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Idea pile
oznogon edited this page Apr 9, 2020
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- Additional sensors as a powered ship system
- Does not replace existing sensor functionality; most existing ships should not have this
- High power draw forces Engineering decisions
- Extend long-range scan range with additional power; degrade on underpowered/damage state
- Reduce scan difficulty/autoscan speed with additional power; flicker objects on scanners on underpowered/damage state
- Draw additional power during active scan; encourage more efficient player input
- Detailed signal sensors
- Detect ships not only by visibility/reflectivity but also by emissions (heat, electrical, gravitational)
- Reveal ship energy consumption and system activity
- Warp/jump signatures, track origin and destination of recent non-impulse movement
Enables:
- Stealth gameplay
- Visual cloaking/visible by signal only with significant energy draw
- Signal cloaking/impervious to homing trackers only with significant energy draw
- Silent running; intentionally underpowering to reduce signal footprint
- Electronic warfare options
- Flares/signal decoys
- Missile hacking (maybe worth pursuing regardless)
- IFF spoofing
- Beam/missile lock avoidance
- Nebula and planets as natural homing/beam lock avoidance
- Signal jammers that mask radar/signals within range (portable nebula)
- EWACS ships
- Ship types with many advanced sensors and extra-long sensor range to rapidly scan/hack many targets at once, but few/no weapons and shields; powerful tactically but high-value target and vulnerable in combat (Hawkeyes/Sentries/Sentinels)
- Scanning screen, can be used to offload multiple simultaneous scans so Science can focus on tracking/painting targets
- Probes with non-scanning functions
- Short-range warp/jump/sensor jammers
- Decoy probes (same radar trace and signal profile as the parent ship)
- Detonator probes (modify mine behavior so that these are the only probe type that will set off mines)
- Beacons (position appears on all same-faction Relay, like broadcasting a waypoint)
- Camera probe (linkable to main screen)
- More restrictive lifetime rules (noted in new probes tab of ship database)
- Engineering? Relay? Science? reconfigures the next probe to be launched into a non-scan type
- Try to avoid enabling imbalancing probe spamming
- Heavy time cost, similar to recalibrating shields
- Heavy energy cost
- Consumes a probe to reconfigure, so launching a non-scan probe effectively costs 2 probes
- Only one probe at a time is reconfigured; reverts back to scan, no launching 2+ at a time (stations can batch convert?)
Enables:
- More electronic warfare mechanics
- ... or imbalances the game with spamming overpowered probes?
- "Fixing" mechanical exploit of setting off mines with scan probes by enabling it at a cost
- New wacky AI behaviors (CPU ships that can launch decoys, jammers, minebusters)
- SFX on certain actions and states
- Temperature, power, damage alerts on Eng/DamCon/Power
- Hull creaking, reactor instability, impulse noise on damage states
- Failure sounds upon systems hitting negative damage states
- Tube loading, beam arming sounds
- UI audible feedback/chirps
- New unknown sensor contact (how to track?)
- When heat or damage reaches threshold points (>80% heat, 0 heat; shields/system/hull damaged to <50%)
- When being scanned, targeted, hailed
- Must be toggleable on stations, and probably default to off
- Potentially inappropriate for multi-screen in-person games
- Potentially disruptive to online games using non-PTT voice chat
- For accessibility, VISUAL ALTERNATIVES/SUBTITLES ARE A MUST
- Ideally played local to the station and responsive to local state, without requiring network sync
Enables:
- Diegetic bridge ambiance without requiring DMX; no contrived, repetitive track required
- Feedback that aids grokking station function and improving efficiency
- ... or does it add to what makes a station overwhelming to newcomers?
