More options when creating new galaxy

[orlandomason]

I think, that there are a few things in this game that it would be better off without, and it occurred to me, what if there was just an option to disable/change them? Because that might be really easy to implement, and maybe I'm not the only one who thinks this.

 

What do I mean exactly? Well here's one thing in particular: integrity field generators. I'm always going to add them to my ship, I'm never gonna think "hmm, maybe this ship will be superior without them", the only time I might not add them is if the ship isn't intended for combat and I  just can't be bothered, and that's the thing--they're just an annoyance. Every ship that isn't 100% iron may as well just have an integrity field covering the entire covering the entire ship by default and save me the trouble of having to add integrity generators.

 

So my suggestion is to have an option when you create a new galaxy to disable them, and preferably to have a slider to change the fragility of blocks.

 

It also makes sense (assuming this is easy to do) to add options for other blocks as well, including turrets and system upgrades.

 

For me this would be a game changer, if the options were available to me I would try: disabling integrity generators, shield generators and increasing block strength, giving maximum possible range for all turrets where realistic, then changing projectile speeds, dps, and energy consumption to balance everything, and modifying stone blocks mass. I could keep going but I think you get the point, I would completely change the game if I could.

 

I know some of these options might not be easy or even impossible to add, but where it is easy it should definitely be considered. It has other benefits as well, people's preferred settings could be used to get a sense of what changes and what balancing the game needs. It seems that a lot of aspects of the game are unbalanced and often people can't agree on how it should be, this system would help a lot in that respect.

 

While I'm at it, here's another suggestion.

 

More types of armor with different strengths and weaknesses against different weapons. Maybe have light, medium and heavy armour and different levels of penetration for weapons i.e. some weapons can't damage/penetrate heavy armour of the same material and can't damage/penetrate medium/light weights of higher materials. A simplified version of this would be to simply give weapons a highest material they can penetrate but you're always going to use the highest available material anyway so that's not a good idea imo.

 

It seems odd to me that stone is immune to energy weapons, especially since lasers are used to mine it. I would suggest that the materials that can't be used to make normal armour could be used to make high melting point reflective armour (whatever you want to call it), and perhaps give each material a melting point or something that determines it's strength against energy weapons.

 

Now I'm going to say something pointless and irrelevant because if you've read this far you'll continue.

I don't think it was a good idea to make materials get better closer to the center of galaxy, I personally think that the game would be more interesting if the materials had different properties and none of them were necessarily better, spread out in different concentrations over the galaxy like strategic resources for which wars are fought over. Keep the barrier and give Avorion a special property which none of the others have, rather than making it just another generic material. That being said, in case you got the wrong impression, I do think this is a good game  :).

[Warrax]

Interesting suggestions.

8)

[Spacefaring_Guy]

I don't think it was a good idea to make materials get better closer to the center of galaxy, I personally think that the game would be more interesting if the materials had different properties and none of them were necessarily better, spread out in different concentrations over the galaxy like strategic resources for which wars are fought over. Keep the barrier and give Avorion a special property which none of the others have, rather than making it just another generic material.

 

This is part of the progression mechanic, altering it would be risking a major imbalance in the difficulty gradient.  Perhaps the galactic model could be less random and more aligned with the mass distribution of a spiral arm galaxy - so players could spawn in an iron-containing system between arms and near the rim, but once within an arm the material distribution would be more even.

 

Oh, and Avorion already does have a special property.  You may enjoy it once you discover it!