Ok, I lied. The summary is ready now and I know you're all on the edge of your seat with anticipation, so I won't make you wait.
Half Arsed TC Guidelines
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First off, a couple of rules that make sense in my head:
1. MISS - Make It Simple, Stupid - None of this devilish six storyline business. If you can't explain your idea or feature in one sentance or less, you need to rethink it. This applies to everything, not just story.
2. ROE = Good, Vanians = Bad. Change this and you die.
3. Graphics DO NOT MATTER. Don't even think of taking more than 5 minutes to make a graphic. Crap is key here.
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Storyline:
Player's brother has stolen a shuttle and left the system of Gerard (Think Levo). The player must travel to the next system over and disable his brother's ship and return him to Gerard. But when they return to Gerard, they find the planet has been destroyed (by the Vanians, think Wild Geese from EV:N) and their parents are dead. So the brothers head to the next system over and land. The player's brother runs away and is never heard from again (or is he?(1)) and the player has to start life anew, albeit with 20k credits and a new shuttle (the player's parents controlled Gerard).
So the player begins their journey around the galaxy which is caught in the grips of a terrible war between the Republic of Earth and the Vanians (a Xenophobic alien race, comparable to the Covenant from the Halo series). The SINGLE MAIN STORYLINE of the game is the destruction of the Vanian race. So the player does the whole trading thing, eventually working up to a larger ship, etc. The player gets approached (2) by the ROE government to help them with their Vanian problem and eventually moves up the ladder until they control a considerable fleet. The final mission culminates with a large raid on New Vania and the destruction of their planet.
That's it.
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Misc. Storylines:
Shipping companies - Like United Shipping from EV:N, except HATC brings back two companies, both fighting each other, a lot like EV:C.
Pirates - It's not a Nova TC unless it has pirates.
(Many more to come)
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The Map:
The galactic layout is large and simple:
Large map, mostly un-inhabited in the center with the ROE on the left side of the map and the Vanians on the right side of the map. Travel between the two areas is prohibitively long and dangerous.
Most of the heavy ROE-Vanoian combat happens to the north, and there are pirates to the south.
Safety graph:
(The more stars there are, the safer the player will be)
|***** (ROE Central Space) | (Vanian Central Space)
|***** |
|***** |
|**** |
|**** |
|* (Mind the gap) |
|**** |
|**** |
|** |
|* (Pirates) |
|_________________________________|
Graph of Safety
Hope that helps.
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Weapons ships and outfits:
No fancy names here. No fancy weapons. Nothing special. Just:
-Laser
-Heavy Laser
-Missle
-Torpedo
-Beam
Notice a pattern?
Good!
That's all I can think of for the moment. Post anymore questions you have.