Got time for more ideas?

[Perez]

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Hey up!

Here I am once again to share some ideas I've come up with in the last couple of days. Let's just get to it straight away, shall we?

PARTS & UTILITIES

Jammer(?):
You know those wide, large Golf leveled ships hovering in space, covered in missile launchers, waiting for a player-module decked with precious griders, thrusters and weaponry to pass by, don't you? I know them very well, I can tell you that ... So, I figured a jammer or a drop jammer -- whatever it's called -- would be a tactical utility to attach to your ship.

The jammer's function would be to (1) add minor stealth the player's ship so enemy shuttles will be less likely to notice him. This could be useful trying to escape a battlefield surrounded with hostiles -- unless you've already lost the part in a showdown. The other purpose of this utility would be (2) to prevent missiles targeting the player. I thought this would be a good addition to it. The downside, though: The alpha level jammer can only cancel missiles' homing at alpha level. The beta level jammer would affect beta level missiles and below. Ectetera, ectetera. You get the idea.

I figure the jammer should be 1x1 like most of the other weapons and schtuffs.

Droid:
Notice that this is an updated edition of the extra AI/Player-module mentioned back in "Got time for ideas".

Droids! Yes! Let's call them droids. Sounds better in my opinion. They fly around supporting you, waiting for your command, which could be targeting an enemy ship or mining an asteroid by simply pressing the droid and dragging an arrow at the desired target. You can select it's mode from either being:
- Assistance(firing by your side)
- Offensive(opening fire any enemy shuttle within its range)
- Defensive(firing at any nearby aggressive ships)
- Miner(attacks any nearby asteroid/attacks the asteroid the player is targeting)
This is the AI version of it. There could be a second player version of it, too. Assign the buttons for firing and steering to either the keyboard or a controller(maybe even a joystick?), and player two has gained power over the little buddy by your side.

To make the droids look different from the players ship, instead of a heart, there's a circle in the middle to tell them apart. Just in case if you'd happen to lose track of which is what. It'd be as big as the player's module is -- 1x1.

Droid Stations:
Yeah, I was thinking that starting off with a droid is kind of OP, so I figured that there should be a stations for this. They're like factories, but instead of FAC marked on the station, it could be DRD. And perhaps make a different design to the station so it doesn't look too similar to the factory.

On the map they're seen as DX(X being any letter from A-K). They'd be quite rare, because of the good assistance one could get from a droid.

Radar:
Are you scared of colliding into sudden hostiles appearing out of nowhere, only to lose the parts you've been working so hard on getting? Well, worry no more, 'cause the radar will help you see enemies that one normally wouldn't be able to see. It's like a third eye.

Pointing a maximum of 5 arrows at the nearest shuttles around you within a certain radius. The arrows have a colour to show what level the nearby ships are. A 1x1 utility this one as well.

Enemy vessels carrying the jammer is not targeted by an arrow.

FEATURES

Levels & EXP:
I'm not talking about alpha, beta, foxtrot and kilo levels now, I'm talking about EXP levels, like you see in MMOs. Destroy the parts to gain EXP, but only when they're attached to a module except your own. Different parts in different phases result in balanced EXP drop. For example:

Alpha Grider = 1-2 EXP
Charlie Laser = 6-7 EXP
Kilo Chrono Gear = 103 EXP

Not so sure if this is very balanced ... However, first you start off in level 1. At this level you'll only be able to attach alpha level parts. At level 2 you'll have access to beta level attachments, and so forth. This would create more of a/the RPG feel to it (unsure at this moment if the game is a somewhat RPG), and forcing the player to continue to develop on the current level, as well as adding a tad bit of challenge to the game, 'cause we all love that, don't we? This is just the main concept of the idea.

Classes:
Not entirely sure if this is necessary, but I'm gonna put it in here anyway. So, if your ship is a small, light, quickie, the information within the module will make it a fighter/explorer class. If it's medium size, bulky and averagely quick, the module would display something like a tank/slow/miner fighter class. And if it's a large, slow cruiser, it'd be a tank/bulldozer/cruiser/cargo ship class or something. And compared to the class, the ship can have an increasing max amount of ally droids nearby. Like, for example, a cruiser class would have a maximum of 4 droids at a time. A smaller would have a maximum of 1 droid, and ectetera.

