Some feature requests...
 

... which I would like to make. I'm not even slightly hoping (kicked that habit, went cold turkey after PotC/Seadogs II) but would appreciate it if the dev (Aaron?) would at the very least eyeball them.

So, in order of decreasing likelihood of making it into a patch :


- Allow heavy weapon points to be used as light weapon points as well. This makes sense, doesn't it?

- Make cargo pods killable by weapons fire. Get rid of the annoying illegals you forgot about and picked up again.

- Make cargo pods twinkle and GLOW, not twinkle and fade to black.

- Hotkey, select nearest cargo pod within radar range.

- Ctrl+key combo to cycle through targets in your viewing range only. Ie, not behind you.

- Add a random factor to AI ship's skill level and loadout levels. I, at level 4, want to be surprised by a level 30 battlecruiser. At level 15 I want to find a pathetic newbie at level 1. Make the extremes damn rare though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif Perhaps based on difficulty?

- Random news entry when an accident occurs. "Early this morning, the Yorkshire system was in shock as rescue parties rushed to the third planet, where the Abbidonian Battleship Ses'thene impacted at high velocity. Estimated casualties are in the tens of thousands. Officials expect no survivors of the Ses'thene's 400-strong crew."

- Make proximity to a star potentially lethal. Should slowly drain shields, then boil off your armor with exponentially increasing speed as it drops to zero percent. That, and/or make your/his/her ship easier to hit, being backlit and all.

- Provide ship name+Hitpoints overlay on main viewscreen. This could be set to on by holding down TAB (or whatever). Make locating ships/items easier.

- Directional arrows at the side of the screen indicating where your current target is.

[ November 17, 2003, 08:53: Message edited by: Stone-D ]

Re: Some feature requests...
 

Mail it to Aaron directly. Many of the suggestions made it into patches in his other games as well.

Re: Some feature requests...
 

- Allow heavy weapon points to be used as light weapon points as well. This makes sense, doesn't it?

Easily moddable, actually.

- Hotkey, select nearest cargo pod within radar range.

i I think?

- Ctrl+key combo to cycle through targets in your viewing range only. Ie, not behind you.

Would be nice.

- Random news entry when an accident occurs. "Early this morning, the Yorkshire system was in shock as rescue parties rushed to the third planet, where the Abbidonian Battleship Ses'thene impacted at high velocity. Estimated casualties are in the tens of thousands. Officials expect no survivors of the Ses'thene's 400-strong crew."

heh, heh. Evil. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

- Make proximity to a star potentially lethal. Should slowly drain shields, then boil off your armor with exponentially increasing speed as it drops to zero percent. That, and/or make your/his/her ship easier to hit, being backlit and all.

- Provide ship name+Hitpoints overlay on main viewscreen. This could be set to on by holding down TAB (or whatever). Make locating ships/items easier.

- Directional arrows at the side of the screen indicating where your current target is

Very useful.

Re: Some feature requests...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Starfury would not be half the game it is if Aaron did not listen to the suggestions and input of the beta testers (and of all the other people that send in suggestions). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Some feature requests...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You can set the level offset in the main_enemyGroups.txt file for one.

It could be a bit unbalancing if the player were to aquire super-high tech level components, though.

Re: Some feature requests...
 

On the overhead ('view offset', or 'F1') view, Left-click to center, Left-click within X of current center to re-center and zoom appreciably, Right-click to zoom out.

Hotkey to display LRS of targeted vessel.

LRS of planets to provide flavor text.

Option to rename vessel, at least when buying a new hull. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Frangible Asteroids. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Speculative commerce. Buy a good, fly to another system, and hope to sell it for a profit.

Option to extort goods (cargo, or even non-critical components) from outclassed or defeated vessels. Similar option for impressing Crew into service. Surplus 'crew' units as cargo and trade goods.

Re: Some feature requests...
 

If crew units are added each should have modifiers that effect the ship. IE Engineer +1 repair Hull,Armor,Shield

Re: Some feature requests...
 

Option to turn on a proximity scanner to stop the frikin' ship before it collides with a planet.

How stupid do you feel as captain of a ship when the entire crew and the ship's computer give no warning or couldn't care less if you're getting a little too close to those tiny planets?

Maybe a button for "auto shuttle" to stop the ship and shuttle over as soon as you're in range. If there is no place to shuttle onto the planet, just stop the ship. It's been more than one or two times I've shuttled over, and upon exiting I collide with the planet because of momentum. I've since learned to steer away rather than at the planet, but it still seems silly to have to do this.

Re: Some feature requests...
 

Screen to display crew of other ship.
(Gotta luv them toxic injectors.)

Summary of my attack and defence attributes.
(Unless I'm missing something, as usual.)

Summary of their attack and defence attribs.

Percentage hit chance like in SEIV.

Ability to mod the AI behaviours. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif
(DLL hook?)

Re: Some feature requests...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Oh, for woah is me.. I know what that's like. I've hit umpteen planets. I think the simplest solution (although unrealistic) would be to give all the planets an inner glow so that it is easier to see them. (especially the dark side of the moons.) More often than not, when I crash into a planet/moon it's because I was moving at 4-8x speed and just plain didn't see it.

just my 2 cents.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Some feature requests...
 

If you're sick of running into planets you can't see, go into the campaign folder, open campaigndata.txt, and find these lines..

