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Post by contributor on Mar 23, 2016 16:02:25 GMT -5
We were posting at the same time. I like the idea that data shouldn't be considered cargo. I mean I assume the Startraders have gotten beyond using huge roles of paper to keep all their data on.
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 23, 2016 16:04:56 GMT -5
Again I'm not totally sure what's helpful or doable, but if you're just looking for lots of ideas to sift through here are a few more. We're definitely on the hunt for feedback and ideas from the Kickstarter crew. Of course, the vast majority of them won't fit for one reason or another -- not because they're not great ideas, but for a variety of other reasons ... scope, budget, existing features, etc. Arms race - A conflict where selling weapons to a particular faction gives and added bonus and maybe a penalty with their competing faction. These could eventually turn into more full-blown conflicts. That's an interesting one. This week I've been toying with the idea of Conflicts that are more localized than Faction vs. Faction -- more like Planet vs. Planet or Quadrant vs. Quadrant. It seems like Arms Race would fit well into one of those conceptual buckets. Thoughts? Technology race - Similar to above with a focus on electronics or possibly artifacts. Interesting idea as well -- this could easily be cast as a type of conflict that encourages exploration or harvesting as well. Research treaty - Gives a bonus for selling electronics, or perhaps other goods related to a specific research project to both factions, with maybe an added bonus for selling the partners goods to each other. We've been talking a lot about the right way to represent RP and Tech level within the game and map. This might be an interesting way to model parts of that. I don't know how plastic the whole universe will be, but the above treaties could lead to particular results. Sustained feeding of arms to one faction gives them the upper-hand, sustained tech transfer results in advanced tech for both factions etc. As plastic as we can afford to make it within the scope of the rest of the promised features. One thing that people were really, really excited about in the KS was the procedural map generation and the ability to generate a single map and play it with multiple Captains. That means that the map data needs to be viable between games and across large spans of turns ... so the overall flexibility of the map post-generation is controlled / limited by the demand for that feature. One idea for something that is sort of a conflict-sort of a rumor would be a blockade. This would pertain to a single planet but involve two factions. Faction X blockades planet A of faction Y. Delivering goods to that planet comes with the huge chance encountering warships from faction X who will attack any traders. Trading on planet A makes faction X unhappy. Trading on planet A make faction Y incredibly happy. Trading on planet A can give great profits because anything needed by that planet is in low supply and expensive. Conversely anything sold by that planet is in high supply and cheap. Again if the universe is changeable, successful blockade running lessens the chance of the planet switching allegiance. Failing to supply the planet increases the chance of it changing to faction X. I've actually already implemented all of this, with the exception of tying the Rumor to a Faction. How it is working right now is that a Trade War Conflict will generate Blockade Rumors against the involved Faction's systems, and it is the Trade War Conflict that drives the Reputation and the Blockade Rumor that increases supply and demand (since trade goods can neither be efficiently imported nor exported.) We'd model the increased Faction weighting for encounters with military ships, as you suggest. I think it is a very similar end state, just implemented slightly differently. |
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Post by sterik on Mar 23, 2016 16:14:38 GMT -5
Any chance of your captain or ship faction tying in with conflicts?Javat captain/Javat ship making port on a De Valtos world while Javat and De Valtos are in a solar war could cause searches,closed star dock (no rearming/repair),limited exchange and palace options.Possibly also reputation could tie in as well.Same scenario but the Javat captain has high De Valtos rep the effects could be limited to just a search.Just a random idea that could give faction conflicts a "personal" feel.
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Post by ntsheep on Mar 23, 2016 16:15:50 GMT -5
we could also make records function more like CK ... where they are a factor of the Faction data rather than cargo. So for each Faction you'd have Rep/Rank/Permit/Edict and "pay data" which would be collected information about the Faction that you could sell to different parties. I feel like that approach works better and fits some of the overall game design architectural direction we're taking with Cargo in general -- that is, non-cargo shouldn't be cargo. Again with the CK bits, which are you releasing, ST2 or CK2  Either way I think that's the best way to go. |
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Post by qbspy on Mar 23, 2016 16:22:28 GMT -5
I wouldn't mind knowing the big picture on cargo I've moved for score/evaluation purposes.
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 23, 2016 17:38:54 GMT -5
Any chance of your captain or ship faction tying in with conflicts?Javat captain/Javat ship making port on a De Valtos world while Javat and De Valtos are in a solar war could cause searches,closed star dock (no rearming/repair),limited exchange and palace options.Possibly also reputation could tie in as well.Same scenario but the Javat captain has high De Valtos rep the effects could be limited to just a search.Just a random idea that could give faction conflicts a "personal" feel. Yes, definitely. ST RPG already does this for about 30 or so different rules, but ST2 will expand it to cover around 100 different scenarios. Conflicts will be more rich and more fun because they'll intersect with the Faction of the Ship, Ship Components, Ship Cargo, Ship Crew, Captain, Officers, Quadrant and System. |
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Post by contributor on Mar 23, 2016 18:06:03 GMT -5
I'm trying to think of conflicts that would effect the origins and factions of your crew/passengers. The current refugee and immigrant issues faced to some extent in the US, but more acutely in Europe provide some interesting idea. Refugees are certainly known to exist in ST, but as a rumor they are not very prominent.
Very broadly, most modern countries have a particular stance for visitors from each different country in the world (I'm not sure how crew of ships and planes fits into this).
For example between the US and most European countries, automatic tourist visas are generally granted on arrival, no need to get permission ahead of time (basically green light).
