no one can deny it: combat plays a huge role in EV. but last night i was thinking (as i often do). what about a plug that doesn't have combat? where ships weapons are used for mining, and the whole society functions without having to go to war.

a plug like this would obviously have to be very story driven, but i've got a vauge idea so far:

'The year is (sometime in the future), humanity has colonized most of the space within 25 light years (or something like that) of earth (now known as terra). after several struggles between various small groups of humans, the (insert funky name here) came out on top. They united the terrans, and peace spread throughout the galaxy. (blah blah blah, more history, etc.)

You have just graduated from a pilots university on (planet name), and you have headed to the capital planet of terra, to find work.

Will you pilot the largest freighter ever built, or make emergency deliveries to distant mining stations in your courier?

Or perhaps you will join the scouting and messenger service, and play a vital role in keeping the galaxy informed... and expanding it.

the choice is yours, blah blah blah, good luck.'

anyway, you'd start out in your training ship orbiting earth, probably. then when you land, you would be offered the choice of becoming a freighter captain or a galactic messenger and scout.

freighter would be given access to two ships: mega big ship for long slow hauls, and a smaller courier ship for fast deliveries. missions would be bulk and rush, from mission computer, and you would be contacted in the ship outfitters for testing new equipment, or getting access to a new ship, and maybe there could be a mission that actually involves combat, like some sort of disgruntled miners uprising, and you can take sides in that, and fight for the independence of a mining station, or subdue them into working again...

scout and messenger service: basically you'd get missions where you carry data around the galaxy, mostly to and from earth. your ships would be small and fast, with little cargo room... eventually you'd be given access to a scoutship, and you'd go flying off into a nebula, or into an asteroid belt, to look for weird stuff... like spaceman spiff later you might get access to a colony ship (mega huge ship, made for colonizing) and you'd go colonize new planets...

other ships would probably be mining ships and stuff, that you don't have access to because you can't get missions at the BBS that say 'mine 250 tons of metal asteroids and bring them back here', that would just be boring.

mining ships would be equipped with CO2 lasers, and all ships would have PDS weapons (for shooting down hostile asteroids), and all ships would have some armour (probably not shields... lets face it, shields just arent realistic).

okay, i could go on, but let me ask what i'm really getting at: a plug in which combat is really quite minor. what do you think of that?

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Originally posted by Whurp:
**no one can deny it: combat plays a huge role in EV. but last night i was thinking (as i often do). what about a plug that doesn't have combat? where ships weapons are used for mining, and the whole society functions without having to go to war.
<snip>

**

I've thought quite a bit about downplaying combat. It particularly disturbs me in certain RPGs, where much of the game time is spent being a two-legged abattoir (killing passing monsters for their gold).

One has to get deep into game design philosophy here. What a game offers the player is excitement, wonder, and a (false) sense of accomplishment.

In re the latter; no matter how well you play, you won't get your money back. You almost certainly won't get a job. You are not going to learn any transferable skills (unless, perhaps, you using a flight simulator within the context of an acredited flight school). A sense of accomplishment comes if the game is difficult. A perception of difficulty comes from puzzles, risk, and sheer passage of time. The last is least useful, as overuse can lead to player frustration (another abuse of certain RPG's).

Exploration, then, works best if it not only takes time, but also sparks the player's sense of wonder, and has a definate element of risk. I won't speak to the former, as that is up to the writer of the descs and the creator of the artwork. Within the standard framework of EV the major risks are; 1) combat or the equivalent; 2) running out of fuel; 3) running out of money; 4) prematurely ending an interesting mission thread by making a wrong choice.

I find 2) and 3) mostly frustrating. I do admit to feeling a certain satisfaction when finally achieving a distant system after hours at 2x speed waiting on the fuel scoop/solar panel. I think you could make an interesting game out of holding the player cash so low they are struggling just to top off their tanks. But anyhow.

As for option 1), I can see potential in non-sentient threats; deadly stellars, killer asteroids, solar flares, black holes... One could almost imagine the equivalent of zachit/wild geese as an elite "Rescue One" organization that specializes in pulling luxury liners out of devaying orbits and so on and so forth.

Okay, enough random thoughts for one day.

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BSOD, a TC for EVO; build a commercial empire, dare a black hole, or take up arms to answer the question of Mac vs. PC once and for all! Coming in June.........of 2010. ^_^;;

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"I know the stranger's name."
Turandot

(This message has been edited by Commander Arashi (edited 06-13-2002).)

yes, some good points.

puzzles and intellectual challenges would have to be thrown in there, and the cron resource would probably be used from time to time...

one mission string in nova that i liked was the nirvana terraforming project on UHP-1002.

and i've mentioned before, colony ships, and the idea of disgruntled miners declaring independence.

but the whole idea of having a plug like this comes from reading books, in which there is no fighting. like the adventures of tom sawyer, or it's sequel, huck finn.

books like the lord of the rings have quite a significant amount of fighting in them, and without that fighting, the story wouldn't work. but with tom sawyer, conflict is created on a smaller scale... i'm not sure, but it sparked my imagination a little.

asteroids and other natural elements would be your most dangerous enemy initially... that's why ships are equppied with PD weapons and armour. also perhaps there could be plasma storms, and static storms that you experience inside the nebula: anti-ionization armour required.

black holes would be pretty cool too... the gravity field could be used here, to have a big stellar with heavy gravity and a massive kick ass weapon that only fires at short range... so if your ship gets sucked in, you're dead, and so is your escape ship

the biggest problem that i have with making a plug is that when it's finally released, i've already played it half a million times.

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The EV framework would make it VERY difficult to have a successful plugin without any fighting. Perhaps sporadic fighting, but no fighting at all would tax a player's trigger finger. If you think you can pull it off, more power to you, but I'm pretty skeptical.

Matrix

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"Nothing is fool-proof to a sufficiently talented fool."

I think that fighting would be a good addition to any plug, provided that it doesn't get out of hand. What I mean is missions where the sole object is destruction, and plenty of them. While that may be alright, I certainly don't like simply 'blowing stuff up' since I can do that any time. We've had random combat and so forth for ages. If combat DOES exist, then it should be something exceptional and as non-cliche as possible.

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Everything can be expressed in 2. 2+2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.

well, as i was saying, a mission string with an uprising would be in there, and missions would probably include disabling and boarding ships, to capture dissidents. more difficult than just blowing them all to hell, that's for sure.

anyway, don't expect me to actually design a plug like this, i'm not a plug maker, i just have ideas

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