Possible ideas for the future?

[Felekar]

Apologies if any of these ideas have already been presented. Also, sorry that this is just about my first post, but I've been thinking about this game for a couple weeks now, and have been pondering things that I think might improve the game.

#1. The "Galactic Map"
Accessible from the ships menu, or by a usable item. It would open a list of the systems you have already explored. by clicking on one of these systems you could 'zoom in' and view the map of that system.
Additionally, perhaps it could be eventually possible for the player to set a destination from this map, so that the player would have a quest arrow leading them to whatever that destination is. This way, you would not always have to fly around in map mode.

This makes perfect sense. After 1.0, and once I start adding more systems past Heretic, this feature will be more important. I probably won't add it until them. BTW, one of the reasons I wrote that program to create rendered galaxies (http://neurohack.com/transcendence/foru ... .php?t=932) was in anticipation of this feature.

#2 Long Distance Sensors
This could do two things. First, you could gain knowledge of stations at a much greater distance. Secondly, you might be able to see enemy 'blips' on the map screen. Perhaps these could also be used to expand and contract the scope of the mini-map at a later date.
They could come in a variety of flavors as well. It could be a ROM for the player to find, or it could be a system that is installed on the player's ship. It could even have a higher power requirement to balance it out.
More discussion here: http://neurohack.com/transcendence/foru ... .php?t=957

#3 Better Layering of planets, stations, and ships.
Currently, if you want to be left alone, you can simply park yourself over a planet, station, or even the sun. Enemies will fly around you, but will be basically unable to hurt you. If you position yourself right you can even hide behind an asteroid or a planet, and just kill an enemy station.
While hiding behind an asteroid makes a bit of sense, hiding behind a planet doesn't. This is why I'm thinking planets could be put on a lower 'layer' somehow, and have weapons-fire pass over them.

#4. Damage Rounding
While looking around on the forums I saw the issue with damage rounding. Namely, if you take less than a point of damage to your armor, it is simply rounded up to one. There are two ways I thought of that might fix this, though I'm not sure how feasible either are. One would be to use floating point numbers, and cut it off to one or two decimal places. The other would be to "scale up" the numbers in the game by a factor of 10.
The scaling could be potentially accomplished with a little conversion. The best way I can think to explain it is an example.

I don't think this is a real problem. Fractional damage is rounded to the nearest integer. I.e., damage of 1.2 becomes 1.0 and damage of 1.7 becomes 2.0. In general this will average out.

Let's say you have 50 armor. This would be displayed on screen as 50, but it would be stored in a secondary variable as 500. All incoming damage is multiplied by 10, and subtracted from this secondary variable. This way, any rounding that takes place should be much less apparent.


#5. Change the color of dead opponents.
Currently, it can be quite hard to tell the difference between a live enemy, and a dead one. On the minimap they're both the same shade of red. Perhaps a defeated ship could be a different color.


#6 Custom Map Points
(Added 9/25-edit 1)
Just with the way the map is right now, this feature could be quite possible. I think there could be a function to find the (x,y) of the player ship, then another to add a green blip there on the main map. This could be useful for players that want to go back to a certain wreck they had to leave behind, because they were low on cargo space, or some such thing.
Thanks to some coding work by Kaypy, this is now possible!
http://www.xelerus.unrealcrystal.com/in ... &id=21&d=1

#7 Change Color of Arena Shields
(Added 9/25-edit 2)
Just a little thing. What if the color of the shields around the arena were changed from the very dark blue they are right now, to the same green as the pylons? That way they would be quite visible, and there would be no confusion about where the doors are.
While this wouldn't be All too useful for veterans of the game, it would vastly help newcomers, I think.

#8 "Bones" File
(Added 9/25-edit 2)
Just an idea gleamed straight out of today's roguelikes. The Bones File. Basically, there could be a chance that the wreck of your ship is left there, and could be found in that system when you start a new game. Though, the locals might have picked up your stuff...

#8. Yes. But instead of a wreak, why not resurrect the bones as an opponent? I would love to fight my own ship. Speaking of that, why not have dopplegangers too.

