Forums » Suggestions
How about filling this empty space with some life! Some may think, what the heck do I care about some freaky animals floating in space, I just want to shoot stuff! Well let me tell you, this will incredibly change the whole atmosphere of the game, you know, how it "feels" playing it. Its like in real life, most people are not interested in nature, because its just there, but if it wouldnt, would that not be a sad, boring world?
Imagine huge translucent "Space Wales" .. things floating around, nibbling at some atreoids for dinner (well, whatever.. ), or a big swarm of little egg-like balls, behaving like a single organism, if you get near to it, they eat you up like a bunch of blood thirsty piranhas. Or i.e. flashy enregetic life-forms. There are so much possibilities. You can even combine them with exploring missions.
Imagine huge translucent "Space Wales" .. things floating around, nibbling at some atreoids for dinner (well, whatever.. ), or a big swarm of little egg-like balls, behaving like a single organism, if you get near to it, they eat you up like a bunch of blood thirsty piranhas. Or i.e. flashy enregetic life-forms. There are so much possibilities. You can even combine them with exploring missions.
Space bunchies!
or planet killers from star trek
giant killer cigars!
giant killer cigars!
How how about spores? Floating space spores that take over your body while you're sleeping....
Actually, I like this idea. The void doesn't have to be PACKED with things, but the occasional creature would be pretty neat. Space whales could actually be really cool - very large (the size of a big asteroid) and such. Definitely something to consider! Even though space is a lot of... well, empty nothingness... this is a game after all, and some creatures could help give it a boost of the unknown. =D
There's a whole "flora/fauna" section in the original design document (which I wrote) that talks about this. A few basic concepts for "space whales" and some other things. Anyone ever see Titan AE? That had some neat energy-surfing manta ray thingies.
Yes, this is definitely something I want to do. Even so far as.. when we first started getting more heavily into AI design, we discussed having separate "tribes" of particular types of creatures that might generate their perceptions of the users based on how they were treated (ie, if the Serco wiped them out for fun, they would hate the Serco, but an individual Neutral might be able to befriend them.. etc). Actual learned / emergent behaviour rather than pre-scripted AI (a scary thing to do in an MMO, since you don't really control it at all.. but makes for really interesting possibilities).
Unfortunately, this was back in the days of "we hope a publisher will pick us up and give us full funding".. which.. never happened.
But hey! Yeah.. space whales.. always wanted those. roaming pods with mothers and young and protective bulls and such..
Yes, this is definitely something I want to do. Even so far as.. when we first started getting more heavily into AI design, we discussed having separate "tribes" of particular types of creatures that might generate their perceptions of the users based on how they were treated (ie, if the Serco wiped them out for fun, they would hate the Serco, but an individual Neutral might be able to befriend them.. etc). Actual learned / emergent behaviour rather than pre-scripted AI (a scary thing to do in an MMO, since you don't really control it at all.. but makes for really interesting possibilities).
Unfortunately, this was back in the days of "we hope a publisher will pick us up and give us full funding".. which.. never happened.
But hey! Yeah.. space whales.. always wanted those. roaming pods with mothers and young and protective bulls and such..
Wake angels!
They're called Wake angels, and they rock!
They're called Wake angels, and they rock!
Wake angels. yeah. those things ruled.
Titan AE for teh win! it would be cool to see nebulas like that, and have those things in em too! OMG THAT WOULD RULE! gonna make nebulas, and wake angels, and have em actually ride your energy wake..........oh man that would rock....
on a side note, you would have to create some pretty uneque creatures if you want them to live in a large void. i think i know where your getting these ideas, and those creatures from E&B couldnt live in space, period. the fact that they bled when you shot them proved that they couldnt survive in space. they couldnt have the slightest ammount of pressure in them or they would burst. maybe somthing like a jellyfish type creature, or possably plant life. iunno you would have to think of somthing, unless your gonna toss out the realism, and make giant space monkey fish.
on a side note, you would have to create some pretty uneque creatures if you want them to live in a large void. i think i know where your getting these ideas, and those creatures from E&B couldnt live in space, period. the fact that they bled when you shot them proved that they couldnt survive in space. they couldnt have the slightest ammount of pressure in them or they would burst. maybe somthing like a jellyfish type creature, or possably plant life. iunno you would have to think of somthing, unless your gonna toss out the realism, and make giant space monkey fish.
dont think about realism lol
i liked them bleeding :P
bring back ten-gus and voltois (loved them) :)
i liked them bleeding :P
bring back ten-gus and voltois (loved them) :)
but the thing ive noticed in this games, is that it seems the devs are going for realism.
