Feature requests

[Chris Steadman]

Originally Posted by bdhurkett

Maybe I've just been unlucky with the randomness or looking on the wrong planets, but are there any 'animals' that only exist in water or other liquids? Sharks, fish, that kind of thing.

Yes there are

[Chris Steadman]

Originally Posted by bdhurkett

Er, hate to double-post but I can't figure out how to edit the one above.

In the bottom right corner of each post there are four buttons. On your own posts the left hand one should say 'edit'. It can take quite a few seconds for it to take you to the editor. Clicking it a second time often helps.

[GeorgiaBoy]

New player here...have not been in the shrapnel forums in a while. I have some questions and ideas (posted at 1:25AM...kinda sleepy):



Questions:

Plan to raise devicefile.txt cap past 99?
Plan to raise monsterfile.txt cap above 110?
Is the rarity file like diablo 2? (common, magical, rare, unique)? Ever thought about a prefix/suffix loot system?


Suggestions:
Planetside ruined towns like a cave/derilict ship? Multiple towns togther could form a city
How about more than one special ability for monsters?
Racial technologies--tech only found if you board a certain race's ship or kill a certain race on a planet (this may be implemented).
Turn on LEGAL--item may raise or lower infamy regarding a certain race if possessed
Cursed artifacts should have a low or negative resale value...maybe a quest to uncurse it to make it useable.
Race like the antarans in Master of Antares II?
More than one special ability for monsters?
Do gas giants exist? Have a gaseous race..high in defense.


New Concepts:
Enemy Ship Boarding
Armor in addition to interface of Shields, Hull, Supplies, and Crew.


New Suggested Effects:
Monster eats other monsters and/or player and gets stronger (Ithkul ala Master of Orion 3)
Reflect X% of damage back to attacker. X can be defined by modder.
Tractor beam--pulls enemies to you. Helps boarding.
Warp dissipator--stops enemies from leaving sector
Nemesis Monster, once it finds you, chases you from sector to sector until killed.
Monster which converts other monsters to its race (assimulates, if you will). If player is hit, player turns into assimulating race and gains fame/infamy of assimulating race.
Weapon which targets and kills crew.
Hard Shields which are immume to nebulae
Monster which after destroying planets, gets stronger. effect 447, but also adds monster Hit points.
Shield piercing weapons
Upgrade devices via miniturization.
Black Hole Generator--causes substantial damage to ships.
Area of Effect weapon--damages all targets within X radius.
[Assuming Armor concept implementation] Armor which reduces incoming damage by X%. All crew survives. Requires boarding to take ship.
Subspace teleporter--teleports to random part of sector. activated when hull goes to x percent.
Require X equipped device to enter a given sector.
Attacking planets from orbit (nuclear, biological, chemical weapons)?
Weapons always hit effect (if not already, of course)
Componant destroyed on use.
Cause random movement (for ship)
Shapeshifting monster--imitates one of the other major races...but always attacks. Destroying the shapeshifter has a chance to raise infamy with the imitated race.
Crafting multiple artifacts to make a dimensional portal (like a greater rift in Diablo 3). Dimensional Portal has special quest and artifacts as some loot..combined for additional gateways.
Limpet mines--attach to ship...drains one or more movement points, shields, supplies, hull, etc.



Suggested Planetary events/sector events:

Hyperspace Flux--cannot travel between sectors for X number of turns.
Events where you win/lose credits (only a percentage of credits).
Computer Virus/Breakthrough--Destroys/Creates data points.
Diplomatic Marriage (can only happen once)--Raises fame of X points to player by X race
Comet--Destroy comet to raise fame with X race (and raise infamy with another...)
Supernova--Destroys everything in a sector--countdown is given, of course.
Good crew member as loot on town/city
Sentient Planet--Everything is toxic--nothing will shield you...damage every step you take. boss loot.
Splinter colony/stranded beings/rescued beings as loot--raises fame with that race.
Tectonic Activity--Inflicts damage on away team and resets terrain on planet.
Random Meteor strike on planet. If you are under it, kills away team. If not...raw ore and other loot.
Atmospheric Instability--resets fog of war on planet.
Battle Damage--Radiated area, but also spawns items, supplies, and credits.


New Terrain Types: Quicksand, Desert, Town (generates a larger map like a shipwreck), multiple town blocks equal a city.


Miscellaneous Thoughts:

Key Binding (for those of us without a number pad), please!

Whew...a long post! Thanks for your time.

Please excuse me if these ideas are duplicated elsewhere...

GB

[PvK]

Welcome, GeorgiaBoy.

