.  It has to not just be in-game but it has to be a *consumer* level tool that makes doing this stuff fun.  

Think of Cities:Skylines. A great game.  Imagine that game but as a tool to make planets that you can share and then others can use them to visit.  That's what I want.

Re Stellaris: Remember, we did the Yor a decade before them.  I find Stellaris to be..ok.  But it's really just dining of GalCiv's features still.

Sylandro probes, well they wanted to convert your ship to RU, but the basic idea is the same.

I am actually excited about the concept of living galaxy, I always felt that the universe in SC2 felt too static. It would be nice that as you gather allies and whatever else for Star Control the area of influence of Earth/Star Control expands, and in that area there are allied ships that are patrolling. 

Also I would like it if the other civilizations have their own plans and struggles, independent of your actions, to overthrow the Scryve and you may help, hinder or co-opt those to your needs.

Regarding alien designs. I like the finalized ones, I am especially fond of the Mu'kay and Dan'nath ones. 

Phamysht, instead of having their longer arms on their bottom how about putting them on their back, or put one on bottom and the other on their back for a more unusual design.

Drenkend, I like the design for the most part, especially the cyborg appearance, but there is something about their head I don't like, looks too pig like. Perhaps giving them bat like ears would help.

Trandals, it's alright I guess, I think it now has the opposite problem that you can't see the device of the AI that is controlling them, how about giving them clothes that cover most of their body and that is what the AI inhabits. It would be visible, but not overly obvious.

Scryve, I remember them being described as having 4 legs, so an image where this is seen is good.

Measured, their design kind of grew on me, maybe get rid of their small arm and their beard, as well as change their face, but keep the rest more or less the same.

Xraki, I like their current design and would prefer it not be changed.

Greegrox, I actually don't like this, looks too much like a space whale. Maybe it would look better if the eyes were under it's mouth.

Jeff's new concept, too much red, I would prefer if it was a yellow or gold color.

I like the unnamed species, it is like a less evil Dnyarri.

New Greegrox concept, looks good, species variation is something I look forward too.

I have always wanted the classic Star Control games to be on Steam, can't wait to get them. Will they work on Windows 10?

Having the classic ships in SM will be great, not only will it increase the ship count, but will also provide more types of abilities for custom ships.

Ships from Gal Civ and Sins is also good. How about some form Ashes? Also will there be anything from SC in Gal Civ, if not playable civilizations, at least some mercenaries for the Bazaar.

I consider what Brad is calling a "Living Galaxy" to be necessary.  Just think of it as an "active background".  Without it, the background is empty.  Literally just empty space, everywhere.  He is just talking about bringing the background too life.  So that the galaxy is not completely empty other than things that are directly related to you and the primary story.  It's not something that will bog you down with milk run quests, it's more of an illusion.  Done right, not too little and not too much, it will make the galaxy feel "alive" instead of feeling like the entire galaxy revolves around you and the one little (in the grand scheme of things) thing that you and your crew are doing.

A lot of games forget to do this, I'm glad that SCO will have this.

Meh, not really.

Almost every species on earth shares the same basic genetics of having 4 limbs. In some they're all legs and in some they're two arms and two legs. You can go smaller and get 6-limbed insects and 8-limbed arachnids, but almost  everything else has 4.

So I don;t have an issue with a bunch of alien races being 6 limbed so they have 4 arms and 2 legs. Maybe that's more the galactic standard and only on earth did the 4-limbed creatures become so prevalent.

Ship Editor is looking great! Lip sync is starting to look great!

Not sure about lander mega-jumps during planet explorations. Looks off.

Do NOT like Dragon - Skryve idea. DO NOT LIKE AFRICAN ACCENT on Skryve. Give Skryve third leg and they'll be perfect!!

Phamysht - please, let's just replace it with Famished and get rid of that cringy millennial kewl spelling... *vomit*

Totally disagree with cuore on unrelated to the story sidequests. Give me more sidequests, so SCO galaxy feels less sterile than SC2.

