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- May 29, 2013
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Forgive me if this has already been suggested, I didn’t know what to search for!
At the moment, there is a single type of pilot control for your ships. It’s essentially flying the craft with a joystick, giving you tight controls which allow precise control and manoeuvrability. This is great for a fighter craft, but it seems a little strange when you are single-handedly controlling your enormous Star Destroyer replica like you would a TIE Fighter. So, I have a few proposals to make:
1. Command, not pilot
I propose to allow certain ships Command control. This is more reminiscent of the captain of a bridge rather than a pilot; you give orders and have them followed. Instead of manually flying to a planet, you could assign a ‘land at planet’ order that your ship would attempt to perform. Or you could set an ‘attack’ order on an enemy ship, and your vessel would begin firing its arsenal and perhaps perform evasive manoeuvres. These actions could also be done by a player crew, but I’ll get to that later.
There are a few possibilities for this; let the player decide whether they want commander controls or pilot controls on ship creation or through a menu (this would allow for tiny shuttles with commander controls or enormous vessels with pilot controls). Another is to configure the core block to switch control schemes depending on the mass of the ship, causing ships over a certain mass to be assigned as command ships and causing ships under that mass to be assigned as pilot ships. Another method would be similar to the one above, but uses some combination of width, height and depth of a vessel rather than mass to determine its control scheme. This way there are no enormous wireframe vessels with fighter control or superdense tiny craft with command control.
2. Player crews
What’s a captain without a crew? Given the multiplayer capability of this game, I think it would be a shame not to explore ships with more than one crewmember. Perhaps have a few stations to be filled; Captain, Helmsman, Weapons Officer, Shield Specialist, Sensor Technician, and Chief of Engineering. Note that these are just ideas; you could add some, change some, or get rid of some entirely. All these stations would receive orders from the captain, and work together in order to see them followed. Each would have a different role to fulfill, and each crew member would feel like they were making an important contribution to the continued operation of the vessel. It would be important to make sure each member of the crew has an equally important and rewarding role; you wouldn’t want the sensor technician to be bored out of his or her skull while the weapons officer is having a blast.
3. AI crews
Now, perhaps a player would like to command a large ship alone. That should be permissible, and instead of players he or she would give orders to AI crewmates. This could be accomplished by having the ship function as an AI ship that follows instructions it is given, with all non-player crewed subsystems becoming automatic with a handicap. This could also be modular. For example: A ship has a captain, a helmsman, and a weapon officer. There is no-one to crew the other stations. Instead of giving the ship a heavy disadvantage by leaving the other stations empty, they could become automated while the three player-controlled roles would function normally. One of the problems that arises here is balance; would a solo player commander with an AI crew be able to stand up to a fully player-crewed ship, even if they are equal in all other respects?
There’s my suggestion. I didn’t actually mean to write so much, I just had an idea that unfurled as I typed. I lack awareness of either the technical limitations or balance limitations of my suggestions, so I apologize in advance if anything would be difficult to implement, or if anything I suggested was just a downright bad idea. Feedback would be appreciated. Thanks!
TL;DR
Stop piloting the USS Enterprise like a fighter craft.
At the moment, there is a single type of pilot control for your ships. It’s essentially flying the craft with a joystick, giving you tight controls which allow precise control and manoeuvrability. This is great for a fighter craft, but it seems a little strange when you are single-handedly controlling your enormous Star Destroyer replica like you would a TIE Fighter. So, I have a few proposals to make:
1. Command, not pilot
I propose to allow certain ships Command control. This is more reminiscent of the captain of a bridge rather than a pilot; you give orders and have them followed. Instead of manually flying to a planet, you could assign a ‘land at planet’ order that your ship would attempt to perform. Or you could set an ‘attack’ order on an enemy ship, and your vessel would begin firing its arsenal and perhaps perform evasive manoeuvres. These actions could also be done by a player crew, but I’ll get to that later.
There are a few possibilities for this; let the player decide whether they want commander controls or pilot controls on ship creation or through a menu (this would allow for tiny shuttles with commander controls or enormous vessels with pilot controls). Another is to configure the core block to switch control schemes depending on the mass of the ship, causing ships over a certain mass to be assigned as command ships and causing ships under that mass to be assigned as pilot ships. Another method would be similar to the one above, but uses some combination of width, height and depth of a vessel rather than mass to determine its control scheme. This way there are no enormous wireframe vessels with fighter control or superdense tiny craft with command control.
2. Player crews
What’s a captain without a crew? Given the multiplayer capability of this game, I think it would be a shame not to explore ships with more than one crewmember. Perhaps have a few stations to be filled; Captain, Helmsman, Weapons Officer, Shield Specialist, Sensor Technician, and Chief of Engineering. Note that these are just ideas; you could add some, change some, or get rid of some entirely. All these stations would receive orders from the captain, and work together in order to see them followed. Each would have a different role to fulfill, and each crew member would feel like they were making an important contribution to the continued operation of the vessel. It would be important to make sure each member of the crew has an equally important and rewarding role; you wouldn’t want the sensor technician to be bored out of his or her skull while the weapons officer is having a blast.
3. AI crews
Now, perhaps a player would like to command a large ship alone. That should be permissible, and instead of players he or she would give orders to AI crewmates. This could be accomplished by having the ship function as an AI ship that follows instructions it is given, with all non-player crewed subsystems becoming automatic with a handicap. This could also be modular. For example: A ship has a captain, a helmsman, and a weapon officer. There is no-one to crew the other stations. Instead of giving the ship a heavy disadvantage by leaving the other stations empty, they could become automated while the three player-controlled roles would function normally. One of the problems that arises here is balance; would a solo player commander with an AI crew be able to stand up to a fully player-crewed ship, even if they are equal in all other respects?
There’s my suggestion. I didn’t actually mean to write so much, I just had an idea that unfurled as I typed. I lack awareness of either the technical limitations or balance limitations of my suggestions, so I apologize in advance if anything would be difficult to implement, or if anything I suggested was just a downright bad idea. Feedback would be appreciated. Thanks!
TL;DR
Stop piloting the USS Enterprise like a fighter craft.