People don't buy games for realism.... (thinks of sim's online) uhhhhh Well some players do. BUT I DON"T!!! Wait why DO people play sims online??? A game that resembles living isn't a game.... Well i guess it only resembles living, and has alot of interesting things you can do that you can't do in life. That's pretty much what this game needs. Something that is different. Something that makes it stand out. I mean so far the devs have got the realism down pat. But we need something ELSE to blow up. More bots or animals or whatever. Just as long as they make combat more profitable i'll shoot it :) (So you could maybe make the parts of the animals lootable or something)
BOB
BOB
how about sme space "tribbles" that infest your ship... you get forced to fly back or your engines dies.. and you have to get TOED hehe
haha, fantastic!
Good to hear its part of the development dream.
Which brings to mind.. a new trade option: Whaling/Orga-hunting :)
Maybe even a missile like weapon that resembles all major harpoon mods for your favourite FPSes.. :) a player can slowly drag a whale to a 'whaling outpost' or a few players can tag in and share the bounty! -perhaps to make this simpler, it could happen in a single sector.
Good to hear its part of the development dream.
Which brings to mind.. a new trade option: Whaling/Orga-hunting :)
Maybe even a missile like weapon that resembles all major harpoon mods for your favourite FPSes.. :) a player can slowly drag a whale to a 'whaling outpost' or a few players can tag in and share the bounty! -perhaps to make this simpler, it could happen in a single sector.
And of course an environmentalist faction thats highly popular, allowing you free reign to kill all whalers even inside their own nations space without standingloss...
Becasue as we all know, space-whaling is highly illegal.
Becasue as we all know, space-whaling is highly illegal.
Would be also neat if you could drop some ore to feed them, so they would follow you for short amount of time, and i.e. help you to take out a hive queen :D
If there was a huge space-whale I'd try to befriend it.
Brining it "Food" widgets and stuff...
<Zathras> If you mess with Zathras, you mess with Bubba!
Brining it "Food" widgets and stuff...
<Zathras> If you mess with Zathras, you mess with Bubba!
Heh, I got my name from a book about huge, intelligent space whale/dragons.
Basically, a "starfish" (space whale) lives in herds, scooping up interstellar hydrogen, dust and the occasional rock. On occasion it will pass a node of hard waste called ambergis, which can be refined and is essential to long range faster than light communictation. As such it is very, very valuable.
You could have herds of starfish warping from sector to sector, with packs of "sharks" that would try to kill those that strayed from the herd. Starfish can defend themselves by burping up a ball of plasma, but it takes a long time to restart their internal fire so they only get one shot. It's powerful enough to take out swaths of sharks (or annihilate a player - think rolling avalon), but if they miss they're in trouble.
That's where the players come in. By defending a helpless starfish, their faction rating with the starfish herd would increase. After a certain point the starfish would attempt to communicate and pass on information - "We're going to rest in sector j-12 tomorrow. Please visit" (or something). The player could go, watch over the starfish, and collect the valuable ambergis.
Ambergis would be heavy as heck, though, so the player could only fit one piece in the hold of an Atlas. Since sharks could attack at any time, collecting Ambergis in an Atlas would be a pretty bad idea. Therefore, you need to get a group together to both carry the loot and guard the herd while they do their thing.
And of course, player conflict. Since ambergis would be so valuable, players would end up fighting over it. If two playes with high starfish standing fight, their ratings both go down. Starfish don't like human weaponry going off near them, as they are long lived and slow to reproduce. Killing one would take a while, and be dangerous as heck, but the death would be important to the herd. Think of it as a softer no-fire zone - they will tolerate it if they already love you or if there are sharks in the area, but if you are just fighting over ambergis they will start to like you less.
If a pirate or player with no starfish faction standing shows up and makes a ruckus, the herd gets mad and kills him. This would be tricky, as if the pirate simply stayed close to a loved player the fish couldn't fire without killing their friend. This is probably the weakest part of the logic when applied to Vendetta...
I imagine groups of players trailing after the herds, fighting over who gets the ambergis while trying to keep good standing with the fish. This would have interesting implicatons when applied to the Serco-Itani war, as both sides would need the ambergis. Starfish would basically be loved by everyone but sharks, so they can happily lumber around wherever they want. Nor do they understand or care much about human conflict, so long as they don't end up getting killed and the sharks are kept in check.
You could tie something like this into the conflict, making it like the cargo captures. The starfish would randomly flit around gray space, sometimes disappearing through as yet to be discovered wormholes (six months down the line if you guys add exploration, that would be one interesting way to find new sectors), doing their thing and getting attacked by sharks. Players from all nations would try to befriend a herd while keeping the other nations away. After a week of ambergis collection the nation with more would have a reduction in price of ships or get a special communications channel to themselves for a week.
If there were starfish or something similiar in the game, you can bet I'd be fiercely defending a herd :D
Basically, a "starfish" (space whale) lives in herds, scooping up interstellar hydrogen, dust and the occasional rock. On occasion it will pass a node of hard waste called ambergis, which can be refined and is essential to long range faster than light communictation. As such it is very, very valuable.
You could have herds of starfish warping from sector to sector, with packs of "sharks" that would try to kill those that strayed from the herd. Starfish can defend themselves by burping up a ball of plasma, but it takes a long time to restart their internal fire so they only get one shot. It's powerful enough to take out swaths of sharks (or annihilate a player - think rolling avalon), but if they miss they're in trouble.
That's where the players come in. By defending a helpless starfish, their faction rating with the starfish herd would increase. After a certain point the starfish would attempt to communicate and pass on information - "We're going to rest in sector j-12 tomorrow. Please visit" (or something). The player could go, watch over the starfish, and collect the valuable ambergis.
Ambergis would be heavy as heck, though, so the player could only fit one piece in the hold of an Atlas. Since sharks could attack at any time, collecting Ambergis in an Atlas would be a pretty bad idea. Therefore, you need to get a group together to both carry the loot and guard the herd while they do their thing.
And of course, player conflict. Since ambergis would be so valuable, players would end up fighting over it. If two playes with high starfish standing fight, their ratings both go down. Starfish don't like human weaponry going off near them, as they are long lived and slow to reproduce. Killing one would take a while, and be dangerous as heck, but the death would be important to the herd. Think of it as a softer no-fire zone - they will tolerate it if they already love you or if there are sharks in the area, but if you are just fighting over ambergis they will start to like you less.
If a pirate or player with no starfish faction standing shows up and makes a ruckus, the herd gets mad and kills him. This would be tricky, as if the pirate simply stayed close to a loved player the fish couldn't fire without killing their friend. This is probably the weakest part of the logic when applied to Vendetta...
I imagine groups of players trailing after the herds, fighting over who gets the ambergis while trying to keep good standing with the fish. This would have interesting implicatons when applied to the Serco-Itani war, as both sides would need the ambergis. Starfish would basically be loved by everyone but sharks, so they can happily lumber around wherever they want. Nor do they understand or care much about human conflict, so long as they don't end up getting killed and the sharks are kept in check.
You could tie something like this into the conflict, making it like the cargo captures. The starfish would randomly flit around gray space, sometimes disappearing through as yet to be discovered wormholes (six months down the line if you guys add exploration, that would be one interesting way to find new sectors), doing their thing and getting attacked by sharks. Players from all nations would try to befriend a herd while keeping the other nations away. After a week of ambergis collection the nation with more would have a reduction in price of ships or get a special communications channel to themselves for a week.
If there were starfish or something similiar in the game, you can bet I'd be fiercely defending a herd :D
Heh, this would both add considerable ambience, player conflict, and be cool as hell.
/me wonders if people would work out ambergris pirating rings and attack ambergris traders at wormholes in coordination if the profits were good enough.
/me wonders if people would work out ambergris pirating rings and attack ambergris traders at wormholes in coordination if the profits were good enough.
Well for anyone to go through the trouble of protecting a starfish herd, the reward would have to be great. I mean I'd do it just for the RP reasons, but I'm probably one of the few. So not only would you get payed for returning ambergis nodes, they would result in an eventual temporary nation bonus.
Obviously this can't be ripped verbatim from Glen Cook's universe withouth his permission, but large translucent space whales are pretty standard fare. An interstellar ecology wouldn't be hard to do on your own either, nor would the concept of the starfish producing something worthwhile to human technology.
I've had some ideas on this for a while, even wrote a short story or two based on my own (deriative, but original enough) ecology. I'm sure the devs have their own ideas on the subject, though. Plus an utter lack of time and money for such things. Can't forget that.
Life's a bitch :/
Obviously this can't be ripped verbatim from Glen Cook's universe withouth his permission, but large translucent space whales are pretty standard fare. An interstellar ecology wouldn't be hard to do on your own either, nor would the concept of the starfish producing something worthwhile to human technology.
I've had some ideas on this for a while, even wrote a short story or two based on my own (deriative, but original enough) ecology. I'm sure the devs have their own ideas on the subject, though. Plus an utter lack of time and money for such things. Can't forget that.
Life's a bitch :/