At the moment, I'd be happy with the ability to use a flët in place of a düde. My forehead is still dented from trying to figure that one out.

This post has been edited by shig23 : 02 February 2012 - 11:11 PM

Actual scripting support rather than trying to cobble things together with Blu-Tack and NCBs.

Just thought of another one: acceleration should be on a mass/thrust delta-v model, not just a top speed/acceleration point model. That would make ship mass serve more purpose than just defining jump days and weapon push values, as well as make outfit masses serve a more realistic purpose as well.

That way, an outfit that grants an additional 100 acceleration and 50 top speed doesn't make a carrier into a light capital ship while giving a fighter the exact same edge.

Similarly, outfits that can temporarily affect mass and other stats. For instance, a cargo pod that slows your ship way down, but once you drop it you can move again. Same with regular cargo: acceleration should go way down when you're actually carrying that 100 tons of food. As it is, unless it's contraband, there's no real reason for anyone to want to dump their cargo.

Also... This might not be feasible in a project at this scale, but it'd be really nice if that Strength stat were generated automatically, instead of assigned arbitrarily by the designer. I'm having the devil's own time designing ships that are balanced against each other, when one is tough and hits hard and the other is fast and agile.

Considering the huge number of variables in a ship's stats, let alone potential weapons and outfits, that'd be incredibly difficult to do with any reasonable accuracy. Especially when you include stuff with non-standard behaviors, such as the Ionization Field in Colosseum. If such a thing were included, I'd like a way to manually override it to make certain targets more or less valuable to kill in terms of combat rating as well as to control how quickly the player's combat rating rises.

Here are some things I've wanted to see in EV that no one brought up for some reason:

-much more arbitrariness for weapon, outfit, and ship statistics (ship A gets disabled at 80% armor, but ship B gets disabled at, say, 18% armor

-give weapons the ability to subdivide into beams (could be used to make some interesting missile type projectile)

-I believe a lot of people brought up effectiveness percentages for outfits like armor addons, speed increases, etc

-some kind of backwards or side firing beam (the former would've been a great thrust upgrade for ctc instead of that flamethrower)

-add more types of jamming

-make ship hostility quantifiable (sort of) rather than the on/off mechanic currently in EV (if you're more of a galactic pissant than a galactic scourge is every warship in the system really going to annihilate you with everything they've got?)

-AI should be much more cautious when attacking a much stronger enemy ship, instead of strafing it over and over until either one dies or retreat conditions are met

-add a front-quadrant-turret-beam-thing (you can already do this with turreted beams and blind spot flags, but this one should be able to fire without a target)

-make combination "prefers standoff tactics" and "exhibits swarming behavior" AI flags work better in conjunction (rebel escorts suck)

-increase the amount of allies and enemies one government can have (can be done with classes and allies, but is annoying)

-turreted guided weapons (can be done with subdivision, but wastes two resources)

@reclusiveone, on 11 February 2012 - 06:42 PM, said in Your game functionality wishlist:

-add a front-quadrant-turret-beam-thing (you can already do this with turreted beams and blind spot flags, but this one should be able to fire without a target)
...
-turreted guided weapons (can be done with subdivision, but wastes two resources)

Maybe ‘turreted’ and ‘requires a target to fire’ should be separate flags, rather than inherent aspects of a particular guidance type.

@reclusiveone, on 11 February 2012 - 06:42 PM, said in Your game functionality wishlist:

-increase the amount of allies and enemies one government can have (can be done with classes and allies, but is annoying)

Personally I find the entire class system excessively complicated, and would rather it just allowed every government to have an unlimited list of allies and enemies.

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Maybe ‘turreted’ and ‘requires a target to fire’ should be separate flags, rather than inherent aspects of a particular guidance type.

that's a better idea

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Personally I find the entire class system excessively complicated, and would rather it just allowed every government to have an unlimited list of allies and enemies.

even better idea

Also maybe they could add multiple types of currencies, but with a static exchange rate and every type of inhabited planet being able to convert them for you

@reclusiveone, on 11 February 2012 - 06:42 PM, said in Your game functionality wishlist:

-some kind of backwards or side firing beam (the former would've been a great thrust upgrade for ctc instead of that flamethrower)

I have an explanation for why I went with what I did, and it turned out longer than I meant. But here we go.

