I didn't want to flood the board with a bunch of posts so I'll list several ideas in one post. If this is inconvenient or not the norm, let me know and I'd be happy to break it into separate posts.
On another note, many of these features pair up as individually they would not be enough of a meaningful change to warrant effort. Keep that in mind as you peruse.
Also, there will probably be typos. Keep that in mind also as you peruse.
Modified accuracy at a distance
Proposal: Add stability modifier for aiming "long range" weapons, by reducing projectile's lateral velocity either
for long range weapons based off of its rated range
when long range weapons are focusing on the same target for long periods of time or tracking at the same angle
Rational:
For long-range weapons (6+km), accuracy matters less and less as the shots seem to have inherent somewhat-random lateral momentum, causing especially 10+ km shots to go wide regardless of how well you try to aim. This really weakens cannons and railguns which fail to work even against very large ships at these distances, negating one of their strongest aspects. One idea is to apply some sort of accuracy-range curve would make weapons with longer ranges have reduced lateral momentum. In other words, make accuracy represent the frequency of hitting a target at the weapon's max range.
With the recent change to the IFG, this might be extremely overpowered as the player would have the ability to selectively attack particular blocks at a sub-5k distances. Then again, that may be within the spirit of the combat system. Another suggestion is to allow for focusing the reticle on a particular target to temporarily increase accuracy (to a certain amount).
Reduced effects of arbitrage
Note: I'm no economist. I'm just really sleepy and couldn't remember the exact word. Hopefully I'm using the right one.
Proposal: Reduce the effects of the disparity between buying and selling prices by:
Directly reducing differences in prices
Increasing the volumetric size of trade goods
Rational:
One of the fastest ways to make money is to \[ab\]use arbitrage by buying from one sector at a low price, then selling at another at a high price. Due to the ease of expanding cargo bays and the relative price differences, making money becomes simple. There is little risk of being attacked by NPCs (as you're moving as fast as you can anyays) and so outside of multiplayer and as long as you aren't in excessively dangerous territory, cargo hauling becomes a less-than-stimulating task. With the trade goods system, even moreso. However, rather than removing a potent source of information, reducing the arbitrage by directly change price differences, or increasing the volume required to hold trade goods addresses the problem in several positive manners. Immediately, it directly makes hauling/trading strategic. It's a balance of potential profit, speed, price of ship, crew, etc. It also gives more economic power to haulers/traders. Especially in multiplayer, this stratifies part of the economy and adds a dimension to alliances.
Scaling of money
Proposal: Scale the prices of end-game goods and services as you near the center (gates, repairs, etc.)
Rational:
Money seems terribly easy to come by. One million can buy almost any system or turret, fund the creation of fleets, etc. Aside from creating stations, etc., after a certain point, money becomes inconsequential. While care should be taken to prevent prices from being increased too much (which would stratify people by experience and remove the sandbox anybody-can-do-anything feel Avorion currently has, money shouldn't become just another number.
Creation of service stations
Proposal: Allow for the creation of service stations (gates, shipyards, repair docks)
Rational:
There is currently little reason to invest the time to creation stations. It costs too much money for single players and even when Alliance arrives, there is little reason for the average player to use any of the features provided by the available player-creatable stations. The ability to create these service stations is potent however. And so, stations and factories could have a rating for the potency of their ability to produce goods or render services. The more money is spent and the more crew provided to operate such stations, the more potent the return. Furthermore, the cost of creating service stations (separate from factories) would be higher than the current rate, potentially making it only available to the dedicated, well-connected, or sneaky. To prevent expansion into unfilled systems, densifying the local sectors, restrictions can be placed on where such stations can be made. Off the top of my head, I can imagine the requirement that the system already be under player control, although there is much to be considered in that regard.
A separate but closely related notion is the concept of player-made gates which I would imagine to be extremely expensive, increasingly so for longer-distance travels. They could extoll an optional fee from the user. Those who refuse to pay would lose influence with the owning faction. Additional, those with extremely negative influence are not asked at all. Presumably it would be up to the owning alliance to man, protect, and enforce their own gates.
Manual alteration of faction status
Proposal: Allow players to control their relationship with other factions
Rational:
With the advent of player-alliances and the current presence of player-owned mines/factories, it would make sense to deny usage to enemies. And so, I propose that a faction/alliance would have the ability to alter standing with any other faction/alliance as well as exhibit the personality traits that NPC factions currently exhibit. This would facilitate Friend-or-Foe identification in combat scenarios as well as give granular control over the use of player-owned facilities.
Separation of fleet from gates
Proposal: Spread out members of a fleet when appearing out of a gate
Rational:
The current system allows for too little space, causing players (me) to run into or be run into by a ship when passing through a gate. One option is to vertically and horizontally separate the player. Another is the distribute about the gate at a random distance/direction (but still relatively close). Another option is to temporally separate by seconds the movement time.
