psblake
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[ Star Traders 2 Supporter ]
Posts: 5 
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Post by psblake on Aug 9, 2014 21:20:31 GMT -5
Well, the forum is titled "Wish List s, so by golly, I'm going to post a list. I'd previously sent these suggestions to Andrew via his reddit account, unaware that there was a more appropriate place to post this kind of thing. Comments are welcome, criticism is appreciated, and gummi worms will be eaten. First the small things: - Navigating between the Factions/Contracts/Rumors/Conflicts screens is needlessly time consuming. It seems particularly odd that each of these screens has a button in the upper-right corner which leads to the next one in a looping sequence. Going back and forth between these screens would sometimes be useful, but can't be done directly. I suggest replacing the single button (which currently leads to the screen in the sequence) with all four on each of the four pages, allowing the player to jump directly to from each of the four to any of the others.
- On a similar note, I find myself spending a lot of time in the in-between menus linking the main gameplay interface with whatever sub-screen I want to access. A customizable hotbar with four or five slots to link to the four or five screens of my choice would be great.
- On the Conflicts screen, touching one of the flags automatically plots a course, but does not immediately inform the player of the destination. On the Factions screen, touching a flag presents a menu to allow selection between that faction's planets. Seems like the flags on the Conflicts screen should behave the same as those on the Factions screen.
- On the subject of conflicts, the notification that the player has gained or lost reputation with a faction isn't very informative - It would be more helpful if it noted the actual amount of the increase/decrease, as well as the resulting value (as in "You have lost 10 reputation with the Steel Song Clan for violating a trade embargo. Your reputation with Steel Song Clan is now 8.") This would be particularly useful in the context of embargos, as it would help the player assess the risk of further transactions at that exchange.
- It would also help if reputation was something you could easily reference at-a-glance, especially for the current planet's faction. I suggest displaying the player's reputation next to (or even superimposed on top of) any given faction's flag anywhere that flag is displayed.
- I would love it if a directional indicator could be displayed alongside any instance of "__ is located at __, __ (__AU Away)" Even with just 45° increments, it would make it a lot more intuitive and easier to process the information at-a-glance.
- I often find myself in situations where I'm searching through my rumors for one specific one, or ones which are close to me, or even ones in a particular faction's territory. The ability to sort the Rumors list by type, distance, and faction territory would be helpful.
- I'm kind of surprised that the game doesn't automatically inform the player of the star ratings of urban areas, and the danger/exploration/harvest values of wild areas after visiting the planet at least once.
- It would also be useful if the player could write custom notes for a planet, such as "Good Vudka trade route with __ (__AU away NNE)" or "Has that officer you needed."
- In exchanges, (in the android version at least), the game automatically keeps track of the average costs of goods I've seen so far, but only displays these on the buy/sell screen of that particular good. It would be more useful to have this information on the Exchange screen itself. The information is already available to the player, but requires checking each good individually.
- As an extension to the average tracking, it would make sense to have a merchant-themed officer who informed you when you encountered particularly rewarding trading opportunities, such as remembering the lowest and highest prices you've seen so far, and letting you know the best result you could get based on the values you've seen so far, along with where to go to complete or initiate the trade. For example: "Captain, if you buy Vudka at [lowest price I've seen so far] on [where I saw the lowest price], you could sell it here for a ____ per-unit profit here." This message should be the most advantageous option based on the current price relative to the known high/low: If my best option would be a buy-here-sell-there, it would inform me of that. If my best option would be buy-there-sell-here, it would inform me of that instead.
Which brings me to my biggest suggestion: Captain abilities.
I love Star Traders RPG. It's a wonderful leap forward in the evolution of its genre, and a vast improvement on the drabness of similar games which preceded it. That said, I don't really feel like my character, the captain, is so much a character as he is a source of ever-increasing numeric stats. There's some degree of characterization in the occupational bonuses you get when you create your captain, but these never progress past their starting values. Officers come closer to offering some customization, but you can only ever have three, and they are presented as separate characters, distinct from the captain. My suggestion: Let the captain learn the skills of the officers.
- Each officer would need a pre-defined threshold level in one or more stats relating to their profession (Example: Political officer's threshold might be 15 Negotiation and 10 Tactics
- As soon as the captain has an officer, and meets that officer's threshold requirements, the officer will say something to the effect of "You really have a knack for this kind of thing."