Here's my comments on the rest of the important to comment on stuff:

This is, quite literally, insane. It's a design decision that is *SO* ambitious, I could never think it up myself. Congratulations to you guys, for setting your sights higher and further than I could ever have imagined. May break other people's universes, bringing your mega-powered ship to another storyline that counts on you being weak in the beginning, only to have you steamroll the competition. But the ambitiousness of this is something that needs to be commended. It's a massive, massive project that I don't think I've seen anywhere else - and I'm sure it will turn heads when it debuts. A continuity in the universe, never before seen, and I'm proud of you guys for going for it.

They didn't want your money, did they? I don't remember their motivations, was it resource acquisition to make more probes? I guess that makes sense. Hardly a pirate in the traditional sense, but when you skew it that way, I guess they could be considered the same. But I suppose all the other ships in the game, destroying you if they found you, could be considered piracy in their own way too. That being said, I quite liked the idea, though, that it was more about WAR. The Mycon were at WAR with you, so they destroyed you. If we're going to piracy route, then I bet there will be Tywom ships, in friendly Tywom space, that want your RU. Turncoats out to make a quick buck. I don't like that idea. I want to feel safe when I'm in earthling or Tywom or Mowlings sphere of influence.

But what if I liked that the galaxy seemed to revolve around us? Call it a god-complex, but I liked feeling like a major player in the galaxy, changing everything because of what I DID, and that everyone was united against this threat (or allied to it), attempting to tip the overwhelming odds in our favor. The fact that there will be people just going about their days doing piracy runs and freight trips (and us maybe doing the same thing? That's the implication) kinda makes me feel like what we're doing is less important in the game. But I hereby refrain from yay or nay, for now, until we see its implementation. 

No, it's the fact that they have, specifically, FOUR ARMS, that I find weird. Open your imagination a little. Put 1. Or 7. Or 30. Or none. Or 1,000 tiny arms and hands. Or 11 arms, with a head on every single one. And hands for ears. Or not hands for ears - organic solar collectors that spend the hours collecting energy and then stabbing themselves into the 11 brains repeatedly throughout the day, creation holes that immediately heal once injection is complete, and then-... I mean, I'm getting off-topic, but the point is: 4 regular arms with regular hands on 6 of the aliens seems a little blah. They're aliens. You can make them whatever you want.

/Agree. I can't imagine why those are even in the game. This isn't Tony Hawk's Pro Skater VII. Although, I think Toys for Bob DID do a Tony Hawk game before Skylanders, so let's call it an homage. 

Yes, please. I've been saying this since the beginning. It's like hipster-Jonathan insisting his name is spelt "Yahnythynhn" and throws a fit when the Starbucks barrista writes "Jonathan with three y's" on the side of his Grande, Iced, Sugar-Free, 3/4ers Foam Vanilla Soy Latte.

Whaaaat? Why not? It's the ONLY quadruped in the game, aside from the tank-dudes.