Add set-home feature
Proposal: Officially support the set-home feature
Rational:
The community has already modded in the ability to set the player's spawn to any system. Some have gone further to add graphical interfaces and influence-related balancing. This would help players make their way into the galaxy without resorting repeatedly to numerous jumps. To accomodate the potential downside of players using this system to "leapfrog to the finish-line", a cost and faction-friendliness factor could be added. As factions are increasingly hostile near the center, this would accentuate the need to slow the inward motion of players as they place footholds in safe system. This would also encourage players to stay in systems longer to improve relations.
Revert to forward direction outside of build mode
Proposal: Revert to the original direction of the ship when exiting build mode
Rational:
Currently, except for in cases of exceptional situational awareness, after making quick edits, my ship turns around. If these edits are made near other ships, I collide.
Follow-mode
Proposal: Add follow-mode to allow players to follow other players/travelling merchants
Rational:
There is nothing more frustrating than trying to buy from a merchant that constantly moves out of purchasing range. This seems to be less of a problem nowadays so perhaps it was fixed or I used to be terrible at flying.
Listing local objects
Proposal: Add an interface to view in tabular form a list of local objects; add filtering to such list
Rational:
Allow for a list of local objects/ships/etc. and allow for filtering capabilities. This would make it easier to find stations without spinning like a madman. Filtering would also make it easier to determine the closest foe, friend, etc.
Spatial bookmark/waypoints
Proposal: Allow the user to bookmark/waypoint discrete points in space (where blocks are)
Rational:
It is terribly difficult to find things whilst in the middle of a large battle or evading asteroids or foes (or asteroids which act like foes by sprouting out of nowhere and punching your hull in the gut). This would permit users to actually mark things and come back to them. This could augment or replace Listing local objects.
Repair turret AI
Proposal: Fix the problem where repair turrets under "attack", will attack friend or foe ships.
Rational:
It seems that repair turrets will attack foes ships on occassion as well. I like a challenge. I just don't like the challenge to be coming from the wayward crew manning the repair turrets.
Acceleration/speed modifiers
Proposal: Allow for smaller ships to have an acceleration boost either:
via a block whose potency decreases with ship-size that provides excellent thrust
directly modifying how thrust/velocity are calculated
Rational:
In combined arms conflict, the largest ships oft are faster and more nimble than their smaller counterparts. This leads smaller ships to become more of a hinderance to maneuvers than an aid. For example, if one made small manned repair-drones, these drones often do not have the engines to match high-acceleration maneuvers the way larger ships can. There are some analogues to this in real life with carriers often being far faster than their support ships. However, the support ships are much more manueverable.
Healing specifically the player (for repair turrets)
Fleeing to safety/go away/go to
Augment:
Allowing AI ships to use boost the way players do
Allowing AI ships to follow at range
Allowing AI ships to follow along other vectors other than "right behind you"
Rational:
Currently, having a large interoperable fleet is useful for primarily firepower-augmentation. Support ships such as miners and salvagers can stray into danger and repair ships target whomever they care for (as far as I can tell). The lack of more granular fleet commands makes it difficult to coordinate large fleets. While it can never and was never expected to replace playing with other individuals, the AI in its current state is useful in very particular cases but cannot handle multifaceted ones (follow but not too close, repair me and not the station I'm protecting, etc.).
AI inform player on status
Proposal: Allow the player to see the status (battery level, hyperdrive status, system-info such as trading systems, radar, object detector) of player-owned ships in the system
Rational:
At the moment it is impossible to tell if your mining drone is ambushed or if your follow-me support ship is still 2-seconds away from being able to warp other than switching to that ship. If you are able to communicate with the ship and see its health, it makes sense to provide full operational details to facilitate true fleet-level command strategies.
Indirect battle mechanics
Proposal: Create alternative methods of doing combat focused on denial of capability
Rational:
With the addition of hyperdrive jammers to AI ships, the point of denying enemy ships the ability to move/maneuver opened up an interesting concept of electronic warfare. I propose a set of turrets which would affect the ability of ships to move/jump/target. This would also be useful in finding non-destructive means of avoiding conflict with overzealously aggressive Ai factions and supporting fleet maneuvers. Due to the potentially gamebreaking power of these weapons, they would either require a new type of specialist or a larger crew. Additionally, it would not be beyond realm of reason to balance these weapons with energy costs,
It's absurdly late in the night right now and so I probably wording some things poorly or too strongly or both. Koonschi, you've made an excellent game. If it's any measure of how exceptional and captivating, I spent so long writing this post that the forum kicked me for exceeding the default 60 minute login time. That's how much I enjoy the game, and so I mean no offense in anything I said, especially parts I'll probably look at in the morning and cringe. These are simply my humble opinion on things which I thought could be interesting. Thanks for Avarion and can't wait to see what comes next.