For other countries, you generally need to meet certain criteria or have some sort of invitation to get a visa, which must be secured before arrival (yellow light).
For certain countries, visas are almost never given except in extreme circumstances, mostly being for diplomacy or refugee reasons (red light).
If each faction had an ongoing stance for each other faction it could create interesting dynamics related especially to passengers. (I could see passengers in some ways being considered as unique cargo in this case). Different conflicts would set the level automatically. War = Red Light, no bringing passengers from this faction. Alliance means green light = they are always welcome. Other states of conflict could yield either green, yellow or red. If you are brining passengers to a planet that is yellow for them they would either be legal (with papers) or smuggled (undocumented) and you would have to figure out how to get them to the surface without drawing attention to them.
Anyways I know ST2 is not trying to mimic current geopolitics, I'm just looking for patterns and inspiration.
Oh and one last idea. There could be a "Soft Power" conflict. Bringing manufactured and luxury goods from one faction to another faction would actually gain you favor with the supplying faction, because they are trying to build influence by sharing their best with others and trying gain influence by creating shared meaning and admiration.
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 23, 2016 18:50:22 GMT -5
I like the new ideas about passengers. They're definitely going to be Crew, however, not Cargo. That way if you get a passenger berth for a Doctor, you ship will benefit while she is on board. And things that kill crew can also kill passengers so watch out for mutiny |
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Post by johndramey on Mar 23, 2016 19:49:34 GMT -5
Lurker's conflict ideas are pretty rad and would work really well with Cory's idea of planet vs. planet (or even npc vs. npc!) conflicts! Maybe that could be a way for us to gain/lose contacts, building favor with them by taking a dump on some of their enemies by intercepting cargo/undercutting their trades/stealing their data/etc.
Passengers as crew is a good idea, too. That way, we can build a ship to be a kind of ferry service and make our living by being a VIP passenger ferry. Sort of like an ultra-luxury taxi service!
Cory, you mentioned the idea of possibly having records/data be separate from cargo, sort of like how CK handles it. That is actually a really cool idea, and would add another dimension to the game. However, your lore about records (physically stored data in rad-hard media) is cool and I'd be a little sad to see it go away. Would it be possible to have the record resource function like memory in CK so 1 record = X storage space, and surveillance/etc fills up your storage space? Again, that would allow captains to kit themselves out as data merchants, gathering data from systems and quadrants they've visited and selling it on the open market. Maybe have data be generated by certain actions and a captain with sufficient storage space can accrue that data to sell it later. That would work well with the whole economic records/etc that are generated as a captain skill.
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 23, 2016 20:03:01 GMT -5
If we did Records as a non-Cargo resource, the design would require that we create a new independent pool.
As with the transition of W-F from Cargo to independent pool, the ship would require a quantified attribute that determined max records.
So in short, if we went that direction there would be a component that stored data -- like a fuel tank, barracks or cargo hold components expand their appropriate pools (Fuel, Crew, Cargo) the hypothetical Records Storage component would expand the Ship's ability to store records.
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Post by Brutus Aurelius on Mar 23, 2016 20:04:19 GMT -5
If we did Records as a non-Cargo resource, the design would require that we create a new independent pool. As with the transition of W-F from Cargo to independent pool, the ship would require a quantified attribute that determined max records. So in short, if we went that direction there would be a component that stored data -- like a fuel tank, barracks or cargo hold components expand their appropriate pools (Fuel, Crew, Cargo) the hypothetical Records Storage component would expand the Ship's ability to store records. Databank? |
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Post by xdesperado on Mar 23, 2016 21:13:23 GMT -5
Just had a random thought.
We're all used to the politics and strife between the various factions at this point but ST2 could offer a new sort of power struggle. Internal conflict within a single faction.
In ST we had one Quadrant and each had their own Prime world or capital. In ST4X we saw many different quadrants and as we settled them the factions all created a capital that headed and controlled their faction in that quadrant.
Now after a great deal of time those quadrants are being connected in ST2 and human nature being what it is I'd find it hard to imagine that the various heads of a faction would simply roll over and hand their power to another.
Prince so and so is head of clan Thulun in quadrant A, and Prince what's his name is head of clan Thulun in quadrant B. The initial excitement of the 2 quadrants being connected and clan Thulun ranks swelling with long lost relations soon passes and now there is an internal conflict over who the ultimate leader of Thulun is in the two sectors.
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 23, 2016 21:57:53 GMT -5
It will be a balance of providing new looks at what people LOVE about Star Traders RPG, while keeping it fresh ... and at the same time not straying too far from the design and concepts that drove a million downloads.
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Post by mandomaniac on Mar 23, 2016 22:46:56 GMT -5
Just a thought... Would be possible to consider that "weapons" are actually being used by the crew during combat? I.e get a combat bonus for boarding, mutiny, etc ect, and then get a chance to loose a crate of weapons per ever how many crewmembers dying do to weapons getting broken in use. Like for example let's say that 1 crate of weapons can arm 8 crew then after losing 8 people in crew vs crew combat you might have a 50% chance to loose a crate of weapons because your boarding party for sucked out the airlock guns n' all. This also leads me to an idea for personal armor as a new commodity that provides defensive bonuses to crew in combat. Would also probably need to have same or similar purchasing/selling restrictions and bonuses as weapons.
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Post by qbspy on Mar 23, 2016 23:26:54 GMT -5
I think orbitals change everything.
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Either way I think that's the best way to go.