Hunam. You need to think about the future. Sure, when you get to Eta Draconis, and you're intercepted by a pirate harassing a freighter, and onscreen: "My name is Ensign Galileo of the freighter Aardvark! We're under attack by the Phamysht ship Delver. Please don't let him destroy us, we'll give you 1,398 RU if you save us - Medium Difficulty". That's all well-and-good, whatever, you get some action and pick up resources. But when you warp to Beta Draconis.... you're intercepted by a pirate harassing a freighter, and onscreen: "My name is Ensign Tomison of the freighter Hypocampus! We're under attack by the Phamysht ship Abyss. Please don't let him destroy us, we'll give you 1,048 RU if you save us - Easy Difficulty". At that point, you're like... oh, okay? Pick up some RU's. You move onto Zeta Draconis and you're intercepted by a pirate harassing a freighter, and onscreen: "My name is Ensign Noviscod of the freighter Backbreaker! We're under attack by the Phamysht ship Deepdiver. Please don't let him destroy us, we'll give you 1,798 RU if you save us - Hard Difficulty". And... well, that's not super fun, it's the same mission. And then you get to Delta Draconis........................... see what I mean? It's chaff. It's forgettable, throwaway, generic mini-missions like this that are found in every other game ever, forever. I liked the tight narrative aspect of SCII. Not a bunch of fluff. On Discord we came up with a TON of unrelated-to-the-story missions that actually had to do with the story in some way. Like finding the Mu'Kay a new water-world. Or an Explorer's League, where you found wonders across the galaxy and were rewarded for reporting them. Or side-quests that had to do with what the races need. But if I find my 34th, "We're looking for species to study, we'll pay you 2,478 RU to bring back 14 organic species to planet XY." I'm gonna start hating life. The biggest take-away from these types of quests is: YOU'RE PLAYING A GAME. You're playing a game with gamey quests and gamey rewards. It's the same reason I'm hoping-and-praying the game is NOT littered with random, incremental upgrades - Gauss Cannon IV upgrade to Gauss Cannon V for 3.4 more dmg. THESE ARE GAME things. It's the same reason we don't want floating, spinning COIN-LIKE resources on planets. It's the same reason we don't want HEALTH BARS. It's the same reason we don't want spinning upgrade icons randomly sitting on planets. I think part of the magic of Star Control was that it was SO NOT GAME-Y. 

Lastly, Hunam, I'm glad we're on the same page about 4-armed aliens. See my comment above.

Cuoro, I could be wrong, but my impression of their "Living Galaxy" is just having other species, ships, etc, "in the background".  You can interact with them if you choose to, they rarely (if ever) "bother" you.  It's there for the realism, there is a lot more in the galaxy than just you and things directly related too you.  If you want to contact/fight them, then they are there, but they rarely if ever force you to interact with them and are never a part of the primary story/quest lines.  This also allows for greater ship variety, some or most of these "background ships" will be "mysterious" unique ships with no explanation or story leaving you to wonder "who were those masked aliens?"

That's the way I am interpreting what their "Living Galaxy".  It is "in the background" simply to make the galaxy/map seem to be a "real place" populated but many people/species who don't care or even know about you and what you are up to.

I don't know, Scryve as dragons is too "Earthlike" = not enough alien-like. Same with humanoid aliens. Too humanoid = less alien = lose. Same with Greegrox being a space jellyfish. Too grounded. Not enough "out there". Brad mentioned in the voice chat yesterday that LIMBS = MONEY and they don't have it, so dragon already isn't happening.

The Live Galaxy events occurrence is a matter of balance. Just tone it down to every 1 in-game hour and not every 15 minutes or even 2 in-game hours and it'll feel natural and lose its "mechanical" nature. Have a variety of them. Even if it's a 20 seconds text event. I personally love those things. Civ 5 had a Mod with random events where they'd pop from time to time and depending on your choice your city tile resource output would change. It added liveliness to otherwise "boring" Civ 5 chores. Felt like a living and breathing world. One of my favorite mods for Civ 5. The name escapes me now.

Health Bar or Rectangles are the same to me. Brad said he doesn't like dots. Too retro... W/e that means, considering the whole world is returning to contemporary retro style recently. Just look at this forum style...

2 arms and 4 arms aliens is like 1 & 2 syllable alien names now. I mean there were tech. restrictions back in SC2 days, but please, cut 1 arm off for fecks sake. Just make some race 3 armed, asymmetrical and don't tell anyone why (even if there's no reason at all).

I hope that's it, Kavik. I hope that's it. Because if there's a terminal where you can take on quests from a list of random deliver x to system y, or kill z number of enemy fighters, I'm going to lose my shit. Enjoyed your interpretation of this.

