General Discussion

[danopian]

Bob - yeah, I found a Gruff embassy sector in sector 7 just before the demo ended. I must have killed enough of them to have earned their respect? so they didn't attack, and gave me a quest.

As for deep spelunking, I don't know how deep this is in the spectrum of what the game will generate, but I think I made it to lvl 4, one past the achievement (away party didn't come back from that one). I also found a certain pylon...really interested to see where that goes!

[ExplorerBob]

In this most recent game, I picked up the "T-Shirt of Resignation", which comes with the Amnesia effect.

I have to say, that might be a little bit overpowered... right now it's basically a money-making machine, so long as you're willing to bore yourself going back and forth on a planet surface. It seems that it'd make more sense for it to be a negative effect -- just because you don't remember you explored the same place 10,000 times doesn't mean that the Bankers are going to happily buy the same data again and again.

[ibol]

That's funny, I changed that last week, because I had the same feeling.
if amnesia then pc.data=0
a little harsh, but you can sell the artifact for $$

There are some other funny effects in there...
Have you ever found a message repeater?
Have you ever found a message repeater?

[ExplorerBob]

I've noticed that I tend to be very hard on my away teams. I don't know if this is a thing or not, but it seems that taking casualties should increase the cost of additional crew and officers. There are a lot of complicated factors that could be taken into consideration here (whether especially bad away team trips, with 100% casualties, should be weighed over losing as many crew over several trips, how this effect could wear off over time if the player mended his ways, etc.).

All this, of course, assumes that this isn't in there -- if the costs do go up after casualties, then I beg your pardon. It doesn't seem to be a very noticeable effect though (unlike how the costs of crafting parts skyrocket as you buy more).

Also, I'm a little unsure about what some of these officer skills do: Researcher, Archaelogist, Forensics and "Captain's Guard".

What do Fame and Infamy represent in-game?

Finally, it would be nice if 1) the portrait for officers could be changed mid-game (after all, their names can be), and 2) the away team could be similarly adjusted mid-game -- so as to allow for changes in uniform, or weapons, or so on, as the game goes on. Little things like that, to give players more control and possibly allow for more immersion, in the long-running games that could come about in an infinite world.

[ibol]

EB,
A lot of things go into how much hiring crew costs, and yes, a big one is how many you've lost. More casualties = more $$
This is offset somewhat by your fame, which you also asked about.

Fame goes up when you complete quests, kill bosses, find or identify artifacts, etc. Fame factors somewhat into how certain races feel about you.

Infamy tracks 'evil' actions, and is counted separately from fame. Doing quests for 'evil' races (which the Gruff do not count as), or killing harmless creatures (BUNNIES!) , or for leaving your diseased crew to die on a planet instead of allowing them back on to the ship. It also effects how certain races feel about you.

All of this is explained in the manual, which I really expect people will enjoy

The idea of "crew outfits" is actually a pretty cool one. I'd have to run it by David, but I'm sure he could knock out a bunch of little guys for customization. and some could be found or purchased, adding to the attachment.
Feel free to nudge me about this in the future. I have a lot of plans.

[David E. Gervais]

I'm not sure what you mean by crew outfits/uniforms..

Do you mean allow the player to change the color of his suit, hair and weapon like on the character creation screen at the start of the game?

I guess another type of 'player customization' could be made to fit in the main GUI of the game.. all the different player sprites are there, it would just be a matter of making a color/weapon selection menu/dialogue type thing.

Cheers!

[ibol]

My vision would be to create certain new custom 'landing party' sprites that do not conform to the existing combinations. Things that are unique and different. you wouldn't need to exponentially increase the number of sprites, just create some new ones. hair, face, weapon, suit, width, height, helmet, insignia, etc.

[Cyberis]

While we are making the look of the away teams more customizable, it would also be great for officers to rise in Rank as well as abilities and when having away teams with officers of having some way to show the rank of the officers on that team (via tooltip perhaps). This will also encourage the player to be more attached to his officers and less likely to treat them all as red shirts.

[ibol]

officers do rise in rank. there are 16 ranks, from recruit to ensign all the way up to commander***
(no one can rise higher than 'captain' , cuz you're the captain)

I am planning on expanding the tooltips greatly in future updates.

[Cyberis]

Cool! I haven't let my officers live long enough to do that so now I am incentivized. The tool tips you have now are pretty awesome, I always turn on tooltips for everything so "more tooltips please."