- The game would then generate a rumor event for that officer's skill, but would not inform the player (yet)
- The rumor would become known to the player when they use the "rumors" action in the (unknown) vicinity of the event
- At the event, a specialist in the officer's profession initiates training
- Training consists of a sequence of contract-like missions, each relating to the officer's profession (Exploring planets for specific objects might be one for the Explorer, for instance - maintaining high morale after a disaster might be one for the First Officer)
- Number of missions should increase depending on the number of officer skills the captain has already learned (Example: 3 missions for your first skill learned this way, 4 for your second, 5 for your third, etc.)
- Once the player completes all the missions related to this officer's training, and returns to the specialist, that officer will leave the captain, but the player will retain their ability - Thus freeing up an officer space
Thoughts?
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Post by fallen on Aug 9, 2014 22:03:37 GMT -5
psblake - thanks for hopping onto the forum from Reddit! We'll review and reply soon, and will look forward to hearing the communities comments as well!
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Post by Cory Trese on Aug 9, 2014 22:16:11 GMT -5
Thanks for the post. I've logged some tickets to track our work on adding this ideas to the game. I've picked five major pieces of work which will take several weeks for us to complete. Once those are done, I'll come back and pick up the next five, and so on.
* #2570 Navigating between the Factions/Contracts/Rumors/Conflicts
* #2571 Improve Faction Flag Behavior on Conflicts/Politics
* #2572 Improve gained or lost reputation with a Faction toast
* #2573 Try to build Filter Rumor List Menu
* #2574 Explore Tradesman Officer Additional Abilities
I'll do some research on Captain abilities, but that sounds a lot like a feature we're working on developing for ST2.
One of the biggest challenges in ST RPG is the saved game format -- we've pushed it for 3 years, repurposed data elements and the original design was pretty focused on being extensible but it it's perfect and to really do your suggestion justice, we need a new game engine.
Perhaps you'll consider backing Star Traders 2?
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Post by fallen on Aug 9, 2014 22:46:55 GMT -5
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psblake
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[ Star Traders 2 Supporter ]
Posts: 5
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Post by psblake on Aug 10, 2014 9:46:36 GMT -5
Perhaps you'll consider backing Star Traders 2? I've purchased each of your releases at least once, some multiple times. I paid for Star Traders RPG Elite and Star Traders 4X Empires twice each (once for iOS and once for Android), and Heroes of Steel three times (iOS, Android, and PC). As soon as I read the announcement, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that I would be backing Star Traders 2. I'd back it right now, but you guys decided to torment us with anticipation by announcing the Kickstarter campaign far in advance. There was one other suggestion I meant to include in my original post, but apparently forgot: Selling records to a faction which has banned you. During a Spy War, it would make sense for a faction to want enemy secrets, regardless of the source. The idea of a wanted criminal clearing their name by offering valuable information is a common theme in political dramas. Currently, if I'm banned, I can't access the Exchanges where I'm banned, so I can't sell them any records. My suggestion: During a Spy War, have a "Suspicious Character" appear in the Spice Halls (either those of the Faction where you're banned, or those of their enemy), along with a button allowing you to talk to them. Talking to the Suspicious Character should do one of the following: - Provide an opportunity to sell records to the faction which banned you (with the usual Spy War bonuses and penalties)
- Indicate target planets for Surveillance - not a mission, but performing surveillance there will provide a much higher bonus with the faction which banned you.
- Indicate a target exchange for selling to "our agent in the field" - Selling weapons and records there will give a bonus with the faction which banned you, regardless of the faction where that exchange is located.
As an example, let's take a captain who is banned by Steel Song Clan, and there is a Spy War between Steel Song Clan and De Valtos Syndicate:
- Surveillance Target: "We need detailed records of facilities on De Valtos Prime." - Increased surveillance bonus with Steel Song when obtaining records at De Valtos Prime
- Agent in the Field: "We have a supplier based on Gamma-Javat II. Anyone who sold supplies to him there would be a friend to Steel Song Clan." - Large bonus with Steel Song Clan for selling weapons and records on Gamma-Javat II.
I'm definitely looking forward to giving you guys even more of my money.