Well, that's that, then, I guess? Actually, that information is hugely helpful. Because I always wonder, right??? Like, should we make suggestions? What can change? What can't? What's set in stone, so that it doesn't matter if we scream till we're blue in the face? That's why I was always asking for a more structured set of guidelines for us, from the beginning. Like, I wish they'd come on here and say, "Look. Crew bars are either going to be rectangles or bars, what would you guys prefer?" Then we wouldn't spend countless hours fussing about, wishing and trying to convince them to use "dots" instead! Let's get a little structure here! "Founders: Today we're working on whether to changed the Phamysht name to Famished. A different alien race name altogether is NOT possible because lines have been recorded, so it's gotta be between these two. Please express your opinion." That would make our lives easier, because when an update comes out? I literally don't have any clue what I can comment on legitimately, and what I should just shut up about, since it's all done already.

THIS. This is what's important. Build them in, so it's less obviously like a game mechanic and more just... part of the world. Make them a part of your exploration. Make them discoveries along the way. I don't want generics. I don't want to see any quest terminals. I don't want to see any exclamation marks over peoples' heads. I don't want to see any RU value associated with any quest. I don't want to see these assigned to me for whatever or no reason. I want them to be organic, just part of the universe. I want to arrive to a system and have a quest pop up that I can do (or not do). And I want them to be super creative. I don't want to bring up Stellaris or NMS, but those are the two most recent space games that have really made waves. Stellaris had insane, creative and all-around weird or out-there quest dialogue pop up every 20 planet-scans, or so. From a 3,000,000 year old ceramic box orbiting the sun in close proximity that you had to crack open, to an alien mural predating all known societies to translate, to an asteroid made out of fossilized feces, to a derelict shipyard abandoned for millenia. I mean, they're mostly just text, and therefore easy and cheap to include... BUT, they keep that game interesting and poppin' because there are *quite literally* a thousand of them, each more creative than the next. They were inspiring. My imagination FEASTED on them. I pondered how anyone could even come up with such clever things. NMS guild quests, on the other hand, did the exact opposite. NMS is a thousand times better than it was, and actually is a helluva fun time, now. But those guild quests - walk up to guy - choose same 4 quest-types from terminal. Deliver this shipment to X planet. Kill 14 animals for no reason. Destroy 7 sentinels because $$$. They're worthless and absolutely not what I want to spend my time doing. 

I just want it to AVOID being a game mechanic. No spinning coins or ship parts. No health bars (each crew matters!). No incremental weapon upgrades that give +5.1dmg. The world doesn't work like that.

BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT... instead of a spinning coin on the planet, that contains money or weapons, if they would MAKE it a quest by giving some info on the situation???? You fly over an area and a mini-story pops up:

A discarded cargo pod was left by someone in the upper atmosphere of Gamma Camelopardalis IIa long ago. It has somehow escaped the notice of other spacefarers, and its decaying orbit means it would have been lost in the neighboring gas giant's crushing atmosphere within another few years. When the crew of the the Vindicator unsealed the pod, they found a stash of alien jewelry made out of precious metals.

?!?!? That'd be amazing! And give a little context, a little mini-story, and go a LONG way to making this galaxy a believable place to live in for years to come. This is what Star Control II did. You never just slorped up spinning coins. You landed. Your crew was attacked, and that little blue report text would pop up explaining the crew's spontaneous headaches, or the crashed ship opened fire, or whatever.

I volunteer to come up with 100 creative mini-stories to give the player reason/context for picking up a new weapon-part or some extra RU. And I'll do it for free.

^ Totally on board with you.

@Frogboy

The main reason I don't like rectangles, 'cause by association they are the same bars only tiny. The round dot associates with a person's Head and that's what gives dots "personality". Rectangle associates with HP bar = no personality.

The Crew Bar is not just an UI element. It's your crew HEAD COUNT. As long as it's moddable I could care less. Better yet if there's an option in the setting [] or o.

Also, by the way, I'm not saying they did robots before you guys, so you shouldn't do robots.... I specifically and ONLY meant the concept art was very similar between the two! Your Yor robots filled my 20's with delight

exactly.