Base Ambient Lighting Percent For All Space Objects := 5
Ambient Lighting Percent Increase For All Ships := 35

Crank them up and no more dark objects.

Re: Some feature requests...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Just tap "K" in game a few times. Press "L" to lower the brightness if you go too far.

Re: Some feature requests...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That is not a permanent setting though, and gets reset when you reload the game. P-D's method makes it permanent. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Some feature requests...
 

That and you can make the planets bright without making the ships -too- bright.

Re: Some feature requests...
 

One I'd really like to see, and it's animation related. When a ship dies, it does a funky shake, rattle'n'roll thing that is, IMO, kinda dumb. Any chance of it getting replaced with a simple listing action?

Ditto for when AI ships don't have any propulsion anymore. They sit there and spin like a top. Immersion killing, that is.

Hmmm... bad thing is, if you're sitting still and you're on fire, the 'fire' doesn't animate. Some randomness needs to be added to that anim, methinks.

Re: Some feature requests...
 

regarding the Last request (just below), perhaps it would be more immersive if a disabled vessel took a tumble vector based on what hit it Last, and where? So the crippled ship would still spin in place (and possibly be able to fire its weapons as targets bore), but not in the odd thrashing about behavior. (Of course, visible attitude thruster jets would explain much of that, but should still stop when bridge/engines destroyed. And currently no such thruster jets, anyway.)

A crippling beam hit might impart no vector, while any sort of bolt would... etc.

Re: Some feature requests...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This can be modded by giving the engines the turning and acceleration effect- no engines, no turning, no weird thrashing. I've also noticed that dead ships will sometimes slide to a halt as well..seems to work mostly with crew-killing weapons. Another way to simulate that is to give all components propulsion, a QNP system where there is no maxiumum top speed. Under that, only total destruction of every component would bring the ship to a stop. (OTOH, if you loose your engines at speed, you'd continue on your current heading until they could be repaired..)

Re: Some feature requests...
 

The one thing I'd like to see sure isn't going to happen....
A full 3D universe, not a 2D chessboard with objects scattered about.

But that would probably require a new engine, so can't be happening until Starfury 2, maybe.

Re: Some feature requests...
 

Wot I would love to see is a 4-D playing field

(Lets see how many click onto this, something for modern day science nerds)

Re: Some feature requests...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana"><cue 'seven days' music>


http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif


I suspect that things might get a tad complicated if every time a ship went through a warp gate, it got sent back in time.

Fun though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Some feature requests...
 

I, personally, would like the ability to click on objects in the system map or radar map and have them designated as your current target. Also, list current bearing on the selected target, so you can optimize your course.
I'd also like to see some SFC-inspired maneuvering options: match target speed, follow target course, that kind of stuff.
And, of course, like everyone else, I think it would be nice if we got alerted prior to crashing into a planet-- I mean, these are things you'd think your bridge crew would be on the lookout for, or, at the very least, you'd have sensors to detect them.

Re: Some feature requests...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Makes perfect sense to me! Don't you just love inertia? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Some feature requests...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana"><cue 'seven days' music>


http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif


I suspect that things might get a tad complicated if every time a ship went through a warp gate, it got sent back in time.

Fun though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ok, you misunderstood me

Time isnt the 4th dimension I am referring to

I believe Time is actually a seperate dimension different to our own

Any other guesses?

I think we may need to start a new thread on this alone as I feel a discussion coming up

[ November 21, 2003, 06:59: Message edited by: DeadZone ]

Re: Some feature requests...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I pretty much agree with you there. Theis are things I also wish on the next patch. Also the ability to auto-fire a weapon instead of bashin 1 all the time http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Something else would also be a turret(s) manned by a gunner (varibale skill and hiring costs/salary) or automated (also variable skill).

I would also like fighters which actually survive combats instead of dieing so easely! Hell they don't have to be strong, just survive the battle. And Auto-dock if one has taken to much damage. Auto-lunch during combat. Would also like different fighter types like bombers or air(space?) supiority fighters, but that could be fixed by a mod then?

What I also would love is be crew skills. Why not let my crew handel the navigation/combat manovuring while I man one of the guns? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif But that would be for starfury 2?

Re: Some feature requests...
 

Fighter survivabilty could be fixed in a mod, assuming MM can get them to stop running into things.

Re: Some feature requests...
 

I'd like to see the ability to pan the display down several degrees so the horizon is lower down the monitor. Currently for me, I have alot of trouble with glare from my room light; occurring exactly on the horizon line. It doesn't seem to matter what angle my monitor is set to, I still get glare.

I'd also like it if all ships in a system were shown with a target type box around them. The box could be grey to show a ship has been detected but is unidentified. Additionally, it would be good if the targeting box, shown after a ship is clicked on, changed colour to indicate the ships FOF status - red = hostile, blue = friendly, etc

I have to say though that this is one great game even as it stands.

Re: Some feature requests...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">But should most certainly NOT require a mod to fix (tweak, sure, but not fix outright)... they should be made appropriately survivable in the stock game.

Re: Some feature requests...
 

Just grab my P&N Version of the first two stock campaigns.
It deals with that too.

Re: Some feature requests...
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">But should most certainly NOT require a mod to fix (tweak, sure, but not fix outright)... they should be made appropriately survivable in the stock game. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think not running into things would do a lot of that, actually. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif