Features List for EV4

Quote

Originally posted by AceBlack:
I'd like to see an AI editor of sorts.
For example, you could be able to specify formations of fighters, flight patterns, and how a ship behave when attacking you.
I tried to make a fighter that circled aroung its target by giving it just a side turret and it still charged head on.

To make the fighter circle the player, simply set it to exhibit the "swarm" behavior. That should more or less do it.

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Quote

Originally posted by mrxak:
**-More negatives. Negative time, negative impact (for non-beams), negative jam (for outfits), negative decay...
**

Negative impact actually does work, just so you know.
(EDIT) The ability to scoop up escape pods. Think of the possibilities that would open up... (/EDIT)

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(This message has been edited by Katana (edited 01-11-2004).)

Some things border or cross actual scripting... That would suck. Badly. It would make things dificult, complicated and buggy. I think the negatives outweigh the positives.

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Quote

Originally posted by no_use_for_a_name:
Some things border or cross actual scripting... That would suck. Badly. It would make things dificult, complicated and buggy. I think the negatives outweigh the positives.

Nobody necessarily said you had to. Theoretically, you wouldn't have to if you don't want to. Assuming Matt just adds scripting.

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Quote

Originally posted by no_use_for_a_name:
**Some things border or cross actual scripting... That would suck. Badly. It would make things dificult, complicated and buggy. I think the negatives outweigh the positives.

**

Yes, add more negatives! 😛

I seem to find myself liking a lot of Dr. Trowel's ideas... And I really like the ability to pick up escape pods, though that could be simulated with a pers, or a mission. Set the "pod" ship to be a special ship in a mission, and have the goal be to board it. Use the OnShipDone field to start a new mission with the boarding, or "scooping" text... Or, have a pers with a mission, like the pirates traps missions in the actual EV games, replacing the escape pod with an invisible, non target-able ship, simulating loading the pod into your ship.

Which reminds me of another thing- An ability to link to a pers resource in a fleet resource, as the flagship. This may actually be possible, though... /me runs off to try...

~ SpacePirate

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Eat blazing electric death!

Quote

Some things border or cross actual scripting... That would suck. Badly. It would make things dificult, complicated and buggy. I think the negatives outweigh the positives.

OR...you could assume they implement it correctly, and that whoever does the code for both the Mac and Windows versions is more competent than you think they are. Either way, I think it's pretty stupid to assume something will be problematic before it's even implemented. Maybe if people were forced to use it...but there are plenty of ways to screw something up already, even without scripting.

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How bout shďp resource having another attribute where you can determine if a ship will get to use customized voices instead of whatever govt is being assigned to.

Also how about a leech beam effect. Meaning that a beam or a weapon of some type that will not only do damage to ship but it will add shield and/or armor points to yours. Not just that too, but inverse value will create a healing beam.

Hmm lets see, I know, customize the way the game engine will retreave images for communication dialog boxes whether conversing with a spob or a ship.

Give cloaking outf an option to use customize sounds.

Finally, if ever possible, a way to make govt resource change radically, like it would suddenly change its name in various places in game mode, like the transponder on ships would change its govt initial as well as on planets. This feature will also change its way of behavior to other factions as well as the player. This kind of ability for a govt to change identity will help to save lots of time and resources so you wont have to create a duplicate system and other stuff.

An idea that's rpg inspired, Pers resource with attributes that could allow ships to sell or buy stuff to players. This is useful for merchant ships selling outfits, items, and possibly weapons whenever a player comes across them. Pers could also have customized voices as well.

Finally, pers or ships with options for enabling or disabling them from warping. This is good if developers wanna create ships that are basically anchored turrets like Femme Fatal.

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Quote

Originally posted by Coraxus:
**An idea that's rpg inspired, Pers resource with attributes that could allow ships to sell or buy stuff to players. This is useful for merchant ships selling outfits, items, and possibly weapons whenever a player comes across them.

**

You can already do this with pers specific missions that grant items onaccept. Just set the pay value modifier to "Take away this many credits at start." Only limitation is that each Përs can only give one item. Or two if Refusing the mission gave you another outfit.

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(This message has been edited by Lumpy the Elf (edited 01-11-2004).)

Quote

Originally posted by Lumpy the Elf:
Only limitation is that each Përs can only give one item. Or two if Refusing the mission gave you another outfit.

What are you talking about? You can give the player as many outfits as the ncb string has space for, which is far more than one. 🙂

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I suppose you could use a series of auto-activating missions to offer the player multiple items. It would be kind of inconvenient, though:...

'Welcome to AstroMart, the traveling Trade Center! If you wish to purchase a defensive outfit, please press 'yes'. If you wish to purchase weaponry, please press 'no'...

If you wish to purchase an outfit that affects shielding, please press 'yes'. If you wish to purchase an outfit that affects armor, please press 'no'...

If you wish to purchase a shield booster type outfit, please press 'yes'. If you would like to purchase a shield recharger type outfit, please press 'no'...

If you wish to purchase a high-end shield booster outfit, please press 'yes'. If you would like to purchase a low-end shield booster outfit, please press 'no'...

If you would like to purchase the Astrodynamics MX4 Shield Capacitor, press 'yes'. If not, press no...'

See? 🙂

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I think a scripting language would be an incredibly great idea. It should probably its own resource type such as "scrp" or something, and all the other resources which would normally contain a 255-char string would just contain a script ID. In addition to all of the things you guys have listed, what would allow scripts to have TOTAL control would be to allow the referencing of all fields of all resources and the ability to test or set them. It should also have conditionals, loops, and so on. The possibilities are limitless. For example, you might have something like:

if(b1) { misn(128).PayVal=25000; } else { misn(128).PayVal=5000; }

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We should make sure the folks on the Nova board do not learn about this, or we would be flooded... Actually this is more of a "what should be in EVN from the developper's point" than a real feature list.

I remembered I proposed once the pers leading a fleet idea, but I do not remember if it was here or in a mail to mburch at the time of the developpment of EVN. I think that the scope of some ideas is beyond an EV4, but some simple ones are interesting. I fear that, if the fleet in dudes feature has been around since the EVO Bible and hasn't been actually implemented, it may be because it has never actually worked a satisfying way and hsa been decided as too much work for something... well, not minor but unnecessary.

Personally, I support the return of flares (or at least a PD that attracts missiles) and... well, not many more.

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*Reads everyone's ideas to improve EV...
*Drifts off into dream land, blissfully imagining all the new possibilities
*Awakes to realize that sadly they will never be :frown:

I would just like to re-iterate what Masamune nearly overlooked; that an OnFire field would be awesome.
:frown:

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I don't have time to reread everything that everyone else posted, so forgive me if I repeat a few.

-I would like to see much more expanded weapons. For example, a feature that allows Nova to support linking submunitions and allows the editor to determine how many times the submunition loops.

-Support for mobile spöbs

-multiple "space" type fields that you could add like string resources. I.E. In the shďp fields, instead of entering "free mass" and "cargo", you would enter the ID's of the new "spaces" you want to add. Then, you could have special features like retrofitting a warship as a passenger liner by replacing "mass" with "passenger cabins" or replace your "cargo space" with "engine expansion" capacities. This would make the universe much more believable, as you could have "engine space" for specific engines, "passenger space" for only passengers and such. Since when do warships carry around passengers?

- -make "space outfits" able to change different parts of the ship. For example "side outfits" would contain weapons that only work on the side of a ship, making for incredibly powerful broadsides, yet very weak forward bombardments, just like ancient ships of the line.

-SMARTER AI'S!!! AI's that use broadsides, for example, knowing to pass to the side of a ship, rather than head straight for it and turn, making broadside battles possible. Give the AI's support for dealing with gravity.

-On the same token, make players able to select which weapons to fire. It's incredibly annoying in my Raven when I'm firing CPL's to fire my railguns. There should be something like an "order dialogue" box where you can check "Fire xxx weapons." Escorts would also follow these orders.

-Support for a "disable enemy ship" weapons command (see above) and escort command, just like "hold position" and "attack" or "defend"

-Fix gravity so that this doesn't happen: a Leviathan with an afterburner can escape, but a Manta cannot under its own power

-Ships have no speed, yet can access "engine" outfits dependend on "space" resources (see above)

-Outfit "onsell" field can be evaluated when selling a ship

-massive ships cannot travel as fast with more powerful engines. I.E. light fighter with huge engines moves insanely fast, while huge ship with huge engines moves slowly

-ship "cracking" I.E. powerful weapons to a long ship (finally, a use of the "length" field) down the side might cause the ship to split into two seperate pieces, which then explode.

-possibly a "spëv" resource (spacial event) that would allow random player visible effects on screen, such as streaking comets, supernovas in the background, debris fields, in-system nebulas, black clusters, ion storms and no-fly zones and such

-support for "fuel regenerating" when in a spëv with the "generates fuel" flag

-ships should have a "fuel tanker" resource which makes them automatically mine fuel from any "generate fuel" flagged spëvs

-another ship status bar including personell: I.E. your shields might be up, but half your crew is dead so your ship doesn't function fully

-random weapons deactivations if too many crew members or armour are missing or (see below) if the fired weapon has a "disable weap on impact" flag

-add a "disable weapons" flag to the weapons field: I.E. oütf "computer virus" launches and deactivates all weapons 100% of the time, while "sparrow missile" deactivates a weapon 1% of the time if shields are down

-add support for critical hit weapons (i.e.: in weapons field, two boxes for mass damage, two boxes for energy damage. First box is the "low number" and second box is the "high nubmer" damage will be between these to numbers. Set to xxx for completely random numbers, of -xxx for a set value)

-add light "solar wind" emanating from the center that gently pushes craft so slow that you can see them, unless you have a "solar sail" outfit of some kind deployed

-add "solar sail" support for oütf resources, so that only certain outfits allow ships to take advantage of solar wind

-allow asteroids to be arranged in "clusters" and "belts" & allow asteroid collisions so that asteroids randomly head into planetary space

-add support for repulsive spobs and repulsive ships that take damage upon impact with another ship

-large asteroids can be landed on, even though they are in motion, and contain free minerals and such

-support for cloaking spöbs so that a friendly station might decloak for you to land, but might recloak when an enemy tries to land

-add support for extending shields and retracting them to protect escorts. I.E. shields are 1 unit from ship and have a rating of 1, yet when they are 2 units from the ship, they have a rating of 1/4, so that shields cannot simply extend indefinitely

-show the current speed of the ship on the display bar on the side

-support terminating crons

-allow single missions to encompass many different objectives, so that instead of 8 different missions for "scout xxx space", you would simply have 1 continuous one

-in the afore mentioned "order dialogue" box (see below), you could tell your ship to stopp accelerating at xxx units per xxx, so that your ship doesn't always accelerate to your top speed, making stopping to bombard enemy ships and stuff easier.

-there should be an "order dialogue" box so that you can order escorts to use only certain weapons, order your ship to use only certain weapons, extend your shields x far, order your escorts to attack to disable only and such

-spöbs should hold special reserve fleets for assisting in battle. They launch hundreds of ships when dominated, yet don't lend a hand when their ships are being pounded? come on!!! there should be something like a "current dude" or "cdüde" resource that allows you to set certain fleets that will randomly pop out of spöbs when there is a battle in orbit

-Lots of person types

-random string names for ships flying in a system

-a government change feature!!! xxx:yyy:zzz to aaa would be nice

-there engine should include more ships, maybe 4000 missions, about 40000 control bits, a lot more shots on screen (my "PD mine" outfit on my plugin launches a swarm of shots behind me, yet because of this, I can't release any of my "quantum torpedoes"!!!), more weapons types and more ship types