You know what I think would be awesome? Crew silhouettes. Little green crew dots in the shape of a person like a bathroom sign, to really drive that feeling home that you just lost Swain and Johansen and McCord... poor guys and girl. 

Thank goodness! If the map had of been full of '!' above planets or star systems for pointless grind quests I probably would befriend the Scryve and rent a planet buster ship from them to go and devastate every damn one of those pesky exclamation marks from existence. I'm not collecting wolf pelts for nobody!

The beauty of SCII was the subtlety of the questing. You essentially had standing orders for mining RUs and abducting lifeforms, but the rest of the story line questing was never in your face. You never got a notification that you failed to get the Pkunk to the Yehat, they jsut disappeared.

And when each crew dies you get that blood red flash before they disappear - knowing they met a gruesome and painful demise in the cold, harsh, silent abyss of space.

I'd also love to see changes in the bridge backdrop behind the captain showing damage to the ship. Similar to original Doom/Wolfenstein styling.

so two legs and..four arms..

Hah!! Frogboy bustin' out with a joke!! Haaaaaaa!

I like the idea of having a living galaxy. So many games have great features and story, but in the end they feel so empty.  

Simply have pirates only attack outside of a civ's influence.

You are coming up with arguably a worst case scenario to justify against side quests?

I can come up with plenty of good quest examples. 

For example the Mu'kay want to start a trade route with the Earthlings, you have to escort the freighter from a Mu'kay world to Earth or a human colony, if they exist, along the way pirates or worse might attack. After you have done this the trade ship will go back and forth between the two worlds.

As for freighters being attacked by pirates there should be multiple ways to respond:

• Save the freighter
  • Refuse reward for rescuing freighter
  • Accept reward
  • Demand bigger reward
  • Attack freighter and take what remains of cargo
• Wait for the freighter to be destroyed and then attack the pirate and "recycle" what remains of the freighter's cargo
• Ignore it and go on your way

Another quest example, the Scryve are testing a prototype of a more powerful ship, you must locate it and destroy it to impede their progress. The location of the prototype has been reduced to a handful of systems, around 3 or so. Quest has a time limit, failure to complete quest will result in more powerful Scryve ships appearing.

Which reminds me there should be consequences for failing some quests or completing them in a certain way, negative consequences preferably.

Also please don't have the Scryve be passive, when they learn of your efforts to overthrow them have them fight back, try to conquer or destroy aliens that are against them, etc.

Another thing I would like to see is enemy fleets made of different ship types, in SC2 the alien civs were rather isolated and you only met fleets with ships from the the same alien species. The Scryve are described as having an empire with multiple client species.

On the ship health bar, I don't care if it's represented by dots or squares. What bothers me more is that having crew as health essentially means our ships have no armor or shields, they might as well be made of cardboard. I propose some dots would represent crew, while others armor or shield. This way ships could have different amounts of crew, armor and shields. The Pinthi and Greegrox ships would have no armor or shields since they are living organisms, Tywom ships might have more shields than armor, etc.

Also shields could slowly replenish during battle and fully replenish after the fight is over. Armor could be repaired at stations or in space, but the cost of repairing while not at a space station would be higher. Crew could only be replenished at space stations.

This talk about crew and life bars made me think of something. The Ur-Quan are described as territorial and not very sociable even with their own kind. So who is crewing their ships?

Brad mentioned that there will be different versions of each ship in the adventure game. So unlike SC2, you might meet the Scryve and instead of just being attacked by 3 copies of the same ship, there might be one dreadnought version of the ship accompanied by 3 frigate versions with 2 scout versions as well. Or something like that.

No. Now you're not talking about Star Control, you're talking about generic space game ABC. In StarCon, your crew are your ships health. That's just how Starcon works, and to change that would be to rob SCO of the feel of SC and SC2. Some ships may have shields (c.f. Yehat) but that would be one of their two possible "weapon" slots for melee.