There's multiple reasons why I went with the Flame Exhaust over other rear weaponry, such as a beam. Under the current engine, a backwards firing beam is possible. However, the A.I. would also always try to fire it while facing you, so they'd never hit you with it except through sheer dumb luck. Setting up turreted weapon for the A.I. with front and side blindspots, similar to how their version of the Flame Exhaust is a rear quadrant turret (the player Flame Exhaust is an unguided projectile), would mostly work mechanically, but would have two serious issues if we wanted it to fire just straight back, as is the case with the Flame Exhaust. First, the beam would have a set length, which would be a problem for both A.I.s and players as you'd need to stay a set distance away to actually hit with it, which kind of defeats the point of a weapon you fire while retreating whereas projectiles could be launched backwards and actually "travel farther" based on how fast the shooter was traveling. Second, the fact the A.I. has a turret would be far more obvious. Ridiculously obvious. The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard obvious. With the inaccuracy and the fact the A.I. turns away totally when retreating, combined with fast turn rates, it's hard to catch the A.I. shooting flames at angles. But with a beam, it'd be very clear.

Then there's the reason that I largely avoided beams in CTC due to how ridiculously strong they can be, even with low damage numbers. I kept the Thunderbolt Generators because it was a cool idea and it's the token beam weapon. They cut out after shooting a bit to recharge and they have a shortish range, so while they're strong they're also pretty fair. It'd be tricky to keep that sort of balance with multiple beams, as you can see in vanilla Nova where even the sucky beams pwn face.

But, most importantly, the Flame Exhaust is inspired from a weapon of the same name in the game XG2 (a fun, but flawed, game that I had as I grew up). Blasting out fire from your engines to sear enemy pursuers or, in the case of XG2, the other races behind you, was a pretty cool idea. And it gave you a boost to speed as well. This is represented in CTC with the Flame Exhaust shooting fire and giving you a bit of a speed boost (until you're at top speed anyway) while searing those behind you. I was also going to adapt the game's Laser Mine for the medium and possibly capital ship classes as well, but I never developed those due to plug-in making burnout.

@joshtigerheart, on 12 February 2012 - 12:06 PM, said in Your game functionality wishlist:

I have an explanation for why I went with what I did, and it turned out longer than I meant. But here we go.

There's multiple reasons why I went with the Flame Exhaust over other rear weaponry, such as a beam. Under the current engine, a backwards firing beam is possible. However, the A.I. would also always try to fire it while facing you, so they'd never hit you with it except through sheer dumb luck. Setting up turreted weapon for the A.I. with front and side blindspots, similar to how their version of the Flame Exhaust is a rear quadrant turret (the player Flame Exhaust is an unguided projectile), would mostly work mechanically, but would have two serious issues if we wanted it to fire just straight back, as is the case with the Flame Exhaust. First, the beam would have a set length, which would be a problem for both A.I.s and players as you'd need to stay a set distance away to actually hit with it, which kind of defeats the point of a weapon you fire while retreating whereas projectiles could be launched backwards and actually "travel farther" based on how fast the shooter was traveling. Second, the fact the A.I. has a turret would be far more obvious. Ridiculously obvious. The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard obvious. With the inaccuracy and the fact the A.I. turns away totally when retreating, combined with fast turn rates, it's hard to catch the A.I. shooting flames at angles. But with a beam, it'd be very clear.

Then there's the reason that I largely avoided beams in CTC due to how ridiculously strong they can be, even with low damage numbers. I kept the Thunderbolt Generators because it was a cool idea and it's the token beam weapon. They cut out after shooting a bit to recharge and they have a shortish range, so while they're strong they're also pretty fair. It'd be tricky to keep that sort of balance with multiple beams, as you can see in vanilla Nova where even the sucky beams pwn face.