Extra Stats:
I personally like seeing lots stats of a ship I've just constructed, even though I might not understand them all. A speed'o'meter would be nice, though! I like ramming ships and asteroids, but even though the damage of a ramming spike is determined by how many meters in a second you travel (x/m/s(x=dmg output)), I'm still not sure whether I'll do large or extreme amounts of damage to an entity. This is the main reason to why I would like to see more stats of the ship. Maybe repulsion and thruster output could be something to put in here, if it ever were to be done?

Achievements:
I know about one achievement in this game, and that is to find the three beacons scattered across space. But this is the only one I know of. Perhaps getting to Kilo level is an achievement, too, but still. Down below I've come up with a few achievements that could be implemented if possible.

"Mass Rammer" - Destroy a guardian by only ramming it.
"Warrior" - Destroy 5 guardians, destroy 10 guardians, ectetera.
"Space Pirate" - Destroy 100 ships.
"Deadly Weaponry" - Inflict up to 0/100'000 damage.
"Beacons!" - Discover the first, the second and the third beacon.
"Sturdy" - Receive up to 0/10'000 damage.
"First step to miner!" - Mine an asteroid.
"Worthy Materials" - Find Iron Ore.
"Fortunes!" - Find Silicate.
"Merchant" - Scrap 100 parts.
"Rich!" - Earn 1'000 credits.
"Richer!" - Earn 10'000 credits.
"Richest!" - Earn 100'000 credits.
"Factories have it all" - Buy something from a factory.
"Stay Fresh" - Repair at a repair station.
"Upgrade!" - Upgrade a part.
"BFF" - Purchase a droid.

Random achievements in wrong order. Just put the names in the for fun's sake.

More Minerals:
How about some more minerals? It could be something random, like ashcrystals or obsidian, sold at an average price. Nothing more to say about this one.

3D Mechanic:
Not necessary at all, but just for viewing preferences.

More Settings:
As much as I love this game, I'm constantly bothered by lag issues, mostly appearing once I fire my guns or use my thrusters. It's usually good FPS, but it starts lagging once hostiles are nearby. I've tried going fullscreen and then pressing twice to reduce the resolution, and it helps, but not as much. It'd be nice with some settings to turn off the animation, perhaps load entities from a shorter distance. Just some more optimization settings would be nice.

That's all I have for now. I might -- as said -- come up with more stuff in the future. Thanks for reading!

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- Cpt. Perez

--- TRANSMISSION END ---

[Foohman]

Some awesome ideas - I'd love to see some of these implemented! The droids would add a completely different angle to the game, and while I'd personally like to see them, I'm not sure it's what Farbs intends with these games.

That said, you're liberating civilian, government and military installations, why can't you get some direct support from them?
Perhaps more classes of settlement - we have the small stations, and now full settlements, but how about large military installations which are very hard to crack. Perhaps large quantities of dedicated fighters and at least one guardian, maybe even fixed weapon placements that also shout abuse at you at you get close, then give a commentary of your progress as you destroy these turrets or fighters. Once liberated, perhaps that station has a small swarm of patrolling tier-specific fighters that engage targets as they come in range, establishing a fully safe perimeter for you to return to from mining/hunting expeditions.
Jameson adds more story and immersive elements, perhaps it would be a good idea to not feel so alone?

[Perez]

Again, thanks for the feedback!

I really like the idea of large military installations, defended by these hordes of fighters and guardians, and some commentary of how you fight and concur the settlement. Not to mention, I couldn't have agreed more on all the settlements feeling a little empty. This game has indeed lacked some company. Allies really should've been implemented.

Perhaps there could be a slight chance of pirates attempting to retake the stations away from the player, too?

[Foohman]

Pirates? That would be awesome. They could form in a variety of different classes, so a mix of Scrapper, Balancer and Classic ships, even a couple of Needlers captured, with unique dialogue to fit.

[Perez]

Man, I hope Farbs sees these ideas ...

[Foohman]

I emailed him the other day and haven't even got a reply there :c

[Perez]

If you go to members > view staff members, you can see that all three of them haven't been online since late December. I think one of their last posts were in 2012? The forums has become rather empty in the past months ... That is a shame.

I certainly hope something happens in not so long. Farbs said he was working a lot on Captain Jameson, but he decided to upload the 0.6.prerelease.1 version to keep us up to date. I'm not sure if he's very active. You said you emailed him the other day, but still haven't got anything; I'm sure there aren't too many people emailing him nowdays, so it could be that he isn't active -- or simply that he hasn't checked his email yet.

Perhaps he's working on another project?

