I discovered this game last Friday, and I just looked up to find it was Monday; I've never lost so much time in a voxel-based game and I'd love to see it grow and become a great game. However I encountered one point of extreme frustration, navigating the galaxy, among other things that I find could use improvement or addition.
Navigation
There are several ways to keep track of interesting places, bases, and other things outside of the game: notepad, a notebook, and Excel to name a few, but no way to keep track and navigate in the game. Navigating 3D space is disorienting, confusing and over all a general headache for new players and veterens alike. I recently lost over a billion credits worth of material when I lost track of the planet the ship I had was orbitting while I visited a shop. It was beyond frustrating as I searched the immediate area for over 2 hours and eventually got so frustrated that I flew off to find the origin point (0,0,0) so I could navigate without issue in the future. However, there are ways to solve this issue -- several infact.
First and possibly the most invasive is a Navigation Computer or Star Map. This would be an ingame menu or display that give players a 3D generated figure of the sectors that the players have visited and allow them to see the contents of that sector via encountered navigation points. This would be a block that players can buy under the Ship tab for good amount (700-1000) and be automatically bound to the Key. You'll only need one per ship. Additional functionality could allow players to share and merge maps together from ship to ship via docking.
Another feature that would improve navigation would be persistant Navigation Waypoints or Nav Points. These would always appear on the radar and the HUD regardless of distance and in the Navigation Window. These could also be player set waypoints with Names and Coordinates.
Speed
Another issue I encountered was Speed. 50 km/h is pretty fast, but I have seen some videos of people going over that via modding a file in the game. That's great but capping speed out increases travel time and eliminates the class system of ships since a fighter would move at the same speed as a titan class (a huge freaking ship) which essentially makes the fighter and anything smaller too weak to even use. Uncapped speeds will give some people FPS, and processing issues but for the players who have gaming computers this game currently runs at a very minimalist rate (I generally see 900-1000 FPS) which makes it very low impact already, not to mention the way sectors are set up reduce the load on RAM and processors.
Mass and size of ships already play a great deal in how well a ship handles but doesn't give it an edge in speed or manueverability versus larger ships. This makes balance skewed in favor of large ships who have invested greatly into their ship size -- not every player wants to or is capable of that.
Ships regardless of size should of course be capable of max speed regardless of what it is, to allow for players to move across the galaxy in the same fashion. However, acceleration should be modified (like it is now) by the size and mass of the ship.
AI Features
AI is in most cases essential to many modes of play from Conquest, to Scavenging, allowing you create a fleet multirole ships that don't require a player to control them. However the functions are somewhat clouded in the lack of information available on its function. The addition of AI Priority Roles (name working), or setting the role that the AI will perform outside of a ship or turret. For example, an Interceptor sets the AI to function as a short ranged fighter that undocks from another ship and flies out to fight targets that engage in combat with the ship its docked too. Harvesters are short range scavengers that scavenge targets set by the owner (the person who placed the AI block) and store items in any plexstorage aboard. Escorts will escort ships set in the AI configuration and will engage hostile targets that enter the radar zone of the escorting ship. Finally, Drones with multiple functions, such as repair, power, drain, missile, and defense drones. Drones could use a "Control" block which is placed on the mothership, and a Drone block on the actual drone.
Drones by Function.
Scout
This will use the Navigation Computer function added above to scout out around the "mothership" for 1 by 1 by 1 sector for anything and report these back to the Controller.
Repair
This will use the Repair beam and computer to repair its mothership and other friendly ships in the vacinity.
Drain
This will use the Power Draining cannon and computer to drain enemy ships at half efficency in the vacinity.
Power
This will function along side Repair and Drain Drones to transfer power from drone to ship and ship to drone.
Defense
These will sacrifice themselves to intercept launched missiles and bolts fired at the mother ship.
Planetary Bases
I remember clearly when I first encountered my first Ice World, I wanted to build a 'home' base on the surface, hidden in one of the planet's chasms, with a landing pad for my little unfinished explorer with turret. I was saddened when I placed the Build Block and found myself unable to place blocks. It didn't deflate my love for this game but it made me quite sad for a time that my dreams for a Hoth Base would be unrealized for a bit longer. After some exploring of the forums I discovered I could place items for bases, but couldn't claim or mark where it was.
Like space stations Planetary Base Blocks would be placed on planets but wouldn't dive into the dirt and lock up. This would allow you set up a base, claim it to a faction, set it as a base, and a home planet. In addition to this block there could be a series of blocks that were Planet Base exclusive like Landing, Turrets, vehicles etc. Landing would function like docking only it can be placed independant of the base block, and have a very high ship block area before having to use appropriate enhancers, in other words it would allow the landing of much larger ships than is cost efficient for Docking modules.
Lifts
Now I made the mistake of building a ship around the idea that I would be able to use Plexlifters on it, even though it says I can place them on ships. Whether or not its intended, having lifts on starships is almost a requirement for multi-deck ships when it comes to make dense compact ships.
More to come later! Thanks and in the words of Scott Manley, "Fly Safe."
