Feature requests

[Cyberis]

+1 - Being able to see the highlights would be great. I saw something like this at the end of Gunpoint where a couple of paragraph log entry was created that summarized the players performance. Being able to see a chronological list of sectors visited, planets explored, officers killed, quests completed would allow for the role playing aspect of the game to be strengthened.

[JimSB]

As your ship gets better and you install better reactors, you get to install more devices. However, the away party can only use one device (usually starting with Hand Scanners) no matter how good the suit or how many Away Team specials you get. As you get better suits, you should be able to use more of the devices, so some of the more interesting ones will not be abandoned in favor of the common ones (hand scanners and the various walkers).

[Cyberis]

Another idea that is similar to JimSB (i.e. better suits, more simultaneous devices - which I +1) is better storage of those devices on board ship. I would like to either be able to: 1) store those at a base (perhaps for the low, low fee of 1 credit per 1000 turns per item) or 2) be able to install an Away Team Locker ship device that would suddenly make all away team gear fit in a single cargo slot. In either case, it's a challenge to have any cargo space when your away team has 6 - 10 devices.

[Fennrick]

Originally Posted by Cyberis

Another idea that is similar to JimSB (i.e. better suits, more simultaneous devices - which I +1) is better storage of those devices on board ship. I would like to either be able to: 1) store those at a base (perhaps for the low, low fee of 1 credit per 1000 turns per item) or 2) be able to install an Away Team Locker ship device that would suddenly make all away team gear fit in a single cargo slot. In either case, it's a challenge to have any cargo space when your away team has 6 - 10 devices.

Isn't this what crafting is for? During my games i mainly dismantle away team stuff i don't need and just rebuild it whenever neccessary.

[Dubious]

Originally Posted by Fennrick

Isn't this what crafting is for? During my games i mainly dismantle away team stuff i don't need and just rebuild it whenever neccessary.

Brilliant! Thanks for sharing that. Now that you point it out, it's sort of obvious but never occurred to me. Just have to keep track of the needed parts to avoid consuming them in experiments.

-Dubious-

[Waltorious]

I'm really enjoying the game so far! But I did have a few feature requests:

1) Dynamic music. I love the soundtrack, but right now it just plays all the tracks in order and then starts over. I'd love to have the music depend on where I am in the game (i.e. ambient tracks in space, frozen planet track on frozen planets, etc.). When I was listening to the soundtrack outside of the game I realized how each track really fits the place it's named after, so it would be nice if those matched in-game. But I have no idea how hard this would be to code. And I guess it could mean that the music tracks change a lot if players are flying around and landing on lots of planets.

2) I'd love an easier way to see what type of planet my spacesuit is suitable for. Right now it's hidden away on the stats screen, but it would be nice if it was listed on the suit itself (or maybe just on the tooltip for it). Also it would be nice to see what type of planets those "unexplored planets" are on the warp screen, so I know if my new suit is good enough to go explore them.

3) As others said, it would be cool to eventually be able to get more than one away team device at a time. Maybe some high-level spacesuits could have built-in devices, kind of like the different ships with their built-in devices?

That's it for now, thanks for the great game!

[ibol]

Just popping in after a week of the flu. Man, was I out of it.
Looks like stuff is pretty status quo, but i'll respond to some of Waltorious' comments:

0. Glad you like it! thanks

1. You're right, the tracks really do fit the areas; that is just excellent design on the part of the composer. the reason for the music playing the way it does is the last one you mentioned: I switch areas pretty quickly, and I just keep hearing 10-30 seconds of a song, and then switch to another one, which annoyed me.

2. displaying suit suitability is a great addition to the tooltip upgrade. thanks. (did you know there was a tooltip upgrade?)

3. There are already suits that come with powers. They become available after sector 20-25, and become more common the further you go. You can also find artifacts that provide suit powers, tho that is up to chance. There must be balance, there must be choice. You will never have everything at once (probably), but you can get a decent assortment of abilities.