#9 "Paranoid" Races
(Added 9/25-edit 2)
I'm sure there are quite a great many races in the game that would not want their tech to fall into the wrong hands, namely yours. Is there a way to make them loot their own races ships? Like, they could grab the stuff and take it back to their base, or some such thing.
They should not stop in the middle of a firefight to do so, only if the player is a fair distance away, or outside the system.

#10 Weapons Interface
(Added 9/25-edit 3)
Drawing from the ideas in FPSs, I was pondering. What if you could select what weapon you wanted to use by the numeric keys? Currently cycling in one direction through your selection of weapons can be the difference between life and death, even more so if you have three or more weapons.
Additionally, I was thinking. what if there was a brief delay between changing weapons? You know, like your ship has to physically cycle that weapon into place, and activate it's power systems. This delay could be a set time, or it could be based on the refire rate of the weapon you're switching from.
This could help to balance out 'W' spamming a bit more.

#11 Cycle backwards through targets button.
(Added 9/26)
I'm not sure how many times I've been cycling through targets but accidentally click past it. Just thought this could be very nice.

YES

#12 The Sun
(Added 9/26)
You should not be able to safely fly into the sun. Perhaps this could be fixed with some sort of area effect that would be applied over the sun. If you fly too close, it starts to damage your shields. Perhaps hotter, blue suns could even do more damage than the cooler, red ones. Though, If your shields are strong enough, you could survive while they hold out. The AI already seems to avoid the sun most of the time, so that shouldn't be much of an issue, I should think. this could open up strategies, like luring your opponent to the sun, and skimming along it, while they get fried behind you.

[Cardinal]

#5. Change the color of dead opponents.

Welcome to the forums felekar.

Those are good ideas you've mentioned, I particularly like this last one. Wrecks could perhaps show up as a deeper burgundy or grey. Bases need to be changed as its possible to rock on into an area thinking there is only one base and a dead ship, but find out instead that there are two or three bases. Perhaps not a different colour, but how about making bases have a "*" symbol on the map.

No, it's not an asterisk, its a Sapphire-Class Yacht shown from the rear.

[george moromisato]

Neat ideas. Some comments below:

#1. Galactic Map: This makes perfect sense. After 1.0, and once I start adding more systems past Heretic, this feature will be more important. I probably won't add it until them. BTW, one of the reasons I wrote that program to create rendered galaxies (http://neurohack.com/transcendence/foru ... .php?t=932) was in anticipation of this feature.

#2. Long Distance Sensor: Yup. This could also help in nebulae

#3. Better Layering of planets...: I've been thinking of adding this. But I'm not sure what the reaction will be. Would that make the game too hard? I confess that I've often used planets for safety. Need to think about this.

#4. Damage rounding: I don't think this is a real problem. Fractional damage is rounded to the nearest integer. I.e., damage of 1.2 becomes 1.0 and damage of 1.7 becomes 2.0. In general this will average out.

#5. Change the color of dead opponents: Good idea.

#6. Custom Map Points: Neat idea, but not high on my priority list right now.

Thanks for the excellent suggestions!

[Icabod458]

#1 Galactic map.

I think this may be directed at George. How about it being an object, like the system map rom that is recovered from the Iocrym Command Ship. Or perhaps at station in Heretic. I do not know when it would be best to buy/find such a map.

I like all of the ideas felekar put forth but this was the only one I thought I should address.

[Felekar]

Neat ideas. Some comments below:

#3. Better Layering of planets...: I've been thinking of adding this. But I'm not sure what the reaction will be. Would that make the game too hard? I confess that I've often used planets for safety. Need to think about this.

Thanks for the excellent suggestions!

What of flying into the sun? Usually that's not a very good idea, what with solar radiation and all. Though I could see a shield class of some sort that gives you protection from the whole "Icarus" effect, and that could open up an entirely new strategy.
The sun should do WMD damage, though. So that way any wreck that floats into there would just be destroyed. I'd suggest having to be nearly right on top of it, though.