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Post by Cory Trese on Aug 10, 2014 13:48:08 GMT -5
Next release includes these fixes:
* #2570 Navigating between the Factions/Contracts/Rumors/Conflicts
* #2571 Improve Faction Flag Behavior on Conflicts/Politics
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psblake
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[ Star Traders 2 Supporter ]
Posts: 5
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Post by psblake on Aug 10, 2014 14:20:58 GMT -5
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the world of Trese Brothers games: A new user's first post is a laundry list of nitpicks, and the brothers are already cracking on implementing suggestions from that list.
This kind of thing is the reason I happily buy their games multiple times on different platforms. I know I'll start with a great game which will steadily become greater as time goes on.
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Post by fallen on Aug 10, 2014 16:46:15 GMT -5
I'd back it right now, but you guys decided to torment us with anticipation by announcing the Kickstarter campaign far in advance. We did this specifically because we were asked to give more warning than last time. The Heroes of Steel KickStarter came out of the blue, and some of our backers asked us to give more warning next time. So, you've got 21 days  Glad we could already start cracking on your issues! |
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psblake
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[ Star Traders 2 Supporter ]
Posts: 5
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Post by psblake on Aug 10, 2014 18:43:52 GMT -5
The trick here is figuring out which group is bigger: The customers who want lots of warning, or the customers who want to be able to immediately act on the news.
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Post by Cory Trese on Aug 10, 2014 19:26:32 GMT -5
Based on our previous KickStarter, and watching other successful ones, the group that wants a little bit of warning (like 20 days) but not a huge lag (like six months) seems to be the most likely to back projects to success.
It's always a bit tricky, predicting crowd funding, but I think we've got a fair shot at it.
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psblake
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[ Star Traders 2 Supporter ]
Posts: 5
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Post by psblake on Aug 11, 2014 10:25:36 GMT -5
Based on our previous KickStarter, and watching other successful ones, the group that wants a little bit of warning (like 20 days) but not a huge lag (like six months) seems to be the most likely to back projects to success. It's always a bit tricky, predicting crowd funding, but I think we've got a fair shot at it. I can't argue with that reasoning. I know I'm 100% certain to back it as soon as that becomes a possibility, and would have done so with zero advance notice - but I also know that I don't always occupy the middle of any statistical bell curve. So I'll content myself to have my wallet on standby the moment the kickstarter goes live.  |
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Post by fallen on Aug 11, 2014 10:32:25 GMT -5
psblake - thank you for your staunch support!
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Post by Cory Trese on Aug 23, 2014 15:22:41 GMT -5
* #2572 Improve gained or lost reputation with a Faction toast
- Updated for Trade Ban Notification and Event Log Entry.
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Post by Berry on Sept 24, 2014 1:00:26 GMT -5
I wanted to post something in my wishlist, but this post already addressed most of it AND my newbness at the same time.
Rumors and conflicts are my most used screens. It's nice to see how much Rychart and Steel Song hate me for NO reason before zoom zooming to the next alien rumor.
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Post by slayernz on Sept 24, 2014 1:57:46 GMT -5
Navigating between the Factions/Contracts/Rumors/Conflicts screens is needlessly time consuming. It seems particularly odd that each of these screens has a button in the upper-right corner which leads to the next one in a looping sequence. Going back and forth between these screens would sometimes be useful, but can't be done directly. I suggest replacing the single button (which currently leads to the screen in the sequence) with all four on each of the four pages, allowing the player to jump directly to from each of the four to any of the others. The function of the button has changed since it was first implemented. Originally it was a button on the top-right side of the screen that scrolled through the different options: Politics-->Contracts-->Rumors-->Conflicts-->Politics ... This was very convenient as you could just tap the button a number of times to find the screen you were wanting (and after a while, you did it all by reflex). Now, you press the button, and then you have to select another option from the resulting menu. It does theoretically mean one or two less button presses for certain screen changes, but because you have to move your finger and consciously select an option, it's actually slower. I am not sure if what you are describing in your first wish is the "original" way, or the "new/current" way. I like the idea of having tabs - allowing you to switch between each of the four screens exactly as needed, but on a portrait screen, your real estate for tabs is more restrictive. I would prefer having two buttons ... a left arrow and a right arrow button. Right arrow does Politics-->Contracts-->Rumors-->Conflicts-->Politics ... Left arrow does Politics-->Conflicts-->Rumors-->Contracts-->Politics ... |
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