Suggestion
bit
I didn't want to flood the board with a bunch of posts so I'll list several ideas in one post. If this is inconvenient or not the norm, let me know and I'd be happy to break it into separate posts.
On another note, many of these features pair up as individually they would not be enough of a meaningful change to warrant effort. Keep that in mind as you peruse.
Also, there will probably be typos. Keep that in mind also as you peruse.
Modified accuracy at a distance
Proposal: Add stability modifier for aiming "long range" weapons, by reducing projectile's lateral velocity either
Rational:
For long-range weapons (6+km), accuracy matters less and less as the shots seem to have inherent somewhat-random lateral momentum, causing especially 10+ km shots to go wide regardless of how well you try to aim. This really weakens cannons and railguns which fail to work even against very large ships at these distances, negating one of their strongest aspects. One idea is to apply some sort of accuracy-range curve would make weapons with longer ranges have reduced lateral momentum. In other words, make accuracy represent the frequency of hitting a target at the weapon's max range.
With the recent change to the IFG, this might be extremely overpowered as the player would have the ability to selectively attack particular blocks at a sub-5k distances. Then again, that may be within the spirit of the combat system. Another suggestion is to allow for focusing the reticle on a particular target to temporarily increase accuracy (to a certain amount).
Reduced effects of arbitrage
Note: I'm no economist. I'm just really sleepy and couldn't remember the exact word. Hopefully I'm using the right one.
Proposal: Reduce the effects of the disparity between buying and selling prices by:
Rational:
One of the fastest ways to make money is to \[ab\]use arbitrage by buying from one sector at a low price, then selling at another at a high price. Due to the ease of expanding cargo bays and the relative price differences, making money becomes simple. There is little risk of being attacked by NPCs (as you're moving as fast as you can anyays) and so outside of multiplayer and as long as you aren't in excessively dangerous territory, cargo hauling becomes a less-than-stimulating task. With the trade goods system, even moreso. However, rather than removing a potent source of information, reducing the arbitrage by directly change price differences, or increasing the volume required to hold trade goods addresses the problem in several positive manners. Immediately, it directly makes hauling/trading strategic. It's a balance of potential profit, speed, price of ship, crew, etc. It also gives more economic power to haulers/traders. Especially in multiplayer, this stratifies part of the economy and adds a dimension to alliances.
Scaling of money
Proposal: Scale the prices of end-game goods and services as you near the center (gates, repairs, etc.)
Rational:
Money seems terribly easy to come by. One million can buy almost any system or turret, fund the creation of fleets, etc. Aside from creating stations, etc., after a certain point, money becomes inconsequential. While care should be taken to prevent prices from being increased too much (which would stratify people by experience and remove the sandbox anybody-can-do-anything feel Avorion currently has, money shouldn't become just another number.
Creation of service stations
Proposal: Allow for the creation of service stations (gates, shipyards, repair docks)
Rational:
There is currently little reason to invest the time to creation stations. It costs too much money for single players and even when Alliance arrives, there is little reason for the average player to use any of the features provided by the available player-creatable stations. The ability to create these service stations is potent however. And so, stations and factories could have a rating for the potency of their ability to produce goods or render services. The more money is spent and the more crew provided to operate such stations, the more potent the return. Furthermore, the cost of creating service stations (separate from factories) would be higher than the current rate, potentially making it only available to the dedicated, well-connected, or sneaky. To prevent expansion into unfilled systems, densifying the local sectors, restrictions can be placed on where such stations can be made. Off the top of my head, I can imagine the requirement that the system already be under player control, although there is much to be considered in that regard.
A separate but closely related notion is the concept of player-made gates which I would imagine to be extremely expensive, increasingly so for longer-distance travels. They could extoll an optional fee from the user. Those who refuse to pay would lose influence with the owning faction. Additional, those with extremely negative influence are not asked at all. Presumably it would be up to the owning alliance to man, protect, and enforce their own gates.
Manual alteration of faction status
Proposal: Allow players to control their relationship with other factions
Rational:
With the advent of player-alliances and the current presence of player-owned mines/factories, it would make sense to deny usage to enemies. And so, I propose that a faction/alliance would have the ability to alter standing with any other faction/alliance as well as exhibit the personality traits that NPC factions currently exhibit. This would facilitate Friend-or-Foe identification in combat scenarios as well as give granular control over the use of player-owned facilities.
Separation of fleet from gates
Proposal: Spread out members of a fleet when appearing out of a gate
Rational:
The current system allows for too little space, causing players (me) to run into or be run into by a ship when passing through a gate. One option is to vertically and horizontally separate the player. Another is the distribute about the gate at a random distance/direction (but still relatively close). Another option is to temporally separate by seconds the movement time.