- Scripting functions to play sounds on:
- Main screen only (implemented as
PlayerSpaceship::playSoundOnMainScreen()
, but not exposed to scripting) - Specific stations (using CMD_CLIENT_PLAY_SOUND)
- All stations (using CMD_CLIENT_PLAY_SOUND)
- GM station (not implemented)
- Spectator/Top Down stations (not implemented)
- Main screen only (implemented as
- Disable or control threat estimation
- Play/stop music tracks
- Likely requires having sound/music installed locally; bundle with scenarios that require them
Enables:
- More options for scenario writers to signal plot or ambiance
- Audio feedback for custom functions
- Signal scripted or GM-controlled game events
- Beams that can do any type of damage
- EM beams for dropping shields and damaging targeted systems faster
- Kinetic "beams"/railguns for damaging hulls faster
- Sustained beams (ie. phasers) vs. discrete beam projectiles (ie. HVLI but energy)
- Non-damage beams
- Nanorepair beams (hull repair)
- Energy transfer/refueling or shield-boost beams
- Increased regenerative efficiency by synchronizing beam freq with the target's shields
- Finally, a way ships can help stations after an attack
- Tractor/repulsor beams (pull/push ships and objects; networking difficulties, physics engine has little concept of relative mass)
- Scanning beams (alternative to Science for scanning on fighters/single-pilot craft)
- Beam slots that can be swapped between types, similar to tubes
- Maybe only swappable when docked?
Enables:
- Support ships
- Actual functional tugs
- Anti-shield and anti-hull specialists that can/must work together
- Field repair ships
- Long-range refuelling ships
- IFF/scanning options for small craft and fighters where the full functionality and cognitive load of Science doesn't make sense
- New support AI behaviors
- Intact ship whose reactor hits -100% and stays there for 30 seconds loses its crew but isn't destroyed
- When disabled, all systems drop to -100% damage and all energy is dumped
- Hack the ship to capture it for the player's faction
Enables:
- Meaningful piracy; capture ships and their cargo
- Any ship can be a player ship
- Requires that any ship becomes capable of being a player ship; need default generic ship layouts and attributes for templates without them
- Emergent skeleton crew escort missions
-
PlayerSpaceship:transferPlayersToShip()
allows transferring a player crew to another ship - ... or make it an AI ship that follows basic orders and autorepairs itself
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- Escape pods?
- Would require each ship to have a compliment of marines to use in boarding parties, who could also be lost as a result of damage to the ship (ala losing DamCon teams).
- Prevents DamCon teams from transiting the space until repaired
- Stationary dock-target "ship" with: 1
- One Relay station + inventory/fleet management features
- Maybe can be done purely through scripting and Relay custom functions?
- Multiple advanced sensors to aid scanning
- Ability to broadcast waypoints
- Ability to resupply, repair, re-energize, re-crew docked ships 1
- Limited stocks of supplies
- Stocks are replenished by visiting freighters
- Can craft new ships from freighter materials
- Reliance on probes for long-range sensing 1
- Limited inventory of support ships to dispatch
- Fighters
- Supply drops
- Jumpship carriers
- Minelayers
- One Relay station + inventory/fleet management features
- Can reward Reputation to players
- Can deploy (and hop into?) new player ships
Enables:
- More player-to-player comms
- Command-and-control gameplay
- Station commander can focus on big picture and suggest/order player ship captains
- Fleet management of CPU ships
- Alternative to single-pilot station for single-player/loose-wheel gameplay 1
- Easier/less overwhelming onboarding role to help orient new players (depending on the scenario) 1
- Launch and command AI ships
Enables:
- no more "Relay is boring" complaints
- ShipTemplate and tweakable per-ship settings for how much energy per tick/second/action? is drawn and generated
- Some ship reactors should be better than others
- Some ships' systems should be less efficient than others
- Should be a factor of baseline? Or a raw number?
- How to deal with action costs? (jumps, missile load/fire, maneuvers; beam firing is already configurable)
Enables:
- More ship differentiation and customization
- Efficiency gains via scripting (ie. upgrades at stations)
- More surface area for scriptable engineer torture
- Also provide notification when your ship is being hacked and you get to actively defend against the hack
- Set position and angle of the main screen camera
- In ship template
- Via script?
- Using keyboard shortcuts (already implemented in cinematic view)
Enables:
- Cosmetic differentiation between ships
- Main Screen Officer
- Allow main screen to zoom
- Auto-zoom on target lock view?
- Probably also reusable on cinematic camera
Enables:
- "Magnify!"
- Better view of distant ships
- Disable callsigns if out of long-range sensor range?