Nice list of ideas. I especially like the idea of city ruins on planets, not just caves and planets that _are_ city ruins. Though, it makes me think of how probably exploring a whole planet by landing randomly and walking around seems rather silly, as at least for planets without blocking atmosphere, one should probably be able to get at least an idea of what's there by looking from orbit... or even from further away.

Boarding non-wreck ships and getting boarded could both be fun.

There is armor - were you suggesting to have it work differently?

[GeorgiaBoy]

@PvK: Thanks for the response! Nice to see a veteran of the forums. I was referring to armor for the ship (not just additional hull points)? I know that there is armor for the away team...

I have played a grand total of three times, so I am not that experienced in the game.

Another idea I had was a criminal background for the player...having a security scan before docking and faking id, bribing customs officials, bribing judges to drop charges, imprison on a prison planet (like a shipwreck), running illegal cargo, random items, etc...

In regards to your comments to cities--not just city ruins, but alive cities with more population and unique buildings like a government HQ, etc...

GB

[PvK]

Yes, I like your ideas, though I'm not sure exactly how all of them would work, and some of them seem easier than others to do given the way the game is set up so far.

There are both armored space suits for crew, and also armor components which can be installed on ships. Armor for ships adds to the total hull strength (usually significantly) and depending on the specific model, can also affect your speed or other ship stats.

Criminality is currently done by whether different factions like you or not, and some of the factions are hostile to each other. Especially in version 1.20, this means you have a variety of factions you can be in trouble with or not. You can befriend the pirates, or be a scourge to everyone. There are also fake ID's for getting into space stations that hostile factions control, even after they wouldn't let you in if they knew who you were.

I like the idea of living cities on planets, too. So far, all the active civilization hangs out in space on ships or space stations. All the planets are wilderness, ruins, with occasional bases on planets. I agree it'd be cool if there were civilized planets too, though I expect it'd be handled like having a base on a planet. There are faction HQ bases, too, BTW, but again in space.

I like the idea of possibly getting imprisoned or shipwrecked or stranded and having the game not end and there be some chance to commandeer another ship, though that seems a bit out of scope of the current design, it could be cool.

[GeorgiaBoy]

Hi PvK,

I do not know how I missed the armor. It appears ibol uses a diablo like item generation model. Anyway, hopefully these posts will get 'eyeballed' in due course.


Gb

[dari]

just another usability and other additions:

1. pressing the same key again to enter an infoscreen like "t" for the stats or "o" for officer , the screen exits to the main interface - so no need to move hand to the escape key.

2. plz give the officer xp stats and the remaining infoscreens a thousand delimiter (including the million one :)

3. externalize the formula for armor repaircosts (to be able to mod them - they are insane even on medium) - accidentally hitting do everything in lobby can drain your funds seriously

4. possible to have more than the 6 officer occupations (not the amount of slots or starting officer selection) - i wanted to mod a few additional professions but i could not find my officerskill#7 in a lobby (and then it would still not have a name)

5. is there a way to mod the shields and cloak out of the game (for ie. using armors and repair)

6. the zrnboo.txt file doesnt work (neiter in modding folder nor the original folder) - nice idea to test higher sectors with modding plz activate it.

7. maybe reduce the amount of interference of artifacts - with 16 artifacts they switch on and off every few turns (its rather annoying with the real visible effects like noLOS, sight range, and things like hazmat shields)

8. could the "captain on away team could die" message be removed in options and especially in non-permadeath-games.

[Saul]

Greetings and thank you for this incredible game.
I haven't stopped playing games for the past 35 years, and your game revived in me that long-lost feel of having to jeopardize my sleep just to play it... Mmm, I am unsure if I should be thanking you now.
Anyways, I skipped around and didn't see it mentionned so here goes : I'd love a way to reconfigure some shortcuts keys (even through some arcaney mean, like editing a text file manually) : I am using foreign keyboards, and some keys just aren't even pressable (the infamous “tilde” key which gives access to the backlog, for instance). Actually, that's the main key shortcut I have trouble with, so if there was just a mean to have an alternate key if only for that one, I would be most thankful.
Cheers!

[ibol]

In several places, I see the suggestion "same key also closes menu". This would work in many, but *not all* cases. once place it would not work is "crafting" c=crafting, but c="craft 3rd item". would also not work for "install".

Saul,
Thanks for the kind words you've written in many places. your suggestion: "keybindings" : I don't think I will do it in this update, but you know you can click on the message area and get the message log? sometimes it is a pain to switch your controls, but at least it's possible for you.