Add set-home feature
Proposal: Officially support the set-home feature
Rational:
The community has already modded in the ability to set the player's spawn to any system. Some have gone further to add graphical interfaces and influence-related balancing. This would help players make their way into the galaxy without resorting repeatedly to numerous jumps. To accomodate the potential downside of players using this system to "leapfrog to the finish-line", a cost and faction-friendliness factor could be added. As factions are increasingly hostile near the center, this would accentuate the need to slow the inward motion of players as they place footholds in safe system. This would also encourage players to stay in systems longer to improve relations.
Revert to forward direction outside of build mode
Proposal: Revert to the original direction of the ship when exiting build mode
Rational:
Currently, except for in cases of exceptional situational awareness, after making quick edits, my ship turns around. If these edits are made near other ships, I collide.
Follow-mode
Proposal: Add follow-mode to allow players to follow other players/travelling merchants
Rational:
There is nothing more frustrating than trying to buy from a merchant that constantly moves out of purchasing range. This seems to be less of a problem nowadays so perhaps it was fixed or I used to be terrible at flying.
Listing local objects
Proposal: Add an interface to view in tabular form a list of local objects; add filtering to such list
Rational:
Allow for a list of local objects/ships/etc. and allow for filtering capabilities. This would make it easier to find stations without spinning like a madman. Filtering would also make it easier to determine the closest foe, friend, etc.
Spatial bookmark/waypoints
Proposal: Allow the user to bookmark/waypoint discrete points in space (where blocks are)
Rational:
It is terribly difficult to find things whilst in the middle of a large battle or evading asteroids or foes (or asteroids which act like foes by sprouting out of nowhere and punching your hull in the gut). This would permit users to actually mark things and come back to them. This could augment or replace Listing local objects.
Repair turret AI
Proposal: Fix the problem where repair turrets under "attack", will attack friend or foe ships.
Rational:
It seems that repair turrets will attack foes ships on occassion as well. I like a challenge. I just don't like the challenge to be coming from the wayward crew manning the repair turrets.
Acceleration/speed modifiers
Proposal: Allow for smaller ships to have an acceleration boost either:
Rational:
In combined arms conflict, the largest ships oft are faster and more nimble than their smaller counterparts. This leads smaller ships to become more of a hinderance to maneuvers than an aid. For example, if one made small manned repair-drones, these drones often do not have the engines to match high-acceleration maneuvers the way larger ships can. There are some analogues to this in real life with carriers often being far faster than their support ships. However, the support ships are much more manueverable.
Add/augment manned AI-controlled ship functionality
Proposal:
Add to AI options:
Augment:
Rational:
Currently, having a large interoperable fleet is useful for primarily firepower-augmentation. Support ships such as miners and salvagers can stray into danger and repair ships target whomever they care for (as far as I can tell). The lack of more granular fleet commands makes it difficult to coordinate large fleets. While it can never and was never expected to replace playing with other individuals, the AI in its current state is useful in very particular cases but cannot handle multifaceted ones (follow but not too close, repair me and not the station I'm protecting, etc.).
AI inform player on status
Proposal: Allow the player to see the status (battery level, hyperdrive status, system-info such as trading systems, radar, object detector) of player-owned ships in the system
Rational:
At the moment it is impossible to tell if your mining drone is ambushed or if your follow-me support ship is still 2-seconds away from being able to warp other than switching to that ship. If you are able to communicate with the ship and see its health, it makes sense to provide full operational details to facilitate true fleet-level command strategies.
Indirect battle mechanics
Proposal: Create alternative methods of doing combat focused on denial of capability
Rational:
With the addition of hyperdrive jammers to AI ships, the point of denying enemy ships the ability to move/maneuver opened up an interesting concept of electronic warfare. I propose a set of turrets which would affect the ability of ships to move/jump/target. This would also be useful in finding non-destructive means of avoiding conflict with overzealously aggressive Ai factions and supporting fleet maneuvers. Due to the potentially gamebreaking power of these weapons, they would either require a new type of specialist or a larger crew. Additionally, it would not be beyond realm of reason to balance these weapons with energy costs,
It's absurdly late in the night right now and so I probably wording some things poorly or too strongly or both. Koonschi, you've made an excellent game. If it's any measure of how exceptional and captivating, I spent so long writing this post that the forum kicked me for exceeding the default 60 minute login time. That's how much I enjoy the game, and so I mean no offense in anything I said, especially parts I'll probably look at in the morning and cringe. These are simply my humble opinion on things which I thought could be interesting. Thanks for Avarion and can't wait to see what comes next.
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