I was just giving some thought to the game's direction earlier in the week, so this thread is timely for me. I've been getting the sense, more from forum discussion perhaps than actual dev action, that the end goal is turning decidedly 4X RTS. When I first found this game (all those years ago,) I don't recall plans for either. My memory is that the game was going to be about building ships and exploring the galaxy with your friends. Fighting off pirates, exploring planets and stations, taking missions from NPC's, and trading were the driving ideas of the time. Certainly PVP was always a thing, but I think we were all thinking along the lines of pirating - faction space wasn't a thing at the time.
I've no interest in the game if it's main focus is 4X RTS. I don't want to spend weeks building ships that are going to get thrown away in combat. I can play Galactic Civ and build great looking ships in minutes. When this game starts around a player avatar floating around in their spacesuit and building a ship, I think that's where the focus should remain - the universe through the player's eyes, looking up from a planet or through a porthole. Not a strategy map.
The goal for my friends and I have always been the RPG aspects of the game, and for a long time the only argument you saw on the forums was what the balance would be between PVP and RPG. For my part, I always built my ships for strong RPG. I wanted players to have as much interaction with the ship they were crewing as possible. Logic has always been an important part of ship design for me - doors, lights, lifts, you name it. Give the crew as much immersion as possible. I've always made strong ships, too - chiefly to handle the role of deep space exploration with AI pirates, but also to potentially ward off the odd player pirate.
Oh, well if you're going off forum discussion, I'm telling you right now that the game is actually going to be a grand strategy game set in 1066 AD.
What, it's forum discussion. Obviously the devs who are making the game are wrong.
Seriously, dude?
Even if the goal IS something like an RTS, this will not prevent you from playing the game you want to play. You don't have to like what other servers do, you can create your own and play with only the people you want to play with. The game having RTS aspects (aspects meaning parts of the game will be reminiscent of an RTS game, not that the whole game will be an RTS and RTS only) will not prevent you from exploring, fighting pirates, and building great ships with your friends.
The RTS aspects will mainly be in controlling more than one ship, in automation, and other things like that. Doesn't mean you have to use it, you will be able to do things as you do them right now.
[doublepost=1498326683,1498325770][/doublepost]I'll expand a little bit. Let's compare the game to the Star Wars universe. Minus the Jedi, of course. And of course, we'll just focus on ships, for now.
In Star Wars (
Wookiepedia is a good resource), you see a wide variety of ship builders and modders. You have large, independent shipbuilders like
Corellian Engineering Corporation, and other large shipbuilders practically owned by galactic governments, like the Kuat Shipyards and Sienar Systems. You also see many smaller shipbuilders hawking their single shuttle design or perhaps a revamped version of a popular freighter line. In Star Made, the larger corps are basically factions like Vaygr and FCM, and the smaller corps are groups like myself, yourself and your friends.
Back to Star Wars. Throughout the movies, and the expanded universe created by the books, we see many large space battles taking place. In Star Made, this is where we will see the RTS elements come into play. People will play the ship they want to play, and use the RTS controls to automate the others. We can have a grand space battle, for those who want that itch scratched.
But we also see many times where it's just the heroes. The large space battle is just the backdrop. Luke dropping torps down the exhaust port, and Han Solo taking Kenobi and Luke somewhere in the Millennium Falcon. That's you and your friends. It can happen as part of a larger scene, or it can be the only scene.
Some people want the large scale stuff. Others want it to be about just them. Star Made will end up catering to both sides and everyone in between, I hope. That's not a bad thing.