[Foohman]

I think he is working on other stuff - there's that Card Hunter game he released last year which seems to be booming in popularity. I'm not complaining, Jameson 0.6.1 is a solid build and I can get hours of game-play out of it. But as it's not complete, there's always that curiosity as to what's in store in the future. I'd put money on him returning at some point, but I recall him having a family, so who are we to moan about the lack of updates?
It'll be awesome to see what happens when he returns, and I can't see myself not playing any time soon.

[Perez]

Yeah, that sounds about right. Heard about Card Hunter, too, but I never thought it was so popular.
Oh, curiosity, though. "What is it when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know what's on the other side?" - George Martin

Family is indeed first priority, so I guess we just have to wait and see what comes up next.

[iaanacho]

Forgive me of the necroposting, I like the rest of society have intrest in zombies.
Some things id like to see:

» a balance of the newish and older ship spawning mechanics, the game would call for blobs of ships with similar parts in a given area, but an equal chance of that area (or random other area) to be random like the older Jameson builds, to add a bit of variation to the semi monotonous ship setup.

» Some of our ships in the game, id like to take a crack shot at Admiral Kirana's Thanatos/Terminus/Wombo Combo/Whatever deathbarge if it doesn’t crash the client first.

» maybe a few more types of AI units or flesh them out a bit. Add a bit more dialogue, or conversation that really isnt, join balance, ill destroy you, you'll fetch a pretty penny; looking at the Build 7 Succession Game post by Ozzy, Farbs' pamphlet waving zealot as an example, maybe have military style squads doing flanking manoeuvres like a well seasoned wolf pack, or a bounty hunter who'd follow you for 4 times the normal respawn area.

» maybe some stylized module variations like the Capt Forever Remix and Admiral Kirana's.

Just simple ideas that seem mostly vanilla-ish towards the original, except maybe points 3 and 4.

[Foohman]

Hah, I would NOT like to ever encounter the TTWCW ta very much! However, nice points. I especially would like more dialogue. Perhaps in the future some sort of interactivity with other ships too.

[Perez]

I do, as usual, agree with Foohman, and I do that this time, too. Heh. Excellent points, all of these!

When I saw the point where you mentioned the fact that being able to encounter player-made ships would be enjoyable, I had this thought; When the downloadable version of Captain Jameson comes out, or any time, really, maybe a share function would be available. Whenever a player dies, their ship is "shareable", or includes the same function as in Captain Successor and Forever where you get to see your "best" state of the ship you constructed -- that you can share if wanted.

Sorry, I just like to expand points and ideas I find interesting...

[iaanacho]

Or maybe it would just pull your save at random to stockpile a database of random ships in to rarely spawn in, once per life.

The random download of your ship schematic would variate and balance so not every ship will tend to be like the TTWCW or similar Juliet juggernaut. And it might get a half baked half built ship.

edit: add stuff to avoid double post

Somehow ive always thought the enemy ships were AI driven since they have no oxy limit and can exist forever in space without asphyxiation. I know that they are AI driven, but to be immersed in the story one might not notice and think they are humans. I've always thought the area was either future space apocalypse or since Jameson just newly colonized space that a rouge main AI took over, hence the jammed stations. Darn you future space Skynet!

Other things id like to see possibly
« I'd like to see some formw of neutral guardian for the stations that are active too, but they would either be peace keepers guardians fighting off the rouge drones. (just to keep the currently non obtainable kilo parts non obtainable)

»That reminds me, possibly AI invasions with a guardian leading to retake your freed stations, I was looking at one of the multilayer threads and got this. ill try to find that post, I forgot which one as there are a few.

» Any aliens? Maybe, maybe not, it might be more spacey to have some alien names for some ai ships, either organic or robot driven.

[Admiral Kirana]

Aight, time to pitch in my own stuff, both old and new. Half-asleep atm, so will elaborate later.

REMOTE REPAIR MODULE - A rare module (like an oxy tank). Can repair anywhere on your ship one module at a time, but only up to the part's level and half as fast as a regular repair module. Incredibly heavy and large, with the same health as a regular girder.

TERROR WEAPONS - Optional "boss fights". Possess powered-up versions of the regular weapons that will rarely drop on death (most will explode, given their unstable nature) but do not aggress unless damaged. Radio "pings" are red instead of blue.

PLAYER-LIKE AI - Strong, aggressive ships. Similar to fighters, but typically will be more protected, with a higher chance of rare modules. Comms chatter will be similar to that of a typical player's thoughts, noticing the player's valuable modules and size and freaking out a little* near death.