Bob

[Waltorious]

Originally Posted by ibol

1. You're right, the tracks really do fit the areas; that is just excellent design on the part of the composer. the reason for the music playing the way it does is the last one you mentioned: I switch areas pretty quickly, and I just keep hearing 10-30 seconds of a song, and then switch to another one, which annoyed me.

Hmm... I wonder if that might be improved with crossfades and/or careful decisions about when to switch tracks? For example, most players probably stop at space stations for very short periods of time, so a separate music track for stations probably doesn't make sense. But for planets I think it might work, especially if there are caves. Another option might be to let whatever track is playing finish as normal, but then only start new tracks based on where the player is at that time. This would make repeated landings on the same planet (to heal up crew) not reset the track.

But it's not a huge deal, and might be more trouble than its worth. Thanks for the explanation though!

Originally Posted by ibol

2. displaying suit suitability is a great addition to the tooltip upgrade. thanks. (did you know there was a tooltip upgrade?)

I did not know that there was a tooltip upgrade, but I'm glad to hear it! One other thing I'd love to have in the tooltip upgrade, by the way, is a tooltip for the officer skills when hiring officers from stations. Officer skills are tooltipped after you hire them, but not before, so I'd have to look up the skill in the manual to remember what it does.

Originally Posted by ibol

3. There are already suits that come with powers. They become available after sector 20-25, and become more common the further you go. You can also find artifacts that provide suit powers, tho that is up to chance. There must be balance, there must be choice. You will never have everything at once (probably), but you can get a decent assortment of abilities.

Awesome, I'm glad you already had the same idea! I'll look forward to finding those.

I did think of one more suggestion: My away team is now packing hand scanners, which are awesome, but it means targeting enemies is tricky because it will often default to targeting enemies that I can't actually shoot, because they are behind cover. This means I have to switch through lots of targets before I can find the one that I'm actually able to shoot. Is it possible to change the targeting priority to check if an enemy is behind cover and give priority to those that are NOT behind cover? This would make fights simpler.

Thanks again for the great game, and I hope you are feeling better!

[Cyberis]

+1 on targeting priority. I really like the hand scanners, they make exploring the planet quite a bit faster, but engaging enemies does become trickier since it doesn't distinguish those that can actually be attacked vs those that are behind cover.

[plugger]

Robots

This isn't a simple tweak, more a complete new sub-system, but hey, you asked for ideas.

Here goes - have a selection of pre-made robots that you can send on planetary exploration missions instead of people. NASA can do this already and I miss R2D2 & C3PO not being there.

Robots don't need oxygen although you'd need a specially hardened robot for a toxic atmosphere.

Perhaps they could have a 'mechanical reliability' readout/bar instead of oxygen. Travelling over rough terrain depletes the bar. Once it reaches 0 the robot fails and can only be retrieved by humans. Robots have a mechanical durability rating (like a suit oxygen rating), some being more adept at handling broken terrain than others.

Robots are inherently less versatile than people and might perhaps only move orthogonally.

Robots types should each have limitations. You'd want to use them to take risks that your landing party would normally be exposed to but on the other hand you don't want them to be as capable as human party.

For example;

Scout 'bot: Can investigate only, can't collect any goodies, can't attack creatures. Great at getting an idea of what's out there and where it is.

Biology 'bot: Will stun creatures and gather science data from them using all manner of probes and samplers. Ignores anything other than the native lifeforms. Doesn't show goodies.

Science 'bot: Will hunt out any goodies and collect them. Creatures are effectively invisible to them or perhaps just show as a generic, all purpose 'lifeform' icon.

Military 'bot: will automatically shoot anything that moves (including bunnies). Send them in to clear out the creepy crawlies. Will blaze away happily until they run out of ammunition.

When a robot is exploring the surface the map could show up as grayscale or infra-red like to drop the visual feedback down a notch and to give you a sense of immersion of sitting in your landing shuttle and looking at the feed sent from your 'bot.

Every now and then the link will go on the fritz (planetary or atmospheric interference) and the screen shows white noise for a turn.

Or maybe something big and nasty just ate your 'bot.

Cheers,
PLugger