-animation support for "dividing ships" and such that divide and change shape on screen, without necesarily using any control bits

-adding a feature to allow "stellar damage" so that certain systems (i.e. the center of a nebula) cause damage to ships systems, for example, a radiation cloud spëv might cause a loss of the entire crew (exluding you of course), while a nebula might simply drain your shields and whittle at your armour)

-add a feature to allow classes of jump and 1 way jumps. I.E. you can jump to, but you can't jump back. i.e. you can land on wormhole class 1 and it will take you to another wormhole with a class specified as "1" "2" or "3", so that certain wormholes link only to other ones. I.E. inside nebula X, you have wormholes that get you out of the 1-way jump nebula. all wormholes inside are class 1 while all wormholes surrounding the nebula are class 2 and all class 1 wormholes link only to class 2 wormholes.

-add "ship hangar" feature and allow for outfitting of escort ships, as well as swapping ships and stuff

-when stellars are dominated, you gain acess to their tech

Whew, that's all I want for Christmas...

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(This message has been edited by Zzap212 (edited 01-12-2004).)

Quote

Originally posted by Masamune:
**Well, I've been sitting here at work, and I've been brainstorming about what I'd really like for EV4.
**

Since we're dreaming, here are my sweet nothings:

---Allow përs' to have escorts
---Allow s˙sts and spöbs to have multiple names. Why? Example from EVO: You fly into Miranu space and somehow the map knows the Miranu name for the system you are in and the planet present. I makes more sense that the human anme for the system appears until the player either lands or buys a map, or both. I'm not sure how this would best be implemented, but it could probably be easily done with list elements?
---Ability for the game engine to reload plugin data when the player lands on a planet. I can think of all sorts of juicy things that could be done with genereating plugins based on a player's pilot file, but the resulting plugin wouldn't be used until the player quit and relaunched, which kinda defeats a lot of the coolness.

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Quote

Originally posted by seant:
---Allow s˙sts and spöbs to have multiple names. Why? Example from EVO: You fly into Miranu space and somehow the map knows the Miranu name for the system you are in and the planet present. I makes more sense that the human anme for the system appears until the player either lands or buys a map, or both. I'm not sure how this would best be implemented, but it could probably be easily done with list elements?

You could do this now, actually, using visbits and missions that launch when you land.

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the ability to have escorts collect asteroids while in your service, (asteroid miners would still collect asteroid debris while in formation)

is it possible to have pers rescources that are effected by the pilot files? (if i have two pilots can you make it so that one will show up in the game while i am using another?) also, can you make it so that some characters (opponents) get tougher as you get better or as you get better ships?

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As soon as a moderator locks this thread, I'm going to go through it and compile a list of all the 'worthwhile' (i.e. it's obvious that the person thought more than half a second about it before putting it down) ideas, for my own personal use.

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Quote

Originally posted by UncleTwitchy:
**You could do this now, actually, using visbits and missions that launch when you land.

**

Only if you want a universe with a fairly small number of systems. Let's say you have a universe with 3 races. Each race controls a total of 25 systs and there are a total of 100 systems. That means you'd need a total of 300 systems to pull off the name change effect. This, of course depends on whose point of view you are playing from and which names get precident(?sp?) over others.

Increase that total number of systems and you soon run out of syst resources.

Besides, I really hate the idea of using visbits to show/hide systs that differ by only a few points. Ah, how I wish EV was more like a moo; systs could be roughly the same as $rooms and then all that would have to change is some of the props displayed to the player.

Whatever.

-STH

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"Create enigmas, not explanations." -Robert Smithson

  • A "ballast" outfit that increases or lowers ship mass (not FreeMass) so the ship gets knocked about less/more by weapons, tractor beams, and explosions. "Captain, our Quasigyroscopic Rectifier has been sabotaged! They're blowin' us around like we were made of styrofoam!" (Sorry -- silliness fails me with respect to the opposite effect. It would be a handy thing, though.)

  • (Off topic) You know, I rather like these UBBCode list tags! Good geekness.

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