[Fossaman]

#6 Custom Map Points

This one's really easy to do with mods; it's just a combination of the auton code with some stuff from nav beacons...and I bet it wouldn't be that hard to make it retrievable either. I'd love to see little 1-kilo signal beacons that were dirt cheap and available everywhere.

[F50]

#8. Yes. But instead of a wreak, why not resurrect the bones as an opponent? I would love to fight my own ship. Speaking of that, why not have dopplegangers too.

#11. YES

[kaypy]

#6 Custom Map Points

This one's really easy to do with mods; it's just a combination of the auton code with some stuff from nav beacons...and I bet it wouldn't be that hard to make it retrievable either. I'd love to see little 1-kilo signal beacons that were dirt cheap and available everywhere.

Well, these are a bit heavier and a bit more expensive but you get the idea
http://www.xelerus.unrealcrystal.com/in ... =mod&id=21

[Felekar]

Well, these are a bit heavier and a bit more expensive but you get the idea
http://www.xelerus.unrealcrystal.com/in ... =mod&id=21

Brilliant bit of work! I've noted it above. ^^

[evilbob]

#10 Weapons Interface
(Added 9/25-edit 3)

I'd love some sort of scrren for weapons selection from installed devices, but with more detail_ Eg, a second description, but with more info, and some useless stuff like history and emissions, and percentage damage done by one hit to the last 1-5+ enemies you hit.

[Cardinal]

#12 The Sun
(Added 9/26)
You should not be able to safely fly into the sun. Perhaps this could be fixed with some sort of area effect that would be applied over the sun. If you fly too close, it starts to damage your shields. Perhaps hotter, blue suns could even do more damage than the cooler, red ones. Though, If your shields are strong enough, you could survive while they hold out. The AI already seems to avoid the sun most of the time, so that shouldn't be much of an issue, I should think. this could open up strategies, like luring your opponent to the sun, and skimming along it, while they get fried behind you.

Flying over the sun and sitting there makes Solar Armour and Solar Panels good accessories at the moment. You can sit on the sun, disable your equipment and hit the autopilot button. Go take a wizz, and by the time you come back, viola! Fully fuelled generator.

If you can't just sit on the sun but have to sit nearby, solar fuelling is going to be a much more tedius and dangerous task requiring more attention. Maybe that is a good thing...

If ships can't fly through the sun, a lot of missions will need to be reprogrammed. I'm sure I've seen Korolov Freighters pass over the sun on their route.

[Felekar]

Flying over the sun and sitting there makes Solar Armour and Solar Panels good accessories at the moment. You can sit on the sun, disable your equipment and hit the autopilot button. Go take a wizz, and by the time you come back, viola! Fully fuelled generator.

If you can't just sit on the sun but have to sit nearby, solar fuelling is going to be a much more tedius and dangerous task requiring more attention. Maybe that is a good thing...

I've done the very same thing. Though, that brings up an interesting idea. What if the solar armor had solar shielding. IE, was immune to the sun's damage? That way you could still just sit over the sun without issue.

[Cardinal]

I've done the very same thing. Though, that brings up an interesting idea. What if the solar armor had solar shielding. IE, was immune to the sun's damage? That way you could still just sit over the sun without issue.

Acceptable. You might also find barrels of sun-screen SPF 5000

[OddBob]

Solar panels are plenty effective without ever once stopping to let them recharge. You fly by the sun enough in normal travels for them to significantly reduce fuel usage. I think this is their intended purpose, or at least refueling close to the sun, and view parking on the sun as the same exploit that parking on a planet is.

I'm completely in favor of disabling the ability of planets to become invulnerable shields.
If "everyone uses it" and NEEDS to do so to survive then that is a different flaw in the game (the game is too hard) and it should be addressed separately, as it is an unrelated issue. However, I don't believe that is not the case, the game is perfectly completable without planet-hiding.

I'd like it if you could still put a planet between you and your enemy and have it protect you from their shots (I mentioned this in more detail in the QD shell thread), but I think that making them transparent to weapons fire would work as well.