PLATING MODULE - An alternative to shields. Starts as 3x1, extending horizontally by 2 per major tier (Delta would be 5x1, Golf 7x1, etc). Very heavy and cannot have parts mounted, but four times as durable as a normal girder and can be repaired twice as fast by repair modules.

CLUTTER - Adding some extra backdrop to the game. Examples could be small shuttles flying around near liberated stations, encountering a mining barge going to work while flying through an asteroid belt, or stumble into a Balancer crusade against a large merchant fleet.

*yes, I'm aware most people don't freak out too badly on being damaged, but just to make it clear you're killing them. No hard feelings, right?

[iaanacho]

Whenever I get damage, it is usually ignorable due to I always spam repair modules, that’s why I want a balance of both the new and old spawning mechanics. Unless, and is very common now with the stations jumping from delta to golf, I get splattered with prismatic fire or spikes. Anyhow, I was looking around and saw this old tidbit:

Jul 7, 2011 17:32:03 GMT 10 Farbs said:

I've always wanted to try adding an EMP weapon. I might have a go at that a bit later.

Since the effects of each module are handled by its update() function, and the update() function walks the ship like a tree, I could just cut it off at an offline module. That means anything attached to the affected module, and anything attached to it an so on, would also stop functioning. Chrono Gears do a similar thing by modifying the time delta passed through these functions.

even though it was 2011, is it still confirmed? And at Kirana, I like the plating idea, all i see are specialty modules and weapons no girders. The background clutter seems ok. Personally id like an option for the fancy background or the old wire frame. Although the best specialty weapons I've seen were that EMP and a mine layer device.

[iaanacho]

I was thinking about the different classes of ships, when did the scrappers become permanently aggressive? They used to be nice once if I remember correctly. If you've ever played Galaxy on Fire on android, I was thinking a faction system like that.These stations would be already unlocked and sparse, maybe a bit more common than that elusive Upgrade Juliet so hopefully you see at least 1 of each.

Stations would mirror a faction and have a set of defenders:

• A balancer colony would have mirrored/balanced stations
• Needlers would have maybe 1 or 2 solar panels, small and efficient
• The regular ships would look normal
• Scrappers would look super junky, like the cliché of an average American trailer park (most of which is kinda true, but I’ve seen really nice ones too)

And some factions would be at a perma-war. There would occasionally (rare to not make it super common) be a skirmish at a base, the opposition either flies in at one point or surrounds the station set, as long as you are within the spawning range of ships. if a war gets hit in the random number gen, youd get an info bouy(remember these?) from the station that would tell you and mark it on your navmap(toggleable filter? also reminds me to say something about maps):

• Balancers vs Scrappers seems logical (random cruddy uneven ships vs beautiful symmetry only kid death would love)
• Needlers vs Standards like rebels to the empire in Star Wars or something.

As you attack one faction you become its enemy and an ally to the opposing force, obviously (WHAT? I DIDN’T KNOW THAT!).

• As an enemy, stations would reject you or charge higher for docking, oxygen, or parts
• Allies would charge less.

_{»Forgot this, why do enemies always attack you? if you make an enemy attack another in any way shouldn’t the second ship attack its original aggressor? Like if a ship was attacking you, its stern laser hits a neutral passing ship, that new ship attacks you not the real aggressor.}


Forgive the Blobnet of a transmission, I am kinda scatterbrained most of the time, this makes sense to me in ordering but good luck deciphering this post

[Perez]

These are some pretty good and logical ideas, if you ask me! I like the way you've imported some realism into them just like we have it here in our world, thinking about the ally&hostile system you've come up with. This could advance the tactical side of the game, along with its adventure-part.

[iaanacho]

true, although im not sure on the morality by stealing ideas from almost every other 4 faction game ever. It would still be hard to write into the game without changing a lot of AI points but should make it more adventury. Anyone else got any other faction ideas? Mine all include some using only specific parts, whomever started calling the warp glitch telefrag, your ship would be only trusses rocket(primary) boosters and spikes, maybe a transrotator or two.

[Ozzatron]

I forget who started calling it telefragging, and I'm totally lost by the sea of ideas we have. I'm going to reiterate "Energy, please?" from the shoutbox, and I'm too tired to provide details at the moment, even though it's noon time.

[iaanacho]

do you mean energy, like a generator that provides energy? you have a limit and a battery module similar to oxy storage? without it your ship cant work (except cmd module)? or if there is a cargo bay module, fill up on energy cells?