UnWishlist

[jadraki]

I've been thinking about all the things in ST that I'm grateful for. I.e., the things I'd ask for if they were not already part of the game.

Purposes: 1) kudos to the Clan Trese. 2) maybe a checklist of things for ST2.

I have a longer list, but I'll start small.

1) Contract information screen automatically calculates/updates the real time weeks remaining before the contact expires. This number sits next to the completely reliable "weeks to contact destination". This dashboard is super helpful for managing contracts, creating suspense and also pondering the nature of time as you can know that a contract is expired before the expiration actually occurs.

2) Consistent action economy. I think that the time that passes for every action is reasonable and thought out. Some players may have preferences for how long it takes to sell
Artifacts or buy a ship. But those are flexible parameters that can be tweaked for flavor and preferences. To me, what's more important is that some things could be both stupid and painfully lame. E.g., if visiting the Exchange multiple times without making purchases or viewing 40 versus 80 new ships caused time to increment, I would be annoyed. Also, it seems that “macro-time” in weeks is not affected by “micro-time” ship-to-ship combat, even if the combat takes 150 turns to resolve (Peter versus the Giant Chicken). These are good things.

3) Another interface mechanic item: Hitting “Surrender” by accident in the middle of combat opens up a confirmation button rather than automatically processing the command. More importantly for the button-mashers of the world, the confirmation button is not located on top of the Surrender button.


Lots more….

[Cory Trese]

Great post. This helps us validate some of the choices we've made (and all the work that went into supporting them.)

[hellion7776]

I also think this is one of the best games I have ever played, to include any and all game systems or consoles. It is fluid, simple and mind shakingly difficult as well. With that being said, I would like to add one single addition to the list.
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4) TORPEDOES!!!

Thanks!

[jadraki]

5) Waterfuel. 5a) genuine science fiction (inevitable science future?) AND an anti-dote to superfluous, distracting and goofy technobabble.

5b)It fills the important role, almost requisite in this genre of game, of the ever-depleting resource. And specifically, the game mechanics around WF are very good for creating stress/pressure, challenge and a great dimension to strategic planning/decision-making that bears on every class and every strategy for at least some period of time. Choices around ship cargo hold size, ship type, skill focus, officers, commitment to distances traveled, which routes to take, the ratio of prices of WF to other units of profit-cargo relative to the expected chance of running out, resorting to piracy out of desperation, breaking trade embargos out of desperation. The steep curve for efficiency loss with respect to sails is beautiful. I hate it. But I love it. But I hate it and it stresses me out. But it keeps me coming back for more. But it makes me really edgy.

Heaven help whichever one of my children asks for a snack between the turn when the solar storm knocks out a sail and the turn when the mechanic fixes it. "Why are you pointing your phone at me, Daddy?" "Because I am mashing the Torpedo button a lot, sweetie." "Oh. Huh?"

5c) Maybe it is an allusion to something I don't know, but the flavor and mechanics around WF and Luxury rations are awesome.
WF gone ==> collect ice, lose men, lose morale. Ameliorated by luxury rations and Turdlip and intimidation.
I would argue that it's a good sweet spot in the game balance here: You never get immediately Game Over/Stranded in space. But the clock starts seriously ticking.

[jadraki]

6) Cute female mechanic. (Thank you Jewel Staite). Any other choice would have destroyed the game.

[fallen]

jadraki - thanks for the compliment on the art. Glad you enjoy the classic character.

[Cory Trese]

Fans of Firefly and Serenity may just enjoy Star Traders. It's possible

I know I am squarely in that camp!

[jadraki]

To ironically hijack my own thread, I would love to see options to use defunct ST artwork in ST2.

[jadraki]

7) For every encounter with another ship, there is a broad distribution of the "challenge rating" of hostiles. For low to middle levels, the distribution is right-skewed with a fat right tail. It is satisfying and offers some good verisimilitude that at 40th level, I can still run into 5th level ships.
Much better than games that strictly provide N+1 challenges.

I also think that a key feature of ST is the inevitable death that comes as the distribution of the dangerousness of enemy ships starts to shift to the left as captain level increases.
Having said that, I don't think there is a correct/optimal rate at which 'imminent death' needs to happen. As it is, I rarely get above level 90 and am happy with that. But I won't call that average outcome a good game feature or a bad one. I.e., while I think 'imminent death' is a good candidate for my Unwish list, I hesitate both to make it an official unwish and to make any claim about how soon it should happen.