Starship Corporation

Hiya,

I've been reading other posts and it seems to say that the combat is going to be similar to FTL...only more detailed. I play FTL too, and one of the things that bugs me is that you really have no missile defense besides evading. It would be really cool to have options to have things like in the Honor Harrington series with point defense clusters, counter missiles and jamming. What do you think?

I also noticed the the cannons are fixed and fire in 100 degree arcs. Is there any chance of getting turrets like on the Millenium Falcon?

I watched the trailer with the boarding action...very cool! But I was thinking that those marine transports would be decimated of there was a fighter out there. Are there going to be fighters in the game? If so, are we going to have the chance of designing something that small, or are we going to just stick with the more macro designing? On that note...are there going to be little tramp freighters in the game the size of the 'Falcon or say Firefly to design? If we could design that small that'd bring the Privateer aspect into the game...an old favorite of mine .

They way combat is done in FTL always reminded me of the boardgame Battleship with its red pegs and trying to hit your opponents targets. I read a post in here somewhere where they talked about splitting combat up into phases related to missile duels and assuming missiles have longer ranges. (this is silly since there's really no such thing as a limited range in space for projectiles) Based on the you-tube combat video I saw with the ship taking damage and rooms slowly going dead, there doesn't seem much room in your gaming model to incorporate this maneuver phase of battle. Are you going to make a "maneuver" phase? If so will it be like masters of orion 3 with its go here/do this, no "boardgame" feel, able to pause to give commands...or more like masters of orion 2 with its chess/checkers board and turn based style...or something altogether different? I always liked the moo3 better since if your engines were faster you could avoid the other fleet while letting your missiles and fighters soften them up before closing to finish the kill.

If you went with something like the moo3...it'd be neat to have say one side of the screen for maneuver, then split the other side of the screen with the top your ship and the bottom your opponents ship. Or have the 3-way split, but have the player decide which field is in the "big" window...that'd give you more control for boarding actions...which I can't wait to do. Fighters and boarding shuttles could just go back and forth in the maneuver screen and be a background "statistics" kind of combat determined by relative value and the computer. You could zoom in/out on the maneuver screen to go places, see planets/stations/asteroids/gas clouds etc... The only problem is it'd be real hard to control it all at once....which is what I guess the space bar pause is for .

How would something like this affect your plans since the one trailer shows the 2 shuttles with marines on them flying to a ship?

What do you think?

like it ^^


Non mi piace turni, come in realtà tutti dovrebbero essere in tempo reale. In questo gioco tu sei il capitano della nave, e come in realtà non fosse investito, per avere il tempo di pensare mentre un combattimento, si dovrebbe agire.


like it, but in this game you're not the pilot, you're the captain and you can't directly drive the ship, you can only point the way (maybe also draw an approximate route) or order a evasive action (previously defined) and the pilot should try to meet your orders.
Same for all other systems: you can't fire a weapon, you can just order the gunner officer (or a single gunner) to prioritize some enemy targets (life supports, engines, weapons, etc...) then it's up to your crews (and their expertise) to execute your orders.
Same for any fighters (or fighters squadrons), as weapons you can point a target type and a behavior, then it's up to them.

however, this is just my opinion.

You're actually not the Captain but the CEO of a big company.

_________________
"Sir, we are surrounded!"
"Excellent! Now we can attack in any direction."

Hmmm....

In the combat footage on the you-tube videos it looks like you move your people around kinda like you do in neverwinter nights / baldurs gate. With some kinda interface screen when you click on people to do different things. That's great for boarding actions...awesome really since it's kinda like a dungeon crawl with guns and an ever-changing map ...but what leads up to that boarding action?

It'd really bumm me out if the control of combat was limited only to telling people where to go during the boarding action ...I'm really hoping there's more.

I was imagining something like build ships to fit buyers, test crew situations, test emergency situations...hopefully find a buyer...become a system coorporation....make enough to build a ship for yourself (company), send said ship off on trading missions to make more money and look for more markets....build more ships....start working in more than one system....become an multi-system coorporation....take more contracts...design/build more ships...become a galactic coorporation.

Explore/trade/undercut the competition, tick them off and have ship-to-ship fights way out in the reaches...build ships for a war, if you build good ships your side does better, if not your side does worse...you can choose to control your ships directly (not your designs, your company's actual ships)...which is where the ftl-like combat comes in...or let incidents resolve automatically as the game gets biogger....something like that.

I'm hoping that you don't just wait in that office screen until a decision needs made or a contract gets offered on that little screen on the right. That would be remniscent of the game King of Dragon Pass...where technically your in control...but really your just giving advice on how to ride the wave of events...and hoping for the best. Do you play from the universe screen telling your people where to go? Or are you a ceo/captain leading your company from the deck of your favorite ship?

Do you send ships individually off on missions at the detail level of choosing the types of wares that go in their cargo bays? Or is it like x3tc where you hire crews and say "go trade", set a distance limit, and then get comm messages when they're stuck, engage something or die?

I'm really hoping you have a chance for some hands-on control of the ship itself. Otherwise the game would remind me more of an old Apple IIC game called Omega...fun...but definately a serious and non-casual game. I like FTL, as a casual game, but it's easy to get bored with the simplicity and monotony of it. I'm really hoping for something more immersive...where you can see your coorporations effects on your environment...and this game premise certainly has a chance to be that for me.

I get the premise of trying to board ships instead of blowing them up...makes a lot of sense. But you gotta get there first. Even our ancient sea battles in the 'Med which were mostly maneuver-to-board kind of actions, a lot of ships sunk while they closed because of rams, fire arrows, catapults, ballitae, etc... Heck, you wanted to sink ships so your marines could swarm the remaining enemy ships.

I really hope we get to play out that closing phase of battle. Even if it's short. Otherwise I'd always feel as if something was missing.

Sorry for the rant (hope you heard my prayer Ratakari)

I think officers should be able to be assigned to the ship. Such as a captain for the ship. Ability to surrender should be an option. Allow boarding, taking prisoner.