- FPS-style controls with faster movement speed and smoother camera movement
- Touch controls
- Selectable/movable object on GM or server-side spectator view
- Only live-updates position if spectator view is on the server; otherwise move the camera only when dropped, not while dragging
- Multiple, switchable cameras? Multicam view/multiple viewports?
- Combine Top Down with cinematic? Make Top Down a camera preset in cinematic?
- Better/fixed target handling
- Multiple angles that keep both ships in view
- Auto-switching based on ship state
- Don't cut away when target explodes, that's the best part
Enables:
- Better spectator experience
- Master Systems Display
- Daid: The main screen extremely limited info is very much intentional
- DamCon (ship schematic, DamCon crews, hull/shield/power)
- Current velocity and heading
- System heat/power/damage status bars
- Missile load/capacity, read-only tube state
- Beam state (small short-range radar?)
- Probe count
- Scriptable custom info? (current mission cargo, current orders)
- Ships Log on main screen
- Probe View on main screen
- Alert state change (flash "RED ALERT")
Enables:
- Main Screen Officer
- Less need for going over the shoulder of Science and Relay
- Post-scenario statistics report
- Report includes:
- Elapsed time
- Energy consumed (total, last 5 min, last 10 min)
- Total beams fired, missiles fired, ships hacked, hails sent/received, kill count
- Can clients track how damage specific ships did to enemies? Should the server track/store this?
- By ship, faction, and total?
- Kill leaderboard?
- DamCon crew death count
- Scriptable custom info?
- Can also be shown on GM station?
- Dump content to file?
Enables:
- Post-scenario high-fiving
- Easier reporting on scenario results
- Memento mori
- Burials for our comrades in DamCon lost to the vacuum
- Reminder that death can come for us all at any time
- War is hell on us all and space is unforgiving
- Deliver menu-driven commands to stations
- Captain selects from
- ( Helm ),
- ( set a course to )
- ( heading ) ( 2 ) ( 5 ) ( 0 )
- ( bearing ) ( 9 ) ( 0 ) degrees ( starboard )
- ( ahead/reverse )
- ( full impulse )
- ( warp factor ) ( 2 )
- ( full stop )
- ( engage jump drive ) ( 3 ) ( 0 ) mark ( 5 ) U jump
- ( set a course to )
- ( Weapons ),
- ( target ) ( selection from list of named objects within short-range radar range )
- ( load ) tube ( 1 ) with ( selection from list of valid missiles for the tube )
- ( fire tube ) ( 1 )
- ( raise ) shields
- ( set beam frequency ) to ( 4 ) ( 6 ) ( 0 )
- ( calibrate shields ) to ( 4 ) ( 6 ) ( 0 )
- ( Science ),
- ( scan ) ( ship ) ( selection from list of unscanned objects within long-range etc. )
- ( Engineering ),
- ( more power to ) ( selection from list of ship systems )
- ( more coolant to ) ( selection from list of ship systems )
- ( Relay ),
- ( launch probe to sector ) ( A ) ( 5 )
- ( hail ) ( selection from list of named ships/stations )
- ( hack ) ( selection from list of hostile ships )
- ( Main screen ),
- ( show )
- ( selection from list of angles )
- ( selection of radar views )
- ( communications )
- ( show )
- ( All hands ),
- ( good/bad ) job
- ( brace for impact )
- ( it has been a pleasure serving as your captain )
- ( Helm ),
- Orders relayed to the relevant station via text-to-speech (TTS), voiced lines, and/or as a text banner
Enables:
- Accessibility for language/hearing/sight
- TTS speaks orders for players with limited vision/literacy
- TTS can leverage translations to allow captains with no mic or who can't speak the crew's language
- Potential for AI crew who follow these basic, direct, limited orders
- Decomposing basic orders to a lexicon means they can be issued, scripted
- TTS/voiced responses to the captain?
- No advantage over a human crew — suitable to fill in if a station is unexpectedly vacated due to connection issues, for example
- Display on Relay and Main
Enables:
- Aligning log entries with mission state
- Tracking mission objectives
- Replace/enhance scenario-specific timers currently implemented in scripts?