Navigation
There are several ways to keep track of interesting places, bases, and other things outside of the game: notepad, a notebook, and Excel to name a few, but no way to keep track and navigate in the game. Navigating 3D space is disorienting, confusing and over all a general headache for new players and veterens alike. I recently lost over a billion credits worth of material when I lost track of the planet the ship I had was orbitting while I visited a shop. It was beyond frustrating as I searched the immediate area for over 2 hours and eventually got so frustrated that I flew off to find the origin point (0,0,0) so I could navigate without issue in the future. However, there are ways to solve this issue -- several infact.
First and possibly the most invasive is a Navigation Computer or Star Map. This would be an ingame menu or display that give players a 3D generated figure of the sectors that the players have visited and allow them to see the contents of that sector via encountered navigation points. This would be a block that players can buy under the Ship tab for good amount (700-1000) and be automatically bound to the Key. You'll only need one per ship. Additional functionality could allow players to share and merge maps together from ship to ship via docking.
Another feature that would improve navigation would be persistant Navigation Waypoints or Nav Points. These would always appear on the radar and the HUD regardless of distance and in the Navigation Window. These could also be player set waypoints with Names and Coordinates.
Speed
Another issue I encountered was Speed. 50 km/h is pretty fast, but I have seen some videos of people going over that via modding a file in the game. That's great but capping speed out increases travel time and eliminates the class system of ships since a fighter would move at the same speed as a titan class (a huge freaking ship) which essentially makes the fighter and anything smaller too weak to even use. Uncapped speeds will give some people FPS, and processing issues but for the players who have gaming computers this game currently runs at a very minimalist rate (I generally see 900-1000 FPS) which makes it very low impact already, not to mention the way sectors are set up reduce the load on RAM and processors.
Mass and size of ships already play a great deal in how well a ship handles but doesn't give it an edge in speed or manueverability versus larger ships. This makes balance skewed in favor of large ships who have invested greatly into their ship size -- not every player wants to or is capable of that.
Ships regardless of size should of course be capable of max speed regardless of what it is, to allow for players to move across the galaxy in the same fashion. However, acceleration should be modified (like it is now) by the size and mass of the ship.
AI Features
AI is in most cases essential to many modes of play from Conquest, to Scavenging, allowing you create a fleet multirole ships that don't require a player to control them. However the functions are somewhat clouded in the lack of information available on its function. The addition of AI Priority Roles (name working), or setting the role that the AI will perform outside of a ship or turret. For example, an Interceptor sets the AI to function as a short ranged fighter that undocks from another ship and flies out to fight targets that engage in combat with the ship its docked too. Harvesters are short range scavengers that scavenge targets set by the owner (the person who placed the AI block) and store items in any plexstorage aboard. Escorts will escort ships set in the AI configuration and will engage hostile targets that enter the radar zone of the escorting ship. Finally, Drones with multiple functions, such as repair, power, drain, missile, and defense drones. Drones could use a "Control" block which is placed on the mothership, and a Drone block on the actual drone.
Drones by Function.
Scout
This will use the Navigation Computer function added above to scout out around the "mothership" for 1 by 1 by 1 sector for anything and report these back to the Controller.
Repair
This will use the Repair beam and computer to repair its mothership and other friendly ships in the vacinity.
Drain
This will use the Power Draining cannon and computer to drain enemy ships at half efficency in the vacinity.
Power
This will function along side Repair and Drain Drones to transfer power from drone to ship and ship to drone.
Defense
These will sacrifice themselves to intercept launched missiles and bolts fired at the mother ship.
Planetary Bases
I remember clearly when I first encountered my first Ice World, I wanted to build a 'home' base on the surface, hidden in one of the planet's chasms, with a landing pad for my little unfinished explorer with turret. I was saddened when I placed the Build Block and found myself unable to place blocks. It didn't deflate my love for this game but it made me quite sad for a time that my dreams for a Hoth Base would be unrealized for a bit longer. After some exploring of the forums I discovered I could place items for bases, but couldn't claim or mark where it was.
Like space stations Planetary Base Blocks would be placed on planets but wouldn't dive into the dirt and lock up. This would allow you set up a base, claim it to a faction, set it as a base, and a home planet. In addition to this block there could be a series of blocks that were Planet Base exclusive like Landing, Turrets, vehicles etc. Landing would function like docking only it can be placed independant of the base block, and have a very high ship block area before having to use appropriate enhancers, in other words it would allow the landing of much larger ships than is cost efficient for Docking modules.
Lifts
Now I made the mistake of building a ship around the idea that I would be able to use Plexlifters on it, even though it says I can place them on ships. Whether or not its intended, having lifts on starships is almost a requirement for multi-deck ships when it comes to make dense compact ships.
More to come later! Thanks and in the words of Scott Manley, "Fly Safe."
Plus it allows for the programming of the \'sharing\' feature. And the Original post is building, I\'m in fact about to post another idea I had or suggestion rather -- I haven\'t read the AI Thread, or the Fighting Gigantism thread yet, but the links here to them does show support for the idea, if anyone would be so kind as to link my thread to those I\'m sure we\'ll all appreaciate it.