But, most importantly, the Flame Exhaust is inspired from a weapon of the same name in the game XG2 (a fun, but flawed, game that I had as I grew up). Blasting out fire from your engines to sear enemy pursuers or, in the case of XG2, the other races behind you, was a pretty cool idea. And it gave you a boost to speed as well. This is represented in CTC with the Flame Exhaust shooting fire and giving you a bit of a speed boost (until you're at top speed anyway) while searing those behind you. I was also going to adapt the game's Laser Mine for the medium and possibly capital ship classes as well, but I never developed those due to plug-in making burnout.

Good point, although a rear or side firing, straight beam would be pretty cool.

@reclusiveone, on 12 February 2012 - 08:31 AM, said in Your game functionality wishlist:

Also maybe they could add multiple types of currencies, but with a static exchange rate and every type of inhabited planet being able to convert them for you

If there's a static rate and every planet can convert between them, there is literally no point to having more than one currency type.

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If there's a static rate and every planet can convert between them, there is literally no point to having more than one currency type.

huh, didn't really consider that one. Oh well, pretend I never brought it up

One thing I would want in a new engine would be the ability to sell equipment to planets even if you can't buy it there. It's annoying if you have a particular high-tech weapon only sold in certain places and have to fly around trying to find a place to sell it. It was particularly bad in EVO since you had to travel pretty far to get between UE and Strand space.

@rickton, on 12 February 2012 - 11:02 PM, said in Your game functionality wishlist:

One thing I would want in a new engine would be the ability to sell equipment to planets even if you can't buy it there. It's annoying if you have a particular high-tech weapon only sold in certain places and have to fly around trying to find a place to sell it. It was particularly bad in EVO since you had to travel pretty far to get between UE and Strand space.

That can be done currently, on an outfit-by-outfit basis: there's a "can be sold anywhere" bit you can set on outfits.

It seems to me there were also some planets that would buy anything you had, but not sell any of it back to you. Can't figure out how that was done, though. Found it: there's a "buys all items" flag on the spob resource.

This post has been edited by shig23 : 13 February 2012 - 06:35 AM

@shig23, on 13 February 2012 - 06:27 AM, said in Your game functionality wishlist:

It seems to me there were also some planets that would buy anything you had, but not sell any of it back to you. Can't figure out how that was done, though. Found it: there's a "buys all items" flag on the spob resource.

Yes, that flag was created and assigned to Sirrusa in the Archenar system to solve exactly this problem.

Well, nevermind then.

Someone suggested some kind of enemy kill counter where you only need to kill x number ships out of an entire armada to complete a fleet battle mission.

If ambrosia would add some kind of metroidian alarm-timer-mechanism for missions with ship based goals, you could use it in conjunction with fleet battles and configure the surviving enemy ships to retreat when the clock hits zero; and then...

this happens:

It'd be great for a climactic battle at the end of a storyline.

This post has been edited by ReclusiveOne : 14 February 2012 - 09:22 PM

@reclusiveone, on 14 February 2012 - 09:21 PM, said in Your game functionality wishlist:

I still don't know why that was in CTC.

My favorite thing about CTC was how the trucks could accelerate infinitely backwards.

@reclusiveone, on 14 February 2012 - 09:21 PM, said in Your game functionality wishlist:

Someone suggested some kind of enemy kill counter where you only need to kill x number ships out of an entire armada to complete a fleet battle mission.

If ambrosia would add some kind of metroidian alarm-timer-mechanism for missions with ship based goals, you could use it in conjunction with fleet battles and configure the surviving enemy ships to retreat when the clock hits zero; and then...

It'd be great for a climactic battle at the end of a storyline.

That's actually doable, it just takes quite a bit of, well, doing. Has to do with setting the AI of the shïps in the mission's düde to asteroid miner, then giving the mission that spawns them a flag to make them attack the player. Make another mission that aborts the first mission when a condition is met (destroying a particular ship, or in your case, a timer expiring), and when the mission disappears they'll default to asteroid miner AI and run away.